and if the history of the world gives, intimations that the glory of God and the good of man can be best promoted by organization, then it is the duty, not of A and B only, but of the whole alphabet, to organize. If A and B, who have signed the compact, do not live according to it, it is not for C, who stands aloof, to complain of them, or to exult over them. His own guilt is farther back than theirs. However wrong they may be, they have taken one step towards the right, which he has not.

If two children in a family sign a paper, signifying that they will love, respect, and obey their parents, do they owe love, honor, and obedience any more than the other children, who have not signed it? If, notwithstanding their written agreement, they fall into disobedience, does it indicate that they are more blameworthy than the other children who also fall into disobedience? Not at all. It only shows that the contract, in their case, has failed of its intended effect.

Just so, it may be said, violation of church covenant shows the invalidity of such covenants. It does in that one case; that is all. It indicates that in that individual the principle of evil has overleaped the restraints; that he was wrong in supposing that he loved Christ, and willed to serve him; or that, loving him, it was with a faint and flickering emotion, and not with that perfect love against which the waves of temptation surge and

dash and break in vain.

I do not propose to enter into a discussion of the effectiveness of church organization. I wish only to say that the dereliction of one, two, or a dozen, or a hundred individuals, does not show it to be worthless. So long as men have the power to deceive themselves and to deceive others, so long will there be many in the church who are not of the church. In order to demonstrate that church organization is useless, it will be necessary to divide our country, or any nominally Christian country, into two classes, those who belong to a church, and those who do not; and then to show that morality and religion, purity of heart and life and practical benevolence, are equally distributed between these two classes. It may not be that this will solve the problem, but nothing short of this will. Even should we be able to find no good in such organizations, indications of Christ's will still remaining, there would be no choice as to our duty. I do not think, however, that the result of such an investigation would throw the question back upon the teachings of Christ.

Again, the fact that a man commits sin after joining the church does not necessarily prove him to be a hypocrite or a self-deceiver. Sin-a sinis too widely spread, and too deeply rooted in the human heart, to be extirpated in a moment. The axe has, indeed, been laid at the root of the tree. Its gnarled trunk, unseemly branches, and poisonous leaves have disappeared, and the man

fondly believes that his sin will trouble him no more; but anon green shoots sprout up round about, showing him that the roots are there, drinking in sustenance from the springs of his life. Then he digs about them, diving deep into the soil, undermining, plucking up, trampling under foot, and burning; but it may be the work of a lifetime, and never, never in this world shall the garden of his soul go back to the velvet verdure of Eden, but remain a rugged, upheaved patch, fertile, it may be, but irregular; productive, but uncouth; a vineyard of the Lord, but not the land of Beulah.

For it is the baleful nature of all sin, that, though never so bitterly repented of, it leaves a scar.

If a man has lived in selfishness, if he has rioted in wine and wantonness, if he has found his pleasure in heaping up wealth, if he has never restrained his tongue or his temper, it is not improbable that, after his conversion, even though it be real, he will sometimes lapse into his former wrong habits. He will see Christ, but it will be through a glass, darkly, and the glass will be colored by the peculiarities of his own character. The avaricious man will have many a hard fight against avarice, and will perhaps sometimes succumb. The untruthful man will keep out many a lie that comes battering at his barred gate, though a sly little falsehood may elude his vigilance, nay, even take advantage of it, and worm itself in through

a crevice. The World will not see the

many contests, the frequent victories, but only the one defeat ; and seeing this, will be ready to exclaim, "If this is what comes of your Christianity, I am very well content without it."

World, you are in the wrong. This is not what comes of Christianity: it is what comes in spite of it. The errors that you see result, not from Christianity, but from a deficiency of it. The man has it, but not enough. It is not sufficient to say that he is a sinner after he professes to have become a Christian. You must show that, without it, he would have sinned no more. Until you know what religion has done for him, as well as what it has left undone, you are not a competent judge. And may it not be suspected that the extreme alacrity with which you discover and exhibit his errors is not owing solely to your hatred of shams and your love of sincerity and truth, but in great measure to a strong, though perhaps unconscious, desire to justify the position which you yourself have adopted, and which your conscience continually warns you is an unsafe and untenable one ?

II.

THE FITNESS OF THINGS.

B

UT however wrong the World may be in the positions which it assumes, the Church is verily guilty concerning her brother. By her folly and her wickedness she places stumbling-blocks in the way of the World. By setting great value on incidentals, and small value on essentials, she confounds moral distinctions, and offends Christ's little ones. She too often exalts forms and neglects principles. She adheres to the letter, and disregards the spirit.

For instance, going to church and to churchmeetings, maintaining family worship, leading in social prayer, reading the Bible, committing it to memory, warning the impenitent, and endeavoring to lead them to the truth, are undoubtedly right things to do; but they are not proofs of Christianity in the soul, - only indications. They are the incidents, not the essentials of religion. We know that there are conceivable circumstances in