To exclude adoration, to say that adoration does not, or should not, form any part of worship, seems alike contrary to the very meaning of the word 'worship' and to be at variance with a large and important body of the facts recorded in the history of religion. The courts of a god are customarily entered with the praise which is the outward expression of the feeling of adoration with which the worshippers spiritually gaze upon the might and majesty of the god whom they approach. He is to them a great god, above all other gods. Even to polytheists, the god who is worshipped at the moment, is, at that moment, one than whom there is no one, and nought, greater, _quo nihil maius_. A god who should not be worshipped thus--a god who was not the object of adoration--would not be worthy of the name, and would hardly be called a god. So strongly is this felt that even writers who incline to regard religion as an illusion, define gods as beings conceived to be superior to man. The degree of respect, rising to adoration, will vary directly with the degree of superiority attributed to them; but not even in the case of a fetish, so long as it is worshipped, is the respect, which is the germ of adoration, wholly wanting. Even in the case of gods, on whom, on occasion, insult is put, it is precisely in moments when their superiority is in doubt that the worship of adoration is momentarily wanting. Worship without adoration is worship only in name, or rather is no worship at all. Only with adoration can worship begin: 'hallowed be Thy name' expresses the emotion with which all worship begins, even where the emotion has not yet found the words in which to express itself. It is because the emotion is there, pent up and seeking escape, that it can travel along the words, and make them something more than a succession of syllables and sounds.