A Gruesome Sight by G. W. Reaser

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 18, 1910

A Gruesome Sight

By G. W. Reaser

THE recent excavation of a trench for the laying of a water-main, immediately in front of the great cathedral of Mexico City, revealed a gruesome sight. It is estimated that fully twenty tons of human bones have been taken from a section of the ditch about 200 feet in length. These bones represent but a small portion of a vast number of bodies once interred at the very foundation of this great structure. An idea, tho vague, of the vastness of the number may be gained from the fact that the trench above referred to simply crosscuts several trenches into which were heaped the remains of the dead, centuries ago.

History states that when Cortez led the Catholic armies of Spain in the victorious conquest of the ancient City of Mexico, which at that time is supposed to have had 600,000 inhabitants, the slaughter of the primitive Mexican people was so great that the ruins of the city were saturated with blood.

The most plausible theory advanced for the existence of the extensive deposits of bones recently discovered within two or three feet of the surface, is that they represent some of the victims slain by the army of Cortez in the stubbornly resisted siege of the city; and as the present cathedral is built upon the site of the central heathen temple of the Mexican people, doubtless the greatest number of slain in any particular spot in the city fell in defense of their place of worship.

Thus the supremacy of the papal church in Mexico was built upon the foundation of tens of thousands of slain human beings; for the success of the arms of Cortez in so-called "holy war," was the triumph of the church.

The fact of the finding of these human bones at the very base of the central and greatest Catholic cathedral in Mexico, suggests the thought that the superstructure of the whole papal system is built upon a foundation of dead men; for saint-worship enters more largely into the fabric of this false church than does the worship of God; and all of the long list of "saints" who are worshiped by the misguided followers of the papal church are dead men and women, each of whom, a certain time after decease, has, by his surviving coreligionists, been placed in the canon of saints to be worshiped. The parallel will be clearly apparent; namely, that the material church is built upon the foundation of dead men, and the spiritual structure of the church of Rome is likewise erected upon the worship of dead men,—saint-worship. During the Dark Ages, the same apostate church built herself up by the slaughter of many millions of so-called "heretics." Prophecy calls them "saints." Dan. 7:25; Rev. 18:24.

Farman, in his aeroplane, won the great prize of 50,000 francs.

Amidst the confusion of multitudes of voices, raised in adoration of false gods, an angel voice in clarion notes invites mankind to the worship of Him "who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."

O the blessedness and holy joy found in worshiping the living God, and the Saviour who is the Prince, the Author, of life, rather than dead men; and the contrast of the final rewards which await the two classes of worshipers is worthy of thoughtful meditation.

G. W. REASER.