Nevertheless there persists in the church, however unconsciously, a sort of piety that disregards the body, and the conventional Christian ideal has certainly been anemic and negative in the matter of recreation. The Young Men's Christian Associations with their reproduction of the Greek ideal of physical well-being have served to temper the other-worldly type of Christianity with the idea of a well-rounded and physically competent life as being consonant with the will of God. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Francke of Halle, an educational organizer and philanthropist of no mean proportion, said, "Play must be forbidden in any and all of its forms. The children shall be instructed in this matter in such a way as to show them, through the presentation of religious principles, the wastefulness and folly of all play. They shall be led to see that play will distract their hearts and minds from God, the Eternal Good, and will work nothing but harm to their spiritual lives." Only gradually does "the-world-as-a-vale-of tears" and "the-remnant-that-shall-be-saved" idea give place to a faith that claims for God the entire world with its present life as well as individual immortality in future felicity. Miracle and cataclysm and postmortem glory--the ever-ready recourse of baffled hope and persecuted Christianity--are giving place more and more to a Christian conquest that is orderly and inclusive of the whole sweep of human life. The church is but dimly conscious, as yet, that through the aid of science she has attained this magnificent optimism; much less does she realize its full implication for social service and the saving of the individual, both body and soul. The minister as the herald and exemplar of such an imperial salvation cannot ignore the exceptional opportunities which the play interests of boyhood offer. He whose task has been to reconcile men to God, to bring them into harmony with the universe in its ultimate content, cannot neglect those activities which more than anything else in the life of the boy secure the happy co-ordination of his powers, the placing of himself in right relation with others and in obedience to law. These are the moral and religious accomplishments aimed at in the teaching of reconciliation which bulks so large in Christian doctrine; and by whatever means this right adjustment to self, to others, and to the will of God is brought about, it always produces the sure harvest of service and joy.