We hear a great deal spoken nowadays of the want of religion in the churches. The press never ceases to hurl the accusation against us that all life is dying out of every Christian denomination; that we require sensational preachers to fill our pews, and absurdly grotesque titles to their sermons; that the dear, blessed, old-time religion is not sufficient to save souls; that we must be remodeled, some of our so-called effete superstition done away with, and in a placid, nineteenth century manner, reclining in our luxurious armchairs, think about our duties as Christians! As long as we contribute to the cause of Christ in all the various channels (and if we are rich we won't feel that much), and on Sunday make our appearance with our families at morning service, and perhaps when we have a leisure evening we make our appearance at prayer-meeting, and offer up a soulless petition because we fancy it is expected of us, we imagine we have done our full duty. O members of churches of the present day, it is just such conduct as this that makes religion, to use a Scripture phrase, awful in its significance, "stink in the nostrils" of the world now! The devil loves Christians of this type. They do no harm to his kingdom, and if they save their own souls it is all they do. They go to their Master empty handed at the last great day! But do they save their own souls? That is the question. We read in the Scriptures, "The kingdom of Heaven suffereth by violence, and the violent take it by force." That means, surely, earnestness on our part if we hope to win the blessing. The power of the Holy Ghost is not going to come into a church that is half dead, whose members pray at the weekly prayer-meeting like so many parrots, and with little more feeling. Can such prayers as these reach the Almighty and bring down the blessing? Instead, they only serve to clog more the feelings of the man or woman who utters them. If we cannot, like Jacob, wrestle with God in heart-felt earnestness, and feel alone with Him though even in a crowd, then do not let us pray at all; and if we spent more time on our knees, in our closets, and never attempted to pray in public till we felt we could not help it, that the Holy Ghost was urging us on, THEN, brethren, the blessing would come, the revival would begin, and the churches would live again. Religion, we are told by the scoffers of the present day, has become a mere machinery, and this reproach, to a great extent, has become true. Where is the fire of the magnificent days of Wesley? Where the strength of the thunders of Luther? What would that great reformer say, could he visit the Protestant churches of every denomination now? "Is this the babe, for which I suffered," he would say, "this boneless, puny thing? Did I wage war with the Titians of Roman Catholicism to bring the world to this? Where is the spirit of the men who fought, bled, and died for the church. Have their sons lost all the fire, that there is little or no earnestness among the people of God?" O for some of that laughed-at enthusiasm, that spirit the world calls fanaticism! Let us have one such enthusiast, one such fanatic in a church, and he would kindle life in the others. One man who would not care if he were called a fool for the Lord's sake, but putting his hand to the plough would heave up the dead bones, and make them cry aloud to the Lord once more. What a comfort he would be to the minister who sees no reward of his ministry, whose heart is well nigh fainting at the barrenness round him.—Christian at Work.