THE members of a family or household owe a duty, not only to their head, but to each other. They are bound in honor to help one another when help is needed, to sustain each other in trials, and to bear each other's burdens; and the honor of one is the honor of all, and the shame of one is the shame of all. So it is in the Church, which is the household of God. We are members of one body, and so of each other. If one member suffers, others suffer with it; and not one can grow in spiritual grace and strength without directly or indirectly benefiting others. If one member is poor or afflicted in mind, body, or estate, his fellows are bound to help him. If he be assailed with slander or detraction, the others are bound to defend him; and so on to the end of the chapter. I suppose that no one—certainly no church-member—will deny that these words are true in theory; there are many, thank God, to whom they are true in practice. Would to God they were so to all! But, alas! to how many are those with whom they worship on Sunday, with whom they kneel at the chancel rail even, of no more real interest than the horses they pass in the street. How many will sit next to a person in church for years, and never exchange a greeting. How many actually look down on their fellows who work for a living, or who are not of their particular set! A woman has been known to object to the formation of a church guild because "it would bring in everybody on an equal footing. We would rather confine the thing to our own set." It is to be hoped such extreme instances are rare; but that rector or church worker is exceptionally happy who has never found his efforts for the good of the parish hampered by such feelings and prejudices. Again, a woman in poor or even moderate circumstances will not go to church herself, or send her children to Sunday-school, because she cannot dress herself or them as well as somebody with twice her means. She is always looking out for affronts, and resents every kindness and attention as an attempt at patronage. Nor is this the worst. Members of the same church will not be content with neglect or mere passive envy. They will actually try to injure one another. It is a shame to have to say it, but it is true. A man or woman will kneel at the altar with another, and partake the emblems of their dying Saviour's love. They will do this, and then, before they are fairly out of sight of the church door, will repeat a scandalous story to that person's disadvantage—a story which they do not know to be true, and which there would be no use in telling if it were. Two communicants will quarrel, and keep up a grudge for years. I have known a person leave her parish church and go to another because, as she said, she could not go to the communion with such an one; as if the Lord's body were divided into parishes! So the Lord is shamed and wounded in the house of His friends, and the world says, ironically, "See how these Christians love one another!"