the payment of tithes;[1] they quarrelled with the Franciscan vice-comisario so that the civil authorities[2] had to interfere, and they bore themselves haughtily toward prelates and authorities.
While female superiors and their chapters thus contended for jurisdiction, the nuns and novices under their charge were rigidly protected against the contamination of the world, encouraged in the suppression of worldly inclinations by uncompromising codes, and relentlessly punished in case of transgression. Having renounced the devil and all his works, and the pleasures and innocent pastimes of life,[3] they fasted, and prayed, and worked, having all things in common, even to their clothing, and laboring for their reward in heaven.
Although the friars as a body were not men of such sanctity as their calling required, it was by their labors that the gospel was carried into remote and ever more remote regions. Whenever it was required to bring a savage tribe into the fold, it was the regular and not the secular orders that braved the dangers, endured the hardships, and performed the preliminary work. The missions undertaken by them extended to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and fardistant California; and from the banks of the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean.[4] But before they reached those regions the spiritual conquest of a vast territory had to be undertaken, and during the seventeenth century numerous missions were established in various outlying localities. The importance of these forerun-
- ↑ Ordenes de la Corona, MS., iv. 15.
- ↑ Providencias Reales, MS., 134-42. This occurred in 1717. The king, by royal cédula of November 3, 1722, decided adversely to the nuns. Ordenes de la Corona, MS., iv. 140-5.
- ↑ It was ordered by royal cédula that nunneries were not to be disturbed by visits or amusements. Reales Cédulas MS., i. 83, 111. Even the wives of members of the audiencia were prohibited from entering such establishments. Procidencias Reales, MS., 52-3; Convento de S. Lorenzo, Reg, y Constiluc., 1-140.
- ↑ An account of the establishment of missions in tliese states will be found in I list. North Mex., i., this series; Hist. Cal.; and Hist. New Mex. and Arizona.
