It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made, much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: “according to the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people.”
And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on the way to paganism, through a materialised worship.
But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise. And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the constant proposal to secularise religious buildings, revenues, endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom, or only greater freedom from religious control.
And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls.
There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy things for a mere perfume, that literature may “smell thereto.”
A novelist has chosen for the title of a story “Just as I am.” An innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,—
“’Twas such a smile,
Aaron’s twelve jewels seemed to mix
With the lamps of the golden candlesticks.”
Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,—
“In the great battle when the hosts are met
On Armageddon’s plain, with spears beset.”
Another thinks of Mazzini as the