en outward and spiritual worship, between the
gorgeous and fussy services that profess so much, and the slender and
rare devotion of the soul to God, discerning men should have turned
their back on the whole business, and declined to be partakers in so
huge and profane a farce. Milton in his later years attended no Church
and belonged to no communion. This certainly is to run to the opposite
extreme. No doubt that worship may be real and acceptable which is
offered in the silence and solitude of a man's spirit; but we naturally
utter what we feel, and by the utterance strengthen the feelings that
are good, and rid ourselves of the bitterness and strain of those that
are painful and full of sorrow. Besides, the Church is, before all else,
a society. Our religion is meant to bring us together; and though it
does so more effectually by inspiring us with kindliness and helpfulness
in life than by a formal meeting together for no purposes of active
charity, yet the one fellowship aids the other, as many of us well know.

While, then, we accept Christ's statement in its fullest significance,
and maintain that our "reasonable service" is the offering of ourselves
as living sacrifices, that spiritual worship is offered not in church
only or mainly, but in doing God's will with a hearty good-will, we all
the rather see how needful it is to utter ourselves to God as we do in
our social worship; for as the wife would need some patience who was
cared for indeed by her husband in the supply of her common wants, but
had never a word of affection spoken to her, so our relations to God are
not satisfactory unless we utter to Him our devotion as well as show it
in our life. He was one of the wisest of English writers who said, "I
always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good breeding (in
my family), without which freedom ever destroys friendship." Precisely
so, he who omits the outward and verbal expression of regard to God,
will soon lose that regard itself.

But if the words of Christ were not intended to put an end to outward
worship altogether, they do, as I have said, form a strong argument for
simplicity of worship. No forms whatever are needed that our spirit may
come into communion with God. Let us begin with this. As true and
perfect worship may be rendered by the dying man, who cannot lift an
eyelid or open his lips, as by the most ornate service that combines
perfect liturgical forms with the richest music man h