Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/447

Rh fed the fires of persecution, and processions that made the materialized service more material.

It was a new sight, the standing of a gentleman in the garb of a gentleman, among soldiers and civilians, the reading of a hymn in their own language which all join in singing, the utterance of a prayer in the same language, in which all reverently bow and join, the reading of the Bible in their own tongue, and the deliverance of a discourse upon its passages; only this, and nothing more. They had never seen it after this fashion. A gentleman said to me, "The first time I ever saw Protestant service conducted was in the palace of the President, by the chaplain of General Scott."

The effect of this was heightened from its being performed by these foreign invaders and conquerors under their own flag. The inquiry shot from mind to mind and heart to heart of the on-gazing multitudes, what is the new mode of religion? The Spanish conqueror's form of worship was no greater novelty to the Aztec, than the American conqueror's was to the Mexican. And each was associated with the victory of the worshiper. "Had this religion," they were compelled to ask, "any thing to do with the sudden and complete overthrow of our armies? Is this anti-Roman faith so much greater than the Roman, that a dozen thousand men can carry the fortified and well-defended gorges of Cerro Gordo, march, over the volcano passes, storm Chapultepec, and capture the city in less than half the time it took Cortez to subdue the land, and that against a people of our own European nationality, trained in every art and weapon of war with which we are conversant?"

What can the answer be, but that the cause of the conquest is Religion? And as the Montezuma and his men recognized sadly that their faith caused their overthrow, so the rulers of Mexico acknowledged that like slavery was the reason of their subjugation. So will France yet confess that it is her religion that made her sink before the German arms, and that only the highest faith can produce the highest race.

The revelation of this conviction appeared in a very few years after the American conquest. Our withdrawal from the land