Thus, in their
enthusiasm--which is only a minor madness--whether the Hindoo bramin or
the Spanish bigot, the English roundhead or the follower of the "only
true faith" at Mecca, be understood, it is but a word and a blow--though
the word be a hurried prayer to the God of their adoration, and the blow
be aimed with all the malevolence of hell at the bosom of a
fellow-creature. There is no greater inconsistency in the one character
than in the other. The temperament which, under false tuition, makes the
zealot, and drives him on to the perpetration of wholesale murder, while
uttering a prayer to the Deity, prompts the same individual who, as an
assassin or a highwayman, cuts your throat, and picks your pocket, and
at the next moment bestows his ill-gotten gains without reservation upon
the starving beggar by the wayside.
There was yet another reason which swayed Munro not a little in his
determination, if possible, to save the youth--and this was a lurking
sentiment of hostility to Rivers.
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