well. This is also the tendency of certain Catholics of the old school
for whom the great thing is to appease God or to buy the protection of
the Virgin and the saints by means of prayers, candles, and masses.

The other religions look toward man; their effort is directed to the
heart and conscience with the purpose of transforming them. Sacrifice
disappears, or rather it changes from the exterior to the interior. God
is conceived of as a father, always ready to welcome him who comes to
him. Conversion, perfection, sanctification become the pre-eminent
religious acts. Worship and prayer cease to be incantations and become
reflection, meditation, virile effort; while in religions of the first
class the clergy have an essential part, as intermediaries between
heaven and earth, in those of the second they have none, each conscience
entering into direct relations with God.

It was reserved to the prophets of Israel to formulate, with a precision
before unknown, the starting-point of spiritual worship.

Bring no more vain offerings;
I have a horror of incense,
Your new moons, your Sabbaths, and your assemblies;
When you multiply prayers I will not hearken.
Your hands are full of blood,
Wash you, make you clean,
Put away from before my eyes the evil of your ways,
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do well.[7]

With Isaiah these vehement apostrophes are but flashes of genius, but
with Jesus the interior change becomes at once the principle and the end