he would admit, was only
for simpletons, but as nine-tenths of the dwellers upon this earth were
simpletons, it would never do for sensible people to run counter to their
folly, but, on the contrary, it was their wisest course to encourage them
in it, always provided that, by so doing, sensible people could derive
advantage; that the truly sensible people of this world were the priests,
who, without caring a straw for religion for its own sake, made use of it
as a cord by which to draw the simpletons after them; that there were
many religions in this world, all of which had been turned to excellent
account by the priesthood; but that the one the best adapted for the
purposes of priestcraft was the popish, which, he said, was the oldest in
the world and the best calculated to endure. On my inquiring what he
meant by saying the popish religion was the oldest in the world, whereas
there could be no doubt that the Greek and Roman religion had existed
long before it, to say nothing of the old Indian religion still in
existence and vigour, he said, with a nod, after taking a sip at his
glass, that, between me and him, the popish religion, that of Greece and
Rome, and the old Indian system were, in reality, one and the same.

'You told me that you intended to be frank,' said I, 'but, however frank
you may be, I think you are rather wild.'

'We priests of Rome,' said the man in black, 'even those amongst us who
do not go much abroad, know a great deal about church matters, of which
you heretics have very little idea. Those of our brethren of the
Propaganda, on their return home from distant missions, not unfrequently
tell us very strange things relating to our dear mother: for example, our
first missionaries to the East were not slow in discovering and telling
to their brethren that our religion and the great Indian one were
identical, no more difference between them than between Ram and Rome.
Priests, convents, beads, prayers, processions, fastings, penances, all
the same, not forgetting anchorites, and vermin, he! he! The Pope they
found under the title of the Grand Lama, a sucking child surrounded by an
immense number of priests. Our good brethren, some two hundred years
ago, had a hearty laugh, which their successors have often re-echoed;
they said that helpless suckling and its priests put them so much in mind
of their own old man, surrounded by his cardinals, he! he! Old age is
second childhood.'

'Did they find Ch