ANTIQUITIES THE MUSEUM OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE, D. C.

BY A. J. SEMMES, M. A., M. D.

It was on one of those mild, soft and balmy afternoons peculiar to autumn, availing ourselves of a few leisure hours, we strolled through the cool and shaded walks, and cursorily examined the Astronomical Observatory, the Library with its rich and varied stores of twenty-two thousand volumes, the Botanical Conservatory, and the well-filled and tastefully arranged Cabinet of Mineralogy and Zoology of the classic and venerable College of Georgetown.

In the Museum, whilst inspecting the curious and interesting collections of coins, medals and antiques, our attention was attracted to a large lithographic print and a daguerreotype, presented to the University by his excellency Don LUIS DE LA ROSA, late Minister from Mexico.

The print and daguerreotype purport to be correct and striking fac-simile representations of the celebrated Zodiac Stone of the Aztecs, which was discovered, whilst some excavations were being executed, in the principal plaza of the city of Mexico, on the 13th of August, 1790, two hundred and sixty-nine years after the conquest and occupation of the country by the Spaniards under HERNAN CORTES. From the extensive and persevering researches instituted by distinguished Mexican antiquaries and archæologists, we learn that the Aztecs devoted the chief and most solemn portion of their dark and ferocious worship to the Sun. According to their peculiar superstition they considered the great luminary as the father of nature, and exhibited his image, and symbols, resplendent with silver, gold and precious stones, within the consecrated vestibule of their great teocalli or temple, Quauhxicalco, which crested the lofty summit of the rugged and precipitous mountain Teotihuacan.

The Emperor, accompanied by the high officers of the imperial household, escorted by the princes and caciques in grand cortege, resorted thither on special and solemn occasions, and, with mystic and horrid rites, celebrated the festival of their divinity by drenching the black sacrificial stone with the blood of human victims. With one skillful sweep of the instrument, the palpitating hearts, torn from the breasts of the struggling victims and reeking with blood, were offered up as choice morsels upon the massive altars. Other fétes, of forty days duration, decreed in honor of the Sun, were held with great ceremony in the magnificent temple of Iztaccintcotl-the God of the White Harvest-and the victims selected by the inhuman and inexorable laws for the revolting sacrifice, were those unfortunate persons afflicted with leprosy, or any other disease deemed repulsive or obnoxious.

The figures, sculptured on the great Zodiac Stone, represent the god worshipped on the day, styled in the native language Nahui Ollin, which was celebrated with barbaric pomp and splendor by the priests of the temple, who, with clouds of incense and flaming torches, bowing down before the golden image of the great luminary, decorated the statue with the sacred and fantastic plumage Quezaltonanleyotl, and immolated quails. When the Sun had attained the meridian of the heavens, the priests, in their flowing sacrificial robes, unsheathed their sharpened flint stones and butchered the captive victims, while thousands of worshippers of every age, sex and condition, performed acts of penance by tearing their hair and mutilating their bodies.

This interesting monumental stone is a contemporary history of the superstition of a remote age, more faithful than parchment. A critical examination of its details, besides elucidating the extent of knowledge among the ancient races that once peopled Mexico, exhibits, with surprising accuracy, the divisions of time in use among them, and the seasons of the year in which their religious festivals were held, or the deeds of their mythic divinities commemorated.

It demonstrates that the Aztecs had, an imperfect, it is true, acquaintance with the motions of some of the planetary bodies, and more especially, the revolutions of the sun from the vernal to the autumnal equinox. It is supposed to have once recorded the various degrees of solar heat, but neither the manner, nor principle, is explained; by means of gnomons attached to the dial-plate, the custodians of the temples were enabled to ascertain the hours of the day, enjoined by their liturgy, for the performance of the accustomed rites. The Zodiac Stone and other remaining monuments indicate, in an unmistakeable manner, the condition and civilization of the Mexican races, centuries preceding the Spanish conquest. We have sufficient evidence that they had no mean acquaintance with astronomy, chronology, gnomonics, etc., and that their rites and mythological system were as enlightened as could have been expected from an idolatrous and, comparatively, barbarous people in a remote age. Don LEON Y GAMA, in one of his recent publications, remarks that the discovery of the Zodiac has revealed to us, in relation to ancient Mexico, what the first six books of Ovid's Fasti tell us in regard to the festivals and habits of the ancient Romans. We would, in connection with this subject, invite attention to the Descripcion Historica y Cronologica de las Quiedras que se hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico, etc., por Don A. de Leon y Gama; Mexico, A. Valdes, 1832. We were kindly permitted, through the courtesy of a late librarian of Georgetown College, D. C., to whom it had been entrusted for a limited time by an eminent Mexican savant, to make a cursory examination of this magnificent work. It is decidedly one of the most complete and elaborate works on the subject ever issued from the press.

The study of archæology is very much neglected in our country-the attention of the public is too much confined to the present and future, and hence we can readily account for the prevalent irreverence and contempt for the men and things of the past. It is strange, at the same time, with what complacency the fast men of the present century, will pirate from the store-house of ideas and things of the past, without giving due credit to the despised source from which they drew their inspiration. The fact is, that many of the startling inventions, claimed as of modern origin, were known to the ancients, but had, in the lapse of ages, slumbered or were lost. The discoveries made in the East by the magnificent and wellappointed scientific corps attached to the French army in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign,* indicate the utility of archæology in the elucidation of the history of remote ages.

Often have we paused, in contemplation, at the base of the towering and colossal Obelisk of Luxor, transported from Egypt by the French government and erected on the magnificent Place de Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde) in Paris: our mind has been wafted back to the men and things of two thousand years ago. The world is indebted to Champolion for the unravelling and deci

* Description de l'Egypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches, faites en Egypte pendant l'Expédition de l'Armée Française, publié par las ordres de sa Majesté l'Empereur Napoléon le Grand. Paris, Imprimerie Impériale; MDCCCIX, 9 vol. text and 14 vol. of plates, (atlas folio.)

phering of the mysterious and, hitherto, unmeaning hieroglyphics, which have since thrown a flood of light upon early Egyptian history.

The more recent discoveries of Mr. Layard at the site of the ancient Nineveh, and of the Egyptiologists along the course of the Nile, clearly indicate that many things, hitherto supposed to have been inventions of but later ages, were well known at the remotest antiquity. The invention of glass has been attributed to the Phoenicians, but modern researches have demonstrated that it was known among the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians. Besides the invention of glass, the despised ancients in architecture had the arch; in agriculture, the supposed modern invention of sub-soil drainage. Their pictorial representations still exist, describing the blowing of glass vessels, tubes, etc. Their proficiency in the use of colors, pigments and dyes, is attested by works which have defied the decomposing processes of the subtile elements of accumulating centuries.

The above facts indicate what antiquarians have done for the diffusion of knowledge. These same considerations are applicable to Mexican antiquities; the time applied to their study is not misspent.

Mexico is indebted to the romantic and adventurous spirit of Cortes and his chivalrous followers for the extirpation of the abominable idolatry of the Aztec worship, and the introduction of the mild and more humanizing doctrines of the Christian gospel; and though, in accordance with the spirit of the age, some enormities were perpetrated, still an impartial posterity is grateful to the conquerors, for the addition of a vast country to the domain of Christianity and civilization. The crimes and abuses of the early Spanish colonists have been grossly exaggerated by ignorant and bigoted writers, and the truth itself has been painted in such distorted colors as hardly to be recognized by the candid historian.

Censure and vituperation of the Spanish conquerors come with bad grace from the descendants of those fanatical colonists who participated in the brutal and ferocious massacre of the unoffending Pequod Indians of North America. The Spanish conquerors hurled the idols from their pedestals, abolished the revolting human sacrifices, and sanctified the polluted temples by dedicating them to the service of the One Eternal First Cause, and erected the sacred emblems of man's redemption, the Christian Labarum, with its glorious motto, "In this conquer!" (#v TOUTW VINN.) The conquered Aztec was indebted to the courage and devotion of the Spanish missionary, LAS CASAS, for protection from the avarice of the more unscrupulous among the conquerors, and his eloquent voice plead not in vain against the abuses and injustice of the system of the repartimientos; his mitigation of its evils is gloriously described by an eminent historian of the subjected race. It is true that a few among the more zealous and enthusiastic of the missionaries, in their horror of idolatry, committed iconoclastic depredations by destroying the implements and idols used in the pagan liturgy. This must be charged to the over-zealous excitement and spirit of the age, and not to the actors in those scenes.*

It can scarcely be said that the missionaries went further in this destruction, than was necessary for the spiritual benefit of their neophytes, which required that the memorials of idolatry should be removed from their midst. The interests of profane science should not be placed on a par with those of religion. The missionaries, who were enlightened and pious men, were much better able than we are, at the present day, to judge of the expediency of destroying the teocallis and their appurtenances. Moreover, by the labors of Father Sahagun and other antiquaries, we know much of Aztec antiquities, and we doubt whether mankind would be a whit better if anything more of them had been preserved.-ED. MET,

15

VOL. I.-No. 3,

PROTESTANT EVIDENCE OF CATHOLICITY.

THERE are among Protestants two classes of writers, who differ vastly in their views and statements respecting the claims of the Catholic Church, and it is quite sufficient to point out their distinguishing characteristics, to show on which side the spirit of truth prevails. One of the classes to which we refer, is composed of men whose vision extends no further than the sectional sphere in which they move, whose knowledge is bounded by the prejudices which they imbibed in their infancy, and the one-sided study which they have made of theology and ecclesiastical history. These superficial writers present nothing original: they accept every thing at second-hand: they never dream of analyzing their religious opinions, or ascertaining those fundamental principles which form the basis of certitude on which Christian faith must necessarily rest, in order to afford security in regard to the conditions of salvation. With such writers every calumny against the Catholic Church is accepted without examination. The historians who have recorded past events in a spirit of partisanship, are considered unquestionable authorities. The Bible is looked upon as an armory erected for the special purpose of supplying weapons for her destruction. Her doctrines, her practices, her institutions, are all prejudged, and if discussion arises on any of these points, the aim of these men is not to institute a calm and argumentative inquiry on the subject, with a view of eliciting the truth, but to adopt the most effectual method of achieving an apparent triumph over their adversaries. To this spirit may be traced the bitterness with which they assail Catholicity in the pulpit and with the pen, the gross misrepresentations of her dogma and discipline, and the astonishing blindness which, apart from the causes which we have mentioned, would be inexplicable in men of liberal education, and which draws a veil over the past glories of the Church and the undiminished vigor of her present vitality.

There is another class of Protestants, however, whose candor and learning form an honorable and pleasing contrast with those whom we have just described. If they admit the principle of private judgment, they have at least the consistency not to receive as infallible decisions, the declarations or teachings of any one man or sect of men, whose claims to authority or orthodoxy are no better founded than their own; nullius addicti jurare in verba magistri. They scout the idea that Luther, Calvin, or any of the so-called reformers, who at the commencement of their career stood, each one, "solitary and alone" in his protest against the Church of fifteen centuries, could have a right to remodel or overturn what had been settled by Christ and his apostles, or to impose his dicta upon the world as the law and the testimony. These writers judge for themselves, and having removed the film of prejudice from their eyes, they look into the history of the Christian Church, not through the distorted and second-hand channels of a Mosheim, or the Centuriators, or a Palmer, but with the aid of those luminous sources of information, the writings of the Fathers and others who have left us a record of the constitution, doctrines and observances of the Church in the earlier times. They recognize, and with commendable frankness they acknowledge the striking resemblance or rather identity between the Catholicity of the present day and the Christianity of the primitive ages. They see with admiration how the Church, by her supernatural character, has withstood the shocks of time, overcoming alike the persecution of tyrants and the assaults of error, the number of her children increasing in defiance of the one, and the sacred deposite of faith preserved in its original purity,

notwithstanding the other. The gospel is preached, the written word of God is transmitted, nation after nation is brought into the Christian fold; barbarous tribes are civilized; slavery is gradually banished or its evils mitigated; the cause of human liberty is promoted; education diffuses its blessings on every side; the wants of man are provided for, his miseries are relieved. Such is the gigantic and wonderful spectacle which the Church exhibits in every age, in the performance of her holy and sublime office; such is the majesty, authority and power which she still presents to the contemplative eye, verifying the declaration of her divine Founder, who promised to be with her all days to the consummation of the world.

It is difficult to conceive how men, who take this view of the subject, can remain long in the bosom of Protestantism, when they look for it in vain amid the evidences of primitive Christianity or among those glorious works which it was the manifest destiny of the Church to accomplish. Hence we have seen the De Hallers, the Schlegels, the Hurters, the Newmans, the Mannings, the Brownsons, the Ives, and a host of others, who were more solicitous for the peace of their souls and their eternal salvation than for any change that might come over their earthly prospects, humbly petitioning to be admitted into the "one fold under one Shepherd," into that Church which if we hear not, we are to be likened unto the heathen and the publican. Many more will follow their example, and when we read in the Mercersburg Review such sentiments as the following from Professor Schaff, we cannot but indulge the thought that he too will one day be added to the number. There is a spirit of candor and sincerity in his remarks, which in our opinion augurs much more favorably for this happy result, than the eminent talents and extensive erudition for which he is distinguished: for faith is a gift of God, and its acquisition is much more the effect of earnest and persevering prayer than of intellectual effort or profound investigation. Whatever may be the future in store for him, we cannot refrain from saying, cum talis sis, utinam noster esses!

"The proper coryphæi of the Papacy, such as Nicholas, Hildebrand and Innocent III, heretofore regarded as scarcely anything better than incarnate devils, are now looked upon as heroes and benefactors of humanity. Even Neander, who is well known to have naturally a great antipathy to every thing priestly and hierarchical, and who zealously endeavors to place the opposers of the ruling Church in the most advantageous light possible, candidly expresses his profound admiration for the moral character and great merits of these Popes. In the same manner has the judgment concerning the other prominent phenomena of the Middle Agesthe Crusades, the monastic orders and their founders, religious art, scholasticism and mysticism-assumed a more favorable form, in proportion as they are brought from the dust of the past to light, and understood in their organic connection with the nature and wants of that period. It is impossible to read with attention Neander's Bernard or Hasse's Anselm, without being filled with profound admiration for the spirit, virtue and piety of these men, although they move throughout in the spirit and mould of the Catholic Church, and belong, as is well known, to her most distinguished teachers and saints.

"But this altered conception of the Middle Ages involves an enormous concession to Catholicism, and a fatal blow against bigoted ultra-Protestantism. A Church which, throughout this transition period from ancient to modern times, sent out such a host of self-denying missionaries to heathen nations, who carried the gospel to the Germans, Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Scots and Sclavonians-a Church which had power to excite all Europe to a heroic conflict against the false prophet for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre of the Redeemer-a Church which