Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/141

Rh faith of Christ. No such advantages, as yet, had reached the plateau of Anahuac. The most elevating influence shed over its people was from the traditional Quetzalcoatl, whose teachings of mild and gentle manners left a deep and prevading impression. Otherwise, the struggle for life, rude contact with the lower instincts of the less developed with the better informed, gave an always downward tendency to the institutions of their society.

It is all very obscure, now more than ever, because new information is disturbing the accepted theory of Aztec culture given by writers of Mexican history up to nearly the present time. For a true knowledge of early life in Mexico, we must wait till explorers and archaeologists have fully established their discoveries by facts. Such an exposition, which is pretty sure to come, will be of great importance to those interested in the future, as well as the past, of the native races of Mexico.

Meanwhile, in a book like this, which is permitted to gather up legend as well as fact, in order to present the attractive, even romantic, side of its subject, it would be a pity to wholly set aside the accounts of the Aztecs, as they have hitherto been given in current history, as worthless and superseded. This would be to leave a gap at the very beginning of authentic story, to take away the lowest step of the ladder we wish to climb. If the "Last of the Montezumas" is to be reduced to a chieftain of a sedentary tribe, we, in this story of Mexico, may regard him as one once invested with the glories of an empire. Our chief object in examining the early periods