More English Fairy Tales
Contents THE PIED PIPER OF FRANCHVILLE HEREAFTERTHIS THE GOLDEN BALL MY OWN SELF THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY YALLERY BROWN THREE FEATHERS SIR GAMMER VANS TOM HICKATHRIFT
intercession--how can all these acts be brought together under a common
rubric, how can they all be designated as worship? What in fact is it
that you mean by worship?"
So are we challenged. So are we thrown back, and in the end thrown back
most beneficially, to the analysis of our acts. Worship, we tell
ourselves, is _worth_-ship; it is the attribution of worth or honor to
whom these are properly due. "Honour to whom honour is due," we hear the
Apostle saying. Worship is therefore not an absolute value but a varying
value, the content of any act of which will be determined by the nature
of the object toward which it is directed. It is greatly like love in
this respect; its nature is always the same, but its present value is
determined by the object to which it is directed. We are to love the
Lord our God, and we are also to love our neighbour; the nature of the
love is in each case the same; and yet we are not to love our neighbour
with the limitless self-surrender with which we love God. The love of
God is the passionate giving of ourselves to Him with all our heart and
with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. The
love of the neighbour is measured and restrained, having in view his
good that we are seeking, the promotion of his salvation as our fellow
member in the Body of Christ. In the same way worship will take its
colour, its significance, its tone, its intensity, not from some
abstract conception, but from the end it seeks. This is made plain, too,
when we look at our Bibles and Prayer Books for the actual use of the
word. There we find much of the worship of God: but we also find a
limited use of the word. "Then shalt thou have worship in the presence
Contents THE PIED PIPER OF FRANCHVILLE HEREAFTERTHIS THE GOLDEN BALL MY OWN SELF THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY YALLERY BROWN THREE FEATHERS SIR GAMMER VANS TOM HICKATHRIFT