The great trouble is that the member thus appointed does not see his work, and he does not see it, for the most part, because he will not. Perhaps he thinks his appointed task too humble. He thinks it beneath his capacity. He is too often like a certain little girl who was set by her mother to watch that the bread did not run over, but who thought it would be much finer to run the sewing machine. The result may easily be imagined. A woman who wished to undertake some Church work was invited to begin by taking a class from the infant room. She declined, saying that she would feel herself to be throwing away her time teaching such ignorant little ones. She was allowed to try a class of grown-up girls. She soon found out her mistake. She complained that the girls were always asking questions and making remarks, and at last she threw up the work in disgust, and there was the end of her aspirations after Church work. If she could only have had something congenial, she said, it would have been different. Another church-member was fired with enthusiasm on hearing an eloquent missionary sermon. She only wished that she could go out to Africa. That would, indeed, be worth while. But when it was suggested that she might give of an abundant wardrobe to help fill a missionary box, she rejected the idea with some tartness. She did not take so much pains with her things, to give them to a common negro preacher's wife! There are several inconveniences resulting from this unwillingness or inability of the members of God's family to recognize and do their own work. One of them, and that not the least, is the loss to the member himself—a loss of opportunities of usefulness, and of growth in grace. The member which is never used in its appropriate office loses its vigor, and often becomes paralyzed beyond recovery. We have all heard of the East Indian devotees, who hold their hands above their heads till they grow into that position, and cannot be taken down; and I have somewhere read of a nun who never used her hands, but kept them clasped in the attitude of prayer till the joints became useless. We think such conduct a horrible misuse of God's gifts, and rightly; but we should do well to examine ourselves, lest we fall into the same error with respect to our spiritual faculties. But as a limb which has been partly paralyzed by misuse or disuse may often be restored by care and exercise, so no one need despair of regaining a good measure of usefulness, however faulty they may have been in the past.