"[75-1] It were not difficult to
extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be
remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought
and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it
further be considered what support this association receives from the
power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and
the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels
the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh
the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and
usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they
intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem
strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the
mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld
the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who dwell
at the four corners of the earth--at the north, at the south, at the
east, and at the west," commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods
of the showers.
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