PERCENTAGE OF CHURCHGOERS
SIR,—How kind of " Soldier " to make use of the Church for his baptism, marriage and funeral! No doubt, too, he confers an incalculable benefit on the Church by deigning to patronise God's house a dozen times a year. Perhaps he has been inoculated by his small doses against Christianity, and he would not understand that by baptism he was made a living member of a society, to which he has duties and to which it is a privilege for anyone to belong; or that according to the New Testament there is no such thing as a detached (or even semi-detached) Christian. A Home Guard who boasted of being in the Army and yet attended only 24 per cent. of his parades would not be tolerated. Just as amateurish soldiers let down their army in war, so amateurish Churchmen let down the army in which they are enrolled, forgetting that they were made "faithful soldiers and servants of Christ unto their lives' end," and that not in a private army of their own.
But what is all this nonsense about numbers? We can be sure that God weighs hearts ; He does not count heads in the congregation. Thank God that there are some, even on " Soldier's " showing, in his village, who do not treat the sacraments of Christ as . optional appendages of
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