able to permanence--it is thereby able to adapt itself to changing
conditions--and the degree of elasticity depends largely on the persons
who are its authorized expounders, that is, on the area of public
opinion that these persons represent.

+1137+. _General influence of churches._ All organized religion has been
a potent factor in human life. In savage and half-civilized communities
it enters into every detail of life, since, in the absence of knowledge
of natural law, everything that happens is ascribed to supernatural
agency. In the old national cults, in which other departments of thought
(art, commerce, science, philosophy) became prominent, religion was
somewhat isolated--it received a particular representation in
sacrifices, festivals, and other observances; but such ceremonies were
so numerous, and so many ancient customs survived, that it still played
a conspicuous part in daily life.[2086] In the period in which churches
arose there was a still greater specialization of the activities of
life, and this specialization has become more pronounced in modern
times, in which from various causes the tendency is to mass religious
observances in certain days and seasons and leave the rest of the time
free. This apparent banishment of religion from everyday affairs does
not, however, signify diminution of interest in religion itself--partly
it is an economic arrangement, the assignment of a definite time to
every particular duty, but mainly it is the result of a better
conception of what religion means, the feeling that, being an inward
experience, it is less dependent on external occasions.

+1138+. Churches, as is remarked above, differ from the old national
religions mainly in the emphasis they lay on individualism and on the
idea of redemption. They represent a profounder conception of the
ethical relation between man and God, or, as in Buddhism, between man
and the ideal of perfection in the universe. They foster religion by
holding public services and by the production of devotional works; they
advance learning by supplying men of leisure; socially they are in
general a conservative force, with the good and bad effects of
conservatism. But their special function is to treat man as a spiritual
being having immediate personal relations with the deity. Charitable and
educational work (ethical and other) and social gatherings they share
with other organizations, and they are incompetent in themselves to deal
with e