*An extract from a pamphlet entitled, " Christ and the Church," published by Loizeaux Brothers, 63 Fourth Avenue, New York. Price, 8 cents.*

The last view we have of the Church in Scripture is where her attitude and desire as the bride of Christ are expressed in those memorable words, " The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Rev. 22:17.) Assuming that it is to Christ, the Bridegroom, that the first invitation is addressed (and to whom should the bride say, "Come," but to the Bridegroom?) what a view does this passage afford us of the proper attitude and desire and hope of the Church! As actuated by the Spirit, she cries to her Lord and Bridegroom, "Come," She calls on any who may hear-individual saints, really part of the Church, but not knowing as yet the Church position and relationship-to join in the cry. But then, as already indwelt by the Spirit, and set to testify the grace of her absent Lord, she invites any who are athirst-yea, and whosoever will, to come to those waters of life and refreshing which flow so freely from the Head, through the members, to any poor thirsty souls who may be drawn to Jesus by the ministry of reconciliation with which she has been intrusted. The Church as here presented has but one object-Christ. Whether she invites Him to come, or invites poor parched and thirsty souls to come to Him, He, He alone, is her object. But this may well lead us to consider, a little more minutely and attentively, the responsibilities of the Church connected with and flowing from all that has now been passing under review. The Lord grant us a lowly spirit and a tender conscience in turning to this practical view of the subject.

One remark it may be requisite to make, to prevent misapprehension. While it is impossible that any but those who are vitally united to Christ, as His body, by the Holy Ghost, should live and walk as becometh the Church, the responsibility to walk thus may be shared, and is shared, by all who profess to be the Church. None but those who have really been quickened and raised up together with Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him, can manifest the heavenly spirit and walk suited to such a position. But then this is the position of all true Christians; and whole nations, alas ! profess to be such, and thus place themselves under responsibility to live and act according to this profession. How unspeakably solemn, in this point of view, is the present state of the professing world-of what is popularly designated ''Christendom"! As to all who really compose the Church, the fact of their being a part of it,-that is, of their being one body and one spirit with Christ, makes their final salvation sure; still, what cause for shame and humiliation and self-reproach have all such, that there should be such a total failure to manifest the real place and portion and character and object of the Church ! It is not as being less guilty than one's brethren that one ventures to give expression to such thoughts. Far from it. But is it not our place to ask ourselves-the place of all who really know the Saviour-Are we fulfilling the end for which we have been called of God into such nearness to Himself ?

What is the first great responsibility of the Church? Surely it is to keep herself for Christ! Is she not betrothed to Him as His bride ? Has He not loved her, and given Himself for her, that He might present her to Himself, a glorious Church, unspotted, and without wrinkle or blemish ? When and where is this presentation to take place? Where is the One to whom she is betrothed-the One who has loved her, and washed her in His own blood ? Ah, He is not here, but in heaven. Rejected by the earth, the right hand of God is where He waits, till His enemies are made His footstool. But is it only for the subjugation of His foes that He waits ? No ; He has gone to prepare a place for His Church, His bride; and He waits for the moment when He is to present her to Himself unblemished and complete. " Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me." Is such the language of our Lord? Enthroned above all height, the object of heaven's deepest homage, His heart still yearns to have with Him and beside Him, in the glory, the Church that He has purchased with His blood! And what is the response, my brethren, which He receives from us? Heaven, where He is owned and worshiped, suffices not for Him till we are there, to behold His glory and share His blessedness. But does it not often seem as though earth would satisfy us ? Stained though it be with the blood of Jesus, characterized though it be, to this hour, by the haughty, scornful rejection of His claims, the contemptuous neglect of His dying love-how do our treacherous hearts still linger amid its delusive scenes! What a fearful power there is in its false glitter and glory to arrest our attention and to detain our hearts ! Alas ! for us, to make such returns to our heavenly Bridegroom for all His self-consuming, self-sacrificing love to us !

What is the Church's place? How the Holy Ghost provides an answer to this question in the yearnings of the heart of the apostle over the saints at Corinth, who had been the fruit of his ministry and the seal of his apostleship !-" For I, am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2.) Could any language more touchingly express the deep, devoted, single-hearted affection for Christ, and weanedness from all else, which constitute the only fitting response to the love wherewith He has loved the Church in espousing her thus to Himself ? Ought even a converted world, if He were not personally present in it, to satisfy the heart of the one who is thus espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ ? How do the laborious efforts, even of sincere, devoted Christians, to show that what is before us is a spiritual millennium, without Christ's personal presence, make manifest the condition into which the Church has sunk! Can any thing but her Lord's presence satisfy the heart of the faithful spouse ? Then see the effect of this our departure in heart from the true scriptural hope of the Church as the spouse or bride of Christ. Adopting for our object, as the Church at large has done, the rectification of the world in the absence of its rightful Ruler and our Lord and Bridegroom, we naturally avail ourselves of all the means and influences within reach to bear upon our object; and hence the strange-the anomalous sight of the professed bride of an earth-rejected Lord possessing, using, and seeking still further to possess and use, the appliances of worldly rank and authority and wealth and learning and popular influence, to hasten on, as is affirmed, the epoch of the world's regeneration. The Church forgets her own calling-to wait as a widowed stranger in the world whence her Lord has been rejected, and where He is still dishonored and disowned ; and soon, instead of thus keeping herself for Him, she is found in guilty dalliance with the world whose hands are yet stained with His blood! "She proposes, indeed, to convert the world; but it is the world that has converted her. To comfort her and sustain her heart amid rejection by the world, her absent Lord assures her that when He reigns she shall reign with Him-that when He triumphs she shall share His triumph. But alas ! the world holds out the bait of present power, present influence, present glory,-yea, and consents to adopt Christ's name, and allow, and even patronize, an outward, superficial regard for that name, as an inducement to the Church to enter into the unholy compact. And has she accepted the unhallowed proposals? My brethren, has she not? We know that the false church says, (and, alas! to what an extent the true is mingled with the false !) " I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Let us never forget that it was in the true Church the mystery of iniquity began to work ; and how soon it had assumed this character of self-glorification and living deliciously, contented and at rest in the present state of things! " Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us ; and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you." (i Cor. 4:8.) That is, the apostle longed for the time to come when, as saints, they should really reign with Christ; for then, he knew, he should reign with them. But until then, he was content with his Master's portion here. And if at so early a period he could say to the Corinthians, with how much more emphasis might he now have said to us, " For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death:for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong ; ye are honorable, but we are despised "! If, my brethren, he could institute such a contrast then, between the results of faithfulness to Christ in himself and the other apostles, and the commencing indications of departure from Christ in the worldliness of the Corinthian saints, what could he have said to us in the present day? Who so realized as the apostle Paul what the true place of the Church is, in fellowship and union with Christ ? And what was the present result in his earthly condition ? " Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place ; and labor, working with our own hands ; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat:we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." If the opposite of all this among the Corinthians called forth from the apostle such a pathetic warning- " I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you,"-what must he have said to us, I would again inquire, in the present day? If these things were not written to shame them, they surely do shame us! The tide of worldliness which then was setting in has since rolled on with such resistless force-it has so swept away all the old landmarks, and effaced every vestige of the Church's separation from the world-that now, saints are diligently taught to use every lawful effort to improve their circumstances, and raise themselves in the social scale; while he is deemed the best Christian who seems to approach the nearest to the practically giving Him the lie who has said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."W.T.