Repairing the Broken Altar
"AND Elijah . . . repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down." A revival in God's cause commonly begins by repairing the damages of the declension which make the revival a necessity. If there is coldness in a church, its best cure is not through looking up new converts, but through stirring up old members. A dead-and-alive prayer-meeting calls rather for more praying by the "saints," than for more "sinners" asking to be prayed for. If a Sunday-school lacks life, it is more likely to get it through fresh attention to the teachers' meeting, than through an influx of new scholars. As a rule, there would be a larger gain to any local church by the revival of ten of its members to do their full duty in zeal and faith, than by the addition of one hundred members of the average standard of practical efficiency. If any one of us would do the work of Elijah in our Israel, let him take hold, to begin with, and repair the altar of the Lord that is crumbling from neglect before the eyes of God's people.