EXTERNAL MANIFESTATIONS OF RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT.
SECOND PART.
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION DOWNWARDS.
CLASSIFICATION.
We proceed now from the several methods by which men, in
all ages and in all countries, have sought to convey their
wishes, aspirations, and emotions upwards, to those by which
their several deities have in their opinion conveyed their commands,
decisions, and intentions downwards. The classification
will follow as closely as the subject permits that of the preceding
part. Consecration, the quality pertaining to man's instruments
of communication with God, will be replaced by
holiness, the quality pertaining to God's instruments of communication
with man. Thus, corresponding to the consecrated
actions of prayer, sacrifice, and praise, we shall have the holy
events of omens, signs, miracles, and so forth. Corresponding
to the consecrated places where men pay their devotions, we
shall find the holy places which some higher being has blessed
with tokens of his presence. Corresponding to the consecrated
objects bestowed by the creature on the Creator, we shall discover
holy objects through which some peculiar grace is conveyed
by the Creator to the creature. To consecrated men will
correspond holy men, who speak to their fellows with an authority
higher than their own; and these holy men will fall
into two classes, those whose regular work it is to represent the
deity on earth and those who are sent on some special occa-
