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, to spend a precious morning in a church-room sorting cast-off clothes? In every church, large or small, there are both men and women who are talented in a special way; who could bring gifts of training and experience to bear upon the problems and opportunities of the Church. Tell me, in prayer or speech-making, formal or social occasion, pastor or people, do we often bring our very deepest, tenderest, most inspiring emotional or intellectual life? It is not a whit more spiritual to be stupid than to be bright. This is what our church-meetings should be--not a formal and very dull round of prayers and set remarks, more or less pointless; they ought to be a yielding-up of our heart's best life to others. 9. We need, as a Church, a deeper spiritual life. We need the Power of the Holy Ghost. In spite of all the sorrow of the world, sorrow both of a personal nature and that which touches whole communities, there is only one real burden upon the heart of earnest men and women: it is our own inadequate representation of Christianity,--the disheartening difference between what we practise and what we profess. When the Church of God is in reality a powerful and hard-working body of sincere, honest, and loving people, the world will soon be saved! SECOND: ADHERENCE By the question, Why join the Church?--I do not mean alone, Why add my name to a church-roll? I mean, Why give myself, my powers, my education, my love, my loyalty, to advance the progress of the Church? There is nothing we resent more than a waste of ourselves. To attract our service, there must be in the Church an inner vitality, a moving and spiritual fire. 1. The Church embodies the spiritual dreams of the world. Man does not live by bread alone; he lives by imagination, and by religious powers. In the Church of God, the spiritual imagination of man reached its highest field of energy, and has brought forth its most triumphant works. The great art of the world has centred about the Christian Church--its architecture and much of its noblest speech. Imagine a world in which every work which was inspired by the Church, or by the concepts of religion embodied in it, should be left out. What would we then lack? We would lack the greatest works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Francesca, Botticelli, Murillo; we would not see the cathedrals of Milan, Strasburg, or Cologne; we would never read the poems of Caedmon, Milton, or Dante. The hamlet would be wi
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