The omnipresence of God makes it the dictate of natural piety to address Him directly in *thanksgiving and prayer*,—not, of necessity, in words, except as words are essential to the definiteness of thoughts, but in such words or thoughts as constitute an expression to Him of the sentiments of which He is fittingly the object. As regards prayer, indeed, the grave doubts that exist in some minds as to its efficacy might be urged as a reason why it should not be offered; but wrongly. It is so natural, so intrinsically fitting to ask what we desire and need of an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-merciful Being, who has taught us to call him our Father, that the very appropriateness of the asking is in itself a strong reason for believing that we shall not ask in vain. Nor can we ask in vain, if through this communion of the human spirit with the Divine there be an inflow of strength or of peace into the soul that prays, even though the specific objects prayed for be not granted. That these objects, when material, are often not granted, we very well know; yet we know too little of the extent of material laws, and of the degree to which a discretionary Providence may work, not in contravention of, but through those laws, to pronounce dogmatically that the prayers of men are wholly unrecognized in the course of events. As the members of the same community have very numerous blessings and needs in common, it is obviously fitting that they should unite in *public worship, praise, and prayer*; and if this be a duty of the community collectively, participation in it must, by parity of reason, be the duty of its individual members. Public worship involves the fitness, we may even say the necessity, of appropriating exclusively to it certain places and times. Associations attach themselves to places so indelibly, that it would be impossible to maintain the gravity and sacredness of devotional services in buildings or on spots ordinarily devoted to secular purposes, either of business or of recreation. Nor could assemblies for worship be convened, otherwise that at predetermined and stated intervals; nor could their devotional purpose be served, were there not stated portions of time sequestered from ordinary avocations and amusements. Hence the duty—on the part of all who admit the fitness of public worship—of reverence for conventionally sacred places, and of abstinence from whatever is inconsistent with the religious uses of the day appropriated to worship.(11)