ciousness of kind is an awareness of differences and
resemblances. It is a finding of one's self among those to whom one is
like, and an aversion to those unto whom one is not like. Worship is an
expression of this common likeness. It is an enjoyment of fellowship.

The experience of worship is impossible in an atmosphere of difference.
This is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of
congregations. Without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting,
and without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellowship.

This brings us very near to the sacred experiences in which men find
God. A very early chapter in the Bible describes God as the "Friend" of
a man. In the succeeding pages he becomes the King, the Priest, the
Prophet, and the Father of men. In every one of them the mind of the
worshiper has expressed a profound sense, that God is found by the soul
in society. Herbert Spencer has insisted that all religion is ancestor
worship, that is, it grows out of the family group.

Simmel teaches that religion is the resultant of the reactions of the
individual with his group fellows, and with the group as a whole.
Christian folk are accustomed to express this by calling one another
"brothers" and "sisters," meaning clearly that religion is a social
experience.

This is not the place for extended biblical interpretation, but I am
convinced that the whole course of scripture will testify to this, that
in the peaceful, continuing, social unities men have found God, and in
the differences, in their group conflicts, in their wars, and in the
oppositions to their enemies, there has been found no religious
experience. That is, such conflict has intensified unity, and the
resulting unity has been ever richer in religion: but the thoughts for
God have come forth clothed always in terms and titles of fellowship,
unity and kinship.

In country communities this principle explains the divisions and the
unities of religious life. In many towns, the Presbyterian church, for
instance, is the church of the old settler and the earlier farmers. A
new denomination has come in with the tenants and the invaders. That is,
men have found it impossible to worship in a constant experience of
difference. It is true that their difference is an element in their
religion, because the consciousness of difference is an element in the
consciousness of kind.

In the Southern States, the white slave-holders worsh