I

WHITHER ARE WE TENDING?

WOULD ask in all seriousness, whither are we tending? I read a notice in the newspaper, that at the town of S, on a given day, "The church will have a social, after which there will be under the auspices of the church, a well-conducted dance, the proceeds will go to the Sunday school." How this dance, by the church, for the Sunday school terminated, I am unable to say, but if it was well conducted as proposed, the deacons should have been floor managers, and the elder or preacher in charge should have opened the dance with prayer, and the fugleman should have been the fiddler, and the dance should have closed with the benediction.

And for the benefit of the young sisters, the aged ones should have danced the "highland fling," and the antiquated brothers should have instructed the young members how to "cut the pigeon wing" with the fantastic toe.

That the church has left its moorings and is

rapidly drifting toward the coral reef, there cannot be a doubt. The church is reaching out after the Nicolaitanes, trying to win the world by meeting the world half way. Stone and Campbell saw in the distance the tidal wave, and sounded the clarion notes of warning, and placed themselves in front of the breakers; but the mighty flood received but a momentary check. Young America put on a few more pounds of steam, and every obstacle was surmounted, and John Gilpin's horse never made such wonderful strides as has the church since the giants have all died. Festivals, where slices of cake are sold for ten times their value, but then you get a chance for the ring which is in the cake; selling letters at the post office, neck-tie parties, lotteries, kissing bees, all and more to get money to run the Sunday school and the church, and now comes on the religious dance. Is there a next to come? Well did the apostle say, that the love of money was the root of all evil.

And now, my preaching brother, give ear to an old brother, who, in a few days must stand before his God to give account of the deeds done in the body-and before he goes, he would gladly write so high on the wall that all preachers might see,

and read, and heed; it is, "Put on the brakes, open the safety valves," for we are on the down grade.

A few years ago, I was holding a protracted meeting at Hollister, California. I was favored with a large audience, and although but one person had made the good confession, the interest was increasing and enthusiasm was manifested, and a prospect of doing much good, when a committee, headed by the leader of the choir, who possessed more music than religion, wished to know what I thought about the choir doing the singing. I replied: I thought that in church music where all the members sing, each member should do his own singing and praying. At this the committee scattered, and I presume, they spread the news pretty well over the city, as at night the house was not lit up, until a late hour when brother David Watson, one of the three elders, lit up the house. The choir and friends, composing about one-half of the church, failed to appear. This choir of a dozen members stood up by the side of the preacher and performed difficult pieces of church music. Brother Watson informed me that the choir had gathered up all the hymn books that they might not be bothered with the

audience singing; he said that all three of the elders were opposed to the choir and in favor of the audience singing, but they had over-ruled the elders, and it had given the church trouble, and that they had ceased to have preaching regularlyand now the choir wanted to know that the preacher was in sympathy with them; to be neutral, would not satisfy them, he must take sides with them, otherwise they withheld their contribution, and thus clogged the wheels of the church. Money and a want of religion was at the root of the evil. I quietly folded my tent and journeyed to Gilroy where I held a successful meeting.

WHE

DAVID AND SOLOMON COMPARED.

HEN I am weak, I am strong." 2 Cor. xii: 10. David relied on God for strength, and when caught in the fowler's snare he exclaimed, Psalm cxxiv: 8, "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

When Solomon found himself in the snare of the fowler, he relied on his own strength and said, Prov. vi: 5, "Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler." Solomon afterwards just before his death, came to himself and saw his folly and thus wrote, Eccle. ix: 11: "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong."

Had you been in Jerusalem 2912 years ago, and seen a vast army of veteran soldiers, perfectly demoralized, fleeing for their lives before superior numbers, two illustrious characters in the throng would have claimed your attention. The one, a man whose head had been bleached by the frosts of 64 winters, with head covered, and bare feet,