somewhat convex. On this the prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs, while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle emblematic of his bloody office, dextrously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of itztli-a volcanic substance hard as flint-and, inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first holding this up toward the sun-an object of worship throughout Anahuac-cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in humble adoration. The tragic story of this prisoner was expounded by the priests as the type of human destiny, which, brilliant in its commencement, too often closes in sorrow and disaster. Such was the form of human sacrifice usually practised by the Aztecs. It was the same that often met the indignant eyes of the Europeans in their progress through the country, and from the dreadful doom of which they themselves were not exempted. There were, indeed, some occasions when preliminary tortures of the most exquisite kindwith which it is unnecessary to shock the reader—were inflicted, but they always terminated with the bloody ceremony above described. It should be remarked, however, that such tortures were not the spontaneous suggestions of cruelty, as with the North American Indians, but were all rigorously prescribed in the Aztec ritual. Women as well as the other sex were sometimes reserved for sacrifice. On some occasions, particularly in seasons of drought, at the festival of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god of rain, childrenfor the most part infants-were offered up. As they were borne along in open litters, dressed in their festal robes and decked with the fresh blossoms of spring, they moved the hardest heart to pity, though their cries were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read in their tears a favorable augury for their petition. These innocent victims were generally bought by the priests of parents who were poor, but who stifled the voice of nature-probably less at the suggestions of poverty than of a wretched superstition. The most loathsome part of the story-the manner in which the body of the sacrificed captive was disposed of remains yet to be told. It was delivered to the warrior who had taken him in battle, and by him, after being dressed, was served up in an entertainment to his friends. This was not the coarse repast of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming with delicious beverages and delicate viands, prepared with art and attended by both sexes, who conducted themselves with all the decorum of civilized life. Surely never were refinement and the extreme of barbarism brought so closely in contact with each other. Human sacrifices have been practised by many nations, not excepting the most polished nations of antiquity, but never by any on a scale to be on a scale to be compared with those in Anahuac. The amount of victims immolated on its accursed altars would stagger the faith of the least scrupulous believer. Scarcely any author pretends to estimate the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high as fifty. On great occasions, as the coronation of a king secration of a temple, the number becomes still more appalling. At the dedication of the great temple of Huitzilopotchli, in 1486, | on their superstitious sovereign by the denunciations of celestial wrath. way, the prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose, were drawn from all quarters to the capital. They were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. The ceremony consumed several days, consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives are said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. But who can believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led unresistingly like sheep to the slaughter? Or how could their remains, too great for consumption in the ordinary be disposed of without breeding a pestilence in the capital? Yet the event was of recent date, and is unequivocally attested by the best-informed historians. One fact may be considered certain it was customary to preserve the skulls of the sacrificed in buildings appropriated to the purpose. The companions of Cortés counted one hundred and thirty-six thousand in one of these edifices. Without attempting a precise calculation, therefore, it is safe to conclude that thousands were yearly offered up in the different cities of Anahuac on the bloody altars of the Mexican divinities. The influence of these practices on the Aztec character was as disastrous as might have been expected. Familiarity with the bloody rites of sacrifice steeled the heart against human sympathy and begat a thirst for carnage like that excited in the Romans by the exhibitions of the circus. The perpetual recurrence of ceremonies in which the people took part associated religion with their most intimate concerns and spread the gloom of superstition over the domestic hearth, until the character of the nation wore a grave, and even melancholy, aspect, which belongs to their descendants at the present day. The influence of the priesthood, of course, became unbounded. The sovereign thought himself honored by being permitted to assist in the services of the temple. Far from limiting the authority of the priests to spiritual matters, he often surrendered his opinion to theirs where they were least competent to give it. It was their opposition that prevented the final capitulation which would have saved the capital. The whole nation, from the peasant to the prince, bowed their necks to the worst kind of tyranny-that of a blind fanaticism. In reflecting on these revolting usages one finds it difficult to reconcile their existence with anything like a regular form of government or an advance in civilization, yet the Mexicans had many claims to the character of a civilized community. Indeed, the great object of war with the Aztecs was quite as much to gather victims for their sacrifices as to extend their empire. Hence it was that an enemy was never slain in battle if there were a chance of taking him alive. To this circumstance the Spaniards repeatedly owed their preservation. When Montezuma was asked "why he had suffered the republic of Tlascala to maintaining in it degrading to its victim; it may be her independence on his borders," he replied, "that she might furnish him with victims for his gods." As the supply began to fail the priests bellowed aloud for more and urged Human sacrifice, however cruel, has noth rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the Aztecs, it was sometimes voluntarily embraced by them as the most glorious death race, who would rescue it from the brutish superstitions that daily extended wider and wider with extent of empire. The debasing institutions of the Aztecs furnish the best apology for their conquest. It is true the conquerors brought along with them the Inquisition; but they also brought Christianity, whose benign radiance would still survive when the fierce flames of fanaticism should be extinguished, dispelling those dark formis of horror which had so long brooded over the fair regions of Anahuac. SAT WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. ONWARD FLOWING. AD is our youth, for it is ever going, Crumbling away beneath our very feet; Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing and one that opened a sure passage into paradise. The Mexicans were not cannibals in the coarsest acceptation of the term. They did not feed on human flesh merely to gratify a brutish appetite, but in obedience to their religion. Their repasts were made of the victims whose blood had been poured out on the altar of sacrifice. This is a distinction worthy of notice. Still, cannibalism, under any form or whatever sanction, cannot but have a fatal influence on the nation addicted to it. It suggests ideas so loathsome, so degrading to man, to his spiritual and immortal nature, that it is impossible the people who practise it should make any great progress in moral or intellectual culture. The Mexicans furnish no exception to this remark. The civilization which they possessed descended from the Toltecs a race who never stained their altars, still less their banquets, with the blood of man. All that deserved the name of science in Mexico came from this source, and the crumbling ruins of edifices attributed to them still extant in various parts of New Spain show a decided superiority in their architecture over that of the later races of Anahuac. It is true the Mexicans made great proficiency in many of the social and mechanic arts, in that material culture -if I may so call it the natural growth And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft of increasing opulence, which ministers to the gratification of the senses. In purely intellectual progress they were behind the Tezcucans, whose wise sovereigns came into the abominable rites of their neighbors with reluctance and practised them on a much more moderate scale. In this state of things, it was beneficently ordered by Providence that the land should be delivered over to another In current unperceived because so fleet; Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing, But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat; Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing, And still-oh, still-their dying breath is sweet; us Of that which made our childhood sweeter And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us Not for their sake, but His who grants them AUBREY DE VERE. MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE. YOUNG FELLOW, a to- | An opportunity seemed at hand when, after bacco-pedler by trade, was After an early breakfast at Morristown the tobacco-pedler-whose name was Dominicus Pike-had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little gray mare. It being nearly seven o'clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. "Good-morning, mister," said Dominicus when within speaking distance. "You go a pretty good jog. What's the latest news at Parker's Falls?" The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes and answered rather sullenly that he did not come from Parker's Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day's journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry. 'Well, then," rejoined Dominicus Pike, "let's have the latest news where you did come from. I'm not particular about Parker's Fall. Any place will answer." Being thus importuned, the traveller-who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woodsappeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him. |