I am interested in it for various reasons.  First of all, because it is an association of young men.  I have had a good deal to do with young men in my time, and I have formed an impression of them which I believe to be contrary to the general impression.  They are generally thought to be arch radicals.  As a matter of fact, they are the most conservative people I have ever dealt with.  Go to a college community and try to change the least custom of that little world and find how the conservatives will rush at you.  Moreover, young men are embarrassed by having inherited their fathers’ opinions.  I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.  I do not say that with the least disrespect for the fathers; but every man who is old enough to have a son in college is old enough to have become very seriously immersed in some particular business and is almost certain to have caught the point of view of that particular business.  And it is very useful to his son to be taken out of that narrow circle, conducted to some high place where he may see the general map of the world and of the interests of mankind, and there shown how big the world is and how much of it his father may happen to have forgotten.  It would be worth while for men, middle-aged and old, to detach themselves more frequently from the things that command their daily attention and to think of the sweeping tides of humanity.

Therefore I am interested in this association, because it is intended to bring young men together before any crust has formed over them, before they have been hardened to any particular occupation, before they have caught an inveterate point of view; while they still have a searchlight that they can swing and see what it reveals of all the circumstances of the hidden world.

I am the more interested in it because it is an association of young men who are Christians.  I wonder if we attach sufficient importance to Christianity as a mere instrumentality in the life of mankind.  For one, I am not fond of thinking of Christianity as the means of saving individual souls.  I have always been very impatient of processes and institutions which said that their purpose was to put every man in the way of developing his character.  My advice is:  Do not think about your character.  If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself.  Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig.  The only way your powers can become great is by exerting them outside the circle of your own narrow, special, selfish interests.  And that is the reason of Christianity.  Christ came into the world to save others, not to save himself; and no man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother, how he can assist his friend, how he can enlighten mankind, how he can