th an ornate and a bare ritual of
worship, both societies of strict observance and individual freedom,
and a wide field of open questions in which we do not even expect
'decisions of doubts'? Instead of my own reflections on this {150}
subject I will ask my readers' attention to the following extracts from
a suggestive book[25].

'At all times there are those to whom what we may call the minor
symbolism of ritual is far from being as helpful as it is to others.
There is the greatest diversity here. Modes of worship, which repel
one man as bleak and bare, attract another by their very simplicity.
The diversity is so natural and so obvious that it calls for neither
apology nor explanation; yet it is easily strained into a cause of
disruption.'

'St. Paul is speaking of strong brethren and of weak; of those who need
earthly guides and of those who do not; of those who attach high value
to rules and forms and helps; and of those for whom ordinances have but
little significance; of mystics and disciplinarians.'

'Again, do we not still want a scientific theology? I mean a theology
which should do what any scientific treatise does. It should lay down
clearly and plainly the essential conditions of unity, and as regards
the unessential should content itself with saying, "Here men differ;
one thinks thus, another thus." ... Ask yourself, What is it that will
carry me, being {151} what I am, to heaven? What is it will carry my
brother here, who is so unlike me, to heaven? What is it that will
carry us both to heaven? There you will find the essential.'

St. Paul, we observe, lays great stress upon honesty of conscience. He
wishes men, even in small matters, seriously to cultivate a conscience
of what is right, as men should do who even in small things expect a
divine judgement; and seriously also to cultivate the faculty of not
interfering with their brother's conscience. ('Hast thou faith? Have
it to thyself.' Do not parade your superior enlightenment.) He is
greatly afraid of people leading others, or being led for mere
agreement's sake, to do what their own conscience does not justify.
And to do even a good thing because another does it whom we want to be
like, without ourselves feeling sure it is good, or with a doubtful
conscience[26], this, St. Paul says, is sin. This warning we really
need to lay to heart in our age, when fashion is such a very strong
force in religion. This individual follows that indiv