It certainly is an action proper to man to express in gesture, in
voice, in concert and company with his fellow-men, and by employment
of whatever is best and fairest and brightest under his command in the
material creation, his inward affections of loyalty, of homage and
devotion, of awe and reverence, of gratitude and love to his Creator.

Good as these affections are in the heart of the worshipper, they
receive an external complement of goodness and perfection by being
blazoned forth in vocal utterance, singing, bending of knees,--by the
erection and embellishment of temples, and offerings of gold, silver,
precious stones, and incense,--and by men thronging those temples in
multitudes for social worship,--provided always that the inward
devotion of the heart be there, to put a soul into these outward
demonstrations and offerings.

7. Concerning these religious observances interior and exterior, it is
as idle to pretend that they are _useful_ to Almighty God as it is
irrelevant to object that they are _useless_ to Him. Of course they
are useless to Him. All creation is useless to God. A Being who can
never receive any profit, increment, or gain, dwells not within the
region of utilities. Theologians indeed distinguish between intrinsic
and extrinsic glory, that is, between the glory which God gives
Himself by His own contemplation of His own essence, and the glory
which His creatures give Him. They say that God is thus capable of
extrinsic increment, to which increment the praise and worship of His
creatures is useful. But, after all, they are fain to avow that the
whole of this extrinsic increment and glory is no real gain to God,
giving Him nothing but what He had before in an infinitely more
excellent mode and manner from and of Himself. Thus it appears that