characteristics of the primitive church, self-government, and self-protection. Existing circumstances did not permit or require it to go far in this regard; to formulate systems of organization or methods of administration. The early disciples believed that God himself was their Almighty Protector and that His law was sufficient for their guidance and control. The ancient Scriptures had assured them that " they that trust in the Lord shall not want any good thing"; that "underneath them were the everlasting arms"; that "blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord," etc., and they stood fast by such testimonies. The heathen governments within whose jurisdiction the church sprung into being and existed for several generations, exercised a strong control over its external conditions, often hostile to it, but sometimes beneficent and helpful; yet to a great extent it took care of itself, was independent of the reigning power, managed its own affairs, maintained, amid opposition and persecution, its own standing as one of the growing dynasties of the world. marked out its own course and followed it in all fidelity and without real cause of offense to any. It fomented no tumults, riots, insurrections, for existing governments to suppress. It made no criminals to be restrained or punished. It furnished no cases to be prosecuted at law, and no paupers to be maintained at the public expense. On the other hand, it bore reproach meekly; it set the best of personal and social examples; it exerted an elevating influence upon the community

It

at large; it was busy in doing good even to enemies; it was indeed in its day "the light of the world" and "the salt of the earth."

In respect to systematic efforts in the direction. of self-government and self-protection, the primitive church did little, as I have stated. It devised no plans or methods of civil administration; it founded no new social order. Nothing more than ultimate aims, grand ideals of social and civil order, visions of a coming kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy, engaged their thought and energy, with a scrupulous purpose to make their lives fall into line with such aims, ideals, and visions, as far as possible, and to prepare the way for their actualization; to put in motion forces, to proclaim truths, to inaugurate a movement, which under the watchful providence of God should in some coming age produce that sublime result. Under the circumstances they could do nothing more than this. Yet this was of unspeakable importance. It was the beginning of a work that was to be taken up by the church of the then future-the lineal successor of the primitive church and carried forward to a final triumph. And in that early primitive church we find the indication, the symbol, the type of the true Christian Church as it grows and prospers and ripens into maturity. And in its efforts to realize its own. ideals, to bring its conceptions of the divine kingdom into touch with its own life as an inspiration to the noblest and the best, it did start a movement which was calculated and destined to evolve at

length a Christian civilization, a divine order of human society, a political system founded in righteousness and humanity, the promised kingdom of God on earth.

Thus have I outlined the real character of the true church of Christ in those features of it brought to notice in this Discourse; what it was essentially in the beginning, what it is today, what it will be in the time of the great consummation. And I close what I have to say on the topic under discussion by observing that all notions and customs which merge the nominal Christian Church in what is termed civilization, which involve it in partisan politics, divide it into social castes, excuse its (so-called) higher classes from fraternizing with the lower, send its poor and needy ones to the common alms-house, and amalgamate it with the selfish world are alike anti-Christian and abominable. A church which adopts the world's ruling expedients of trade; which nurtures its youth for political, military, plutocratic distinction; which holds the laws, practices, and policies of the state and nation superior to the plain precepts and duties of the Gospel; which is ambitious to outrival the fashionable world in palatial residences, costly equipage, extravagant tables, and enervating pleasures; which depends on mammon-worshipers and capitalists for money to support its clergy and supply the means. of operating its various activities, is a pseudoChristian church, having no real relation to him whose name it surreptitiously bears, worthy only of reprobation by all honest souls, and destined to

be supplanted and superseded by more fitting representative of the great Captain of human salvation, Jesus of Nazareth. God hasten the day when a regenerate church shall take the place of all those which are Christian in name only, and Spirit and in truth."

not "in

DISCOURSE VI.

ALLEGIANCE TO CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.

"Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."— Eph. v.

25-27.

"All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's."-I Cor. iii. 21-23.

We come now to the consideration of the fifth and last distinctive constitutional peculiarity of the true Christian Church as tabulated in my second Discourse of this series, viz: "It demanded the heartfelt allegiance, devotion, and fidelity of its adherents first to Christ himself as their great Head and then to each other as fellow-members of his body; and also their separate and united endeavor to preserve, sustain, promote, and honor the church by all rightful means and at all hazard of personal cost and sacrifice in preference to any other association, institution, relationship, or interest of human design and adjustment." That is, under God, the Father of all sentient beings, and Supreme