"Why no, I did not; but, to tell you the truth. I now mean either; there not appearing to me much difference between them in this respect. Whether you worship an image of a 'winking virgin,' or, according to the other Dromio, the 'ideal' of an idolater,--whether (provided always it be with sincerity and trust!) you adore the Jehovah of the Hebrews, or 'the image which fell down from Jupiter,' ought to make, upon this theory, no great difference." "Well, in whatever difficulty the controversy may involve us, can we deny this conclusion?" "Truly," replied Harrington, "I think it does not involve me in any difficulty; it shows me that, if this be the 'faith' to which you attach so much importance, it really is not worth the powder and shot that must be expended in the controversy. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that I would rather be absolutely destitute of 'faith' altogether, than exercise the most absolute faith ever bestowed upon a tawdry image of the Virgin, or some misshapen beast of an idol of Hindoo or Hottentot workmanship." "Ah! my friend," cried Fellowes, "do not thus blaspheme the most holy feelings of humanity, however misapplied!" "I do not conceive that I do, in declaring abhorrence and contempt of such perversions of 'sentiment,' however 'holy' you may call them. Hideous as they are, however, they are less hideous than the half-length apologies for them on the part of cultivated and civilized human beings, like our 'spiritual' infidels. Your tenderness is ludicrously misplaced. I wonder whether the same apology would extend to those exercises of simple-minded 'faith' in which it is said that the Spanish and Portuguese pirates sometimes indulged, when they implored the benediction of their saints on their predatory expeditions! And yet I see not how it could be avoided; for the exorbitancies of these pirates were not more hateful to humanity than are the rites practices, and the duties enjoined, by many forms of religion. What delightful, ingenuous 'faith' and genuine 'simplicity' of mind did these pirates manifest!" "How can you talk so, when we make it a mark of a false revelation, that it contradicts any intuition of our moral nature?"