appears impossible that they should have forgotten their peculiar
god, if in any peculiar god they trusted.

Though cloudy ideas of the Indian deities might be occasionally
floating in their minds, these ideas, doubtless, quickly passed
away when they ceased to behold the pagodas and temples of Indian
worship, and were no longer in contact with the enthusiastic
adorers of the idols of the East; they passed away even as the dim
and cloudy ideas which they subsequently adopted of the Eternal and
His Son, Mary and the saints, would pass away when they ceased to
be nourished by the sight of churches and crosses; for should it
please the Almighty to reconduct the Romas to Indian climes, who
can doubt that within half a century they would entirely forget all
connected with the religion of the West! Any poor shreds of that
faith which they bore with them they would drop by degrees as they
would relinquish their European garments when they became old, and
as they relinquished their Asiatic ones to adopt those of Europe;
no particular dress makes a part of the things essential to the
sect of Roma, so likewise no particular god and no particular
religion.

Where these people first assumed the name of Egyptians, or where
that title was first bestowed upon them, it is difficult to
determine; perhaps, however, in the eastern parts of Europe, where
it should seem the grand body of this nation of wanderers made a
halt for a considerable time, and where they are still to be found
in greater numbers than in any other part. One thing is certain,
that when they first entered Germany, which they speedily overran,
they appeared under the character of Egyptians, doing penance for
the sin of having refused hospitality to the Virgin and her Son,