social prayer; and then only will we be able to judge as to the
capabilities of "the elements we have to work upon."

There is no department of congregational work in which the personal
ministration of the individual members is more required than in its
_Home Mission_. The sphere of this mission must necessarily be a
district in which the members of the congregation can labour. We may
assume that there is no district even in this Christian land in which
are not to be found a number who require to be instructed in the
gospel, and brought into the fellowship of the Christian Church, as
well as a number who require to be ministered to in private owing to
the infirmities of their bodies, the bereavements in their households,
or other necessity of supplying their temporal or spiritual wants.
In large cities not only does each district inhabited by the poorer
classes abound in what has been termed a "home heathenism;" but this
population is so fluctuating from month to month, that a more extended
and vigorous agency is required to make use of the brief opportunity
given us for doing it any good.

Now, one thing we hold as settled by the whole design of Christianity,
and amply confirmed by daily experience and observation of human
nature, and that is, that to seek and save the lost, a _living_ agency
is absolutely necessary. Religious tracts alone won't do. Far be it
from us to write in an apparently slighting manner of what we so
greatly value as good tracts, when we can find them. But, on the other
hand, let us beware of exaggerating the power of such an agency, or
demanding impossibilities from it. A great number in our large cities
and manufacturing districts who require to be reclaimed from
ignorance and vice cannot read at all. Those who can do so are yet
so imperfectly instructed in the art as to be utterly unable to
comprehend a continuous narrative of facts, far less any exposition of
doctrine or duty; while those best able are not always willing to read
anything of a religious character. The most efficient method, in our
opinion, of making use of tracts in all such cases, is to read them,
when possible, to others, and, if necessary, explain them, and _then_
distribute them. But what is a dead tract to a living person?--what is
any description of Christianity on paper, as compared to the living
epistle, which all men can read?

_We want Christian men and women_; not their books or their money
only, but _themselves