Chapter 482

[←472]

Ibid., pp. 432, 433. This is about as just as though, a few millenniums hence, a fanatic of some future new creed, who was bent upon glorifying his religion at the expense of ancient Christianity, were to say: Everywhere the quadruped lamb was adored. The nun, calling it the Agnus, placed it on her bosom; the priest laid it on the altar. It figured in every Paschal meal, and was glorified loudly in every temple. And yet the Christians dreaded it and hated it, for they slew and devoured it. Heathens, at any rate, do not eat their sacred symbols. We know of no serpent or reptile-eaters, except in Christian civilized countries, where they begin with frogs and eels, and must end with real snakes, as they have begun with lamb and ended with horse-flesh.