Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/91



HE Aztecs believed in the immortality of the soul, both of men and of beasts. Heroes who died in battle and those who sacrificed themselves to the gods had the highest place their heaven could offer. They were supposed to be in the service of the Sun, and that after singing in his train as he passed through the heavens their souls went to beautify the clouds and birds and flowers with colors

Even women and little children—especially those who died in the service of the gods—had as bright a hope as heathenism could offer. After death the women spent four years in heaven, and then were permitted to become birds, with the privilege of coming back to the scenes of earth if they wished, to live on honey and flowers. Hell was merely a place of darkness.

Yet, with these comparatively agreeable provisions for the future, the Aztec religion, wherever it prevailed, made this world "the region and shadow of death" The Psalmist must have had in mind such a religion as this when he prayed that God would have respect to the covenant, since the "dark places of the earth were full of the habitations of cruelty." Never, in any nation, was human sacrifice carried to so frightful an extent as