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Rh the heart speaks to God and God communicates to the heart. So all religions have some mode of training the mind and moving the affections, of taking hold of the memory and perpetuating themselves. This is derived from an innate consciousness. If God should extinguish all the lights of the world and blind every human eye, religion would be just the same.

"But these outward institutions must all be adapted to the present condition of man. Religion can only use those instruments which are furnished to hand. In the absence of writing it must use ceremonies and forms, which have a conventional meaning, and thus come to be symbolic of certain truths. Thus, our patriarchal religion consisted almost entirely of prayer and sacrifice. The Mosaic religion, which came after the invention of letters, added to prayer and sacrifice a written code of duty, a formal declaration of truths and principles, which lay at the foundation of the whole institution.

"The patriarchal element was still strong and predominant in all our Church, yet there was no express mode of religious instruction. This was enjoined on the heads of families: 'And these words which I command thee this day, thou shalt teach them to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house.' And as the written laws were scarce and hard to get, it was said: And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and as front- lets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house and upon thy gates.'