minds of us all than we think. I can imagine a far better club than one formed and framed on this principle, but it is difficult for me to imagine a worse counterfeit of a church. Others make it a source of intellectual delectation, and the means of hearing one or two striking sermons each week. Such a church will conduce to the intelligence of its members, and may be rather more, though probably less, useful than the old New England Lyceum lecture system. Such a church is of about as much practical value to the world at large as some consultations of physicians are to their patients. The doctors have a most interesting discussion, but the patient dies, and the nature of the disease is discovered at the autopsy. Others still would make of the church a great railroad system, over which sleeping-cars run from the City of Destruction, with a coupon good to admit one to the Golden City at the other end. The coaches are luxurious and the road-bed smooth. The Slough of Despond has been filled, the Valley of Humiliation bridged at its narrowest point, and the Delectable Mountains tunnelled. But scoffers say that most of the passengers make full use of the unlimited stop-over privileges allowed at Vanity Fair.

The Bible would seem to give the impression that the church is the army of the Lord of Hosts, a disciplined army of hardy, heroic souls, each soldier aiding his fellow in working out the salvation which God is working in him. And it joins battle fiercely and fearlessly with every form of sin and misery, counting not the odds against it. And the Salvation Army seems to me to have conceived and realized to a great extent just what at least one corps in this grand army

can and should be. And you and I can learn many a

lesson from them.

The church is the body of which Christ is the head, and you and I are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the assaults of his adversaries. Thus the Bible seems to me to depict the church of God. But what if the army contains a multitude of men who will not obey orders or submit to discipline? or if the city be overwhelmed with a mass of aliens, who see in its laws and institutions mainly means of selfish individual advantage? Responsibility, not privilege, is the foundation of strong character in both men and institutions. There was a good grain of truth in the old Scotch minister's remark, that they had had a blessed work of grace in his church; they had not taken anybody in, but a lot had gone

out.

There are plenty of churches of Laodicea to-day. May you be delivered from them. But, thank God, there are also churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna. May you be pastors of one of the latter. It will not pay you a very large salary, for Demas has gone to the church of Laodicea, because the minister of the church of Smyrna was not orthodox, or not sufficiently spiritually minded-meaning thereby that he rebuked the sins of actual living men in general, and of Demas in particular-or preached politics, and did not mind his business. And your church may be small. For

many of the congregation have gone to the church around the other corner, which is mainly a cluster of associations, having excellent names, and useful for almost every purpose except building up a manly, rugged, heroic, godlike character. The minister there, they will tell you, preaches delightful sermons. They make you "feel so good." He annihilates pantheism, and his denunciations of materialism are eloquent in the extreme. But his incarnations of materialism are Huxley and Darwin, and to the uncharitable he seems to almost carefully avoid any language which might seem to reflect upon the dollar- and place-worship of some of the occupants of his front pews. Now, I am not here to defend Mr. Huxley or Mr. Darwin. Withstand them to the face wherever they are to be blamed. And for some utterances they are undoubtedly to be blamed, honest souls as they were. But I for one cannot help feeling that there is among the "dwellers in Jerusalem" a materialism of the heart which is indefinitely worse than any intellectual heresy. When you hit at the one heresy strike hard at the other also.

Many will have left your little church of Smyrna. It had to be so. For the divine sifting process, which is natural selection on its highest plane, has not ceased to work. It must and shall still go on; it cannot be otherwise. Has the great principle ceased to be true in modern history that "though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved?

But do not be discouraged. Preach Christ and a heroic Christianity. Do not be afraid to demand great things of your people. Remember that Ananias

was encouraged to go to Paul because the Lord would show Paul how great things he should suffer for the name of Jesus. This is what appeals to the heroic in every man, and we do not make nearly enough use of it. And the heroic Christ and his heroic Christianity will draw every heroic soul in the community to himself. They may not be very heroic looking. You may be in some hill town in old Massachusetts "Nurse of heroes." Pardon me, I do not intend to be invidious. Heroism is cosmopolitan. One of the pillars of your church may be the schoolteacher of the little red school-house at the fork of the roads, in the yard ornamented with alders, mulleins, and sumachs. She boards around, and is clad in anything but silks and sealskins. But she trains well her band of hardy little fellows, who will later fear the multitude as little as they now mind the Berkshire winds. And from the pittance she receives for training these rebellious urchins into heroic men she is supporting an old mother somewhere, or helping a brother to an education. And your deacon will be some farmer, perhaps uncouth in appearance and rough of dress, and certainly blunt in his scanty speech. He'll not flatter you nor your sermons; and until you've lived with him for years you will not know what a great heart there is in that rugged frame, and what wealth of affection in that silent hand-shake. And there is his wife. She is round and ample, and certainly does not look especially solemn or pious. She is aunt and mother to the whole community, the joy of all the children, nurse of the sick, and comfort of the dying. She is doing the work of ten at home, and of a host in the village.

And your right-hand man is great Onesiphorus from the mill down in the valley, fighting an uphill battle to keep the wolf from the door, while he and his wife deny themselves everything, that their flock of children may have better training for fighting God's battles than they ever enjoyed.

I cannot describe these men and women. If you have lived with them, you will need no description, and would resent the inadequacy of mine. If you have never had the good fortune to live with them, it is impossible to make you see them as they are. When you once have thoroughly known them, language will fail you to do them justice, and you will prefer to be silent rather than slander them by inadequate portrayal. They are at first sight not attractive-looking. If you stand outside and look at them from a distance their lives will appear to you very humdrum and prosaic. But remember that for almost thirty years our Lord lived just such a life in Nazareth, making ploughs and yokes; and then, when the younger brothers and sisters were able to care for themselves, snatched three years from supporting a peasant family in Galilee to redeem a world. And who was Peter but a rough, hardy fisherman?

Now a Paul, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, was also needed; and the twelve did not come from the lowest ranks of society. But they were honest, industrious, practical, courageous, hardy, common people. And single-handed they went out to conquer empires. And they succeeded through the power of God in them.

Who knows the possibilities of your little church in the hilltown of Smyrna? These men and women