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 of persons, the most learned and experienced in the things of which he proposed to write. These learned Mexicans being collected, Father Sahagun was accustomed to get them to paint down in their native fashion the various legends, details of history and mythology, and so on, that he wanted; at the foot of the said. pictures these learned Mexicans wrote out the explanations of the same in the Mexican tongue; and this explanation the Father Sahagun translated into Spanish. That translation purports to be what we now read as the 'Historia General.'"[1] [1. "The Native Races of the Pacific States," vol. iii, p. 231.] {p. 192} Sahagun was a good and holy man, who was doubtless inspired of God, in the face of much opposition and many doubts, to perpetuate, for the benefit of the race, these wonderful testimonials of man's existence, condition, opinions, and feelings in the last great cataclysm which shook the whole world and nearly destroyed it. Religions may perish; the name of the Deity may change with race and time and tongue; but He can never despise such noble, exalted, eloquent appeals from the hearts of millions of men, repeated through thousands of generations, as these Aztec prayers have been. Whether addressed to Tezcatlipoca, Zeus, Jove, Jehovah, or God, they pass alike direct from the heart of the creature to the heart of the Creator; they are of the threads that tie together matter and spirit. In conclusion, let me recapitulate