Wherever there is spiritual understanding there is adoration. The fact is exemplified throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This understanding was possessed in some measure by Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets; and evidence of it was presented time and again in their words and deeds. The spirit of adoration in them often broke forth into praise of God, as, for example, in the sixty-fifth psalm, "Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed," and in the one hundred and eleventh psalm, where we read, "His praise endureth for ever." And the same deep reverence stands out as one of the most striking features of the book of Isaiah. The office of the Christ, for instance, is spoken of as giving "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
When one turns to the New Testament, the spirit of adoration is seen to be invariably linked to spiritual understanding. What carried the feet of the "wise men from the east" first to Jerusalem and afterwards to Bethlehem? Nothing can be surer than that it was, primarily, their recognition or understanding of the Christ as impersonal Truth and the resultant adoration which sprang from the true concept of the perfect spiritual idea. Again, what enabled the "shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" to rise to those divine heights of revelation recorded of them in the second chapter of Luke, when "the angel of the Lord came upon them" and gave them "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people," and when "a multitude of the heavenly host" praised God, and sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men"? It was the perception of spiritual reality, evidenced in the spirit of adoration. Without it the shepherds would not have been cognizant of the angel of the Lord and would never have heard the message which told them of the birth of the Savior, Jesus the Christ, who should bring to the world a knowledge of the truth about all reality.
What of Christ Jesus himself? His life was one of constant adoration of God, his Father, the divine Principle of being. It could not have been otherwise with him. It followed from his intimate understanding of Principle. Could Jesus have done aught but adore when he knew, as he did, the allness of God as Love and as Life, and when he saw the understanding he possessed of perfect Principle heal all manner of disease and raise the dead? Witness him immediately before the raising of Lazarus from the deep sleep of death, as it is recorded in the eleventh chapter of John: "And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." Then Lazarus "came forth." On another occasion when he was about to perform one of those wonders to human sense, —the feeding of the multitude when only seven loaves and a few little fishes were apparently available, before "he gave to his disciples," he "gave thanks." There again is the spirit of reverence shown, of adoration, of praise, springing from his marvelous understanding of God as infinite good, as infinite Life, as the creator and sustainer of man.
