the slave to, but whom a stranger could insult and abuse with impunity. It was only by this rude logic, which the debased savages could understand, that the Spanish missionaries proved to the Indians that human sacrifice was a human mistake and not the will of "Those Above." It was a wonderful achievement, just the uprooting of this one, but worst, custom of the Indian religion,--a custom strengthened by centuries of constant practice. But the Spanish apostles were equal to the task; and the infinite faith and zeal and patience which finally abolished human sacrifice in Mexico, led gradually on, step by step, to the final conversion of a continent and a half of savages to Christianity. VII. THE CHURCH-BUILDERS IN NEW MEXICO. To give even a skeleton of Spanish missionary work in the two Americas would fill several volumes. The most that can be done here is to take a sample leaf from that fascinating but formidable record; and for that I shall outline something of what was done in an area particularly interesting to us,--the single province of New Mexico. There were many fields which presented even greater obstacles, and cost more lives of uncomplaining martyrs and more generations of discouraging toil; but it is safe to take a modest example, as well as one which so much concerns our own national history. New Mexico and Arizona--the real wonderland of the United States--were discovered in 1539, as you know, by that Spanish missionary whom every young American should remember with honor,--Fray Marcos, of Nizza. You have had glimpses, too, of the achievements of Fray Ramirez, Fray Padilla, and other missionaries in that forbidding land, and have gained some idea of the hardships which were common to all their brethren; for the wonderful journeys, the lonely self-sacrifice, the gentle zeal, and too often the cruel deaths of these men were not exceptions, but fair types of what the apostle to the Southwest must expect.