a
hereafter, and their only religion was that of self-respect and consideration
for other people), I never dared to take so great a liberty with them as to
attempt to put them in possession of my own religious convictions, in spite of
my knowing that they were the only ones which could make them really good and
happy, either here or hereafter. I did try sometimes, being impelled to do so by
a strong sense of duty, and by my deep regret that so much that was admirable
should be doomed to ages if not eternity of torture; but the words stuck in my
throat as soon as I began.
    Whether a professional missionary might have a better chance I know not;
such persons must doubtless know more about the science of conversion; for
myself, I could only be thankful that I was in the right path, and was obliged
to let others take their chance as yet. If the plan fails by which I propose to
convert them myself, I would gladly contribute my mite towards the sending two
or three trained missionaries, who have been known as successful converters of
Jews and Mohammedans; but such have seldom much to glory in the flesh, and when
I think of the high Ydgrunites, and of the figure which a missionary would
probably cut among them, I cannot feel sanguine that much good would be arrived
at. Still the attempt is worth making, and the worst danger to the missionaries
themselves would be that of being sent to the hospital where Chowbok would have
been sent had he come with me into Erewhon.
    Taking then their religious opinions as a whole, I must own that the
Erewhonians are superstitious, on account of the views which they hold of their
professed gods, and their entirely anomalous and inexplicable worship of Ydgrun,
a worship at once the most powerful, yet most devoid of formalism, that I ever
met with; but in practice things worked better than might have been expected,
and the conflicting claims of Ydgrun and the gods were arranged by unwritten
compromises (for the most part in Ydgrun's favour), which in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred were very well understood.
    I could not conceive why they should not openly acknowledge high Ydgrunism,
and discard the objective personality of hope, justice, etc.; but whenever I so
much as hinted at this, I found that I was on dangerous ground. They would never
have it; returning constantly to the assertion that ages ago the divinities were
frequently seen, and that the moment their personality was disbelieved in, men
would leave off practising even those ordinary virtues which the common
experience