moon as deified by the Mexicans. In Teotihuacan,
thirty miles north of the city of Mexico, is the site of an ancient city
twenty miles in circumference. Near the centre of this spot stand the
Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. The Pyramid of
the Sun has a base 682 feet long and is 180 feet high (the Pyramid
of Cheops is 728 feet at the base, and is 448 feet in height). The
Pyramid of the Moon is rather less, and is due north of that of the
Sun. [231] No doubt the philosophy of all pyramids would show
that they embody the uplifting of the human soul towards the
Heaven-Father of all.

In Northern Mexico still "the Ceris superstitiously celebrate the new
moon." [232] This luniolatry the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg
explains by a novel theory. He holds that the forefathers of
American civilization lived in a certain Crescent land in the Atlantic
that a physical catastrophe destroyed their country whereupon the
remnant that was saved commemorated their lost land by adopting
the moon as their god. [233] "The population of Central America,"
says the Vicomte de Bussierre, "although they had preserved the
vague notion of a superior eternal God and Creator, known by the
name Teotl, had an Olympus as numerous as that of the Greeks and
the Romans. It would appear that the inhabitants of Anahuac joined
to the idea of a supreme being the worship of the sun and the moon,
offering them flowers, fruits, and the first fruits of their fields."
[234] Dr. Reville bids us "note that the ancient Central-American
cultus of the sun and moon, considered as the two supreme deities,
was by no means renounced by the Aztecs." [235] Regarding this
remarkable race, a writer in the _Quarterly Review_ for April, 1883,
says: "Even the Chaldaeans were not greater astrologers than the
Aztecs, and we need no further proof that the heavenly bodies were
closely and accurately observed, than we find in the fact that the
true length of the tropical year had been ascertained long before
scientific instruments were even thought of. Their religious festivals
were regulated by the movements of these bodies; but with their
knowledge was mingled so vast a mass of superstition, that it is
difficult to discern a gleam of light through the thick darkness."
"The Botocudos of Brazil held the moon in high veneration, and
attributed to her influence the chief phenomena in nature." [236]
The Indian of the Coroados tribe in Brazil, "chained to the present,
hardl