f the universe; it is, quite
literally, a godly fear. But it is not ignoble nor cringing, it
is just and reasonable, the attitude, toward the Whole, of a
comprehensive sanity.

Thus "I would love Thee, O God, if there were no heaven, _and if there
were no hell, I would fear Thee no less_." Reverence is devotion to
goodness, sense of awe-struck loyalty to a Being manifestly under the
influence of principles higher than our own.[41] Now it is with these
last two, awe and reverence, rather than wonder and admiration, that
worship has to do.

[Footnote 41: For a discussion of these four words see Allen,
_Reverence as the Heart of Christianity_, pp. 253 ff.]

Hence the essence of worship is not aesthetic contemplation. Without
doubt worship does gratify the aesthetic instinct and most properly
so. There is no normal expression of man's nature which has not its
accompanying delight. The higher and more inclusive the expression
the more exquisite, of course, the delight. But that pleasure is the
by-product, not the object, of worship. It itself springs partly from
the awe of the infinite and eternal majesty which induces the desire
to prostrate oneself before the Lord our Maker. "I have heard of Thee
by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." It also springs partly
from passionate devotion of a loyal will to a holy Being. "Behold, as
the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters and as the
eyes of a maid unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon
the Lord." Thus reverence is the high and awe-struck hunger for
spiritual communion. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?"

There is a noble illustration of the nature and the uses of worship
in the Journals of Jonathan Edwards, distinguished alumnus of Yale
College, and the greatest mind this hemisphere has produced. You
remember what he wrote in them, as a youth, about the young woman who
later became his wife: "They say there is a young lady in New Haven
who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world, and
that there are certain seasons in which this great Being in some way
or other invisible comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding
sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to
meditate on Him. Therefore if you present all the world before her,
with the richest of its treasures, she disregards and