Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/322

Rh their appearance and mode of life, and also because Asia and America approach each other so nearly at this point, that the passage from one hemisphere to the other does not appear an improbable undertaking for bold coasting voyagers.

The Peruvians of South America, and those noble Aztecs, who possessed a splendid, though short-lived power, and whose noblest ruler spake words as wise and poetry as rich as that of King Solomon; these Indians, and those whose devastated cities have lately been discovered in Central America, were evidently of a higher race than the people of North America, and their remains, as well as all that is known of their manners and customs, prove them to be kindred to the noblest Asiatic races.

The zealous upholders of the doctrine that all mankind have descended from one single human pair, and who placed them in Asia, are reduced to great straits to explain the emigration of these various people from the mother country. I cannot understand why each hemisphere should not be considered as the mother country of its own people. The same power of nature, and the same creative power are able to produce a human pair in more than one place. And when God is the father, and nature the mother, then must indeed, in any case, the whole human race be brethren. And the Adamite pair may very well consider themselves as the elected human pair, sent to instruct and emancipate those young kindred-pairs which were still more in bondage than themselves to the life of earth. God forgive us for the manner in which we have most frequently fulfilled our mission.

But North America is not altogether to blame with regard to her Indians. If the Indian had been more susceptible of a higher culture, violence and arms would not have been used against him, as is now the case. And although the earlier missionaries, strong in faith, and filled with zealous ardour, succeeded in gathering