Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/166

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

be saved from anarchy? whilst Newman puts to himself the question, How are these men to be saved from atheism? Both saw the perils of free inquiry divorced from practical affairs.

If either of these great men has been guilty of intellectual excesses, those of Burke may be attributed to his dread of anarchy, those of Newman to his dread of atheism. Neither of them was prepared to rest content with a scien- tific frontier, an imaginary line. So much did they dread their enemy, so alive were they to the terrible strength of some of his positions, that they could not agree to dispense with the protection afforded by the huge mountains of prejudice and the ancient rivers of custom. The sincerity of either man can only be doubted by the bigot and the fool.

But, Burke, apart from his fears, had a con- stitutional love for old things, simply because they were old. Anything mankind had ever worshiped, or venerated, or obeyed, was dear to him. I have already referred to his provi- ding his Brahmins with a greenhouse for the pur- pose of their rites, which he watched from out- side with great interest. One can not fancy Cardinal Newman peeping through a window to see men worshiping false tho ancient gods. Warren Hastings's high-handed dealings with the temples and time-honored if scandalous cus- toms of the Hindus filled Burke with horror. So, too, he respected Quakers, Presbyterians, 142

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