red in past
generations we need not now concern ourselves. But the weaknesses and
ailments of the present time demand our attention. We must know what
they are that we may help to cure them. That responsibility rests upon
us all. If the church is to be made whole, it must be by the intelligent
and normal action of the men and women who are members of the church. We
must know, to begin with, what health is, and what is disease; we must
have some clear idea of what would be the normal condition of Christian
society.

Men sometimes mistake conditions of disease for conditions of health. In
cases of nervous breakdown, patients are often spurred on, by the malady
itself, to work when they ought to rest. The less able to work they are,
the harder they work. They do not know that this restless activity is a
sign of disease, they think it is proof of abounding vitality. And there
are many ways in which morbid conditions tend to propagate themselves.
The instinctive impulses of an invalid are not safe guides. Yet there
are many cases in which, even if the man is not his own medical adviser,
he must have an intelligent idea of what ails him, in order that he may
be able to follow medical advice, and adopt the regimen which leads to
health. His reason must be summoned to discern and resist his morbid
impulses, and keep himself in the ways of life.

Equally true is it that if the church, which is the body of Christ, is
out of health, the men and women who are the members of that body must
know what ails them, and how to supply the remedy. And when they summon
their reason and seek to have it divinely enlightened, they are likely
to discover that many of their worst disorders are conditions which they
have been cherishing; that some of the things they have been most proud
of are ills that they must pray and work to be rid of.

1. The first and the worst of the church's infirmities is unbelief. In
one of the moments of vision, when the long obscuration of his light in
the future centuries was revealed to him, Jesus sadly wondered whether,
when the Son of Man came, he would find faith on the earth. The pathetic
query has always been pertinent. Faith is the vital force of
Christianity, and the weakening of that vital force is the prime cause
of all its disorders.

The unbelief which brings enfeeblement and decay to the church of Christ
is not, however, the kind of unbelief which the church is most apt to
reprove.

There is, dou