occasions, and for occasions when a bull-fight would have been a most
inadequate exhibition. The consecration of a new archbishop, or the
arrival of a new Vice-king from Spain, or the marriage of a member of
the royal family, or some similar important political or religious
event, could only call forth this extraordinary show of roasting men
alive.

If we are to believe the statements of Cortez and Bernal Diaz,[57] the
Aztecs were accustomed to offer human sacrifices on festival days upon
a large circular stone still preserved. With an obsidian knife, life
was instantly extinguished by opening the heart-case and taking out the
heart, which was offered to their god of war. This horrid worship, if
indeed it ever existed, was suppressed, and one more horrid and
cold-blooded in its atrocities substituted. There was seldom wanting a
victim on those great occasions, for prisoners who would otherwise have
been let off with confiscation of estates and a long imprisonment were
now doomed to the flames, to accomplish the double purpose of a
spectacle and strike terror into the ranks of the higher classes, who
too often furnished the victims. But the higher classes were all
present. Suspicion might attach to their absence. And he that dared not
breathe aloud in his own bed-chamber, or tell the whole truth at the
confessional, from apprehension of an inquisitorial spy, took good heed
that no act or look of his on the day of the great fiesta should betray
him to this secret, but every where present tribunal, lest he himself
should be the sacrificial victim at the next entertainment.

The roasting of a human victim at the _auto da fe_ was a purely
democratic institution. The _leperos_, who were beneath the
jurisdiction of the Inquisition, felt none of the terrors that haunted
the rich even in night visions. Without the least apprehension, they
enjoyed the magnificence of the spectacle, and their hatred toward the
high-born was gratified by the sight of one, and sometimes many,
respectable persons burned in the fire for their entertainment. They
were always ready to manifest their gratitude to the holy office by
assailing and perhaps murdering any one who had incurred the
displeasure of the priests, but whom it was not politic to arrest.
Thus, by a threefold power, did the Inquisition enforce the discipline
of the Church: by the authority of the king and the law, the dread
which it inspired; the sympathies of a rabble, whom it was t