It may, indeed, be propounded as an interesting question, whether any iconoclast ever destroys the idols which his fellow-beings cherish, without entertaining the belief that he has something superior to offer in their place. When the fanatic Spaniards upset, fractured, and ground to powder the stone monsters venerated by the Mexicans, they offered to the natives the image of a lovely virgin and her gentle son to replace them; and when the enthusiastic Scotchmen destroyed the marble saints and gaudy figures of the Popish churches throughout their own country, they eagerly set forth the superiority of adoring the invisible creator in spirit and imagination, which afforded scope for the most entrancing mental delineations, and was far superior to reverencing an ugly effigy, which no one with any correct taste could admire. In like manner, when the Mahometan Caliph destroyed the library of Alexandria, he offered to the mourners in its place the book of the Prophet Mahomet, which was, in his eyes, a pearl of so great price as to be equivalent in value to all the world besides.
There can be no doubt, however, that the process of destruction is far more easy than the task of reconstruction. The engineer who is called upon to remove a bridge, on account of the badness of its foundation, may admire the extraordinary firmness with which every stone has been dovetailed together, and, with the means at his command, may be unable to construct another having a similar appearance of stability; yet, after all, an arch which is secure and stable is preferable to one which is good only in appearance. A very few years have elapsed since it was found that the tower and spire of the Cathedral at Chichester had been so built that there was imminent danger of the whole falling down. This part of the edifice resembled certain faiths which have been raised with great art to a vast height, with very slender and inadequate material. So long as they were not