This social action of religion springs from its very essence. The phrase "communion of souls" is of religious origin and hue. The thing expressed by it--one of the most wonderful phenomena of collective moral life--is never perfectly realised save in religion and by religion. An identic faith, a common act of adoration, not merely brings souls together: it makes them live in each other, blends them into one soul in which each of them finds itself, multiplied, as it were, by all the rest. That is what is properly called "edification," by which I mean that feeling of joy, of force, of fulness of life, produced by the common act of worship in those who sincerely take part in it. That is the reason why men of the same religion have no more imperious need than that of praying and worshipping together. State police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the sanctuary or the home. Their members have never been resigned to this comparatively solitary life; they have braved all interdicts and persecutions in order to turn it into social life and fraternal communion. God, it is said, is the place where spirits blend. In rising towards Him man of necessity passes beyond the limits of his own individuality. He feels instinctively that the principle of his being is also the principle of the life of his brethren; that that which gives him safety must give it to all. In the same Religion, souls the most diverse, being affected in the same manner, become related to each other, and form a real family, united by closer, stronger bonds than those of blood. The religious life is a higher region. Those who rise into it feel the barriers fall which hemmed in their existence. They become free; they penetrate the souls of their neighbours and feel themselves to be penetrated by them; and all live one life, which, although it be larger and almost universal, is none the less very personal and very intense. Have you ever been present in a crowd excited and exalted by religious enthusiasm? Have you felt the contagion? Then you can never forget it. It is said the early Christians were of one heart and one soul. Their community of faith, of hope, of love, went so far as to make them forget the idea of property and put their goods in common. In how many monastic orders or mystic sects has not this same need of equality and unity gone to the point of identity in costume and deportment, and even of the loss of name and personal individuality?