the churches to which the converts are made over, and do not always appear in a form most adapted to excite hope and encourage additional labors. Every instance of success under circumstances of difficulty and discouragement ought to be hailed as a signal triumph of the Gospel. To pluck one such brand from the burning, to rescue one such outcast reprobate family, to impress upon it the lineaments of virtue and humanity, and give to its coming generations a heavenward tendency, should be esteemed a good reward for the toils and sacrifices of years. Scanty, however, as may be the successes of the city missionary among the adults whom former neglect and former miscarriages have bequeathed to his sympathies and his faithfulness, they are yet very great and encouraging in comparison with those of the missionary to the heathen. In those distant, blighted fields, it is no unusual thing to labor through painful years before a single convert is made. Let the home laborer think of this and be strengthened. He is permitted to dwell among his own people, and to enjoy, in the sympathy and communion of the Churches, the most precious solace and support which Christ provides for his servants here on earth.

In city evangelization, however, as in every other wise plan for saving souls, our chief hope is with the young children, who are emphatically the heritage of the Lord. In patient efforts to train them to intelligence and purity lies the chief hope of the Gospel-a hope that will not be disappointed. Labor to save the children of the impenitent and the profligate, and you can not labor in vain. If the parents will not be saved, ply their children with every Christian art and blandishment. Seduce them with the voice of the charmer. Take them with guile. Draw them to the haunts of holy pleasure and divine pastimes. You will insure a great triumph by such a course of policy. Ply the Sunday-school machinery incessantly and strenuously, year in and year out. Scour every barn, and hovel, and garret. Send your spies

into all the borders of the Canaanite. Rescue the innocents who are about to be made to pass through the fire to Moloch, and bring them to Jesus, that he may lay his hands upon them, and bless them. These are the true tactics of the Church, and this the true method of procedure for those who would be wise to win souls.

I claim for the theory I am so earnestly recommending apostolical authority-a great thing nowadays-and a thoroughly evangelical spirit, but I lay no claim to original discovery. It has often been tried, and always with success. From a Report of the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, which has been placed in my hands, I learn that the line of evangelical effort I have recommended is precisely that in which this Church and congregation had their origin. If I rightly comprehend the statement, this good work was begun by a zealous man, who started a Sunday-school with four poor children in an old brewery. Out of that old brewery and that handful of children have come up, not without much patience, and prayer, and discouragement, and many sacrifices and tears, this commodious Church and respectable congregation. See what God hath wrought—ay, and see, too, His way of working, and learn from his own operations how He means to work, and what must be the mode and measure of your co-operation if you would become successful coworkers with Him.

We are led at last to the special objects of this evening's assemblage. The people who worship here have toiled for years to plant a Church in this neighborhood as a home for their Sunday-school and their meetings for worship—a sort of garrison where they may congregate for both defense and aggression-a strong-hold into which they may fetch their prey for safe preservation. They have been, as I am told, very zealous for the Lord of Hosts in this matter, and while they have drawn liberally upon their own means and efforts to erect and sustain this Church, they have likewise drawn

upon faith, and contracted a debt which they honored God and their brethren enough to believe they should be helped to pay. God has already helped them much, and to-night they come before this assembly to ask for an instalment of what it has never been doubted they would receive from your liberality.

My time has expired, and none is left for framing an argument on the subject; but I venture to suggest to the citizens of New York here present, that they had better contribute to build churches than be taxed to support penitentiaries. They will find it more economical, in the long run, to pay something freely for training up the children of the poor to honesty and religion in the Sunday-school, than to support a House of Refuge for them, with its train of superintendents, physicians, and guardsmen-all to give the hopeful vagabonds such an initiation into life as may fit them in maturer years to occupy the penitentiary with a due grace-a consummation to which every body knows that municipal charities have a very direct tendency. To all my Christian auditors I appeal in consecrated words: "Bear ye one another's burdens." These brethren have been zealous for God, and have brought serious pecuniary burdens upon themselves. I think them entitled to both sympathy and aid; and I think the lovers of God in the neighborhood ought to deal considerately by them-liberally, I mean—as those who feel a common interest in the enterprise.

I wish to say to the brethren themselves that I trust they are not sorry either for what they have given, or done, or pledged to this work. In the first place, God helps those who toil for His cause. This is a guaranty of prosperity. Your cause, being God's cause, is as likely to prosper as any other. These one or two hundred Christian men and women, who think they can do, and who resolve to do something for religion, can do it. It is a great matter to have people engaged in such an enterprise who have a mind to work—

who consider the cause of God about as much a concern of theirs as their childrens' food or clothing. Such people, when they say, "Give us this day our daily bread," mean, also, give us the means to support the Gospel among us, and that implies a great power and resource. It makes God a partner in the enterprise, and such a firm must prosper.

XXXVI.

CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS, OR THE FATE OF ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA.

Will a man rob God?-MALACHI, iii., 8.

THE brief but tragic history in the beginning of the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains, and was designed to inculcate, lessons of great practical importance, which are too frequently overlooked by the Church. The perusal of this portion of Holy Scripture never fails to fill the mind of a child with strong emotions. I can well remember the mingled awe and wonder with which, in my early days, I was wont to meditate on the fate of Ananias and Sapphira; and to the present moment I can never read this terrible narrative without a feeling with which no other portion of the New Testament inspires me. No doubt this scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness, and will reward the humble inquirer with practical suggestions of great moment.

What, then, was the grievous offense for which these guilty disciples were cut off at a stroke, and doomed to imperishable ignominy throughout all the succeeding ages of the Church? They had voluntarily pledged a portion of their property ("a possession") to the promotion of the cause of Christ, and declined to fulfill the obligation (“kept back a part of the price"). This constituted the whole offense. The falsehood, which became necessary in consummating the fraud, was not a distinct crime. Its guilt had already been incurred in the

deliberate purpose to do wrong, when "Satan filled their hearts to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price." If this is all, why, I am asked, was a retribution so fearful visited upon an offense usually esteemed so slight? We ought not, perhaps, to consider the punishment of these offenders as peculiarly severe. It was marked and signal, in order that it might be memorable. An impressive example seems to have been necessary, in order to guard the infant Church from demoralization, and as a perpetual warning to Christians of all ages to beware of a sin to which the hearts of men are strongly, because constitutionally disposed. Still we are to remember that the death of the body does not rank high in the scale of Divine retribution; and we ought rather to "fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The sin of Ananias was, no one can doubt, often repeated in the primitive Church, and it is nowadays frightfully prevalent, yet we hear of no other such terrible and visible display of God's displeasure. Like other transgressions, this is now left to follow the general principle of the Divine administration, and to find its reward in the retributions of eternity. One signal instance, however, is enough to admonish us of the utter abhorrence in which God holds this offense against his sacred claims and dignity, and we are at liberty to inquire in what its peculiar enormity may be supposed to consist.

1. It conflicts with the essential arrangements of the Gospel, and would render its diffusion throughout the world impossible. God has pleased-we need not stop to inquire for what reasons-to make the propagation of true religion dependent upon the voluntary efforts and offerings of His people. He calls the preacher, but "how can he preach except he be sent?" Few, comparatively, need be apostles or missionaries, in the proper sense of those terms, but multitudes must co-operate in their support and maintenance. The kingdom of Christ must triumph by the diffusion of Bibles, by