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Reverence is the alphabet of religion. As you cannot acquire knowledge without the knowledge of the alphabet, so you cannot acquire anything of the religious life without the spirit of reverence. Self-conceit is precisely the negative of reverence. It is the absence of the spirit that looks up to anything above us. It is the spirit that leads one to say, "I am the greatest and the best." There are many conditions in our life which tend to produce the spirit of self-conceit and tend to counteract the spirit of reverence. The absence of any traditions in America tend against the spirit of reverence. Across the ocean, in the Old World, we stand in cathedrals a thousand years or more old, in the presence of customs hoary-headed with antiquity; we walk by the city walls which have seen many a battle between liberty and despotism; and these old cathedrals, these old cities, these old customs, awaken in us some spirit of reverence. But we have no such cathedrals. The absence of any class distinctions in America tends against the spirit of reverence. We are all on the same level. There is no class to which we can look up with reverence. The reaction against Puritanism has tended against reverence. It is no longer customary in our homes to teach reverence of children to their parent, or in schools to teach reverence of pupils to teachers. In the olden time every boy bowed reverently to the minister; now the minister gets along very well if the boy does not cry out, "Go up, thou baldhead!" The spirit of criticism, the scientific spirit, has tended against reverence. Many things which of olden time men superstitiously feared they fear no longer. We have analysed until all great things have been picked to pieces in our laboratory. We will not allow any mysteries. You cannot revere what you are criticising. The two processes never can go on simultaneously in the same mind. The sectarian spirit has been against the spirit of reverence. The Congregationalist has sneered at the ritual of the Episcopalian, and the Episcopalian has shrugged his shoulders over the non-ritual of the Congregationalist. The spirit of antagonism between the different denominations has despoiled those symbols which were before the common objects of a mutual reverence. Finally, our democratic theology has tended against the old spirit of reverence. Just because we no longer reverence a king in the nation we do not reverence the King in the heavens. Now, if it be true that reverence is a fountain of life, and reverence is a beginning of wisdom, how in this age, under these circumstances, are we to develop reverence in ourselves, in our churches, and in our children? In the first place, then, the old notion of holy places is gone. We cannot recover it. In truth there is very little foundation for it. For it we are to substitute this larger, grander, more awe-inspiring conception — that every place is holy place, every ground is holy ground, and God is in all Nature. God is as truly here as He ever was in Palestine, as truly in the White Mountains or the Rocky Mountains as He ever was in the Sinaitic Mountains; He is everywhere, always speaking, in all phenomena. This must come into our hearts to take the place of the older and narrower conception of holy places. We cannot re-establish a united ritual, nor all agree to climb to God's throne by the steps "worn by the knees of many centuries." But we must learn the broader, the larger, more catholic, aye, and profounder reverence which sees God in every form of worship; for wherever the human heart is seeking God, there God is. We are to recognise Christ in all truth. The old reverence for the Bible as a book without any error whatever, and as a conclusive and final guide on questions of science, literature, history, philosophy, and religion, is passing away. Our reverence is not for the tables of stone that are broken and lost, nor for the words that were inscribed upon them — we do not know exactly what form of words were inscribed upon them — but for the great fundamental principles of the moral life which those Ten Commandments embody. There is many a man who has reverence for the book and none for the truth that is in the book. Woe to us if, throwing away the old mechanical reverence for the outer thing, we fail to get the deeper reverence for the inward truth! What reverence has God shown for truth! Think of it one moment. He has launched into human history this volume of literature. The ablest scholars are not agreed on such questions as who wrote these various books, at what dates, for what purpose, and with what immediate intent. The great majority of the books are anonymous; the great majority of them are without definite and positive date. What does this mean? It means this: God has launched truth without a sponsor into the world, and left the truth to bear witness to itself. Truth answers to the human mind as cog to cog; and the reverence for the shell is to be lost only that reverence for the kernel may take the place. We find it difficult, many of us, to have any reverence for the events that are taking place in America, and the leaders who are participating in them. We cannot cure that irreverence towards leaders and politicians by pretending respect for a man whom we do not respect, who has won his way to office by dishonourable and disreputable methods. We must go further, we must look deeper, we must see that, as God is in all worship and in all truth, so God is in all history. We are to see God in every man, and in all of life. There are times when there seems nothing more awe-inspiring than a simple, single human soul. Said Phillips Brooks once to me, "There is no man so poor, so ignorant, so outcast, that I do not stand in awe before him." As the old reverence for the priest and the robe and the pulpit fade away, reverence for man as the battle-ground between good and evil must come in to take its place, or reverence will disappear. "The fear of God is the fountain of life." I think it is Goethe who has drawn the distinction between fear and reverence. Fear, he says, repels; reverence attracts. It is not the fear of God that repels, it is the reverence for God which attracts, which is the fountain of life. And when this reverence has found its place in our hearts, it is to be the fountain of all our life; of our reason, and we are not to be afraid of being too rational; of our commercial industries, and we are not to be afraid of being too industrious; of our humour, and we are not to be afraid of a good hearty laugh; reverence in all our life. You cannot have reverence on Sunday and irreverence in the week; reverence in the church and irreverence in the daily life. And, leaving in the past that reverence which was fragmentary, broken, and largely idolatrous, we are to press forward to a grander, broader, nobler, diviner reverence in the future.

(L. Abbott, . D. D.)

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KJV: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

WEB: The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.