on outside suddenly beheld the god
revealed and in a blaze of light. This burning of camphor was, like
other things in the service, emblematic. The five lights represent
the five senses. Just as camphor consumes itself and leaves no residue
behind, so should the five senses, being offered to the god, consume
themselves and disappear. When this is done, that happens in the soul
which was now figured in the ritual--the God is revealed in the inner
light. (1)

(1) For a more detailed account of this Temple-festival, see
Adam's Peak to Elephanta by E. Carpenter, ch. vii.

We are familiar with this parting or rending of the veil. We hear of it
in the Jewish Temple, and in the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries. It had
a mystically religious, and also obviously sexual, signification. It
occurs here and there in the Roman Catholic ritual. In Spain, some
ancient Catholic ceremonials are kept up with a brilliance and splendor
hardly found elsewhere in Europe. In the Cathedral, at Seville the
service of the Passion, carried out on Good Friday with great
solemnity and accompanied with fine music, culminates on the Saturday
morning--i.e. in the interval between the Crucifixion and the
Resurrection--in a spectacle similar to that described in Ceylon. A rich
velvet-black curtain hangs before the High Altar. At the appropriate
moment and as the very emotional strains of voices and instruments reach
their climax in the "Gloria in Excelsis," the curtain with a sudden
burst of sound (thunder and the ringing of all the bells) is rent
asunder, and the crucified Jesus is seen hanging there revealed in a
halo of glory.

There is also held at Seville Cathedral and before the High Altar every
year, the very curious Dance of the Seises (sixes), performed now by 16
instead of (as of old) by 12 boys, quaintly dressed. It seems to be a
survival of some very ancient ritual, probably astronomical, in which
the two sets of six represent the signs of the Zodiac, and is celebrated
during the festivals of Corpus Christi, the Immaculate Conception, and
the Carnival.

Numerous instances might of course be adduced of how a Church aspiring
to be a real Church of Humanity might adopt and re-create the rituals
of the past in the light of a modern inspiration. Indeed the difficulty
would be to limit the process, for EVERY ancient ritual, we can now
see, has had a meaning and a message, and it would be a real joy to
disentangle these and to expose the profoun