And as the root of the evil is man's unresponsive- ness to the higher realities, there must the remedy be aji])lied. The apostolic Epistles abound, in- deed, in exhortation to the severance of all corre- spondences with the lower environment that are unnecessary, or are found in experience to be harmful. But always they find the one eftectual antidote to worldliness in the quickening of the
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spiritual life by faitli in Christ crucified, risen and victorious, aiiil in tlie earnest jiursuit of jiositivo Christian ideals (Gal 6'\ Ko 12'- - 13'^- ", 1 Co 10»', Gal o'", Eiih :>•• =■ ">, Col 3'- =, 1 Ti 6", 1 Jn 5% ' This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our failli' (1 .In o-*).
LiTERATliRK.— H. Bisseker, art. * WorUiliness ' in DCG\ A. Ritschl niirt J. Weiss, art. 'Welt "in I' HE-'; A. B. D. Alex- ander, The KllncsufSt. Paul, GlosifOW, 11)10 ; R. Law, The Tests of lAj/i, Kclinburgii, 11)14, pp. 1-15 IT., 276 If. ; W. Alexander, rApi>i»(/«u/'St.yo/iii, London, 18S9, pp. 130 IT., UDir.; Phillips Brooks, ^fntuMis, do., 1871), p. yiJ^ff. ; J. Foster, Lcctuvefi^, do., 1S53, vol. i. p. 11 ff. ; J. M. Gibbon, Eternal Lije, do., 1890, p. Stiff. ; H. P. Liddon, Kaster in St. Paul's, do., 1886, p. 253 ff. ; A. Maclaren, AJter the Hcsurrectiml, do., 1902, p. U2ff., .-1 Year's Ministrj/, 1st ser, do., ISS4, p. 86 ff.; J. Martineau, Endeaeuurs after the Christiajl Li/e'^, do., 187ti, p. 439 ff. ; J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, new ed., do., 1868. i. 215 ff. ; F. W. Robertson, Lectures on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, new ed., do., 1873, p. 127 ff.. Sermons, 3rd ser., new ed., do., 1876, pp. 15 fl., IKIlf. ; T. G. Selby, The Unheeding God, do., 1899, p. 18211.; W. L. Watkinson, The Blind Spot, do., 1899, pp. 135 ff.. 201 ff.
Robert Law.
WORMWOOD ((Ji/'irflos).— The only passage in the NT in which fii^i^tfos occurs is Rev 8". Wormwood is referred to several times in the OT, the Heb. word used being nyjh, but di/'it'Oos is nowhere used in the LXX as its Greek equivalent. There is, however, no doubt that ' wormwood ' is the correct translation of &\pi.vdoi (cf. Liddell and Scott, s.v.). The Heb. .xy^ and its Arabic equivalent are both derived from a root meaning ' to curse.' It is nearly always associated with gall, the two to- gether being apt emblems of sorrow and calamity by reason of the bitterness of their taste.
There are, accorciing to Tristram, seven species of the Artemisia or wormwood, the Artemisia absinthium being the most common. They all have a bitter taste.
In Rev 8" wormwood is not mixed with water but the third part of the water is turned into wormwood. The former operation would not necess.arily be destructive of human life, whereas unmixed wormwood is represented as having that ett'ect. Just as the creatures of the .sea perished by reason of the burning mass cast into it (v.*) so human life was tlestroyed by the conversion of the rivers and streams into wormwood.
Liter ATtiRK. — H. B. Tx\str3.m, Natural History of the Bible^^, London, 1911, p. 493, Survey of Wcster7i Palestine, do., I8S4, p. 331 ; H. B. Swete, Apocaliipse of St. John'-, do., 1907, p. 112 ; EBi iv. 6354 f. ; SDB, p. 978 ; HDB iv. 940 f. ; Murray's OB,p. 951. P. S. P. HANDCOCK.
WORSHIP It has been well said that 'for St.
Paul and the members of the early Christian brotherhood the whole of life was a continuous worship, and the one great feature of that worship was prayer.' * If we use the word ' prayer ' in the widest sense, as including praise as well as petition and intercession, the words agree with the opinion of Dollinger : ' When the attention of a thinking heathen was directed to the new religion which was spreading in the Roman Empire, the thing to strike him as e.\traordinary would be that a religion of praj'er was superseding tlie religion of ceremonies and invocations of gods ; that it encouraged all, even the humblest and tlie most uneducated, to pray, or, in other words, to meditate and exerci.se the mind in self-scrutiny and contemplation of God.'t In that age many men who showed respect for the externals of worship doubted their efficacy and the very existence of the gods. The calm conlidence of Christian believers in their faith, unseared by the su])erstitions which had brought them to scepticism, could not fail to impress thoughtful men. Inquiry revealed to them forms of worship
• W. Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People, London, 1911, )). 4ti8.
t J. J. I. Dollinu'er, The First Age of Christianity and the Church, Eng. tr., do., 190li, p. 344.
in the Christian Church austere in their simplicity, btit hallowed alike by their assot^iation with the sacred traditions of jewisii worship anil by the vivid consciousness of the presence of God to whom they could draw near as their Father through Jesus Christ, their Saviour, in the power of His Holy Spirit poured out u]ion all llesh.
I. History of Christian worship. — The worsliip of the Apostolic Church foUoweil the precedents both of the Temple and of the Synagogue. .At lirst the Apo.stles were diligent in their attendance at the Temple (Ac 2"), and the keen desire of St. Paul to keep the Feast at Jerusalem (20") shows that the services of Christian assemblies were as yet regarded as supplementary to the central worship at the shrine of Jewish devotion. From the Temple came eventually the gradual evolution of the liturgy which summed up in a central service the profound thought of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the sacrifice of Christ as fullillin^- all the types of Jewish sacrifice. The visions oi the Apocalyp.se hll in the picture of Christian worship in the Eucharist as the representation on earth of the worship of heaven.