Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/204

176 know that stone is stone, and God is God? Idiots may worship blocks—we do not. But where is God? Will you show him to us? Who can see him? How, then, shall the unthinking mob, the untaught, grovelling mass, worship him whom they see not? The idea of an unseen, intangible God is too abstract for them; they cannot grasp it. Devotion will die unless we give the vulgar mind something actual on which to rest. Therefore we give them idols. The mind is concentrated on this, and thence ascends to God.”

“And how, pray, is the worshipper to get an idea of God by staring at such a thing as that?” you rejoin, pointing to Ganesha, with his gross body, and head black with oily libations. “Will you fill your eyes with dirt, that you may see the glorious sun? Has God, the creator of all worlds, the Eternal and Infinite One, an elephant's head and such a misshapen body as that? Who has ascended on high and studied his untold glories to paint his picture or carve his likeness? Hear a tale. In a city of the South lived a kummarlen, (artisan,) a man of wonderful skill in carving images; whether it were wood or silver, stone or brass, he cared not. The land was filled with the