senses.  It is altogether invisible:  it is a state of mind and heart:  it has its place in a man’s soul:  it is not outside of you; “for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”  In this regard the kingdom of heaven is like education.  You cannot tell by simply looking at a man whether he is educated or not.  And why? because education is not a thing of the body, but of the mind; and the mind or understanding is invisible.

Just so it is with the kingdom of God.  It has no connection with the body.  In fact the body, with its appetites and passions opposes it.  For as Paul says:  “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other.”  The kingdom of God, then, has its place in man’s renewed heart and mind, and can therefore never be a thing of observation.  But let us look a little further.  The most precious and valuable things of earth are worthless until brought out into use.  Of what good are all the mineral treasures of earth while hidden in the mines?  Just so “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field.”

But our heavenly Father has prepared a body, a visible, organized body for his kingdom on earth, so that it may become active, useful, and in every way promotive of man’s highest good on earth and his highest bliss in heaven.  This body is the Lord’s visible church.  Like the human body, it is composed of members, and each member has his place and office of service in the body.  The church is composed of those who do the Lord’s will; and he owns all such as his brethren.  On one occasion he exclaimed:  “Who are my brethren?” And immediately he said:  “Behold my brethren!  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”  Thus the church is composed of such as hold a relationship with him, symbolized by that of brother, sister and mother.  It is for his church that Jesus offered that wonderful prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John.  He there says:  “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world:  thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.”  The church, then, is composed of such as keep the Lord’s Word.

He said:  “My kingdom is not of this world.”  Neither is the church, which is the visible, active, use-loving and use-performing body of the kingdom, of this world.  It is not organized according to the order of human institutions and laws, but according to God’s order.  Human laws and customs have really and legitimately nothing to do either with its organization and government or with the admission of members into its body and their retention and conduct in the body.  But the church is in the world.  By its being in the world, where sin and sorrow and suffering abound; where there is so much pain to assuage, so much want to relieve, so much evil to combat, so much ignorance to dispel by the light of truth, numberless and boundless opportunities and demands are presented for “the good man, out of the good treasure of his heart to bring forth good things.”