Call this homage by what name we will, it is already of the nature of
worship. And as we grow older and more able to distinguish the realities
from the mirage of life, more capable of trust, love, and reverence, and
better able to discriminate what must be, and what must not be, loved,
trusted, and revered—looking from earth to heaven, and from heaven to
earth, we shall ask in vain where we can find anything, above or below,
nobler, and better, and more powerful for good, than this Man to whom
our hearts go forth in spontaneous love and trust and reverence. Then we
shall turn once more to the Cross finding that we have been betrayed
into worship while we knew it not, and while we cry, “Behold the Man,”
we shall feel “Behold our God.”
Footnote 7:
_Advancement of Learning_, ii, 4, 5.
XI
WHAT IS WORSHIP?
MY DEAR ——,
Admitting the doctrine of illusion, and dismissing all prejudice against
what is new, you declare that still my position remains absolutely
unintelligible to you. I will set down your objection in your own words:
“Apparently you maintain that Christ is a mere man who came into the
world, lived, worked, and died according to the laws of human nature;
even His resurrection you apparently intend to explain away till it
becomes a mere vision, and therefore not a sign of any other than a
human existence. Now worship is a tribute conceded to God alone. To a
mere man, who lived eighteen centuries ago, how can you force yourself,
by any effort of the will, to pay worship simply because you have reason
to believe that this individual was pre-eminently good”?
In reply, I ask you, “What else is more worthy of worship?” There is no
question of “forcing myself” at all. I worship Christ naturally. That is
to say I love, trust, and reverence Him more than I love, trust, and
reverence any other person or thing or universe of things. This I do
because I cannot help it; and if I have brought myself to do this
naturally by fixing my thoughts on the power of Goodness, and on Christ
as the incarnate representation of Goodness, this causes me no shame and
involves me in no conflict with my Reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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