But about this time the island was caught in a swarm of pirates; and the shepherds hadto turn themselves into rude warriors and seamen; and at first they were utterly brokendown in blood and shame; and the pirates might have taken the jewel flung up for everfrom their sacred fount. And then, after years of horror and humiliation, they gained a littleand began to conquer because they did not mind defeat. And the pride of the pirates wentsick within them after a few unexpected foils; and at last the invasion rolled back into theempty seas and the island was delivered. And for some reason after this men began to talkquite differently about the temple and the sun. Some, indeed, said, "You must not touch thetemple; it is classical; it is perfect, since it admits no imperfections." But the othersanswered, "In that it differs from the sun, that shines on the evil and the good and on mudand monsters everywhere. The temple is of the noon; it is made of white marble clouds andsapphire sky. But the sun is not always of the noon. The sun dies daily, every night he iscrucified in blood and fire." Now the priest had taught and fought through all the war, andhis hair had grown white, but his eyes had grown young. And he said, "I was wrong andthey are right. The sun, the symbol of our father, gives life to all those earthly things thatare full of ugliness and energy. All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the rightthing. Let us point to heaven with tusks and horns and fins and trunks and tails so long asthey all point to heaven. The ugly animals praise God as much as the beautiful. The frog'seyes stand out of his head because he is staring at heaven. The giraffe's neck is long becausehe is stretching towards heaven. The donkey has ears to hear-let him hear."And under the new inspiration they planned a gorgeous cathedral in the Gothic manner, with all the animals of the earth crawling over it, and all the possible ugly things making upone common beauty, because they all appealed to the god. The columns of the temple werecarved like the necks of giraffes; the dome was like an ugly tortoise; and the highestpinnacle was a monkey standing on his head with his tail pointing at the sun. And yet thewhole was beautiful, because it was lifted up in one living and religious gesture as a manlifts his hands in prayer.