War the work was well under way, but had been
almost entirely given up. Our visitors were not at once received as
brethren, but Christian love did its work and gradually all differences
were forgotten by these Christians in the wonderful tie which truly
united them, and when, in 1877, the convention met at Richmond, not only
harmony prevailed, but it seemed as though each were trying to prove to
the other his intenser brotherly love. The cross truly conquered. No one
who was present can ever forget those scenes, or cease to bless God for
what I truly believe was the greatest step toward the uniting again of
North and South. Mr. T.K. Cree has had charge of this work since the
beginning. Not only has sectional spreading of associations been done by
the committee, but, in the language of the report already quoted:
"Special classes of young men, isolated in a measure from their fellows
by virtue of occupation, training, or foreign birth, have from time to
time so strongly appealed to the attention of the American associations
as to elicit specific efforts in their behalf." Thus, in 1868, the first
secretary of the committee was directed to devote his time to railroad
employees. For one year he labored among them. The general call on his
time then became so imperative that he was obliged to leave the
railroad work. This work had been undertaken at St. Albans, Vermont, in
1854, and in Canada in 1855. The first really important step in this
work was at Cleveland in 1872, when an employee of a railroad company,
who had been a leader in every kind of dissipation, was converted. He
immediately began to use his influence among his comrades, and such was
the power of the Spirit that the Cleveland Association took up the work
and began holding meetings especially for these men. In 1877, Mr. E.D.
Ingersol was appointed by the international committee to superintend the
work. There has been no rest for him in this. A leading railroad
official says: "Ingersol is indeed a busy man. Night and day he travels.
To-day a railroad president wants him here, to-morrow a manager summons
him. He is going like a shuttle back and forth across the country,
weaving the web of railroad associations." When he entered on the work
there were but three railroad secretaries; now there are nearly seventy.
There are now over sixty branches in operation; and the work is going on
besides at twenty-five points; almost a hundred different places,
therefore, where