"Excuse me, sir," said I, "if I, as a Catholic, have been deeply interested in your conversation just now; but may I ask on what principle those ritualistic forms and ceremonies are being adopted by Protestants, and being introduced into their services?"
"The principle is this, that they are all deeply significant of the different truths of the Christian religion, a visible expression of the faith of the worshipper."
"We understand that perfectly as Catholics," said I, "but as your congregations differ so widely in their individual belief, these forms and ceremonies would possess no significance to the half of anyone congregation of Protestant worshippers. Now, with us Catholics, the ceremonies have a universal significance, as all our people are united in one faith."
"We will educate our people to it," said he.
"That is, you would make the faith of your worshippers an expression of the ceremonies you perform, and not the ceremonies an expression of their faith. In the Catholic church the faith is all one to start on, and the appropriate ceremonies follow as a matter of course."
"I acknowledge," returned he, "that we have not paid sufficient attention to the vital necessity of a ritual which would embody and show forth the faith of our church."
"But when you have gotten a ritual which supposes, as it must, certain doctrines, and which, as you said to your friend, instructs the people in these doctrines, are you not trammelling the private judgment of those worshippers who do not believe these doctrines and wish to have a ritual which is consistent with their belief? What right have you to impose a ritual upon them inconsistent with their belief?"
"We do not impose any particular ritual," he replied; "if they do not like it they can go elsewhere."
"But then you would have, or ought to have, as many different rituals as your people have individual differences of belief, and that would end in endless division and dissension."