offerings of their temporal possessions. In the due performance of these rites, Quetzalcoatl invented temples, or quis, as common places of prayer among the people; he founded the four here represented; in the first of which the princes and nobles fasted, and in the second the lower classes of the people; the third was denominated, the house of the serpent, in which it was unlawful for those who entered, to lift up their eyes from the ground; the fourth was the temple of shame, where they sent all sinners and men of immoral lives. When using reproachful language, they used to say—“ Go to Tlazapuliateo!"

"Of Quetzalcoatl they say, here he had remained some time, but he was called from thence. They entertained so lively a recollection of him, that they adored him as a god, first, because he taught them the art of working in gold and silver, which they had not till then seen or known in the country. Secondly, because he never wished nor permitted sacrifices of blood, of slaughtered men or of animals, but only of bread, roses, spices, flowers, incense, and other sweet perfumes and thirdly, because he forbad and prohibited with much success, wars, robbery and murder, and other injuries which are done by men to each other. They say that whenever they named in his presence bloodshed, war, or other evils calculated to afflict humanity, he turned aside his head and stopped his ears, in order not to see or hear them. They likewise praise him for his great purity and uprightness, and his exceeding temperance. This god was held in veneration and reverence throughout all those kingdoms on account of his peculiar attributes."

"Las Casas, bishop of Chiapa, relates in his apology, which is in Ms. in the convent of St. Dominic, that when he passed through the kingdom of Yutican, he found there a respectable ecclesiastic, of mature age; he charged him to

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proceed into the interior of their country, giving him a certain plan of instruction, in order to preach to them: at the end of a year, thus he wrote to the bishop-he had met with a principal lord, who informed him that they believed in God, who resided in heaven, even the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That the Father was named YEоna,1 the Son Bah-ab, who was born of a virgin, named Chibirias, and that the Holy Spirit was called Euach. Bah-ab, the Son, they said was put to death by Eupuco, who scourged him, and put on his head a crown of thorns, and placed him with his arms stretched upon a beam of wood, and that on the third day he came to life, and ascended into heaven, where he is with the Father; that immediately after the Euach came in his place as a merchant, bringing precious merchandize, filling those who would with gifts and graces, abundant and divine."-Antiq. Mex. p. 162.

1 Yehovah.

2 Son (of) Father.

3 Spirit.

THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.

BARON Humboldt discoursing on the Theocratic form of government of the Zac, Bolga, and Peruvians, remarks, that by the tradition of the former, their government was founded by a "mysterious personage," who lived in the temple of the SUPREME LIGHT, two thousand years ago.' Of Quetzalcoatl (which signifies the serpent with green feathers) they say he introduced the "boring" of the ear, that he walked "barefoot," himself seeking as a chosen place of retirement the volcano Cetceptl, or mountain of speech, &c. He held the reins of government, taught them to cast metals, ordered fasts, and regulated the intercalations of the Toltic year. Though their ancient legislator is called by a name importing a serpent with green feathers, yet "He was an ancient man and white bearded"-called by Montezuma a "holy man, who led and taught them many things."

"The

Don Alonza Ercilla says in his History of Chili, religious belief of the Auricanians is sublime. They acknowledge a supreme Being, whom they denominate by a word expressive of Supreme Essence. They also call him The SPIRIT of Heaven-the GREAT LIFE-The Thundererthe Omnipotent-the Eternal-the Infinite. The government of this glorious CREATOR is the prototype of their polity. They are all agreed in the immortality of the soul, this animating and consolatory truth is deeply rooted and innate with them. They hold, that man is formed of two

substances essentially different-the corruptible body and the incorruptible and eternal spirit. They have a tradition that the earth was covered with water, yet not destroyedand that the same earth shall be covered with fire but not destroyed. There shall be great signs before the end, &c." Locke, one of the ablest men Great Britain ever produced, observes, "that the commonwealth of the Jews, differed from all others, being an absolute Theocracy. The laws established there, concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity, were the civil laws of that people, and a part of their political government, in which God Himself was the Legislator."

"In this," observes Doctor Boudinot, "the Indians profess the same thing precisely. This is the exact form of their government, which seems unaccountable, were it not derived from the same original source, and is the only reason that can be assigned for so extraordinary a fact."

"It may be said, that the Jews were long governed by judges and kings. But these were not of their appointment, but of the appointment of God under Him, as his substitutes or vicegerents. "Blessed be the LORD thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on His Throne to be king for the Lord thy God."1 Again, "They have not rejected thee; but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."2 Again, "And now ye think to withstand the KINGDOM of the LORD, in the hands of the sons of David." 3 Agreeably to the Theocracy or divine government of Israel, the Indians think the Deity to be the immediate Head of their state. All the nations of the Indians have an inexpressible contempt of the white people. They used to call us, in their war orations, the accursed people: but they flatter themselves with the name of the beloved people,

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1 2 Chron. ix. 8.

21 Samuel viii. 7.

3 2 Chron. xiii. 8.

because their supposed ancestors, as they affirm, were under the immediate Government of the Deity, who was present with them in a very peculiar manner, and directed them by prophets, while the rest of the world were aliens and outlaws to the covenant. When the old archimagus, or any one of their magi, is persuading the people at their religious solemnities to a strict observance of the old beloved or divine speech, he always calls them the beloved or holy people, agreeably to the Hebrew epithet ammi, (my people) during the Theocracy of Israel. It is their opinion of their Theocracy, that God chose them out of all the rest of mankind, as his peculiar people.

"When any of their beloved people die, they soften the thoughts of death, by saying, he is only gone to sleep with the beloved forefathers, and usually mention a common proverb among them, “neitak intahah,” the days appointed, or allowed him, were finished. And this is their firm belief, for they affirm that there is a fixed time and place, when and where every one must die, without any possibility of averting it. They frequently say, "Such a one was weighed on the path, and made to be light." They always ascribe life and death to God's unerring and particular providence." 1

1 Adair in the Star in the West,