The social domain of religion has also undergone a change. In my early life I remember that all earnest and religious people were supposed to live out of the great world, and to keep company only with one another and with the subjects of their charitable beneficence. The disadvantages of this course are easily seen. Free intercourse with the average of mankind is one of the most important agencies in enlarging and correcting the action of the human mind. The exigencies of ordinary intercourse develop a sense of the dependence of human beings upon each other, and a power corresponding to the needs involved in this interdependence. The religious susceptibilities of individuals, which are at once very strong in their character and very uncertain in their action, are liable to become either exaggerated or exhausted by a course of life which should rely wholly upon them for guidance and for interest. Let us, therefore, by all means have saints in the world, keeping to their pure standard, and recommending it more by their actions than by their professions. But these saints must be brave as well as pure. Unworthy doctrine must not escape their reprobation. When a just cause is contemned, they must stand by it. If the world shall cast them out in consequence, it will not be their fault. The social leagues which group themselves around the various churches of to-day, seem to me a feature of happy augury. It is the office of the church to inspire and direct the tone of social intercourse, and these associations should greatly help it to that end. I lately heard Wendell Phillips complain that church exercises nowadays largely consist of picnics and other merry-makings. Only a little before, Mr. Phillips, in his reply to Mr. Parkman's article against Woman Suffrage, had spoken of the growth of social influence as a good. It does, to be sure, look a little whimsical to read on the bulletin of a Methodist church such announcements as this,--"Private theatricals for the benefit of the Sunday school." But Wesley introduced the use of secular tunes in his church on the ground that the devil should not have all the good music. Neither should he monopolize the innocent amusements with which, if they are left to him, he does indeed play the devil.