Yea, what doest thou now, O Lord, most strong, compassionate, invisible, and impalpable, whose will all things obey, upon whose disposal depends the rule of the world, to whom all are subject,--what in thy divine breast
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hast thou decreed? Peradventure, hast thou altogether forsaken thy nation and thy people? Hast thou verily determined that it utterly perish, and that there be no more memory of it in the world, that the peopled place become a wooded hill, and A WILDERNESS OF STONES? Peradventure, wilt thou permit that the temples, and the places of prayer, and the altars, built for thy service, be razed and destroyed, and no memory of them left?
"Is it, indeed, possible that thy wrath and punishment and vexed indignation are altogether implacable, and will go on to the end to our destruction? Is it already fixed in thy divine counsel that there is to be no mercy nor pity for us, until the arrows of thy fury are spent to our utter perdition and destruction? Is it possible that this lash and chastisement is not given for our correction and amendment, but only for our total destruction and obliteration; that THE SUN SHALL NEVER MORE SHINE UPON US, but that we must remain in PERPETUAL DARKNESS and silence; that never more wilt thou look upon us with eyes of mercy, neither little nor much?
"Wilt thou after this fashion destroy the wretched sick that can not find rest, nor turn from side to side, whose mouth and teeth are filled with earth and scurf? It is a sore thing to tell how we are all in darkness, having none understanding nor sense to watch for or aid one another. We are all as drunken, and without understanding: without hope of any aid, already the little children perish of hunger, for there is none to give them food, nor drink, nor consolation, nor caress; none to give the breast to them that suck, for their fathers and mothers have died and left them orphans, suffering for the sins of their fathers."
What a graphic picture is all this of the remnant of a civilized religious race hiding in some deep cavern, in darkness, their friends slaughtered by the million by the falling stones, coming like arrows and spears, and the pestilence of poisonous gases; their food-supplies scanty; they themselves horrified, awe-struck, despairing, fearing that they would never again see the light; that this dreadful day was the end of the human race
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and of the world itself! And one of them, perhaps a priest, certainly a great man, wrought up to eloquence, through the darkness and the terror, puts up this pitiful and pathetic cry to the supreme God for mercy, for protection, for deliverance from the awful visitation.
How wonderful to think that the priesthood of the Aztecs have through ages preserved to us, down to this day, this cavern-hymn--one of the most ancient of the utterances of the heart of man extant on the earth--and have preserved it long after the real meaning of its words was lost to them!
The prayer continues