e assaults
of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles. And even so we hear that on that
occasion three hundred more young folk VOLUNTEERED to die for the
fatherland.

(1) Exodus xxxiv. 20.

(2) Deut. xii. 31.

(3) 2 Kings iii. 27.

(4) The Golden Bough, vol. "The Dying God," p. 167.

The awful sacrifices made by the Aztecs in Mexico to their gods
Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipoca, and others are described in much detail
by Sahagun, the Spanish missionary of the sixteenth century. The victims
were mostly prisoners of war or young children; they were numbered by
thousands. In one case Sahagun describes the huge Idol or figure of the
god as largely plated with gold and holding his hands palm upward and in
a downward sloping position over a cauldron or furnace placed below. The
children, who had previously been borne in triumphal state on litters
over the crowd and decorated with every ornamental device of feathers
and flowers and wings, were placed one by one on the vast hands and
ROLLED DOWN into the flames--as if the god were himself offering them.
(1) As the procession approached the temple, the members of it wept and
danced and sang, and here again the abundance of tears was taken for a
good augury of rain. (2)

(1) It is curious to find that exactly the same story (of the
sloping hands and the children rolled down into the flames) is related
concerning the above-mentioned Baal image at Carthage (see Diodorus
Siculus, xx. 14; also Baring Gould's Religious Belief, vol. i, p. 375).

(2) "A los ninos que mataban, componianlos en muchos atavios para
llevarlos al sacrificio, y llevabos en unas literas sobre los hombros,
estas literas iban adornadas con plumages y con flores: iban tanendo,
cantando y bailando delante de ellos... Cuando Ileviban los ninos a
matar, si llevaban y echaban muchos lagrimas, alegrabansi los que los
llevaban porque tomaban pronostico de que habian de tener muchas aguas
en aquel ano." Sahagun, Historia Nueva Espana, Bk. II, ch. i.

Bernal Diaz describes how he saw one of these monstrous figures--that
of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, all inlaid with gold and precious
stones; and beside it were "braziers, wherein burned the hearts of three
Indians, torn from their bodies that very day, and the smoke of them and
the savor of incense were the sacrifice."

Sahagun again (in Book II, ch. 5) gives a long account of the sacrifice
of a perfect youth at Easter-time--which date Sabagun connects with