What delayeth the end? Can there indeed be any general hindering sin or imperfection among the pure saints, the holy, unselfish, aspiring, devout, peaceful, loving men and women who make up the population of every Christian land? Can any error infect the teachings of the innumerable divines and theologians, who all agree together in every particular, drawing all the same doctrines from the same texts of the one unvaried Word of God? I would fain believe that no such sin or error exists, not a single inky spot in the universal dazzling whiteness; but then why have we to deplore the continued existence of heathens and infidels? why is the New Jerusalem so long a-building? why is the Millennium so long a-coming? why have we a mere Sardowa instead of Armageddon? After long and painful thought, after the most serious and reverent study, I think I have found the rock on which the ship of the Church has been wrecked; and I hasten to communicate its extreme latitude and interminable longitude, that all Christian voyagers may evade and circumvent it from this time forward. The error which I point out, and the correction which I propose, have been to a certain extent, in a vague manner, pointed out and proposed before. A clergyman named Malthus, not in his clerical capacity, but condescending to the menial study of mundane science, is usually considered the first discoverer. But mundane science is conditioned, limited, vague, its precepts are full of hesitation; while celestial science is absolute, unlimited, clear as the noonday sun, and its precepts are imperiously forthright. It seems to me that the one fatal error which has lurked in our otherwise consummate Christianity, and which demands immediate correction is this, that the propagation of children is reconcileable with the propagation of the faith—an error which while it lasts adjourns _sine die_ the day of judgment, and begins the Millennium with the Greek Kalends. One need not quote the numerous texts throughout the New Testament (let Matthew xix., 12, suffice) proving that Jesus and the epistolary apostles accounted celibacy essential to the _highest_ Christian life. One only of the disciples, so far as we know, was married; and he it was who denied his master; and most of the more profound divines consider that Peter was justly punished for marrying, when Christ cured his mother-in-law of that fever which might else have carried her off. But many modest people may be content with a respectable Christian life which is not of the very highest kind. They may think that as husbands and wives they will make very decent middle-class saints in heaven, after a comfortable existence on earth, leaving the nobler crowns of holiness for more daring spirits. Humility is one of the fairest graces, and we revere it; but there is a consideration, most momentous for the kind Christian heart, which such good people must have overlooked—very naturally, since it is very obvious.