Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/146

130 your own words:—"You define worship as consisting of the sentiments of love, trust, and awe. I confess this does not express all my notion of worship. Such sentiments I have felt towards my teachers, whether dead or living, but I do not consider that I worship them. When we apply the word to God, we mean by it a direct act of communion—or at least a real effort after communion—between two minds. When I pray to God, I believe myself to be directing my thoughts towards a Being with whom I am spiritually in direct and immediate relation—the Maker of all, my Maker and Father. But I cannot persuade myself that I stand in a like relation to Jesus of Nazareth. We do not pray to Paul or Plato, and I do not see any such difference in the historical manifestations of Jesus as should lead me to believe that I, and millions of other believers, can make my thoughts known to him, and can receive back impressions from him, when we cannot do so to other minds which have helped to change the world's history and have been revealers of the Father."

Are you not here confusing a state of mind with an action resulting from that state of mind? We have been speaking, not of lip-worship, but of heart-worship, defining it as a state of mind. Now is not prayer the result of worship, rather than identical with worship, as we have defined it above? A child feels love, and trust, as well as reverence, for its parents; and, in consequence he asks them to grant his desires, or he thanks them for kindnesses; but yet the asking and thanking are not identical with the feelings of the children towards their parents, but spring from those feelings. Similarly we, feeling a trust and an awe for the Maker and Father, far beyond what we can feel for Paul or Plato, impart to Him our petitions for our highest needs, or offer Him our thanks: but this asking and this thanking are not identical with, but the results