8o FRANKINCENSE 



penetrating, touching the mind, as we imagine, to 

 something more than a mere aesthetic satisfaction. 



We know how great a part association has in the 

 pleasure we receive from lovely things — sights, sounds 

 and scents; it may, indeed, be the chief cause of the 

 effect produced by those rare and delicate scents we 

 have been considering; but I don't think so. Anyhow, 

 it is doubtful: thus I may at any time find that 

 peculiar effect in a wild flower never previously met 

 with, growing in some desert place. 



With frankincense it is a different story: it is 

 one of the thick or heavy perfumes of the fragrant 

 gums which do not suggest flavours, but are also far 

 removed in character from the etherealised quintes- 

 sential flower-scents described as spiritual. The effect, 

 therefore, in religious ritual is mainly due to associa- 

 tion, and it is a very powerful effect, and no doubt it 

 was much more potent in the Ages of Faith than 

 now, and it was this use of frankincense which gave 

 rise to that common belief in lovely and heavenly 

 perfumes emanating from the long-buried bones and 

 corpses of dead saints on their exhumation. Intellec- 

 tually, we know, smell does not rank so highly as the 

 two other senses, but it is, on the other hand, more 

 emotional, and stirs the mind more deeply than seeing 

 and hearing. It has, as it were, a higher and lower 

 nature, and only in the lower does it come near to 

 taste; and taste even the Protestant, full of dry 

 light as he is, yet admits into his religious sym- 

 bolism. But he cannot attend a Roman Catholic 

 church or cathedral service in the reverent spirit of 



