266 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



minds of us all than we think. I can imagine a far 

 better club than one formed and framed on this princi- 

 ple, but it is difficult for me to imagine a worse coun- 

 terfeit of a church. Others make it a source of intel- 

 lectual delectation, and the means of hearing one or 

 two striking sermons each week. Such a church will 

 conduce to the intelligence of its members, and may 

 be rather more, though probably less, useful than the 

 old New England Lyceum lecture system. Such a 

 church is of about as much practical value to the 

 world at large as some consultations of physicians are 

 to their patients. The doctors have a most interesting 

 discussion, but the patient dies, and the nature of the 

 disease is discovered at the autopsy. Others still 

 would make of the church a great railroad system, over 

 which sleeping-cars run from the City of Destruction, 

 with a coupon good to admit one to the Golden City 

 at the other end. The coaches are luxurious and the 

 road-bed smooth. The Slough of Despond has been 

 filled, the Valley of Humiliation bridged at its nar- 

 rowest point, and the Delectable Mountains tunnelled. 

 But scoffers say that most of the passengers make full 

 use of the unlimited stop-over privileges allowed at 

 Yanity Fair. 



The Bible would seem to give the impression that 

 the church is the army of the Lord of Hosts, a dis- 

 ciplined army of hardy, heroic souls, each soldier aid- 

 ing his fellow in working out the salvation which God 

 is working in him. And it joins battle fiercely and 

 fearlessly with every form of sin and misery, counting 

 not the odds against it. And the Salvation Army 

 seems to me to have conceived and realized to a great 

 extent just what at least one corps in this grand army 



