as it grows more clear to us that he injures
none so deeply as himself. But the [Greek: theriodes kakia], the
enormous wickedness by which humanity itself has been outraged and
disgraced, we cannot forgive; we cannot cease to hate that; the years
roll away, but the tints of it remain on the pages of history, deep and
horrible as the day on which they were entered there.

When the Spaniards understood the simple opinion of the Yucatan
islanders concerning the souls of their departed, which, after their
sins purged in the cold northern mountains should pass into the
south, to the intent that, leaving their own country of their own
accord, they might suffer themselves to be brought to Hispaniola,
they did persuade those poor wretches, that they came from those
places where they should see their parents and children, and all
their kindred and friends that were dead, and should enjoy all kinds
of delights with the embracements and fruition of all beloved
beings. And they, being infected and possessed with these crafty and
subtle imaginations, singing and rejoicing left their country, and
followed vain and idle hope. But when they saw that they were
deceived, and neither met their parents nor any that they desired,
but were compelled to undergo grievous sovereignty and command, and
to endure cruel and extreme labour, they either slew themselves, or,
choosing to famish, gave up their fair spirits, being persuaded by
no reason or violence to take food. So these miserable Yucatans came
to their end.

It was once more as it was in the days of the Apostles. The New World
was first offered to the holders of the old traditions. They were the
husbandmen first chosen for the new vineyard, and blood and desolation
were the only fruits which they reared upon it. In their hands it was
becoming a kingdom, not of God, but of the devil, and a sentence of
blight went out against them and against their works. How fatally it has
worked, let modern Spain and Spanish America bear witness. We need not
follow further the history of their dealings with the Indians. For their
colonies, a fatality appears to have followed all attempts at Catholic
colonisation. Like shoots from an old decaying tree which no skill and
no care can rear, they were planted, and for a while they might seem to
grow; but their life was never more than a lingering death, a failure,
which to a thinking pe