Besides the help received in private devotion, every young Christian needs the aid which the public services of the church are designed to afford. We were not made to live alone. We lean upon and cling to each other “like trailing flowers that grow by interlacing.” The necessities of our being require companionship. Mind grows and develops best in contact with other minds. One log will not burn alone. In a sense God himself is all we need, and in communion with him every want of our soul is met:
“Yea, through life, through death, through sorrow
And through sinning,
He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed.”
Yet the glory is so great, the splendor is so dazzling, that we need human hands to bring the divine blessing down to us. Besides, the heart does not rise to its highest fervor in the solitude of the closet. Our warmest feelings of devotion are drawn out when we unite with others in associated service. The consciousness that a whole congregation of worshipers about us is moved by the same emotion that we experience, whether it be gratitude, confession of sin, or prayer for mercy, deepens the emotion in us.
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