union with Him hereafter.

CHAPTER XXXI.
RELIGION.

AS far back as the light of history extends, it shows man, of every
race and of every clime, occupied in giving expression, in one way or
another, to his religious impressions, sentiments, and convictions. He
knew God; he was influenced by this knowledge unto devotion; and sought
to exteriorize this devotion for the double purpose of proving its
truth and sincerity, and of still further nourishing, strengthening,
safeguarding it by means of an external worship and sensible things.
Accordingly, he built temples, erected altars, offered sacrifices,
burnt incense; he sang and wept, feasted and fasted; he knelt, stood
and prostrated himself--all things in harmony with his hopes and fears.
This is worship or cult. We call it religion, distinct from interior
worship or devotion, but supposing the latter essentially. It is
commanded by the first precept of God.

He who contents himself with a simple acknowledgment of the Divinity in
the heart, and confines his piety to the realm of the soul, does not
fulfil the first commandment. The obligation to worship God was
imposed, not upon angels--pure spirits, but upon men--creatures
composed of a body as well as a soul. The homage that He had a right to
expect was therefore not a purely spiritual one, but one in which the
body had a part as well as the soul. A man is not a man without a body.
Neither can God be satisfied with man's homage unless his physical
being cooperate with his spiritual, unless his piety be translated into
acts and become religion, in the sense in which we use the word.

There is no limit to the different forms religion may take on as
manifestations of intense fervor and strong belief. Sounds, attitudes,
practices, etc., are so many vehicles of expression, and may be
multiplied indefinitely. They become letters and words and figures of a
language which, while being conventional in a way, is also natural and
imitative, and speaks more clearly and eloquently and poetically than
any other human language. This is what makes the Catholic religion so
beautiful as to compel the admiration of believers and unbelievers
alike.

Of course, there is nothing to prevent an individual from making
religion a mask of hypocrisy. If in using these practices, he does not
mean what they imply, he lies as plainly as if he used words without
regard for their signification. These practices, too, may become
absurd, ridiculo