Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/434

 tions, like incantations against the toothache which act upon people, and there is no sense of speaking or thinking of any spiritual side either on the part of the one who pronounces the incantation, or on the part of those who are being cured. It is necessary to make certain motions with the hands and feet, and grace will come down.

246. Moral application of the dogma. The application of the dogma concludes the section about the sacraments. The only obvious application is to have recourse to the hierarchy for sanctification by means of sacraments. The whole doctrine about the sacraments, after it has been analyzed, is reduced to the following: among the number of senseless, discordant followers of Christ there are some who consider themselves to be ordained by those men who themselves have been ordained by the laying on of hands, who, finally, were ordained by the apostles. These people give no signs of their right of succession, but they assert that the grace of the Holy Ghost has come down to them, and that, in consequence of it, they know seven actions through which the grace of the Holy Ghost descends upon people, and this grace, though it is not determined by anything visible, they are able to bring down on people. The communication of this invisible grace by these men is in reality the doctrine about the sacraments.