of property are almost unrecognized.

The same may be said of the external modes of worship. Granting that the
complex ceremonies of Roman Catholic worship, so nearly resembling the
rites of Paganism, might, by possibility, admit of a connexion with pure
Christian faith, it cannot be supposed that the cross, wax lights, and
incense can ever form a ritual appropriate to the customs of Arabs or
Indians, or that they will help the devotion of the fiftieth generation
from the present. Primitive modes of worship have, by a singular
ordering of circumstances, been preserved among the Vaudois, and are
still consonant with their secular state: but men who dwell amidst
ravines and mountain forests think and feel differently, and therefore
worship differently from those who inhabit the cities of the plain;
while the faith of all is essentially the same. It is, therefore,
unreasonable of the Catholic Church to require of all her members, dwell
where they may, in the north or in the south, in the metropolis or the
wilderness, the vow, 'I also receive and admit the ceremonies of the
Catholic Church, received and approved in the solemn administration of
all the seven sacraments.'

Far more reasonable is the Gospel in its requisitions, the sole
condition of whose promises is, that men shall 'worship the Father in
spirit and in truth.' We have said that the essence of Christian faith
is the same through all varieties of manifestation. It has ever been so,
and it shall ever be so, for these varieties of manifestation are
ordained for the very purpose of preserving the essence. They are
ordained, lest men, too much regarding things seen and temporal, should
confound with them things unseen and eternal; should not only
incorporate religion in material forms, but identify it with them. They
are ordained that men may learn what Christianity really is, what the
Lord God requires of them concerning it, what He promises them in it,
what He purposes to effect by it; and furthermore, that men may mutually
recognize the new bond of brotherhood which the Gospel discloses, by
which all are made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. This
recognition must take place as soon as the nature and design of
Christianity are understood, be it here or hereafter, in this world or
in the next; and surely the sooner the better.

That mode of belief which encourages the closest investigation into the
principles of Christianity; which discovers the m