Grim of countenance, austere in bearing, violent of temper, relentless in severity, he was a devoted believer in the Roman Catholic faith and in this Church as the sole effective basis upon which a state could be founded or social and political regeneration could be assured.

In order to render effective his concept of what a nation ought to be, Garcia Moreno introduced and upheld in all rigidity an administration the like of which had been known hardly anywhere since the Middle Ages.

He recalled the Jesuits, established schools of the "Brothers of the Christian Doctrine," and made education a matter wholly under ecclesiastical control.

He forbade heretical worship, called the country the "Republic of the Sacred Heart," and entered into a concordat with the Pope under which the Church in Ecuador became more subject to the will of the supreme pontiff than western Europe had been in the days of Innocent III.
Liberals in and outside of Ecuador tried feebly to shake off this masterful theocracy, for the friendship which Garcia Moreno displayed toward the diplomatic representatives of the Catholic powers of Europe, notably those of Spain and France, excited the neighboring republics.
Colombia, indeed, sent an army to liberate the "brother democrats of Ecuador from the rule of Professor Garcia Moreno," but the mass of the people stood loyally by their President.

For this astounding obedience to an administration apparently so unrelated to modern ideas, the ecclesiastical domination was not solely or even chiefly responsible.
In more ways than one Garcia Moreno, the professor President, was a statesman of vision and deed.