is work that, in the gospel canvasses of the
State, after working all day, many of them give from forty to fifty
evenings, sometimes traveling all night to get back to their work in the
morning. It is no common cause that thus draws men out of themselves for
others. Then, too, I greatly doubt where there are such hard-worked men
as the general secretaries,--days and evenings filled with work that
never ends; the work the more engrossing and exacting because it
combines physical and mental with spiritual responsibility. We who know
this are not surprised to find the strength of these men failing. Those
who employ them should carefully watch that relief is promptly given
from time to time as needed. There are now more than three hundred and
fifty of these paid secretaries. Now, look back over the whole history
of the associations, and can you doubt that he who meets the wants of
his creatures has raised up the organization for the express purpose of
saving young men as a class? And to do this he employs the church
itself--not the church in its separate organizations, but the church
universal. A work for all young men should be by the young men of the
whole church. First, because it is young manhood that furnishes the
common ground of sympathy. Second, because the appliances are too
expensive for the individual churches. Large well-situated buildings,
with all possible right attractions, are simply necessary to success in
this work. These things are so expensive that the united church only can
procure them. That in Philadelphia cost $700,000; in New York, $500,000;
in Boston, more than $300,000; in Baltimore, $250,000; in Chicago,
$150,000; San Francisco, $76,000; Montreal, $67,000; Toronto, $48,000;
Halifax, $36,000; West New Brighton, New York, $19,000; at the small
town of Rockport, Massachusetts, about $4,000; and at Nahant, $2,000. In
all these are eighty buildings, worth more than $3,000,000, while as
many more have land or building-funds. Third, how blessedly this sets
forth the vital unity of Christ's church, "that they may all be one,"
and also distinguishes them from all other religious bodies. "Come out
from among them and be ye separate."

[Illustration: BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. AT JACKSONVILLE, ILL.]

This association work is divided into local (the city or town), state or
home mission, the international and foreign mission.

The local is purely a city or town work. The "state," which I have
called the home