INHABITANTS OP PERU. 



263 



pressions : the Peruvian even doubted of the soundness of a 

 law which was occasionally profaned by those who gloried in 

 professing it, and who fancied themselves inspired by it in all 

 their enterprizes. The Peruvian gave to the God of clemency 

 the worship to which he was bound by his chains, but pre- 

 served at the same time an affe6tion for his ancient idols. He 

 concealed them beneath the most sacred representations of the 

 Catholic religion, to dire6l his prayers to them, while the 

 Spaniard thought that the efficacy of these prayers would en- 

 sure him a ready access to heaven. Happily those times of 

 calamity and bloodshed ceased ; and, peace being restored to 

 this highly-favoured soil, the respe6lable prelates, the fathers 

 of the Peruvian church*, were seen to dire6t their steps on 

 every side, not like the thunderbolt which carries terror in its 

 train, but like the lovely light of the morning, dissipating the 

 dark shades of ignorance, instilling confidence into every 

 breast, and presenting the august spirit of religion beneath 

 the semblance of the charity which constitutes its essence. 



Plate XIV. introduces to the notice of the reader a virgin, 

 or priestess, of the sun. However the modern Indians of 

 Peru may have been obliged, by their conquerors, to abandon 

 the rites of the idolatrous worship of their ancestors, they have 

 not failed to perpetuate, by succeeding generations, the re- 

 membrance of their ancient forms and ceremonies. The cos- 



* The archbishops of Lima, Geionimo De Loyasa, Baitolome De Guerrero, 

 and Santo Torrihio, employed their utmost zeal, authority, and intelligence, in 

 extinguishing idolatry. The latter, more especially, in his second and third pro- 

 vincial countils, published the most salutary means to that effedt. See the details 

 relative to these councils, page 156. 



tume 



