Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/648

 *proving his moral character in this. Secondly, we no sooner rise above the very rudest forms of religion, than we find places set apart for worship, and entirely abstracted from all profaner uses. Thirdly, we find that it is a universal practice to dedicate certain objects to the special use of the divine beings received in the country; such objects being various in their nature, but very frequently consisting of gifts to the accredited ministers of the God for whom they are intended. Fourthly, we find in all the greater religions—the Confucians possibly excepted—a number of persons who have devoted themselves to a mode of life supposed to be especially pleasing to God, and carrying with it in their minds the notion of superior sanctity. Lastly, we have in almost every form of fath a special class, generally of male persons only, who are set apart, by some distinctive rite, to the performance of the consecrated actions required by the community to be done on their behalf; these actions thus acquiring a double consecration, derived primarily from their own nature, and secondarily from the character of those by whom they are performed.

Passing to the second of our main divisions, we found the conception of sanctity applied generally where that of consecration had been applied, the distinction being that while the latter was imparted by man, the former was the gift of God. Thus, in the first place, just as human beings consecrate some of their actions to the service of God, so he, in his turn, sanctifies certain events to the enlightenment of mankind. It is the same in the second case, that of places; for here the deity sometimes points out a holy spot by some special mark of his presence, sometimes (and more commonly) condescends to sanctify those which man has devoted to his worship. And, thirdly, as men set apart some of their property for him, so he imparts to some of the objects in their possession a holy character, which endows them with peculiar powers, either over external nature, or over the mind and conscience of those who see, touch, or otherwise use them. Fourthly, he endows the class who perform the ceremonies of religion with his peculiar grace; a grace commonly evinced in their power to consecrate places, things, and men, to forgive sins, to convey the apostolic succession, to administer sacraments, and so forth; but occasionally