e not as ready to hear in the field, and in the workshop and
in the bed-chamber, as in the church? "When thou prayest," says our
Lord, "enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly." Those are not my words, they are the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and none can gainsay them. None dare take
from them or add to them; and our coming to church, therefore, must be
for more reasons than for the mere saying of our prayers.

Others will answer--very many, indeed, will answer--we come to church
because--because, we hardly know why, but because we ought to come to
church.

Some may call that a silly answer, only fit for children: but I do not
think so. It seems to me a very rational answer: perhaps a very
reverent and godly answer. A man comes to church for reasons which he
cannot explain to himself: just so--and many of the deepest and best
feelings of our hearts, are just those that we cannot explain to
ourselves, though we believe in them, would fight for them, die for them.
The man who frankly confesses that he does not quite know why he comes to
church is most likely to know at last why he does come; most likely to
understand the answer which Scripture gives to the question why we come
to church. And what answer is that? Strange to say, one which people
now-a-days, with their Bibles in their hands, have almost forgotten. We
come to church, according to the Bible, to worship God.

To worship. Think awhile what that ancient and deep and noble word
signifies. So ancient is it, that man learnt to worship even before he
learnt to till the ground. So deep, that even to this day no man
altogether understands what worshipping means. So noble, that the
noblest souls on earth delight most in worshipping; that the angels, and
archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, find no nobler
occupation, no higher enjoyment, in the heavenly world than worshipping
for ever Him whose glory fills all earth and heaven. To worship. That
power of worship, that longing to worship, that instinct that it is his
duty to worship something, is--if you will receive it--the true
distinction between men and brutes. Philosophers have tried to define
man as this sort of animal and that sort of animal. The only sound
definition is this: man is THE one animal who worships; and h