ence was amongst the intimations of man's
religious nature; one contending that it was, another that it was
not, and Fellowes, as usual, with several more of the company,
declaring that their consciousness told them nothing about the
matter either way. But when some one further declared, amidst these
very disputes, that this internal revelation was so clear and plain
as not only to anticipate and supersede any "external" revelation,
but to render it "impossible" to be given, our host suddenly broke
out into a fit of laughter. The disputants were silent, and every
one looked to him for an explanation. He seemed to feel that it was
due, and, after apologizing for his rudeness, said, that, while
some of them were asserting man's clear internal revelation, he
could not help thinking of the whimsical contrast presented by the
diversified speculations and opinions of even this little party,
and the infinitely more whimsical contrast presented by the gross
delusions of polytheism and superstition, which in such endless
variations of form and unchanging identity of folly had misled
the nations of the earth for so many thousands of years: "And just
then," said he, "it occurred to me what a curious commentary it
would be on the asserted unity and sufficiency of 'internal
revelation,' if the 'Great Exhibition of the Industry of all
Nations' were followed up by a 'Great Exhibition of the Idolatry
of all Nations' under the same roof. Thither night be brought
specimens of the ingenious handicraft of men in the manufacture
of deities; we might have the whole process, in all its varieties,
complete; the raw material of a God in a block of stone or wood,
and the most finished specimen in the shape of a Phidian Jupiter;
the countless bits of trumpery which Fetichism has ever consecrated;
the divine monsters of ancient Egypt, and the equally divine
monsters of modern India; the infinite array of grim deformities
hallowed by American, Asiatic, and African superstition. I imagined,
notwithstanding the vastness of that Crystal Pantheon, there would
still be crowds of their godships who would be obliged to wait
outside, having come too late to exhibit their perfections to
advantage. However, as I went in fancy up the long aisles, and saw,
to the right and the left, the admiring crowds of worshippers,
grimacing, and mowing, and prostrating themselves, with a folly
which might lead one reasonably to suppose, that, miserable as
were the gods, t