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234 Our Views of Mission Worh,or very uncommon attractions to draw the peo- moral miasma. Robert Peel gave his daughtefpie together, but the majority of the churches an elegant birthday habit. She wore it out onhave a smaller attendance than they did a quar- her birthday, riding in the parks of London. Sheter of a century ago. Who or what is responsi- was immediately taken ill with the*most violentble for it, we are not here io discuss ; the horse form of Typhus fever and died. The reason wascar system does not help the matter at all, if I that the poor seamstress who had embroideredmay be allowed to speak with perfect freedom. the magnificent robe was compelled during the3. In the third place let us remember that, chills of a terrible and fatal fever to cover herout of what is sometimes called " the common poor husband \vitli the riding habit and it tookpeople," the backbone of tbe Cburch and State up tbe germs of the fever and conveyed them toalways has, and always will, come. The condi- the daughter of the Peer. Society has a peculiartion of the common people is the condition of the way of avenging her poor and outcast children.commonwealth. The fact is, that the vital ques- There is not a fainily that is exempt from thetions of Society concern wbat we call "the moral as well as the physical contagion that emmasses"—theterm is invidious, but it is commonly anates from the .slums and diseases of society.used—there is too mnch grandeur in human souls It is more necessary that we should carry theto m.ass people togetlier ; but when we speak of Gospel down to the lowest than that we shouldthe masses we mean the common multitude ; and carry it up to the highest. " There is room atthecoiiditionof the common multitude determines the top," Daniel Webster said. There is plentythat both of Church and State. The Church of of room at tbe bottom and no room at the top.Christ is always of the common people as it mnst Society is a pyramid, the top is an apex, audbe iu the nature of the case. Society always you cannot get many stones on an apex—not onetends from the extremes to the mean. Riches do more, if tbe top stone is already there ; but therenot abide in the hands ofthe rich. 'J'he rich men is plenty of room at the bottom. The top of soofone generation are represented by the poor ciety is an apex. The bottom is a broad basemen of the second and third generation and so and there is where the Christian Church oughton. On the other hand, there is a constant ten- to begin. If you have a Gospel that will reachdency, as there is a constant struggle of poverty the lowest, you have one that will reach the higlitowardsriches. The more civilization extends est and middle classes. It does not follow, howinthe community, the larger and more respectable ever, that the Gospel tbat reaches the highestis tbe Aiddle class. The work of the Church of classes is going to reach the lowest and middleCbrist must always be, therefore, to reach the classes ; yet, if the base be unsound or unsetried,common people ; and, in so far as tbe Church tails nothing is secure or stable above it. 'Iheinthis, she faUs in t'ne great colossal work which Chnrch of to-day has made this fatal mistake-God has given her ; and such failure implies ruin trying to reach tbe highest classes and allowingto the most precious interests. the bottom of the pyramid to sink lower and4. Another fact that I beg you to notice is lower, deeper and deeper.that the slums of society are iu some respects fhe If there is auy conviction that thrills me froramost important objective point of Christian labor, the crown of my bead to the sole of my feet, itYou cannot have a defective drainage about your is this, that if anything wiU ever solve the prohouse,or a filthy cesspool, without malaria and bleni for tiicmultitudes, or enable the Church toa deflling and poisoning effect. In tbe centres of regaiu the ground sbe has lost, it is found in theof society moral slums exist and they exhale a gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christianify