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IntroductionJesus was tired. The little that we know ofthe history just before enables us to seewhy. He had been, for long months,engaged in active efforts to save men’ssouls, to lift them out of their sluggish-ness and worldliness toward God. That ishard work for mind and heart. And he hadbeen at work among many who were hos-tile. Some of John’s disciples were envi-ous that their master was decreasing andanother was increasing, though John saidthis trend was right and good. Further,when the Pharisees heard that Jesus wasnow making and baptizing more disciplesthan John, they were jealous. They madeit needful that he should withdraw fromJudea. So often during his brief ministryhe had to withdraw from the jealousy ofhis enemies or the fanaticism of his friendsand seek a new field. Worn out and per-haps sad at heart, the Redeemer sat aloneby Jacob’s well.

But now there was an opening to dogood, and he who “went about doinggood” would give up even his needed restto do good to the least and the lowest. Thedisciples wondered not that he was readyto do good, for they had seen that oftenalready. Rather, they wondered that hewas talking with a woman, for that wascontrary to the dignity of a man accord-

ing to the ideas of that time and country.They wondered because they knew notyet what manner of spirit they themselveswere of or that they had to deal with highsaving truths that break through all weakconventionalities in their own ministries.

They would have wondered more ifthey had known what he knew fullwell, which was that she was a woman ofbad character, but that he saw in herpotencies for good. He won her to faith inthe Messiah and sent her forth to tellothers to come and see “a man who hadtold me all things I ever did” (v. 29). Beau-tiful and wonderful it is to see how admi-rably our Lord led the casual conversationwith a stranger so as to introduce theprofoundest spiritual truths.

My Christian friends, I know no art ofsocial life more needful to be cultivatedin our time and country than the art ofskillfully introducing religion intogeneral conversation. It is a difficult task.It requires tact and skill to do this in sucha way as to accomplish much good andno harm, but it is worth all your efforts.

Not only did Jesus lead on towardsreligious truth, but he also knew how, ina quiet, skillful way, to awaken her con-sciousness to a realization of her sinful-ness so that she might come near tospiritual truth. She shrank from the Lord

True Spiritual WorshipJohn 4:1-42

John Broadus

John A. Broadus (1827-1895) was

a founding faculty member and the sec-

ond president of The Southern Baptist

Theological Seminary. One of the most

renowned preachers of his day, he was

also acknowledged widely as a skilled

exegete and Greek expert. His two best-

known works, The Preparation and

Delivery of Sermons and A Commen-

tary on Matthew remain in print over a

century after his death. This sermon was

delivered at the dedication of the

Second Baptist Church in St. Louis in

1879 and has been edited for inclusion

in SBJT.

Editor’s Note: SBJT does not share Broadus’ high opinion of Kant’s philosophy. We arecommitted to the primacy of scriptural revelation as opposed to personal religiousexperience. In Broadus’ defense, the full implications of Kant’s philosophy could nothave been known in 1879 when this sermon was preached.

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as people will often shrink from us whenwe try to bring truth home to their souls.She shrank, and, while not wishing to turnthe conversation entirely away from reli-gious things, she turned it to somethingnot so uncomfortably close, and so sheasked him about a great question muchdiscussed: the proper place of worship.

She begins by saying, “Sir, I perceivethat thou art a prophet. Our fathers didworship in this mountain,” (vv. 19-20a)and right up the steep slopes of MountGerizim she could point to the mount highabove them, where were the ruins of theold temple of the Samaritans, destroyed acentury and a half before. She continues,“Our fathers worshiped in this mountain;and ye say that in Jerusalem is the placewhere men ought to worship. O prophet,which is it?” (v. 20). The Redeemer an-swers her question, but turns from allmatters of form and outward service, andstrikes to the spiritual heart of things. Hereplies, “Woman, believe me, the hour iscoming, when neither in this mountainnor in Jerusalem shall ye worship theFather” (v. 21). He does not fail to implyin passing that Jerusalem had been theright place. Tellingly, he concludes by as-serting, “Ye worship that which ye knownot. We worship that which we know, forsalvation is from the Jews”—he only men-tions that in passing—“but the hourcometh and now is, when the true wor-shippers shall worship the Father in spiritand truth, for such doth the Father seekto be his worshippers” (vv. 22-23).

Jesus makes it clear that only spiritualworship will be acceptable to God. Thisis what he seeks, and, more that that, thisis what the very nature of the caserequires. “For God is a spirit, and they thatworship him must worship him in spiritand in truth.” I wish to speak of the wor-

ship of God, and I shall ask two verysimple questions about it, then try to somelittle extent to answer each of them. I ask:Why should we worship God? And howshould we worship God?

Why Worship God?A man might well draw back and fear

to say one word as to reason why weshould worship God. Oh! how high, andwide, and deep that theme! And yet it maybe useful just to remind you of somethings included in these expressions. Whyought we to worship God? Because it isdue to him, and because it is good for us.

Worship is Due HimWe should render to God the worship

due to him. My dear friends, if we werebut unconcerned spectators of the Glori-ous God and his wonderful works ourhearts still ought to be drawn to admira-tion and adoration and loving worship.The German philosopher Kant, probablythe greatest philosopher of modern times,said, “There are two things that alwaysawaken in me, when I contemplate them,the sentiment of the sublime. They are thestarry heavens and the moral nature ofman.” God made them both, and all thereis of the sublime in either or in both is buta dim, poor reflection of the glory of Himwho made them. Whatever there is in thisworld that is suited to lift up men’s soulsought to lift them towards God.

Robert Hall said that the idea of Godsubordinates to itself all that is great, bor-rows splendor from all that is fair, and sitsenthroned on the riches of the universe.More than that is true. I repeat, all thatexalts our souls ought to lift them uptoward God. Especially ought we to adorethe holiness of God.

Even sinful human beings know that

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holiness is the crown of existence. Thereis not a human heart that does not some-how, sometimes, love goodness. Find methe most wicked man in all your greatcity, and there are times when that manadmires goodness. Indeed, I imagine thereare times when he hopes that somehowor other he may yet be good himself.When a man we love has died, we areprone to exaggerate in our funeral dis-course and in our inscriptions on theirtombstones. Exaggerate what? We seldomexaggerate much in speaking of a man’stalents, or learning, or possessions, or in-fluence, but we are always ready to exag-gerate his goodness. We want to make thebest of the man in that solemn hour. Wefeel that goodness is the great thing for ahuman being when he has gone out of ourview into the world unseen.

And what do the Scriptures teach us isone of the great themes of the high wor-ship of God, where worship is perfect?Long ago a prophet saw the Lord seatedhigh on a throne in the temple, with flow-ing robes of majesty, and on either sideadoring seraphs bending and worship-ping. What was the theme of their wor-ship? Was it God’s power? Was it God’swisdom? You know what they said,“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. Thewhole earth is full of His glory” (Isa 6:3).And there do come times, my friends, toyou and me, though we lift not holyhands, for we are sinful, though we dwellamong a people of unclean lips, therecome times when we want to adore theholiness of God.

Then think of his love and mercy! Hehates sin. We know not how to hate sin asthe holy God must hate it. Yet how heloves the sinner! How he yearns over thesinful! How he longs to save him! God soloved the world that he gave his only be-

gotten Son, that whosoever will have itso, might through him be saved (Jn 3:16).

I know where that great provision, thatmighty mercy, is adored. I know fromGod’s word that those high and gloriousones, who know far more than we do ofthe glorious attributes of the Creator andthe wide wonders of his works, when theyhave sung their highest song of praise forGod’s character and for creation, will thenstrike a higher note as they sing the praisesof redemption, for holiness and redemp-tion are the great themes which the Scrip-tures make known to us of the worship inheaven. John saw in his vision how thefour living creatures, representing thepowers of nature, and the four and twentyelders, representing the saved of God,bowed in worship, and how a wide andencircling host of angels caught the sound,and how it spread wider still, until in allthe universe it rolls, “Salvation and honorand glory and power be unto him thatsitteth on the throne and unto the Lambforever and ever” (Rev 7:10).

Holiness and redemption! We oughtto adore it even if we had nothing to dowith it, for we have a moral nature toappreciate it. But are we unconcernedspectators? That most wonderful manifes-tation of God’s mercy and love has beenmade towards us. If the angels find theirhighest theme of praise in what the gra-cious God has done for us, how ought weto feel about it? Yes, there is a sense inwhich, amid the infirmities of earth, wecan pay God a worship that the angelscannot themselves offer. Sinful beingsmay strike, out of grateful hearts for sinsforgiven, a note of praise to God that shallpierce though all the high anthems of theskies and enter into the ear of the LordGod of Hosts.

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Worship is Good for UsBut I said we ought to worship God,

not only because it is due to Him, but be-cause it is good for us. Only the worshipof God can satisfy, my friends, the high-est and noblest aspirations of our natures.

When anything lifts us up, ourthoughts are imperfect without consider-ing God. If you will look, as I looked thismorning, in the early light, upon the gloryof the autumn woods, faded now, yet stillbright, and so beautiful; if you gaze uponthe splendor, as you will do when this ser-vice is ended, of the night skies; if youstand in awe before the great mountains,snow-clad and towering, before Hermon,or before the wonderful mountains of ourown wonderful West; if you go and gazein the silence of the night upon the rushof your own imperial river, or stand bythe seashore, and hear the mighty watersrolling evermore, then there swells in thebreast something that wants God for itscrown and for its completeness. There areaspirations in these strange natures ofours that only God can satisfy. Our think-ing is a mutilated fragment without God,and our hearts can never rest unless theyrest in God.

Worship also comforts. Indeed, some-times worship alone can soothe our sor-rows and our anxieties. There come timesfor all of us when everything else fails.There come times when we go to speakwith sorrowing friends and feel that allother themes are weak and vain. You,wicked man yonder, you have gone some-times to visit a friend in great distress, whohad lost a dear child, it may be, or hus-band or wife. You sat down by your friendand wanted to say something comforting.You felt that everything else was vain butto point the poor sorrowing heart to God,and you felt ashamed of yourself that you

did not dare to do that. How often havedevout hearts found comfort in sorrow,found support in anxiety, by the worshipof God and by the thought of submissionto God and trust in God. How comfort-ing is the belief that God knows what heis doing, that God sees the end from thebeginning, and that God makes “all thingswork together for good to those that lovehim” (Ro 8:28)!

I must add that the worship of Godnourishes the deepest root of individualand social morality. Morality cannot liveupon mere ideas of expediency andutility. We have some philosophers in ourday (and they show abilities and earnest-ness that command our respect, thoughthey may seem to us to go sadly and sofar astray) who have persuaded them-selves so. They think that Christianitymust be flung aside and that belief in Godmust even be abandoned. What do theyput in Christianity’s place? Some answerthat natural sympathy will lead us torecognize that we owe duties to others aswell as ourselves. Natural sympathy isgoing to do that. Ah, I think not. Some-times it will, if there be somethingmightier that can help, but often naturalsympathy will fail.

The root of morality is the sentiment ofmoral obligation. What does it mean whenyour little child first begins to say, “I oughtto do this,” and, “I ought not to do that”?What does it mean, “I ought”? The beastsaround us are some of them very intelli-gent. They seem to think in a crude fash-ion. They seem to reason in a rudimentaryway. Our intellect is not peculiar to us.Animals have something of it, but theyshow no sign of possessing the rudimentsof the notion that “I ought” and “I oughtnot.” Such is the glory of man. It markshim in the image of the spiritual one that

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made him. What will nourish and keepalive and make strong that sentiment ofmoral obligation in our souls, unless it bethe recognition of the fact that there is aGod who gave us this high, moral, spiri-tual being? That there is a God who madeus for himself, to whom we belong,because he made us? Because he made usto love him, the sentiment of obligationto him must nourish in us the feeling ofobligation to our fellow men, who, like us,are made in his image.

For this reason, if there were no other,it would be worthwhile to build great andnoble churches in our great cities, just aswe build monuments for other things toremind men of grand events and heroicdeeds. Even if churches were neverentered, they would be worth building asmemorials, as reminders of God and eter-nity. Amid the homes of wealth andluxury, amid the splendid centers of com-merce, and amid (alas!) the palaces of vice,our churches stand serene and still, point-ing up, like the Christian’s hope, towardheaven. Just as the thoughtless, the way-ward, the worldly and wicked will some-times look as they pass, and as from themonuments over some heroic dead manwill catch a moment’s impression forgood, so from the church edifice itself theywill catch a momentary impression ofhigher things, and be at least a littlerestrained from what is wrong and a littleincited towards what is right.

But that is the least of it. The greatnourisher of morality in the individualand the community is not the mere out-ward symbol; it is the worship that ispaid within. But I shall say no more onthis theme. All that I can say is weak, poor,and vain. How can a man tell the reasonswhy we should worship God? They areas high as heaven, as wide as the world,

and as vast as the universe.

How Should We Worship God?The spiritual worship the text mentions

is essentially independent of localities.Time was when it was not so, for once thebest worship that was to be expected inthe world depended upon holy places andimpressive rites. In the childhood of therace these ideas were necessary, but Chris-tianity came as the maturity of revealedreligion, and declared that those ideasshould prevail no longer. True Christianspiritual worship is essentially indepen-dent of localities.

My friends, under the Christian systemyou cannot make holy places; you cannotmake a holy house. We speak very natu-rally and properly enough, if with duelimitation, in the language of the Old Tes-tament, about our places of worship, butwe ought to remember constantly the limi-tations. You cannot consecrate a buildingin the light of Christianity. You can dedi-cate the building. You can set it apart tobe used only for the worship of God. Butyou cannot make the house a holy house.Such is an idea foreign to the intense spiri-tuality that Jesus has taught us belongs tothe Christian idea of worship. Why thenshould we have houses of worship?Because they make it easier by force ofassociation and of beneficent habit for usto have holy thoughts and to pay holyworship in the place where we haveoften paid it before. So we can see why itis fit to set apart places of worship, housesof worship for God, though they be not inthemselves holy, though spiritual worshipis independent of locality.

External Aids to WorshipLet us rise to a broader view of the

matter. Spiritual worship must subordi-

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nate all these externals. Listen a few min-utes while I offer a plain, unadorned, un-impassioned statement about thisreally practical matter, for there are manyextremes about it among men. Thoughyou may not agree with my thought, itmay help you to think the matter throughfor yourself.

I say, then, on the one hand, spiritualworship must have its externals. For whilewe are spiritual, we are something elsealso. We have a material nature, and weare all closely linked and interdependentupon each other continually. It is idle,then, to think that our worship will be allthat it is capable of becoming if we try tokeep it exclusively spiritual and give it nooutward expression at all. When you tryto pray in private by your own bedside,alone with your beating heart and yourGod, you mistake if you try to pray with-out couching your thought and feeling inwords. We need the force of expression,though we utter not the words. We needto have the words in order to give clear-ness and form to our thought and our sen-timent. So it is good, even when alone, tospeak aloud one’s private prayer, for thatseems somehow, by a law of our nature,to make deeper the feeling that we thusoutwardly express. If we do so even inprivate prayer, how much more is it nec-essarily true in public worship!

We must have expression for our wor-ship, that there may be sympathy. Wemust use the language of imagination andpassion as the Scriptures do. The Scrip-tures are full of the language of imagina-tion and passion, language that is meantto stir the souls of men. When we sing weare striving to use that as one of the exter-nals of spiritual worship. We need it. Wemust have externals.

Why, then, a man might ask, and men

often have asked, why not have anythingand everything that will contribute at allto help the expression and cherish thedevout feeling? Why not have everythingin architecture, everything in painting andstatuary, everything in special garments,in solemn processions, in significant pos-ture? Why not anything and everythingthat may at all help as an external expres-sion of devout feeling? Let us considerthis, I pray you. I said spiritual worshipmust have its externals, and now I repeatthat it must subordinate those externals.Whatever externals it cannot subordinateit must discard, and the externals it doesemploy it must employ heedfully. Thereare some things that awaken in some mena sort of fictitious, quasi-devout feeling,which you never would think of recom-mending as aids to devotion. Some per-sons when they use opium have a dreamysort of devoutness, and some persons,even when they become drunk, show amorbid sort of religion. Yet who wouldthink of saying that these are acts thathelp to devotion? But there are feelingsthat are right in themselves and noble intheir place that do in some cases help topromote devotional feeling. The husbandand wife, when they bow down with theirchildren by their sides to pray together,and then, rising up, look lovingly intoeach other’s eyes, find their devout feel-ing towards God heightened by their lovefor each other and their children. I canfancy that the young man and maidenwho both fear God and have learned tolove each other may sometimes feel theirdevout sentiments truly heightened bythis new, strange, and beautiful affectionwhich they have learned to feel for eachother. That is so sometimes, and yeteverybody sees that to recommend thatas an avowed and systematic thing to be

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used as a help to devotion would be outof the question. Not everything, then, thatmay promote devotion is to be regularlyused for this purpose.

There are some things that look asif they were necessary, are very oftenrecommended as helpful, and oftenemployed as helps, that turn out to bedangerous and erroneous. Why can’t weuse pictures and statuary as helps todevotion? Why can’t we employ them asproper means of making the thought ofour Savior near and dear to us? Well, inall the ages of the world, the heathen havetried this. Some years ago, an educatedyoung Hindu wrote an essay in which hecomplained bitterly that the Hindus wereaccused of worshiping images, andquoted Cowper’s beautiful poem entitled,“My Mother’s Picture”: “O, that those lipshad language!/ Years have passed sincethee I saw.” He argued that the picture ofthe poet’s mother brought close and madereal the thought of one long dead. That isthe way, he said, that we use images.

But that is not the way that the greatmass of men use images in worship. Theyhave often meant that at the outset. Yethow soon it degenerated and wasdegraded, and these things that weremeant as helps to worship dragged downthe aspirations of human hearts insteadof lifting them up! But, it seems to me, if Iwere to employ such helps in our time,persuading myself that they would begood, then I should feel it was wise to goback to the old Ten Commandments thatwe teach our children to repeat and cutout the second commandment, which ex-pressly forbids the use of graven images.You can inquire, if you are curious to doso, whether those Christians in our owntime and country who employ picturesand statuary today as helps to devotion

have mutilated the Ten Commandments.The world has tried that experimentwidely and in every way, and it is foundthat though you might think that picturesand statuary would be helps to devotion,they turn out to be hurtful. They may helpa few; they harm many. They may do alittle good; they do much evil.

There are some of these things whichwe must have to some extent: churchbuildings, architecture, music, cultivatedeloquence. How about these? We areobliged to have these. But, my friends,they need to be used by us all withcaution and with earnest efforts to makethem helpful to devotion, or they will dragdown our attention to themselves.

It is easy to talk nonsense on the sub-ject of church music. It is very difficult totalk wisely. But I think we sometimes for-get in our time that there is a distinctionbetween secular and sacred music. I haveseen places where they did not seem toknow there was such a distinction. Theyseem to have obliterated the difference byusing much purely secular music insacred worship. It is a distinction not easyto define, I know, but easy enough to com-prehend on the part of one who has anear for music and a heart for devotion. Itis a distinction that ought always to beheedfully regarded. Our beautiful churchmusic I delight in. But we must learn touse it as a help to devotion, or it will dous harm. We must not only cultivate theuse and enjoyment of artistic music for thesake of enjoyment, we must also cultivatethe power of making it a help to religiousworship. We must learn to do that, or wemust refuse to have it.

We must learn to discard that which wecannot subordinate to spiritual worship.We must learn to use heedfully, with con-stant effort for ourselves, our families, and

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our friends that which it is right to use,that it may help and not hinder. I pray you,then, do not go to asking people to comejust to see your beautiful house of wor-ship or to listen to your noble music. Somewill come for that reason alone, and youcannot help it. But do not encourage sucha thought. Talk about worship. Talk aboutthese externals as helps to the solemnworship of God. Try to take that view ofit. Try to make other people take that viewof it. Be afraid for yourselves, and try tospeak of it for its own sake and not forthe sake of the aesthetic gratification itmay give.

The Nature of Solemn,Internal Worship

And now, my brethren, can you listena few moments longer to some closingwords? I think that in most of ourchurches—our churches that have no setritual, no fixed form of worship—there isa disposition to underrate the importanceof public worship and to think only of thepreaching. I notice that in those churches,not only our own, but those like it thathave no special form of worship, theyalways give notice for preaching and notfor worship. They only talk about thepreacher and not the worship. They seemto think it makes little difference if theyare too late for worship, provided they arethere in time for the sermon. I notice thatmany preachers seem to give their wholethought to their sermon, and think noth-ing of preparing themselves for that hightask, that solemn, responsible undertak-ing of trying to lift up the hearts of a greatassembly in prayer to God. Wherever thatmay be true, let us consider whether weought not to take more interest in ourworship, in the reading of God’s word fordevotional impression, in solemn, sacred

song and in humble prayer to God, inwhich we wish the hearts of the wholeassembly to rise and melt together.

It is true that we must take care howwe cultivate variety here, for the hearts ofmen seem to take delight in some routinein their worship. They are rested if theyknow what comes next. They are harassedoften if they are frequently disappointedand something quite unexpected comesin. We must keep our variety within lim-its, but within limits we must cultivatevariety. I believe there should be moreattention paid to making our worship var-ied in its interest than is usually the case.

Now, I say we must put heart in ourworship. Do not venture to come to thisbeautiful place of worship, or whateverplace of worship you attend, and just sitlanguidly down to see if the choir can stiryou or to see if the preacher can stir you.Stir up your own souls. Such is your sol-emn duty to yourself, to others, to thepastor who wishes to lead your worship,and to God, who wants the hearts of men,and who will have nothing but theirhearts. I know how we feel. Worn by aweek’s toil, languid on the Lord’s daythrough lack of our customary excitement,we go and take our places, jaded and dull,and we are tempted to think, “Now I willsee whether the services can make anyimpression on me; whether the preachercan get hold of me—I hope they may,” andwe sit passive to wait and see. Oh, let usnot dare thus to deal with the solemnityof the worship of God.

My brethren, if we learn to worshiparight, then there will be beautiful andblessed consequences. It will bring farmore of good to our own souls. It willmake worship far more impressive to ourchildren. Haven’t you observed that it isgetting to be one of the questions of our

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day how the Sunday School children areto be drawn to our public worship? Weare often told that the preacher must tryto make his sermon more attractive to chil-dren, and so he must. But let us alsomake our worship more impressive, andmake our children feel that it is their dutyto worship God, and try to bring themunder the influence of this worship

If you have true, fervent worship ofGod, the stranger that comes into yourplace of worship will feel it too. Have younot noticed when you go into some houseshow quickly you perceive that you are inan atmosphere of hospitality and genu-ine kindness? There may be no parade, nospeech making. Yet in some places youmay feel it. You feel it in the atmosphereand you feel it at once in your soul. Yousee a place where they are kindly andloving. So it ought to be that when a mancomes into your place of worship he shallvery soon feel something pervade theatmosphere he breathes. From the look ofthe people, from the solemn stillness, fromthe unaffected earnestness he shall feelthat these people are genuine, solemnworshipers of God. When he feels that, hewill conclude that God is with you andthere will be power to move his soul inyour solemn worship.

ConclusionNow, my brethren, in this beautiful

house that you have built for the worshipof God, and are now dedicating to Hisworship, may there be much of real spiri-tual worship. When your hearts are fullsometimes and you come and try to throwyour souls into God’s worship, may yoube moved and melted. When you aresorely tempted sometimes and try to liftyour heart to Him in prayer, may you getgood from the wise and loving words of

the man you love to see stand before youas your pastor.

As your children grow up by your sideand learn to delight with you in comingto the house of God, may you be permit-ted to see more and more of them gladlycoming to tell what great things God hasdone for their souls, and gladly comingto put on Christ by baptism. And not onlythe children of your households, butstrangers within your gates. How soonthey will be pouring into this great cityfrom the far East and the wonderful West,from all the North and all the South, andfrom beyond the sea! How they will, inthese coming years, pour into this impe-rial, central city, with its vast possibilitiesthat swell the souls of your businessmen,and that ought to swell the souls of yourreligious men. May the stranger withinyour gates learn here to love your Savior,rejoice here to proclaim that love, and risefrom the liquid grave to walk in newnessof life. Again and again, as you gatherfor that simplest of all ceremonies, as itis the most solemn, which Jesus himselfappointed, in all simplicity taking breadand wine in remembrance of him, may hewho sees men’s hearts, see always thatyour hearts are towards him in godly sin-cerity. When offerings are asked here maythey be offerings given as a part of theworship of God, offerings that comefrom your hearts, offerings that areaccepted by him who wants the heart,offerings that are worthy of this beautifulhome of your church life, and worthy tofollow the gifts wherewith you haveerected it. Time and again may there goforth those who have learned to worshiphere like successive swarms from fruitfulhives to carry the same spirit of worshipelsewhere, here and there, in great andgrowing needy cities.

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Yes, and when the young of yourhouseholds begin to link those house-holds more closely than ever together, andon the bright bridal day the brilliant pro-cession comes sweeping up the aisle andall men’s hearts are glad, may they alwayscome reverently in the fear of the God theyhave here learned to worship. And, mor-tal men and women, who have united tobuild high and glorious piles that willstand when you are gone, when in thehour of your departure from the worksof your hands, and from the worship thatyou have loved on earth, and slow andsolemn up the aisle they bear the casketthat holds all that is left to earth of you,and behind some sad-faced men andsobbing women, and while the solemnmusic sounds through all these vaults andyour pastor rises, struggling to control hisown sorrow for the death of one he lovedso well—may it be true, in that hour whichis coming—may you begin from this nightso to live that it shall then be true that themourners of that hour may sorrow here,not as those who have no hope, and thatthe men and women who honor you, andhave gathered to pay honor to yourmemory, may feel like saying in simplesincerity as they look upon your coffin,“The memory of the just is blessed; letme die the death of the righteous and letmy last end be like his.” Begin today, Godhelp you to begin from this hour ofentrance into your new place of worshipso to live that all this may be true whenyou pass away.