to other pastors, who tried it with like results.  The remedy for a widespread defect was found.  It was adopted on all hands and by all evangelical denominations.  It spread from church to church, from town to town and into foreign lands.  Annual conventions of these Christian Endeavor Societies were held, at which forty or fifty thousand young people, representing societies in all sections of the country with an aggregate membership of about two million souls, were present to recount their experience and pledge themselves anew to the service.  The basis of their association was made so broad that Christians of every denomination could heartily unite in its profession of faith.  Thus, in addition to the primary design, a basis of Christian inter-denominational union was incidentally discovered, and the Methodist and the Presbyterian, the Congregationalist and Episcopalian found themselves united in a common bond for a common purpose.  The movement in these present years shows no signs of decrease, but is still growing in numbers, power and influence, and promises to be one of the most potent factors of religious life which springing up in this century will go on to influence the next.

The idea of association and combination in religious life, of which Christian Endeavor is the most extensive illustration, has been embodied during the century in other forms.  Springing directly from the Christian Endeavor Society, are the Epworth League in the Methodist Church, and the Baptist Young People’s Union in the Baptist communion.  The two organizations are practically identical in principle and purpose with the Christian Endeavor Society and differ from it only in the absence of the inter-denominational character.  The heads of the Methodist Church apprehended danger to their young people in their being members of a society not under direct Methodist control and feared that they might eventually be lost to Methodism.  The Baptists, on the other hand, were not concerned on the question of control, but feared that the association of their young people with the young people of other churches might lead them to think lightly of the peculiar rite which separates them from other denominations, and to diminish its importance in their esteem.  Both denominations therefore organized societies of the same kind, to keep their young people within the denominational fold.

Another organization which has attained large membership and has become international, is that of the King’s Daughters.  As its name indicates, it was primarily intended for women, though as it extended, it added as an adjunct a membership for men as King’s Sons.  It also was inter-denominational in character, and its objects were more directly identified with the philanthropic side of the religious life than were those of the societies previously mentioned.  It originated in a meeting of ten ladies, held in New York, in 1886, at which plans were discussed for aiding the poor, the unfortunate and the distressed