Contributor, v1 1879-1880 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Religion

Footnotes

1. The Nauvoo Martial Band afterwards fell under the leadership of Elisha Averett, and as "Averett's Band" was for some time known; later, Dimick Huntington took charge of it in the capacity of drum major; and it was from this beginning that "Dimick's Band" so popular with the boys of ten years ago, sprang and continued for many years. "The Word of Wisdom" is the best Temperance Pledge.

Vol. I. April, 1880. No. 7.

Montezuma. 1

I AM sitting under the shade of four time-scarred cypress trees, whose aggregate circumference exceeds one hundred and sixty feet. What thoughts crowd the mind as I see the kisses of the morning light resting on their feathery leaved drapery, as it bursts fresh and green amid festoons of hanging mosses grown grey and bronze with the lapse of ages.

Beneath the shadows of these same trees, more than three hundred and seventy years ago, sat Montezuma the Aztec monarch. The music of bubbling waters as they gushed from the porphyritic rocks of the royal hill, and sighed at his feet in the beating waves of Tezcuco, left sweet lingering sounds on his ear. "The myrtle, mingling its dark, glossy leaves with the red berries and delicate foliage of the pepper tree," and other enchanting beauties of smiling nature gladdened his eye, while the delicious fragrance of honeysuckle bowers and flowery islands, rocking on the fair bosom of the lake, was wafted to the lordly king.

Here it was, as, hand in hand, and heart bound to heart, that he told again the tale of love to his beloved, and loving wife, as together they reviewed the innocent days of his boyhood, and once more remembered the enchanting smiles and tender expressions of her sweet girlhood. Here it was, amid the cares of mature age, with honors like forest leaves strewn round him, that the warrior chief had his day-dreams of the coming white man of whom the oracles for centuries had spoken. And, with thoughts of him who should come from beyond the seas, future events, with a train of evils, cast their shadows around, more darkly than the moss-covered boughs overhanging his devoted head.

Amid surroundings of luxury and power-the will-o-th'-wisp of man's earthly peace and glory-the lispings of love were silenced by the foreshadowings of approaching events, beneath whose weight the once fearless monarch bowed as a broken reed in the rude blasts of the ocean-bred tempest. Hope died at its birth, and his unnerved hand trembled as it lifted to his thirsting lips a cooling draught in whose sparkling waters his fever-wrought mind saw a tinge of blood, to him a dark omen of ruin, woe and death!

Montezuma! At the sound of thy name the proud lords of Tezcuco and Tlacopan bowed in humble reverence and worshiped at the shrine of thy glory. Holding life and death at thy command; among thy vassal slaves supreme, who was it that made thee, haughty Indian chief, to pale and quake like an aspen leaf, to shrink and cower

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