The Gods are Hungry — A Reason For War

1874

Never did war, among either savage or civilized peoples, assume so sinister an aspect, as when it was carried on under the guise of religion, to furnish those human banquets which some peoples have thought it necessary to lay before their gods.

That "the gods were hungry," was the cause of wars among many ancient races, but notably so among the Mexicans. The object of wars among the Aztecs was far less territorial or personal aggrandizement, than the procuring of human victims to place before their deities.

More than two thousand of such victims, upon a moderate estimate, were annually sacrificed in the Mexican temples, and in some years more than a hundred thousand human beings are believed to have perished in this manner.

They also had a yearly sacrifice to one of their idols, in which the victim was a beautiful youth, who was worshiped as a god for a whole year before he was killed. — Scribner's Magazine.



Seraphinnis is a Russian monk who latterly founded a society to which women were admitted on condition that they cut off their hair. The beautiful appropriateness of this will be perceived when it is stated that his brother was an enterprising hair-dresser.



What wine is both food and drink? Port wine with a crust.