mfrodites, these blatherskites, these buccaneers, these
bandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence. It is detectable in every
utterance of theirs when they are talking about us. I am thankful that
in me there is nothing of that spirit. When a thing is sacred to me it
is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it. I cannot call to mind a
single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the
things which were sacred to other people. Am I in the right? I think
so. But I ask no one to take my unsupported word; no, look at the
dictionary; let the dictionary decide. Here is the definition:

_Irreverence_. The quality or condition of irreverence toward God
and sacred things.

What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says irreverence is
lack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other gods,
and for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things within
them. He endorses the definition, you see; and there are 300,000,000
Hindus or their equivalents back of him.

The dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could
restrict irreverence to lack of reverence for _our_ Deity and our sacred
things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for by the
simple process of spelling _his_ deities with capitals the Hindu
confiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus making
it clearly compulsory upon us to revere _his_ gods and _his_ sacred
things, and nobody's else. We can't say a word, for he has our own
dictionary at his back, and its decision is final.

This law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1. Whatever is sacred
to the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2, whatever
is sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody else; 3,
therefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably, whatever is
sacred to _me_ must be held in reverence by everybody else.

Now then, what aggravates me is, that these troglodytes and muscovites
and bandoleers and buccaneers are _also_ trying to crowd in and share the
benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and
hold him sacred. We can't have that: there's enough of us already. If
you go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will
presently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the
_only_ ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly
reverent toward them or suffer for i