334 RELIGIOUS AGENCIES 



related with them, are the Young People's societies, which have 

 played so large a part in recent years in the religious life of the 

 churches. The Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor, 

 the Epworth Leagues, the Baptist Young People's Unions, and 

 similar organizations of young people, are effective agencies for the 

 promotion of religion. All these are, however, connected with 

 churches, and their membership is mostly included in the figures 

 given above. The same is true of several Brotherhoods which have 

 sprung up in connection with the churches. Some of them are 

 confined to certain denominations; others are interdenominational; 

 but they are, for the most part, in working relations with the local 

 churches. They cooperate outside the churches, for common 

 purposes. 



These local congregations have, however, other than local interests. 

 Most of them are grouped in national denominational bodies, through 

 which they cooperate for many purposes, - - for the extension of 

 those ideas and methods which they severally represent, and for the 

 evangelization and enlightenment of the nation and of the world. 

 Through these national bodies much of the life of the Christian people 

 finds expression. Each of them includes some kind of home mis- 

 sionary organization through which Sunday-schools and churches are 

 established in neighborhoods which are destitute, -- either in an 

 absolute sense or in a sectarian sense; through which feeble churches 

 are assisted in erecting houses of worship and homes for ministers; 

 through which educational and philanthropic institutions are main- 

 tained, and missions are planted in heathen lands. 



These ecclesiastical groups are very numerous. Not less than 132 

 different kinds of Christians are included in the list published in 

 the World Almanac. Many of these are, however, mere subdivisions 

 of sects, whose only reasons for being is a constitutional inability to 

 cooperate with other people, or the ambition of masterful men for 

 leadership. 



Through these denominational agencies the Christian people find 

 the principal outlet not only for their zeal for propagandism, but 

 also for their passion for service. It is their messengers who have 

 pushed out to the frontiers and gathered the pioneers into log meeting- 

 houses, and laid the foundations of the religious life of the new com- 

 munities. No considerable assemblage of settlers has been permitted 

 to gather in any portion of our rapidly expanding domain without 

 being speedily greeted by the home missionary, who comes to share 

 with them their hardships and help them bring down to earth the 

 New Jerusalem. Upon the hearts of the Christians in the older and 

 more prosperous churches the spiritual needs of their brethren in the 

 new settlements have always been lying, and they have given freely 

 of their substance for the planting of the institutions of religion in 



