most mature, as standing in the same row, though at different points;
walking on the same road, though advanced different distances; all
participant of the same process of 'being saved.'

Through all life the deliverance goes on, the deliverance from sin,
the deliverance from wrath. The Christian salvation, then, according
to the teaching of this emphatic phrase, is a process begun at
conversion, carried on progressively through the life, and reaching
its climax in another state. Day by day, through the spring and the
early summer, the sun shines longer in the sky, and rises higher in
the heavens; and the path of the Christian is as the shining light.
Last year's greenwood is this year's hardwood; and the Christian, in
like manner, has to 'grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and
Saviour.' So these progressively, and, therefore, as yet imperfectly,
saved people, were gathered into the Church.

Now I have but two things to say about that. If that be the
description of the kind of folk that come into a Christian Church,
the duties of that Church are very plainly marked. And the first
great one is to see to it that the community help the growth of its
members. There are Christian Churches--I do not say whether ours is
one of them or not--into which, if a young plant is brought, it is
pretty sure to be killed. The temperature is so low that the tender
shoots are nipped as with frost, and die. I have seen people, coming
all full of fervour and of faith, into Christian congregations, and
finding that the average round them was so much lower than their own,
that they have cooled down after a time to the fashionable
temperature, and grown indifferent like their brethren. Let us, dear
friends, remember that a Christian Church is a nursery of imperfect
Christians, and, for ourselves and for one another, try to make our