They are also openly disregarding the established laws in some of the restrictions imposed. I travelled for two days on the railroad with the Bishop of Tehuantepec who wore his purple robes of office all the time. At nearly every station priests met him, and he was given a continuous ovation. A few months ago, according to a Mexican periodical, a well known priest, in defiance of the law which prohibits public religious processions, authorized such a procession, and blessed at the altar those who arrived with it. In many of the more remote districts the law requiring marriage ceremonies to be made by civil authorities is completely disregarded. The priests tell the people that the religious ceremony is all that is necessary. Although the Church upholds such marriages, in law they are absolutely null and void, and it is a deceit upon the contracting parties. Some priests go so far as to tell their people that the civil marriage is positively impious. And yet nothing is done to punish the above violations of the established laws. The government probably does not consider that these infractions of the strict letter of the law have reached a serious phase. If the Roman Church of Mexico to-day, with its wealth confiscated, its public voice muzzled, its political powers annulled, has still power so that it can openly violate some of the fundamental laws of the country, we can have some faint idea of its power when it ruled the country with an iron hand. Those who see trouble ahead because of the avariciousness of some of the clergy, are fond of quoting the old Spanish proverb “The devil lurks behind the cross.” Nevertheless, I believe that the clergy in Mexico to-day are superior to those who served prior to the change in status. Many of them are noble men striving to uplift the people and aid the government in its campaign for the enlightenment of the masses. The strife has purified them and they think less of the perquisites than the duties of their office. The well meaning priest no doubt suffers for the sins of his predecessors as well as those of his contemporaries who are blinded by the past glory of the Church. The Church as an institution is probably to some extent the victim of the ignorance and fanatical zeal of its early founders in Mexico. The Church will thrive far more when placed on the same footing as all churches are in the United States, and people and priest accept that condition. As one prominent American priest has recently said in commenting on the struggle in France: “Everywhere that church and state are united, the church is in bondage. Nowhere is the church so free and untrammelled, or so progressive, as in the United States.”