The authorities of the Church zealously co-operated with the civil power to allay the passions which had so long divided the State, and the servants of Christ did not fail in their public as in their private ministrations, to inculcate the doctrines of peace and good-will characteristic of their faith. Soon after the inauguration of the new government, the vicar-general, Father José Hilario Herdocia, wrote from Leon, the seat of the See of Nicaragua, congratulating Walker on the success of his efforts to secure peace; and the general-in-chief, in his reply, was careful to deny the charge of irreligion the enemies of the Americans had brought against them. “It is very acceptable,” so the general wrote, “for me to hear that the authority of the Church will be used in favor of the existing government. Without the aid of religious sentiments and religious teachers there can be no good government; for the fear of God is the foundation of all social and political organization.... In God I put my trust for the success of the cause in which I am embarked and for the maintenance of the principles I advocate. Without his aid all human efforts are unavailing, but with his divine assistance a few may triumph over a legion.” The bishopric of the diocese being vacant, the vicar-general was the highest ecclesiastical authority of the State, and during all the trials through which the Republic passed, Father Herdocia worthily and faithfully performed the duties of his holy office. Had the good father been able to influence by his conduct all the priests within his diocese, the dissensions of the country would have been speedily cured. But, unfortunately in Nicaragua as elsewhere the tonsure does not always destroy the earthly passions of the mortal; and the emblematic crown of thorns may be worn by those possessed of little of the spirit of humility which adorned the Holy Redeemer. To secure internal order, however, Rivas did not rely so much on the efforts of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to extinguish the party passions of the past, as on the speedy increase of the American element in the government of the Republic. Therefore one of his earliest decrees was that of colonization. By this decree each adult immigrating to the State was entitled to two hundred and fifty acres from the public lands, and after six months’ residence on it might secure a title for the same. A family was entitled to a hundred additional acres, and all personal effects, furniture, agricultural implements, seeds, plants, and domestic animals, were permitted to pass in free of duty. A director of colonization, Mr. Joseph W. Fabens, was appointed to carry out the objects of the decree, and to collect seeds and plants for the use of immigrants. The decree was published the 23d of November, 1855.