liate, in some degree, the undeniable enormities perpetrated upon the Indians.
The detestable character of the ignorant idolatry in exercise among the ancient race needs no demonstration; yet, at the present day, with the exception of the single item of human sacrifice as a part of the religious system, it may well be asked, by what has it been supplanted—fewer and more dignified divinities? purer rites? a less degrading superstition? less disgusting ignorance? a better system of morality? Who will dare assert it?
As to the charge of the inhuman rites, and the bloody festivals of the later generations of the Aztecs—the magnitude of which, as asserted by the Roman Catholic historians, is almost incredible—no one offers to palliate them.
You are shown with obsequious eagerness the huge round Stone of Sacrifices; you are told to mark the hollow for the head of the victim, and the groove which carried off his blood; your ears tingle when they are filled with the number of those who are supposed to have been immolated upon its carved surface. You turn and see the huge and detestable figure of the idol goddess Teoyamiqui, before whom, as Spanish historians relate, the hearts of the victims were torn out: yes! but officious cicerone leads you to the court of the Dominican convent, and points to the broad perforated stone, where the hundreds and thousands of poor benighted, ignorant heathen, expired at the stake amid smoke and flame. No one reminds you that about the time when the idolatrous worship of the Aztecs was extirpated in Mexico, the same Inquisition, then in its first flush of power, burned eighteen thousand victims at the stake, in the Old World; and consigned two hundred and eight thousand to infamy and punishment scarcely better than death itself. The simple fact is, that at the present day, dark as we consider it, the Roman Catholicism of Europe is light, when compared to that established in this country, and practised by its inhabitants.
A change of names—a change of form and garb for the idols—new symbols—altered ceremonials—another
