There is nothing like this in the theories of men to account for the existence of these truths in America. In the first place let the reader be assured that it is quite generally conceded by the very best authorities that ideas closely analogous to Christian truths are found in the traditions of the native Americans. "Most ancient and modern authors," says De Roo, "agree in saying that the Christian religion has been taught on our [the American] continent at an epoch not so very much anterior to the Columbian discovery. Bastian establishes the latter opinion by the numerous analogies he points out between the religious belief and practices of the Christians and those of American aborigines. Von Humboldt admits the parity to be so striking as to have given the Spanish missionaries a fine opportunity to deceive the natives by making them believe that their own was none other than the Christian religion. 'Not a single American missionary who has, until this day, left any writing has forgotten to notice the evident vestiges of Christianity which has in former time penetrated even among the most savage tribes,' says Dr. de Mier, commenting on Sahagun's History. Quite a number of ancient writers, such as Garcilasso de la Vega, Solorzano, Acosta, and others are equally explicit in asserting that several Christian tenets and practices were found among our aborigines; but they deny their introduction by Christian teachers, giving, strange to say, to the devil the honor of spreading the light of Christianity, in spite of his hatred of it." [17] Later he says: No modern student of American antiquity fails to notice the close and striking resemblances between several leading particulars of Christian faith, morals, and ceremonies and those of ancient American religions. Sahagun, who wrote in Mexico about the middle of the sixteenth century, and took such great pains to be correctly informed in regard to all religious rites of our aborigines, states already that all the Spanish missionaries who wrote in America before him had pointed out the numerous vestiges of Christianity to be found even among the savage Indian tribes. [18] Devil propaganda of Christianity was quite a favorite theory with many of the early Spanish writers, while others advanced the theory that Christian apostles had evangelized the western hemisphere. Among the latter was the Archbishop of San Domingo, Davilla Padilli, a royal chronicler who wrote a book to prove that Christian apostles had formerly preached in the West Indies. So also Torquemada holds the same opinion, although he admits of the possibility of the devil teaching Christianity. More modern writers seek to account for the existence of these Christian analogies in other ways. Prescott for instance, in his Conquest of Peru, says: