“The heathen in his blindness […]”

In 1819, the Anglican cleric, Reginald Heber, wrote what became a well-known hymn, entitled From Greenland's Icy Mountains. The hymn may well be regarded as expressing offensive sentiments, especially by its strident references to heathens bowing down to wood and stone as a mark of their spiritual blindness. Reginald Heber's hymn had been written in England even before he visited India, presumably before he got to know those benighted heathens and inquire into their reprehensible practices. He travelled to India to accept position of Bishop of Calcutta – to which he had been appointed and for which he was consecrated before his departure – only in 1823. Thus one may find his strictures on image-worship in the hymn objectionable, largely for two reasons: first, they appear to have been issued without due recourse to relevant Hindu philosophical/theological rationales involved; second, they make no attempt to distinguish between Christians bowing down to images/icons and non-Christians behaving in similar manner.