WORSHIP 
 
 (jflement of SanctiiarD Strljice. 
 
 REV. HENRY DARLING. D.D. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THi: 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 WILLIAM S. YOUNG, PRINTER, NO. 32 NORTH SIXTH STREET, 
 
 1862. 
 
 F-39 
 

 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 SCO 
 
if VMr-- 
 
 WORSHIP 
 
 AS AN 
 
 (Element 0f ^aitctuarg Ser&ice 
 
 REV. HENRY DARLING, D. D. 
 
 KEPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY REVIEW, 
 
 WILLIAM S. YOUNG, PRINTER, NO. 52 NORTH SIXTH STREET, 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 1862. 
 
I 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This Article, from the April Number of the Presbyterian Quarterly 
 Review, is issued in a separate form by the Author, sunplij because of the 
 importance of the subject it discusses, and in the hope that its usefulness 
 would be increased by a wider circulation. 
 
 It is time that those churches which retain in their Sanctuary service 
 the simplicity of Apostolic times and discard all medieval ritualism, should 
 satisfy those yearnings for " Worship ^'^ which some devout minds in their 
 communion feel, and which lead them to look — occasionally to go — else- 
 where. That to do this we only need a complete and full development of 
 our oicn Si/stem, this Article is an humhle attempt to show. That it is far 
 from an exhaustive treatment of the subject, no one can feel more keenly 
 than the Author. So far however as it goes, he believes it to be in the 
 right direction. 
 
i 
 
WORSHIP 
 
 The services of God's house, as usually conJacted, may be 
 regarded as comprising two great elements. Worship and In- 
 struciion; and although these elements are mutually helpful, 
 and, to some extent, interpenetrate each other, yet they may, 
 in our examination, he separately and distinctly considered. 
 Worship is the act of paying divine honor to the Supreme Be- 
 ing, and includes those parts of divine service whereof Jehovah 
 himself is the immediate object. Instruction is the communi- 
 cation of knowledge from one mind to another, and includes 
 "whatever in the service is the acting of men, upon the autho- 
 rity and commission of God, on others. The first comprises 
 the prayers and praises of the sanctuary; the latter is limited 
 to the reading and preaching of the word. 
 
 But, divine service composed of these two elements, it is 
 plain that there is a certain relation that they ought always to 
 sustain to each other, and that great care should be observed 
 not to give to either an undue and disproportional prominence. 
 In retiring from the house of God a congregation should feel 
 that they have ivorsliipped — that they have given to Jehovah 
 that reverence and honor which are his due; and, at the same 
 time, that they have obtained some new or clearer view of truth. 
 But how seldom are both of these ends of divine service at- 
 tained? 
 
 lu the Romish Church the element of worship has almost 
 
entirely supplanted that of instruction. The mass — and to this, 
 in countries purely papal, divine service is almost wholly 
 limited — is nothing but a symbolical representation of the sa- 
 crifice of Christ, and a great thank-ofi'ering. Indeed, as the 
 ministry, according to the theory of Romanism, is a priesthood, 
 and the pulpit an altar, there is in the whole system no place 
 for instruction. It is not the business of a papal ecclesiastic 
 to preach. He is not a teacher, to instruct men in the way of 
 righteousness, but a priest, to appear before God in their be- 
 half. And in strict agreement with this theory of popery has 
 ordinarily been her practice. An old English Reformer, speak- 
 ing of this Church in his day, quaintly remarked, " that if 
 there were one vast gulf from Calais to Dover, it would not be 
 large enough to contain its unpreaching bishops." 
 
 But, while the Romish Church has, in the order of her service, 
 gone to this dangerous extreme of excluding all instruction, has 
 the Protestant Church been always sufficiently careful to retain 
 in her sanctuary service the element of worship? Has she never 
 given an undue prominence to preaching? Luther once said 
 that "the greatest and most important part of the service of 
 God's house was the preaching and teaching of the word ;" and 
 doubtless the truth of the remark all Protestant Christians 
 would admit. The minister of Christ, under the new dispensa- 
 tion, is not a priest, but a teacher, and by making, in this di- 
 rection, full proof of his ministry, ought to give cause to the 
 rejoicing multitude to exclaim, " How beautiful upon the moun- 
 tains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pub- 
 lisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that pub- 
 lisheth salvation." But is this "most important part" of 
 divine service its all? Was Luther right when, to the remark 
 just quoted, he added "that wherever the word of God is not 
 preached, it is better neither to sing, nor to read, nor to assem- 
 ble together." Of very much church-going, in our day, the 
 only motive is sermon-hearing. This is the kernel of the service, 
 and around it all the prayers and praises of the sanctuary hang 
 as mere preparation and conclusion. Men think very little of 
 worship as they enter a sanctuary of a Protestant and unlitur- 
 gical Church. They go to it as they would to a scientific or 
 
literary lecture-room, making between the two no essential dis- 
 tinction but such as exists in the topics that are in both illus- 
 trated and enforced. Is this an exaggerated statement? Ob- 
 serve the passivity of a congregation during the services pre- 
 liminary to the delivery of the discourse — the readiness with 
 which they consent to pass them over into other hands — the 
 strange irreverence which men often manifest in the Lord's 
 house — and the fact that the profit of any service is almost all 
 made to depend upon the excellence or defect of the sermons. 
 And the existence of this same idea, is it not often apparent 
 in the mind of the minister himself? Does he not frequently 
 so conduct the services of God's house as to make it simply a 
 school for religious instruction? A discourse elaborately pre- 
 pared and effectively delivered, is it not oftentimes both pre- 
 ceded and followed by the most unstudied and inappropriate 
 utterances of prayer? Of how many divines, eloquent when, 
 for God, they speak to men, could it be said, as was said of the 
 late Dr. Griffin, that his most eloquent utterances were always 
 when for men he spoke to God? 
 
 No one familiar with the additions that have recently been 
 made to our hymnology can have failed to notice how subject- 
 ive in their character they generally are. They are descriptive 
 of some peculiar phase of the believer's inner life. To those 
 old psalms and hymns of lofty praise, that bore the spirit away 
 from itself, and brought it to lie down, in the deepest reve- 
 rence, before Jehovah's throne, few additions have, in these 
 modern times, been made. Indeed, the element of instruction 
 in divine service, has so absorbed that of worship as to make 
 ministers feel that everything in the shape of song must be 
 made to bear directly upon the topic of discourse. We have 
 few doxologies in the modern Church. "We sing doctrine, and 
 Christian experience, and stirring exhortations to duty, more 
 than we sing praise. 
 
 It is, then, no unimportant subject, no subject devoid of prac- 
 tical interest, that we propose to discuss in this Article. Our 
 theme is worship — its importance as an element of sanctuary 
 service. 
 
 In its illustration, our first argument will be drawn from the 
 
6 
 
 natural influence of worship, as we have already briefly defined 
 it. Worship exercises the aff'ections. In those parts of divine 
 service embraced under this division the heart takes the lead. 
 While instruction has immediate respect to the understanding 
 and conscience, worship has regard to the emotions and aflfec- 
 tions of the soul. God's character and law, his efficacious grace 
 and everlasting faithfulness, are here made matters, not of spe- 
 culative inquiry, but of taste and experience. "Worship is 
 not study; it is not mind grappling with the severities of know- 
 ledge, but it is the heart breathing its wants into the ear of 
 God in praise or prayer, or in meditating in delightful com- 
 placency upon his character and love." And how happy the 
 eff'ect of this upon the soul must be, is sufficiently evident from 
 the single fact that it is the aff'ections, more than either the 
 reason or conscience, that constitutes the life-blood of vital 
 religion. The deep home of sin is in the heart. If this is 
 right, the conscience would seldom be wrong, and reason would 
 never be driven from her throne. "None deny," says Lord 
 Bacon, " there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that 
 there was no God." And all the other forms of religious skep- 
 ticism have the same origin. The causes of infidelity are eth i 
 cal, rather than intellectual. 
 
 Moreover, though the truth is the instrument of sanctifica- 
 tion, it does not hence follow that the intellect alone has busi- 
 ness with it, or alone can rightly understand it. The heart has 
 much to do with the truth. It needs its impulse quite as much 
 as the mind needs its light. When the soul comes to employ 
 it, in intercourse with God, divine truth has a very diff'erent 
 aspect from that which it has when simply examined in itself. 
 Those great and deep doctrines of revelation which men grap- 
 ple with in vain, when, with an undevout intellect, they sit in 
 judgment upon them, lose much of their power to perplex and 
 harass when received with that lowliness of spirit which true 
 worship begets. Few men misunderstand God on their knees. 
 W^hat a felicitous illustration of this thought is the seventy- 
 third Psalm ! The divine ways, intellectually considered, brought 
 the Psalmist into perplexity. He could not understand them. 
 The impenetrable shade of a dark cloud hung over them, and 
 
all his sagacity in study could not bring peace to his mind. 
 Hear his language: "But as for me, my feet were almost 
 gone ; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at 
 the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." So soon, 
 however, as this mere speculation ceased, and, in the spirit of 
 a sincere worshipper, Asaph went into the sanctuary of God, 
 and there meditated upon His ways, the cloud was lifted, the 
 enigma solved, and the Psalm closes with the satisfied excla- 
 mation, " It is good for me to draw near to God. I have put 
 my trust in the Lord God." 
 
 The late Dr. Ebenezer Porter, in his Lectures on Homile- 
 tics, remarks that " the usefulness of a minister depends, in no 
 small measure, on the character of his public prayers," and 
 enforces this remark by the following suggestive thoughts upon 
 the influence of this part of sanctuary service: "When the de- 
 votions of the sanctuary have their proper effect, they prepare 
 the hearers to listen, with deep and solemn interest, to the in- 
 structions delivered from the pulpit. Just so far as the prayer 
 in which they have joined has brought them io feel the impres- 
 sions of a present God in the sanctuary, and the eternal retri- 
 butions to which they are going, their minds are divested of 
 listlessness, and prejudice, and fastidious criticism, and they 
 will hear a sermon with candor and humility. Besides, what 
 is it that gives a sermon jpower over the hearts of hearers? It 
 is a solemn persuasion that the preacher himself is deeply im- 
 pressed with the everlasting importance of the truths which he 
 delivers. But how shall they be thus persuaded, unless the 
 thing is a reality? And how shall the minister deeply /ge^ the 
 weight of truth in his sermon, if his heart has been cold in the 
 devotional exercises which have gone before it? The heart 
 which slumbers in speaking to God, and wakes up in speaking 
 to men, has but a false and factitious warmth, which, in its 
 influence on other hearts, is totally different from the genuine 
 glow of religious feeling. There may be reasons why a man 
 should be fervent in his devotions, and yet fail of delivering an 
 interesting sermon. But the converse is a much more rare oc- 
 currence, namely, that the hearers are disappointed by an im- 
 pressive and powerful sermon from the same lips that had just 
 
8 
 
 uttered a dull and formal prayer. If you would be a success- 
 ful preacher, you must not fail essentially in public prayer."* 
 
 But, passing the argument drawn from the natural influence 
 of worship to show its importance as an element of sanctuary ser- 
 vice, the reader will notice, as illustrating still farther our sub- 
 ject, the great prominence that was given to worship, both in the 
 Jewish and ancient Christian Church. The Roman Catholic hie- 
 rarchy, modelling itself confessedly from the old temple of wor- 
 ship of the Jews, is perfectly consistent in excluding from its ser- 
 vice the element of instruction. When the Israelites went up to 
 their temple at Jerusalem, either at the hour of daily prayer 
 or upon one of the great feasts of their nation, it was not to 
 listen to any formal exhibition of divine truth. There were, 
 indeed, in Judea, prophets; and schools of the prophets were 
 established at Bethel, Naioth, and Jericho; and these prophets 
 were a class of teachers. Their addresses, however, were de- 
 livered only on extraordinary occasions, and when some divine 
 afliatus prompted them to utter either an intimation of mercy 
 or a threatening of wrath. In the ordinary religious services 
 of the Jews there was nothing that would at all correspond to 
 what, in this day, we call the preaching of the word. Every- 
 thing was worship. All the rights and ceremonial observances 
 of both the tabernacle and the temple, while they symbolically 
 represented truth, dimly shadowed forth the divine greatness, 
 glory, justice, grace, and thus indirectly taught them, were 
 especially calculated and designed to impress sentiments of the 
 profoundest reverence and awe of Jehovah upon every mind. 
 The Israelites went up to Jerusalem to worship. Their song, 
 as they entered the temple, was, *' come let us worship and 
 bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Indeed, 
 so prominent was this element of worship in all the public reli- 
 gious services of the Jews, that it was not until after their 
 return from captivity in Babylon, and the establishment of 
 synagogues, that even the reading of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures became with them a regular part of any service. 
 
 How prominent, also, as an element of sanctuary service, 
 was worship in the early Christian Church! Modelled after 
 
 * Porter's Lectures on Homiletics, p. 293. 
 
9 
 
 the Jewish synagogue, both as to its officers and the order of 
 its services, primitive Christians did not, indeed, exclude in- 
 struction from their holj assemblies. Portions of the Old Tes- 
 tament, of the Gospel, and of the apostolic epistles were read 
 at all their public religious meetings. But this, with them, 
 formed almost all the instruction of the sanctuary. Mosheim 
 asserts that it was sometimes literally all^ and that frequently 
 no sermon followed this reading of the Scriptures.^ Neander, 
 however, is, we suppose, more true to history, when he says 
 that "this reading was followed by a short and very simple ad- 
 dress, in familiar language, such as the heart prompted at the 
 moment, and which contained an exposition or application of 
 what had been read."t It is in the writings of Justin Martyr, 
 that we find the first mention of a Christian sermon, and very 
 little is there, in his language, to identify it with a modern 
 pulpit discourse: "After the reading is ended, the minister of 
 the assembly makes an address, in which he admonishes and 
 exhorts the people to imitate the virtues which it enjoins."* 
 "It was," says the same distinguished historian already quoted, 
 (Neander,) "among the Greeks, who were more given to the 
 culture of rhetoric, that the sermons first began to take a wider 
 range, and to assume an important place in the acts of wor- 
 ship." 
 
 But to illustrate the prominence that worship, as an element 
 of sanctuary service, had in the early Church, there is per- 
 haps nothing so impressive as the simple presentation of its' 
 order of service, or, in other words, a glance at its "Directory 
 for AYorship." And remembering that the celebration of the 
 Lord's Supper formed a part of every public religious service 
 among the primitive disciples of Christ, we may take the fol- 
 lowing as a truthful statement of their mode of conducting di- 
 vine worship. "We quote again from Justin Martyr: "On the 
 day which is called Sunday, there is an assembly in one place 
 of all who dwell either in towns or in the country, and the me- 
 
 * Ancient Christianity Exemplified, p. 348. 
 t Xeander's Church History, Vol. I., p. 303. 
 
10 
 
 moirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read, 
 as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, 
 the President delivers a discourse, in which he reminds and ex- 
 horts them to the imitation of all these good things. We then 
 all stand up and offer our prayers. Then, as we have already 
 said, when we cease from prayer, bread is brought, and wine 
 and water; and the President, in like manner, offers up prayers 
 and praises, according to his ability, and the people express 
 their assent by saying, Amen. The consecrated elements are 
 then distributed and received by every one, and a portion is 
 sent by the deacons to those who are absent."* 
 
 But, again, as an element of sanctuary service, the impor- 
 tance of worship is clearly indicated by the special and ample 
 provision for its maintenance that God has made in his word. 
 While the Bible is doubtless intended principally to be a reve- 
 lation of the divine will to man, and contains a didactic state- 
 ment of those doctrines and facts, important for men to 
 know, but which natural religion is unable to disclose, it 
 is still interesting to observe how large a portion of it is 
 adapted for purposes of devotion, and seems for this end main- 
 ly to have been written. Instead of being altogether an ab- 
 stract and objective treatise on religion, God's word is full of 
 the effusions of subjective piety. With the great doctrines it 
 teaches, are devout prayers, hymns of praise, and narratives of 
 religious experience. Indeed, whole chapters, and even books 
 'of this character, may be found in the sacred volume. These 
 contain very little direct instruction. What they teach is in- 
 cidental and secondary. Their grand purpose is to meet the 
 wants, in all ages, of Christian devotion. They are the in- 
 spired breathings of pious hearts, and are preserved in the sa- 
 cred canon as the food for the devotion of God's people in all 
 ages of the Church. 
 
 The book of Psalms is a most striking illustration of this re- 
 mark. It is, what its title indicates, the praises of the Lord. 
 It is an epitome of the whole Bible, adapted to purposes of de- 
 
 * Justin Mar. Apol., p. 8' 
 
11 
 
 votion. For doctrinal instruction, men do not ordinarily resort 
 to it. When the Council of Toulouse, (A. D. 1229,) prohibited 
 the Bible to laymen, they excepted the Book of Psalms. It 
 was not sufficiently didactic to awaken the fears of the Papacy; 
 yet, in its language, have the prayers and praises of the Church 
 been for ages ascending to God. "That which we read," says 
 Bishop Home, "as a matter of speculation, in the other Scrip- 
 tures, is reduced to practice when we recite it in the Psalms: 
 in those repentance and faith are described, but in these they 
 are acted; by a perusal of the former, we learn how others 
 served God; but by using the latter we serve him ourselves. 
 The book is like the paradise of Eden. It affords us, in per- 
 fection, though in minature, everything that groweth elsewhere, 
 "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food," 
 and, above all, what was there lost, is here restored — the tree 
 of life in the midst of the garden.* And of the same import are 
 these words of Calvin, in the preface of his Exposition of the 
 Psalms: "Other portions of the Scriptures contain command- 
 ments, whose transmission the Lord enjoined upon his servants ; 
 but in the Psalms the prophets, communing with God, and un- 
 covering their inmost feelings, call and urge every reader to 
 thanksgiving and praise. 
 
 The Sacred Scriptures, then, we assert, comprise precisely 
 the same great elements that we have seen belonging to the ser- 
 vices of God's house. One portion was designed for instruction, 
 another for worship. We go to the Epistles for doctrine, and 
 to the Psalms for devotion; and just as both are important 
 parts of God's word, and as that word could not be complete 
 should either be wanting, so, in the services of the sanctuary, 
 men should worship God — they should bow down and kneel be- 
 fore the Lord their Maker, as well as listen to the teachings of 
 his word. 
 
 But once more, to illustrate the importance of worship as an 
 element of sanctuary service, observe the evils that result from 
 its neglect, or from failing to give to it its true place. The 
 
 * Home's Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. I., p. 2. 
 
12 
 
 most casual observer cannot fail to notice, in the external de- 
 meanor of a Catholic and a Protestant congregation, a contrast 
 that is not always creditable to the latter. Charge what er- 
 rors in doctrine and practice he may upon the Papal Church — 
 and these, we acknowledge, are both numerous and weighty — 
 it must still be conceded that it is, seemingly at least, more 
 obedient to that command, "Keep thy foot when thou goest to 
 the house of God," than many other Churches that hold a more 
 scriptural faith. And while, for this, one reason is, unques- 
 tionably, a mistaken notion of the peculiar sanctity of the 
 place in which divine service is held — arising from the idea that 
 the true shekinah is in an earthly temple, and not in the indi- 
 vidual heart, another is the great prominence which it gives 
 to the element of worship in all its religious exercises. Let a 
 Protestant congregation, as it enters the sanctuary, feel that 
 something more than mere sermon-hearing has convened them ; 
 let them realize that, as a company of dependent and guilty 
 creatures, they have came together to worship that Divine 
 Being who, is the author of all their blessings, and who is alone 
 able to remit to them the guilt of their sins; and who can 
 doubt but a change, most happy, would be wrought upon their 
 whole external deportment? To regard the sanctuary simply 
 as a place of instruction, is at once to place it on a level with 
 the scientific or literary lecture-room — save that in the former 
 the theme of the speaker's discourse is more important than in 
 the latter. No wonder that, with such views of God's bouse, 
 men are oftentimes indifferent as to whether they are present 
 at the commencement of its services or not; are so listless 
 during part of its exercises as to need something to recall 
 their fugitive minds to them, — as did the bells tied to the high- 
 priest's garments between the pomegranates among the Jews, 
 and which rang upon the least movement of his person ; and so 
 frequently employ the last moments of the service in prepara- 
 tion for a speedy departure. Men must feel that "the Lord is 
 in his holy temple," and that they have come up thither to meet 
 and to worship Him, before they will keep silence in His pre- 
 sence. As it was the vision of God, in the fire that enveloped 
 
13 
 
 the bush on Horeb, and the voice of Jehovah that proceeded 
 from it, that led Moses to put off the shoes from his feet, and 
 to stand in holj awe before it, — so it is the voice and vision of 
 the same Jehovah, in his house, that will alone produce in man 
 that reverence which becomes the sanctuary. 
 
 And to the same cause do we attribute much of that critical 
 spirit which men so often bring with them into God's house. 
 With the idea of worship uppermost, or even prominent, in the 
 mind of a congregation, what though the speaker drop an unhand- 
 some word, though his style have not all the mellifluent flow of 
 the schools, and his discourse will not bear the test of a rigid 
 criticism? God is still in his house. Indeed, the thought of 
 coming up into the sanctuary to meet God, to adore him for all 
 his matchless perfections, and to receive his benediction, how 
 does it not only disarm criticism, but lead us even to forget 
 that there is any thing human in the services to criticise I To 
 come up into God's house, simply to hear a sermon or two, ends 
 frequently only in the censure or laudation of the preacher; 
 but to go up into that same sanctuary to worship God, has, as 
 its natural result, enlarged conceptions of the greatness of the 
 preacher's God. 
 
 Irregularity likewise of attendance upon God's house, and 
 that attendance graduated by the character of the expected 
 discourse, is among the evils that forgetfulness of worship, as 
 an element of sanctuary service, has a tendency to produce. 
 Some of our oldest and wisest divines have remarked, that 
 there seems to be of late, even among the professed followers 
 of Christ, a far lower sense of obligation, with reference to the 
 attendance upon God's house, than formerly. Many Chris- 
 tians now permit very trivial causes to keep them from filling 
 their place in the sanctuary. They regard church-going rather 
 as a privilege than a duty, and are quite satisfied if they avail 
 themselves of it occasionally, or, at the most, upon a part only 
 of the Sabbath. And is not this the necessary result of that 
 theory or practice of sanctuary service which wholly ignores 
 the element of worship? If the church is man's church, and 
 the leading conception in the mind is the listening to a 
 
14 
 
 set discourse, is it strange that men deem it a matter of 
 little moment whether they attend regularly upon its ser- 
 vices? Ay, more; if spiritual instruction constitute the very 
 essence of a sanctuary service — if we are to go to God's 
 house alone to be taught divine truth — why should not a man 
 stay away from it, when at home, by his own meditations or 
 reading, he honestly believes that that spiritual enlightenment 
 would best be promoted? That God should be adored, and that 
 this adoration should have some outward expression, all men 
 instinctively feel. Satisfy them, then, that this is the great 
 aim of sanctuary service, and they will not so often, and for 
 causes so trivial, desert it. And are not Protestant and un- 
 liturgical churches just here in great danger of losing their hold 
 upon the unsanctified masses? With the Church nothing but 
 a school, can all the teachers be so eloL^uent, or any one always 
 so eloquent, as to receive, on the part of voluntary pupils, con- 
 stant and unvaried attendance? Apart from the direct out- 
 pouring of the Divine Spirit, we do not believe that any thing 
 would be more effectual in enlarging Sabbath congregations, 
 and making them more uniform in numbers, than an increased 
 attention to worship as an element of sanctuary service. 
 
 It only remains on this part of our subject, that we should 
 invite the careful attention of our readers to the excellent stan- 
 dards of our Church; for all that we have said upon the im- 
 portance of worship, as an element of sanctuary service, is in 
 them strikingly confirmed and enforced. The holy men of God 
 who framed "the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church," 
 believed in the true theory of worship. They never regarded 
 the house of God as a mere place for instruction. On the con- 
 trary, fearing that this might be the tendency of a rigid sim- 
 plicity and careful avoidance of all forms, they solemnly warned 
 us against this error. In the sixth chapter of our Directory 
 for Worship — a chapter entitled, " Of the Preaching of the 
 Word" — and in the fifth section, we read: "As one primary 
 design of public ordinances is to pay social acts of homage to 
 the Most High God, ministers ought to be careful not to make 
 their sermons so long as to interfere with or exclude the more 
 impoj'tant duties of prayer and praise^ but preserve a just pro- 
 
15 
 
 portion between the several parts of public worship." Again, 
 in the chapter entitled "Of the Singing of Psalms," (chap.iv.,) 
 we have the following pertinent suggestion (section iv. :) "The 
 proportion of the time of public worship to be spent in singing 
 is left to the prudence of every minister ; but it is recommended 
 that more time be allowed for this excellent part of divine ser- 
 vice, than has been usual in most of our churches." And si- 
 milar statements may be found in the chapter on Public Prayer 
 (chap. V.:) "It is the indispensable duty," we read, "of every 
 minister, previously to his entering on his office, to prepare and 
 qualify himself for this part of his duty, as well as for preach- 
 ing. He ought, by a thorough acquaintance with the Holy 
 Scriptures, by reading the best writers on the subject, by medi- 
 tation, and by a life of communion with God in secret, to en- 
 deavor to acquire both the spirit and the gift of prayer. Not 
 only so, but when he is to enter on particular acts of worship, 
 he should endeavor to compose his spirit, and to digest his 
 thoughts for prayer, that it may be performed with dignity and 
 propriety, as well as to the profit of those who join in it, and 
 that he may not disgrace that important service, by mean, vul- 
 gar, or extravagant effusions." 
 
 But from this view of the importance of worship, as an ele- 
 ment of sanctuary service, it is time that we should pass to the 
 inquiry. How may our ideal be realized? How — supposing 
 worship with us to have somewhat fallen out of its true place in 
 the order of God's house — may it therein be reinstated? And 
 that wc may not be misunderstood in any thing that we have 
 already said, let it here be distinctly remarked, that this end 
 is not to be obtained by any decrease in our sanctuary service 
 of the element of instruction, nor yet by the subordination of 
 preaching to worship. This, as we have already seen, is a cor- 
 ollary from the erroneous doctrine of the priestly character 
 of the Christian ministry. Indeed, instead of lowering the 
 standard of preaching, even intellectually considered, every- 
 thing should be done to elevate it. Men called to be the he- 
 ralds of salvation, should pour into their discourses the richest 
 treasures of their learning, and seek, as vigorous intellectual 
 exercises, to command attention for their sermons. In this 
 
16 
 
 age, when even the common mind gains a power of sustained 
 thought, on religious subjects, which it has not on any other, 
 and is thus possessed "with an intelligence that outruns its 
 culture," it will not do for the minister of Christ, in his pulpit 
 labors, to satisfy himself with unpremeditated utterances. The 
 people demand strong thought. They crave argument. Their 
 earnest souls will not be content with mere rhetorical tinsel. 
 They will listen and for awhile be pleased with the gay fancies 
 that play over the surface of a discourse; but unless, beneath 
 all this, there is the substratum of real and vigorous thought, 
 their pleasure will be as ephemeral as their profit. 
 
 Nor would it be difficult here to show that wherever real re- 
 ligion has decayed, it has uniformly been marked by a corre- 
 sponding declension, both in the character and amount of 
 preaching. The priestly theory of ministerial character, even 
 in its most attenuated form — that form which has been admit- 
 ted into the constitution of some Protestant churches — as it 
 elevates the altar above the pulpit, has always been connected 
 with a weak and emasculated Christianity. It is not, then, to 
 any rivalry with instruction that we would bring worship. We 
 have no aim to weaken in any mind the importance of preach- 
 ing, in our efforts to magnify, in the esteem of the_ Church, 
 other portions of her service. 
 
 But, again, to give worship its true place in the services of 
 God's house, let no one suppose that the adoption of a liturgy, 
 or the assumption of an ecclesiastical dress, is either necessary or 
 expedient. That there is, at this day, a tendency in the Church 
 generally toward a liturgical service, will, we suppose, be univer- 
 sally conceded. We see it in the revision by some Churches of 
 their old and long disused formularies of worship, in the re- 
 print of the difi'erent liturgies of the Reformers, and, perhaps, 
 we may add, in the increased popularity of the ritual sects. 
 And the main cause of this is to be found in the same feeling 
 that prompts the writing of this Article. As men enter the 
 sanctuary, and go with an unliturgical denomination through 
 its services, they oftentimes feel that something is wanting — 
 that the necessities of the soul have not been fully met; that 
 they have not worshipped God ; and attributing this to the 
 
17 
 
 simplicity of the service, and to the entire absence of all forms, 
 they at once conclude that what the service wants for its com- 
 pletion is nothing more than the presence of a prescribed and 
 imposing ceremonial. But it is not so with us. Sharing some- 
 what in this feeling of the want of worship in our sanctuary 
 service, we have no idea that the want is to be satisfied in the 
 manner proposed. We think we see a more excellent way than 
 this. 
 
 In favor of the use of liturgies, it may, indeed, be truthfully 
 said, that all the Reformed Churches in the sixteenth century 
 employed them, to some extent. Formularies of worship were 
 composed by Melanchthon, Calvin, Bucer, and Knox, and were, 
 in their respective churches, continued for many years in con- 
 stant observance. But their use was optional, and that only 
 in parts of the service, combined with extempore prayer in 
 other parts. For the precedents which are to control our con- 
 duct in this matter, we choose to go still further back in the 
 history of the Church. "We look to apostolic usage, and surely 
 there is nothing in it that would incline us for one moment to 
 the use of liturgical forms. Indeed, there is something that 
 csavors not a little of the ridiculous in the very thought of Paul 
 carrying with him, in his itinerancy, ''prayer-book and gown," 
 and essaying to preach only when provided with these helps and 
 adornments of worship. ''Sine monitore, quia de 'pectore ora- 
 mus,'' are the well-known words of Tertullian, and doubtless 
 express the universal usage of the primitive Church. It was 
 not until the fifth century that forms of prayer were prescribed 
 by public authority.* 
 
 ^ "When the Arian and Pelagian doctrines began seriously to disturb 
 the Church, various forms of expression, occasioned by public controversy, 
 gradually insinuated themselves into the language of prayer; and it was 
 deemed necessary by the Council of Laodicea to require, by ecclesiastical 
 regulations, that ministers, instead of using the liberty before enjoyed, 
 should always keep to one form of prayer; that is, should not pray 'pro 
 arbitrio, sed semper easdem preces.'" This form, however, each minister 
 might compose for himself, provided that * before using it, he should con- 
 sult with learned and experienced brethren.' This regulation was ex- 
 plained as already in existence, by the Council of Carthage, A. 0.397- 
 About twenty years after this, in 416, the Council of Milan ordained that 
 none should use set forms of prayer, except such as were approved in a 
 Synod. — Porter's Lectures, p. 285. 
 
18 
 
 Moreover, although it has been said "that the adoption of a 
 liturgy is peculiarly consonant with the spirit and usage of the 
 Presbyterian Church, inasmuch as it is characterized by strict 
 and scrupulous adherence to established formulas of doctrine 
 and discipline," we venture to affirm that the very opposite 
 is true. Its *' spirit" is that of the largest liberty consistent 
 with order and truth. It seeks to bind the faith of men only 
 to the great essentials of doctrine. It builds up no high fence 
 of exclusion around either the pulpit or the communion-table. 
 Men, '' holding the Head," are freely welcome to both. It is 
 emphatically a missionary Church, and cannot, therefore, so 
 cumber itself with burdensome rites, as to be unadapted to the 
 necessities of a simple people and a widely scattered population. 
 It is not a Church for great cities only, where all the factitious 
 adornments of worship may be easily had, but it is a Church for 
 all men, wherever God in his providence may cast their lot. 
 It is a Church, indissolubly connected, in all its history with 
 revivals of religion; and this its distinctive spirit would go 
 out of it, the very moment that we attempted to tie it down to 
 the rigidity of a pre-composed service. Nor is it true that the 
 adoption of a liturgy is consonant with the "usage" of the 
 Presbyterian Church. It was when John Knox's "Book of 
 Common Order" was generally used in the Scottish Kirk, that 
 the Westminster Assembly prepared our excellent "Directory 
 for Worship," and in that we have the following direct testimony 
 against the adoption of a liturgical service: "We do not ap- 
 prove, as is well known, of confining ministers to set or fixed 
 forms of prayer" (chap, v., sect, iv.) Shortly after this, writ- 
 ten forms of prayer were laid aside in the Presbyterian Church 
 of Scotland, and have never since been adopted. 
 
 In our earnest desire, then, to give to worship a larger place in 
 our sanctuary service than it now holds, let it distinctly 
 be understood that we have no sympathy with that class of 
 minds among us, who are continually hankering after a ritual, 
 and who make themselves the small imitators of other denomi- 
 nations than their own. No; away with prayer-book and 
 gown, rubrics and bands! Associations of the mystical Baby- 
 lon still cluster around them. Give us a free voice and a free 
 
19 
 
 arm, as we attempt to direct the worship of the sanctuary. Let 
 the full soul pour out itself in gracious expressions of its holy 
 thoughts into the bosom of the Almighty; and if there should 
 be some stops or solecisms in the fervent utterance of our wants, 
 these are so far from being offensive, that they are the most 
 pleasing music to the ears of that God unto whom our prayers 
 'come. To this imperfect elocution, our Heavenly Father is no 
 otherwise affected, than an indulgent earthly parent is to the 
 clipped and broken language of his dear child. 
 
 But if our ideal of the importance of worship, as an element 
 of sanctuary service, is to be realized, neither by the subordi- 
 nation to it of preaching, nor yet by the adoption of a liturgy — 
 what, the inquiry returns to us, can we do toward the accom- 
 plishment of this end? In reply, we will direct our remarks 
 to those parts of the services of God's house that may, with 
 some propriety, be arranged under the head of worship — viz., 
 its praises and prayers.' 
 
 And first, with reference to the praises of God's house: We 
 have already remarked upon the character of almost all the 
 additions which have recently been made to the hymnology of 
 the Church. Many of them are experimental. They faithful- 
 ly and sometimes touchingly describe some inward struggle of 
 the soul. Others are supplicatory. They are prayers, in verse. 
 A few are hortatory. They are stirring appeals to repentance 
 or to Christian activity. And, still again, some are doctrinal. 
 Their aim is to teach or impress upon the mind some great 
 truth of religion. But where in this catalogue, are the distinc- 
 tively objective hymns — the hymns in which both writer and 
 reader come entirely out of themselves, magnify God, and have 
 their whole souls ravished by the conception of His matchless 
 perfections ? That these experimental and supplicatory hymns 
 are greatly needed in the Church — indeed, that we cannot per- 
 mit them to die, we readily concede. But their proper place 
 is it not the closet, rather than the sanctuary; and the social 
 meeting of believers, rather than the great congregation of the 
 people? Should we take the Book of Psalms as our model, as 
 we certainly ought to do, we would not, indeed, exclude all ex- 
 perimental hymns from our sanctuary services, for many of the 
 
20 
 
 Psalms are the narratives of the writers' experience; but cer- 
 tainly this class would be far fewer in number than those which 
 summon us to lofty praise. "With David as our example, we 
 would sing not so much of ourselves as of God. 
 
 But the character of the recent additions to our hymnology, 
 fairly indicates the character of our Church praise. Indeed, 
 it is the demand which ministers have made for this class of 
 hymns that has occasioned their large supply. Our books fast 
 filling up with them, they are fast becoming the staple of our 
 songs. It is now a rare thing, in some of our congregations, 
 to be invited to unite in a single Psalm or hymn that is dis- 
 tinctively one of praise. If the preacher design to discourse 
 to us upon some point of doctrinal theology, or to present us 
 with some peculiar phase of religious experience, or to exhort 
 the impenitent at once to come to Christ as their Saviour, he 
 seeks in all his psalmody to enforce his teachings. And the 
 necessary result of this, must it not be to make the Church a 
 school, and to eliminate, from all its service, the element of 
 worship ? And with this character of the hymns of the Church, 
 will its music, of course, correspond; and hence, in the place 
 of those old choral tunes which, swelling up to heaven with 
 the sweet accord of many voices, went down into the very depths 
 of the soul, awakening its deepest and strongest emotions — we 
 have sometimes dry and business-like airs, suited for didactic 
 verse, and anon sentimental songs, artistically executed, by a 
 select few. 
 
 Moreover, to the element of worship, in that part of the ser- 
 vices of God's house which we are now considering, nothing is 
 more fatal than that entire passivity which ordinarily obtains 
 in our congregations. Where the singing is done by proxy, 
 there can be, on the part of the people, no suitable worship. 
 All choirs that are not the simple leaders of the congregation 
 in sacred song, are ruinous to devotion. The idea that any 
 Church worships God in its music, when this is performed 
 wholly by a company of hired singers, is perfectly preposterous. 
 If any of our readers regard this language as extravagant, let 
 them observe for a moment the contrast, when after the closing 
 hymn of a religious service, artistically sung in some unknown 
 
21 
 
 strains by a select choir, the whole congregation rise and unite 
 their many voices in singing, in some familiar tune, theDoxology. 
 The first was a musical performance, the last divine worship. 
 In the first the cultivated ear was regaled by the melody of 
 sweet sounds; in the last, when "that vast, concording unity 
 of the whole congregational chorus" came, the pious heart was 
 transported and wrapt up in high and heavenly contemplations. 
 
 There is, to us, hardly anything in the history of the Re- 
 formation more interesting than the influence which was then 
 exerted upon the world by the sacred songs of the Church. 
 When John Calvin, availing himself of a metrical version of a 
 few Psalms, made by Clement Marot, introduced them into his 
 church at Geneva, and, abandoning the antiphonal chanting, 
 in which the people took no part, invited them all to partici- 
 pate in the singing, the effect was electric. The new mode of 
 worship was welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm. Supplying 
 a real and felt want of the soul, the hearts of the people grate- 
 fully opened to receive it. And "from Geneva the golden 
 candlestick sent forth its rays far and wide. France and 
 Germany were instantly infatuated with a love of psalm-sing- 
 ing. The energetic hymns of Geneva exhilarated the convivial 
 assemblies of the Calvinists, were commonly heard in the 
 streets, and accompanied the labors of the artificer. They 
 found their way to the cities of the Low Countries, and under 
 their inspiration many of the weavers and woollen manufac- 
 turers of Flanders left their looms and entered the ministry of 
 
 the gospel Hymns in the vernacular dialects became 
 
 a power in the Reformation, co-ordinate with that of the pulpit. 
 Upon the masses of the people they were far more potent than 
 any other uninspired productions of the press. At i\.ugsburg, 
 in 1551, three or four thousand singing together at a time was 
 "but a trifle." The youth of the day sung them in place of 
 ribald songs; mothers sung them beside the cradle; journey- 
 men and servants sung them at their labor; market-men in the 
 streets and husbandmen in the fields.*" 
 
 Alas for the contrast between this picture of the power of 
 sacred song, in the days of the Reformation, and that which it 
 
 * Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xvi., p. 192. 
 
22 
 
 presents in our times ! And can any doubt the reason ? Though 
 we do not sing our songs of Zion, as the Romish Church did, 
 in a dead language and with alternate responses, do we not 
 almost equally with her take away from the people all partici- 
 pation in this part of the service? Indeed, how much church 
 singing is there in this day? What passes under this name, is 
 it not almost altogether choir-singing? How many of our 
 Christian congregations, in their acts of public praise, obey the 
 command, 
 
 " Both young men and maidens, 
 Old men and children, 
 Let them praise the name of the Lord ?" 
 
 Strongly opposed as we are to restraining, in any way, the 
 religious liberty of men, we, at times, almost desire that some 
 authoritative voice could go out over all our .churches, or some 
 ecumenical council would publish the decree, 
 
 "Let the people praise thee, God! 
 Let all the peo2)le praise thee I" 
 
 The second point upon which, in this connection, we pro- 
 posed some remarks, was the prayers of the sanctuary. 
 
 We once heard a Christian minister, of large experience 
 and discriminating intellect, remark that, after listening to the 
 devotional exercises of a Presbyterian pastor for a few Sab- 
 baths, he could, with a good degree of certainty, decide to 
 which of the two great branches of that Church he belonged. 
 If his prayers abounded in adoration, the inference was that 
 he was a member of that division of our church which boasts 
 "the higher Calvinism" as its creed. If, on the other hand, 
 they were almost entirely made up of thanksgiving, confession 
 and supplication, he was assigned to our own branch of the 
 Church. And the philosophical explanation of this difference 
 was supposed to be found in the alleged fact, that while the 
 former make the sovereignty of God the stand-point of their 
 theology, we assign to man's free agency the same pre-emi- 
 nence. The distinction we do not believe is true, nor can we 
 admit the fact in which its explanation is supposed to be found. 
 The incident, however, is sufficient to suggest what we are in- 
 clined to regard as a very general defect in public prayer. 
 
23 
 
 Should we make an exhaustive catalogue of all the examples 
 of this kind of devotion recorded in the Bible, and carefully exa- 
 mine the structure of each, we would discern that adoration 
 had in them all a large place. The old prophets, as they ap- 
 proached the throne of the Almighty, were abased by their 
 lofty conceptions of his greatness, and their first utterances 
 were always the expression of this feeling. They applied to 
 God so many different appellations that they seem to us almost 
 like vain repetitions, and in the unfolding of any of his perfec- 
 tions had a manifoldness of expression hardly suited to our 
 fastidious taste. Their language was, " The Lord is the true 
 God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king." (Jer. x., 
 10.) ''Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made 
 heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host; the earth, 
 and all things that are therein ; the seas, and all that is therein ; 
 and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worship- 
 peth thee." (Neh., ix., 6.) The learned Lightfoot, in speaking 
 of the prayers of the Jews, "both ordinary and occasional," 
 says that " while it cannot be denied but that they had their 
 petitionary or supplicatory prayers, it must still be conceded 
 that the benedictory or doxological prayers were more in num- 
 ber, and more large and copious."* And this view of the im- 
 portance of adoration in prayer, how forcibly is it taught in 
 the standards of our Church! In the chapter of our Directory 
 for Worship (v.) entitled " Of Public Prayer," the following 
 are the opening sentences of a most admirable analysis of this 
 part of divine service. (Section ii.) * * * " It is proper 
 that, before sermon, there should be a full and comprehensive 
 prayer. First, adoring the glory and perfections of God, as 
 they are made known to us in the works of creation, in the 
 conduct of Providence, and in the clear and full revelation he 
 hath made of himself in his written word." 
 
 A more free use, in prayer, of Scriptural words and phrases 
 would also, we think, increase in our sanctuary service the ele- 
 ment of worship. The Bible, when pertinently quoted in prayer, 
 inspires reverence. It is God's word, and every man feels that 
 it is peculiarly appropriate, in addressing Jehovah, that he 
 
 * Lightfoot's Works, vol. xii., p. 106. 
 
24 
 
 should employ His own language. Moreover, inspired words 
 never become trite or tedious. They will bear repetition, as 
 no human compositions will. And yet, again, the oriental cast 
 of the Eible, its fervor and unction of style, pre-eminently fit 
 it to be the great help of our devotion. Addison has beauti- 
 fully expressed this thought in an essay in the Spectator: 
 " There is a certain coldness in the phrases of European lan- 
 guages, compared with the oriental forms of speech. The Eng- 
 lish tongue has received innumerable improvements from an 
 infusion of Hebraisms, derived out of the practical passages in 
 holy writ. They warm and animate our language, give it force 
 and energy, and convey our thoughts in ardent and intense 
 phrases. There is something in this kind of diction that often 
 sets the mind in a flame, and makes our hearts burn within us. 
 How cold and dead is a prayer composed in the most elegant 
 forms of speech, when it is not heightened by that solemnity 
 of phrase which may be drawn from the sacred writings!" 
 
 A more serious defect, and one still more inimical to true 
 worship, is what has aptly been called "indolence in prayer." 
 Many seem to forget that prayer is a mental exercise. They 
 regard it as altogether an inspiration. Holding to the truth that 
 " the preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the 
 tongue, is from the Lord," they make this indulgence of their 
 weakness an encouragement of their indolence. They forget 
 that the law of blessing, in this as in other things, allies it, in 
 some sort, with struggles of our own. Because a man may pray 
 with the intellect without praying with the heart, they infer 
 the converse that a man may pray with the heart without pray- 
 ing with the intellect. Not a few ministers of the gospel, who 
 would regard it as the highest presumption to appear before 
 their people and to attempt to preach without any previous pre- 
 paration, trusting that "the Spirit would help their infirmities," 
 do still habitually attempt to lead the devotions of a whole con- 
 gregation, as they approach the throne of grace, with the un- 
 studied and spontaneous utterances of the moment. When a 
 minister or layman is peculiarly felicitous in leading the devo- 
 tions of a congregation, nothing is more common than to speak 
 of him as being specially gifted in prayer, just as if this capa- 
 
25 
 
 city, like every other, was not the reward of practiced effort. 
 When Bishop Patrick was a young man, and the rector of a 
 rural parish, he was eminent for his fervor in prayer. After 
 wearing, however, for a few years, the lawn sleeves and mitre, 
 he was actually constrained to apologize to an old dissenting 
 friend, whose family devotions he one morning led, for his 
 hesitancy and embarrassment. Men cannot have profound 
 feeling on any subject without having previously had upon it 
 sound thought. Truth burns in the heart, after it has been 
 pondered by the intellect. "While I was musing," said David, 
 *'the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue." How a mi- 
 nister can have deep and genuine feeling in prayer, when the 
 themes upon which he dwells have not previously been made 
 the subjects of careful thought, we confess, seems to us a phy- 
 siological impossibility. 
 
 And this view of prayer is as biblical as it is philosophical. 
 The author of "The Still Hour," after alluding to the remark 
 of Coleridge, " that he thought the act of praying to be, in its 
 most perfect form, the very highest energy of which the human 
 heart was capable," adds: " Many Scriptural representations 
 of the idea of devotion come up fully to this mark. The 
 prayer of a righteous man, that availeth much, which our Eng- 
 lish Bible so infelicitously describes as * effectual, fervent,' is, 
 
 in the original, an energetic prayer, a working prayer 
 
 What else, also, is the force of the frequent conjunction of 
 * watching' and 'praying,' in the scriptural style of exhorta- 
 tion to the duties of the closet? Thus: 'Watch and pray;' 
 'watch unto prayer;' 'praying always and watching;' 'con- 
 tinue in prayer and watch.' There is no mental lassitude, no 
 self-indulgence, here. It was a lament of the prophet over the 
 degeneracy of God's people, 'None stirreth himself up to take 
 hold on thee.' Paul exhorts the Romans to 'strive toojether 
 with their prayers,' and commends an ancient preacher to 
 the confidence of the Colossians as one who labored fervently 
 in prayers. There is no droning or drawling effort here."* 
 
 But, with regard to public prayer, in its connection with 
 worship as an element of sanctuary service, we have one other 
 
 * The Still Hour, pp. 70 and 71. * 
 
26 
 
 remark to make; and, though some of our readers may regard 
 it as unimportant, if not trivial, we cannot, ourselves, thus 
 esteem it. In entering upon this part of the service of God's 
 house there should be, with every worshipper, a change of phy- 
 sical position, and the assumption of a reverential posture. We 
 say, first, a change of position, to indicate, by some outward 
 act, the inward approach of the soul to God; and, secondly, 
 the assumption of a reverential posture; for such is certainly 
 His due, before whom even angels veil their faces. Much dis- 
 cussion has been had as to what is the precise posture that a 
 congregation should assume in prayer; but, supposing that 
 regard is had to both of the points just referred to — that the 
 posture is reverential, and is a change from that assumed by 
 the assembly in the other parts of service — we cannot regard 
 this discussion as important. Few things, however, are more 
 fatal to worship than that entire passivity which leads a con- 
 gregation never once to change its posture, from the invocation 
 to the benediction. This custom, now so prevalent in many of 
 our religious assemblies, is a twin error to choir-singing. They 
 generally go along hand in hand : they are seldom found alone. 
 But that will be a happy day to the Church when upon both 
 she will indignantly frown. 
 
 In closing this Article we cannot refrain from inviting the 
 special attention of our readers to a thought which, although it 
 has appeared all along the line of our argument, is still worthy 
 of a separate and distinct notice. The thought is this: All 
 that is necessary to give to worship, as an element of sanctuary 
 service, its true importance, is a full and faithful development 
 of that order which is embodied in our own Directory for Wor- 
 ship, We frankly confess our sympathy with those who, upon 
 retiring from some of our Presbyterian churches, after their 
 Sabbath services are over, feel a measure of dissatisfaction. 
 They have, indeed, been well instructed, but they have not 
 worshipped. They have been in a school, rather than in a 
 church. Their intellects have been fed, but their hearts have 
 not been touched. They have had nothing to do in the service. 
 But what, to meet this felt want, shall they do? Go elsewhere? 
 Unite themselves with some liturgical church, though her doc- 
 
27 
 
 trines and ministerial orders are opposed to their belief? Or, 
 staying at home, shall they seek to graft upon the Presbyterian 
 Church what is unscriptural and opposed both to her spirit and 
 history? Whence this lack of true worship in her services? 
 What is the cause of this deficiency, of which some complain? 
 Is it inherent to her very structure? Is it of her essence, or 
 simply a defect in her administration? We are bold to pro- 
 claim the latter. Let every minister and layman carefully 
 study our Directory for Worship, and, in the services of God's 
 house, faithfully carry out all its provisions, and every just 
 ground for criticism in this particular will, we are sure, be re- 
 moved. W^orship and instruction, the two great elements of 
 sanctuary service, will then have to each other their just rela- 
 tions. Neither will be unduly or disproportionably developed, 
 but both in such beautiful symmetry as to make the whole ap- 
 pear but one act of grateful homage to Jehovah, just as a star, 
 really binary, looks out upon us from the skies — one world. 
 
I 
 
 11 
 
 
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