"But I must have less
faith in human nature than you have, for I cannot believe that any
preacher could exercise a permanent effect without the Sacraments. You
all know the person who says that the sound of an organ gives him holy
thoughts, makes him feel good, as the cant phrase goes? I've no doubt
that people who sit under famous preachers get the same kind of
sensation Sunday after Sunday. But sooner or later they will be
worshipping the outward form--that is to say the words that issue from
the preacher's mouth and produce those internal moral rumblings in the
pit of the soul which other listeners get from the diapason. Have your
organs, have your sermons, have your matins and evensong; but don't put
them on the same level as the Blessed Sacrament. The value of that is
absolute, and I refuse to consider It from the point of view of
pragmatic philosophy."
All would protest that Mark was putting a wrong interpretation upon
their argument; what they desired to avoid was the substitution of the
Blessed Sacrament for the Person of the Divine Saviour.
"But I believe," Mark argued, "I believe profoundly with the whole of my
intellectual, moral, and emotional self that the Blessed Sacrament _is_
our Divine Saviour. I maintain that only through the Blessed Sacrament
can we hope to form within our own minds the slightest idea of the
Person of the Divine Saviour.
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