m, as
expressed in usage and custom.

[Footnote 1: "Alle Sitten sind sittlich." Lazarus, _Ursprung der Sitte_,
S. 5, quoted by Roskoff. I hardly need mention that our word _morality_,
from _mos_, means by etymology, simply what is customary and of current
usage. The moral man is he who conforms himself to the opinions of the
majority. This is also at the basis of Robert Browning's definition of a
people: "A people is but the attempt of many to rise to the completer life
of one" (_A Soul's Tragedy_).]

Even the religion which demands bloody sacrifices, which forces its
votaries to futile and abhorrent rites, is at least training its adherents
in the virtues of obedience and renunciation, in endurance and confidence.

But concerning American religions I need not have recourse to such a
questionable vindication. They held in them far nobler elements, as is
proved beyond cavil by the words of many of the earliest missionaries
themselves. Bigoted and bitter haters of the native faiths, as they were,
they discovered in them so much that was good, so much that approximated
to the purer doctrines that they themselves came to teach, that they have
left on record many an attempt to prove that there must, in some remote
and unknown epoch, have come Christian teachers to the New World, St.
Thomas, St. Bartholomew, monks from Ireland, or Asiatic disciples, to
acquaint the natives with such salutary doctrines. It is precisely in
connection with the myths which I have been relating in this volume that
these theories were put forth, and I have referred to them in various
passages.

The facts are as stated, but the credit of developing these elevated moral
conceptions must not be refused to the red race. They are its own
property, the legitimate growth of its own religious sense.

The hero-god, the embodiment of the Light of Day, is essentially a moral
and beneficent creation. Whether his name be Michabo, Ioskeha, or
Quetzalcoatl, Itzamna, Viracocha or Tamu, he is always the giver of laws,
the instructor in the arts of social life, the founder of commonwealths,
the patron of agriculture. He casts his influence in favor of peace, and
against wars and deeds of violence. He punishes those who pursue iniquity,
and he favors those who work for the good of the community.

In many instances he sets an example of chaste living, of strict
temperance, of complete subjection of the lusts and appetites. I have but
to refer to what I have alre