William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[125] “You must be gone,” scream her children, hating priestcraft more than they love liberty and justice. “ Our ports are open, even to you,” proclaim her enemies, loving liberty and justice more than they fear priestcraft. How, with such poor allies, are the Jesuits to confront such strong adversaries?

They have everything to create and to apply. These hybrids cannot furnish them a decent priest, much less a learned professor. As a rule the priests are foreigners. The bishop of Monterey is a Gaul, the cure is a Swiss. At Santa Clara the professional chairs are held by English, Irish, French, and Italian scholars. Not a single Mexican holds a chair. It is a great misfortune for the fathers, since no people on earth are so touchy on the point of foreign rule as those of Spain. But Padre Varsi cannot help this state of things. A foreigner himself, he sees that foreigners must supply the lack of native learning, loyalty, and faith.

The Church has much to do and much to undo. She has to train her officers to command, to teach her rank and file to obey. In front of her stands an enemy not only armed with physical power, but strong in law and logic, science and the liberal arts.