INTONING A DEVOUT EXPRESSION. 133 



distinguish and disassociate religious exercises from the common 

 duties of life, that induces it. The effect is, that the reading of 

 the Bible, for instance, instead of being a study of truth, or an 

 excitement to devotion and duty, as the individual may intend, 

 becomes an act of praise or prayer the real, unconscious pur- 

 pose of the reader finding expression in his tone and manner. So 

 we may often hear the most arrant nonsense in oral prayers ; a 

 stringing together of scriptural phrases and devout words in con- 

 fusing and contradicting sentences, while the tone and gesture 

 and the whole manner of the devotee show that he is most sin- 

 cerely, feelingly, enthusiastically in earnest supplication. What 

 for ? Not for that which his words express, for they may express 

 utter blasphemy, as in fact, it seems to me, they generally do. It 

 is simply an expression or manifestation by the act of uttering 

 words in a supplicating tone of the sense of dependence on a 

 superior being of love, of gratitude, and of reverence. David 

 did the same thing by dancing and playing upon the harp. It is 

 done now, as it seems to us, more solemnly in playing upon 

 church organs. It is done by monuments, and in the decorations 

 of churches. It is done by the Catholics, in listening and respond- 

 ing to prayers in a language which they don't pretend to under- 

 stand, and in mechanically repeating others, the number of them 

 counted by beads, measuring the importance or intensity of their 

 purpose. It is done by abstaining from meat on Friday, and by 

 confession to one another, in the form prescribed by their church 

 government. It is done by the Japanese, in twirling a teetotum ; 

 by the Chinese, in burning Joss-sticks ; by the Fakirs, in stand- 

 ing on one leg ; by the Methodists, in groans and inarticulate 

 cries ; by the Shakers, in their dance ; by the Baptists, in ice- 

 water immersions ; by Churchmen, in kneeling ; by Presbyteri- 

 ans, in standing ; by New Englanders, in eating a cold dinner 

 and regularly going to meeting on Sunday ; by the English, in 





