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mere impatience with nonconformity, that has attached to churchgoing an unmistakable social sanction. It is vaguely felt that worship is a social tie, and that the average man cannot neglect it without loss of fraternal feeling. Though now the efficacy of private devotion is acknowledged, and though the best religious thought is no longer to be got from sermons, there seems little disposition to let religion become merely a private and home affair. No sect, however high its conception of deity, neglects frequent assemblage ostensibly for worship. May there not be here an intimation that, however much the theory of religion may change, religious association and reli- gious gatherings will continue to play a prominent part in the life of society ?'
When religion, ceasing to be national, becomes universal, it no longer avails to preserve the special solidarity needed in the political group. Hence the institution of the patriotic festival to supplement the religious festival. It is significant that none of the modern secular states has neglected to provide national holidays giving occasion for assemblage. While the memories of national dangers, struggles, and triumphs revived at such meetings give them a peculiar value, it is not to be doubted that the spectacle of innumerable simultaneous gatherings of one's fellow citizens dominated by a single sentiment is of itself able to thrill the soul with a sense of the common life.
But while here and there we can detect society promoting assemblage for the sake of its harmonizing effect, it is certain that this form of control is on the wane. Though the diameter of societies lengthens, the means of communication and meeting grow still faster. The intellectual and emotional contacts of men are become so numerous that it is no longer lack of com- prehension that threatens the permanence of the social order. The natural occasions for meeting are now so many that it is not necessary for society to supply artificial occasions. It is
1 Ominous, however, is the increasing resort to " attractive " features in order to get people to assemble. See "Another Year of Church Entertainments," by W. B. Hale in Forum for December 1896.
