"
In this pitiable state were once the ancestors of all mankind.
If you doubt it, reader, peruse again the foregoing legends, and then
turn to the following Central American prayer, the prayer of the
Aztecs, already referred to on page 186, _ante_, addressed to the god
Tezcatlipoca, himself represented as a flying or winged serpent,
perchance the comet:
"Is it possible that this lash and chastisement are not given for our
correction and amendment, but only for our total destruction and
overthrow; that _the sun will never more shine upon us, but that we
must remain in perpetual darkness?_ . . . It is a sore thing to tell
how we are all in
{p. 229}
darkness. . . . O Lord, . . . make an end of _this smoke and fog_.
Quench also the _burning and destroying fire of thine anger_; let
serenity come and _clearness_," (light); "let the small birds of thy
people begin to sing and _approach the sun_."
There is still another Aztec prayer, addressed to the same deity,
equally able, sublime, and pathetic, which it seems to me may have
been uttered when the people had left their biding-place, when the
conflagration had passed, but while darkness still covered the earth,
before vegetation had returned, and while crops of grain as yet were
not.
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