CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.

These deliverances of the churches have not only an advisory character, but the force of organic rule, to which members of the church are expected to conform. If they are salutary rules, the spiritual health of individuals and churches will be affected both by their observance and their neglect. Like all other means of grace having an institution in God's word, and like that word itself, the prayer-meeting will be to the church member a savor of life unto life, or a savor of death unto death. And here, as in the case of all church creeds, rules, and deliverances of church judicatories, whether organic or merely occasional, there should be a faithful observance of the rules, or they should be rescinded altogether. Better have

creeds with less detail, rules too few, and Directories defective, than to have more extensive ones a dead letter in the book. Whatever we may have, whether organic law, or rule in other form, let us observe it while it remains in force, especially when we believe it to be founded in the Divine authority in the word. Faithfulness here is important to unity among brethren, and harmony and efficiency in ecclesiastical operations, enterprises, and labors in Christ's cause.

Church Directories for Worship form an important part of the voluntary church covenant into which every member enters, with the whole brotherhood of membership, in entering the communion of the church. We are then all bound by our brotherly covenant to observe the prayermeeting. And here let us reflect how dangerous it is to trifle with vows! It damages the spiritual interests of the soul, offends God, and grieves the Holy Spirit, wounds brethren, and harms the cause of Christ. Creeds, confessions, testimonies, are worthless, if they have no counterpart in the conversation and lives of those pledged to

them. This is the effective epistle known and read of all men. As it has been well remarked by a very judicious observer and writer, so let us remember, "The prayermeeting is the Thermometer of the church, by which the state of religion is distinctly indicated."

Friends of Christ: In now parting with you, after travelling together the pathway of the earnest followers of Jesus, from Enos down along through the successive cycles of the centuries, may we not ask you, Have you not seen, and are you not persuaded, that the followers of the Lamb have ever been found-in prosperity and in adversity— walking in the way of prayer-in the way of the prayer meeting, with Him who so often met with his disciples and the women, in the upper rooms, for private social prayer? And are you not satisfied that if we shall, in the future, ever see and enjoy a day of Revival, it must be in the way in which God has, in times of past refreshings, so remarkably sent down the fiery baptisms of pentecostal times?

O, may the time soon come, when all who love Jesus, who love the godly bearing his image, who love prayer and the sweet communion of saints, shall speak one to another, and shall agree to ask together that God will fulfil his promises of revival! "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplications: For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; and I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Thus saith the Lord God: I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them."