4. All communities above the very lowest employ professional persons for the express object of conveying to them the will of their Deity, or discovering his intentions as to the future. The most usual name for such functionaries is that of Priest, and for the sake of embracing all ecclesiastical or quasi-ecclesiastical classes under one designation I shall call them _holy orders_. 5. The possession of a professional character distinguishes them from the next class, who serve as the fifth channel between God and man, but who differ from the fourth in the circumstance of being self-appointed. Prophets (for it is of these I am speaking) receive no regular consecration; nevertheless the part they have played in the religious history of mankind has been of such transcendent importance that they deserve to be placed in a class apart under the title of _holy persons_. 6. Sixthly, there remains a mode of communication from God to man to which there is nothing corresponding on our side; it is that of written documents. Man has never (so far as I am aware) imagined himself capable of sending a letter or written composition of any kind to God; but God is supposed, through the medium of human instruments, to have embodied his thoughts in writing for the benefit of the human race. The result is the very important category of _holy books_. EXTERNAL MANIFESTATIONS OF RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. FIRST PART. _MEANS OF COMMUNICATION UPWARDS._ CHAPTER I. CONSECRATED ACTIONS. Adoration, or worship, is a direct result of one of the most universal of human instincts. After the instincts which impel us to provide for the necessities of the body, and to satisfy the passion of love, there is perhaps none more potent or more general. Men are driven to pray by an irresistible impulse. Differing widely as to the object of worship; differing not less widely as to its mode; differing in a minor degree as to the blessings it secures; they are agreed as to the fundamental ideas which it involves. In the first place it presupposes a power superior to, or at any rate different from, the power of man; in the second place it assumes a belief that this superhuman or non-human power can be approached by his worshipers; can be induced to listen to their desires, and to grant their petitions.