Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/186

175 ion of the harangue, the native preacher and doctor scattered some dust of flowers and water on the ground, which was the highest ceremony he could perform.

No doubt some may smile at the foolishness of the Indian preacher, medicine man or by whatever appellation he is known, but is it foolish to adore the sun? Does it not create everything, especially vegetable life, which every animate thing must have directly or indirectly to exist? With all deference to verses 11 and 12, Genesis First, as follows: "And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after bis land, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind: and God saw that it was good." We are informed by the Book of Books that God created vegetation on the third day, and this was the day before the sun, moon and stars were brought into existence, they being created on the fourth day. Of course some astute, profound, and erudite ecclesiastics may be able to assign a reason for this seemingly unnatural freak, but "Nothing is impossible with God." We are permitting our thinking faculties to run in its natural channel, without bias, for from observation we know that vegetation if kept from the sun will not amount to much. So it would appear that the uneducated native was justified in his adoration of the life-giving power and furnace of the earth. If you were ever out on an awful night, suffering from the cold, and then