the tract on true manliness, and put one at the place of each of the men; after reading these the men accused him of the act. This he did not deny, and three-fourths of the men agreed with him, and the evil talk ceased.

PROF. SIMEON E. BALDWIN,

OF THE FACULTY OF THE YALE LAW SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN, CONN.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: My friend Mr. Dike, in his thoughtful paper, has insisted on the reliance we ought to place on the family as the basis of all society, and on the careless way in which our government and people regard it.

It is, I think, one of the things in which the Old World was wiser than the New. The Greeks and Romans, we all know, made every family a church. The father was the priest. It had its household gods. It was so in a measure with the Jews, with the Hindoos, with every ancient race.

And now let me ask, Which of our Christian churches has best remembered this lesson of ancient history? Not, I say, any church represented here. It has been best remembered by that oldest church of all, comprehending to-day the greatest number of Christians in the world-the Roman Catholic church. And I rise here as a layman, sent here from the General Conference of one of our religious denominations in my own state, to say, with some little regret, that I am sorry that in this great convention a more kindly tone has not been manifested towards that venerable Christian church which has its center at Rome.

A MEMBER; I object to that. I don't believe it's a Christian church at all.

PROF. BALDWIN: That is precisely the sentiment that has been uttered from this platform, and I rise here as a layman to say that in what I have done (and I have done something) in social reform, I have found in my own state, Connecticut, no truer friend in many of these very questions that have come before this body, than gentlemen of the Roman Catholic church. My friend Mr. Dike and I stood together in Connecticut, as organizers of the National Divorce Reform League. One of the best helpers in the cause was a Roman Catholic. Now, I do not desire to raise any

question of antagonism to the gentleman on the floor. I simply
want to say this, and I do say it—that I think one of the great
friends to the cause of social advancement in our cities is the
Roman Catholic church. We can't afford to reject its aid. It
guards the family; it looks at the children, it looks at the home,
from the standpoint of a Christian organization; and we ought to
make friends with that church, we ought to bring them in with us.
in all these causes of Christian and social reform. And unless we
do it, we reject one of the great factors that is ready to our hand
to help on the cause of Christ in America.

MR. DODGE: I want the privilege of saying one word on behalf
of the Alliance. I am sorry that Mr. Baldwin, whose admirable
work we all respect, has entirely mistaken the temper of the Alli-
ance and of what has been said here. I know of no one connected
with the Alliance or any of its branches who has not the most
sincere respect for the piety, for the charitable organization, and
for the order of the Roman Catholic church, and for the good done
by it. We all admire and respect many of its members, and
among them, all of us have Christian friends whose character we
respect and love. The only word that has been spoken here (and
it was put admirably in the address of Bishop Coxe last night) has
been the fact that we do not believe in the power which is recog-
nized by so large a number of the Catholic church—the allegiance
to a foreign power that has no sympathy whatever with our advance
as a republic or as a Christian nation. [Prolonged applause.]

Against that, as American citizens and as Christians, we must always protest. Against their attack on our public schools, or on any of our institutions, we must always protest. But toward them as Christians, many of them earnest, faithful, devoted and useful, we have nothing but love, sympathy and regard, and will always work heartily with them; and we will defend, to our last blood, the rights for them that we claim for ourselves. [Great applause.]

REV. J. W. M. WILLIAMS, D. D., OF BALTIMORE. MR. PRESIDENT: I have listened with profound interest to the two papers that have just been read, and I would change the title, but not one sentiment uttered. These papers show the value of childhood and the value of womanhood. They have shown clearly

that the family is the first school, and we all know that woman is the chief professor in that school. [Applause.] They show very clearly that the family is the fountain of society, and we know that the children are the outflowing from that fountain; and as they are pure, society is pure and we are safe. It is not the coming man so much as the coming woman. [Applause.] For woman, after all, rules the world, either for good or for evil. You go to the excavated city of Pompei. Your guide conducts you to the old oracle, and shows you where the priest sat and answered the questions that were propounded. The priest was the real oracle. And I have recently made a discovery-but it is as old as the world, and I think you will perceive it to be so-the real man is the woman he carries in his heart. If she be an angel of a woman, she will be apt to make him an angel of a man; but if she be a devil of a woman, look out for him. [Applause.] There, sir, is a great rule; and if in this Evangelical Alliance we can impress upon the ministers, and upon Sunday-school teachers, and upon our families the value of childhood, and they are trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and act on the principles taught in the word of God, the men and women of the coming generation will be a power that can resist the flood of error and skepticism and desolation that is flowing in upon our land. The hope of America is not in your Democratic party, or your Republican party, or your Prohibition party: the hope of America is in the education of our children and the purification of our family. Some years ago, a company of travelers stood upon the upper tier of the Coliseum of Rome. Our present Minister to Spain said on that occasion, quoting a passage, "When the Coliseum falls, Rome falls." I added immediately, "The Coliseum has fallen, and Rome lies in ruins."

Fellow-citizens, when the purity of the marriage relation and the purity of our family fall, America falls. [Applause.]

REV. M. W. PRESSLEY, D. D., OF PHILADELPHIA. I want just one moment, Mr. President, and only a necessity that is felt deeply in my heart, and one that has been pressed upon me from the outset, prompts me to lift my voice in this assembly now.

I believe the city from which I come is considered a pretty fair city. The Quaker element has always been a conserving element there, and when we talk about aggressive measures in the attack of evil, we have a great many ministers, eloquent and true, who invite us to go upon some promontory and count the church spires. We have 700 of them, one to every 1700 people, but it is a solemn and awful fact, that we have to look square in the face, and I believe that it is one that the ministry of all the cities of our country must soon look in the face, that we have almost as many houses of infamy in our cities as we have houses of worship to Almighty God. Now it is true (and I see some of the pastors here now) that we have beneath the very spires of our churches houses of infamy, where young souls are led down to ruin and damnation, because we have not had the courage to roll up our sleeves and put our hands to the evil, and throttle it at its very seat. And I trust that when we go back from this Conference, which has been a real inspiration to us all, that in the future it will be as concrete as it has been abstract; that when we go back, we shall not be ashamed to have our ministerial robes corrupted, if it require it, with contact with suffering, sinful, sinning humanity. And I believe, as Dr. Pierson intimated, that if our religion, kidgloved though it may be in some respects, could be soiled by an honest contact with these living, awful, damning realities that we have to face in our cities, it would be far better for us. And I trust that very soon we, as ministers, shall erect upon our pulpits and in our souls this standard, that a man shall be as deep and as great a disgrace to society who allows his pure name and his fair character to be assaulted, as any woman who may have perchance, by the inducements of the devil, lost her character. Let us elevate this one pure standard. The gospel of purity is what we want; and I trust that all of us will receive such inspiration as I believe God has enabled me to receive. And I do believe that, if my own city is a representative one, if we do not very soon meet and master this gigantic evil, we shall see the cancer developing upon the very body of Christ.

I esteem it a privilege, and I feel that God has prompted my heart, to give utterance to these things, and I bid God-speed to the great army of ribbon-workers; and I believe that if we could come into living, personal, sympathizing contact with such noble, God-inspired women as Frances E. Willard, whose imperial intel

lect and queenly graces are doing much to elevate from the slums to a position of purity and power the masses of our country, we should receive a further inspiration, and redouble our energy in this great work.