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Our modern word "worship" is the old Saxon "worth-ship" — that is, in its application, the adequate recognition of God's "worth " or due, and the creature's loyal payment of his debt. In the Bible the word signifies generally an act of respect or of homage. Sometimes it is used of the deference which one man pays to another — as, for example, the case of Nebuchadnezzar, who "worshipped " Daniel. Sometimes it is used to express the spurious devotion which men of old paid to idols. But most frequently it is used to indicate the highest homage that man can pay to his Maker, i.e. adoration. It is only moral intelligence that can appreciate the worth and due of God, and that is capable of offering to Him the sublimest adoration. Now, man is involved in a threefold relationship — a personal one, a family one, and a public one. From none of these will God consent to be excluded, nor is it right that He should be. We cannot dismiss Him from our personal lives, for He so encompasses us that to be rid of God means that we cease to exist. We may not close the door of the family against Him, for the family is peculiarly His institution, over which He has the right of perpetual superintendence. And if public life advances without God as its Captain, it must, as all history demonstrates, finally land in the bog of despair and ruin. But it is not sufficient that God be not excluded from the threefold life of man. He must be actively welcomed into each sphere, and His "worthship" be recognized therein. Undoubtedly, the most important thing of all is the worship of God in the persona! life of each man. As individuals we must recognize and love God. We cannot in this matter lose ourselves in the crowd. Next in importance to personal life is the life of the family and the worship of God there. With every fibre of my being I say to you, guard your families. Do not let your children grow up little better than heathens — teach them the Fatherhood of God and His right to their love and service. But now let us give all our attention to the matter of the public acknowledgment of the worship of God. The New Testament throughout assumes the necessity of public worship, while in several places it commands it (Hebrews 10:25; Matthew 18:20; 1 Corinthians 14:40). And there is the example of Christ (Luke 4:16). But these commands and assumptions are not arbitrary; they simply voice the Divine instinct within us, that gregarious instinct which results in public gatherings. It is this instinct that makes public worship a necessity, for in it we express our common belief, our common prayers, and our common thanksgivings. Each of us is bound to a common Creator by a common bond, and each creature is bound to every other creature by virtue of the bond which binds all to God, and this common bond must receive common recognition. How shall this recognition be best set forth so as to employ the whole of our faculties in the exercise? Our public worship should be a service common to all. It is impossible for any minister to pray so as to comprehend all the needs of his people; at best he can only touch the surface, and it is inconvenient and might be indecorous for each person to state his own case in public. But there are certain thanksgivings and prayers which touch every nature, and in public worship these should be stated. Christ taught His disciples a form of prayer in which they were to say, "Our Father," "Give us," "Our trespasses" — a prayer common to all. But for thanksgiving and prayer to be common they must be responsive — this is demanded by the necessity of the case. The Bible patterns of worship are responsive. Read the accounts of worship in Revelation 5:19. And that great Temple book — the Psalter — was composed for responsive worship. This, you perceive, brings us at once to the question of a liturgy. Might we not have a series of liturgies, compiled, if you will, from the Bible only, so arranged as to promote unity of thought?

(F. C. Spurt.)

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KJV: O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

WEB: Oh come, let's worship and bow down. Let's kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,