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Updated: June 17, 2025
"In its royal foundation, its generous endowment, and liberal patronage," says R. C. Boone, "it stands in sharp contrast to the early years of Harvard. This was established by the Puritans, and stood for the severest of ultra-orthodox though dissenting Protestantism; that was founded to be and was an exponent of the most formal ceremonialism of the Church of England.
Thus in the fifty-first psalm the writer, one of the prophetic school, thus contrasts mere ceremonialism with spiritual worship: Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Or take the prophet Micah, chapter vi., verse 6.
It is easy enough to prove to the man of ordinary intelligence the debasing influence of idolatry, the accursed slavery of the caste system, the gross immorality of the Hindu pantheon, and the dwarfing and degrading character of the ceremonialism of modern Hinduism. But behind and above all these, the Hindu has inherited a number of ideals which allure and command him.
How can the men who win distinction as scientific specialists still respect the household shrine or do reverence before the Shinto parish-temple? Can all this mean more than the ordered conservation of forms after the departure of faith? Is it not certain that with the further progress of education, Shinto, even as ceremonialism, must cease to exist?
There, as here, errors and confusions in the Church are in view a subtle theosophy and also a retrograde ceremonialism, probably both amalgamating into one dangerous total. And St. Paul's method of defence for his converts there what is it? Above all, it is the presentation of Jesus Christ, in the glories of His Person and His Work.
"Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern." "But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary. Ceremony is the casket of religion." "More often its coffin," said Strelitski drily. "Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a rigor mortis.
While the historical feeling which breathes in Hooker's work took form in the new passion for tradition and ceremonialism, the appeal which it addressed to human reason produced a school of philosophical thinkers whose timid upgrowth was almost lost in the clash of warring creeds about them, but who were destined as the latitudinarians of later days to make as deep an impression as their dogmatic rivals on the religious thought of their countrymen.
Again He points out that the "righteousness" required to gain the "kingdom of heaven" is a far different thing from the formalism, ceremonialism and "churchism" of the scribes and pharisees people who, in that day, stood for that which the "churchy" preachers and their bigoted, narrow flock of sheep-like parishioners stand for today.
It may not immediately pass away, but it must eventually. Religion freed from superstition and ceremonialism, resting in reality, identifying moral and scientific with religious truth, is already finding hearty support from many of Japan's educated men. If appeal is made under the right conditions, the Japanese manifest no lack of a genuine religious nature.
In general their attitude toward sacrifice is that of the prophets: For thou desirest not sacrifice; Else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Religion is defined in the terms of life and acts. Ceremonialism has not yet cast its chilling influence over the heart of the nation.
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