ir being deprived of this privilege, would cause them
to forego their comfort and recreation, rather than seek them amid
debasing associations.

On this point then I am avaricious. I want the church to control all
schemes of reform. I want them to originate in the church as their only
legitimate source, so that in every effort put forth for the protection,
or restoration, or training of youth, the gospel of Christ, the only power
which can ever thoroughly regenerate individual or society, may be
paramount: so that the effort may be not only a conservative but an
aggressive force, winning youth to Christ as well as keeping them away
from Satan, creating positive developments of character as well as
securing simple safety or harmlessness, narrowing the boundaries of the
devil's empire as well as keeping Christ's from infringement. For this
reason I am anxious that instead of its being left for secular
organizations to inaugurate such movements, the church should enlarge her
Christian organizations so as to take in and sanctify every force that is
requisite to meet the demands of the various characters with which she has
to deal.

And just at this point, I want to call your attention to a thought which
bears especially upon our city churches.

It is commonly thought that the city is the fountain head of all vice, and
with some reason I admit. Parents have a traditional horror of sending
their sons into large cities. They think they are going into the very jaws
of death and destruction. They draw a fearful picture of the gayeties and
the temptations of city life. They look upon young men reared in cities
with suspicion. They are inclined to regard them all as loose in morals,
and as taking naturally to sin.

Now I do not believe that, as a rule, young men or any other men are worse
in cities than elsewhere. Sin is pretty much the same thing, I apprehend,
among grain and trees, as it is on sidewalks. Propensities just as
vicious, passions just as furious and debased, exhibitions of vice quite
as disgusting, more so, perhaps, because more coarse and pronounced, are
to be seen in farming districts and in country villages as in cities. The
appliances of vice are quite up to the proportion of the population in the
former, both in quantity and in quality. A good deal of injustice is done
the city in this respect. It is often said that a young man's ruin
commences from the time he leaves his quiet country home and goes to the