The Romany Rye. Borrow George
I was about to speak when I was interrupted by the arrival of Belle. After unharnessing her donkey and adjusting her person a little, she came and sat down by us. In the meantime I had helped my companion to some more hollands and water, and had plunged with him into yet deeper discourse.
CHAPTER III
NECESSITY OF RELIGION—THE GREAT INDIAN ONE—IMAGE-WORSHIP—SHAKESPEARE—THE PAT ANSWER—KRISHNA—AMEN
Having told the man in black that I should like to know all the truth with regard to the Pope and his system, he assured me he should be delighted to give me all the information in his power; that he had come to the dingle, not so much for the sake of the good cheer which I was in the habit of giving him, as in the hope of inducing me to enlist under the banners of Rome, and to fight in her cause; and that he had no doubt that, by speaking out frankly to me, he ran the best chance of winning me over.
He then proceeded to tell me that the experience of countless ages had proved the necessity of religion; the necessity, he would admit, was only for simpletons, but as nine-tenths of the dwellers upon this earth were simpletons, it would never do for sensible people to run counter to their folly, but, on the contrary, it was their wisest course to encourage them in it, always provided that, by so doing, sensible people could derive advantage; that the truly sensible people of this world were the priests, who, without caring a straw for religion for its own sake, made use of it as a cord by which to draw the simpletons after them; that there were many religions in this world, all of which had been turned to excellent account by the priesthood; but that the one the best adapted for the purposes of priestcraft was the popish, which, he said, was the oldest in the world and the best calculated to endure. On my inquiring what he meant by saying the popish religion was the oldest in the world, whereas there could be no doubt that the Greek and Roman religion had existed long before it, to say nothing of the old Indian religion still in existence and vigour, he said, with a nod, after taking a sip at his glass, that, between me and him, the popish religion, that of Greece and Rome, and the old Indian system were, in reality, one and the same.
‘You told me that you intended to be frank,’ said I, ‘but, however frank you may be, I think you are rather wild.’
‘We priests of Rome,’ said the man in black, ‘even those amongst us who do not go much abroad, know a great deal about church matters, of which you heretics have very little idea. Those of our brethren of the Propaganda, on their return home from distant missions, not unfrequently tell us very strange things relating to our dear mother: for example, our first missionaries to the East were not slow in discovering and telling to their brethren that our religion and the great Indian one were identical, no more difference between them than between Ram and Rome. Priests, convents, beads, prayers, processions, fastings, penances, all the same, not forgetting anchorites, and vermin, he! he! The Pope they found under the title of the Grand Lama, a sucking child surrounded by an immense number of priests. Our good brethren, some two hundred years ago, had a hearty laugh, which their successors have often re-echoed; they said that helpless suckling and its priests put them so much in mind of their own old man, surrounded by his cardinals, he! he! Old age is second childhood.’
‘Did they find Christ?’ said I.
‘They found him too,’ said the man in black, ‘that is, they saw His image; He is considered in India as a pure kind of being, and on that account, perhaps, is kept there rather in the back-ground, even as He is here.’
‘All this is very mysterious to me,’ said I.
‘Very likely,’ said the man in black; ‘but of this I am tolerably sure, and so are most of those of Rome, that modern Rome had its religion from ancient Rome, which had its religion from the East.’
‘But how?’ I demanded.
‘It was brought about, I believe, by the wanderings of nations,’ said the man in black. ‘A brother of the Propaganda, a very learned man, once told me—I do not mean Mezzofanti, who has not five ideas—this brother once told me that all we of the Old World, from Calcutta to Dublin, are of the same stock, and were originally of the same language, and—’
‘All of one religion,’ I put in.
‘All of one religion,’ said the man in black; ‘and now follow different modifications of the same religion.’
‘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