can examine for themselves, the Roman Mass. Different levels of mind
will find here magic, theology, deep mystery, the commemoration under
archaic symbols of an event. But above and beyond all these, they can
find the solemn incorporated emotion, of the Christian Church, and a
liturgic recapitulation of the movement of the human soul towards
fullness of life: through confession and reconciliation to adoration and
intercession--that is, to charity--and thence to direct communion with
and feeding on the Divine World.

To the mind which refuses to yield to it, to move with its movement, but
remains in critical isolation, the Mass like all other ceremonies will
seem external, dead, unreal; lacking in religious content. But if we do
give ourselves completely and unselfconsciously to the movement of such
a ceremony, at the end of it we may not have learnt anything, but we
have lived something. And when we remember that no experience of our
devotional life is lost, surely we may regard it as worth while to
submit ourselves to an experience by which, if only for a few minutes,
we are thus lifted to richer levels of life and brought into touch with
higher values? We have indeed only to observe the enrichment of life so
often produced in those who thus dwell meekly and without inner conflict
in the symbolic world of ceremonial religion, and accept its discipline
and its gifts, to be led at least to a humble suspension of judgment as
to its value. A whole world of spiritual experience separates the humble
little church mouse rising at six every morning to attend a service
which she believes to be pleasing to a personal God, from the
philosopher who meditates on the Absolute in a comfortable armchair;
and no one will feel much doubt as to which side the advantage lies.

Here we approach the next point. The cultus, with its liturgy and its
discipline, exists for and promotes the repetition of acts which are