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.