lie in wait for the daughters of our families, and the whirl of general society in which so many of them, at a tender age, are madly revolving night after night, is no poor preparation for the fatal success of these wiles. Young girls, who come from quiet country homes to seek employment, cast adrift on these surging tides of life without a friend or an adviser, readily fall victims to the wiles of young seducers whose social position ensures their security. In a certain city, I was informed not long since, of one keeper of a fashionable brothel who had removed her trade, because it was too largely usurped by victims of this class to render it any longer profitable. Young men, too, are coming to the cities in crowds, to engage in business or study. They must have society and recreation; and the votaries of vice are sparing neither pains nor expense to give them abundance of both, fraught with ruin to soul and body. Without going outside of our special sphere as pastors, viewing this subject solely with reference to the youth of our congregations, as, in common with others subjected to these and other temptations, _what ought to be our influence in arresting and counteracting these evils_? It ought to be second to none but parental influence. If the name pastor mean anything, our position as the chosen religious teachers of congregations ought to give us free access to every household in our flocks, and the strongest influence over the youth whose moral training we directly or indirectly shape. We ought to be not only _respected_ and _reverenced_, but so loved as to be the familiar advisers and confidants of the youth of our charges. Our word ought, next to the parents’, to have weight in turning them from improper courses and associations, and in keeping them from such. Moreover, our influence ought not to be merely restrictive and admonitory. We should be sufficiently in sympathy with them, familiar enough with the demands of their age and with the best means of satisfying them, to be able to offer positive suggestions respecting their employments, recreations, society, reading, and the like. If we sustain proper relations to the youth of our charges, they will be as likely to refer such questions to us, as matters of theology or practical morality. Now, the question of the amusements of our youth is as good a test question in this matter as we need ask. _What, then, is the influence of the clergy at large in regulating the diversions of the youth?_