It is in sacred hymns and choirs, with which the words
of the poet are connected only by slight and airy bands, that those
feelings are breathed forth which precise language is unable to
contain; and thus the tones of thought and emotion alternate with each
other in mutual support, until all is satisfied and filled with the
Holy and the Infinite. Of this character is the influence of religious
men upon one another; such is their natural and eternal union. Do
not take it ill of them that this heavenly bond--the most consummate
product of the social nature of man, but to which it does not
attain until it becomes conscious of its own high and peculiar
significance--that this should be deemed of more value in their sight
than the political union which you esteem so far above everything
else, but which will nowhere ripen to manly beauty, and which,
compared with the former, appears far more constrained than free, far
more transitory than eternal.
But where now, in the description which I have given of the community
of the pious, is that distinction between priests and laymen, which
you are accustomed to designate as the source of so many evils? A
false appearance has deceived you. This is not a distinction between
persons, but only one of condition and performance. Every man is a
priest, so far as he draws others around him, into the sphere which he
has appropriated to himself and in which he professes to be a master.
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