materialism are eloquent in the extreme.  But his incarnations of materialism are Huxley and Darwin, and to the uncharitable he seems to almost carefully avoid any language which might seem to reflect upon the dollar- and place-worship of some of the occupants of his front pews.  Now, I am not here to defend Mr. Huxley or Mr. Darwin.  Withstand them to the face wherever they are to be blamed.  And for some utterances they are undoubtedly to be blamed, honest souls as they were.  But I for one cannot help feeling that there is among the “dwellers in Jerusalem” a materialism of the heart which is indefinitely worse than any intellectual heresy.  When you hit at the one heresy strike hard at the other also.

Many will have left your little church of Smyrna.  It had to be so.  For the divine sifting process, which is natural selection on its highest plane, has not ceased to work.  It must and shall still go on; it cannot be otherwise.  Has the great principle ceased to be true in modern history that “though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved?”

But do not be discouraged.  Preach Christ and a heroic Christianity.  Do not be afraid to demand great things of your people.  Remember that Ananias was encouraged to go to Paul because the Lord would show Paul how great things he should suffer for the name of Jesus.  This is what appeals to the heroic in every man, and we do not make nearly enough use of it.  And the heroic Christ and his heroic Christianity will draw every heroic soul in the community to himself.  They may not be very heroic looking.  You may be in some hill town in old Massachusetts “Nurse of heroes.”  Pardon me, I do not intend to be invidious.  Heroism is cosmopolitan.  One of the pillars of your church may be the school-teacher of the little red school-house at the fork of the roads, in the yard ornamented with alders, mulleins, and sumachs.  She boards around, and is clad in anything but silks and sealskins.  But she trains well her band of hardy little fellows, who will later fear the multitude as little as they now mind the Berkshire winds.  And from the pittance she receives for training these rebellious urchins into heroic men she is supporting an old mother somewhere, or helping a brother to an education.  And your deacon will be some farmer, perhaps uncouth in appearance and rough of dress, and certainly blunt in his scanty speech.  He’ll not flatter you nor your sermons; and until you’ve lived with him for years you will not know what a great heart there is in that rugged frame, and what wealth of affection in that silent hand-shake.  And there is his wife.  She is round and ample, and certainly does not look especially solemn or pious.  She is aunt and mother to the whole community, the joy of all the children, nurse of the sick, and comfort of the dying.  She is doing the work of ten at home, and of a host in the village.  And your right-hand man is great Onesiphorus from the mill down in the valley, fighting an uphill battle to keep the wolf from the door, while he and his wife deny themselves everything, that their flock of children may have better training for fighting God’s battles than they ever enjoyed.