A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. But, then, the leaven must be living and warm. Frozen yeast is no good, as every housewife knows. "I got my father and mother to come to church last Sunday," said a dear little child with sparkling eyes. "It was so nice!" He had been laboring for that result for months. He would have been one of the saints in Cæsar's household. And I have no doubt that those saints found there, were of a pretty robust and earnest description. "They" would hardly have stayed away from the gathering in St. Paul's cabin on the first day of the week because they had not the latest fashion in gown or sandal, or even to hear the court poet recite his ode, or to learn the last news from Gaul or Britain. (2 Kings v.; 1 Peter ii.) A part of this chapter was printed in the "Kalendar." _FIFTH TUESDAY IN LENT._ _THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD._ AS has been noticed before, the reformers, in translating this collect from the original Latin, saw fit to render the word that is to say, household or family, by "people," thinking probably that the word corresponded better to the idea of government. It is perhaps difficult to see the aptness of the change, since, as has been observed, a family certainly needs governing quite as much as a state. In three other places is the Church of God spoken of as a family. In the collect for Good Friday we beseech God to behold "this His family." In that for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, we ask Him "to keep His Church and household in His true religion;" and again, on the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity, we beg Him to keep His household, the Church, in continual godliness. The great Church catholic, then, is to be thought of, not only as God's kingdom, but as His family. It is under this latter aspect that I wish now to consider it. A family is not "a fortuitous concourse of atoms." It consists of a number of members, either related by blood or united by a common purpose. Now the very idea of a member is that of a part of some organization differentiated or set apart for some office for which it is specially fitted by structure or position, or both. The very simplest living creature—the very germ cell from which the lowest seaweed is produced—has its parts so distinguished, and the higher we rise in the scale, the more striking are the differences. The family is an organism, and it follows that every member of the same has his own "vocation and ministry," which nobody can fulfill as well as himself. "The Lord has chosen him." (1 Chron. xxviii. 10.) He has appointed his place and set his task before him. Surely this is a great honor.