prolonged.

sion of the term of human life. The author of Festus has well said: "We live in deeds, The term of life not years; in thoughts, not words; in feelings, not in figures on.a dial." Surely there was never a time when so much of emotion, thought, purpose and achievement could be crowded into a single life-time as now. The railway journey of an hour must be set over against the day's ride in stage-coach a century ago. Steam and electricity in their manifold applications enable us to crowd into the years of our life a thousand-fold more than was possible in some ages of the past. Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, but the wide-awake young man alert to his opportunities can in his life of threescore and ten feel, think, and achieve more, and so live longer than did Methuselah. "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

The age is marked, too, by the expansion of our powers. The human vision is limited, Expansion of but the telescope in the Lick Obour powers. servatory which brings the moon, two hundred and forty thousand miles away, within two hundred miles of the earth, simply

extend that vision through two hundred and thirty-nine thousand eight hundred miles. The microscope does the same thing for us in another direction. The telephone widens the range of the human voice by twelve hundred miles. The hydraulic jack immeasurably multiplies our muscular energies.

Concentration of energies.

Bishop

The concentration of the intellectual treasures and forces of the past makes this age remarkable. There is a strange vitality in thought as it comes through the media of several languages. Warren once telegraphed a friend to meet him in the Coele-Syria Valley. That message was translated seven times between man and man, but the next day the two riders met on the bridge over the river Litany.

Linguistic science and archæology are having remarkable triumphs, and are liberating the stored-up energies of former ages, and these are concentrating in our own. The young man of to-day compels the mightiest thinkers of the past to walk by his side, enrich him with their counsel, and fire him with their spirit.

Further, this is an age of speedy appropria

tion. Columbus entreated the monarchs of

Speedy appro- Europe eight long years before he obtained a successful hearing for

priation.

his project to discover a new world. To-day Edison announces a new invention. The press heralds it through the civilized world, and in a few weeks its practical application has revolutionized an industry, and modified the commerce of a nation.

Ascendency of spiritual forces.

The growing ascendency of the moral and spiritual forces is another feature. Never before was the Christian religion so generally triumphant. The cross never rallied so many disciples as now, and the Gospel never before was greeted by so many doors of opportunity. Vast resources support and fields white to the harvest inspire the Christian toiler. Not to speak of other characteristics, the prolongation of human life, the expansion of powers, the concentration of energy, the speedy appropriation of ideas, and the ascendency of spiritual forces combine to make this age phenomenal in its facilities for development, and opportunities for beneficent service. Young people are certainly to be congratulated upon their patrimony, and that

it is allotted to them to work out their destinies in such a day of promise and possibility as this, being, as they are indeed, "Heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of time."

youth.

But besides privilege is power, and it would be a great blessing both to the Church and to young people themselves if the power peculiar to youth were neither exaggerated nor disparaged, but accurately estimated. Age has its advantages, chief among which is wisdom-that cautious, conservative The forces of judgment which comes from experience. But youth has enthusiam, energy, spring, dash, courage sometimes amounting to fearlessness. If only willing to learn from older heads, and considerate enough to be guided by higher counsels, they can furnish tremendous forces so much mightier than steam and electrical energy as to be beyond compare.

Demand

for

The demand for young people's societies begins with the recognition of the possibilities and powers to which reference has been made. There are, however, young people's other considerations, among which the loss of young people from the Church deserves attention. Thousands of them slip

societies.

their cables and drift away from the Church Seventy-five per cent. of the young men of this country, it has

every year.

Loss of people.

young

been estimated by a careful writer,

are outside the Church altogether.

Among the many causes contributing to this deplorable state of things may be menAmusements. tioned the marked reaction from Puritanic training—a reaction very liable to the other extreme of worldliness and sinful indulgence. The Church, striving to guard against this evil, has set her face firmly against certain harmful amusements. Without questioning the wisdom of this policy it may be urged that it is high time the Church had provided something to take their place. While, true, it may be said it is not the office of the Church to amuse, it can with equal force be maintained that wisdom would be illustrated in providing something better than the world can furnish; that which will both entertain and interest.

Here is the true method. "Overcome evil with good." The Alaskan River with good. Yukon pours such a volume of

Overcome evil

water into the sea as to drive back the salt water