others to a far greater extent than he himself is the least aware of.  But what power will develop this force?  What power, we reply, in the universe is so fitted to do so, and to bring out of a man all that is in him, and to direct all the force of his being to worthy and ennobling objects, as the power of a living Christianity?  If the love of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, understood, believed, felt, does not kindle all the love in a man’s heart, and fire it with all the enthusiasm, and inspire it with all the bravery of self-sacrifice, and nerve it with all the indomitable perseverance of which it is capable, then we know nothing else which can do this, or anything like this.  Christianity has not become effete!  It is still the “power of God and the wisdom of God.”  It is still mighty in pulling down strongholds.  It can still convert “the elements we have to work upon” into instruments of righteousness, and “make the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;” and “the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and the base things of the world, and things that are despised, and things that are not, to bring to nought the things that are.”  But we must have real, living, and undying faith in Christ’s life and power to do this, and be earnest in personal and social prayer; and then only will we be able to judge as to the capabilities of “the elements we have to work upon.”

There is no department of congregational work in which the personal ministration of the individual members is more required than in its Home Mission.  The sphere of this mission must necessarily be a district in which the members of the congregation can labour.  We may assume that there is no district even in this Christian land in which are not to be found a number who require to be instructed in the gospel, and brought into the fellowship of the Christian Church, as well as a number who require to be ministered to in private owing to the infirmities of their bodies, the bereavements in their households, or other necessity of supplying their temporal or spiritual wants.  In large cities not only does each district inhabited by the poorer classes abound in what has been termed a “home heathenism;” but this population is so fluctuating from month to month, that a more extended and vigorous agency is required to make use of the brief opportunity given us for doing it any good.

Now, one thing we hold as settled by the whole design of Christianity, and amply confirmed by daily experience and observation of human nature, and that is, that to seek and save the lost, a living agency is absolutely necessary.  Religious tracts alone won’t do.  Far be it from us to write in an apparently slighting manner of what we so greatly value as good tracts, when we can find them.  But, on the other hand, let us beware of exaggerating the power of such an agency, or demanding impossibilities from it.  A great number in our large cities and