ABSTRACT
WE have now traced the course of sacramentalism from its beginning in primitive religion through the history of the Jewish and Christian Churches down to modern times. Our effort has been to show the continuity of this belief, and in order to do this it has been necessary to describe the many ways in which men have conceived that material things may be the means of communicating spiritual gifts. We saw that there can be distinguished three main modes of sacramentalism in which spirit uses respectively object, action, and word. But over and above these three modes there are the many efforts that have been made to give a reasonable explanation of the way in which material substance itself may convey spiritual gifts. This has been the more debated inasmuch as many who find no difficulty in the thought of God making direct use of human actions or words find it quite incredible that He should associate Himself with any material object.
