They soon arrived at Tlatlanquitepec. It was even more populous and improving in its architecture than Zempoalla. The stone houses were spacious and comfortable. Thirteen massive temples testified to the religious fervor of the people. But here they witnessed the most appalling indications of the horrid atrocities of pagan idolatry. They found, piled in order, as they judged, one hundred thousand skulls of human victims who had been offered in sacrifice to their gods.[B] There was a Mexican garrison stationed in this place, but not sufficiently strong to resist the invaders. They, however, gave Cortez a very cold reception, and endeavored to discourage him from advancing by glowing descriptions of the wealth and power of the monarch whose displeasure he was incurring. These developments, however, rather incited anew the zeal of the Spaniards. Cortez, with commendable zeal, again made vigorous but unavailing efforts to induce these benighted pagans to renounce their cruel and bloodstained idols, and accept the religion of Jesus. Poorly as Cortez was instructed in the doctrines and the precepts of the Gospel, Christianity, even as darkly discerned by his mind, was infinitely superior to the sanguinary religious rites of these idolaters. [Footnote B: "Near some temples were laid numbers of human skeletons, so arranged that they could be counted with ease and certainty. I am convinced, from my own observation, that there were above a hundred thousand. I repeat it, I am sure that there were more than a hundred thousand."--_Bernal Diaz_, p. 91.] "We come," said he, firmly, to the chiefs and the principal personages of the town, "from a distant country, to warn the great Montezuma to desist from human sacrifices, and all outrages upon his own vassals or his neighbors, and to require from him submission to our monarch; and I now require you, all who hear me, to renounce your human sacrifices, cannibal feasts, and other abominable practices, for such is the command of our Lord God, whom we adore, who gives us life and death, and who is to raise us up to heaven." The natives, however, clung to the debasing faith of their fathers. The zeal of Cortez was roused. He regarded the hideous idols as representatives of devils, whom it was right, with any violence, to overthrow. He was just about ordering an onslaught upon the temples with sword and hatchet, when the prudent Father Olmedo dissuaded him. "By introducing our religion thus violently," said this truly good man, "we shall but expose the sacred symbol of the cross and the image of the Blessed Virgin to insult as soon as we shall have departed. We must wait till we can instruct their dark minds, so that from the heart they may embrace our faith." And here let us record the full and the cordial admission, that the Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding its corruptions, has sent out into the wilds of heathenism as devoted Christians as the world has ever seen.