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in what our hands find to do; we must make progress if we desire the church to prosper, and to travel in the greatness of her strength; you, my brethren, elders of this church, must walk around Zion, view her bulwarks and her towers, examine her walls, and see that all is in order, like those fathers who once occupied the position you now fill. you must repair every breach, guard every pass, secure every gate, and keep a watchful eye all around you: you are the officers of this army of our King; lead on the people; say to them Go forward, we are in an enemy's country, and our foes are pressing hard upon us; we must be up and doing; there must be less complaining and more laboring; less resting and more action; more of the vital and practical workings of Christianity than its desirings; more of the spirit's working power among us than forms and conventional formulas; in short, we must go forward in every good word and work.
And what is true of us as office bearers is true of the individual member—for we are after all members, one of another, all one in Christ, all journeying along the same pathway in life; we have the same hopes and fears, the same common enemy to fight, the same conflicts within us and without, the same aim and end in view, the same heaven in prospect, the same God to serve, and withal the same road to travel to reach our journey's end. Each member of this Zion, then, is called upon to go forward, to throw aside every weight and every burden, and the sin that doth so easily beset them, and run with patience the race that is set before them, looking at the same time to Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith. The membership of a church must have a mind to work if they would see the salvation of God, in many souls being delivered from the power of sin and Satan
