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 THE REV. RICHARD D. HARLAN, D.D., 
 
 
 President of Lake Forest College. 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
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 PRESIDENT'S OFFICE 
 
 Public Worship and Reverence. 
 
 A Sermon 
 
 BY PRESIDENT HARLAN OF LAKE FOREST COLLEGE. 
 
 The Convocation Sermon, preached in the Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest, Ills., 
 on September 27,1903, before the students of Lake Forest College, 
 
 Lake Forest School, and Ferry Hall. 
 
 I am to speak to you this morning upon the subject of 
 Public Worship and Reverence; by which I mean the outward 
 expressions or manifestations of reverence in the public services 
 for divine worship. 
 
 For a long time I have felt that the campaign of education 
 for an increase in reverence must begin in the colleges and the 
 schools, especially in the institutions that are carried on under 
 the auspices of our Holy Religion. 
 
 The conditions and difficulties surrounding public worship 
 are often lost sight of by many earnest men, who sometimes 
 almost seem to assume that every one present at a public service 
 has come up to the House of God impelled by a strong desire to 
 worship, needing, therefore, no special helps to predispose the 
 heart to prayer or recall the wandering thoughts. The condi¬ 
 tions of private prayer are entirely different. There, the in¬ 
 dividual Christian, in the quiet of the home, shuts the door and 
 holds communion with his Father which is in secret; or, in the 
 solitude which enwraps each soul even amid the hurrying throngs 
 of the street or the busy shop or the crowded drawing room, he 
 may lay hold of the love and grace of the Eternal with the quick 
 grip of short ejaculatory prayer. In such experiences and emer¬ 
 gencies the really earnest soul needs no forms nor help of out¬ 
 ward ceremony or environment, but goes to the mark with the 
 directness and swiftness of an arrow hot from the bow string. 
 And yet, taking the average man as our standard, the springs of 
 private prayer would soon dry up in the hot desert of the world’s 
 temptations and distractions, were it not for public worship. 
 
 With this much by way of preface, let us now read certain 
 scattered passages from Holy Scripture, which from various 
 
2 
 
 angles illuminate the whole question of Public Worship and 
 Reverence. 
 
 “For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that My 
 Name may be there forever: and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall 
 be there perpetually ” —II Chron. 7:16. 
 
 “Mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people ” 
 —Is. 56:7. 
 
 “Oj come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before 
 the Lord our Maker” —Ps. 95 :6. 
 
 Hear also the words of Jesus, spoken to the woman of 
 Samaria: 
 
 “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, 
 when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem . 
 worship the Father .... But the hour cometh, and now is, 
 when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and 
 in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a 
 Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit 
 and in truth” —St. John 4:21, 23, 24. 
 
 Also the Apostle Paul says in his sermon on Mars Hill: 
 
 “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that 
 He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made 
 with hands” —Acts 17 :24. 
 
 And finally, there is that promise of Christ’s perpetual pres¬ 
 ence with His worshipping people, whether they gather amid the 
 outward solemnities of a great cathedral or in the baldest meet¬ 
 ing house or on barren moors, and whether or no they have a 
 minister or priest to lead their devotions: 
 
 “For where two or three are gathered together in My Name, 
 there am I in the midst of them” —Matt. 18:20. 
 
 A superficial, one-sided use is often made of our Lord’s 
 far-reaching deliverance to the woman of Samaria, which we 
 have just read, in which He asserts the immediate accessibil¬ 
 ity of the Father of spirits to every comer of the earth, and de¬ 
 mands an inner homage of the soul as the test of all true wor¬ 
 ship. In that spiritual and revolutionary proclamation, Jesus 
 certainly teaches that true worship was henceforth to be con¬ 
 fined neither to the Samaritans’ “Holy Mountain,” nor yet to 
 Jerusalem, but that everywhere and at all times, without the 
 medium of either Church, Priest or Ritual, the truly devout soul 
 might find its God. But, like all radical reformers, Jesus often 
 
3 
 
 taught by paradox, by overstatement; and surely He does not 
 here assert, as is often assumed, that the “Holy Mountain” was 
 to be of no further value to the Samaritan nor the great Temple 
 to the devout Israelite. Much less would the Son of Man, who 
 knows human infirmities, have His followers infer that the out¬ 
 ward services and ceremonies of the Church should be of insig¬ 
 nificant importance to the New Testament Christian. 
 
 The essence of His doctrine is that all places of worship and 
 all ceremonies are spiritually worthless except as they are filled 
 and made alive by the informing spirit of worship. The value 
 to us of a place of worship, and even of that highest act of wor¬ 
 ship which may be offered in the Holy Communion, is abso¬ 
 lutely dependent upon there being a genuine worshipper, wor¬ 
 shipping in spirit and in truth. To hold to an inherent, essen¬ 
 tial sacredness in such outward matters would make Christianity 
 a system of magic instead of a life of faith and love and obedi¬ 
 ence. 
 
 But a rational, philosophic way of stating the Protestant doc¬ 
 trine of the sacredness of God’s House, and even of the Holy Sup¬ 
 per, is that both sacred place and sacred ceremony are very much 
 like a locked treasure-house—whose key is given only to the gen¬ 
 uine, spiritual worshipper. And yet, after all is said by way of 
 caution against a superstitious regard for these externals, we do 
 have a promise from Christ Himself which justifies us in assert¬ 
 ing that a Christian sanctuary, where Christ’s people are wont to 
 worship, is, in a true, safe and helpful sense, made sacred 
 by a special Presence and nearness, and most of all during 
 the times of public worship. By which I do not mean that a 
 church edifice is objectively, actually sacred, but that it is sub¬ 
 jectively, practically so. In other words, it is not sacred in 
 itself, but sacred to us and for us; because, said the Master, 
 “Where two or three are met together in My Name, there am I 
 in the midst of them.” True, that meeting may be in a bare 
 bam, or out upon the wild heather, where God so often met our 
 brave Scotch ecclesiastical forefathers; but surely this gracious 
 guarantee of Christ’s Presence amid His worshipping people is 
 not abated just because such places of Christian assemblage hap¬ 
 pen to be the regular houses of worship ! 
 
 In all these matters of the outward aspects of worship, the 
 extreme type of Puritan is just as far wrong as the Ritualist; in- 
 
4 
 
 deed, in their underlying essential principle, the two are really 
 the same, though the Puritan is delightfully unconscious of it 
 and would deny the charge with horror. To the mariner’s eye, 
 Scylla and Charybdis seem to be opposite dangers, and so they 
 are in a superficial sense; but underneath the waters they are 
 really one and the same rock, although the two ends raise their 
 frowning heads above the water on opposite sides of the strait. 
 Just so, in regard to what I have called the visible aspects of 
 public worship, these two extremes of ecclesiastical physiognomy 
 or outward feature, as they are seen in the extreme phase of Pur¬ 
 itanism and in Ritualism, are actually the same in their underly¬ 
 ing essential principle, in that they both make a fetich of things 
 external, one in a positive and one in a negative way. Your ex¬ 
 treme type of Puritan does so by insisting upon what he calls a 
 lack of “form”—and he always uses the word “form” in an op¬ 
 probrious sense. And yet, so far from lacking form, he is uncon¬ 
 sciously the most rigid of formalists; only, his form is bare and 
 unexpressive, lacking in completeness, congruity and impressive¬ 
 ness. 
 
 The fact is that, on this question of the method of public 
 worship, the extreme Puritan and the Ritualist are equally 
 wrong, and in the reaction from one side to the other, we 
 see the revenge which wronged nature sometimes takes in such 
 cases, and we stumble here on the explanation of the otherwise 
 strange phenomenon presented every now and then in the case 
 of an extreme Puritan, or more often his children or grand¬ 
 children who, when they veer from their own Charybdis, make 
 straight for the rocks of Scylla, by becoming the most ardent of 
 Ritualists. Occasionally we get the opposition reaction. If, 
 in the latter case, you starve the intellectual side of human 
 nature and over-indulge the sensuous and aesthetic side, then 
 occasionally you get, at the other swing of the pendulum, 
 a bald, bare type of Puritanism, which is fitted only for the 
 rare upper moments of the soul, when the rational spirit of 
 man is able to rise superior to the most depressing surround¬ 
 ings and envelope itself with its own atmosphere. If, on the 
 other hand, you shut your eyes to the existence of the imag¬ 
 ination and the aesthetic, emotional sides of our complex, 
 God-given nature, and make your appeal simply to the rational 
 and purely spiritual elements in man’s nature, and proceed 
 therefore to strip the church bare of all elements of beauty and 
 
5 
 
 congruity in architecture and churchly art; if you banish music 
 and ignore all questions of outward seemliness and expressive¬ 
 ness, then, in the second or third generation of a Puritan line, 
 there often comes that extreme reaction towards an out-and-out 
 Ritualism, in which, as it seems to us, worship becomes too sen¬ 
 suous, appealing too little to the intellectual and purely spiritual 
 sides of man’s nature, and too much to the eye and ear. Ritual¬ 
 ism, in its full flower, is too much like a book that is almost all 
 picture and too little reading matter. We give picture books to 
 children, but grown men and women as a rule demand strong 
 meat. 
 
 And yet, on the other hand, candor compels the admission 
 that your extreme type of Puritan is just as far wrong on his 
 side, for in this matter of the methods of worship he seems to ex¬ 
 pect the regenerate man to be all angel or spirit, in whom the five 
 senses play no part. He forgets that, just as man has a body as 
 well as soul, so religion must have some forms in which that 
 spirit may fitly clothe itself, and must clothe itself, if it is to live 
 in the world and spread. 
 
 As usual in such cases the truth lies in the middle, in the 
 golden means between the two extremes. Though what some 
 men call “no form” is but another kind of form, yet, using the 
 word as some insist upon using it, neither “lack of form” nor 
 “form” are anything in themselves. Paul’s argument in the 
 Galatians is usually taken to be directed only against Jewish 
 Ritualism: and yet his deeply cutting principle, so clearly enun¬ 
 ciated in the fifth chapter, hits at both extremes: “In Jesus 
 Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor wncircum- 
 cision; but faith which worketh by love.” Many men are apt to 
 forget the two words, “nor uncircumcision,” and so overlook the 
 great principle they embody. As there was no help in mere cir¬ 
 cumcision, so there was no essential value in being uncircum¬ 
 cised. And yet, in their opposition to anything like a compre¬ 
 hensive orderliness and stately decency of public worship, some 
 men insist upon what they call a more “spiritual” worship, and 
 they often over-emphasize the last word in the Psalmist’s exhor¬ 
 tation, “0, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,” as if that 
 ruled out every element of outward beauty, congruity and impres¬ 
 siveness from public worship. To make the quotation serve the 
 purpose for which it is often misused, we might somewhat amend 
 
6 
 
 it and make it read: “0 worship the Lord in the holiness of ugli¬ 
 ness.” And really such a parody does not entirely misrepresent 
 a school that still lingers in some parts of the American Church. 
 We all know men who seem to think that somehow a bald, bare 
 outline of worship is the more “spiritual” form. 
 
 Now the fundamental principle I have endeavored to enun¬ 
 ciate this morning is this: while mere form, or the absence of a 
 particular form, has no value in itself,—the external being sim¬ 
 ply the outward expression of the inward reality, occupying the 
 same relation thereto as that of the body to the soul,—yet, none 
 the less, there is a natural, fitting relation between the inner fact 
 and the outward expression or form of it. In every department 
 of life, “form,” rightly conceived, is simply the natural, fitting, 
 outward drapery of the ideal, or of the real inner thought. 
 
 Such, as it seems to me, is the true philosophy of the close 
 and almost necessary relation between a spiritual inner worship 
 and its outward expression in any method of public worship, 
 whose purpose it is to lift the hearts of all sorts and conditions 
 of men toward the Unseen God. 
 
 And now let us make some practical applications of these 
 principles to the question of Beverence, or rather the notorious 
 irreverence shown in the public services of many churches in 
 America. Even at the risk of appearing to descend to trifling 
 details, I venture this morning to unburden myself of certain 
 convictions as to this practical subject, which for many years 
 have been gathering in intensity. And if I seem to descend too 
 far to mere details, may I ask you to remember, not only that 
 habits of outward reverence are valuable as bulwarks of a gen¬ 
 uine inner reverence in the case of the decidedly thoughtful, but 
 also that in our churches we have to deal with a mass of un¬ 
 thinking people, with those who come up to the church on the 
 Lord’s Day filled with the thoughts of the world and of the week; 
 and more especially that the Church as a wise mother should be 
 a teacher for the young, who are at once so thoughtless and yet so 
 impressionable. Life is made up of details, and irreverance in 
 church has become a part of the unconscious habits of the aver¬ 
 age American. We ministers, upon whom is laid the burden and 
 the unspeakable privilege of leading the public devotions to the 
 people of God, cannot hope to do anything toward bringing about 
 a more excellent way, and particularly in moulding the habits 
 
7 
 
 of the younger generation of church-goers, unless we are willing 
 to come down out of the cloudland of general principles and 
 descend to details. Heads of families, and particularly teachers, 
 dealing with young and impressionable people, have the whole 
 thing in their own hands, especially if they will remember the 
 power of a visible example . 
 
 We Americans are so morbidly afraid of being “formal” that 
 we often end by being unceremonious and bad-mannered. Irre¬ 
 verence is a national trait. It is in the air of the age, the atmos¬ 
 phere of this young land of ours. And nowhere does it show 
 itself so distressingly as in the assemblages for the public wor¬ 
 ship of God. 
 
 The pictures I would draw this morning showing the de¬ 
 meanor of many worshippers in our Churches are not actual, sin¬ 
 gle photographs, but composite ones, made up from nega¬ 
 tives taken in many churches and many places. Taking our 
 churches as a whole through the country, what are the impres¬ 
 sions of the average service which come up to the memory when 
 we think of this subject? 
 
 I venture to exhibit three series of photographs: 
 
 I. The first series has been taken during the moments pre¬ 
 ceding the actual beginning of divine service. 
 
 Suppose that, as students of this matter of Reverence in 
 church, we “go up to the house of the Lord.” As our “feet stand 
 within its gates,” what pictures could we gather as to the way 
 in which the various worshippers enter the Lord’s earthly 
 courts? In the average church in America it is well nigh 
 impossible to secure a quiet quarter of an hour of medita¬ 
 tion before the service begins. How does the average Ameri¬ 
 can church-goer enter the House of God at the service on 
 the Lord’s Day ? He noisily greets his acquaintances here 
 and there near the door, or stops to talk with audible voice 
 upon any topic at hand, thereby breaking the sweet and solemn 
 stillness which should characterize a church at all times, espe¬ 
 cially as the hour of public service draws near. 
 
 Your average attendant upon public worship, having finished 
 his noisy greetings, next drops carelessly into a pew with as 
 much apparent indifference to the sacred purposes of the church, 
 and the solemn character of the service about to begin, as if it 
 were a public hall, and he were come to listen to a lecture or a 
 
8 
 
 concert He has not yet adopted for himself that reverent, and 
 helpful habit of bowing the head for a few moments in silent 
 prayer, as soon as he takes his seat, in which he asks to be filled 
 with the spirit of worship, by what the old theologians called the 
 prevenient grace of God (the grace that comes before),—that 
 beautiful advance guard of grace which God yearns to send into 
 our hearts, to enlarge them and to prepare them to come with 
 large petitions when we gather around the mercy seat. 
 
 Then, if any time remains before the service begins, the 
 average church attendant is apt to spend it in looking around to 
 see who else is coming in, or he converses in loud whispers with 
 some one in the next pew. Indeed, he will often punctuate the 
 sermon and the whole service in the same manner, disturbing 
 those around him, and attracting to himself the attention which 
 his neighbors would like to give, or should be allowed to give, to 
 the service. 
 
 II. The second series of photographs represents the average 
 attendant at our Churches as he behaves during the prayers in 
 the public services. 
 
 Just observe the demeanor of the average attendant at 
 our churches at the moment when prayer is being offered. By 
 his attitude he seems to count himself a spectator, a looker-on 
 from the outside. He takes the passive attitude, waiting to be 
 interested or entertained, instead of being an active, hearty par¬ 
 ticipant in the common worship. He and those who are like him 
 make up an audience, but not a worshipping church. He sits 
 bolt upright during the devotions, thereby making it almost im¬ 
 possible for the person immediately behind him with any com¬ 
 fort to bow the head or kneel in prayer,—a thing of which our 
 man in front seems selfishly unconscious. And if the second 
 worshipper, the one in the pew behind, finds that any rational 
 reverential obeisance of the body is thus made physically uncom¬ 
 fortable, he often gives it up; consequently the person in the pew 
 behind the second man is either tempted or forced to forego any 
 of the natural ways of visibly expressing one’s reverence; and so 
 it repeats itself, in many straight lines from the front of the 
 church to the last pew, altogether making a sight from the rear 
 of the church which is shocking to every thoughtful observer, and 
 which must make a very bad impression on the thoughtless and 
 skeptical attendant as to the serious sincerity of religious people. 
 
 How, of course, the method of the mere bodily expression of 
 
9 
 
 the inner obeisance of the soul is not a matter of essential im¬ 
 portance. If a man is really thoughtful, it can make no differ¬ 
 ence whether he reverently stand in the presence of the King 
 of kings or kneel before the Lord his Maker, or whether, 
 with quite an equal reverence, he bend with lowered head before 
 Him. God looks not at the angle of the body, but at the attitude 
 of the soul. The only thing worth emphasizing in this respect 
 is that, while everyone should feel perfectly free to do what best 
 helps his own soul to shut out the outer world and to worship 
 God in spirit and in truth, he should, for his own help and for 
 his brethren’s and companions’ sake, outwardly express in some 
 way, by some visible counterpart of inner reverence, the adoring 
 homage of the soul. 
 
 •But, entirely aside from the three ordinary postures for pub¬ 
 lic prayer just mentioned—and they are all thoroughly reverent 
 —there is one other habit in this regard which, as leaders of the 
 prayers of the people, we ministers might well endeavor in tact¬ 
 ful ways to banish forever from our churches, because of its de¬ 
 moralizing effect upon the young. I refer to the very common 
 and irreverent atttitude for public prayer, seen in those atten¬ 
 dants upon church services who neither st^nd in prayer nor 
 kneel nor bow the body, but who sit bolt-upright, with no out¬ 
 ward sign to others nor reminder to themselves, that they have 
 just been exhorted to approach the footstool of the Majestv on 
 High. 
 
 Sometimes your average worshipper shades his face with his 
 hand or a book while the prayers are being said; but quite as 
 often he goes to the extreme of shamelessly opening his eyes 
 either to watch the minister’s face as he prays, or to stare with 
 idle curiosity about the congregation, as if what were going on 
 around him were something in which he had not the slightest 
 part! 
 
 I have attended the Chapel Exercises of not a few colleges 
 and schools taught by Christian men, and, in the interests of the 
 investigations I have been making into this matter of Public 
 Worship and Reverence, I have violated my own rule and have 
 sometimes watched these academic congregations during prayers. 
 
 At the words, “let us pray,” I have often been horrified to 
 see practically the entire college or school remain stock-still, 
 hardly even going to the trouble of bending the head, much less 
 the body; and, what was more shocking, even the teachers them - 
 
10 
 
 selves remained sitting bolt-upright , as if nothing were going on 
 in which they had the slightest part! 
 
 Now, if the teachers are so careless as to the fitting outward 
 expressions of inner worship, how can they expect the young 
 men and young women, or the boys and girls, around them, to 
 acquire those reverential manners which are not only the natural 
 expressions of inward prayer, but which often help to deepen de¬ 
 votional feeling. Indeed, reverential outward habits sometimes 
 seem to su mm on those feelings into existence, by becoming what 
 the logicians call the “occasional cause” of such feelings. My 
 friend, does not thine own experience bear out this last state¬ 
 ment? Even when, for the moment, it was done only out of a 
 good-mannered deference to a most decent custom, and as a 
 proper example to others around thee, is it not true that the rev¬ 
 erent bending of the body in public worship has sometimes actu¬ 
 ally recalled thine own wandering mind to the duty and privilege 
 of really praying, praying within thine own soul and for thy self ? 
 
 I have spoken of the power of example. Do I hear the re¬ 
 tort in some minds this morning, that we ought not to pray 
 “to be seen of men?” Not so fast, my friend; surely, that word 
 of the Master’s does not mean that when you pray in the public 
 assemblages in God’s House you are so to demean yourself that 
 as men look at you they will conclude that you are not praying. 
 
 My dear teacher, that lad a few seats behind you does not 
 know that you have closed your eyes during the prayer, or that,, 
 in your willingness to give expression to the homage of your soul, 
 you have actually dropped your chin on your breast or have even 
 gone so far as to shade your face with your hand or a book. Oh t 
 why are we Americans so morbidly afraid of appearing to be too 
 pious or formal that we lean over backward in this matter of the 
 outward ceremonial of prayer, by indulging in such half-way, 
 lazy methods as the ones just mentioned ? 
 
 Of one thing I am certain: no well-regulated wholesome boy, 
 if he sits bolt-upright for prayer, will simply shut his eyes, 
 nor will he put on mannish airs by shading his face; such habits 
 would make him feel foolish and shame-faced. But, if he is 
 properly taught and has a correct example set him by his teach¬ 
 ers, he will gladly and naturally bow the whole body (or kneel),. 
 and so shut out the world of sense as he tries to join in the pray¬ 
 ers. But, if he sees his teachers sitting bolt-upright in prayer,— 
 even if a closer inspection would have revealed the fact that their 
 
11 
 
 eyes were decently closed,—the average boy will do likewise and 
 will sit bolt-upright, only he will keep his eyes staring open, or 
 they will wander aimlessly around the room, in spite of the fact 
 that the congregation has just been bidden to pray to the unseen 
 but loving Lord God our Father! What a spectacle ! 
 
 When will our Christian teachers realize the value and power 
 of reverential habits, as safeguards and quickeners of inward de¬ 
 votion, and sometimes almost as creators of those feelings? 
 Example is most contagious, and the wise teacher, not only by 
 precept but by example, will leave nothing undone in his efforts 
 to form in those committed to his care the much needed habit of 
 Reverence in Public Worship. 
 
 In the earliest days of Scotch Presbyterianism, when kneel¬ 
 ing in public prayer was the rule, our ecclesiastical ancestors 
 coined a rather rough word, which, to be sure, they applied to 
 any and all methods of sitting at prayer, even when both the head 
 and body were reverently bowed, but which we may fairly apply 
 to that vicious, wide-spread American habit of sitting bolt-up¬ 
 right, with open eyes or with very little sign that prayer is being 
 offered, and we may call such an attitude “hunkering at prayer.” 
 It is an uncouth word, but not so uncouth as that boorishly 
 irreverent and indifferent attitude which so many men and 
 women in Christian congregations (often thoughtlessly) allow 
 themselves to occupy when they are bidden to—pray! 
 
 III. Let us now look at the third series of snap-shot photo¬ 
 graphs, those representing the confusion which marks the close 
 of many of our public services. 
 
 What picture comes to your mind as you think of the close 
 of our average Church service? During the last hymn you may 
 see scores of people putting on their overcoats and rubber shoes, 
 reaching for their umbrellas and hats, as if to be ready for an 
 even start at the close of the benediction, which immediately fol¬ 
 lows. At times, even in the most conservative churches, this 
 moment in the service is strongly suggestive of a go-as-you- 
 please race, the signal for starting which might almost be, 
 “Amen! Go!” The benediction,—whose words, “The grace of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fel¬ 
 lowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all, now and for ever¬ 
 more,” are so freighted with blessing,—is hardly finished, before 
 the aisles and even the doors of exit are full of hurrying people.. 
 
12 
 
 The Psalmist urges that all the people say, “Amen”* But at 
 the close of the average service the people barely wait for the 
 minister to say, “Amen,” much less do the)' stop to say it, even 
 silently to themselves, with the conscious prayer that grace, 
 mercy, and peace may find a lodgment in their own hearts. The 
 “Amen” of the benediction seems almost like a percussion cap 
 to a charge in a gun barrel: it touches off an impatiently waiting 
 congregation, sometimes sending them into the aisles in almost a 
 stampede for the door, occasionally causing a confusion which 
 scandalizes every thoughtful mind. Then immediately there be¬ 
 gins the chatter of the congregational magpies, (and almost 
 every congregation has one or more), the buzz of a merely pass¬ 
 ing conversation on any topic, the criticism of the sermon or the 
 music, even when it is not the veriest gossip, as if the moments 
 after Divine Service were a social function, a conversazione or an 
 “afternoon tea.” 
 
 This noisy, helter-skelter custom not only mars the impres¬ 
 siveness of the closing hymn, which is often the climax of the 
 service, and scatters the solemn, beautiful and hopeful thoughts 
 which would naturally steal into the mind with the weighty 
 words of the Apostolic Benediction, but it tends to dissipate 
 much of the impression of the entire service: prayers, lessons, 
 hymns, and sermon. I never witness such a scene without think¬ 
 ing what an apt sermon might be preached upon the following 
 text: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some 
 fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls 
 of the air devoured it.” f 
 
 Embroidered on the heavy curtains which hang at the en- 
 
 * Newman Hall, commenting on this passage, says that it means, “Not the minis¬ 
 ter alone, or the choir, but ‘all the people,’ men, women, and children; not mentally 
 merely, but audibly: ‘Let all the people say Amen.’ ” Not long ago I read (I think 
 it was in the British Weekly) that suddenly appreciating the knowledge of human 
 nature betrayed in this ancient advice, Newman Hall determined never again to say 
 “Amen” at the end of his public prayers, on the ground that it was the people’s part 
 and privilege to add their “Amen” to the petitions he had uttered as their spokesman. 
 Though he never said anything to them on the subject, his congregation, by and by. 
 noting the omission and unconsciously feeling the lack of some word from them with 
 which to rivet the prayers, began themselves, spontaneously, to supply it; so that, in 
 that church now ministered to by Dr. F. B. Meyer, the whole congregation, every 
 man, woman and child in it. heartily participating, sets its seal to the prayers with 
 a great “Amen,” so making them in a new sense common prayer. 
 
 t Given our restless, hurrying American people and the usual succession of Sermon 
 followed by Prayer, Hymn and Benediction, it is practically impossible to guarantee 
 a thoroughly quiet close of the service. Standing as he is for the benediction, it 
 would seem unnatural and over “pious” to the average American to remain standing 
 
13 
 
 trance of the three aisles of the Princeton University Chapel, 
 there are three words which might well be emblazoned on the 
 walls of every church. They describe the three states which 
 should cover as far as possible the entire area of outward de¬ 
 meanor or inward feeling on the part of the real worshipper, 
 from the time he crosses the vestibule of the church until the 
 very end of the service, and even a little while after the service. 
 These three words are: SILENCE! PRAYER! PRAISE!— 
 PRAISE! PRAYER! SILENCE! And that silence should 
 not be too quickly broken, nor too easily nor too lightly, save for 
 some really quiet, thoughtful word and some genuinely Chris¬ 
 tian greeting to the stranger within our gates. 
 
 It is unfortunate that so many people seek to break the force 
 
 for a few seconds in reverent silence after the benediction. The people, hats in hand, 
 are on their feet and are ready to go; why not go? The stranger next to you, on the 
 inside of the pew, is evidently waiting impatiently for you to start; and thus the 
 movement toward the doors inevitably begins immediately after the “Amen.” The 
 seemly custom so common among the Scotch and English Presbyterians, and to some 
 extent among the Canadians, of resuming their seats after the benediction and bow¬ 
 ing the head for a moment of silent prayer, could Dever be introduced generally into 
 this country. It would seem too artificial and unnatural to most of our American 
 congregations. 
 
 The canse of the more or less hasty exit lies too deep for pulpit exhortation. The 
 only effective way of bringing about a thoroughly quiet close of the service is to do it 
 indirectly, by changing the succession of the closing items of the service 60 as to 
 tempt the people to a more leisurely and reverent exit. This result can easily be 
 brought about by the following order: 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Brief prayer, growing out of sermon. (This may often be omitted). 
 
 Hymn. 
 
 Prayer of Dismissal ? The congregation seated , with heads reverently bowed (or 
 
 The Benediction > kneeling), for the closing prayer and benediction. 
 
 The change in the habits of the people can be brought about quietly, without a 
 word ever being said from the pulpit, if the minister will privately request eight or 
 ten pew-holders in the front part of the church to resume their seats after the hymn 
 for the closing prayer and the benediction. 
 
 Example is contagious, and so soon as the regular attendants become accustomed 
 to this method, it will be instantly effective, even if half the audience are strangers. 
 The plan works like magic. The people are already seated, with heads reverently 
 bowed (or they are kneeling), and no one next to you is impatiently waiting for you 
 to start. Under such circumstances it is easy and natural to yield to the temptation 
 to pause fora few moments for a brief silent after-prayer, echoing the benediction, 
 and to postpone all preparations for exit until, by common consent, such prayer 
 seems ended, or until the organist quietly begins his postlude. A wise organist can 
 do the finishing touch to the effort for a quiet close of the service if he will keep his 
 instrument silent for a few seconds after the benediction is ended, and even then 
 begin with a few soft chords, gradually leading up to any postlude he may play. 
 
 Even in churches where there has never been any scandalous confusion attending 
 the close of the service, the order and method suggested will bring about a change 
 that will surprise even those who have never been seriously disturbed by the old 
 methed. The deep hush which falls upon all, as the service thus closes upon the key¬ 
 note of silent prayer, makes a silence that can be felt, and that will be most welcome 
 and helpful. 
 
14 
 
 of such suggestions as have been made this morning, by saying 
 that, after all, form and ceremony, the outward mien, are of no 
 value without the inner spirit of reverence. All of which is ever¬ 
 lastingly true; but when used as a counter-statement to break or 
 even to impair the force of such exhortations to greater outward 
 reverence as have been made this morning, it is one of those dan¬ 
 gerous half-truths which miss the point at issue and becloud the 
 judgment. It is everlastingly true that to God’s eye the “inward 
 parts” are the only real thing; but, none the less, will the individ¬ 
 ual worshipper find that the goodly habit of outward reverence is 
 in itself a very great help to his own soul,—to say nothing of its 
 value as an example to others. Of course, one can not put on 
 reverence as you would a coat, from the outside; but, given the 
 sincere and willing mind, it is often the case that the habitual 
 outward expression of reverence, the merely reverent manner, 
 does predispose a man to feel inward and real reverence: or, 
 rather we should say that a reverential manner quickens the 
 already existing spirit of reverence and is thereby a means of 
 stimulating it to a greater intensity. 
 
 So, we must not be too hopeful that underneath an apparent 
 carelessness there may often lurk, or will very long remain alive, 
 a latent thoughtfulness. We are creatures with bodies as well as 
 souls, and the body and the soul are, for the time being, so inex¬ 
 tricably woven together in an interdependent partnership that 
 their reflex action upon each other is as tremendous as it is sub¬ 
 tle. We may assert, as a pyschological fact, that outward irrev¬ 
 erence easily and surely undermines the genuine inner reverence; 
 while real reverence deepens and increases itself every time it sin¬ 
 cerely comes to self-expression in a visible manner. 
 
 Let me emphasize what I have been trying to say this 
 morning as to the relation of the outward form of expres¬ 
 sion to the inner thought, by means of an illustration drawn 
 from civic matters. Suppose that next Tuesday were the 
 high and holy day of election, and that, without reference to 
 the question as to whom you might decide to vote for, I had 
 been urging you simply to make sure that you vote soberly 
 and in the fear of God, to be sure that you make your in¬ 
 dividual decision,—not through personal or party prejudices, not 
 to serve your own ends nor the ulterior purposes of any man oi 
 set of men,—but solely and simply for whatever you believed to 
 
15 
 
 be the best interests of the common weal. Suppose I had been 
 reminding you that the small polling booth, into which a free¬ 
 man retires for the preparation of his ballot, was a veritable holy 
 of holies in civic affairs; that the ballot box itself is the high 
 altar of liberty; that the actual casting of the ballot ought to be 
 a real civic sacrament, wherein, through the sovereign, unbought 
 choice of freeman, we renew our oath of allegiance to the 
 Fatherland—an act so sacred that it always seems to me that the 
 thoughtful citizen might well uncover his head as he casts his 
 vote; so sacred that, a man, if called upon to do so, ought to be 
 able the next moment solemnly to lay his hand upon his heart 
 and say: “I have done my best for the better government of the 
 city wherein I live and for the country of which it forms a part 
 —so help me God!” Now, when I had finished speaking in some 
 such earnest strain to you as Christian patriots, suppose that 
 suddenly unseen hands should fling out before your eyes the 
 glorious star-gemmed banner of the Republic,—think you that 
 you would have to wait for me or any one else to remind you to 
 rise at the sudden sight of our national flag ? I think not. And 
 suppose that, yielding to a common impulse at the sudden un¬ 
 furling of the glorious symbol of the Republic, you should all 
 rise and stand in its presence, with uncovered heads, can you con¬ 
 ceive of a single man here so insensible to the common proprie¬ 
 ties of life, as stolidly to sit in his pew, a huge, “hunkering” hulk 
 of irreverence, utterly indifferent, apparently, to the flag of his 
 country ? 
 
 And if such an anomaly were possible, could such a man save 
 himself from the suspicion that he was lacking in a certain valu¬ 
 able element of patriotism by insisting that his “patriotism was 
 a spiritual, inner homage to his country, and not an act of mere 
 outward formalism ?” In such a case, every clear-thinking man 
 would agree with the reply, that there was a fitness in some 
 things; that all great inward emotions should have some corre¬ 
 sponding and congruous outward expression; and that what we 
 had been doing was not to salute a bit of red, white, and blue 
 bunting, nor had we done it as a mere outward ceremony, but 
 that, as we had thus suddenly beheld the banner of our common 
 country, there was sounded again in our ears the name of 
 America, that name of our common country “which stirs the 
 heart like a trumpet, calling out all that which is best within 
 
16 
 
 us;” and that that beautiful flag represented to us “the radiant 
 image of something better and more enduring than we are, which 
 shall fulfill our thwarted individual aspirations when we are but 
 a handful of forgotten dust in a soil trodden by a race of men 
 which we shall have helped to make more worthy of our inherit¬ 
 ance than we ourselves had power to be.”—(Lowell.) 
 
 And if, on all fitting occasions, by our very outward attitude 
 toward a mere flag, we express the love and devotion we feel for 
 our country, surely there should be something akin to it in mat¬ 
 ters religious, and especially when those simple yet weighty 
 words fall upon our ears: “Let Us Pray/’’ Too often by their 
 outward actions, if not their inward thought, the average con¬ 
 gregation unconsciously changes that exhortation into: “Let 
 me pray”—as if their minister were going to do all the praying, 
 in thought as well as voice, while they sat to one side listening to 
 him as indifferent and uninterested eavesdroppers. Let me un¬ 
 derscore each word: “Let us pray” —that means you, and you, 
 and you, and all of us. All public prayer in church should be 
 common worship, common prayer. Therefore, my fellow be¬ 
 lievers in the Unseen and Eternal, whenever we hear the time¬ 
 worn, yet ever solemn call to prayer, let us, in a wise fear of our 
 wandering thoughts, make a conscious effort to shut out the 
 things of time and sense, and with the help of some one of the 
 natural and fitting attitudes of prayer express our inward devo¬ 
 tion, and by expressing intensify it. It is not of vital importance 
 which one of those natural attitudes you adopt, whether you 
 stand, or reverently bend the whole body, or kneel; but, when we 
 strive to come, as in true prayer we may come, into the very 
 audience chamber of the Most High, let the body, in some fit¬ 
 ting, spontaneous and helpful way, express the inner and ador¬ 
 ing homage of the soul. And, when we are met together 
 for the worship of Almighty God and, in the familiar yet hal¬ 
 lowed words, “Let us pray,” we hear the summons of the ancient 
 canticle, “Lift up your hearts,” let us answer, “We lift them up 
 unto Thee,” or repeat the still more ancient prayer, “Hear Thou 
 in heaven, Thy dwelling-place, and when Thou hearest, Lord, 
 forgive.”