In speaking thus confidently of the present position of woman and of “Young America,” it seems proper to notice the opportunities that have been furnished to attain some knowledge in this direction. During twelve years of service as principal of institutions at the East and West, in which nearly a thousand young girls from the most influential classes and from nearly every State in the Union have been under her training, the writer gained no little insight into the varied experiences of the young. Later in life, ill health and other causes led to frequent reunions with former pupils all over the land, who as mothers, wives and sisters sought sympathy and counsel. Thus was gained the private history and the personal acquaintance of their husbands, brothers and sons, in many professions and in various colleges. In many cases the sons would disclose to a candid and sympathizing friend mental experiences and histories of themselves and their companions, which, from motives of tenderness, were hidden even from the most kind and judicious parents. The affiliated societies that bring the most influential young men of different colleges together, their meetings for anniversary and club reunions, have generated a common pulse, as it were, through the great body of the most highly educated and most influential young men in the land; so that learning what affects a small portion teaches also what affects the whole. These intimations indicate but a small portion of the opportunities which have led to the opinions expressed in this and the preceding chapter. CHAPTER LI. PRESENT POSITION OF THE RELIGIOUS PRESS. To any one who examines the religious press of the different sects of the present time, it is clear that there never was a period in which the _ecclesiasticism_ founded on the Augustinian theory was more a leading object of effort. At the time that the Bible Society and other benevolent religious associations originated, the tendency of the different sects was to a harmonious union for the great end of sending the gospel to the destitute. At that time, questions in relation to the modes of ordination and baptism, and as to church officers, seemed to vanish as matters of small concern to all whose chief aim was to save the lost. But now the reverse tendency is manifest. Every sect is engaged in magnifying the importance of its own distinctive peculiarity, in getting up publishing houses to disseminate its own peculiar modes of religious teaching, in raising funds to build churches, and in building up its own distinctive schools and colleges. And this is done not so much, as it would seem, because the salvation of ignorant and guilty men depends on these sectarian peculiarities, as because the extent, respectability and influence of a sect will be thus promoted. Every editor of every religious paper, therefore, is a chief leader in an effort to build up a sect, which as before shown, originates from the Augustinian dogma.