After the ceremony was finished, the primitive procession started upon its recessional, wended its way down the hillside, to enter again their huts, and feast upon the burnt offering—cooked.
Adele looked up. The Ancient Service, in vogue from the beginning in the development of religious consciousness in man, and held to-day in the Himalaya Cathedral, was finished. The altar had not been in the chancel, but as of old, in the outer court of the Temple, in the world at large. The daily sacrifice could be made by any man in his own daily life—it was a part of the ritual of day-by-day devotion—the sacrifice of things seen to attain spiritually to things unseen. The altar might be in any man’s hearth or home, in his heart or soul-life.
Adele had been present at a primitive realistic ceremony, but she had not been able to witness it with her bodily eyes, so great was the progress of truth in life “since the days of sacrifice.” She understood now why the Creator had led humanity to abjure and abolish actual burnt sacrifices, substituting the spiritual experience, in remembrance.
Adele and the Doctor entered the thicket where the service had been held. They noticed how the life-blood had already sunk into the ground and been absorbed and become a part of it, “earth to earth.” If they had visited the Lepcha huts, they would have found “ashes to ashes.” They noticed also how the recently added signals, the feathers and the hair of the innocent kid, were fluttering with the other color-signals; these latter new ones in remembrance of the day’s service. And as they looked around they heard the Lepchas still off in the distance, singing. They had plenty of fresh food now, and a joyful spirit within. They sang as man often sings, when at his daily work, at home, in his shop, or in the field.
What more philosophically true in man’s religious development, from before Abraham, from primitive man, from the beginning so far as humanity knows about itself? The Spirit of Truth in ancient man had ever testified to the shedding of innocent life-blood instead of the sacrifice of self, or personal surrender, as the visible sign of propitiation, or of at-one-ment, the atonement. A tangible sign, symbolic, which could not in the very nature of things be understood in fuller significance until mankind was ready for the comprehension of the unseen, the spiritual sacrifice or atonement, until civilizations had sufficiently developed to comprehend spiritually what had always transpired naturally. The revelation culminating in the voluntary sacrifice of Him who said: “I am the Truth, the Life”—the Saviour of mankind.
Verily the Ancient Ritual was worthy of the Cathedral built by the Mind of Nature—our Creator-Father.
XLIV
THE EVERYDAY RITUAL
ADELE and Paul spent much time together wandering about exploring the Cathedral. Adele said she heard sermons in stones, and voices in running brooks, and all that sort of thing. Paul hurled stones down precipices, and said he didn’t care much for sermons, anyway. Adele laughed when he stopped her at a spring in the woods and insisted upon her tasting the water when he himself enjoyed it freely.
“It goes all through me,” said Paul. “Delicious, the best mountain spring I ever found.”
“Of course it goes all through you; such pure cold water exhilarates as if giving a new life.”