in all ages after Christ.”  Far be it from me to deny it, or the similar horrors which he liberally shows flow from fanaticism.  But then, at other times, that quintessence of all abstractions which all religions alike contain—­the “absolute religion”—­imparts such perfume and appetizing relish to the whole composition, that, like Dominie Sampson in Meg Merrilies’s cuisine, Mr. P. finds the Devil’s cookery-book not despicable.  The things he so fearfully describes are but perversions of what is essentially good.  The “forms,” the “accidentals,” of different religions become of little consequence; whether it be Jehovah or Jupiter, the infinite Creator or a divine cat, a holy and gracious God that is loved, or an impure demon that is feared,—­all this is secondary, provided the principles of faith, simplicity, and earnestness—­that is, blind credulity and idiotic stupidity—­inspire the wretched votary; as if the perversions he deplores and condemns were not the necessary consequences of such religions themselves, or, rather, as if they were aught but the religions!  In virtue of the “absolute religion,” “many a savage smeared with human sacrifice,” and the Christian martyr perishing with a prayer for his persecutors, are hastening together to the celestial banquet.  I hope the “savage” will not go with “unwashen hands,” I trust he may be Pharisee enough for that; I also hope the two will not sit next one another; otherwise the savage may be tempted to offer up a second sacrifice, and the Christian martyr be a martyr a second time.  Hear him:—­“He that worships truly, by whatever form,”—­that is, who is sincere in his Fetichism, his idolatry, his sacrifices, though they may be human, —­“worships the only God; he hears the prayer, whether called Brahma, Pan, or Lord, or called by no name at all.  Each people has its prophets and its saints; and many a swarthy Indian who bowed down to wood and stone,—­many a grim-faced Calmuck, who worshipped the great God of Storms,—­many a Grecian peasant who did homage to Phoebus Apollo when the sun rose or went down,—­yes, many a savage, his hands smeared all over with human sacrifice,—­shall come from the East and the West, and sit down in the kingdom of God, with Moses and Zoroaster, with Socrates and Jesus.” (Discourses, p. 83) The charity which hopes that men may be forgiven the crime of “religions” which, if there be a God at all, must be “abominations,” one can understand; but these maudlin apologies for the religions themselves, —­as if they were not themselves crimes, and involved crimes in their very practice,—­I do not understand.  According to this, all that man has to do is to be sincere in any thing, however diabolical, and it is at once transmuted into a virtue which nothing less than heaven can reward!