Hernando Cortez: Makers of HistoryAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
Hernando Cortez: Makers of History
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Cortés, Hernán, 1485-1547; Mexico -- History -- Conquest, 1519-1540
Two of the Catholic ecclesiastics, Olmedo and Diaz, were probably
unaffected Christians, truly desiring the spiritual renovation of the
Indians. They felt deeply the worth of the soul, and did all they
could rightly to instruct these unhappy and deeply-wronged natives.
They sincerely pitied their sufferings, but deemed it wise that the
right eye should be plucked out, and that the right arm should be cut
off, rather than that the soul should perish. It is a consoling
thought, that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth
that we are dust." The natives were assembled in their temples; they
came together in immense multitudes. The priests, through their
interpreter, Aguilar, endeavored to instruct them in the pure
doctrines and the sublime mysteries of Christianity. If the natives
perceived a marked difference between these precepts and the awful
carnage on the field of Ceutla, it was not the first time that
principles and practice have been found discordant.
A grand religious ceremony was instituted to commemorate the
conversion of the nation. The whole army took a part in the
solemnities of the occasion, with all the martial and ecclesiastical
pomp which their situation could furnish. The natives in countless
multitudes joined the procession, and gazed with astonishment upon the
scene. Advancing to the principal pyramidal temple of Tabasco, which
was an enormous structure, with a vast area upon its summit, they
wound around its sides in the ascent. Upon this lofty platform,
beneath the unclouded sun, with thousands of Indians crowding the
region around to witness the strange spectacle, a Christian altar was
reared, the images of the Savior and of the Virgin were erected, and
mass was celebrated. Clouds of incense rose into the still air, and
the rich voices of the Spanish soldiers swelled the solemn chant. It
must have been an impressive scene. There must have been some there
into whose eye the tear of devotion gushed. If there were in that
throng--all of whom have long since gone to judgment--one single
broken and contrite heart, that was an offering which God could
accept. Father Olmedo preached upon the occasion "many good things
touching our holy faith." Twenty Indian girls who had been given to
the Spanish captains for wives were baptized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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