No matter how great a fraud a thing may have been or be, if it has passed
through many minds an aroma of life attaches to it and it must be handled
with a certain reverence. A thing or a thought becomes hallowed if it
has been long and strongly believed in, for veneration, after a time,
seems to get into the thing venerated. Look at Delphi—fraud of frauds,
yet sanctified by centuries of hope and fear and faith. If greater
knowledge shows Christianity to have been founded upon error, still
greater knowledge shows that it was aiming at a truth.