ady said of the Maya Kukulcan and the Aztec
Quetzalcoatl, to show this. Both are particularly noted as characters free
from the taint of indulgence.

Thus it occurred that the early monks often express surprise that these,
whom they chose to call savages and heathens, had developed a moral law of
undeniable purity. "The matters that Bochica taught," says the chronicler
Piedrahita, "were certainly excellent, inasmuch as these natives hold as
right to do just the same that we do." "The priests of these Muyscas," he
goes on to say, "lived most chastely and with great purity of life,
insomuch that even in eating, their food was simple and of small quantity,
and they refrained altogether from women and marriage. Did one transgress
in this respect, he was dismissed from the priesthood."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Las cosas que el Bochica les ensenaba eran buenas, siendo
assi, que tenian por malo lo mismo que nosotros tenemos por tal."
Piedrahita, _Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de
Granada_, Lib. i, Cap. iii.]

The prayers addressed to these deities breathe as pure a spirit of
devotion as many now heard in Christian lands. Change the names, and some
of the formulas preserved by Christobal de Molina and Sahagun would not
jar on the ears of a congregation in one of our own churches.

Although sanguinary rites were common, they were not usual in the worship
of these highest divinities, but rather as propitiations to the demons of
the darkness, or the spirits of the terrible phenomena of nature. The mild
god of light did not demand them.

To appreciate the effect of all this on the mind of the race, let it be
remembered that these culture-heroes were also the creators, the primal
and most potent of divinities, and that usually many temples and a large
corps of priests were devoted to their worship, at least in the nations of
higher civilization. These votaries were engaged in keeping alive the
myth, in impressing the supposed commands of the deity on the people, and
in imitating him in example and precept. Thus they had formed a lofty
ideal of man, and were publishing this ideal to their fellows. Certainly
this could not fail of working to the good of the nation, and of elevating
and purifying its moral conceptions.

That it did so we have ample evidence in the authentic accounts of the
ancient society as it existed before the Europeans destroyed and corrupted
it, and in the collections of laws, all distinctly stam