I doubt not that many of the antediluvians did not despise the ark outright. Who knows but what they might have thought there was something to it,--when the great calamity comes we shall be all right,--and that they told the preacher of righteousness: "Never mind about us, Noah, our record is still good." But salvation was in the ark, and there it is to-day; you cannot separate Christ from His Church, Christliness from Churchliness, for the Church is Christ's, and Christ is in His Church; and I know not, from the study of God's Word, the Bible, what right any man has to stand aloof from the Christian Church and call himself a Christian. The "Big Church" is a big delusion. "Yes, I recognize that I ought to belong to the Church, but I do not like to bind myself," pleads another. Bind yourself? To what? To a life of godliness, to a conduct becoming a Christian, to the duties incumbent upon a member? Why, if you are a Christian at all, you are bound by these things already. The further few hours occasionally given to the deliberation of congregational affairs ought not to deter you. You are bound already, why speak about binding yourself? And you certainly do not want to be unbound,--for in the ark alone is your safety. There are yet other reasons why some do not join the Church. In our materialistic age, there are hundreds whom the love of money keeps out of the house of God. It costs something, and they shun costs, no matter for what purpose--ever so noble. They hold connections which the Church cannot sanction, belong to organizations against which it finds itself compelled to testify, and because people cannot bear to have their connections reproved, and do not stop to weigh and consider what the Church has to say, they immediately, without any further ado, break off all relation with the Church, and raise the cry against it of being too strict, and stay away from the preaching and the sacraments, none of which have been denied them, and to which they are warmly invited and heartily welcomed. They will once have to answer for it. The invitation remains: "Come thou and all thy house into the ark."--