"The children are the hope of the church." There is a sense in which this saying is true, but also another sense in which it is not true. The children constitute the material from which the church of the future must be constructed. But natural increase is not the law of growth in the Church of Christ. If any sect or body of believers has lost its youthful vitality and the true spiritual generative power which springs from the love of God in the heart, then it may indeed be without a future except in its children. Then it may have to depend for growth upon baptismal regeneration, on the efficacy of sacraments, on the supposed generative power of the visible church, on traditional faith, the power of habit, social and filial attachments, etc., instead of Christ, Christianity, a sanctified ministry, and a working laity. "Without me ye can do nothing," says the Lord Jesus Christ. In him is the hope of the church. Nothing less than divine life and power will suffice—power that comes as it came on the apostles—a holy enthusiasm, a divine afflatus, and an overmastering passion for souls. By these "signs we should conquer" the world for Christ, and shall have the children in the bargain.—Evangelical Messenger.