One who has the vocation is right to follow it, but he is
not right to force it upon others, any more than an artist would be
right in forcing the artistic life on others. It is too commonly held
by the religious that formal worship is a necessity for all; they
compare the relation of worship to the spiritual life to the relation
of eating and drinking to the physical life. But this is not true of
all human beings. Public liturgical worship is a kind of art, a very
delicate and beautiful art; and just as the appeal of what is spiritual
comes to some through worship, it comes to others through art, or
poetry, or affection, or even through some kinds of action. There is no
hint that Christ laid any stress on liturgical or public worship at
all; he attended the synagogue, and went up to Jerusalem to the
sacrifices; but he nowhere laid it down as a duty, or reproached those
who did not practise it. He spoke vehemently of the practice of prayer,
but recommended that it should be made as secret as possible; he chose
a social meal for his chief rite, and the act of washing as his
secondary rite. He did indeed warn his followers very sternly against
the dangers of formalism; he never warned them against the danger of
neglecting rites and ceremonies. On the other hand, it may be
confidently stated that when religious worship has become a customary
social act, a man who sympathises with the religious idea is right to
show public sympathy with it; he ought to weigh very carefully his
motives for abstaining.
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