A Church’s Spiritual Decline
A CHURCH that never sends a son into the ministry, and never prays or cares about an increase in the number of ministers, may expect to be left in the course of time either without a pastor, or to one whose ministry is barren. A church which has never learned to worship God with its money, and does not regularly contribute to carry on the work of the Lord in the home and in the foreign field, may expect that its light, which, like all other lights, can only shine as it consumes, will go out in darkness. A church that neglects discipline, and allows offences to go unrebuked, may expect this cancer will eat away its life. A church that allows its prayer-meeting to go down, because its officers and members are averse to praying in public, may consider itself in a spiritual consumption, with its right lung already gone. A church that loses all fervor of desire and effort and prayer, not only for the instruction, but also for the conversion of her children, and of the poor and ignorant, and for those out of the way in its immediate locality, may expect to be found in the next generation frozen to death.—Southern Presbyterian.