There is nothing remarkable in this. We
all denounce cant and humbug in the abstract, often most loudly when we
are humbugs ourselves. If Burton attacked Christianity more than other
religions, and Catholicism more than other forms of Christianity, he
probably did so because they came more in his way. His religious acts
generally appear to have been guided by the principle of "When one is
at Rome, do as Rome does." He was a Mohammedan among Mohammedans, a
Mormon among Mormons, a sufi among the Shazlis, and a Catholic among
the Catholics. One thing he certainly was not in his later years--a
member of the Church of England. He was baptized and brought up in the
Anglican Communion. He entered at Trinity College, Oxford, and he joined
the Indian army as a member of the Church of England; but when he was
at Goa in 1847 he left off "sitting under" that garrison chaplain and
betook himself to the Roman Catholic chapel, and availed himself of the
ministrations of the Goanese priest. From that time, except officially,
he never seems to have availed himself of the services of the Church of
England. I do not unduly press the point of his attendance at the Roman
Catholic chapel at Goa, for it may simply have meant that Burton merely
went to the chapel and worshipped as a Catholic among Catholics, just as
when he was at Mecca he worshipped as a Mohammedan among the Mohammedans;
but it tells against the theory that he "loathed" Catholicism, as the
same necessity did not exist at Goa as at Mecca.
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