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Psychology has made it clear that life is a unity and must be so regarded. Part of this child-study movement has resulted in the slow but sure death of formalism: large classes, material results, and a lack of psychology made formalism the path of least resistance.

Holbach cared most for the physical sciences. Marmontel brought a vein of sentimentalism, and Helvétius a vein of cynical formalism.

Shorn though the ceremony necessarily was of most of the solemn formalism that characterises an interment ashore, and further marred in its effectiveness by the droning tones in which Purchas deemed it proper to read the beautiful and solemn words of the prescribed ritual, it was, nevertheless, profoundly impressive, the peculiar circumstances of the case, and the setting of the picture, so to speak the small brig out there alone upon the boundless world of waters, the little group of weather-beaten bare-headed men surrounding the stark and silent figure upon the grating, who a few brief hours before had been the head and chief of their small community; the man to whose knowledge and skill they had willingly committed their fortunes and themselves, who had ruled them as with a rod of iron, whose will was their law, who had held their very lives in his hands, at whose caprice they were either happy or miserable, and who now lay there without the power to move so much as a finger either to help or hurt them, and whose lifeless clay they were about to launch to its last resting-place, there to repose "till the sea gives up her dead," this, with the wailing moan of the wind aloft, the sobbing of the water alongside, and the solemn glory of the dying day all uniting to imbue the scene and the occasion with a profundity of sadness and a sublimity that would have been impossible under other circumstances.

Is it to arouse all the suspicion and opposition possible? Is it to seem to justify the charges brought against us of narrowness, of formalism, of repression, and of obstructing the progress of the race? It does not seem to me that this is the wisest course. I agree that it is our duty to forward the interests of the church, and to make our administration of charity a means to this end.

It must be remembered that underlying the Jewish ecclesiastical teachings and formalism, which were all that the mass of the people knew, there was a great store of Jewish occultism and Mysticism known to the few elect.

The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egypt was the type. Man had become wise, but worthless. As though on purpose to prove to future generations how utterly worthless, the Roman civilization was allowed to continue uninterrupted in one unneeded corner of its former domains.

I might point in particular to two knights seated on one horse in what I take to be the company of Pharaoh crossing the Red Sea, as an instance of a successful attempt to escape from the formalism of a decayed style.

If you, upon your return to your homes, could organize in the cities that you represent, throughout the breadth of this land, some such league as that, and by individual effort, and without formalism, pledge the body of those with whom you come in contact to make Americans by sympathy and by understanding, I believe we would make great progress in the solution of this problem.

The poem written by the historical Sachs is itself beautiful, and Wagner has made it immortal; only he at his ripest and best could combine in an opera-chorus such strength with such sweetness, combine the directness of a part-song with the free play of parts, with never a touch of formalism.

And one has but to look over the list of names of the courageous souls who have sought to keep the flame alight to preserve the teachings in their original purity to protect them from the cant, hypocrisy, self-seeking and formalism of those who sought and obtained places of power in the Church. The gibbet; the stake; the dungeon; was their reward.