ndeavor
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 identi