Organized ceremonial religion insists upon it, that at least for a
certain time each day or week we shall attend to the things of the
Spirit. It offers us its suggestions, and shuts off as well as it can
conflicting suggestions: though, human as we are, the mere appearance of
our neighbours is often enough to bring these in. Nothing is more
certain than this: first that we shall never know the spiritual world
unless we give ourselves the chance of attending to it, clear a space
for it in our busy lives; and next, that it will not produce its real
effect in us, unless it penetrates below the conscious surface into the
deeps of the instinctive mind, and moulds this in accordance with the
regnant idea. If we are to receive the gifts of the cultus, we on our
part must bring to it at the very least what we bring to all great works
of art that speak to us: that is to say, attention, surrender,
sympathetic emotion. Otherwise, like all other works of art, it will
remain external to us. Much of the perfectly sincere denunciation and
dislike of religious ceremony which now finds frequent utterance comes
from those who have failed thus to do their share. They are like the
hasty critics who dismiss some great work of art because it is not
representative, or historically accurate; and so entirely miss the
æsthetic values which it was created to impart.

Consider a picture of the Madonna. Minds at different levels may find in
this pure representation, Bible history, theology, æsthetic
satisfaction, spiritual truth. The peasant may see in it the portrait of
the Mother of God, the critic a phase in artistic evolution; whilst the
mystic may pass through it to new contacts with the Spirit of life. We
shall receive according to the measure of what we bring. Now consider
the parallel case of some great dramatic liturgy, rich with the meanings
which history has poured into it. Take, as an example which every one