Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/204

184 Arches rose at frequent intervals, and embowered chapels. Motolinia describes a Corpus Christi celebration at Tlascala for which more than a thousand floral arches had been erected along the streets taken by the procession, with ten larger arches in form of naves, and four artificial scenes of wild and placid nature, rocks, trees, moss, and lawns, one representing Adam and Eve in paradise, a second, the temptation of Christ, the fourth, Saint Jerome and Saint Francis, and all elaborated with surprising skill, and with hunters and animals, some natural, others imitated.

Many pagan ceremonies were introduced, endeared to the congregation by long association, and frolics and dances lent a cheerful after-glow to the solemnity, and gilded the remembrance of the feast.

Another factor remains to be considered among the causes for success with conversions: the saintly character of the friars; their benign appearance; their kindness of heart; their benevolent acts; their exemplary life; all so worthy of admiration, and in so striking contrast to the fiercer aspect and bloody doings of the native priests, in harmony truly with their horrid idols and rites, as the appearance and acts of the friars accorded with the gentle virgin image and the pious teachings of their faith. The records of the chroniclers are filled with glowing testimony to the self-sacrificing conduct, in private and public life, of these missionaries, misdirected though they often were from a more active and useful path by excess of zeal, and by hallucination, which caused too many of their heroic acts to be spent against the bare cell walls, instead of furthering the real good of individuals or communities. Yet the remain heroes in their sphere, ennobled by a lofty though empty purpose. Others there are, like