THREE hundred years have passed away since the men of the Old World spoiled and conquered Tahuantin Suyu. Those who did and those who suffered wrong have slept side by side for ages. The ancient Incas lie in glory "with kings and counselors of the earth, who have built desolate places for themselves, or with princes that had gold, and filled their houses with silver;" while their once happy subjects, doomed to toil in the service of the cruel stranger, have found repose at last, where "the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master." And the men who robbed and tortured them, who made their fair land a desolation, until the cry of it reached unto heaven, and those who were left alive envied those whom the sword had devoured,—they also have gone to render account of their deeds before Him who is the Judge of quick and dead.
Do we still say with the Inca's son, "Why God allowed these things to be, we know not"? Not altogether. First, let it he said, once for all, that beautiful-wonderfully beautiful-as the social polity of the Incas undoubtedly was, it was no more perfect than any other scheme which man has devised for making this earth the paradise it would have been if sin had never entered. Two defects may be specially mentioned; since these probably contained the seeds of dissolution for the whole magnificent and extensive fabric. The royal and privileged race—the Children of the Sun—stood too far above the people, and looked down on them from too lofty an eminence, as beings of quite another and a lower order. Not only had the Incas different ideas and traditions—it is said even a different language—but they had actually a different code of morality for themselves to that which they imposed on their subjects. Great liberties were allowed them: it is true that, in accordance with the beneficence which formed their distinguishing characteristic, they seem to have used them most mercifully,—yet still they used them. What were accounted vices in the people, were none in them; and here, perhaps, may really be found "the little speck within the garnered fruit" that, "rotting inwards," would by-and-by have slowly moldered all.
Moreover, the idea of freedom was unknown to them. While the Inca gave his subjects—and gave nobly, "as a king," to friend and foe alike—every other boon his hand could bestow, he never dreamed of giving them the rights of free men. Properly speaking, they were not men, they were children; to be cared for kindly, even tenderly; to be fed, and clothed, and housed; to have their work and their play, and plenty of the latter, duly apportioned them; and, in one word, to be made good and happy. It may be said, and truly, that in intelligence they were children, incapable of self-control and self-government. Still, the Inca's ideal fell below the Christian one in this, that he neither sought to raise them out of that condition, nor provided room for them should they desire to raise themselves. Under his system there was no growth, no freedom of choice; and there was to be none. Every man must be harm less, well-behaved, industrious, or there would be no room for him in Tahuantin Suyu. But a principle which should make a free man choose the good and refuse the evil, was amongst the things not revealed to the Children of the Sun.
But growth there must be, or decay will take its place. If the cruel white men from beyond the sea had not overwhelmed Tahuantin Suyu with swift destruction, it is still probable that the whole system would have melted gradually away, like a palace of ice, grand and beautiful, white and glistening with rainbow hues, but, from its very nature, unenduring. And the bloody civil war, which preceded and facilitated the conquest of the Spaniards, seems no doubtful indication of what might have taken place. One such tyrant as Atahualpa (who, it should however be remembered, was not a legitimate Inca) had it in his power to cause unspeakable confusion and misery, and to destroy the fruit of the beneficent labors of a long line of honored predecessors.
Perhaps, therefore, after all, it was not so dark and sad a fate for the Empire of the Incas to fall at once and in a single day almost from the very summit of prosperity, like a royal oak in the forest struck down by the tempest. If it was ever true of any empire (which is doubtful) that she "fell unwept, without a crime," it was true of Tahuantin Suyu. She and her children took, once for all, their place amongst the sufferers, not the doers, of wrong; the oppressed, not the oppressors. There can be no doubt which is the better place.
More to be desired was her doom, with all its anguish, than that of her destroyer and desolater, Spain. Here God's judgments are written on the page of history in characters of fire: " Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee I When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee." As Spain did to others, so was it done to her. From the foremost place amongst the nations of the earth, she was cast into the depths of a degradation far worse, far lower than that into which she plunged the Empire of the Incas. She robbed the stores of an industrious people, destroyed their water-courses, deprived them of the means of subsistence. And from that day, even to the present, want, and scarcity, and cleanness of teeth in all her cities has been her own portion. Her very nobles, amidst their pomp and pride, have hungered and suffered thirst; the children of her chiefs and conquerors have pined away, and their eyes have failed them for want of those common fruits of the field of which, under the Inca's beneficent sway, every poor man had enough and to spare. Well have the Despoplados of Spain—bare, and brown, and barren—avenged the fertile plains of Tahuantin Suyu, laid waste by the cruel stranger.
The punishment sprang naturally out of the offense. The booty was a weight round the neck of the robber that sank him to perdition. It was the gold of Peru that ruined Spain. When she put forth her hand and took it, she took the curse of God with it. To the proud and idle Castilian, the lord of the New World, industry became the brand of slavery; commerce, a degradation; trade, the appropriate work of Jews and infidels. All those useful arts which make a people's prosperity and happiness were neglected or despised. And the treasure that undermined the life and the energy of the nation, supplied at the same time fuel to sustain the fire of that long conflict which was the passion and the doom of the Spanish monarchy.
In the contest that followed the Reformation, Spain was the great champion of Rome. Spain and England stand out before us during the last half of the sixteenth century, representatives of the principles that were contending for the world's future; and sometimes the conflict seems almost narrowed to a duel between them. Victory for Spain, meant victory for Rome; meant kingly and priestly tyranny; the inquisition, the rack, and the stake. Victory for England, meant an open Bible, free thought, equal rights, liberty of conscience.
And the tide of battle ebbed and flowed; and flowed and ebbed again. Sometimes it seemed as if the God of battles would declare for His own cause; sometimes it looked as though He stood aloof, and did not heed what men were doing on the earth.
But amidst the din and smoke of the fiercest conflict, the enemies of Spain were joined by a vast and shadowy host. Their voices no man heard, their faces no man saw, their footfalls were noiseless as the snow, "their arrows drew no blood." Yet were they valiant warriors, who did good service in the cause of England, of truth, of freedom. The men of the New World,—"the men thrust through with the sword," the men slain by famine, by torture, by excessive toil and cruel blows,—they it was who "arose, every man in his place," and fought against Spain. The tale of their wrongs and sufferings flew like fire from heart to heart, from lip to lip, and nerved the arm of the avenger. Both on the land and on the wave the strength of the Englishman became "the strength of ten," to smite down the cruel Spaniard, and to keep the fair homes of his native land from the men who conquered Tahuantin Suyu. Noble hearts, like that of Raleigh, burned over the wrongs of the conquered race, and it was their cherished dream, and his, to restore the Empire of the Incas.
But this work was not given to him, or to any man, to accomplish. In God's providence empires and dynasties pass away, and come not again. "The old order changeth, giving place to new." Yet not the less, from age to age, He is above all, the God that giveth to every man, and to every nation, "according to their works.”
Still we must allow that dread mysteries, as yet but partially explained, underlie this and every other act in the great drama of human history. Questions arise within us to which man can give no answer, and to which God has given none—as yet. There are those amongst us who in secret "weep much," because the Book wherein are written the destinies of their race is sealed with seven seals, and no man is found worthy to open and to read it, neither to look thereon.
Let such accept the one thought of comfort that can avail to dry their tears: "Weep not; behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the Book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." None ever loved man as He did—He who died for man. Yet He knows all, from the beginning to the end. And He is satisfied.
Nay, more. He it is who shall be the Judge of man. Before His judgment-seat shall be gathered all nations—sons of Europe, who have known and dishonored Him; dusky children of the East and West, who have never heard His name. It is in His hand—the hand pierced for man—that the destinies of man are lying. Is there any heart amongst us not content to leave them there; not satisfied, to its inmost depths, by His own assurance, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter”