The scruples of the formalist.
"Strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." The proverbial character of this sentence is manifest, but the precise form is disputed. Trench thinks "straining out a gnat" is better; and he suggests reference to the scrupulous anxiety shown in drinking water. A traveller in North Africa reports that a Moorish soldier who accompanied him, when he drank, always unfolded the end of his turban, and placed it over the mouth of his bota, drinking through the muslin, to strain out the gnats, whose larvae swarm in the water of that country. The "camel" is only used in the proverb as the representative of something big. The Hindoo proverbial saying is, "Swallowing an elephant, and being choked with a flea." Reference must be kept to the class of persons that may be regarded as represented by hypocritical Pharisees.
I. HE WHO PRESERVES THE SPIRIT CAN ADAPT THE FORMS. No man may say that the forms of religion are unimportant. They have their place, and only need to be kept in their right place. But life comes before expression of life; and spirit comes before form. Being "born from above" is more important than any religious rite., even the most sacred. Only the man who has the spirit can bear right relations to the forms. He will use them. He will not be mastered by them. He understands that forms were made for him, and he was not made for the forms. They must, therefore, be adjusted to him and to his needs. To him all forms are servants. Authority in the forms of religion may be voluntarily recognized; but a man's own quickened life is the supreme authority to him.
II. HE WHO UNDULY ESTIMATES THE FORM WILL SOON BE ENSLAVED BY THE FORM. The student of human nature, who considers the sense-conditions under which we are set, will argue that it must always be so. He who observes Christian life, or skilfully reads personal experience, will declare that it is so. Once let religious forms and ceremonies control conduct, break bounds of the restraint of soul life, and they will run as does loosened fire; they will overlay the spiritual feeling; they will absorb all the powers; and become supreme interests; and when the spirit is thus overlaid, the result too often follows which we see in these Pharisees—exaggerated scruples about exact and minute forms going along with a demoralizing indifference to moral purity.—R.T.