"If in China or among the natives of India, we claimed civil
advantages which were connected with religious usages, little as
we might value those forms in our hearts, we should think common
decency required us to abstain from treating them with offensive
contumely; and, though unable to consider them sacred, we would not
sneer at the name of _Fot_, or laugh at the imputed divinity
of _Visthnou_."--_Courier, Tuesday. Jan_. 16.
1827.
Come take my advice, never trouble your cranium,
When "civil advantages" are to be gained,
What god or what goddess may help to obtain you 'em,
Hindoo or Chinese, so they're only obtained.
In this world (let me hint in your organ auricular)
All the good things to good hypocrites fall;
And he who in swallowing creeds is particular,
Soon will have nothing to swallow at all.
Oh place me where _Fo_ (or, as some call him, _Fot_)
Is the god from whom "civil advantages" flow,
And you'll find, if there's anything snug to be got,
I shall soon be on excellent terms with old _Fo_.
Or were I where _Vishnu_, that four-handed god,
Is the quadruple giver of pensions and places,
I own I should feel it unchristian and odd
Not to find myself also in _Vishnu's_ good graces.
For among all the gods that humanely attend
To our wants in this planet, the gods to _my_ wishes
Are those that, like _Vishnu_ and others, descend
In the form so attractive, of loaves and of fishes![1]
So take my advice--for if even the devil
Should tempt men again as an idol to try him,
'Twere best for us Tories even then to be civil,
As nobody doubts we should get something by him.
[1] Vishnu was (as Sir W. Jones calls him) "a pisciform god,"--his first
Avatar being in the shape of a fish.