us and even abominable. When this occurs, it is easily
explained by the fact that the mind and heart of man are never proof
against imbecility and depravity. There are as many fools and cranks in
the world as there are villains and degenerates.

The Church of God regulates divine worship for us with the wisdom and
experience of centuries. Her sacrifice is the first great act of
worship. Then there are her ceremonies, rites, and observances; the use
of holy water, blessed candles, ashes, incense, vestments; her chants,
and fasts and feasts, the symbolism of her sacraments. This is the
language in which, as a Church, and in union with her children, she
speaks to God her adoration, praise and thanksgiving. This is her
religion, and we practice it by availing ourselves of these things and
by respecting them as pertaining to God.

We are sometimes branded as idolaters, that is, as people who adore
another or others than God. We offer our homage of adoration to God who
is in heaven, and to that same God whom we believe to be on our altars.
Looking through Protestant spectacles, we certainly are idolaters, for
we adore what they consider as simple bread. In this light we plead
guilty; but is it simple bread? That is the question. The homage we
offer to everything and everybody else is relative, that is, it refers
to God, and therefore is not idolatry.

As to whether or not we are superstitious in our practices, that
depends on what is the proper homage to offer God and in what does
excess consist. It is not a little astonishing to see the no-creed,
dogma-hating, private-judgment sycophants sitting in judgment against
us and telling us what is and what is not correct in our religious
practices. We thought that sort of a thing--dogmatism--was excluded
from Protestant ethics; that every one should be allowed to choose his
own mode of worship, that the right and proper way is the way one
thinks right and proper. If the private-interpreter claims this freedom
for himself, why not allow it to us! We thought they objected to this
kind of interference in us some few hundred years ago; is it too much
if we object most strenuously to it in them in these days! It is
strange how easily some people forget first principles, and what a rare
article on the market is consistency.

The persons, places and things that pertain to the exterior worship of
God we are bound to respect, not for themselves, but by reason of the
usage for which they