dles, the various altars
for sacrifice, the burnt-offerings, peace-offerings, meat-offerings, and
sin-offerings, the consecrated cakes and animals for sacrifice, the
rites for cleansing leprosy and all uncleanliness, the grand atonements
and solemn fasts and festivals,--all were calculated to make a strong
impression on a superstitious people. The rites and ceremonies of the
Jews were so attractive that they made up for all other amusements and
spectacles; they answered the purpose of the Gothic churches and
cathedrals of Europe in the Middle Ages, when these were the chief
attractions of the period. There is nothing absurd in ritualism among
ignorant and superstitious people, who are ever most easily impressed
through their senses and imagination. It was the wisdom of the Middle
Ages,--the device of popes and bishops and abbots to attract and
influence the people. But ritualism--useful in certain ages and
circumstances, certainly in its most imposing forms, if I may say
it--does not seem to be one of the peculiarities of enlightened ages;
even the ritualism of the wilderness lost much of its hold upon the Jews
themselves after their captivity, and still more when Greek and Roman
civilization had penetrated to Jerusalem. The people who listened to
Peter and Paul could no longer be moved by imposing rites, even as the
European nations--under the preaching of Luther, Knox, and Latimer--lost
all relish for the ceremonies of the Middle Ages. What, then, are we to
think of the revival of observances which lost their force three hundred
years ago, unless connected with artistic music? It is music which
vitalizes ritualistic worship in our times, as it did in the times of
David and Solomon. The vitality of the Jewish ritual, when the nation
had emerged from barbarism, was in its connections with a magnificent
psalmody. The Psalms of David appeal to the heart and not to the senses.
The ritualism of the wilderness appealed to the senses and not to the
heart; and this was necessary when the people had scarcely emerged from
barbarism, even as it was deemed necessary amid the turbulence and
ignorance of the tenth century.

In the ritualism which Moses established there was the absence of
everything which would recall the superstitions and rites, or even the
doctrines, of the Egyptians. In view of this, we account partially for
the almost studied reticence in respect to a future state, upon which
hinged many of the peculiarities of