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The Theory of the Leisure Class

devout purpose seems to be placed beyond question by the fact that the priesthood of many denominations is following the lead of the lay organisations in this respect. Those ecclesiastical organisations especially which stand nearest the lay organisations in their insistence on practical religion have gone some way towards adopting these or analogous practices in connection with the traditional devout observances. So there are "boys' brigades,” and other organisations, under clerical sanction, acting to develop the emulative proclivity and the sense of status in the youthful members of the congregation. These pseudo-military organisations tend to elaborate and accentuate the proclivity to emulation and invidious comparison, and so strengthen the native facility for discerning and approving the relation of personal mastery and subservience. And a believer is eminently a person who knows how to obey and accept chastisement with good grace.

But the habits of thought which these practices foster and conserve make up but one-half of the substance of the anthropomorphic cults. The other, complementary element of devout life—the animistic habit of mind—is recruited and conserved by a second range of practices organised under clerical sanction. These are the class of gambling practices of which the church bazaar or raffle may be taken as the type. As indicating the degree of legitimacy of these practices in connection with devout observances proper, it is to be remarked that these raffles, and the like trivial opportunities for gambling, seem to appeal with more effect to the common run of the members of religious