he more thoughtful worshipers
they represented divine powers and functions. Uncouth shapes may be
softened or transformed by familiarity, and by association with higher
ideas--things in themselves repulsive may become vehicles of
devotion.[2017] In all religious worship objects associated with pious
acts acquire sanctity and beauty.

+1094+. That idolatry in ancient times was not a wholly bad feature of
worship is shown by the excellence of the great religions in which it
was practiced. Its general function was to make the deity more real to
the worshiper, to make the latter more sharply conscious of the divine
presence, to fix the attention, and so far to further a real communion.
On the other hand, it tended to produce a low physical conception of the
divine person, and to distract the mind of the worshiper from the
ethical side of worship. Its moral effect was dependent on the man's
character and thought. When the image was regarded as the symbol of an
ethically good Power, it was a reenforcement of pure religious feeling;
when it was regarded as in itself a source of physical benefit, it was a
degrading influence. This difference of effect exists in those Christian
bodies that include images and pictures of the deity and of saints in
their apparatus of worship.

CHURCHES

+1095+. The history of the social organization of religion is the
history of the growth of churches--voluntary associations for worship;
it is toward the Church that society has hitherto moved.[2018] Every
ancient community may be said to be an incipient church in the sense
that it contains the germs of the later ecclesiastical development. But
this later form exists in such communities only in germ--the most
ancient worship was communal, an affair of clan, tribe, or State. Men
were born into their religious faith and could no more change it, or
think of changing it, than they could change, or think of changing,
their language or any other inheritance. It was inevitable, however,
that there should be a growth of individualism--instinct impelled men to
think for themselves in religion as in all other things. Religion was a
part of the general social movement, affected by all other parts of that
movement. Independence of thought led to social aggregations, the
members of which were drawn together by similarity of ideas and
aspirations. This is the familiar history of social movements, and that
in religion such movements have been continuous will