ROMANISM IN PERU—AN APPEAL FROM AREQUIPA.
By A. R. Stark
[By A. R. Stark, of the British and Foreign Bible Society.] PRESENT day Romanism in Peru is the Romanism of the Middle Ages. In no part of the world has Papal Rome been more dominant during the last four centuries, and probably no part of the civilized world is, morally and socially, in a more hopeless and backward condition. Huge churches and convents have been erected throughout the land, and the cities and villages swarm with priests in flowing robes of black, white, gray, and brown—Fathers of the Sacred Heart, Dominicians, Augustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits, Redemptorists, and barefooted friars. Over the dusky sons of the once prosperous Incas of the Andes, Rome has cast her gloomy mantle of moral and social degradation, and the democratic spirit which revolted against the yoke of Spain and overthrew the inquisition of Lima has never been able to throw off the bondage and breathe the free air of religious liberty. The restrictions and persecutions of Rome against Protestants in Peru to-day prove that she is always and everywhere the same relentless foe of human liberty and intellectual freedom; yet the democratic basis of the country must ever be in opposition to a system which strangles every claim which may be set up by the people to think for themselves about God's revelation to humanity. Rome is a upas tree which has left her blight on every form of national life, political, social, educational, and religious. Tho, as in days past, she can not maim the limbs and burn the life out of the victims who dare to oppose her, she still stifles the mental freedom of her blind votaries by authoritative bulls and drafts of superstition. So recently as 1892 a priest in Peru, Celadone Vargas, was sentenced to a period of imprisonment for the crime of publicly burning to death an Indian girl, Benigna Huaman, as a witch in the mountain village of Bambamarca. The ladies of the “Catholic Union” of Lima, influenced by the church, petitioned his release through Congress, and his sentence was annulled, and the inquisitorial torturer set free. Political questions are invariably affected by the power of the church. Is religious liberty the burning question in Congress? Then the archbishop and his great army at once raise a protest that they have a right to conserve a holy law which has the majesty of centuries behind it; and that the church ought to reign not only over individuals and families, but also over peoples and nations. It has been well said that “South America is the most colossal example that ever was of religious unity, and the most striking example of bloody discord13.” Revolutions and international wars are apparently inseparable from the politics of South America, but in all these revolts against social order the church is ever upon the watch either to foment political strife or to gain some advantage by it. And, unfortunately, the baneful influence of Rome is nowhere more visible than in the family life of the country. It is true, the present Congress has inflicted a powerful blow against the priesthood by passing a civil marriage law which has made ample provision both for non-catholics and for those who have separated from the church; but that reform has been branded by the priests as the most repugnant concubinage, even altho it was estimated that before the passing of this law, sixty-five per cent. of the children were born out of wedlock, largely because of the exorbitant charges made by the priests for marriages. Home life in Peru may be divided into two classes, that of the caballero (gentleman) and that of the clase obrera (working class). The house of the gentleman is large, but badly lighted, poorly ventilated, and characterized by insanitary conditions—quite a hundred years behind the times; while that of the working class is such as to make a pure moral life an impossibility. Before intellectual, moral, and social development is possible among the working class, better houses must be built, education advanced, and hope inspired. In both homes the supreme lack is the family altar with the open Bible. The picture of a saint and a crucifix with an oil-lamp burning dimly before it are the paltry shrines which take the place of the living and sanctifying treasure which God has given to the world, and which has made the homes of Britain what they are to-day. Then again, there is no clear understanding between husband and wife as to their individual duties toward each other and their children. A Peruvian home is usually made up of three or four families, where too often the curse of liquor enters, bringing in its train rancor and jangling. All are infatuated with bull-fights and theaters, and the spirit of gambling, fostered by lottery tickets, pervades every scale of the social life, from the proud don to the beggar in the street. As for education, only the Spanish-speaking element comes under its influence, altho the gratuitous diffusion of primary education is guaranteed by the Constitution of Peru. The Quechua Indians, who form the bulk of the population, are found in the grossest ignorance and apathy, few being able either to read or write. The great weakness of the education given in the schools sustained by the municipalities and public charities is that it does not require the children to think, and of course they are taught Christian doctrine, and sacred and ecclesiastical history according to the creed of Rome. Female instruction of the middle class is almost restricted to convent schools in the hands of nuns, with the result that at the age of fifteen or sixteen a girl leaves school with no high ideal or real preparation for the battle of life, but only fit to fritter away her time in aimless pursuits.