He was in
arms against the infidel. Not to care for the soul of his benighted
enemy was to put his own in jeopardy. The conversion of a single
soul might cover a multitude of sins. It was not for morals that he
was concerned, but for the faith. This, though understood in its
most literal and limited sense, comprehended the whole scheme of
Christian morality. Whoever died in the faith, however immoral had
been his life, might be said to die in the Lord. Such was the creed of
the Castilian knight of that day, as imbibed from the preachings of
the pulpit, from cloisters and colleges at home, from monks and
missionaries abroad,- from all save one, Las Casas, whose devotion,
kindled at a purer source, was not, alas! permitted to send forth
its radiance far into the thick gloom by which he was encompassed.
No one partook more fully of the feelings above described than
Hernan Cortes. He was, in truth, the very mirror of the times in which
he lived, reflecting its motley characteristics, its speculative
devotion, and practical licence,- but with an intensity all his own.
He was greatly scandalised at the exhibition of the idolatrous
practices of the people of Cozumel, though untainted, as it would
seem, with human sacrifices. He endeavoured to persuade them to
embrace a better faith, through the agency of two ecclesiastics who
attended the expedition,- the licentiate Juan Diaz and Father
Bartolome de Olmedo.
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