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 stamped with the seal of religion, which have been preserved, as they were in vogue in Anahuac, Utatlan, Peru and other localities.[1] Any one who peruses these will see that the great moral principles, the radical doctrines of individual virtue, were clearly recognized and deliberately enforced as divine and civil precepts in these communities.

Moreover, they were generally and cheerfully obeyed, and the people of many of these lands were industrious, peaceable, moral, and happy, far more so than they have ever been since.
[Footnote 1: The reader willing to pursue the argument further can find these collections of ancient American laws in Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, for Mexico; in Geronimo Roman, _Republica de las Indias Occidentales_, for Utatlan and other nations; for Peru in the _Relacion del Origen, Descendencia, Politica, y Gobierno de los Incas, por el licenciado Fernando de Santillan_ (published at Madrid.

1879); and for the Muyscas, in Piedrahita, _Hist.Gen.del Nuevo Reyno de Granada_, Lib.

ii, cap.