Thus a ministry to offer sacrifices is substituted for a ministry to feed the flock of God with sound doctrine, and the spiritual worship of God is converted into the formal adoration of a wafer. Preaching is nowhere regarded as the leading duty of the clergy, but to say mass. By exalting the eucharist into an expiatory sacrifice, the partaking of the elements by the people came to be considered quite unessential, and is generally neglected. They need not understand, nor even hear the language of the officiating priest. It is enough, if they see and adore. A bell warns them when to make the needful genuflections and crosses. Nor can there be a reasonable doubt, that the adoration of the host (which is required on pain of excommunication in the Romish Church) is the grossest species of idolatry. But there are deadly, as well as venial, sins; and these expose the soul to eternal punishment. When these are committed after baptism, they can be remitted only by auricular confession, or the sacrifice of penance, of which confession forms an essential part. To the efficacy of this ceremony, contrition of heart is supposed, in theory, to be essential; but its necessity is rarely taught, and the great mass of the community go away from the confessional fully satisfied that their sins are canceled by the mere external form. Pardon by the priest is not, however, absolute. Grace is restored, and eternal punishment remitted, but there must be a temporary punishment,--certain penances, such as fasting, alms-giving, saying prayers, and the like. The fasts are merely the substituting of a less for a more palatable and nutritious diet. Alms are more for the spiritual benefit of the giver, than for the relief of the receiver. The supposed efficacy of prayer has no connection with the sincerity of the offerer. For in none of the Oriental Churches, excepting the Arabic branch of the Greek Church, are the prayers in a language understood by the people. They believe that all who die before baptism, or after baptism with deadly sins unconfessed, are lost forever; but if one die after confession, and while his penance is incomplete, he cannot be sent to hell, neither is he prepared for heaven. He must first complete his penance in a temporary state of misery. This state the papists call purgatory; and though the other churches reject the name, they cleave tenaciously to the thing. As all believe that the sufferings of the departed may be shortened by the merit of good works performed by surviving relatives and imputed to them, prayers for the dead are frequent in churches and over graves, and masses are celebrated in their name. Though the Nestorians renounced auricular confession, they no more looked to the redemption of Christ for pardon, than did their neighbors, and they knew of no other regeneration than baptism.