THE territory included in the present Republic of Mexico was not discovered by Europeans till the year 1518. Of all the aborigines of the New World, the people of Anahuac, the name by which the country was called by the natives, were farthest advanced in civilization. The whole country, with one exception, was consolidated under one government, ruled by an emperor and his privy council. The empire had a regular system of laws, with courts of justice, and a regular system of revenues. The people built permanent cities, constructed roads, manufactured cloth for clothing, and made many useful articles of gold, silver, stone, wood, and clay. They had a system of writing with hieroglyphics and some phonetic characters, and had many books. They had some knowledge of astronomy. Their year was divided into eighteen months, of twenty days each, to which was added five complementary days, to make up the full solar year. At the end of a cycle of fifty years they added twelve and one-half days, which made their calendar practically correct. The month was divided into weeks of five days each, the last of which was their market day. They had an elaborate religious system, with a regularly ordained priesthood, and their cities and villages were filled with temples and altars. Their system of ethics contained many precepts similar to those of the Christian religion. The cross as a religious emblem was seen in their temples. One of their religious rites was to make an image of one of their gods from the flour or maize mixed with491blood, which, after it was baked and consecrated by the priest, was distributed among the people, and they ate it, with signs of humiliation and sorrow, declaring that it was the flesh of the Deity. They had a form of baptism, which, according to Sahagun, an eyewitness, was accompanied by the following ceremony:—
O my child, take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is your life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of the body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body and dwell there; that they may destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given you before the beginning of the world.
They had a vivid tradition of the flood, according to which the world was destroyed by deluge, from which only one man and his wife escaped in a boat, which also contained various kinds of animals and birds. After they had been tossed on the waters for some time, they sent out a vulture, but he remained to feed on the bodies of the giants, which were left exposed as the waters subsided; next a humming bird was sent out, which returned with a twig in its mouth.
Near the present city of Puebla stands the ruins of a pyramid, the base of which covers forty-five acres. A popular tradition among the Indians says that this pyramid was built by a family of giants after the flood, who designed to raise it till its top reached the clouds; but the gods were displeased at their presumption, and sent fire from heaven, and compelled them to abandon the enterprise.
There was another tradition current at the time of the discovery of the country by the Spaniards which contributed much to the success of the conquest. According to this, a white man with a long, flowing beard had come across the water from the East, in the distant past, and reigned over the country. He returned across the waters the same way from which he had come, but before going promised that he would return again. The time of his reign was referred to as the golden age of Anahuac, and his return was anxiously awaited. They regarded the white man as a deity, and his return, it was expected, would usher in an age of peace, prosperity, and happiness. When the Spaniards landed on their Eastern coast, many thought that the long-expected white man had returned.
These traditions seem to indicate that the inhabitants of Mexico had at some time in the past been in communication with the inhabitants of the Old World, through which they had become acquainted with some of the leading facts in the history of the human race. But this communication, if it ever existed, had long been broken off, and the traditions had become badly corrupted before the discoveries of the latter part of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries brought them again into communication.
Notwithstanding the moral degeneracy, which had reached its climax in the offering of human sacrifices, there were many moral precepts in their religion which closely resemble the ethics taught by Moses and more fully by Christ. "Marriage," says the historian, "was celebrated with as much formality as in any Christian country." "Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death." The following comment on the law of chastity is very similar to the teachings of Christ in the sermon on the mount: "He that looketh too curiously on a woman committeth adultery with his eyes." Theft was punished with slavery or death, according to the gravity of the offense. It was a capital crime to remove the established landmarks. Intemperance was punished, in the young with death, in the old, with loss of rank and confiscation of property. The children of slaves were free; no one could be born to slavery.
Such were some of the traditions and moral precepts of the people inhabiting the beautiful plains and rich valleys of Mexico when Cortez, with his bold adventurers, landed upon her shores in 1519, and, planting the cross, took possession of the country in the name of the king and queen of Spain, and with the avowed purpose of establishing the holy Catholic faith. A sanguinary conflict followed. In a little more than two years the whole country was conquered, and, we might add, robbed and destroyed. The dead were left in heaps behind the victorious arms of the Spaniards, and the living were reduced to peonage. The land and the people were divided among the conquerors. Mexico became a Spanish province in 1521 and remained such for just three hundred years.
After the conquest but one thing remained to complete the work the Spaniards had set out to accomplish, and that was the conversion of the people to the Roman Catholic faith. To this work the conquerors now applied themselves as assiduously as they had previously done to the work of conquest. This too was soon accomplished, partly by persuasion, partly by the offer of rewards, partly by force, partly by fear, and partly by subtlety. But with them the means was nothing, the end was everything. Mexico soon became the stronghold of Catholicism in the New World. Thither swarmed priests and higher church dignitaries. Magnificent churches and cathedrals arose on every hand. Clerical orders flourished. Monasteries and convents multiplied, and their inmates increased in wealth, influence, and power.
To better protect the country from heresy, the Spanish Inquisition was transplanted to the shores of New Spain, as the country was then called. The civil rulers were only the tools of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. It was just at the time when the Reformation under Martin Luther began to make its power felt in Europe that the Inquisition fastened its manacles on the people of Mexico, to hold them in perfect submission for more than three hundred years. A large part of the property of the country passed into the hands of the church. Some writers estimate the property so held as being one-third, others estimate it as high as two-thirds, of the property of the whole country. The result was an impoverished country and an ignorant, superstitious, and degraded population. After 330 years of moral darkness and oppression the descendants of the Aztecs arose in their might, and, under the leadership of Benito Juarez, adopted a new constitution, with the strongest guarantees of religious liberty to all, and a series of laws known as the "Laws of Reform" were adopted, of which the following is a brief synopsis:—
The complete separation of Church and State. Congress cannot pass any laws establishing or prohibiting any religion.
The free exercise of religious services.
The State will not give official recognition to any religious festivals, save the sabbath, as a day of rest.
Religious services are to be held only within the place of worship.
Clerical vestments are forbidden in the streets. Religious processions are forbidden.
The use of church bells is restricted to calling the people to religious work.
Pulpit discourses advising disobedience to the law, or injury to anyone, are strictly forbidden.
Gifts of real estate to religious institutions are unlawful, with the sole exception of edifices designed exclusively for the purposes of the institution.
The State does not recognize monastic orders nor permit their establishment.
The association of Sisters of Charity is suppressed in the republic, and Jesuits are expelled and may not return.
Matrimony is a civil contract, and to be duly registered. The religious service may be added.
Cemeteries are under civil inspection, and open for the burial of all classes and creeds.
No one can sign away his liberty by contract or religious vow.
Education in the public schools is free and compulsory.
Soon after the passage of these laws, in 1857, the missionaries entered the country with an open Bible, and what they are doing for the evangelization of the 12,000,000 people who now constitute the population of the country—6,000,000 of whom are of pure Indian blood and 4,000,000 of the remainder are of mixed Indian and Spanish blood—will be told in another article.