spiritual principle is asserted above the material principle is dear to
God, and a man who reads a beautiful poem and is thrilled with a desire
for purity, goodness, and love thereby, is a truer worshipper of the
Spirit than a man who mutters responses in a prescribed posture without
deriving any inspiration from them.

The essence of religion is to desire to draw near to God, to receive
the Spirit of God. It does not in the least degree matter how the
individual expresses that essential truth. He may love some consecrated
rite as being pure and beautiful, or even because other hearts have
loved it,--the rite is permitted, not commanded by God--he may express
God by terms of co-equality and consubstantiality, and even desire to
proclaim such expressions, in concert with like-minded persons, to the
harmonies of an organ, so long as it uplifts him in spirit; but such a
man falls into a grievous error when he vilifies or condemns others for
not seeing as he does, or enunciates that thus and thus only can a man
apprehend God. The more firmly that a Church holds the necessity of
what is unessential, the more it diverges from the Spirit of Christ.

It is by the essentials that we live and make progress. The man who
apprehends such a statement of doctrine as the Athanasian creed
affords, as a sweet and gracious mystery, thereby draws nearer to God.
But if he goes further and says, "The essence of my finding inspiration
in any particular creed is that I should believe it to be absolutely
and literally true, and that all outside it are thieves and robbers, or
at the best ignorant and misguided persons," then he stumbles at the
very outset. His own belief is probably true in the sense that the
truth doubtless transcends and embraces all spiritual light hopefully
discerned; but the moment that a man condemns those who do not exactly
agree with himself, he sins against the Spirit. Is it not a ghastly and