146 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



for it Avoiilcl be sad enoiigli if history were to jnstify the 

 fatal and cowardly instinct which drags nations into 

 the arms of despotism ! However that may be, the Incas 

 had breathed into their government the spirit of religion 

 under the noblest and sweetest form that the worship of 

 nature could possibly assume. They looked upon that 

 orb of which tlie Psalmist has sung as the tabernacle 

 JehoA'ah,* and not daring to raise their homage to the 

 invisible God, whom they nevertheless acknowledged,! 

 they hailed witli joyful adoration the dazzling symbol of 

 his power and goodness — the Sun ! Under the influence 

 of this paternal absolutism and these ennobling super- 

 stitions, a civilization was moulded, far inferior to ours, 

 I need not say, but far superior to that of the other 

 countries of America, especially of the Mexican empire. 

 It was a stock all ready to be grafted with the divine 

 scion of Christianity. 



At this very time — for all things are Avoven into the 

 designs of Providence and the woof of humanity — Eu- 

 rope Avas ready for a Avork hitherto unknoAvn. God had 

 been preparing her for it for fifteen centuries. From 

 the beginning, he had sent forth to her from Zion his 

 Bible and his Church, by the hand of his greatest 

 apostles ; he had renewed the youth of lier races by the 

 blood of the Barbarians, of her languages by the theol- 

 ogy of the Greek and Latin fathers ; he had fashioned 

 her institutions under the discipline, sometimes mild, 

 sometimes harsh, of the Eoman pontiffs. As the hour 

 drcAv near, he shoAvered lavishly upon her the discoveries 

 of genius — the compass to guide lier across the seas, 

 printing to multiply and immortalize her thought, the 



* Psalm xix. 4. 



t The Peruvians, like po many other of the Indian raco!>, recognized a Su- 

 preme Being, Creator and Ilulcr of the Universe They reared no tcmplo 



to thlR invipihlo Bc'wg.—Prescott, Ilhlori/ of the Conquest of Pm^u. 



