conviction that the whole existing social order might come to an end to-morrow morning or next week, and that after that no child of God would ever want for anything. I think we should be sure to feel that the holding of personal property would not matter much. If, in addition to this, our hearts were filled with a divine enthusiasm, an overmastering love for Jesus and for all our brethren, we should not want to keep anything back that could serve to make anyone happier for the short time that intervened before the glorious coming of the Lord. This was just how the primitive Christians felt. They had no organised economic system; no one was compelled to give anything, but under the pressure of the new spirit they willingly gave everything. What did it matter? they thought; they were only like pilgrims within sight of home, or watchers waiting for the morning. +Origin of the idea of the church.+--Where, then, did the idea of the church come from? It is as plain as anything can be that the primary interest of early Christianity was the kingdom of God. It took the conception over from Judaism with a deeper moral content derived from the preaching and the life of Jesus. Its first adherents did not even know that they had a new religion; they only thought they had found the true Messiah, although the Jewish nation as a whole had rejected Him. What they wanted above everything was to see the kingdom come upon earth, and we now know that they were mistaken in imagining that it would be established speedily and suddenly by the visible second coming of Jesus on the clouds of heaven. But seeing that they were thinking of it in this way, how did the church arise and why?