in the same batch of promotions from sergeant to captain there was a Protestant to whom our attention had been drawn by the earnest praise of Fathers Casserly and Doyle, and a Catholic who had first been brought to our notice by the advocacy of Bishop Potter.

There were other ways in which clergymen helped our Police Board. We wanted at one time to get plenty of strong, honest young men for the police force, and did not want to draw them from among the ordinary types of ward heeler. Two fertile recruiting-grounds proved to be, one a Catholic church and the other a Methodist church. The rector of the former, Dr. Wall, had a temperance lyceum for the young men of his parish; the pastor of the latter had a congregation made out of a bit of old native America suddenly overlapped by the growth of the city, and his wheelwrights, ship-carpenters, baymen, and coasting-sailors gave us the same good type of officer that we got from among the mechanics, motormen, and blacksmiths who came from Dr. Wall's lyceum. Among our other close friends was another Methodist preacher, who had once been a reporter, but who had felt stirred by an irresistible impulse to leave his profession and devote his life to the East Side, where he ministered to the wants of those who would not go to the fashionable churches, and for whom no other church was

especially prepared. In connection with his work, one of the things that was especially pleasing was the way in which he had gone in not only with the rest of the Protestant clergy and the non-sectarian philanthropic workers of the district, but with the Catholic clergy, joining hands in the fight against the seething evils of the slum. One of his Catholic allies, by the way, a certain Brother A-, was doing an immense amount for the Italian children of his parish. He had a large parochial school, originally attended by the children of Irish parents. Gradually the Irish had moved uptown, and had been supplanted by the Italians. It was his life-work to lift these little Italians over the first painful steps on the road toward American citizenship.

Again, let me call to mind an institution, not in New York, but in Albany, where the sisters of a religious organization devote their entire lives to helping girls who either have slipped, and would go down to be trampled under foot in the blackest mire if they were not helped, or who, by force of their surroundings, would surely slip if the hand were not held out to them in time. It is the kind of work the doing of which is of infinite importance both from -the standpoint of the state and from the standpoint of the individual; yet it is a work which, to be successful, must emphatically be a labor of love. Most men and women, even among those who appreciate

the need of the work and who are not wholly insensible to the demands made upon them by the spirit of brotherly love for mankind, lack either the time, the opportunity, or the moral and mental qualities to succeed in such work; and to very many the sheer distaste of it would prevent their doing it well. There is nothing attractive in it save for those who are entirely earnest and disinterested. There is no reputation, there is not even any notoriety, to be gained from it. Surely people who realize that such work ought to be done, and who realize also how exceedingly distasteful it would be for them to do it, ought to feel a sense of the most profound gratitude to those who with whole-hearted sincerity have undertaken it, and should support them in every way. This particular institution is under the management of a creed not my own, but few things gave me greater pleasure than to sign a bill increasing its power and usefulness. Compared with the vital necessity of reclaiming these poor hunted creatures to paths of womanliness and wholesome living, it is of infinitesimal importance along the lines of which creed these paths lead.

Undoubtedly the best type of philanthropic work is that which helps men and women who are willing and able to help themselves; for fundamentally this aid is simply what each of us should be all the time both giving and receiving. Every man and woman

in the land ought to prize above almost every other quality the capacity for self-help; and yet every man and woman in the land will at some time or other be sorely in need of the help of others, and at some time or other will find that he or she can in turn give help even to the strongest. The quality of self-help is so splendid a quality that nothing can compensate for its loss; yet, like every virtue, it can be twisted into a fault, and it becomes a fault if carried to the point of cold-hearted arrogance, of inability to understand that now and then the strongest may be in need of aid, and that for this reason alone, if for no other, the strong should always be glad of the chance in turn to aid the weak.

The Young Men's Christian Associations and the Young Women's Christian Associations, which have now spread over all the country, are invaluable because they can reach every one. I am certainly a beneficiary myself, having not infrequently used them as clubs or reading-rooms when I was in some city in which I had but little or no personal acquaintance. In part they develop the good qualities of those who join them; in part they do what is even more valuable, that is, simply give opportunity for the men or women to develop the qualities themselves. In most cases they provide reading-rooms and gymnasiums, and therefore furnish a means for a man or woman to pass his or her leisure hours in

profit or amusement as seems best. The average individual will not spend the hours in which he is not working in doing something that is unpleasant, and absolutely the only way permanently to draw average men or women from occupations and amusements that are unhealthy for soul or body is to furnish an alternative which they will accept. To forbid all amusements, or to treat innocent and vicious amusements as on the same plane, simply ensures recruits for the vicious amusements. The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations would have demonstrated their value a hundred fold over if they had done nothing more than furnish reading-rooms, gymnasiums, and places where, especially after nightfall, those without homes, or without attractive homes, could go without receiving injury. They furnish meeting-grounds for many young men who otherwise would be driven, perhaps to the saloon, or if not, then to some cigar-store or other lounging-place, where at the best the conversation would not be elevating, and at the worst companionships might be formed which would lead to future disaster. In addition to this the associations give every opportunity for self-improvement to those who care to take advantage of the opportunity, and an astonishing number do take advantage of it.

Mention was made above of some of the sources