I have known, have been persons in whom atheistical theories and evil lives seemed to have quenched the Instinct of Worship for ten, twenty, or forty years. But an hour of deep sorrow, or a kindly word spoken in season, or some other means blessed by the Holy Spirit, has liberated the soul from its long bondage; and immediately the religious instincts have flamed forth with sevenfold energy, after their long repression; the Divine Light has shone in the dark mind, and the Celestial Fire has glowed in the cold heart.

The intuitive shining light, though often pale and dubious, and the automatic craving of the heart for God, though often dull and languid-which are the most prominent parts of the Instinct of Worshipmay be readily verified by experience. The yearning heart opens doubtfully to receive and to worship God; and immediately its doubts vanish, in the fulness of the experience that He is as living waters to the thirsty soul.

The rational faculty, also, confirms and supports the intuitions of the spiritual consciousness. Reason builds up irrefutable arguments for the existence of a Supreme First Cause, a Supreme Personal Will, a Supreme Designing Intelligence, a Supreme Righteous Lawgiver and Judge; and readily accumulates convincing evidence to prove that these are not many but One,—the One Creator and Lord and Father of us all. These rational arguments point heavenwards, like so many Church spires; and by spiritual vision we see Him towards Whom they point.

The perception and the emotion, the light and the heat, which are the main constituent parts of the Instinct of Worship, are easily separable in thought; but they are or they ought to be-united in fact. In true and perfect worship, they act and react upon each

other, until the light gives heat, and the heat gives light, and the whole soul is aglow with the spiritual Presence and Love and Fulness of God. Then nature and all natural knowledge are transfigured before us. "A bright cloud overshadows" the whole universe, and its glory falls upon the floating traditions of a Divine Father, upon the cold theistic deductions of the rational faculty, upon the vague inarticulate cry of the human heart, and upon all the broken fragments of our knowledge and experience; and, in that mystic light, they all contribute, in their measure, to our cognizance of the Presence and Glory and Love of God. "The heaven" and "the earth," with ten thousand sweet voices," sing together," and "declare" His praise. The visible creation, with all its golden architecture filling the depths of infinite space, is evermore a living anthem in praise of the Most High. In this ceaseless song, man joins in his measure by worship.

2.-The Power of the Instinct of Worship.

The spiritual and moral perceptions and forces of our nature appear, at first sight, to be ordinarily more feeble and uncertain in their action than the coarse secular perceptions and energies which fill the world with the uproar of daily life. We should be mistaken. however were we to imagine that noisy obtrusive forces, which are always attracting attention to themselves, are really more powerful than those which are more silent and unobtrusive. The greater forces of nature. are in part veiled, and are often quite silent and unperceived in their action. A hundred generations of men have lived and died amidst the ceaseless and mighty operation of these forces, without discerning their presence. Notwithstanding all the recent discoveries of

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science, it is certain that there are still many undiscovered forces constantly at work around us and within us. But they act silently, and behind the veil of nature. The ear cannot hear them. The eye of the professional observer has hitherto failed to detect them. But we know by their results that they are present. It is often so with the "still small voice" in the spirit and heart of man. Although apparently very weak, and often on account of this seeming weakness, "despised and rejected of men," it has the might of the Almighty: it proves itself in a thousand ways stronger than the strongest things we know-stronger than old inveterate bad habits, and corrupt associates; stronger than fear and shame; stronger than gold; stronger than passionate love and passionate hate; stronger than fire and sword; stronger than life and death; and it "turns the world upside down."

The Instinct of Worship, although disordered and enfeebled by the Fall of man, and by the continual presence of sin in every department of human life, is still one of the most powerful and ineradicable instincts in our nature. Its action is incessant and coextensive with humanity, although ordinarily it is silent and unobserved. All through the Heathen world religions, like empires, rise and fall. They flourish, and pass away, and their once crowded temples become desolate ruins. But the Instinct of Worship remains: transfers its services to whatever new religion is presented: covers the land again with magnificent and costly. temples; and fills them with crowds of worshippers, with altars and sacrifices, with prayers and hymns, with white-robed priests and choristers, and with acts of adoration and reverence,-in short, with a solemn ritual hardly distinguishable from that which had prevailed from the beginning around altars now neglected

and dishonoured. This mysterious Instinct works today, as of old, in every branch of the human family. England and America and Australia are not the only countries which are rearing up temples by hundreds: their activity is but a part of a wider world-work in which all nations labour incessantly, although often blindly.

Were the outburst of some mad revolution to fill the whole world with a paroxysm of atheistical fury, and to sweep away, with a sudden and universal destruction, all the religions and temples that are on the earth, and all the memory of them, the Instinct of Worship would, with the return of order and freedom, begin its wondrous work again, with redoubled energy, and would, in a few generations, fill the world as before with altars and sanctuaries and worship.

3.-The Authority of the Instinct of Worship.

The reader will have observed that although I have claimed Power for the Instinct of Worship, I have not claimed Infallibility for it, nor for any other human. instinct. No such claim could be maintained. The religious history of mankind shows that, amid the abounding corruptions of the Heathen world, this Instinct has often been misapplied and perverted, nay more, has often been degraded from its high position as a ministering angel in God's Presence, to be the dark accomplice of evil spirits and evil men, in hideous acts of Theft-Worship, Murder-Worship, Lust-Worship, Devil-Worship, and base Idolatry.

Why then, it may be asked, should we, in an enquiry like the present, appeal to the Authority of an Instinct so fallible? What is its Authority worth? Can we find no better guide? Would it not be simpler and

safer to go direct to Holy Scripture, and to humbly accept as our guide, in the matter of worship, the teaching of Divine Revelation? Would not this be the course most consistent with the deep self-distrust which we ought ever to feel, and which right-minded persons. do feel?

The answer to these questions is not far to seek. If Revelation had given us a System of Devotional Ritual -i.e., a Divine Method for offering up our Prayers and Praises and Adorations in Public Worship-it would clearly be our duty, and our wisdom, to follow that Divine Method. But Revelation has not done so. Revelation has not given a Devotional Ritual to the Church.

An elaborately typical Sacrificial Ritual, obligatory in the Jewish dispensation, and a very simple Sacramental Ritual, obligatory in the Christian dispensation, were indeed appointed by Divine Revelation; God Himself having instituted them, and having categorically commanded their observance. But, obviously, the naked Sacrificial rites of the Old Testament, and, no less obviously, the extremely brief and simple Sacramental rites of the New Testament, required, as their envelope and enrichment, and for the fuller expression of their meaning, and of the devotional feelings connected with them, an accompanying Devotional Ritual of prayers, praises, sacred readings, exhortations, and acts of worship. Such an envelope they required, and such an envelope they always found: but Revelation did not supply it. The important task of providing a suitable Devotional Ritual for each Sacrifice and Sacrament, and for Public Worship generally in the Church, was, in God's providence, left almost entirely to the free exercise of the Instinct of Worship.

Occasionally, indeed, Revelation gives commands.