The Fall of a Terrible Heathenism.
By Statesman
PROBABLY there is not to be found in the world a more revolting monument of heathen superstition than the great sacrificial stone which is still seen in the museum in the city of Mexico. It is in form like a butcher's block, though higher, and perhaps ten feet in diameter. The top is slightly convex, in order that the chest of the victim might be thrown upward in such a way as to facilitate the extraction of the heart. The process was to lay the victim on his back, where he was firmly held by attendants, while the priest, dexterously opening the left side and thrusting in his hand, tore out the heart of the living victim, and held it up, dripping with blood, before the idol of the temple. In the center of the convex surface there is still seen a cavity designed to receive the blood flowing from the wound; and connected with it is a trench by which it ran down the side into a receptacle. The horrifying object is sculptured on every side with figures representing war scenes and the capture of numerous victims. This stone, which is of a dark red porphyry, stood on the summit of the great Teocalli, the chief pyramidal temple of the city of Mexico, where, towering above the surrounding houses and even the palace of Montezuma, it kept in full view of the people the bloody rites of one of the most savage religions ever known upon the earth. It is estimated that twenty thousand war prisoners were sacrificed by the Aztecs annually, so that the brutalizing spectacle witnessed upon this and other chief temples must have exerted an almost constant influence upon the hearts of the old and the young. After each battle of the Spaniards with the Aztecs in the conquest of the city, they were called to witness the terrible fate of their own comrades who had been taken prisoners, and who, with special ostentation and increased pomp, and more barbarous cruelty, were dragged to the top of the temple and sacrificed with prolonged torture upon the stone. After one of their most disastrous reverses, scores of Spaniards were thus immolated. Montezuma, though amiable to a fault, had unfortunately been trained for the priesthood. While his generosity, kindness, and affection made him memorable—especially in contrast with the stern selfishness and perfidy of Cortez—yet he could say with respect to this terrible custom, that the only reason why he allowed the Tlascalans to remain unconquered, was that they might supply him with victims for his gods. But the priests of the Aztecs were not satisfied with prisoners of war alone. They taught the people that on certain great occasions the choicest of their youth must be offered to their gods; and on this same grim stone young men chosen for the purpose, after receiving for a time all honor and every possible human pleasure, were given to the sacrificial knife, though with the assurance that, dying thus gloriously, they would enjoy a higher bliss in the life to come. It is impossible to estimate the influence which this system might have exerted upon the Aztec race, had they longer been spared to extend their conquests, and enrich their altars with the blood of their fellow-men. But there is one comfort which we feel in surveying that terrible altar—it alleviates our indignation at the rapacity, cruelty, and bad faith of the Spanish conquerors. The Israelitish conquests found their justification in the cruel human sacrifices of the Canaanites; and as the bloody worship of Moloch found its counterpart in the cruel rites of the Aztecs, the Spaniards were spurred on, as they thought, by scriptural precedents. In the interest of humanity we must rejoice that at least the religion of the Aztecs was swept from the earth forever.—Statesman.