"Prescott, commenting on these fabulous statements, instances the dedication of the great temple of the 'Mexican War God' in 1486, when the prisoners, for years reserved for the purpose, were said to have been ranged in files forming a procession nearly two miles long; when the ceremony consumed, as averred, several days, and seventy thousand captives are declared to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. In view of this statement, Prescott logically observes: 'Who can believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led unresistingly, like sheep, to the slaughter? Or how could their remains, too great for consumption in the ordinary way, be disposed of without breeding a pestilence in the capital? One fact,' he adds, 'may be considered certain. It was customary to preserve the skulls of the sacrificed in buildings appropriate to the purpose; and the companions of Cortez say they counted one hundred and thirty-six thousand skulls in one of the edifices.' "Religious ceremonials were arranged for the Aztec people by their crafty and well-informed priesthood, and were generally typical of some circumstances in the character or history of the deity who was the object of them. That in honor of the god called by the Aztecs 'the soul of the world,' and depicted as a handsome man endowed with perpetual youth, was one of their most important sacrifices. An account of this sanguinary performance is gravely given by Prescott and other writers. Though highly sensational and melodramatic, since our betters have found it believable, we transcribe it for the New Koshare; thus runs the tale:-- "'A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal beauty, and without a single blemish on his body, was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as are their descendants at the present day. When he went abroad he was attended by a train of the royal pages; and as he halted in the streets to play some favorite melody the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life until within a month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls were then given him as concubines; and with these he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honors of a divinity. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his short-lived glories was at an end.