them for the formation of that society of believers. which was afterwards to be called the Church, and which was to be known by his name to the remotest generations. He put them upon a course of thought and conduct, the legitimate and inevitable result of which, in the very nature of things, was a distinctive body of people confessing allegiance to him as Lord and Master, bound to each other by the ties of a common faith and of spiritual harmony, and representing before the world both him and the cause with which he was in life and in death indissolubly identified.

2. The divinely appointed mission and distinctive righteousness of Jesus Christ required a church as an agency for maintaining their claims to the veneration and love of mankind, and for perpetuating their influence and power of good unto coming generations and ages.

The mission of Christ was not simply, as seems to have been supposed by the great majority of those who have professed to be his followers in bygone days, to save the souls of men from the consequences of sin and evil in the eternal world - in a future state of being; but to save them from the miseries incident to sin and evil in this present world, and with regard, not to the soul alone, but to both soul and body. This is evident alike from. his precepts and from his example. To the intelligent reader of the New Testament the quoting of texts and passages portraying what he said and did in proof of this view would be superfluous. Furthermore, that mission had respect also to the asso

ciated relations of men as well as to their strictly personal affairs; to human society no less than to individual conduct and character. And the righteousness he inculcated was correspondingly comprehensive, all-embracing, universal. It was to be applied to all possible human concerns, and illustrated in all possible human activities, public as well as private, social as well as individual, national and international as well as personal.

It was important therefore, not to say indispensable, in order to duly and effectually set forth the larger aspects of the purpose of Christ's mission, that his true disciples should separate themselves from the existing social order, which was characterized by tyranny, fraud, corruption, hatred, wrath, and war, and form, by and of themselves, an association or community free from all demoralizing alliances, co-partnerships, and responsibilities, becoming thus the nucleus and illustrative example of a new social order, based upon the principles of the Gospel of their Lord and animated by the spirit of love to God and man. And this course of conduct was no less important and indispensable when considered in respect to the distinctive righteousness of pure Christianity, which in any true view of it demands the same stern, uncompromising application of the principles of virtue and uprightness to the social conduct of men, to the policies and practices of communities, states, and nations, and the same exemplification of the spirit of love and brotherhood that is enjoined upon men and women in their personal characters and in the utmost

recesses of their private lives. The real doctrine of Christ regarding this matter is that the commandments of the Most High are binding alike upon all men in all life's relations; that what is absolutely wrong for one person to do by him or herself, is wrong for any number of persons to do, in any form. of association and by whatsoever name designated; that individual and social morality is one and the same, in all lands and among all nations, unto the end of time.

And my contention is that Christ, being engaged in a mission which involved a regeneration of the social life of men as well as of their personal character, and teaching a righteousness which. was obligatory upon his disciples in all their public relations and interests no less than in their private conduct and character, must, as a necessity, have contemplated and provided for the establishment of a church a body of believers in him who should be able to illustrate among themselves and in their relations to each other the excellences and graces enjoined upon them by their holy religion; who should be in the midst of a wicked, an adulterous. generation, and in a selfish, sensual, oppressive, warengendering, man-slaughtering world, what the Apostle says they were, "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; who should show forth the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God." Thus separated from the prevailing evils of their time and from the corrupt,

unchristian practices, customs, and policies of the existing church and state, they were morally and spiritually considered "the light of the world," "the salt of the earth," as the Master called them; "the little flock" of faithful ones to whom "it was the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom."

3. The moral progress and ultimate happy destiny of mankind on the earth, as foretold by the prophets and seers of then past times, and as the God-designed result of Christ's mission, made the existence of a church an indispensable necessity.

In the sublime economy of the universe as planned and directed by the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Love, it is provided beyond all peradventure, in my judgment, not only that the human race as a whole shall attain a state of final holiness and happiness in the world to come, but that the portion of it dwelling in this world shall at length become thoroughly regenerated and Christianized, in fulfillment of the ancient saying of the Hebrew seer that "All shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest," and of the prayer taught by the Master, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Inasmuch as such a grand issue is fore-ordained of God from the foundation of the world, and inasmuch as it is not to be secured by any super-mundane, miraculous agency operating independently of human will or effort, but according to those laws of orderly, moral, and spiritual nurture and growth under which human and divine forces interblend and co-operate for the promotion of the end in view, it

was absolutely necessary that methods and measures should be instituted by those engaged in the work adequate to its successful prosecution and ultimate achievement. Not only must personal character be renovated and ennobled, becoming thereby a power of good in the community and world, but social life must be reconstructed and made to conform to high ideals; "a more excellent way" for men to live together as children of one Father in Heaven must be shown as an illustration of what ought to be in the manifold relations of men to each other, and as a sample, also, of what some day would be among all classes of people to the ends of the earth the way of love, harmony, brotherhood, peace. And this work of social reconstruction was begun under the inspiration of Christ's teaching and example by the early disciples in the formation of the church; this "more excellent way" was exhibited by, the little company or companies of those who in his day accepted his Gospel, and, being animated by his spirit, abandoned the customs and practices of existing society in its ecclesiastical and political aspects, and entered into a new fellowship based upon diviner principles and illustrative of a higher civilization than had ever existed before.

The necessity of such action must be apparent to every thoughtful mind. The faith and constancy of believers depended upon it; nay, the very existence of Christianity itself. But for the powerful moral influence of the church; but for the strong. bonds that by association with kindred minds and hearts held them to their better purposes and