In this age, forms and ceremonies are rapidly giving place to better manifestations of Truth, and to the silent cultivation of its virtues. Although all ways of doing and forms of worship are merely "a figure for the time then present," a better sense of Life cannot appear while such beliefs and ways of mortals are unyielding; for none of these ways can make the worshipper thereunto perfect. They are merely "a shadow of good things to come." Any individual who clings hard to the symbol is, in that, giving evidence that he has but little of the real and that he does not want his lord taken away.
Every age has been a dissolving present, a disappearing of the beliefs of mankind, and a consequent change in symbols of worship. As it has been with each age, so it is with each individual on every plane of thought.
As we rise, the symbols disappear;
The feast, though not the love, is passed and gone;
The bread and wine remove, but thou art here—
Nearer than ever—still my shield and sun.
