But there is another aspect of this matter which would perhaps startle those who think that all piety and orthodoxy reside in the rural districts; and that is, that the city, _as it is_, affords far greater encouragements to well developed piety than the country; and that if the church were fully awake to her duty towards young men, and actually employing all the means afforded her by her wealth, organization and influence to shield, restrain, influence and reform them, the city would be the safest place on earth for a youth. If the city is the stronghold of vice, it is in the church’s power to make it the stronghold of virtue. For it is admitted that, in other respects, the city affords superior advantages. Young men leave the country store and come thither if they desire to learn business on a large scale. They are obliged to seek the city for large literary opportunities. The great popular literary attractions seldom move out of the track of the cities. Here the pulse of life beats quicker. Men live faster. Thought is more energetic and prompt. The same is in a measure true of religious life. It develops more activity, more benevolence. It invests religious instruction with more attractions, and throws more life and power into social worship. Go into such a prayer meeting, for instance, as you can find in scores of churches in our large cities, where the large numbers present augment the sympathy of each with the common object, where thoughtful, practical, energetic men pour into the common treasury streams of fresh, living thought, where the singing is an inspiration, and say what you will, a man will be stirred and stimulated as he cannot be in the thin assemblies of too many country churches, where the minister is chiefly depended on to give interest to the meeting, where the singing is faint and slow. I know God is often in the one place as in the other. I know there is true religious life there, and that souls are converted there. But so long as men remain human, their piety will not be insensible to such influences. So too, the influences of the city churches tend more to develop young men. My impression is that in country districts age is a prime qualification for responsibility; young men are kept back, and not expected to bear a prominent part in religious services until later in life. With us, it is part of our creed to educate young men by responsibility. We love to hear them speak or pray, not only because they bring us good and fresh and profitable thoughts, but because we know that these exercises are developing them into strong men for the future leaders of the church. Not only so, but our larger religious machinery, the wider sphere of our activity, furnish places for them to work. We must depend largely upon them to carry on our mission schools, and to carry out other practical schemes of benevolence. Under these influences, I say, they develop faster, and as I think better. As a rule,