THE MEXICAN MESSIAH. 99 



that Christ had actually been in Mexico, and so built up the tra- 

 dition of Quetzatcoatl. But this theory does not get rid of it 

 makes essential the presence of a missionary in Mexico, through 

 whom the people were instructed in the truths of Christianity, 

 and from whom they obtained a knowledge of Christ. 



It is hard to understand what it was that Quetzatcoatl 

 taught if it was not Christianity, and equally hard to conceive 

 what he could have been if he were not a Christian missionary. 

 A white man, with all the peculiarities of a European, teaches to 

 a remote and isolated pagan people something the remnants of 

 which centuries afterward are found to bear an extraordinary 

 resemblance to Christianity. The teacher himself is depicted as 

 a perfect and exalted type of a Christian missionary, though the 

 Mexicans could have no model to guide them in their delineation 

 of such a character. Long, earnestly, and successfully he preached 

 the worship of the great unseen but all-present God, and taught 

 the Mexicans to trust in an omnipotent and benevolent Father 

 in heaven. He preached peace and good-will among men, and 

 " he stopped his ears when war was spoken of." He taught and 

 encouraged the cultivation of the earth and the arts and sciences 

 of peace and civilization. The impression he made was, indeed, 

 so profound that the memory of his virtues and good works sur- 

 vived through centuries of change and trouble, and made him 

 acceptable as a god even to the rude, intruding barbarians, who 

 only learned of him remotely and at second hand ages after the 

 completion of his mission. Can he, then, be an imaginary per- 

 son ? Could the early Mexican pagans have evolved such a char- 

 acter from their own fancy or created it out of pagan materials ? 

 The thing seems incredible. It would indeed be curious if the 

 Mexicans never having seen a white man, and wholly ignorant 

 of European ideas and beliefs had invented a fable of a white 

 man sojourning among them ; it would be still more curious if, 

 in addition to this, they had invented another fable of that white 

 man instructing them in European religion and morals. The 

 white man without the teaching might be a possible but still a 

 doubtful story ; the teaching without a white man would be dif- 

 ficult to believe ; but the white man and the teaching together 

 make up a complete and consistent whole almost precluding the 

 possibility of invention. 



Three points in relation to Quetzatcoatl seem well established : 

 (1) he was a white man from across the Atlantic ; (2) he taught 

 religion to the Mexicans ; (3) the religion he taught retained to 

 after-ages many strong and striking resemblances to Christi- 

 anity. The conclusion seems unavoidable that Quetzatcoatl was 

 a Christian missionary from Europe, who taught Christianity to 

 the Mexicans, or Toltecs. 



