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After the resubjection of the natives by De Vargas, the present church was constructed, and the Pueblos have not since rebelled against the contiguity of the white man. All the numerous Mexican communities in the Territory contain representatives of the Penitentes order, which is peculiar by reason of the self-flagellations inflicted by its members in excess of pietistic zeal.
Hence the first thing for a good man to do was to bring the body this seat of evil under subjection, and, if possible, to eradicate the passions and appetites which enslave the body; and this was to be done by self-flagellations, penances, austerities, and solitude, flight from the contaminating influences of the world. All Oriental piety assumed this ascetic form.
From her cold niche of fame she looked down ironically enough on his self-flagellations.... It was only when he came on something that belonged to her that he felt a sudden renewal of the old feeling, the strange dual impulse that drew him to her voice but drove him from her hand, so that even now, at sight of anything she had touched, his heart contracted painfully. It happened seldom nowadays.
He denied himself food and sleep, rolled himself in snow, practised fumigations and conjurations and self-flagellations, so as to overthrow the legion of demons who, he said, barred the Messiah's advent.
Then the period of her penitence in this manner would be determined by the manifestations of contrition which she might evince, and which would be proved by the frequency of her self-flagellations, the severity with which the scourge was applied, and the anxiety which she might express to become a member of the holy sisterhood.
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