Push your aversion to forms and
ceremonies to a legitimate conclusion, and you would prefer
kneeling in a barn rather than in a cathedral. Your tenets
would strike at the very existence of all art, which is
essentially spiritual."
"I am not speaking abstractedly," said Egremont, "but rather
with reference to the indirect connection of these forms and
ceremonies with another church. The people of this country
associate them with an enthralling superstition and a foreign
dominion."
"With Rome," said Mr St Lys; "yet forms and ceremonies existed
before Rome."
"But practically," said Egremont. "has not their revival in
our service at the present day a tendency to restore the
Romish system in this country?"
"It is difficult to ascertain what may be the practical effect
of certain circumstances among the uninformed," said Mr St
Lys. "The church of Rome is to be respected as the only
Hebraeo-christian church extant; all other churches
established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome
remains; and we must never permit the exaggerated position
which it assumed in the middle centuries to make us forget its
early and apostolical character, when it was fresh from
Palestine and as it were fragrant from Paradise.
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