“I think it seems so kind and good of ladies,” writes another, “to take such an interest in us poor girls. You little know half the good you do us or what our lives really are. I sometimes feel ready to give up in despair, when everything seems to go wrong, and at those times your letters seem sent of God to cheer me up and help me to go on again. They are read and re-read again and again, and I thank you for them much.” A young member writes:—“Thank you very much for writing to me. I do enjoy your letters. I quite feel as though I knew you; but I should like to see you ever so much.” Yet another:—“You have granted me such a privilege by asking me to write to you, which I shall be pleased to do.” The last extract is from a girl of seventeen, who, after describing her life, adds:—“I have ordered, may I say, _our_ Association papers.... I must now close, longing to have one of your ever welcome letters soon.” Surely there is no need to question the usefulness of the Association. These letters tell their own story by the simple, unaffected manner in which the writers assert that they have received positive benefits through linking themselves to it. It will not be out of place to add a word or two as to the objects of the Y.W.C.A. for the benefit of those who have not seen the article referred to, besides other notices which have appeared from time to time. The products of nature are not valued in proportion to their size or outward appearance, but more generally with reference to their use for the sustaining of life. The spreading cedar is far more magnificent and beautiful than the little potato-plant, and yet the cedar would be less missed than the potato. The rosy-cheeked, shining apple makes more show than the little seed-corn, and yet there is no comparison as to which we could most easily spare. The apple we could dispense with; it would be difficult to dispense with what has been aptly termed “the staff of life.” So with the Y.W.C.A. It does not assume to itself a great place in the way of presenting you with a magnificent appearance; but nevertheless its work is sure, and it is steadily making its influence felt through the length and breadth of the land. If anyone should wish to feel this influence, they must join the Association, follow it in its work, watch its effects, and the verdict must be favourable. The Association is writing its name ineffaceably in the changed lives, enlarged hopes, higher aims, and nobler motives of many of its members. Another point sometimes forgotten is that the object of the Association is to build up character, remembering that “it depends upon what we are as to what the world is like.” “Dark is the world to thee; Thyself the reason why.” Its aim is not to bring the members out of the spheres in which they have been placed, but to help them to do their duty better in that station of life where God Has placed them.