Worship is no pious luxury: it is a necessity of the spiritual life. Every man who is growing in the spirit is a worshipper of God. He may never use the name, he may be one of those who would say 'Lord, when saw we thee?' but his love is showing him the true God in his own spirit and his own truth, and, in showing him too the divine way of Love with men, commands his worship. He has discovered the marvel of self-giving, and in that discovery the marvel of the divine way he cannot but adore; his life, in fact, is adoration. From other men this way is hidden; and a God that may command their worship must be a different God and take another way. He must declare himself in a power they can recognize, that kind of power which has kinship with the forces of men's machines and has uses like the uses of machines. This God, who may perhaps, through what seems to them worship, be made a means towards their own ends, is above all a God of an all but material power. So, may be, they cringe before him, pour out praises, make sacrifices, pay a dutiful service such as a supreme power of that kind may well call forth in the men they are. And then, if there comes among them a prophet, he pleads with them in God's name, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' 'To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.' Just such men as these self-seekers came to Jesus, asking for a miracle, a sign. 'An evil and adulterous generation,' he said, 'seeketh after a sign.' Why 'evil and adulterous'? Surely because in seeking a sign such as would please them they were blind to the divine truth in the presence of which they stood, and, open-eyed for their own interests, were in their hearts trafficking with a false God. That the craving for such signs, such miracle, is always evil and adulterous can hardly be said. Yet truly it partakes, in large measure, of the nature of sin. And at best it is blindness, blindness to the true marvels of God in his manifestation through 'the things that are made' and are being made. We who have learnt of the history of earth have our souls filled with marvel, and with mystery too. It is not easy for us to see how any generation that looks for more, while it has that, can be other than evil and adulterous. But the fact is that familiarity does blind men to both marvel and mystery. If it did not, the very stones we tread under foot would proclaim their witness to God, and every moment of our own life would call forth adoration of him.