CHAPTER VII.
NEZAHUALCOYOTL, KING OF TEZCOCO.
[A. D. 1470]. In this year departed the greatest hero of that ancient Indian history, Nezahualcoyotl, King of Tezcoco. Son of a king who was murdered by the tyrant Tezozomoc, his youth was passed in constant peril from the designs that tyrant and his son entertained against his life. Possessed of extraordinary courage and endurance, he had always kept in view the exalted station it was his right to occupy, never for a moment faltering until he was at last seated upon the throne of Tezcoco. Then, instead of devoting himself to murdering and plundering his neighbors, like his cousins, the Mexicans, he gave all his energies to promote the growth and welfare of his kingdom. It needed a man of his character and ability to knit together its dismembered provinces, and firmly grasp the helm that guided it on its course. On rejecting the bloody and barbarous creed of the Mexicans, refusing to worship God through the sacrifice of his fellow-men, he showed himself to be a long way in advance of those people. By erecting to that God a temple, dedicated to the "unknown god of causes," he humbly acknowledged his inability to comprehend Him; nor was he presumptuous enough to believe that any man on earth had ever been appointed His especial agent. In this respect he ranked even in advance of the Spanish priests, who converted the Indians from a worship of their deities by main force, and caused to be exterminated those whom they
