SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 11

SUNDAY READING.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD. By Rev. William Birch., DJD. God is Spirit : and they that worship-him must worship inspirit and truth. John iv., 24(a.v,V' Sixty years ago, Emerson said, "What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship !" Since then in a large measure Christendom has forgetten God and consoled itself with proselytism and display.» Putting Conversion and Sanctificatibn - as out-of-date things into the church lumber room, we have resurrected pagan ceremonial and concocted refined emotionalism. Instead of humbly shining with purity and sweetness, we have thumped the drum and cajoled the crowd into bur conventicles with music, theatricals, and anything likely to titillate the senses as. ''a draw," while God has been left out as an inconvenience. In modern divine service, we bend «ur head, but does our spirit pray ? Euphonious sonatas and brilliant anthems are performed by our gifted prpxies in the choir, but is it personal praise? When children come' to express thanks to their father, would he have them stand away on the lawn while serenaders do it for them at his front door? Is our Christian worship more spiritual than that of the so-called " unconverted Moslem," who in reverencing Allah in the sky, kneels on his bit of carpet in a corner of the crowded street, or on the desert sand and prays with forehead bent to the group d? Can our elaborate church service be. more truly considered worship than that of rude Africans trembling before the carved wood which to them represents the presence of God ? Does our formal twominute prayer avail more than or as much as thatrpf the penniless outcast or the despised publican who in a groan exclaims, " O God, be merciful to me V? ■' To confirm ourselves in the delusion that we are God's truest worshippers, we arrange religions spurts or revivals, during which everybody professes gushing love to " dear every other body," but when it is ended, we return to our dislike of every one not of our clique. At a cost it is said of L3OOO to our colony, we have had two great evangelists visiting New Zealand, preceded by months of public weekly prayer, ushered on the platform by temporarily united ministers and choirs, listened to by packed sweating crowds, and ended with the moral and spiritual result of " as you were." We send delegates to conventions and conferences where theological rockets are made and. occasionally let off, where resolutions. are passed to obtain Acts of Parliament to teach Our religion to everybody's children, and where the difficulty is to find time for eloquent talk; but there is

no worship. The absent God is prayed at, called on to awake, entreated to come down and fire up our church, begged to make bare his arm in earnest effort to pull our waggon out of the back street into the public square; and, not waiting for or expecting an answer, we conclude with the benediction and hurry away to the fete withf pwLsandwiches and unlimited tea. Had the one hundred and twenty worshippers at Pentecost been of a similar mind, would they have been filled with God, and love, and joy? • The stupendous revival effort of modern Christendom is like that of the mountain whose groans to be delivered frightened the earth, but brought forth only a mouse. The practical world which looks on and asks, "What is the use of so much fuss ?" and seeing that our trade morals and social benevolence are no higher than the average righteous and benevolent outsider, it cries, "Your revival is sanctimonious fudge." We cannot convert the world, which how knows as much as we do, until Christ is repeated in our business and home life, through power received for that purpose from on high, the condition of which is to be in submissive yet active toixch with God as- the branch with the vine. Let us describe worship as Christ revealed it.

I. Worship can only be evolved by consciousness of God. At an evening party, an actor beingr requested to lecite the Paternoster, at once, as'he afterwards explained, realised himself as a sinful but penitent and grateful man in the presence of God. In almost painful eilence, the actor rose from his chair, and for a little while humbly stood with bowed head and hands crossed on the breast, then lifting his face, with tears falling and sobs which shook his frame, he exclaimed, " Our Father who art in Heaven! Hallowed be Thy Name!" He broke down, and it was some time ere he was able with sobbing voice to conclude the prayer, while the fashionable assembly was so moved by his realistic art as to burst into tears.

I trust you may not think it out of place to have personal testimony. When a boy, I read in an ancient Catholic book of the " divine touch," or the manifested presence of God to those who obey and love Him. All one night I prayed, occasionally in an agony of desire, for the divine presence, and when suddenly my being was flooded through and through with glory, I fell, with my face on the hearthrug in an amazed joy which so overpowered me that I had to pray for strength to bear it. We may not all be influenced in a similar way, but, once experienced, it can never be forgotten and no more be suppresssed than light, when, through opened windowshutters, it glorifies the room. Consciousness of God as realised by the actor, and as it should be every moment of our daily life, evolves true worship; and the manifested presence in response will give either an intoxication of joy as at Pentecost, or ineffable peace like that of Paul and Silas when in the dungeon at midnight, being unable to sleep on account or wounds and stocks, they sang praises unto God. True . worship can be best rendered when alone with our door shut, or when, like our Lord, we find a secret place in the rocks to pray in "supplications with strong crying and tears." I once witnessed true worship in a church, when, suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit, minister, choir and people broke into tears and exclamations of praise while they were' praying the hymn:

" Thou of life the fountain art, Freely let me take of thee, Spring thou up within my heart, Rise to all eternity." 11. Worship transforms the Worshipper. It plants our spirit like seed in divine soil. As fish in water, we move and have our being in God. We inbreathe God as we breathe air ; and though we eternally remain oneself, it is oneself influenced by our Father as the flower by sunshine and rain. Like a perfumed fountain which flows in and from us, His pure sweetness spring;? tip in our spirit, not as an exotic in a glass-house or a part we assume like an actor, but His purity, goodness and integrity become oneself as the sap is part of the branch. Our Father grafts Himself in us.

We cannot deceive our family and neighbours. By our conduct, they" know whether or not we truly worship God. In business and home life were we to be always in the spirit of worship and thus realise the presence of our Father, depending oh Him for spiritual power as on the atmosphere for breath, the world if selfishly moved would hate us as it hated Christ, and in its better moments worship us, while we should strengthen the Godmagnet which is slowly, but surely, drawing all men to our Father. The overreaching, and lies, and unbrotherly conduct of certain christians in trade and their " cussedness " at home have hindered the gospel more than theatres, races, gambling and drink j and the world cannot make rapid moral progress until the churches insist on their members being honourable and righteous in dealing with their fellowmen. The presence of cheating, lying and selfish impenitent christians utterly stifles worship, and the pity is that their hypocrisy pays. O! that this sermon might be the medium of constraining such men to repent and truly worship God ! Worship heavenizes our earthly lot. A child I knew who was much attached to her father, while one day in the kitchen saw the maid polishing his boots, and said, " let me do them." " No, no, Miss Maude; you will blacken your hand, and, besides, it is my duty." Ah, but," said the child, it must be nice to make them shine for him !"

Likewise, in true daily life worship, our lot is delightful because our service in all things is rendered through earthly masters, or friends to Him and for Him. Our lot is the divine school or studio where our Father places us to learn to be like Himself. And the joy of it is that while we worship Him, He seeks to give the assurance that He worships us—for so our Lord means. You are His medium or lamp to show other men the blessedness of worship ; and He is in you as the light in the lamp, while you are in Him as the lamp is in the light which shines through into the house. In true worship your body becomes God's human lamp ; your spirit as it were, the wick,-the Holy Spirit supplies the oil and applies the light. As the sunshine inspired the self-effcrt of this charminorose to produce beauty and fragrance, so God inspires your obedient and loving spirit to bring forth the purity, honour and goodness which constrain Him to worship you, perhaps more than you worship Him ; and in your daily life may now be seen " That mystery Where God in man is one with man in God."