“It is the cry of the day,” said Mr. Clare, “that Religion has lost her hold on the masses, and, among the educated classes, on _men_; I wish to ask you, gentlemen, for your personal experience upon this matter, if you will be so kind; of course, with the understanding that every word shall be considered by all of us strictly confidential.” “Well, _my_ religion is temperance,” said the lecturer, “and that hasn’t lost its hold on the masses, by a large majority. On the contrary, it is gaining ground every day.” “I was prepared to hear you say so. Now may I ask what is the proportion—approximate, of course—between the number of men and women engaged in temperance work?” “Why, the women are for us every time, except such unfortunates as are themselves slaves of rum, a larger number than is generally believed, I regret to say, though there is no way of getting at the exact figures. And they are much more difficult to get hold of; in fact, if we look at the relative numbers of male and female drunkards—as near as we can estimate them—the proportion of those reformed will be about five to one. That is, of twenty male drunkards, known and unknown, and the same number of females, in the first case we might hope to reform _all_, in the second only four.” Mr. Clare sighed. “Let us hope,” he said, “that a part, at least, of the sixteen, reform as they have sinned, in secret and unknown. And now,” he turned to the evangelist, “I suppose there is no doubt that your meetings are well attended?” “Sometimes a cat could get her whiskers in,” replied that personage succinctly; “but there are plenty of backsliders.” “And the proportion of men and women?” “Well, some say there are—and some say there ain’t—several hundred thousand more women in the world than men, so naturally we have more at our meetings, and more women converts, but the proportion don’t go beyond what one might expect; and if more of ‘em are converted, fewer of ‘em backslide,” said the Evangelist. There was a melancholy pause, then Father McClosky said with something of the expression of a dog that expects a beating,— “I’ll speak next, and encourage ye. Phy is it, I don’t know, but there’s mighty few _men_ that comes aither to mass or confession nowadays, though the women are pretty faithful, the Blessed Mother be praised.” “It is true,” said the High-Churchman; “the proportion is very discouraging: I have about six times as many female penitents as male.” Father McClosky looked very quizzical just at this point; but, catching a pleading glance from his host, he helped himself to a cup of coffee, and left the floor to the rector of St. Andrew’s. “My church has been very full of late,” he said, “and the increase has been chiefly men; the growth would be still more marked, I dare say,” he added, smiling, “if the expression of our host’s peculiar views were not restrained—muzzled, so to speak—out of deference to my feelings.”