people the example, while at Tezcuco the Flemish friars had already gathered a rich harvest, chiefly among the children, for here the worthy Gante established the first public school in New Spain, in connection with the first convent.[1] More friars arriving, the work of conversion was forwarded so rapidly that soon hardly a village in the lake regions, and the adjoining convent districts, was without its church or chapel,[2] Gante claiming to have built in Mexico city alone, within five years, more than one hundred temples.
There were several reasons for this success, wonderful in its extent, though shallow at first. Foremost stood fear and policy, for it was dangerous to disobey the conquerors, while favors could be gained by courting them. Then came the undefined belief with many that the religion of men so superior in prowess and intelligence must contain some virtue, something superior to their own. In the districts occupied for some time by Spaniards the idea of their being divine had long since faded; still, their origin was involved in obscurity: the land whence they came, the gilded regions of the rising sun; the august ruler beyond the great sea; the pontiff who represented the Infinite — all this loomed dimly forth in mystic grandeur and awe, the great prompter of worship, laid its influence upon their mind. In the newer districts, where Spanish vices and weaknesses were less understood, these ideas had greater effect, and tended to infuse greater veneration for their rites.
- ↑ Several prominent men had been baptized before this time at Tezcuco and other places, by Olmedo and his companions, and young princes had been taught the rudiments of secular and religious knowledge, but impulse in this direction was first given at Tezcuco by the Flemings, and at Mexico, Huexotzinco and Tlascala, by the 12 Franciscans. When Quauhtemotzin and Ixtlilxochitl received baptism is not clear, though it must have been before the end of 1524, when Cortés took them to Honduras. A convent existed at Tlascala in October of that year, but the permanent edifice was still building in 1526, when Chirinos created a dispute by taking refuge there. Herrera, dec. ii. lib. x. cap. xiii.; Panes, in Momumentos Domin. Esp., MS., 73-5, and later references.
- ↑ Gante claims to have baptized, with aid of one friar, in Mexico province, more than 200,000 souls. Lettre, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., série i. tom. x. 197, 202. The letters of Cortés and Albornoz, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 487-8, also bear witness to the progress.
