Hear also the Inca prayer to the Creator, as chanted by the priests and nobles of Peru:
Oh Creator: Thou art without equal unto the ends of the earth! Thou who givest life and strength to mankind, saying, let this be a man and let this be a woman. And as thou sayest, so thou givest life, and vouchsafest that man shall live in health and peace, and free from danger. Thou who dwellest in the heights of heaven, in the thunder and in the storm-clouds, hear us. Grant us eternal life and have us in thy keeping.
THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATION: RUINS OF MITLA, MEXICO.
Vol. I. To face p. 60.
This last is from the Rites and Laws of the Incas.[5] It is but one of many similar prayers, which, as regards sentiment and language, might be taken from the Bible and Church Service.
These prayers to the Unknown God, written by the early people of America, cut off from any contact with the Old World, would seem to show that man, in the reaction from his environment, inevitably develops within him the conception of a supreme deity.
It now remains for us to choose how we shall approach the Spanish American lands. Shall we cross the Spanish Main, and land where Cortes did at Vera Cruz, the city of the True Cross, and so enter Mexico? Or shall we, still crossing the American Mediterranean, land on the Isthmus of Panama and thence, as Pizarro did, voyage along the great Pacific coast to mysterious Peru? Or shall we take steamer to the River Plate, that more prosaic route to the lands of corn and cattle? Or shall we go round the Horn? Perhaps the middle course is best, and, at the isthmus, we will first explore Central America.