Girls, for some reason, seem to take more naturally and kindly to graceful ways, to gentle courtesies, than boys. Young America, we think, is characteristically boorish, if not clownish. The boy of the period manifestly places no adequate value on good manners. Doubtless this matter of breeding—this careful cultivation of a genial and amiable deportment—is sadly neglected in our day. The youth of our day should be taught not only that rudeness and vulgarity never pay; but that while awkwardness is disagreeable and burdensome, the slightest approach to rowdyism is detestable and unpardonable. Some one has very happily represented good manners as “minor morals.” And certain it is that vulgarity and vice are intimately related; that the low, vulgar fellow will ever be found but a few removes from a positively vicious one. Love, refinement, social cultivation are all closely allied with righteousness; these, always and everywhere, constitute the true gentleman and lady. THE COUNCILS AT BALTIMORE. It was a noteworthy fact that two of the three great religious bodies of this country were holding councils in the same city in the last days of 1884. The city of Baltimore enjoys the distinction of being both a Catholic and a Methodist city. The former is the older claimant, since it was founded by English Catholics; but Methodism, also founded by Englishmen, has a Baltimore history which occasioned the centennial conference of last month. It was in Baltimore, Christmas 1784, that a few circuit riders organized the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is doubtless through the effectiveness of that organization that Methodism holds its position as the religious union of the largest _population_ embraced in any one organization in this country. The Catholics are ordinarily reckoned the most numerous, because they count population and Methodists count only members; but taking the former basis as a common measure, the various branches of Methodism are doubtless the most numerous; and it is probable that by the same tests the Baptists outnumber the Catholics. If the Presbyterian bodies could be counted together, and the Lutherans and Congregationalists included, we should have a third great body of Protestants which may possibly outnumber the Catholics. Two other communions, the Protestant Episcopal and the Unitarian, would be in the first rank of religious influence if we attempted to measure and compare by this test. Taking account of members only, the most difficult problem of religious statistics is to determine whether any religious organization is relatively increasing. The unattached population, and the independent Protestant organizations, have been growing in numbers for a score of years; and the Protestant communions can not count by population without including the same persons in more than one church. It is not surprising that the Catholics most easily make an imposing array in the statistical tables.