hout the Church, is he not bound to
consider others? Has any man in a world like ours, where all are bound
together and are dependent on one another, any right to consider as to
whether he can get on alone? Is he not bound to consider those around
him? We must all feel that it would be a great calamity to a nation
were public worship given up, churches closed, and Sunday made a day of
recreation. But those who absent themselves from public worship are
undoubtedly using their influence in that direction. If it be right
for them to absent themselves, it must be right also for others to
imitate them, and it is easy to see how disastrous generally such
imitation would be.

Especially should every young man become _a communicant_ at the table
of the Lord. Besides the many spiritual benefits of which the
sacrament is the channel to every devout believer, it is an ordinance
which is particularly helpful to the young. It leads them to make a
decision, and decision gives strength. From the moment they
deliberately and solemnly make their choice, there is a power imparted
to their life that it had not before. In the life of the well-known
Scotsman, Adam Black, it is said that shortly after he went up to
London he became a communicant in the Church to which he belonged. "I
found," he says, "this step gave a stability to my character, and
proved a defence from follies and vices, especially as a young man in
London, entirely my own master, with no one to guide or check me."

2. We should take each of us our full share in the work of our Church.
It is a poor sign of a church when all the work done is by the
minister, or by the office-bearers alone, and it is a still poorer sign
of those who belong to it. It is a sign that they have not felt the
power of that grace which ever leads the soul to put the question,
"What wilt thou have me to do?" There are none who cannot do
something. The writer read lately of a church in England, the grounds
of which were regularly tended and made beautiful by the young men
belonging to it. That may seem a small service, but it was something.
It showed a good spirit. If we are to get the most out of the Church,
we must help it to do its work--charitable, missionary, Sunday School,
Young Men's Guild. If the best heart and talent of young men were put
into these and other agencies, the power of the Church for good would
be increased immeasurably, and not the least of the advantage would