upon the children that are in the cradles, upon those that can not walk Have mercy also, O Lord, upon the poor and very miserable, who have nothing to eat, nor to cover themselves withal, nor a place to sleep, who do not know what thing a happy day is, whose days pass altogether in pain, affliction, and sadness.  Than this, were it not better, O Lord, if thou shouldst forget to have mercy upon the soldiers and upon the men of war whom thou wilt have need of some time?  Behold, it is better to die in war and go to serve food and drink in the house of the Sun, than to die in this pestilence and descend to hades.  O most strong Lord, protector of all, lord of the earth, governor of the world and universal master, let the sport and satisfaction thou hast already taken in this past punishment suffice; make an end of this smoke and fog of thy resentment; quench also the burning and destroying fire of thine anger; let serenity come and clearness; let the small birds of thy people begin to sing and” (to) “approach the sun; give them QUIET WEATHER; so that they may cause their voices to reach thy highness, and thou mayest know them."[1]

Now it may be doubted by some whether this most extraordinary supplication could have come down from the Glacial Age; but it must be remembered that it may have been many times repeated in the deep cavern before the terror fled from the souls of the desolate fragment of the race; and, once established as a religious prayer, associated with such dreadful events, who would dare to change a word of it?

[1.  Bancroft’s “Native Races,” vol. iii, p. 200.]

{p. 191}

Who would dare, among ourselves, to alter a syllable of the “Lord’s Prayer”?  Even though Christianity should endure for ten thousand years upon the face of the earth; even though the art of writing were lost, and civilization itself had perished, it would pass unchanged from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation, crystallized into imperishable diamonds of thought, by the conservative power of the religious instinct.

There can be no doubt of the authenticity of this and the other ancient prayers to Tezcatlipoca, which I shall quote hereafter.  I repeat what H. H. Bancroft says, in a foot-note, in his great work: 

“Father Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish Franciscan, was one of the first preachers sent to Mexico, where he was much employed in the instruction of the native youth, working for the most part in the province of Tezcuco.  While there, in the city of Tepeopulco, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, he began the work, best known to us as the ‘Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España,’ from which the above prayers have been taken.  It would be hard to imagine a work of such a character constructed after a better fashion of working than his.  Gathering the principal natives of the town in which he carried on his labors, he induced them to appoint him a number