ABSTRACT
One must be blinded by prejudice if one does not perceive that the communions sustained by religion are among the purest. To be sure, the experienced eye of the historian will detect, even in these, traces of primitive mentality, for the simple reason that they are there as they are everywhere, and the orthodox historian will himself recognize them without perturbation. The Christian eats the flesh and drinks the blood of the Lamb sacrificed. But here the primitive aspiration reappears only in a greatly sublimated form, which deserves at least to be respected. Of course, we should also respect the scruples of those honest minds that see only idolatry and bad taste in certain of the more authentically collective manifestations of religion, as in the collateral cults which the Church tolerates or encourages, the cults of Lourdes, Joan of Arc, St. Therese of Lisieux. It is true that these popular cults are not, on the whole, expressions of the purest spirituality.
