inevitable dissipation of thought and strength for children who are working up to the fullest measure of their powers in their school life; why do your boys lounge unrestrained about the grocery store in the evening, and your girls saunter unattended on the business streets? Is it because this freedom from restraint is really best for them, or rather because it is for you an easy substitute for giving them in their home life, their sports and their joys, the thought and the companionship which are their due? You are absorbed in your mill or your store, and have not time or inclination to share their hours of leisure, or to plan their proper recreations, and so you turn them off to that of a less innocent kind which the more attentive world spreads before their restless feet. open question whether one amusement or It may be an another is prop er for a child; there can be no question as to what the effect is of the loosening of the family ties, and the diminishing of the influence of the home. As I stand before the children in the Sabbath School, as I meet them on the street, I can tell almost without an exception to what family they belong, by the look in the face, the contour of the cheek, the expression of the eye; but how many of your children bear with equal clearness the stamp of the Christian character of their father and mother; how many of them carry the clear impress of a Christian home? The public school stamps them, the Sunday school possibly does, their companions certainly do; but how about the religious influence of the home? Alas, too few homes have any religious influence. You look for it in vain in many children, as they appear on the street, or even in the Sabbath school class. Here, dear friends, I believe lies your first duty. Make more of religion in the family. Make it attractive, but above all make it real: cultivate the grace of God in your own hearts, that you may cultivate it in the hearts of your children. Gather your children about you in worship, in study, in familiar converse upon religious themes; establish them in clear understanding and in settled principles. Draw them out one by one, learn their temptations and their needs, that you may bring them to Christ. Make a sweet, pure atmosphere of truth and holiness and the presence of God in your homes. Let your home be before all else your own and your children's sanctuary. Do this and there will not be so many sad hearts over boys and girls gone beyond parental control, estranged from the church, from home, and from God. You feel the danger, you seek to provide against it; let me warn you that it is not to be accomplished by the easy road of wider liberty and free indulgence. The world will distance you in that contest. It tempts your son with strong drink, the billiard saloon, the gambling table, vicious imaginings, evil companions and sensuality; and your daughters, with worldliness, frivolity, coarseness and suggestions of evil: you cannot meet the temptation by offering milder forms of similar indulgence. Unlimited beer, for example, is no antidote against whisky. You must meet the allurements of the world with the influence of a loving attractive home. You must set established principle over against temptation, the love of Christ over against the indulgence of self. There is no safety except in character; and character ought to be the invariable product of a strong home life. I rejoice to know that there are many such homes among us, where God's honor dwells, and where the favor of God is the strongest motive of action. But, dear friends, we all ought to have higher ideals of the family life, and strive more to exalt it. Religion as it is presented there dominates all other influences. We must magnify also the duty of edification. We must give more thought and care to growing ourselves, and to helping one another to grow in Christian attainments. We must make more of systematic training for doing God's work. We must change the position of Bible study, from being the occupation of an idle hour, or the duty of a few Sabbath school teachers, to being the essential means of grace for every believer. More use must be made of the various gifts God has bestowed. One can speak, another can teach, another pray, another sing; these gifts must be consecrated to the general good. All must feel that you have some influence and some respon-ibility for the Christian growth of the church. You can do much to make the life and the services of the church attractive, to make the church for every member a true home. Cordial greetings, hand shakings, good music, crowded prayer meetings, the attendance of our own people at the evening service and in the Sunday school, all these have a value beyond the personal one; they bear upon the life of the church; they tend to make the church in a larger way what I have been exhorting you to make your homes. I rejoice that so many of you recognize this to a degree in the simplicity of your accustomed dress on the Sabbath. Thus you make it easier for all to feel at home, and to forget social distinctions in the house of God. I want to thank you for this thoughtfulness. Many a stranger tells me, also, how much your kindly visits have done to bind them to the church. These things are direct contributions to our common life. I rejoice, also, that of late the church is assigning so much larger place to its officers and expecting so much more of them. Paul exhorts the elders of the church to "take heed to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers," and Peter charges the elders to "feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof." The minister passes away, the officers of the church remain. They represent its continued life. More responsibility should be put upon them; they should be expected to have a larger part in its training and growth. Moses, you remember, was directed to "provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness," and to place them over the people. In the same spirit, in the New Testament, honor is set upon officeholding in the church. It is no sinecure. It means watchfulness, courage, selfdenial, devotion, "for they that use the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Permitted thus to serve others they get large blessings for themselves. God has given us all a great privilege in being members one of another in this body of Christ. We cannot set too high a value upon the purity, peace, fellowship, training and hearty brotherly love of the church. Reviewing the past, and asking the duty for the future, I believe that the time has also come for the greater exaltation of personal religion. Christians must examine themselves more carefully by the standard of Jesus. There is demand 'for less conformity to the world and more transformation to Christ. You must make character the test of faith. Are you cultivating conscience? Are you controlling your tongue? Are you gentle in your judgments? Are you honorable in your dealings? Are you watchful of your influence, eager for the welfare of others, jealous of the honor of God, and, in your private life, prayerful, pure in thought, self-controlled, growing in likeness to Christ? These are the tests by which we must judge the quality of our professions. I believe that God has a large future for our beloved church. The blessings of the past are an earnest of those yet to come. But, dear friends, we have so many now that we may well tremble at the thought that we shall have to give an account of them. Missionary work, and the conversion of other souls, is the reward of true discipleship. God grant that we may be so faithful as to be permitted that honor. It will only come when you regard the injunction, and first taking heed to yourselves, nourish and feed the flock of God. I long to say something of myself, of the delight of my ministry, of you as my hope and joy and crown of rejoicing; but that cannot be spoken now; it must be |