voters, and every friar present being put under oath not to reveal the proceedings. Public prayers are also commanded for weeks in advance, and the election opens with a solemn High Mass to the Holy Spirit: an oath is also taken by the electors that they will choose those whom they consider the most worthy.
Such is the admirable theory of the election: its actual course is usually after this fashion. Before the solemn imploration of the light of the Holy Spirit on the election morning the whole scheme has been practically settled. The province is really an oligarchy, not an elective democracy. A few abler men—and better men some of them—form the Definitorium, and there is a sufficiently clear understanding[1] between them and the guardians to insure that the guardians will re-elect them and they, in their turn, will re-appoint the guardians. There is a slight struggle from one or two young Radicals, and perhaps a new aspirant to a place on the council, but changes rarely
- ↑ The following extracts from a letter written by one monastic superior to another may be instructive:
‘. . . they are trying to force me to do what I don’t think fair or just to my successor . . . but I will not do anything that I deem in principle mean or unjust to my successor. I say mean, for I deem it such when guardians to please their superiors send them gifts which the papal Bulls call bribes, and which several Popes strictly forbid. But I absolutely refused until compelled by obedience to do such. Of course I was threatened by the “powers that be,” that I would pay for it, &c.: but I told them over and over again, “I fear only God and my conscience.”'
Unfortunately there were many who had not the firmness, honesty, and deep religious spirit of the writer of that letter.
