Infinite Watcher of
the sons of men. Only by acquaintance with the phrases, the petitions
of the past, and only by a liberal use of them can we give background
and dignity, or anything approaching variety and completeness, to our
own public expression and interpretation of the devotional life. If
anyone objects to this use of formal prayers on the ground of their
formality, let him remember that we, too, are formal, only we, alas,
have made a cult of formlessness. It would surprise the average
minister to know the well-worn road which his supposedly spontaneous
and extempore devotions follow. Phrase after phrase following in the
same order of ideas, and with the same pitiably limited vocabulary,
appear week by week in them. How much better to enrich this painfully
individualistic formalism with something of the corporate glories of
the whole body of Christian believers.

But, second: there should be also the principle of immediacy in the
service, room for the expression of individual needs and desires
and for reference to the immediate and local circumstances of the
believer. A church in which there is no spontaneous and extempore
prayer, which only harked backward to the past, might build the tombs
of the prophets but it might also stifle new voices for a new age.
But extempore prayer should not be impromptu prayer. It should have
coherence, dignity, progression. The spirit should have been humbly
and painstakingly prepared for it so that sincere and ardent feeling
may wing and vitalize its words. The great prayers of the ages, known
of all the worshipers, perhaps repeated by them all together, tie in
the individual soul to the great mass of humanity and it moves on,
with its fellows, toward salvation as majestically and steadily as
great rivers flow. The extempore and silent prayer, not unpremeditated
but still the unformed outpouring of the individual heart, gives each
man the consciousness of standing naked and alone before his God. Both
these, the corporate and the separate elements of worships are vital;
there should be a place for each in every true order of worship.

But, of course, the final thing to say is the first thing. Whatever
may be the means that worship employs, its purpose must be to make and
keep the church a place of repose, to induce constantly the life of
relinquishment to God, of reverence and meditation. And this it will
do as it seeks to draw men up to the "otherness," the majesty, the
aloofn