Worship

The act of paying divine honors to the Supreme Being; religious reverence and homage; adoration paid to God or a being viewed as God; adoration; a religious act of reverence; honor paid to the Supreme Being or by heathen nations to their deities; the performance of those external acts and the observance of all those rites and ceremonies in which men engage with the professed and sole view of honor- In the United States, this is free, every one being at liberty to worship God according to the dictates' of his conscience. See "Public Worship." In English Law. A title or addition given to certain persons. 2 Inst. 666; Bac. Abr. "Misnomer" (A 2).

Honor and homage rendered to God. State v. Norris, 59 N. H. 536. See Christianity; Disturbance of Public Worship; Religion. In English Law. A title or addition given to certain persons. Co. 2d Inst. 666; Bacon, Abr. Misnomer (A 2). to be preferred to daughters, which Is the law of England. See some singular reasons given for this in Plowd. 305.

The act of offering honor and adoration to the Divine Being. Religious exercises participated in by a number of persens assembled for that purpose, the disturbance of which Is a statutory offense in many states. See Hamsher v. Hamsher, 132 III. 273, 22 N. E. 1123, 8 In R. A. 556; State v. District Board, 76 Wis. 177, 44 N. W. 967, 7 L. R. A. 330, 20 Am. St. Rep. 41; State v. Buswell, 40 Neb. 158, 58 N. W. 728, 24 In R. A. 68.

In English law. A title of honor or dignity used in addresses to certain magistrates and other persons of rank or office.

— Public worship. This term may mean the worship of God, conducted and observed under public authority; or it may mean worship in an open or public place, without privacy or concealment; or it may mean the performance of religious exercises, under a provision for an equal right in the whole public to participate in its benefits; or it may be used in contradistinction to worship in the family or the closet. In this country, what is called "public worship" is commonly conducted by voluntary societies, constituted according to their own notions of ecolesiastical authority and ritual propriety, opening their places of worship, and admitting to their religious services such persons, and upon such terms, and subject to such regulations, as they may choose to designate and establish. A church absolutely belonging to the public, and in which all persons without restriction have equal rights, such as the public enjoy in highways or public landings, is certainly a very rare institution. Attorney General v. Merrimack Mfg. Co.., 14 Gray (Mass.) 586.

No definition of' this word, as used in " divine worship," "religious worship," "place of worship," and similar expressions, applicable to all cases, has, seemingly, been framed by any court. The word has no technical, legal signification; each case, in which its meaning has been the subject of contention, has been decided upon its own merits. A Sunday-school is a worshiping assembly.'' But a Sunday-school was held not to be contemplated by the expression "divine worship," in an agreement between two congregations for the erection of a common meeting-house, at a time when Sundayschools were not in vogue in the neighborhood.^ One room iised as a chapel does not reserve the whole building " for religious worship." ^ A Christmas-tree festival for Sunday scholars at a school-house is not an assembly for "religious worship." " Camp-meeting grounds belonging to an association deriving profit therefrom are not to be exempt from taxation as a " place of worship." ' " Religious worship " has no technical meaning, in a legal sense. Whether a temperance camp-meeting is "a public assembly convened for the purpose of religious worship " is a question of fact.^ Receiving compulsory prices for admission to a camp-meeting on Sunday is worldly employment or business, and not within the exception of " works of necessity and charity." " A prosecution for disturbing an assemblage for religious worship will not" be sustained by proof that the meeting was for business purposes, though opened with religious exercises. '" A buildingf or "religious purposes " is exempt from 'taxation although used for educational purposes, so long as the use is merely incidental or occasional, or, ■if habitual, is purely permissive and voluntary and ■does not interfere with the use for religious purposes, there being no alienation (as, e. gr., by lease) of the building in whole or in part for educational uses. ' Campbell v. Brown, 1 Grant, 83 (1854). 2 Marshall v. Blackshire, 44 Iowa, 473 (1876), Seevers, Chief Justice. = Martin v. State, 6 Baxt. 234 (Tenn., 1873). ■• Gass' Appeal, 78 Pa. 46 (1873). »St. Joseph's Church v. Assessors, 13 R. I. 19 (1878). "Layne v. State, 4 Lea, 200 (1879).- ' Summit Grove Meeting Association v. School District of New Freedom, 12 W. N. C. 108 ^Pa., 1882). 8 State V. Norris, 69 N. H. 536 (1880). 'Commonwealth v. Weidner, 4 Pa. Co. Ct. R. 437 (1888): -4.ct 23 April, 1794. Much Sunday-school teaching, though auxiliary to religion, is not purely religious. Buildings for religious worship, or parts of them, are frequently permitted to be used on week days for literary or scientific lectures, or for industrial instruction. Some of these uses, while not wholly religious, are prompted by religion.' See Assembly, Civil; Chcrch; Parsonage; Religion: StrNDAT.