of the place a means of mortifying the flesh, especially in
appearance. There are few persons of delicate tastes, in the matter of
devout consumption to whom this austerely wasteful discomfort does not
appeal as intrinsically right and good. Devout consumption is of the
nature of vicarious consumption. This canon of devout austerity is based
on the pecuniary reputability of conspicuously wasteful consumption,
backed by the principle that vicarious consumption should conspicuously
not conduce to the comfort of the vicarious consumer.

The sanctuary and its fittings have something of this austerity in all
the cults in which the saint or divinity to whom the sanctuary pertains
is not conceived to be present and make personal use of the property for
the gratification of luxurious tastes imputed to him. The character of
the sacred paraphernalia is somewhat different in this respect in those
cults where the habits of life imputed to the divinity more nearly
approach those of an earthly patriarchal potentate--where he is
conceived to make use of these consumable goods in person. In the latter
case the sanctuary and its fittings take on more of the fashion given to
goods destined for the conspicuous consumption of a temporal master or
owner. On the other hand, where the sacred apparatus is simply employed
in the divinity's service, that is to say, where it is consumed
vicariously on his account by his servants, there the sacred properties
take the character suited to goods that are destined for vicarious
consumption only.

In the latter case the sanctuary and the sacred apparatus are so
contrived as not to enhance the comfort or fullness of life of the
vicarious consumer, or at any rate not to convey the impression that
the end of their consumption is the consumer's comfort. For the end of
vicarious consumption is to enhance, not the fullness of life of the
consumer, but the pecuniary repute of the master for whose behoof the
consumption takes place. Therefore priestly vestments are notoriously
expensive, ornate, and inconvenient; and in the cults where the priestly
servitor of the divinity is not conceived to serve him in the capacity
of consort, they are of an austere, comfortless fashion. And such it is
felt that they should be.

It is not only in establishing a devout standard of decent expensiveness
that the principle of waste invades the domain of the canons of ritual
serviceability. It touches the ways as well as the