though he has carefully tended them, do not yield the quantity or quality of fruit he has a just reason to expect, does he not at once regard it as the proof of some hidden evil? He knows that the vine listens implicitly to the law of nature, and that there must be perfect correspondence between its inner state and the fruit it shows. The measure of conversions God bestows upon His Church is the exact index of His estimate of its spiritual health. Were He to bestow conversions out of proportion to