If the prelude was a joyfully majestic composition, the anthem one of elevated praise—e.g., a “Venite” or a “Jubilate”—the responsive reading and the choir responses reverent and worshipful, the long prayer of the preacher exalted with genuine adoration (forgetful of the routine catalogue of petty petitions), and the Scripture passage noble with inspiring truth, the service might close at this point as having already realized its prime object of worship. There must have been something radically wrong in the spirit and management of it, if the preacher does not find his people responsive and himself inspiringly attuned to his noble theme. At the close of his discourse on the Divine Omnipotence, his people will presumably be ready to sing “Let all on earth their voices raise, To sing the great Jehovah’s praise, And bless His holy name.” to the exhilarating movement of the tune “Ariel.” The organist’s postlude will be characterized by a joyful solemnity, some strong _maestoso_ movement. _Hymns for Service on God’s Love._ A service devoted to the worship of God, as manifested in His love, offers a wider range of possibilities. Is it the love manifested in the atonement? there may be the somber element of the crucifixion combined with its nobly elevated aspects; is it the love manifested to His children? there will be a chastened ecstasy in the hymns and prayers; is it the love that consoles and comforts? there will be the tender and sympathetic development of the theme—each will call for its own selection of hymns. As the last is perhaps the most difficult, let us see what program we should prepare for it. _a._ Tender Service. The organ prelude will be soft, sweet music, full of chromatic chords that melt one into the other, or a tender, emotional melody with soft accompaniment. The usual opening doxology will give way to an introit, sung very gently by the choir, set to a text expressing divine sympathy or a prayer for help. The invocation will be a plea for God’s manifest presence among His needy people. The first hymn sung by the congregation will sustain the feeling already established, “Lord, we come before Thee now, At Thy feet we humbly bow,” sung to the tune “Aletta” or “Pleyel’s Hymn.” The responsive reading may be the forty-second and forty-third Psalms. The choir, having been advised in good time what was desired, sings some sympathetic setting of the twenty-third Psalm, or of the forty-second Psalm, or of the hymn “Just as I am.” If the preacher has kept step in his heart with the emotional progress of his service, the long prayer will be an expression of the need of the people and of a tender appreciation of God’s loving sympathy, closing with an ascription of praise to His limitless love. The people ought now to be ready to sing “Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down.”