This money-power of the Church yet lacks completeness and concentration to make it even a tolerable substitute for the power lost by the abolition of the Inquisition, as this wealth is distributed among 12 independent bishops. But, having succeeded in establishing the temporal power of her bishops in Mexico more firmly than in the United States, the Papal court made another step in advance. In 1852, Mexico was electrified with delight at the condescension of the Holy Father in sending a _nuncio_ to that city. For two full years this representative of the Holy See was _feted_ and toasted on all hands, as little less than the Pope himself, whom he represented. But last year all these happy feelings were dashed with gall and wormwood by an announcement that as the bishops controlled all this immense property by virtue of their spiritual authority, there was a resulting trust in his favor, or at least in favor of the Pope, whom he represented with full powers. It was Pandora's box opened in the midst of "a happy family." There was no disputing the nuncio's law; but to render to him an account of their receipts and disbursements, or to deliver over the bonds and mortgages to this agent of the Pope, was most unpleasant. The old Archbishop keeps fast hold of the money-bags, which, so far, the keys of Saint Peter have been unable to unlock. The battle waxes loud and fierce between the parties and their partisans, and Santa Anna stands looking on, dreaming of the happy time when, through the internal dissensions of the Church, these accumulations of 300 years of robbery and false pretenses will fall into the public treasury, and the people as well as the government will obtain their enfranchisement. The money-power of the Church has proved sufficiently strong to save it from the hungry maw of a famishing government, and to stand unaffected by the revolutions that surround it; and now and then, when too bitterly assailed by some political reformer, it finds relief in the assassination of the assailant, as in the case of the eloquent member of the last Congress, who, after a violent philippic against the corruptions of the priests, was found murdered in his chamber. And, as in case of the inquisitorial assassinations, the crime was proved to have been connected with a robbery. The power to overawe courts of justice, proverbially corrupt, and the facilities with which assassinations are procured, are now the most dreaded weapons of the Church, and may account for the nominal conformity of the intelligent classes. The unbelievers in Mexico, though considerable in numbers, are not organized with a positive creed. Theirs is only a negative existence--unbelief; and they are generally found conforming outwardly, as a more convenient and prudent course than running a tilt with the well-organized forces of the Church.