Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/41

37 the oversight and ministry of Christian pastors is more needed than walls of brick and stone. It is a shallow view to confound a multiplication of churches with the extension of the Church. Money and a few builders will extend the material system; but nothing, except the living powers of zeal, self-devotion, purity, and charity, can extend the Church. In fact no power can extend the Church but her own. It must come from within. Without this, our new churches, howsoever many and splendid, will stand empty; but this vital principle will speedily array itself in all due and becoming forms.

It is a waste of money to spend in building churches and schools the revenues that would maintain pastors and teachers. What can be more fallacious than to measure the spiritual condition of our population by the capacity of stone walls? What does the breadth of area in a parish church signify when the parish priest is inefficient or alone? What is needed first is a body of men devoted to Christ's service, who will penetrate into the destitute masses of our neglected people, and in gentleness, self-denial, and prayer, live and die for the poor and outcast of Christ's flock. It will be soon enough to talk of churches and schools when men have been awakened from a debased and godless life; when we have gathered the wandering into a flock, it will then be time to pitch a fold. Every such town and district is a mission in the truest sense.