words I just quoted have conveyed?

{Sidenote: '_Religion_'}

There are several places in the Authorized Version of Scripture where
those who are not aware of the changes which have taken place during the
last two hundred and fifty years in our language, can hardly fail of
being to a certain extent misled as to the intention of our Translators;
or, if they are better acquainted with Greek than with early English,
will be tempted to ascribe to them, though unjustly, an inexact
rendering of the original. Thus the altered meaning of a word involves
a serious misunderstanding in that well known statement of St. James,
"Pure _religion_ and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction". "There", exclaims
one who wishes to set up St. James against St. Paul, that so he may
escape the necessity of obeying either, "listen to what St. James says;
there is nothing mystical in what he requires; instead of harping on
faith as a condition necessary to salvation, he makes all religion to
consist in practical deeds of kindness from one to another". But let us
pause for a moment. Did 'religion', when our translation was made, mean
godliness? did it mean the _sum total_ of our duties towards God? for,
of course, no one would deny that deeds of charity are a necessary part
of our Christian duty, an evidence of the faith which is in us. There is
abundant evidence to show that 'religion' did not mean this; that, like
the Greek {Greek: thre:skeia}, for which it here stands, like the Latin
'religio', it meant the outward forms and embodiments in which the
inward principle of piety arrayed itself, the _external service_ of God;
and St. James is urging upon those to whom he is writing something of
this kind: "Instead of the ceremonial services of the Jews, which
consisted in divers washings and in other elements of this world, let
our service, our {Greek: thre:skeia}, take a nobler shape, let it
consist in deeds of pity and of love"--and it was this which our
Translators intended, when they used 'religion' here and 'religious' in
the verse preceding. How little 'religion' once meant godliness, how
predominantly it was used for the _outward_ service of God, is plain
from many passages in our _Homilies_, and from other contemporary
literature.

Again, there are words in our Liturgy which I have no doubt are commonly
misunderstood. The mistake involves no serious error; yet still in our
own