Bibles, and 800,000 with no other religious book. It has, to a good degree, met the wants of a rapidly-advancing population, where no book-stores, schools, or churches existed; where the message of salvation would not otherwise have been borne.

"The amount received and expended, from its commencement to this time, is over $9,000,000.

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Among the reasons for its success, we notice the fact that the whole plan of operation is such as to secure responsibility and efficiency. The foresight and liberality of friends have given the society a large and commodious building, where, with twenty steam-presses, tens of thousands of stereotype plates, and every facility for composing, printing, binding, and storing, its publications reach the number of 4,000 books, 30,000 tracts, and 20,000 papers, daily. So large and powerful a Christian agency operating upon the masses must be an effective force for the improvement of national character."*

THE AMERICAN SEAMAN'S FRIEND SOCIETY is the concentration of earnest sympathy for those who "do business in great waters." Christian philanthropy finds in seamen an important class of men, capable of great excellence, and liable to the most destructive vices. Without our consent, they will be regarded abroad as representatives of a Christian nation. With what propriety, therefore, are the most selfsacrificing and devoted efforts made to give them, on land and on the sea, the means of grace and Christian culture!

This society has been in operation less than half a century, and it now has its chaplaincies in almost every part of the world. At home and abroad, our seafaring men are cared for our Bethel churches and ships, our "homes" and hospitals, invite them to the blessings of holy worship and Christian hospitality. They are treated not so much as sailors as men; and thousands of them are noble represen

From a paper by Rev. W. W. RAND.

tatives of American Christianity, and many become truly devoted missionaries in foreign lands.

Libraries of some 40 or 50 volumes each provide them valuable reading on shipboard. "Up to this time, Oct. 25, 1867, nearly 2,500 of them have been put afloat in the navy and merchant service, composed of over 100,000 volumes, and accessible to about 115,000 seamen at sea. The system is making a revolution in the conduct and character of seamen on shipboard. Up to May 1, 1867, a few of these librarians had reported 518 hopeful conversions at sea through the influence of these books." "*

YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS.†

"The origin and progress of Young Men's Christian Associations in America must always be cause of thankfulness to God. They were adopted from Germany and England; and Providence has kindly aided their permanent establishment in this Western World.

"Who can recall, without a thrill of pleasure, the Samaritan labors of the New-Orleans Association, when, in 1858, a fearful epidemic swept the streets of that city as with the besom of destruction? Or who can contemplate, unmoved, the organized and fruitful sympathy, which, from its wellspring in the bosom of the New-York Association, flowed in an abundant and still enduring stream to minister comfort to the little ones of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va., smitten orphans by a pitiless pestilence? Blessed memories are there, too, of the firemen's meetings, inaugurated in Philadelphia, - an instrumentality owned of the Master, and there and elsewhere made the means of many a soul's salvation. Nor can we forget the system of tent-preaching, by which, in our larger cities, the poor have had the gospel preached unto them.

* From a paper by Rev. H. LOOMIS, D.D.

† From a paper by FRANK W. BALLARD.

"No other agency has yet been discovered in which are combined, to the same degree, those desirable constituent elements, catholicity, economy, sympathy, originality, progressiveness, efficiency, and vitality.

"The meetings, the rooms, the library, the lectures, and the friendships of a well-appointed Christian association are calculated to attract and satisfy all the merely temporal cravings of a mind and heart not pre-occupied with vice; while many a sorrowing subject of depravity has found in them an invitation to repentance, and an antidote to the poison of previous evil companionships. Superadd to these merely material attractions the exercise of that positive religious influence which is professedly the main feature of a Christian Association, and the institution is made to assume no subordinate position in the moral machinery of the world. It becomes at once, and so remains, an indispensable adjunct to the Church, and, as thousands of new-born souls will tes tify, a means of grace both owned and blessed of God.

"The Christian Association, in proportion to its membership and their activity, becomes a moral police wherever it is established; arresting the vicious in their mad career; preventing much of the sin that promises to ripen into crime; removing or diminishing, so far as its influence extends, the teeming temptations of city life; and attracting towards itself the confidence and love of those whose rescue has thus been wrought. By its well-arranged system of practical fraternity, the institution provides employment for the unemployed, homes and churches and friends for the stranger, nurses and physicians for the sick; and all this without other incentive than the consciousness of dischar ging duty, and the hope of winning souls to Christ.

"The annual conventions invariably concentrate the deepest sympathies of the Christian people in whose cities they are held. At Montreal, in June, 1867, more than 500 delegates, from 106 localities, and representing an equal number of associations, held their sessions during several days, amid

the solemn surroundings of crowds,- at times numbering 3,000 souls. And it has become the rule, that revivals of religion are the blessed legacies left behind as precious souvenirs wherever the conventions have been held.

"A central organ has been successfully published during the past year, called The Quarterly,' which, under the editorial supervision of the Executive Committee resident at New York, has found favor with the associations, and has a self-supporting circulation of 2,000 volumes.

"Several associations have received from liberal friends of the cause large sums of money towards erecting permanent buildings for their accommodation. In New York, more than $250,000 will be invested in a home for the association of that city; the association in Chicago has already erected and occupied a splendid structure; while Washington, Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and other cities, will soon be enriched by similar noble Christian edifices.

"Most of the associations are enjoying the presence of the Master's spirit; and their prayer-meetings, Bibleclasses, monthly meetings, and social gatherings, have usually abounded in good results of glory to God.

"There are some 250 Young Men's Christian Associations in this country, aggregating about 40,000 members, and composed of memberships varying from 16 to near 4,000 souls each. The largest organization in the country, and one of the most active, is that of Brooklyn, N.Y., which had, in June, 1867, 3,895 members. Among the other important and influential societies are those of New York, 1,600 members; Boston, 2,300; Philadelphia, 2,500; Providence, 1,300; Troy, 1,258; Chicago, 1,000; Cincinnati, 500; Baltimore, 712; Harrisburg, 600; Washington City, 650; Pittsburg, 526.

"The power of such an institution as we have here described, in doing the work of Christ among the young men of democratic, republican America, and in promoting sterling patriotism, can scarcely be over-estimated."

THE GREAT REVIVAL.

At length there is place for a revival of religion in the history of a great nation. The Christian life is no accidental fact, no temporary influence, to be merely a subject of wonder or ridicule, and then pass out of sight. Religion is no mere segment of the great circle of philosophy: it is the inner force, the vitalizing power, of all philosophy, - the life and exposition of history. A revival of religion is a revival of the national life. So far as it extends, the tendency to insubordination is broken down; the very propensities which give to all governments their most serious trouble are reduced to control, and finally eradicated; the reign of justice and of love begins, in the individual soul, to give strength and force to all right dispositions, growing and enlarging perpetually. This is true religion,- a revival of the right, the just, and the true. Now, let it extend until it subdues, reduces to order, and saves hundreds, thousands, throughout our various communities: is this nothing in history, nothing to a nation?

It was the fall of 1857. There had been a sudden and appalling overthrow of the business plans and prosperity of the city and country. Various reasons for this revulsion were given by political economists; but they were very conflicting and unsatisfactory. At length the thought began to move among the churches and business-men, that this was God arresting the headlong worldly schemes of men, and warning them not to set their affections on things on the earth. These convictions began to appear in the several churches; and they soon found a rallying-point and a common expression in a noonday prayer-meeting. The room was filled; then another and another. Soon a large church was opened; then others in other parts of the city; then parlors in splendid residences, hotel drawing-rooms, vast public halls, and theatres, were converted into prayer-rooms.

Christian men and women, old people and children, rich