driven to large confidence in the divine. And still we have, somehow, felt that more human power was needed for this work, than was likely to be exerted by our little band of regularly appointed clergy. And, therefore, we have, very naturally, sought to multiply its power and presence by machinery. Hence the press has been put under contribution, and type and steam have been trying to do the work of living souls. Books instead of men are the marked feature of our time.. But God's appointment is men with books, if you please, or with whatever else can persuade the sinner to a true life. But books alone, the best that human genius ever indited, even the Bible itself, dropped like leaves into the dwellings of men without the living preacher, would do little either to elevate or sanctify our poor humanity. Are not the Bible and the best volumes of the Christian press, in ten thousand homes in our land that are full of abomination and sin? In the very hells of intemperance and pollution, on the very altars of Bacchus and of Venus, God's word lies, a perpetual illustration of weakness, separated from the sanctified life of the Christian. It is the word spoken and breathed by sanctified souls that is to save the world. We multiply the dynamics of the church, just as we multiply the love, and faith, and truth, and consecration which dwell in each individual bosom. The force which acts in our breast is communicated to another, that to a third, that to a fourth, and so on, till, to use our Saviour's figure, the whole lump is leavened. To suppose our machinery has any force above, and separate from that of the individuals that work it, is to mistake the most certain law of moral dynamics.

And here is just our danger, that our eye will be intent on mechanical efforts, when we should be watching and toiling for living results. Does God intend that the Gospel shall be preached to the world through books, while the church is left to waste and wear herself out in material pursuits? Such an idea, indeed, is very convenient and accommodating to men, whose hands never slacken from earthly toil, save to give a few dollars to feed the machine which is dealing salvation upon the world? Not a few have been made comfortable in an engrossing worldliness, by just turning over to Christ the spray of that golden stream which has poured through the gates of a successful

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business. Are we saying that money should not be given to God? So far from this we are saying that the man himself should be given to God, and that money without the man, benevolence in the finger ends, and not in the heart, money, which buys the license to an untiring earthliness, is not the want of this, or any Christian age. We ask for men, and they offer us money, as if money, which was not the interpreter of Christian thought and feeling and consecration, had any place in the work of Christ. But money can make books, and books in the place of men are like stones in the place of bread. Books are dead men's bones, the secret power which wins and masters living souls is not in them. He who made the mind, ordained that it should be influenced by mind. And so he says to the church, "Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world." Is not the church a thing to be used, then, in redeeming this world to Christ? Is her great membership to stand with folded hands, while a few leaders work the mighty enginery of our warfare, and summon the nations to submit to God? Are the masses of God's elect to be just vessels of reception, to get and hold the treasures of grace which are poured into them, rather than fountains of life, whose streams are for the healing of the nations?

The Gospel is not more a system of matchless grace, than it is of soundest economy. Her dynamics admit no waste of vital forces. Every part is designed to work with the greatest possible efficiency, and with the least possible loss of power. We need not say, therefore, that it is human wisdom which is attempting to convert the world through a ministry, rather than through the church. The attempt of course must fail; it has none of the conditions of success, is without common sense, is immensely wasteful, and perfectly inadequate to the end proposed. The worldly concern which permitted its resources to run out through such flood-gates, would go to ruin in a twelve month. It only shows what an exuberance of power there is in the Gospel, that it can survive such a drain upon its vital energies, and still remain the mightiest influence in the earth. Take any single church, look at the talent, time, money, influence, given to an unbroken worldliness, and then enlarge the field of vision till the eye takes in all Christendom, and you

can not fail to see that the waste of resources in the kingdom of grace is beyond expression or comprehension. Just reverse the picture, and suppose every fraction of power in this great Commonwealth of our Israel was used in its legitimate sphere, and how long should men ask in vain for the bread of life? Would not the light stream afar, would not the leaven permeate into other souls, and inoculate itself as a life into this dead humanity? Would not these burning lives, which God has hung in this great world-gallery, speedily light the lost to heaven?

We need, then, men more than money, more than books; men who can endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. It is worth considering, whether our Christianity is not becoming too delicate for the rough places over which she is called to walk; whether we are not rearing a generation of effeminates, when we need men of more than Roman courage and endurance. We send our workers into the field with all the nice and tasteful appointments of home, banishing, in all outward surroundings, the very idea of sacrifice and self-denial. But what army ever covered itself with glory, that went out to the battle carrying the refinements and conveniences of luxurious life! It is remarkable that there is not a scene this side the grave, in which the Scriptures represent the Christian as enjoying elegance and ease. On the other hand, he is a pilgrim without a home, a soldier in ceaseless warfare, a runner speeding to the goal, a wrestler on the white sands of the arena for the crown of victory. In the elder day of Christianity, these figures were realities. God's chosen then went out without staff, or scrip, or change of garments, to battle with sin, and want, and the devil. But now, who will go to tell the dying of Christ, without a full purse, and wardrobe, and larder? We are not saying that the church, in her fulness, should send out her sons empty to toil and suffer; this would be meanness itself. But our question is more fundamental: Is this the best we are to expect, is this all that Christianity is capable of doing? If the church is so mean as to withhold itself and its money from Christ, are we to assume that the men, with a heart to work, must stay at home, or be recalled from the field? What! have not men hands as well as hearts, and is there any

more difficulty in ministering to one's own necessities now, than there was in the days of Paul? Do not the children of this world make pilgrimages to every quarter of the globe, on errands of gain? Are not the white wings of commerce flying on every water? Are not millions of feet pressing to the gold lands on the Pacific slopes, and in the Pacific Sea? Not a zone however pestilential, not a region however barbarous, not a latitude however icy and desolate, that has not invited the enterprise of commence, or science, or worldly adventure. Whatever human power could do in this direction, has been attempted. Danger and death have been met in every form, but have not retarded, for one moment, the step of this advancing host. Has the Gospel no power to make heroes and martyrs in these latter days? Has the world gained all the heroes, and shall it have the honor of all the martyrdoms of our time? Is it any more difficult for the heralds of salvation to penetrate distant and unknown lands, than for the heralds of traffic and adventure? If for gold we can dare cold and nakedness, and pestilence and death, shall they have terrors to turn back our feet on missions of mercy to the perishing? What would Paul have said to such a suggestion? Would he have turned back on any path which mortal man would dare to tread? The men of apostolic time and spirit went to the ends of the earth, trusting for temporal things to Him who sent them to distribute heavenly things. If other hands were shut to their necessities, they had hands of their own that never failed them in an emergency. If they could not ride to their fields of labor, they could walk; and if they had no scrip for their journey, they could work, or beg their way. They were sent of God to tell the dying of Christ, and they asked no men, or organizations of men to come between them and their work. So simple was their idea of preaching the Gospel to the world, each man creating his needful temporalities in the very plan and service of spiritual things. When the church shall recognize her distinctive work, and plan and labor just to give this world to Christ, what will all the crafts and industries be but parts of her heavenly calling? This will simplify every thing, and unite brain, and heart, and hand, in a single service. We believe there is a day for the church, when her consecrated

minds will have some of the wisdom, and some of the devotion, to an engrossing idea, which the world has. We would hang our head for Christianity, if we believed it was not competent to do what Mammon and Mormon can. Has not the one countless thousands in every land, toiling, suffering, and dying, to win his golden smiles? And has not the other sent out his heralds over the earth, without patronage, without protection, and without support, to preach his beastly gospel? With a devotion worthy of the holiest cause, a band of seventy men left Salt Lake, a little time since, each with his hand-cart, carrying what little he needed for a journey of a thousand miles over the plains, and mountains, and deserts, between him and his point of destination. This point was St. Louis. Arrived here, they separated, each to make his way to a different and special field of labor. His support each one must create for himself. He is face to face with his work, and only his courage, and skill, and strength, are pledged to his success. And these men are traversing every part of Christendom to-day, at their own charges, and doing their work with a singleness and efficiency of purpose, which mock our slow, and cumbrous, and noisy methods of evangelization.

What a power there is in one soul consecrated to some engrossing idea, what force has worked in the brain of a single scholar, or artist, or inventor, who has toiled on in poverty, and silence, and neglect, till at last, he has moved the world in the realization of his idea, and been crowned among the regal minds of the race.

Christianity was once a simple idea, a vital, central, moving force in the individual heart. It was the power of individual lives dropped into the current of humanity to change its course and destiny for eternity.

Has God changed his plan of raising up humanity from the ruin of the fall and of the tomb? Has he interposed any medium between the church and the world, or does he want any there? Did he not, by a necessity, introduce the soul to its heavenly work, the moment he introduced into it its heavenly life? God, then, has fitted the church for her work, and put her in connection with it. And what is to hinder her taking possession of the earth in the name of Christ, but the earthliness