style="font-size:15px;"> ‘We Christians are not image-worshippers,’ said I.
‘You heretics are not, you mean,’ said the man in black; ‘but you will be put down, just as you have always been, though others may rise up after you; the true religion is image-worship; people may strive against it, but they will only work themselves to an oil; how did it fare with that Greek Emperor, the Iconoclast, what was his name, Leon the Isaurian? Did not his image-breaking cost him Italy, the fairest province of his empire, and did not ten fresh images start up at home for every one which he demolished? Oh! you little know the craving which the soul sometimes feels after a good bodily image.’
‘I have indeed no conception of it,’ said I; ‘I have an abhorrence of idolatry—the idea of bowing before a graven figure.’
‘The idea, indeed,’ said Belle, who had now joined us.
‘Did you never bow before that of Shakespeare?’ said the man in black, addressing himself to me, after a low bow to Belle.
‘I don’t remember that I ever did,’ said I, ‘but even suppose I did?’
‘Suppose you did,’ said the man in black: ‘shame on you, Mr. Hater of Idolatry; why the very supposition brings you to the ground; you must make figures of Shakespeare, must you? then why not of St. Antonio, or Ignacio, or of a greater personage still? I know what you are going to say,’ he cried, interrupting me as I was about to speak. ‘You don’t make his image in order to pay it Divine honours, but only to look at it, and think of Shakespeare; but this looking at a thing in order to think of a person is the very basis of idolatry. Shakespeare’s works are not sufficient for you; no more are the Bible or the legend of St. Anthony or St. Ignacio for us, that is for those of us who believe in them; I tell you, Zingaro, that no religion can exist long which rejects a good bodily image.’
‘Do you think,’ said I, ‘that Shakespeare’s works would not exist without his image?’
‘I believe,’ said the man in black, ‘that Shakespeare’s image is looked at more than his works, and will be looked at, and perhaps adored, when they are forgotten. I am surprised that they have not been forgotten long ago; I am no admirer of them.’
‘But I can’t imagine,’ said I, ‘how you will put aside the authority of Moses. If Moses strove against image-worship, should not his doing so be conclusive as to the impropriety of the practice; what higher authority can you have than that of Moses?’
‘The practice of the great majority of the human race,’ said the man in black, ‘and the recurrence to image-worship, where image-worship has been abolished. Do you know that Moses is considered by the Church as no better than a heretic, and though, for particular reasons, it has been obliged to adopt his writings, the adoption was merely a sham one, as it never paid the slightest attention to them? No, no, the Church was never led by Moses, nor by one mightier than he, whose doctrine it has equally nullified—I allude to Krishna in his second avatar; the Church, it is true, governs in his name, but not unfrequently gives him the lie, if he happens to have said anything which it dislikes. Did you never hear the reply which Padre Paolo Segani made to the French Protestant, Jean Anthoine Guerin, who had asked him whether it was easier for Christ to have been mistaken in His Gospel, than for the Pope to be mistaken in his decrees?’
‘I never heard their names before,’ said I.
‘The answer was pat,’ said the man in black, ‘though he who made it was confessedly the most ignorant fellow of the very ignorant order to which he belonged, the Augustine. Christ might err as a man,’ said he, ‘but the Pope can never err, being God. The whole story is related in the Nipotismo.’
‘I wonder you should ever have troubled yourselves with Christ at all,’ said I.
‘What was to be done?’ said the man in black; ‘the power of that name suddenly came over Europe, like the power of a mighty wind; it was said to have come from Judea, and from Judea it probably came when it first began to agitate minds in these parts; but it seems to have been known in the remote East, more or less for thousands of years previously. It filled people’s minds with madness; it was followed by books which were never much regarded, as they contained little of insanity; but the name! what fury that breathed into people! the books were about peace and gentleness, but the name was the most horrible of war-cries—those who wished to uphold old names at first strove to oppose it, but their efforts were feeble, and they had no good war-cry; what was Mars as a war-cry compared with the name of ---? It was said that they persecuted terribly, but who said so? The Christians. The Christians could have given them a lesson in the art of persecution, and eventually did so. None but Christians have ever been good persecutors; well, the old religion succumbed, Christianity prevailed, for the ferocious is sure to prevail over the gentile.’
‘I thought,’ said I, ‘you stated a little time ago that the Popish religion and the ancient Roman are the same?’
‘In every point but that name, that Krishna and the fury and love of persecution which it inspired,’ said the man in black. ‘A hot blast came from the East, sounding Krishna; it absolutely maddened people’s minds, and the people would call themselves his children; we will not belong to Jupiter any longer, we will belong to Krishna; and they did belong to Krishna, that is in name, but in nothing else; for who ever cared for Krishna in the Christian world, or who ever regarded the words attributed to him, or put them in practice?’
‘Why, we Protestants regard his words, and endeavour to practise what they enjoin as much as possible.’
‘But you reject his image,’ said the man in black; ‘better reject his words than his image: no religion can exist long which rejects a good bodily image. Why, the very negro barbarians of High Barbary could give you a lesson on that point; they have their fetish images, to which they look for help in their afflictions; they have likewise a high priest, whom they call—’
‘Mumbo Jumbo,’ said I; ‘I know all about him already.’
‘How came you to know anything about him?’ said the man in black, with a look of some surprise.
‘Some of us poor Protestant tinkers,’ said I, ‘though we live in dingles, are also acquainted with a thing or two.’
‘I really believe you are,’ said the man in black, staring at me; ‘but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, I once met at Rome.’
‘It would be quite unnecessary,’ said I; ‘I would much sooner hear you talk about Krishna, his words and image.’
‘Spoken like a true heretic,’ said the man in black; ‘one of the faithful would have placed his image before his words; for what are all the words in the world compared with a good bodily image?’
‘I believe you occasionally quote his words?’ said I.
‘He! he!’ said the man in black; ‘occasionally.’
‘For example,’ said I, ‘upon this rock I will found my Church.’
‘He! he!’ said the man in black; ‘you must really become one of us.’
‘Yet you must have had some difficulty in getting the rock to Rome?’
‘None whatever,’ said the man in black; ‘faith can remove mountains, to say nothing of rocks—ho! ho!’
