We believe in the coming of His Kingdom whose service is perfect freedom, because His laws, written in our members as well as in nature and in grace, are perfect, converting the soul.

We believe in the gospel of the Golden Rule, and that each man's habits of life should be an example safe and beneficent for every other man to follow.

We believe that God created both man and woman in His own image, and therefore we believe in one standard of purity for both men and women, and in the equal right of all to hold opinions and to express the same with equal freedom.

We believe in a living wage; in an eight-hour day; in courts of conciliation and arbitration; in justice as opposed to greed or gain; in "peace on earth and good-will to men."

We therefore formulate, and for ourselves adopt the following pledge, asking our sisters and brothers of a common danger and a common hope, to make common cause with us, in working its reasonable and helpful precepts into the practice of everyday life.

I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine, beer and cider, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same.

To confirm and enforce the rationale of this pledge, we declare our purpose to educate the young; to form a better public sentiment; to reform, so far as possible, by religious, ethical and scientific means, the drinking classes; to seek the transforming power of divine grace for ourselves and all for whom we work, that they and we may wilfully transcend no law of pure and wholesome living; and finally we pledge ourselves to labor and to pray that all these principles, founded upon the Gospel of Christ, may be worked out into the Customs of Society and the Laws of the Land.

This summary of what the W. C. T. U. has done appears in the "Encyclopedia of Social Reform:"

"The National W. C. T. U. worked for scientific temperance instruction in the public schools and secured mandatory laws for it in every state; and in the territories and the District of Columbia through congressional legislation. The W. C. T. U. has been the chief factor in state campaigns for statutory prohibition South as well as North, and for constitutional amendments. It aided very materially in se

curing the anti-canteen amendment to the army bill, which prohibits the sale of intoxicating liquors in all army posts. It keeps a superintendent of legislation in Washington during the entire session of Congress to look after reform bills. Congressmen-elect Roberts, the polygamist, was prevented from taking his seat in the United States Congress by petitions and protests largely gathered by the W. C. T. U. It has been an important factor in the Smoot investigation and in creating public sentiment which it is believed will result in a national constitutional amendment prohibiting polygamy. It has obtained anti-gambling and anti-cigarette laws. It has secured many laws for the protection of woment and girls, raising the age of protection for girls in every state but two, and in securing the appointment of police matrons in nearly all the large cities of the United States. It has created public sentiment in favor of equal suffrage, equal purity for both sexes, equal remuneration for work equally well done, equal educational, professional, and industrial opportunities for men and women. It has a bureau of scientific research, and sends authoritative statements from prominent physicians who are in favor of medical temperance to practitioners throughout the United States; and appeals to publishers of newspapers asking them to discontinue the advertising of alcoholic and other harmful proprietary medicines. It distributes millions of pages of literature every year and fills thousands of columns in the daily and weekly newspapers."

To have left purely esthetic considerations so far out of account hints not of insensibility but of strong abnegation for wise ends. Even the "do everything" of Francis Willard must pause somewhere. That the reason for existence and continuance of such an organization is not altogether specific, and not likely to disappear with the writing of any new measure upon the statute books or even into the Constitution of the United States, is evident. The W. C. T. U., great as have been its labors and its achievements, begins to see ahead, in the suppression of the drink traffic, not the completion of all it has worked for but only the first signal, world-stirring victory, to give courage for that further onward struggle which may be expected to continue as long as good women are part of the race.

M

Association

By James Ravenel Smith:

EN and women all over the country are today feeling

the need to do something more than selfishly accumulate for their own comfort,-the need to enlighten and help others and help them to help themselves. The ways are many, but perhaps the best is to give one's talent to the organization and furtherance of schemes for the good and uplift of great masses over vast areas.

Such an organization is the Young Women's Christian Association. It is not a charity, but a society of fellow workers. Its object is fourfold: "The promotion of the social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual condition of young women." And it reaches out a hand to business-women, mill-workers, factory hands, telephone operators,-to all women in this great country-to give them an opportunity in their leisure hours to rise above the frequently sordid conditions which surround them and to see something different and higher and better for which they can work and which is within their reach. "In the last analysis Americans are what their environment makes them, and behind the environment stand the women of the generation." These words are from the report of the National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States of America, and they carry in them the mission of the association and its field.

The reason of its being is not fortuitous. It stands as an expression of the demands and feelings of the age, and its growth has been gradual and healthy. In 1854, "during the Crimean War a great need was felt for a Home in London where Nurses could be received on their return from the East. This . . . was known as the Nurses' Home." It was developed in 1856 and became a home "for respectable women of various classes, including persons

training for the following branches of usefulness: Matrons of Public Institutions, School-mistresses, Public and Private Nurses, and persons wishing to perfect themselves in any branch of their profession," etc. In 1858 a Young Women's Improvement Association was formed in connection with the home, and the two together offered a place of residence to young women, as well as classes both educational and regious for their uplift. In the same year in New York a "Ladies' Christian Association" was formed "to labor for the temporal, moral, and religious welfare of young, selfsupporting women." In 1866 the Y. W. C. A. of Boston was organized for the same purpose. In 1872 the first student association was formed, which has since become an important branch. One thing led on to another quite naturally till the association gradually took the shape it has today.

As it now stands the Young Women's Christian Association has a splendid organization. Its growth has been so thoroughly natural that one feels instinctively that it is sound and healthy throughout, yet it is very plastic and well adapted to grow in any direction in which women seem to need help. Its membership in 1909 was 185,501. Local Societies are formed which divide themselves into two classes-Student Associations, which flourish in schools and colleges; and City Associations, which include self-supporting women and women of all classes. These local associations are grouped territorially, and the whole are united into the Young Women's Christian Associations of the United States of America. Every two years they have a conference where delegates and members from each association meet to discuss old and suggest new work, as well as to meet each other socially. It was also found necessary to establish a National Board, of which Grace H. Dodge is president. The National Board consists of thirty members staying in New York City and the heads of committees in the various territories. It transacts the necessary business of the United 'Associations, and continuously considers the best means to help women, where the help is needed, and how to reach

them. Then there is a World's Committee which conducts a conference once in four years, and through which national and local organizations can keep in touch with the work of associations in other countries, and take a share in them.

Glance at a few of the many gateways in which the Young Women's Christian Associations help women and help them to help themselves. They have established homes in the large cities where self-supporting women can live at a minimum of expense, and to which strangers, or those coming from other places in search of work, can go. It has been their aim to make these places real homes, and they have succeeded. Nor do they have a single standard but maintain homes in different parts of a city "offering a varied accommodation and at varying prices." An instance of their usefulness was the case of a girl who had a serious operation to be performed and came half way across the continent to New York with only the address of the Association Home and a letter of introduction from the doctor of her small town. She knew she would find warm friends and her faith was not in vain.

Lunch rooms have been established at which women can obtain tempting food at low prices without mixing in the hurly-burly of an ordinary cheap restaurant. An average amount for lunch at one such place over an extended time was found to be ten and one-half cents! In connection with the lunch room, and even more important, are rest rooms furnished with comfortable couches and reclining chairs where a tired girl can fling herself down and relax completely from the strain of the desk or loom. Nowadays it is necessary at least once a year to have more extended relaxation from the wear and tear and rush of business, but it is a problem how girls on petty salaries can get it pleasantly and wisely. To solve this many associations have opened holiday homes at moderate board in the most attractive and available places near their towns. These resorts are an unfailing source of pleasure and health to their occupants and their capacity is tested to the utmost.