It may, indeed, occasionally be that some present themselves to see if there is anything in the church for them to object to, or ridicule; that others have come in conformity to the fashion, to hear something new, to see and be seen; to make a show of respectability, to wile away an idle time; and that many others, though proposing to themselves the observance of a religious duty, are so formal, so listless, so unreal, that it cannot be said of them that they are “given to religion.” Nevertheless, I repeat that the clergyman, as he stands in the pulpit, has before him the best, _i.e._, the most religious of mankind; not mockers, and revilers, and persecutors; not gainsayers, and despisers, and forgetters; but real worshippers—more or less reverential and earnest, more or less enlightened—of the true GOD. But has he not in these same persons (as St. Paul had in the Athenians) many worshippers of an unknown GOD? May he not venture to say to almost all, “Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.” Christian worshippers, my brethren, often have many idols, who share almost equally with GOD their interest and affections and service. They have, many of them, their “ism,” their Paul, their Cephas, or Apollos, their favourite dogma, their preferences and prejudices for some particular rites, and ceremonies, and modes of worship. In church, and out of church, their religion consists largely in giving heed to these things: GOD is in their thoughts, but not in all their thoughts, or not the chief, the engrossing object of their thoughts; He is one of many objects. You find this out if you listen to their remarks after service. “Such a chant went well or badly; the preacher’s manner was pleasing, or the contrary; his language very ornate, or very bald; the theme one they like, or one they do not like; the rubric strictly observed, or strangely disregarded;” and so on. Of course, as all these things are means to an end, and as the end is gained, or not gained, by their suitableness, or the opposite, it is lawful and right to give them some consideration: but I put it to you, brethren, whether they are not too often regarded as themselves the end; as though, provided they were satisfactory, there was nothing more wanting; as though they were rightly as much the objects of interest as the GOD in Whose service they are used, or, rather, as though regarding them were regarding GOD!