the Builder-up of His Churches, in numbers and in power.

It is His will for, His ideal of, a Christian Church, that
continuously it should be gathering into its fellowship those that
are being saved. That is His meaning in the establishment of His
Church upon earth, and that is His will concerning it and concerning
us, and the question should press on every society of Christians:
Does our reality correspond to Christ's ideal? Are we, as a portion
of His great heritage, being continually replenished by souls that
come to tell what God has done for them? Is there an unbroken flow of
such into what we call our communion? I speak to you members of this
church, and I ask you to ponder the question,--Is it so? and the
other question, If it is not so, wherefore? 'The Lord added daily,'--
why does not the Lord add daily to us?

II. Let us go to the second part of this text, and see if we can find
an answer. Notice how emphatically there is brought out here the
attractive power of an earnest and pure Church.

My text is the end of a sentence. What is the beginning of the
sentence? Listen,--'All that believed were together, and had all
things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them
to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did
eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God,
and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added.' Yes; of
course. Suppose you were like these people. Suppose this church and
congregation bore stamped upon it, plain and deep as the broad arrow
of the king, these characteristics--manifest fraternal unity, plain
unselfish unworldliness, habitual unbroken devotion, gladness which