and sacred things.


What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says
irreverence is lack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and
Chrishna, and his other gods, and for his sacred cattle, and for
his temples and the things within them. He endorses the
definition, you see; and there are 300,000,000 Hindus or their
equivalents back of him.

The dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it
could restrict irreverence to lack of reverence for OUR Deity and
our sacred things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea
miscarried: for by the simple process of spelling HIS deities with
capitals the Hindu confiscates the definition and restricts it to
his own sects, thus making it clearly compulsory upon us to revere
HIS gods and HIS sacred things, and nobody's else. We can't say a
word, for he has our own dictionary at his back, and its decision
is final.

This law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1. Whatever is
sacred to the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody
else; 2, whatever is sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence
by everybody else; 3, therefore, by consequence, logically, and
indisputably, whatever is sacred to ME must be held in reverence by
everybody else.

Now then, what aggravates me is, that these troglodytes and
muscovites and bandoleers and buccaneers are ALSO trying to crowd
in and share the benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere