loon. He knew it would pay; and we
cannot expect irreligious young men to be drawn away from these by mere
religious appliances. We must employ other attractions. We must make our
houses beat the public houses. We must sanctify new forces for this end.
Pictures and cabinets, carpets and draperies, music and games are not the
devil's any more than they are ours. Young men will have some retreat
beside their comfortless boarding-houses; some society besides their
landlord's family, and it is a match between the devil and the church
which of us shall furnish these. Depend upon it, if the church do not give
them amusement, regulated on a liberal Christian basis, the devil will
give them abundance that is unregulated. God forbid that Christian
squeamishness should suffer them to turn aside to the house whose gates
lead to hell, and to habits which shall make mothers curse the day they
gave them birth.

I will give two incidents showing the practical working of this new system
in the Troy Association. A member of my church, walking in the street one
evening, saw three young men just before him, and overheard one say to the
others, "Come, let's go and take a drink." One of the others replied, "No,
I don't care to take a drink. Let's go to the Christian Association
Rooms." "Pshaw!" said the third, "I don't want to go there to prayer
meeting." "No, no," was the response; "they've got a right nice place
there, and we can have a good time." He went on describing the rooms, and
then added: "_and they're for just such fellows as we are_." He gained his
point, and they followed him to the rooms.

Three clubs of young men, or boys rather, were broken up soon after the
new rooms were opened. I do not know their character fully, but have been
told that drinking was practiced at their meetings. They now frequent the
rooms of the society, and pay over into its treasury their club
subscriptions. There are many more of such cases. They speak with trumpet
tongues as to the value of this policy. They show that its practical
influence is against the groggery and the gambling saloon, and if it work
no other result, that of itself is vindication enough.

And now I leave the subject. I do not shrink from the application of this
Bible principle to our amusements. The other, the separative policy, the
keeping of leaven and lump apart, has been tried, and has failed, utterly
failed.

Will it not be well to try another policy? I want for our youth