social nature would never have been content with worshipping the Deity in spirit alone, but would have irresistibly impelled him to the building up of a code of ceremonies as unworthy of their high purpose as were the rites of Paganism. This craving for ritualism is evidenced even to-day, no less in the powerful influence of our grand Catholic functions over the minds and hearts of the faithful, than in the elaborate rituals of secret and semi-religious societies; and the absence of such was one of the many weak points in primitive Protestantism. But the world's tendency has ever been to convert the means into an end, to be content with the outward form to the neglect of interior sanctification, to divorce religion and morality, to so exaggerate the importance of creeds and rites and ceremonies as to lose sight in whole or in part of God's commandments. But religion, clean and unspotted before God and the Father is, first of all, to keep oneself undefiled from this world. Neither the click-clack of the Buddhist's prayer-wheel, nor the Pharisee's scrupulous loyalty to ancient traditions, nor the Catholic's devotedness to his daily prayers and his Sunday Mass will avail one particle unless the inner man be right with God; unless the end and object of all religion, personal sanctification, be looked to, and the means necessary for its attainment employed.
Brethren, religionism has wrought more mischief than religion can ever undo. Holy wars have again and again rent the world in twain, and Church controversies have at times dismembered Christ's mys-
