Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/200

192 Montezuma was willing to admit that the Christians' God was good and great and worthy of a place among Mexican deities, but a pious horror filled his mind when it was suggested that he should set these aside and worship one just imported into the country. Had not his people gained all their prosperity since they chose Humming-Bird for their guide and protector? For more than one hundred years they had marched to victory behind his image. On the other hand, if Feathered Serpent was about to assert his old supremacy, could they not win his favor by giving to the Toltec rites which had always been observed in the temple the leading place in its ceremonies? But Cortez insisted on something more than this, and Montezuma was sorely perplexed.

There were two parties not only in the council as such, but among its priestly members. Those who were most loyal to the war-god would have marched to the coast on the first appearance of the white men and swept them out of the country; the other party would do nothing which would offend the hero of the nation's dreams should he be hidden under a Spaniard's armor. To this latter party Montezuma belonged. It must have had considerable strength from the first, or the strangers would not have been received by relays of tribute-bearers. But it is not probable that, with all the superstitious awe with which they were regarded, they would have been allowed without resistance to interfere with the service of the temple. Yet in one of the stories with which Cortez seeks to win his monarch's favor he pictures himself as so full of missionary zeal that the first time he went to the temple with Montezuma he tore down the war-god and his associates from their pedestal and sent them tumbling down the