retain the position of simple sisters, according to their ambition and abilities. The lower ranks were designated Cihuaquaquilli, or 'lady herb-eaters,' while the higher orders were known as Cihuatlamacasque, or 'lady deaconesses.'

The Spanish conquerors of Mexico were astonished to find among this peculiar people a number of rites which appeared in many respects analogous to some of those practised by Catholics. Such were the use of the cross as a symbol, communion, baptism, and confession. The cross, which was designated, strangely enough, 'Tree of our Life,' was merely the symbol of the four winds, which were indeed the life of Anahuac. As regards confession and absolution, these were permitted to a person only once in his existence, and that at a late period of life, as any repetition of the pardoned offence was held to be inexpiable. Penance was apportioned, and absolution given much in the same manner as in the Roman Catholic Church. There appears to have been more than one kind of communion. At the third festival of Huitzilopochtli they made an image of him in dough kneaded with the blood of infants, and divided the pieces among themselves. In the case of Xiuhtecutli a similar image was placed on the top of a tree, which, like our Christmas trees, had been transported from the forest to the town, and when the tree was thrown down and the image broken, the people scrambled for the pieces, which they devoured.

In the rite of baptism the principal functionary was the midwife. She touched the mouth and breast of the infant with water in the presence of the assembled relations, and invoked the blessing of the goddess Cihuatcoatl, who presided over childbirth (and who was a variant of Centeotl, the maize-goddess) upon it. But it is unlikely that she did so in the devoutly Christian language ascribed to her by Sahagun.

At death the corpse of a Mexican was dressed in the robes peculiar to his guardian deity, and in this can be perceived an analogy to every dead Egyptian becoming an Osirian, or Osiris himself. Covered with paper charms, as the Egyptian mummy was covered with metal or faïence symbols, the body was cremated, the ashes placed in an urn, and preserved in the house of the deceased. At the death of a rich man many slaves were sacrificed to bear him company in the world beyond the grave. This was obviously a meaningless survival of a prehistoric custom. Valuable treasures were often buried with the wealthy, and a rich man would often have his private chaplain sacrificed at his tomb to assist him with ghostly counsel and comfort in the other world.

Among the ancient Mexicans every month was consecrated to some particular deity, and in their calendar every day marked a celebration of some greater or lesser divinity. Those differed considerably in their character. Some were light and joyous, and their ritual abounded in the use of flowers and song. Others (and these, unhappily, were in the majority) were stained with the hideousness of human sacrifice.

The temples of the Ancient Mexicans were very numerous. They were called teocallis,[4] or 'houses of God,' and were constructed by facing huge mounds of earth with brick and stone. They were pyramidal in shape, and built in stages which grew smaller as the summit was reached. The bases of some of these teocallis were more than one hundred feet square. The great teocalli at Mexico, for example, was three hundred and seventy-five feet long at the base, and three hundred feet in width. Its height was over eighty feet. It consisted of five stages, each communicating with the other by means of a staircase which wound around the entire edifice. In the case of some teocallis, however, the staircase led directly up the western face of the building. At the top two towers, between forty and fifty feet in height, stood perched upon a broad area. Inside these were kept the idols of the gods to whom the teocalli was sacred. Before these towers stood the stone of sacrifice, and two altars upon which the fires blazed night and day. In the city of Mexico six hundred of these fires rendered any artificial illumination at night superfluous. Through the very construction of these temples all religious services were of a public nature. In front of the great teocalli of Mexico stretched a court twelve hundred feet square, around which clustered the chapels of minor deities, and those captured from conquered peoples, as well as the dwellings and offices set apart for the attendant priests.

Although it appears that the Toltecs, the forerunners of the Aztecs in Mexico, had at one period of their history been prone to human sacrifice, they had almost entirely discarded the practice at the time of their downfall. Some two hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards the Aztecs had adopted this abomination, and were in the habit of sparing the lives of immense numbers of prisoners of war solely for the purpose of offering them up to the national gods. As their empire extended, these holocausts became greater and more common. On the teocalli of Mexico the Spaniards could count one hundred and thirty-six thousand human skulls piled in a horrid pyramid.

Of the sacrifices the most important was that signifying the annual demise of Tezcatlipoca. The most handsome of the captives who chanced to be in the hands of the Aztecs was chosen for the purpose. It was necessary that he should be without spot or blemish, as it was intended that he should represent Tezcatlipoca himself. He was taken in hand by a body of tutors, who instructed him how to play his allotted part with the dignity and grace to be expected from a divine being. Arrayed in magnificent robes typical of his godhead, and surrounded by an atmosphere of flowers and incense, he led the life of a voluptuary for the space of nearly a year. On the occasion of his appearance in the public streets he was received by the populace with all the homage due to a god, but was strictly guarded, nevertheless, by eight pages, who in reality were merely gaolers. Within a month's time of his immolation four beautiful girls were given him as wives, and he was feasted and fêted by the nobility as the incarnation of Tezcatlipoca.

On the day preceding the sacrifice the victim was placed on one of the royal canoes, and accompanied by his four wives, was rowed to the other side of the lake. That evening his wives bade him farewell, and he was stripped of his gorgeous apparel. He was then conducted to a teocalli some three miles from the city of Mexico. In scaling this he threw away the wreaths of flowers with which he had been adorned, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had amused his hours of captivity. Crowds thronged from the city to behold the act of sacrifice. On reaching the summit of the teocalli the victim was met by six priests, five of whom led him to the sacrificial stone, a great block of jasper with a convex surface. On this he was placed by the five priests, who secured his head, arms, and legs, whilst the officiating priest, robed in a blood-red mantle, dexterously opened his breast with a sharp flint knife. He then inserted his hand into the gaping wound, and tearing out the still palpitating heart, held it aloft towards the sun. Then he cast the bleeding offering into a vessel containing burning copal, which lay at the feet of the image of Tezcatlipoca. A species of sermon was then delivered by one of the priests to the people in which he drew a moral from the fate of the victim illustrative of the inevitable conclusion of all human