of _Nature_? and has it ever been forbidden that
the heart and understanding should be appealed to through the medium of
the outward senses, for the worship of the God of _Revelation_? Is the
eye to be closed, the mouth dumb, the ear deaf, to all save the
intellectual teachings of a fellow man? Is _music_ the gift of heaven,
_colour_ born in heaven's light, _incense_ the fragrance of the garden,
planted by God's hand, _form_ the clothing of soul and spirit, to be
banished from the temple dedicated to the service of that living God, who
created the music of the bird, the waterfall, and the thunder, who
painted the rainbow in the window of heaven, who scented the earth with
sweet flowers, and herbs and "spicy groves," who gave to each tree, each
leaf, each bird and flower, each fibre, sinew, and muscle of the human
frame, each crystal, and each gem of earth, each shell of the ocean's
depths, each moss and weed that creeps around the base of hidden rocks,
even to the noisome fungus and worm that owes its birth alike to death
and to decay a material body, full of beauty and adaptation in all its
parts; revealing thus to man, that all thought, all life, all spirit,
must dwell within an outer covering of _form_. True, the spirit and life
may depart, the garment may cover rottenness and decay, the symbol may be
a dead letter, in the absence of the truth it should shadow forth, the
candle at the altar, be meaningless from the dimness of the light of the
spirit, that it should represent as ever living and present in the
church; the eagle of the reading-desk be a graven image, without place in
God's temple, when the soaring voice of prophecy, rising above earth, and
fed from the living fire burning on heaven's altar, that it should
symbolize, has ceased to be heard. Incense may be a mystic mockery, when
the prayers of the children of God have ceased to ascend in unison as a
sweet smelling savour to the throne of their Father; the swelling chant
be monotonous jargon, when the beauty and harmony of _one common voice_
of praise, thanksgiving, and prayer, is not felt; the vestment be a mere
display of weak and empty vanity, when purity, activity, authority and
love, have ceased to be the realities expressed in the alb, the stole,
the crimson and purple, the gold and silver; the screen, a senseless mass
of carving, the long unbenched and empty nave, so much waste stone and
mortar, to those who see not in it the vast Gentile court, w