"A tree is known by its fruits," and it would be a matter of relatively small importance to us what were the outward aspects of a religious system if it produced the essential fruits of the Christian religion. But a religion without morality certainly can have no uplifting power. The Roman Catholic religion in Mexico is thoroughly divorced from morality, and the results are not difficult to find.
The character of the religious teachers of any people is a fair index to the general moral condition of the masses who receive their instructions. The priesthood of Mexico has a few names that are untarnished in their reputation for virtue, but in the vast majority there is not as great an "odor of sanctity," outside of the pulpit, as would befit the ministers of Christ. Many are so notoriously drunken, profane, and lecherous that they are a positive scandal to a society that is itself thoroughly honeycombed by vice and impurity. These men are never expelled from the ministry for their outrageous lives, but are simply changed from one parish to another when their vices or crimes become unbearable. Their mistresses do not lose caste in society, but for one of them to marry a priest converted to Protestantism is an abomination. The proverb of "like priest like people" is amply verified in the moral corruption of Mexican society.
The Roman Catholic Church exalts marriage to the rank of a sacrament, but the priests demand such exorbitant fees for the celebration of the rite that comparatively few can secure the money required. The result is that probably less than one-half of those who live in the relation of husband and wife are married by any form whatever. Since 1858 the government has maintained the law of civil marriage, and this is the only legal marriage. But the clergy have steadily and persistently opposed it as worse than no marriage, so that in reality only a very small per cent of the people at present are legally united in wedlock. Besides this, the practice of polygamy without legal forms, or, what is the same, concubinage, is almost universal among the middle and upper classes.—Gospel in All Lands.