"I was just thinking," he replied, "of the little town of Montford, up here, which has four church edifices and not a single minister."

"Yes," said I; "and there is Plum Orchard, just beyond Montford, which contains three ambitious-looking church edifices, with a poor minister in each,- very poor, I may say, in more than one sense. In Montford, sectarian zeal has actually exhausted all of the available means of Christian effort, and, so far as I can learn, the town has not for years been the scene of the slightest Christian progress. There are four flocks there without a shepherd. Plum Orchard contains twelve hundred inhabitants. Half of these do not attend church at all, partly because they have become disgusted with the sectarian strifes that have prevailed among the churches, but mostly because the preachers (poor men!) have no power over them. Of the remaining half, a moiety attend church in a thriving manufacturing village two miles distant, and three hundred are left to fight out the bootless battle, which keeps three inefficient leaders in commission, and does good to no one. Only the first case is an extreme one. Similar cases are found everywhere. Now, Mr. Dunn, do you blame an unbelieving business world for laughing and scoffing at a spectacle like this?”

"Very bad, very bad!" sighed my minister, with a sad face and shake of the head.

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Now, sir," I resumed, "I am not going to say that this is not right, for I pretend to take nothing deeper than a business view of it. I am not going to say that it is not just as the Head of the Church would have it; but I must say, very decidedly, that, viewed in its business aspect, it is the most foolish, the most inexcusable, the most preposterous profligacy. The whole world cannot illustrate such another instance of the squandering of precious means by organized bands of sane business men. I say this in view of the fact which, in courtesy, I am bound to admit, that it is all done. conscientiously, and for the simple purpose of pushing for

ward, in the most efficient manner, the Christian enterprise."

"We must have charity, sir," said Mr. Dunn, in a wounded tone.

Charity!" I responded somewhat warmly, for I saw that he had not fully comprehended my meaning; "what has charity to do with it? I have impugned no man's motives. I am simply criticising a business operation. Let me illustrate. Suppose that I have a business which extends throughout this State. I have an article to dispose of which should be in the hands of every man within its limits. I cannot visit every town and every man myself; therefore, I must avail myself of a system of offices and agencies. Proper agents being scarce, it becomes necessary for me to economize. What, therefore, shall be my policy? Evidently so to apportion my offices and agents as to bring the commodity I have to dispose of within the reach of all, if possible, of the largest possible number, at least. I hold my agents strictly responsible to me for the manner in which they do my work. I require of them all to hold up their hands and swear to do it faithfully and well; not striving for precedence or monopoly, not seeking their own aggrandizement, but laboring directly to forward my interests and advance my enterprise. This is a plain business operation; and, stripping the Christian enterprise of everything foreign to its business element, I place it by the side of that enterprise as a just standard by which to judge it. Jesus Christ has something to dispose of to every individual of the human race. In order to bring it to the knowledge of every individual, he has established a system of offices and agencies, and committed the work of extending them over the world to his people. He requires of every agent that he shall devote himself, with a single purpose, to the forwarding of his great enterprise, the conversion of the world. But his agencies, after the lapse of more than eighteen hundred years, have been established only upon a small portion

of the territory, and difficulties seem to clog the path of their further progress. We find his followers, all of whom profess a supreme wish to forward his enterprise, disagreeing upon some of the minor and non-essential details of the business, dividing themselves, and using up the money which he has committed to them in building a multitude of splendid and often rival offices, and retaining in each an agent, while a large portion of the field is entirely unprovided for. Shut up within the walls of a small partisanship, they seem to have lost sight of the great enterprise to which they have committed themselves; or, if they sometimes think of it, it is with a piteous lamentation over the hinderance of a cause in the way of which they have placed every possible business obstruction."

"We must have charity," reiterated Mr. Dunn, moving uneasily in his chair.

"Now, my good sir," I rejoined, "as you are determined to make me a censor of motives, rather than a critic of policy, I will not have the name without the game, — you know the old saying. So, when I say that the business part of the Christian enterprise is badly managed, I will say that, if a business of mine were managed thus, I should come to the conclusion that my agents care more for themselves than they do for my business."

"I saw where you was coming," replied Mr. Dunn, with his kind smile, for he was determined to make a sort of enemy of me before he could be complacent.

"Well, sir, you brought me here," I replied. "Now let me go on. It is a confessed and patent fact, that money is short and men are scarce. The call is uttered and echoed in every quarter of the world for more money and more men; but is it too much to say that enough of both have been squandered in the business management of the Christian enterprise to have carried Christianity into every household? The money expended in church edifices, and inefficient governmental church establishments, and bootless and

worse than bootless controversies, and the upbuilding of rival sects, would have crowned every hill upon God's footstool with a church edifice, and placed a Bible in every human hand. Further than this: if the men now commissioned to preach the Gospel were properly apportioned to the world's population, millions would enjoy their ministrations who never heard the name of Jesus Christ pronounced, and never will. The towns in Christendom which feebly support, or thoroughly starve, two, three, or four ministers, when one is entirely adequate for them, are almost numberless."

"Yes," said Mr. Dunn, "I believe that statement is true. I suppose I could preach to this whole town in which we live, as well as to my limited congregation."

Precisely, Mr. Dunn. Now do you suppose the business world around us here can look on and see how we manage, and not see the thriftlessness and inconsistency of the whole thing? And if this business world should happen to conclude that men who profess what we do, and manage as we do, are not in earnest, would it compromise its reason and its common sense by it?"

"But I thought you to be a lover of art, and always glad to see fine. church architecture," responded Mr. Dunn, endeavoring to shift the burden.

I wish the world were full of

"You are entirely correct, it; but I am talking now as a business man. I understand that a church is built with a supreme desire for the service of Christianity, as something which is to tell directly upon the Christian enterprise. It is a simple question of dollars and cents. Do one hundred thousand dollars, expended upon a church edifice, half of which is devoted simply to ornamental art, exert over fifty thousand dollars in power toward the conversion of the world? - for we must always come back to this definition of the great enterprise. This is what churches are built for, as I understand it; and I ask whether, in this case, fifty thousand

dollars are not absolutely lost to the Christian enterprise? Is there not within the bounds of Christendom enough of bricks and mortar, and mouldy marble, and costly spires, and flaming oriels, and gorgeous drapery, and luxurious upholstery, and chiming bells, and deftly-chiselled stone, all dedicated nominally to the service of Heaven, to enrich the whole world with Christian light, were it economically dispensed?"

"There is undoubtedly something in what you have said," replied my minister, "but I think not so much as you claim. And now, as you are so apt at tearing down, suppose you try your hand at building up."

"I do not see that this is needful, for the remedy is indicated by the disease; but if you wish it, I will do it willingly. As a business man, it will be impossible for me to judge of the relative importance of maintaining a certain truth or tenet, acknowledged to be non-essential, and the saving of a human soul. That is for you to do. I only take the enterprise in gross; and I say to you, as one of the managers of the Christian enterprise, that if you are supremely devoted to that enterprise, if the great and only end you seek be to compass the salvation of the world, then you will spend your money and apportion your means in such a way that the enterprise shall feel their whole power. Here, for instance, in this town, we have four religious societies. These happen to be Episcopal, Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist. All these people expect to meet each other in heaven. They call themselves Evangelical Christians,' thus acknowledging that non-essential differences of belief keep them from thorough fraternization. These men are made a common Christian brotherhood by the common reception of what they deem to be the essential truths of Christianity. One large church and one good pastor, like you, Mr. Dunn, would be sufficient for all these sects. Now, as they can agree upon the essential truths of Christianity, why may they not do so formally, and leave to