First, then, worship is not the formal thing it is generally supposed to be. It is not a mere smoothness of the hinges of the knees, or a readiness to take the name of God within one’s lips. It is a natural going forth of the heart to that which one loves, trusts, and reverences most. Some men have little power of reverencing; others, of trusting; others, of loving; such men’s worship must necessarily be maimed and imperfect. If a man who is destitute of reverence loves and trusts money more than anything else, money really is that man’s God; it is no hyperbole, it is the fact; the man does actually worship money; he does not say prayers to it, does not go down on his knees to it, but he loves it and trusts it more than anything else; therefore, so far as he can worship anything, he worships money. Similarly another man worships pleasure; another, his children; another, power. We are accustomed to apologize for such expressions as if they were metaphors or exaggerations; but they are not; they are plain statements of spiritual realities. Thousands of men who say they worship Christ, and who honestly suppose they worship Christ, do nothing of the kind. This is the dark side of the self-delusion of worship, but there is a brighter. There are many men at the present day who call themselves agnostics, but who would hardly deny that they love and reverence Jesus of Nazareth more than any other being. They worship Him then. Their worship is tinged with hopelessness, and therefore imperfect; but so far as it goes, it is a genuine worship of Christ. Perhaps, too, some who profess mere Theism feel, in their hearts, that though they dislike to say they worship Christ, they love Christ more than they love their conception of “God without Christ;” if so, may we not say that, so far as that element of love goes, they worship Christ? Thousands of thousands of people, before Christ was born, worshipped Goodness and a good God in their lives and hearts, though they were, in name, worshippers of Apollo or Moloch. Thousands of people in the same unconscious way have been, and still are, worshipping the Incarnate Christ. They may not acknowledge this, they may not even know it: but their hearts have gone out to Him in love and trust and awe, more than to any other person or thing in heaven or earth.[8]