678 THE KING’S. BUSINESS watch during the hours of the night and assist in rounding up inmates from disreputable houses. They appear as prosecutors and witnesses before grand and petit juries in the Quarter Sessions Court. Billiard and pool tables are being installed, dancing classes are organized, and all sorts of amusements offered to entice the youth within its sacred precincts. A child returning home from Sunday School recently'was asked by its mother the subject of the es- son. It was how to keep the streets clean. Another Sunday, kindness to dumb animals furnished the subject of the lesson, and this was in a graded Sunday School up to date. (The reference here is doubtless to a lesson put out in the Presbyterian papers, possibly in other papers too, in which the central les son that was drawn from the parable of the Good Shepherd was kindness to animals.’ Whoever prepared the lesson showed a remarkable blindness tq the true meaning of the passage and to the true purpose of child training in bun- day Schools.) A good woman who had suffered greatly with a recent sorrow brought herself to church longing for some comforting word. She heard a sermon on ‘the Charity Organization Society and the Visiting Nurse. He “ As we view it, the Church by thus allying itself with secular movements is endeavoring to cure the evils of the social life by a species of legalism, striving to purify the sinful nature of man. by attacking the outside, forgetting that crimes and violations of law are the external marks only of an inward demorali zation and rottenness of the heart. The root of the evil in the world isi in the human heart, and to redeem the world the inner spiritual nature must be first purified. The crime committed is the fruit of sin in the heart. You'may pun ish the criminal for violating the law, but that does not cure the sinful heart. The Christian minister has to do with sin, not with crime. When, therefore, he allies himself with the officers of the law in arresting criminals, he is depart ing from his proper function and weakening his power and ability tp cure the sin in the heart.” . In his protest the writer goes on to say, and say not only with much torce, but alas, with much truth: . , “ Ministers 6f the Gospel are willing to preach on every subject under the sun except the Gospel, and when they begrudgingly hand it down they almost tell us it is not divine, but a man-made thing. They have relegated to the rubbish-heap most of the sacred beliefs, such as the miracles, original sin, t e vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ, the efficacy of baptism and the Holy Communion, and many of them even deny the validity of their own divine office as ministers of God. They prefer to hold their office from the people, not of God. All comes from man, nothing from God. Perhaps this is the reason so many ministers look down on empty pews and complain bitterly that their members do not come to hear the sermons prepared with so much labor.
One is appalled as he reads of how much the present war has already cost, and contemplates how much more it must cost before the war ends. Who is going to pay for it? The people, of course, and principally
Footing the Bill.
the people at war, but all nations, even those that have tried to be neutral will have to pay part of the bill. How long will it take to pay ? Centuries. How ever the war issues, what is there to be gained by it ? _Absolutely nothing. Man is prone to madness, but it is questionable if there is any other form of mad-
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