h the same is that they are all giving you
fragments of knowledge of the other worlds, and these worlds are all
more real than the world in which you are; and they all teach the same
fundamental truths, the same fundamental moral principles, the same
religious doctrines, and use the same methods in order that men may
come into touch with the other worlds. The sacraments do not belong to
Christianity alone, as sometimes Christians think; every religion has
its sacraments, some more numerous than others, but all have some. For
what is a sacrament? It is the earthly, the physical representative of
a real correspondence in nature; as the catechism of the Church of
England phrases it: "An outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace." It is a true definition. A sacrament is made up of
the outer and inner, and you cannot do without either. The outer thing
is correlated to the inner, and is a real means of coming into touch
with the higher, and is not only a symbol, as some imagine. The great
churches and religions of the past always cling to that reality of the
sacrament, and they do well. It is only in very modern times, and
among a comparatively small number of Christian people, that the
sacrament has become only a symbol, instead of a channel of living and
divine power. And much is lost to the man who loses out of his
religion the essential idea of the sacrament; for it is the link
between the spiritual and the physical, the channel whereby the
spiritual pours down into the physical vehicle. Hence the value that
all religions put upon sacraments, and their recognition of their
reality, and their priceless service to mankind. And so with many
other things in ceremonies and rites, common to all the different
faiths--the use of musical sounds, a use which tunes the bodies so
that the spiritual power may be able to manifest through them and by
them. For just as in your orchestra you must tune the instruments to a
single note, so must you tune your various bodies in order that
harmoniously they may allow the spiritual force to come through from
the higher to the lower plane. It is a real tuning, a real making of
harmonious vibrations; and the difference between the vibrations that
are harmonious and the vibrations that are discordant, from this point
of view, is this: when all the bodies vibrate together, all the
particles and their spaces correspond, so that you get solid
particles, then spaces, and then solid part