ristian church like this. He
mentioned two. One was a Roman Catholic chapel, the other an English
church.

What could I say? They bear our name; how could he understand the
divisions that rend us asunder?--Romanists, Ritualists, and
Protestants--are we not all called Christians?

I looked again, and I could not help being struck with the resemblance.
The altar with its brasses and flowers and candlesticks, and the little
shelf above; the pictures on the walls; the chair, so like a Bishop's
chair of state; the whole air of the place heavy with incense, was
redolent of Rome.

He went on to explain, while I stood there ashamed. "Look, have you not
got that?" and he pointed to the altar-like erection, with the red cloth
and the flowers.

"We have nothing of the sort in our church. Come and see; we have only a
table," I said; but he laughed and declared he had seen it in other
churches, and it was just like ours, "only yours has a cross above it,
and ours has images; but you bow to your cross, so it must represent a
divinity," and, without waiting for any reply, he pointed next to the
pictures.

"They are very like yours, I think," he said, only yours show your God
on a cross, stretched out and dying--so"--And he stretched out his
arms, and dropped his head, and said something which cannot be
translated; and I could not look or listen, but broke in earnestly:

"Indeed, we have no such pictures--at least we here have not; but even
if some show such a picture, do they ever call it a picture of God? They
only say it is a picture of"--But he interrupted impatiently:

"Do not I know what they say?" And then, with a touch of scorn at what
he thought was an empty excuse on my part, he added, "We also say the
same" (which is true; no intelligent Hindu admits that he worships idols
or pictures; he worships what these things represent). "Your people show
your symbols," he continued, in the tone of one who is sure of his
ground, "exactly as we show ours. I have seen your God on a great sheet
at night; it was shown by means of a magic lamp; and sometimes you make
it of wood or brass, as we make ours of stone. The name may change and
the manner of making, but the thing's essence is the same."

"The Mohammedans do not show their God's symbol; but we do, and so do
the Christians. Therefore between us and the Christians there is more in
common than between the Mohammedans and us." This was another Hindu's
contribution to the argum