know that these same involved, discursive, ambiguous, turgid and dull speeches could and did rouse hard-bitten Scotsmen to a wildness of enthusiasm that seems to us incredible.
Thus the personality is something that travels on the wings of sound. But is that all ? Is there not something more, something imperceptible which yet exercises a secret power over our emotions and passions? Is there an olfactory aura ?
“Why does the elevation of the Host m a Roman Catholic church bring such an assurance of peace to the congregation ?” writes a friend of mine. “This remarkable sensation T have myself frequently experienced and wondered at. Yet I am, as you know, a Scots Presbyterian, and do not credit for a single moment the miraculous change of bread and wine. And yet to this gracious and comforting influence I have been subject on more than one occasion. It is for all the world as if the constant pin-pricks of our normal life were suspended for a moment or two.
“It is present only during service, and then only at the culmination of the rite.
“As I do not believe in the miracle, the influence must come to me from without, not from within myself. Indeed, I have actually come to the conclusion that it is borne in upon me not by the church atmosphere with its incense, nor by the solemn intonation of the priest, nor by the whisper of the muted organ, nor yet by the distant murmur of the choir, but—by the congregation itself !
“It is from the knceling worshippers that the mysterious influence emanates, invisibly, inaudibly, intangibly, to suffuse with the peace of some other world the spirit even of an unbeliever…”
Is it possible that influences such as these may enter by the olfactory door ?
