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This conviction, to be carried out to its full consequences, both logical and spiritual, requires that each individual worshipper should forget himself, should renounce his particular inclinations, should abandon himself and long to do not his own will but that of God. But before self can be consciously abandoned, the consciousness of self must be realised.
The Messianic application of that quotation is made unmistakable by the addition, 'even the King of Israel. In the Psalm, 'he that cometh in the name of Jehovah, means the worshipper drawing near to the Temple, but the added words divert the expression to Jesus, hail Him as the King, and invoke Him as 'Saviour. Little did that shouting crowd understand what sort of a Saviour He was.
I was a worshipper of trees at this season, and I remember my shocked and indignant feeling when one day a flock of green paroquets came screaming down and alighted on one of the trees near me. This paroquet never bred in our plantation; they were occasional visitors from their home in an old grove about nine miles away, and their visits were always a great pleasure to us.
For this the poet, who was also a worshipper of Dionysus, gave her great honour and not reproach, seeing that she did the deed at the behest of this god, 'a deed not to be blamed.
"I have not found it so" said Don Aloysius, tranquilly "We have believed in what you call your 'wireless telephony' for centuries; when the Sanctus bell rings at Mass, we think and hope a message from Our Lord comes to every worshipper whose soul is 'in tune' with the heavenly current; that is one of your 'scientific discoveries' and there are hundreds of others which the Church has incorporated through a mystic fore-knowledge and prophetic instinct.
"Your pa wouldn't say so. He ain't one to wish to serve two masters. He ain't a mammon worshipper," said Miss Bethia, solemnly. "No!" said Jem, opening his eyes very wide. "And I don't intend to be one either. I intend to make a good living, and perhaps become a rich man." "Don't, Jem," said Violet, softly.
And keeping himself apart as much as possible from the congregation, as a lonely and secret worshipper, he soon found himself as separate from them in heart as in daily life.
In none of the instances in which I have been eyewitness of the cult, of the person officiating or of the emblem, have I had any reason to doubt the sincerity of the worshipper. I have never had reason to look upon the implements or the system as anything else than the endeavor of man to solve the mystery of Being and Power.
The existence of the individual worshipper was ordered not merely in relation to the family and the community, but even in relation to inanimate things. Whatever his occupation might be, some god presided over it; whatever tools he might use, they had to be used in such manner as tradition prescribed for all admitted to the craft-cult.
At any rate, he can tell his consultants with a good conscience that if they pray to Mary for grace they will receive it. But what is the good of this make-believe? And, if it is part of a transaction in which the worshipper pays money for assistance which he believes to be miraculous and only obtainable through the good offices of the Church, is it even morally honest?
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