y
confiscated, and its meddling, parasitical clergy disenfranchised.

But then, too, as almost invariably occurs when the masses find that
they have parted with cherished prejudices and effete customs, and
have adopted ideas so radical as to lift them a degree higher in the
scale of progress, they wavered. The Church was being humiliated.
Their religion was under contempt. The holy sacrament of marriage was
debased to a civil ceremony. Education was endangered by taking it out
of the hands of the pious clergy. Texts unauthorized by Holy Church
were being adopted. Where would this radical modernism end? The alarm
spread, fanned by the watchful agents of Rome. Revolt after revolt
occurred. And twenty years of incessant internecine warfare followed.

Fear and prejudice triumphed. A new Constitution was framed. And when
it was seen that Roman Catholicism was therein again declared to be
the national religion of the Republic of Colombia; when it was noted
that the clergy, obedient to a foreign master, were to be readmitted
to participation in government affairs; when it was understood that a
national press-censorship was to be established, dominated by Holy
Church; and when, in view of this, the great religio-political
opponent was seen laying down her weapons and extending her arms in
dubious benediction over the exhausted people, the masses yielded--and
there was great rejoicing on the banks of the Tiber over the
prodigal's return.

When Wenceslas Ortiz was placed in temporary control of the See of
Cartagena he shrewdly urged the Church party to make at least a
pretense of disbanding as a political organization. The provinces
of Cundinamarca and Panama were again in a state of ferment.
Congress, sitting in Bogota, had before it for consideration a
measure vesting in the President the power to interfere in certain
states or provinces whenever, in his opinion, the conservation of
public order necessitated such action. That this measure would be
passed, Wenceslas could not be sure. But that, once adopted, it would
precipitate the unhappy country again into a sanguinary war, he
thought he knew to a certainty. He had faced this same question six
years before, when a similar measure was before Congress. But then,
with a strong Church party, and believing the passage of the law to be
certain, he had yielded to the counsel of hot-headed leaders in
Cartagena, and approved the inauguration of hostilities.

The result had been a