recognize the fact
outwardly in the buildings erected to celebrate its worship. Not among
the Jews alone was the holy of holies kept veiled, to temper the divine
radiance to man's benighted understanding. Nor is the chancel-rail of
Christianity the sole survivor of the more exclusive barriers of olden
times, even in the Western world. In the Far East, where difficulty of
access is deemed indispensable to dignity, the material approaches
are still manifold and imposing. Court within court, building after
building, isolate the shrine itself from the profane familiarity of
the passers-by. But though the material encasings vary in number and
in exclusiveness, according to the temperament of the particular
race concerned, the mental envelopes exist, and must exist, in both
hemispheres alike, so long as society resembles the crust of the earth
on which it dwells,--a crust composed of strata that grow denser as one
descends. What is clear to those on top seems obscure to those below;
what are weighty arguments to the second have no force at all upon
the first. There must necessarily be grades of elevation in individual
beliefs, suited to the needs and cravings of each individual soul. A
creed that fills the shallow with satisfaction leaves but an aching
void in the deep. It is not of the slightest consequence how the belief
starts; differentiated it is bound to become. The higher minds alone
can rest content with abstract imaginings; the lower must have concrete
realities on which to pin their faith. With them, inevitably, ideals
degenerate into idols. In all religions this unavoidable debasement has
taken place. The Roman Catholic who prays to a wooden image of Christ
is not one whit less idolatrous than the Buddhist who worships a bronze
statue of Amida Butzu. All that the common people are capable of seeing
is the soul-envelope, for the soul itself they are unable to appreciate.
Spiritually they are undiscerning, because imaginatively they are blind.

Now the grosser soul-envelopes of the two great European and Asiatic
faiths, though differing in detail, are in general parallel in
structure. Each boasts its full complement of saints, whose congruent
catalogues are equally wearisome in length. Each tells its circle of
beads to help it keep count of similarly endless prayers. For in both,
in the popular estimation, quantity is more effective to salvation
than quality. In both the believer practically pictures his heaven for
h