you, and has gone to prepare a place for you, and will come again, and take you to himself. For a real belief is not some mere opinion, this way or that, in the mind. It is the whole set and purpose of the life and soul; so you can say, "I never taught in the streets in thy name;" but he will say, "You taught the freedman, or sent a teacher to do it." You can deny that you ever cast out devils; but he will say, "Don't you remember that man you picked up out of the gutter, and how you held on to him until he sat clothed and in his right mind? Ye did it unto the least of mine; ye did it to me."

But then it would be a very great mistake to claim that a man, living such a life, and disclaiming Christian ideas and convictions for what he was, and what he was doing, was, therefore, an independent vine of himself; owed nothing to the sap that flows forever from that inexhaustible stock in these Christian lands, and was the growth of a plant whose seed was altogether in itself. It is indeed seldom that this is so.

When a man lives a noble life, thinks great thoughts, does great things, shames Christian men by the intrinsic beauty and grace of his life,

and yet disclaims connection with the Christian stock, I want to know how he has come into life; and, if he is the son of an unbroken succession of Christian ministers and men running directly through many generations, I say, then, that goes a long way to account for it. You are not a graft, but a natural branch of the great vine. It is true that you are able to live isolated from the special Christian line in the world to-day, but it is very doubtful indeed whether you could have done so well if your fathers had not lived in the Christian church of yesterday. And if a man in my city says to me, "I do not care for churches and worship; I can worship at home;" and then goes on to tell me how his good old father, the deacon, used to go to church in New England, I feel like saying, "My friend, your father, the deacon, I suppose, left you very little money, but he left you a grand legacy of thought and feeling, that reaches up to heaven, and belongs there. The truth is, you are a birthright member of the Christian church. Away back you reach into the true vine. Now you have made your little legacy of money into a fortune, and may the Lord make you the hap pier for every dollar you are worth. But tell me

now, how is it about that other legacy? Are you merely using up the interest of that, or are you dipping into the principal? Is the way you are living likely to end in your children's having such a treasure of the thought and feeling that ennoble the soul as you had, or, in giving them more money, will you give them less grace? Nay, man, make it a personal matter. Tell me what your home worship is doing for the world's salvation, what good fruit comes from it, and then I will tell you exactly what it is worth. For, if it bring the good fruits of the spirit and life that always come of any genuine worship of God whatever, your course is the next best to that of plunging heart and soul into some real Christian church and movement, such as would best answer to your longing and the world's welfare. But if in your isolation you bear no such fruit, and are aware of an ever-slackening endeavor to do anything noble and good, then, I do not doubt that you are still a branch of the great vine; but every branch that beareth nct fruit, He taketh away."

But with these illustrations of what a far-reaching influence this of Christ is to us all, and in

the most direct way, and what a strict account it holds with every branch on the stem, I say fearlessly, that this one test is the true test, and there is no other of union with Christ, or how I may know and prove it. I bear fruit, or I do not bear fruit; it is good, or it is not good. When that one thing is made clear, the problem is solved so far as I am concerned. Wherever you find a man bearing good fruit, there, whether he may know it or not, in a direct personal way, you find a man united to Jesus Christ, a true branch of the true vine. I care not what you call him.

And so it is once more, that just as on the vine there is a vast complicated, yet perfect inter-action of one branch on another, as no one branch can possibly exist for itself, but draws in the sunlight to send it down and through the whole vine, sharing what it has got with the others, and sharing what they have got, giving them strength, and getting strength from them; a separate branch in every way, and yet in every way a part of the whole vine, so all these great churches, interests, and influences we call Chris tian, and know to be such, blend beautifully

under all their differences and make the perfect whole. It is like what I experienced in Paris once. I wanted to hear Coquerel, the great French preacher, or at least to see his face, so I went with a brother preacher to his church. We found he was not to be there, and it was not church time. But groping along a dark passage in the basement of the building in the direction of some sounds, we came at last to a door, which opened right into a Sunday school, of at least four hundred children. We sat down quietly during the lesson. I did not understand a word they said. When it was over, they prepared to sing. The superintendent gave the hymn. I was still in the dark, until all at once the whole school burst out into one of the most familiar melodies we use in our own Sunday school, one I had heard in Unity Church a hundred times, and then I seemed to understand all about it. It was like that old Pentecost, long ago, when the Spirit came down, and every man heard the disciples talking in his own tongue. So we say our own words in our own tongue, and are very careful not to get mixed up with others that are saying other words in other tongues, and we hardly understand each