gradually rivetted the chains which had been thrown over the land at the point of the sword.
No tradition exists which leads to the supposition that human victims were ever offered here to idols, and the general mildness of the people would seem to repel the thought. Philip II. ordered a correct narrative of the habits and peculiarities of the inhabitants while in a state of idolatry, to be written by the resident priests, but no traces now exist of such a work if it ever was prepared.
But while shuddering at the barbarities exercised under the name of religion, it is pleasant to record a noble and enlightened exception. According to Remesal, Bartholemew Las Casas and others of the Dominican order settled in Guatimala in the year 1536. “Las Casas who was vicar of the convent, had some years before written a treatise which he called 'De unico vocationis modo,' in which he attempted to prove, and with great erudition, that divine providence had instituted the preaching of the gospel as the only means of conversion to the christian faith; and that to harass by wars, those whose conversion is sought for, is the means of preventing rather than accomplishing the desired object. This reasoning was deemed fallacious and laughed at, and the author advised to put in practice what he had preached in theory. Las Casas unhesita-
