“Why, we Protestants regard his words, and endeavour to practise what they enjoin as much as possible.”
“But you reject his image,” said the man in black; “better reject his words than his image: no religion can exist long which rejects a good bodily image. Why, the very negro barbarians of High Barbary could give you a lesson on that point; they have their fetish images, to which they look for help in their afflictions; they have likewise a high priest, whom they call—”
“Mumbo Jumbo,” said I; “I know all about him already.”
“How came you to know anything about him?” said the man in black, with a look of some surprise.
“Some of us poor Protestant tinkers,” said I, “though we live in dingles, are also acquainted with a thing or two.”
“I really believe you are,” said the man in black, staring at me; “but, in connection with this Mumbo Jumbo, I could relate to you a comical story about a fellow, an English servant, I once met at Rome.”
“It would be quite unnecessary,” said I; “I would much sooner hear you talk about Krishna, his words and image.”
“Spoken like a true heretic,” said the man in black; “one of the faithful would have placed his image before his words; for what are all the words in the world compared with a good bodily image!”
“I believe you occasionally quote his words?” said I.
“He! he!” said the man in black; “occasionally.”
“For example,” said I, “upon this rock I will found my Church.”
“He! he!” said the man in black; “you must really become one of us.”
“Yet you must have had some difficulty in getting the rock to Rome?”
“None whatever,” said the man in black; “faith can remove mountains, to say nothing of rocks—ho! ho!”
“But I cannot imagine,” said I, “what advantage you could derive from perverting those words of Scripture in which the Saviour talks about eating His body.”
“I do not know, indeed, why we troubled our heads about the matter at all,” said the man in black; “but when you talk about perverting the meaning of the text, you speak ignorantly, Mr. Tinker; when He whom you call the Saviour gave His followers the sop, and bade them eat it, telling them it was His body, He delicately alluded to what it was incumbent upon them to do after His death, namely, to eat His body.”