well as with sharp wits; immortal souls as well as clear heads;
susceptibilities to temptation as well as to self-interest; young men who
are to fill a place in these democratic communities, to cast their votes,
exert their influence, be each the centre of a greater or smaller circle,
be fathers to train up children and perpetuate their own moral character
and sentiments whatever they be? How many consider the influence which
their position of employer gives them over the moral destiny of these
youth; the power they may wield through the truly affectionate and
confidential relations subsisting between them? How many concern
themselves as to where their clerks go after business hours, what
associations they form, whether they have a place of worship or not? How
many of you business men, here to-day, are in the habit of asking the
young men in your employ to accompany you to church, or to Bible class, or
to prayer-meeting?

Take the community at large. _Its_ influence, if exerted in this
direction, must be chiefly confined to furnishing some counter attraction,
moral, but not necessarily religious, to the attractions of the haunts of
sin. And a great work can be done here, in which men of the most opposite
religious theories, and men with no religion at all can unite. There, for
instance, is the temperance question. There is a variety of views on the
subject; but all agree that intemperance is an awful evil, and one which
all moral and religious men are called on to resist and suppress by every
possible means. _We_ believe that the only effectual method of reforming a
drunkard, or of keeping a man from becoming one, is to make him a
Christian. That will reform in _all_ respects. But we cannot bring the
community to agree on this platform. Here then is one where all can unite,
namely, in organizing some force to overbalance the attractions of the
dram shop. It need not be distinctively religious, only free from vicious
associations. The saloon keeper understands perfectly that not one young
man in ten comes to his haunt originally to drink or in which to gamble.
He wants a warm and pleasant room to sit down and chat with his companion;
to read his evening paper, or it may be to procure a meal. So this
minister of corruption proceeds to make provision for these natural and
healthy cravings, that, through them, he may excite those unnatural and
depraved desires, the satisfaction of which constitutes his chief source
of prof