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26.

The Two Majesties

For in the seventeenth century the river colony was like a man in whom raged opposing desires, good and bad. These forces contended so long and so hard that they nearly tore apart forever the social body in which they were inescapably joined. The body and the soul were at war—life temporal and life spiritual. In her cry for harmony Mother María had fearfully seen who were the contenders. They were the governors at Santa Fe, with their corrupt little garrisons and their comic vanity and their bald cleverness at scraping private gain from the impoverished province; opposed by the friars in their fortress-missions, with a grim strength of spirit, and arrogance on behalf of Almighty God, and certain convictions as to human nature which keeping faith they could not recant. With but a few brief peaceful interludes the struggle raged for seven decades, and was resolved only in a disaster which falling equally upon both contenders was the bitter product of their strife.