“Then it serves his turn,” said Harrington; “and he says the contrary, when it serves his turn; then the depraved forms of religion are hideous enough:  when he wishes to commend his ‘absolute religion,’ they differ in circumstantials.  Circumstantials!  I have hardly patience to hear these degrading apologies for all that is most degrading in humanity.  If the ‘absolute religion,’ as he vaguely calls it, be present in these of gross ignorance and unspeakable pollution, it is so incrusted and buried that it is indiscernible and worthless.  Rightly, therefore, have you expressed a hope that there is a ‘prodigious difference’ between you a Hottentot.  You adhere to that, I presume.”

“Of course I shall,” said Fellowes.

“Well, let us see.  Would you think, if you were turned into a Hottentot to-morrow, you had a religion worthy of the name, or not?”

“I am afraid I should not.”

“You hope it, you mean.  Well, then, it appears that culture and education do somehow make all difference between a man’s having a religion worthy of the name, and the contrary?”

“I must admit it, for I cannot deny it in point of fact.”

“And you also admit that, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, or in a much larger proportion, taking all the nations of the world since time began, the said culture and education have been wanting, or ineffably bad?”

“Yes.”

“So that there have been very few, in point of fact, who have attained that ‘spiritual’ religion for which you and our spiritualists contend; and those few chiefly, as Mr. Newman admits, amongst Jews and Christians, though they too have had their most grievous errors, which have deplorably obscured it?”

“Yes”

“It appears, then, I think, that if we allow that the internal revelation without a most happy external culture and development will not form any religion at all worthy of the name, and that that happy culture and development (from whatsoever cause) are not the condition of our race,—­it appears, I say, rather odd to affirm that any divine aid in this absolutely necessary external education of humanity is not only superfluous, but impossible.”

Another pause ensued, when Harrington again said, “You will think me very pertinacious, perhaps, but I must say that, in my judgment, Mr. Newman’s theory of progressive religion (for he also admits a doctrine of progress) favors the same sceptical doubts as to the impossibility of a book-revelation.  You do not deny, I suppose, that he does think the world needs enlightening?”

“Had he not believed that, he would not have written.’

“I suppose not.  However, how the world should need it, if your principles be true, and every man brings into the world his own particular lantern,—­’Enter Moonshine,’—­I do not quite understand; or, if it is in need of such illumination not withstanding, why it should not be possible for an external revelation to supply it still better than your illuminati, I am equally unable to understand.  But let that pass.  Mr. Newman concludes that the world does stand in need of this illumination, and that it has had it at various times.  In is his opinion, is it not, that men began by being polytheists and idolaters?”