peaceful discourse, and slew us by thousands, was there one of us that so much as raised his hand against them? Those who stood around Atahualpa (whom they esteemed for their Inca) shielded him with their own bodies, and died in silence like the rest, but never struck a blow. Since then the Spaniards have heaped upon us misery after misery. They themselves, we suspect now, are the children, not of Pacha-camac, but of Supay. Still, their Law is good and true, and it is the will of Pacha-camac that we should receive it.” Yet these Indians had but a very imperfect knowledge of the faith they professed so heartily. It had not been difficult for them to pass from one religion of forms and ceremonies and outward observances to another. Their children were sprinkled with water instead of having their first hair cut; their youths were confirmed instead of being belted; they kept fasts and festivals with different names and at rather different seasons, but much in the same manner as their fathers; they offered cakes and flowers to the Madoña instead of to Quilla; and whereas they had been used to pay homage to canopas and huacas, they now adored equally numerous santos and santas. Little had been done by their instructors to stir their intellects; less to touch their hearts. Instead of the bread of life, for which they asked, the conqueror gave them a stone. It could not have been otherwise. God honours not hands like those of the conquistadors of Peru to build His spiritual temple; nor lips like those of the notorious Valverde, the first bishop of Cuzco, to carry His message of peace and good-will to men. But it would be unjust to forget that amongst the Spaniards there were some, both Churchmen and laymen, who not only deplored in secret, but dared to denounce openly, the crimes and cruelties of their compatriots. All honour to these truly noble men, who, if they could not redeem the Spanish name from infamy and the Spanish race from just retribution, at least delivered their own souls. In rebuking the sins of their countrymen, they bear mournful and emphatic witness to the conquered race, that they were a people singularly apt to learn, if their conquerors had only been as apt to teach. “If God in past times,” writes one such large-hearted Spaniard,[38] “had granted them men who with Christian zeal would have given them a full knowledge of our holy religion, they were a people very open to good impressions, as their works testify, which remain to this hour.” But the burning anathemas that fell from the lips of divine love against those “hypocrites who shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, neither going in themselves nor suffering them that are entering to go in,” belong not alone to the scribes and Pharisees of old;—they are the portion of all who tread in their footprints. XVI. A Star.