In Cuzco, the metropolis, was the residence of the inca or emperor, and the great temple of the sun.
The inca was both temporal prince and ruling priest of their religion. Though they ostensibly worshiped the sun, yet the higher classes recognized the existence of one almighty, invisible God.
Like the Egyptians, the Peruvians understood the art of embalming the dead. The mummies of their incas being placed in the vaults beneath the temple of the sun, at Cuzco.
This city contained edifices which excited the amazement of the Spanish adventurers themselves—streets, squares, bridges and fortresses surrounded by turreted walls. The public walls of Peru as well as Mexico were superior to those of Spain herself. Two great military roads extended the whole length of the empire—one along the coast, the other along the base of the mountains. These highways greatly aided the Spaniards in their conquest of the country.
Having gained possession of the country and robbed the inhabitants of their gold, silver and precious stones, they put to death the inca and nobility, and took possession of their residences.
The enormous crime of Spain in destroying this civilization has never been fully appreciated. In vain the Spaniards excuse their atrocities, on the plea that those nations were savages and permitted human sacrifices. True, the nations of America sank very low when the light of the gospel was withdrawn; but every candid mind will ask: "Which was the more degraded, papal Europe or apostate America?" Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the Mexicans, it was sometimes voluntarily embraced by them as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise.
There was no spectacle on the American continent, at which a just man might so deeply blush for his race as that presented in Western Europe when the martyr, from whom confession had been wrung by torture, passed to the stake in a sleeveless garment, with flames of fire and pictures of devils painted upon it. Let it be remembered that from A. D. 1481 to 1808, more than three hundred and forty thousand persons had been tortured, and out of these nearly thirty-two thousand burnt.
Massacre of the Incas.
Let it also be remembered that the body of man is of less value than the immortal soul, for the redemption of which the agony and death of the Son of God was not too great a price to pay. Let it not be forgotten that at that period the entire authority of Europe was directed to the enslaving of the minds and souls of men and making that noblest creation of heaven a worthless machine.