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These last I have called "idolothytic" Christians, because I cannot devise a better name, not because it is strictly defensible etymologically. At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of his dinner had been previously offered to idols or not.
With these, and their relative merits and demerits, I have nothing to do; but this it is needful for my purpose to say, that if the religion of the present differs from that of the past, it is because the theology of the present has become more scientific than that of the past; because it has not only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs: and of cherishing the noblest and most human of man's emotions, by worship "for the most part of the silent sort" at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable.
He secreted the gold for his own use, but gave the idols to Grijalva; who afterwards learnt the circumstances of the gold, which he ordered Pardo to surrender, but gave it back to the poor man, only reserving the fifth for the king, the whole not exceeding the value of eighty crowns.
And when it was all finished, the people went out of their own accord, and destroyed utterly all the idols, and high places, and altars throughout the land, and returned to their houses in peace. Now does not all this sound very satisfactory and excellent? What better state of mind could people be in? What a wonderful reform, and spread of true religion!
It was the battle-song that brought back the young recruit's courage. Almost before the last note sounded he began to speak. His voice rang out bold and unafraid over the crowd of angry heathen. "I am a Christian!" he said distinctly. "I worship the true God. I cannot worship idols," with a gesture toward the temple door, "that rats can destroy. I am not afraid. I love Jesus.
At first the natives refused to listen to what he had to say; but after a week's residence among them, Tararo came to him and said that he wished to become a Christian and would burn his idols. He proved himself to be sincere, for, as we have seen, he persuaded all his people to do likewise.
However, I had then nothing to do with Tennyson's comparative claim on my adoration; there was for the time no parallel for him in the whole range of literary divinities that I had bowed the knee to. For that while, the temple was not only emptied of all the other idols, but I had a richly flattering illusion of being his only worshipper.
The catalonas uttered prayers and performed other ceremonies to the idols for the sick; and they believed in omens and superstitions, with which the devil inspired them, whereby they declared whether the patient would recover or die. Such were their cures and methods, and they used various kinds of divinations for all things.
They make a circle of water round about their pots and pray, divers sitting by them, and one in particular who reaches the pots to them; and they say certain words many times over the pots, and when they have done, they go to their idols, before which they strew their sacrifices, which they think very holy, and mark many of those who sit by in the foreheads, which they esteem highly.
'Dare not to speak that holy Name, apostate and worshipper of idols, eater of human flesh. Let Sarceda be summoned. A messenger went out, and for a while there was silence. I caught Marina's glance and saw pity in her gentle eyes.
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