It is not for me to set myself up as universal censor of the church, but I must be honest and say, that spiritual life, and fire, and zeal, and piety, seemed to be absent from the church in ten thousand instances.

    We have abundance of agencies, we have good mechanisms, but the church, now-a-days is very much like a large steam engine, without any fire, without any hot water in the boiler, without any steam.

    There is everything but steam- everything but life.

    I am afraid of this deadness, this sloth, this indifference, that has come over our churches.

    The church needs shaking, like the man on the mountain-top does when the cold benumbs him into a deadly slumber.

    The churches are gone to sleep for lack of zeal, for lack of fire. Even those who hold sound doctrine are beginning to slumber.

    Oh may God stir the church up!