Neither am I by any means sure that these were not the best of
the priests.
Ydgrun certainly occupied a very anomalous position; she was held to be
both omnipresent and omnipotent, but she was not an elevated conception,
and was sometimes both cruel and absurd. Even her most devoted
worshippers were a little ashamed of her, and served her more with heart
and in deed than with their tongues. Theirs was no lip service; on the
contrary, even when worshipping her most devoutly, they would often deny
her. Take her all in all, however, she was a beneficent and useful
deity, who did not care how much she was denied so long as she was obeyed
and feared, and who kept hundreds of thousands in those paths which make
life tolerably happy, who would never have been kept there otherwise, and
over whom a higher and more spiritual ideal would have had no power.
I greatly doubt whether the Erewhonians are yet prepared for any better
religion, and though (considering my gradually strengthened conviction
that they were the representatives of the lost tribes of Israel) I would
have set about converting them at all hazards had I seen the remotest
prospect of success, I could hardly contemplate the displacement of
Ydgrun as the great central object of their regard without admitting that
it would be attended with frightful consequences; in fact were I a mere
philosopher, I should say that the gradual raising of the popular
conception of Ydgrun would be the greatest spiritual boon which could be
conferred upon them, and that nothing could effect this except example.
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