The resemblance of the Mexican priesthood to that of Ancient Egypt was very marked. However, the influence of the priests among the people of Anahuac was even greater than that of the analogous caste among the people of Khemi. Their system of conventual education permitted them to impress their doctrines upon the minds of the young in that indelible manner which secures unfaltering adhesion in later life to the dogmas so inculcated; and no doubt the ever-present fear of human sacrifice assisted them mightily in their dealings with the people. In short, they were all-powerful, and the Mexican, accustomed to their influence from the period of childhood to that of death, submitted unquestioningly to their rule in all things, spiritual and temporal. The religious ethics of the Mexican priesthood were lofty and sublime in the extreme, and had but little in common with their barbarous practices. They had been borrowed from the more cultured Toltecs, who during their sole tenure of Anahuac had evolved a moral code to which it would be difficult to take exception. But although this exalted philosophy had been adopted by the fierce and uncultured Aztecs, it had become so obscured by the introduction of cruel and inhuman rites and customs as to be almost no longer recognisable as the pure faith of the race they had succeeded in the land. The germ and core of the Aztec religion was the idea of the constant necessity of propitiating the gods by means of human sacrifice, and to this aspect of their religion we will return later. We have already seen that underlying the mythology of the ancient Mexicans was the idea of a supreme Being, a 'Great Spirit.' In the rites of confession and absolution particularly was this Being appealed to in prayer, and the similarity of these petitions to those offered up by themselves so impressed the monkish companions of the Spanish conquerors that their astonishment is very evident in their writings. It is unlikely that these priests would admit a soul of goodness in the evil thing it was their business to stamp out; and their testimony in this respect is of the highest value as evidence that the Aztec Religion possessed at least the germ of the eternal verities.