back to the original and true ecclesiastical system, as provided for by him, and have a church organized and administered as a purely voluntary association allowing that perfect freedom of thought and action which has been set forth, there will be little occasion for those outside movements in behalf of moral reform and philanthropic causes that under the long-existing forms of administration have been. practically indispensable. For then the good such movements are designed to accomplish can be more effectually secured within the pale of the church by agencies planned and put in motion for specific purposes or by the aggregate body unitedly pushing forward any given benign, humanitary work. The reconstructed church will be in itself a temperance society, a peace society, or whatever else uncorrupted Christianity dictates; and there will be no fragmentary righteousness or patch-work effort for the bettering of the world, but one grand movement all along the line for universal uplifting, helpfulness, and progress; all reforms, and all beneficent causes being regarded as closely related to each other, to be carried forward simultaneously as parts of one great scheme of redemption, to the advancement and ultimate triumph of which the church by virtue of its distinctive mission is sacredly pledged. Then will those banded together in the name of Christ be "no more children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love. may grow up into him in all things which is the

head even Christ." To such a church "the spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely."

DISCOURSE V.

THE TRUE CHURCH SELF-SUBSISTING AND

INDEPENDENT.

"Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." - Acts iv. 34, 35.

"Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth.”—Eph. iv. 28.

"Now

"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust and not before the saints?" therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" I Cor. vi. 1, 7.

It is in the spirit and moral significance of these passages, which I bring together as a text for the present Discourse, that I enter upon the consideration of the fourth distinctive feature of the primitive Christian church as formulated thus: "It was a self-providing, self-sustaining, self-governing, selfprotecting body in respect to all the real necessities of its own members and their legitimate dependents; none of these being left to the providence, charity, or humanity of the outside world or of any of its

eleemosynary institutions for the supply of anything essential to body, mind, or spirit; individually or associatively-absolute impossibilities alone excepted."

It is obvious that men and women, voluntarily uniting in the Christian church, are still human beings existing under mortal conditions and subject to all the common necessities of the race. They require food, raiment, shelter, and the various comforts of a home; in other words, what is indispensable to their physical health and general wellbeing. They have also those instincts and affections which attract the different sexes to each other and superinduce marriage, the family relation, and household obligations, with the great majority of mankind. Christianity holds these to be laudable and right if not obligatory when not overruled by special considerations of duty to God and man. Families and households are to be not only fed, clothed, protected, but educated, trained, regulated, governed, in such a way as to be intelligent, orderly, useful, honorable members of the domestic circle and of the community at large. In these respects, Christian families are in duty bound by their holy religion, as are all individual Christians, to so far excel the unchristianized masses about them that they shall cost the general public represented in organized civil society in towns, cities, states, and nations—nothing for restraint and punishment or for the ordinary necessities of physical existence, whilst, on the other hand, they afford it examples of good citizenship, exert upon it a wholesome

moral influence, and contribute in manifold ways. to its welfare and prosperity.

How then is the true Christian church to secure at least a tolerable supply of the necessaries and comforts of life-a competency of material goods for all its members and dependents? By the very nature of its being as an outcome of the principles and Spirit of the Gospel, it was from the beginning and still is precluded from all resorts to fraud, robbery, and violence; from all methods of thrift and material accumulation involving expense to outsiders the unchristianized public-whether by force, cunning or beggary. Ought it to depend on the state; that is, on the organized civil governments of the world and their administrative machinery for the things specified? To do so would be to confess its own incapacity to provide for itself its own thriftlessness and economical imbecility. It would imply that it was too ignorant, indolent, imprudent, wasteful, to be self-subsisting, or that the more productive, prosperous, fortunate classes in its fellowship were too selfish, proud, unprincipled to care for and help those of their associates who for any reason were less favored than themselves; were unable to obtain by their own unaided efforts what was needful to their outward, physical sustenance, comfort, and happiness.

Such a church, professing faith in Christ and in his religion of love to God and man, would prove itself false to its own acknowledged standard-a sham, having nothing of real superiority to the rest of mankind and illustrating no higher morality