ere graphically expressed in the great stone idols
of which Mexico was once full, some of which are still preserved in the
museums. They are often of heroic size, and are carved from the hardest
stone with great painstaking, but their faces and figures are
indescribably dreadful. Such an idol as that of the grim Huitzilopochtli
was as horrible a thing as human ingenuity ever invented, and the same
grotesque hideousness runs through all the long list of Mexican idols.

These idols were attended with the most servile care, and dressed in the
richest ornaments known to Indian wealth. Great strings of
turquoise,--the most precious "gem" of the American aborigines,--and
really precious mantles of the brilliant feathers of tropic birds, and
gorgeous shells were hung lavishly upon those great stone nightmares.
Thousands of men devoted their lives to the tending of the dumb deities,
and humbled and tortured themselves unspeakably to please them.

But gifts and care were not enough. Treachery to his friends was still
to be feared from such a god. He must still further be bought off;
everything that to an Indian seemed valuable was proffered to the
Indian's god, to keep him in good humor. And since human life was the
most precious thing an Indian could understand, it became his most
important and finally his most frequent offering. To the Indian it
seemed no crime to take a life to please a god. He had no idea of
retribution after death, and he came to look upon human sacrifice as a
legitimate, moral, and even divine institution. In time, such sacrifices
became of almost daily occurrence at each of the numberless temples. It
was the most valued form of worship; so great was its importance that
the officials or priests had to go through a more onerous training than
does any minister of a Christian faith. They could reach their position
only by pledging and keeping up unceasing and awful self-deprivation and
self-mutilation.

Human lives were offered not only to one or two principal idols of each
community, but each town had also many minor fetiches to which such
sacrifices were made on stated occasions. So fixed was the custom of
sacrifice, and so proper was it deemed, that when Cortez came to
Cempohual the natives could think of no other way to welcome him with
sufficient honor, and in perfect cordiality proposed to offer up human
sacrifices to him. It is hardly necessary to add that Cortez sternly
declined this pledge of hospi