1844.] Possible Results of Mexican Civilization. 223 proof of this in Mr. Prescott's account of them. Few such governments have ever had more power, in some respects, than that of Montezuma. The people, too, who exhibited such great proficiency in some of the main points of civilization, who had made such discoveries in science, who possessed such arts and resources, such a civil polity, and such a morality, as the Aztecs, and above all a people who could so fight for their country, cannot be placed upon a level with the weak and ignorant and incapable Indian hunters; nor can we justly compare the relative capacities of the two races to resist the mere power and superiority of European civilization, without deriving from it any benefits, when exhibited and exercised only in the circumstances of friendly contact and neighborhood. The age when Cortés effected this conquest had some splendid agents for the work which we have imagined as possible. Las Casas was acquiring his title of "friend of the Indians." The great founder of the Jesuits also was meditating those vast schemes of missions, which his Society afterwards pushed into the remotest corners of the earth. Whatever may be thought of his or of any other plans for evangelizing heathen countries, without conquest, we maintain that the case of Mexico would have presented an unequalled opportunity for the experiment. Let the reader consider the whole of their condition, and he will find but one institution or custom among them, which needed immediate and uncompromising abolition.* This, of course, was the custom of human sacrifices and the cannibalism involved in it; and if we except this, we leave them in possession of just notions of the Deity and an extraordinary morality, unsurpassed out of Christendom. When we consider that this custom had existed in the land only two centuries, we may well suppose that its abolition would not have been impossible, if such relations had been established between them and the Christian world, as were practicable in every view that can be taken of the age. This people, or their predecessors in the land, had obviously possessed at some period a civilization far superior to what the Spaniards found among them. The existence of * We do not include their polygamy, because it is an institution that may and should be borne with, wherever it is found, until the natural effect of Christianity leads to its gradual and certain extinction. a remote age, in which some ancient American people possessed an idea of the Supreme Being, rarely attained throughout the globe without revelation the age when the great architectural monuments still extant in ruins were scattered over that portion of the continent the age from which the known nations of the valley derived their science and all their best institutions—is attested by the condition in which the Aztecs were found. From this age and its better light they had wandered away. But who can say, if ideas and forms of a better civilization than their own had been gradually unfolded to their view, what reminiscences might not have been awakened, revealing to them their wanderings from their own former and better life? Who can say what suggestions might not have flashed through the mind of the nation, as it recognized in purer worship and more rational usages the familiar excellence that haunted its dreams from its youth of innocence and peace? One could weep-gazing into the melancholy eyes of Montezuma, or thrilled by the classic heroism of Guatimozin one could weep over the fate of such a people; cut off from the earth, blotted out from the page of time, transmitting no name and fame in the pleasant course of history, to be worn and valued by a living nation, now passing along with us the great journey of nations and of men. They are gone, "no sons of theirs succeeding." But their fate is not single, and our regret is a most “ vailing woe." The blow was struck upon them from which there was no recovery, and the ancient Mexican civilization, with all its possible results, disappeared. Yet one cannot but look wistfully upon the picture which the imagination will conjure up the picture of an original civilization and a native American race, preserved, purified and expanded by the peaceful acquisition of Christianity. We e may repeat the reflection, that the fate of the nations of Anahuac is not single. On the day when He who made shall judge the world, there will stand at the bar of judgment, as accusers, the innumerable throngs of those races, who have suffered from the fraud or the errors of European civilization; and whom they will accuse, and with what justice, and what shall be the awful doom pronounced thereon, are speculations of fearful import. But one thing is clear; that any doctrine-be it the authority of pope unpre or potentate, or the demands of a proud and grasping civilization which begins with asserting a right in one portion of mankind to dominion over another independent portion of the human race, for any ultimate object except self-defence, inevitably leads to atrocities and cruelties that know no other bounds than man's capacity for mischief. In this view, the demands and asserted necessities of civilization should be most strictly watched, for they may become no better plea than the authority set up for the popes of Rome. Not the least among the benefits which the work under our notice has conferred upon the age, is the astonishing illustration which it presents of a great race, crushed beneath the iron heel of a remorseless conquest, upon a fiction of right, which fills all future ages with wonder and indignation. We must leave this fascinating work ;- but not without some remarks upon the style in which it is written. It has reached a beautiful and appropriate style for such a subject. The preliminary essay is written with the proper dignity of learning, but with none of the coldness and formality of a learned treatise on antiquities. The narrative and descriptive parts of the Second Book are eminently happy. We have been delighted by the copious felicity and elegance of the language, and the beauty of the descriptions. As a piece of writing, the artistic excellence of the work challenges our highest admiration. In passages where the change became appropriate, the pen in the author's hand has become the historic pencil. The whole of the march to Mexico is full of paintings, warmly colored, but not exaggerated, from the time when he leads the Spaniards through the tierra caliente, "the land where the fruits and the flowers chase one another in unbroken circle through the year," to the morning when they are received by Montezuma, surrounded by his gaudy court, into his strangely interesting capital. In the course of this march, the author, taking advantage of the descent of the Spaniards from the mountains, has drawn a gorgeous picture of the valley, as it broke upon the sight, stretched out beneath their feet, with its waters, woodlands, cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, in the light of an American sun, pouring through the clearest atmosphere on the globe. If the reader will analyze this, or some of the other descriptive passages and they will bear analysis he will find that, though marked by no accumulated notes of erudition, they have not been spread upon the page without labor. In the composition of such passages many of the rare accomplishments and finest faculties of the historian are brought into requisition. He must make a skilful selection of actual circumstances, from contemporaneous accounts; he must imbibe the feelings and impressions of all the witnesses of such a scene, who yet testify in what they have written, though death has sealed their mortal lips ages ago. Having descended minutely to geography, he must rise to poetry; and with the flight of a vigorous imagination, must place himself on the spot whence he is to describe the glories of a scene, which, to natural beauty, added, in the eyes of those who beheld it as its discoverers, the hues of their own excited feelings. This Mr. Prescott has done, with a vividness and beauty, which place him, in our opinion, among the first descriptive writers of the age. Freely, too, and naturally, the most successful epithets and allusions flow from his easy pen, marking both the gaiety and the richness of his mind. That he should have preserved, through the toil that is manifest in his faithful notes, through his researches in book and manuscript and hieroglyphic lore, the spirit that sparkles along his text, illuminating his page and charming his reader and relieving himself, is abundant cause for the warmest congratulation and thanks, as we take a reluctant leave of him. It is, however, we trust, no final leave, that we here take, of one who has become so chief a literary benefactor of his country. G. T. C. Cellerine. ART. VI. — LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DR. GREENWOOD.* SINCE the notice of Dr. Greenwood's "Sermons of Consolation," in our number for March, 1843, both the author of the sermons, and the writer of the notice, Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., have passed away from the earth. They had both contributed liberally to the pages of this journal, and at different times been connected with it as editors. Both held a distinguished rank, in our denomination, as writers and preachers. Unlike in many respects, as two men well could be, in their mental constitutions and general tastes and habits, they yet possessed, in common, peculiar simplicity and directness of character and manners, a deep and filial piety, and great integrity and truthfulness, and they shed around them, each in his different sphere, a beautiful and holy light. Neither of them, since the period of early manhood at least, enjoyed firm health; the labors of both were repeatedly interrupted by debilitating illness, and both sank to their graves in the midst of their usefulness, and the full meridian of their fame. On taking up the volumes of Dr. Greenwood now before us, our minds revert with a melancholy interest to him whose image they so vividly recal. The sketch of his life, furnished by his friend and parishioner, Mr. S. A. Eliot, certainly cannot be charged with exaggerating his merits. It rather falls below the truth than exceeds it. Still, we can readily appreciate the writer's delicacy, if shrinking from what might appear fulsome and extravagant panegyric, which so often and sadly mars performances of this kind, he has drawn too modest a picture of his friend's worth. In the following article, by a contributor to our journal, the object of the writer has been to view the incidents of Dr. Greenwood's life chiefly in connection with his writings, and with the development of his peculiar traits of mind and character. Necessarily more brief than the biographical notice by Mr. Eliot, it yet contains a memorial of one whose connexion with the Examiner makes us especially desirous that some record of his life should be found its upon EDS. pages. *Sermons by Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, D. D., Minister of King's Chapel, Boston. Boston Charles C. Little & James Brown. 1844. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 340, and 390. : |