_Standing._--To show readiness to engage in worship and to receive instruction, the people stand when addressed at the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer, or at the Exhortations in the Communion Office. As expressive of earnestness and determination to defend the Faith, they stand for the recitation of the Creeds. They stand at the reading of the Gospel in the Communion Service to "show reverent regard for the Son of God above all other messengers, although speaking as from God also." They rise at the presentation of the alms and oblations, because the offering is their gift to God and to show their participation in the act. They stand as the clergy enter or leave {105} the church in token of respect for their sacred office. _Bowing._--The head is bowed at the name of Jesus in the Creeds to "testify by this outward ceremony and gesture a due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world." This act of reverence is not restricted to the Creeds, but the same honor is shown to the Holy Name at its mention also in the _Gloria in excelsis_, and in hymns, in lessons, and in sermons. At the words, "And was incarnate," in the Nicene Creed, the head and body are inclined (or the knee is bent) "to show humble and grateful recognition of the stupendous mystery of the Incarnation," and at the words "Worshiped and glorified," to signify belief in the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The head is bowed also at the name of the Blessed Trinity. This sign of reverence and honor is made at the _Gloria Patri_, at "Holy, Holy, Holy" in the _Sanctus_ of the Communion Office, at the same words in the _Te Deum_, and at the various forms of the doxology, thus "recognizing the divine glory of each of the three Persons, and in imitation of the angels, who veil their faces with their wings when singing the glory of the Holy Trinity." Bowing {106} at the _Gloria_ came into use about the year 325, as a protest against the heresy which denied the divinity of our Lord. The head is reverently bowed toward the Altar on coming in and going out of the church or chancel, in accordance with what one of the canons of the English Church says was "the most ancient custom of the primitive Church in the purest times." It is an act of honor and reverence for the house of God, and for the Altar as the place of such holy associations as attach to it from the celebration there of the Holy Eucharist.