In this crisis of events, with an industrial war plainly threatened and partially commenced, the doctrine of Association appears as a mediator and reconciler. Its bow of promise shines broadly in the lurid sky; it irradiates the murky visage of the gathering, muttering tempest. It awakens a hope, and the only well grounded hope, of averting the miseries of an insane struggle between those who ought to be the closest allies, to see which can the more injure the other. Need I urge that in this crisis the friends of Association ought to be most earnest and untiring in the promulgation and advocacy of their faith; that they ought to improve the opportunities which are daily presented of commending the truth to others whose minds are but newly prepared to receive it? What Associationist so dull that he cannot improve every "strike," every collision respecting the hours or the wages of labor, to the advancement of the good cause? To do this with effect, we must be, in the true sense of an abused term, catholic. We must not suffer Association to be merged in mere partisanship for any class or calling, or blind hostility to any abuse or oppression. We are not the champions of the slave or the hired servant, the factory girl or the housemaid, the seamstress or the washerwoman. We are not the advocates merely of labor against capital, of the employers as opposed to the employed. Ours is the cause of all classes and vocations, and our success is the triumph of all. We are in danger of becoming partial and one-sided; let us take special care to overcome it. But it is not enough that we give our testimony in behalf of this benign truth; it behooves us to be doers of the work as well as hearers and commenders. Friends of Association! scattered over the face of our wide country! do you realize this? Do you feel that your works ought to justify and fortify your words? We are surrounded by a world full of want, vice and misery, which Association realized would greatly modify and ultimately cure. But those who know nothing of this truth will never cause it to be realized; it would be absurd to expect anything of the kind. The work must be accomplished by us, and by those whom our acts rather than words shall win over to a knowledge of the truth. Is not the work of sufficient importance to incite you to embark heartily in its furtherance? But, says one, how can I engage practically in realizing Association? My family and friends are vehemently adverse to it; I am engrossed by responsibilities and duties of various kinds which I cannot uprightly escape, and which confine me where I am. I am not yet prepared, if I ever should be, to embark in Association.