community who are almost constantly traveling. Rarely at home, they go from city to city. The temptations to these men are peculiar and very great. In 1879, Mr. E. W. Watkins, himself one of this class of commercial travelers, was appointed secretary in their behalf. He has since visited all the principal associations, and has created an interest in these neglected men. Among the appliances which are productive of the most good is the traveler's ticket, which entitles him to all the privileges of membership in any place where an association may be. A second most valuable work is the hotel-visiting done by more than fifty associations each week. The hotel-registers are consulted on Saturday afternoon, and a personal note is sent to each young man, giving him the times of service at the several churches and inviting him to the rooms. Is it necessary to call the attention of business men to the importance to themselves of this work? Is it not patent? You cannot follow the young man whose honesty and clear-headedness is of such consequence to you. God has put it into the heart of this association to try and care for those men upon whom your success largely depends. Can you be blind to its value? Every individual man who employs commercial travelers should aid the work. But how is all this great work for young men carried on? It requires now thirty thousand dollars a year to do it. Of this sum New York pays more than one half, Pennsylvania about one sixth, and Massachusetts less than one fifteenth. But to do this work properly,—this work of the universal church of Christ for young men,—at least one third more, or forty thousand dollars a year, is needed. There is another need, however, much harder to meet—the men to fill the places calling earnestly for general secretaries. There are nearly three hundred and fifty paid employees in the field, representing about two hundred associations. Since every association should have a secretary, and there are nearly, if not quite, nine hundred, the need will be clearly seen. This need it is proposed to meet by training men in schools established for the purpose. Something of this has already been done in New York State and at Peoria, Illinois, and there must soon be a regular training-school established to accommodate from fifty to one hundred men.
This is a very meagre sketch of a great work. How inadequately it portrays it, none know so well as those who are immediately connected with it. Could you have been present at a dinner given a few months ago to the secretaries of the international committee, and heard each man describe his field and its needs; could you have seen the intensity with which each endeavored to make us feel what he himself realized, that his special field was the most important,—you would have come to our conclusion: that each field was all-important, and that each man was in his proper place, peculiarly fitted for it and assigned to it by the Master.
A prominent divine has lately said: "I believe the Young Men's Christian Association to be the greatest religious fact of the nineteenth century."
What has been effected by this fact? Thousands of young men in all parts of the world have been brought to Jesus Christ. It has been the training-school for Moody, Whittle, and hosts of laymen who are to-day proclaiming the simple Gospel. It has organized great evangelistic movements both here and
