"Each of these, it is asserted, could muster a hundred thousand vassals on his estate. It would seem that such wild statements should be 'taken with a pinch of salt.' All the same, it is clear, from the testimony of the conquerors, that the country was occupied by numerous powerful chieftains, who lived like independent princes on their domains. It is certain that there was a distinct class of nobles who held the most important offices near the person of their emperor. "In Montezuma's time the Aztec religion reached its zenith. It is said to have had as exact and burdensome a ceremonial as ever existed in any nation. 'One,' observes Prescott, 'is struck with its apparent incongruity, as if some portion had emanated from a comparatively refined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest breathes a spirit of unmitigated ferocity; which naturally suggests the idea of two distinct sources, and authorizes the belief that the Aztecs had inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was afterwards engrafted their own mythology.' The Aztecs, like the idolaters to whom Paul preached, declaring the 'Unknown God' of their 'ignorant worship,' recognized a Supreme Creator and Lord of the Universe. "In their prayers they thus addressed him: 'The God by whom we live, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts;' but, as has been observed, 'from the vastness of this conception their untutored minds sought relief in a plurality of inferior deities,--ministers who executed the creator's purposes, each, in his turn, presiding over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various affairs of man.' Of these there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day or appropriate festival was consecrated. "Huitzilopotchli, a terrible and sanguinary monster, was the primal of these; the patron deity of the nation. The forms of the Mexican idols were quaint and eccentric, and were in the highest degree symbolical. "The fantastic image of this god of the unpronounceable name was loaded with costly ornaments; his temples were the most stately and august of their public edifices, and in every city of the empire his altars reeked with the blood of human hecatombs. "His name is compounded of two words, signifying 'humming-bird' and 'left;' from his image having the feathers of this bird on his left foot. "Thus runs the tradition respecting this god's first appearance on earth: 'His mother, a devout person, one day, in her attendance on the temple, saw a ball of bright-colored feathers floating in the air. She took it and deposited it in her bosom, and, consequently, from her, the dread deity was in due time born.' He is fabled to have come into the world (like the Greek goddess, Minerva) armed _cap-à-pie_ with spear and shield, and his head surmounted by a crest of green plumes.