meeting of the International Committee, and it bore rich fruit in our war with Spain; fruit that has multiplied not a hundredfold, but even a thousand-fold. I say a thousandfold, for the word is justified when one single branch of the Young Men's Christian Association in the city of Brooklyn receives in one year thirty-nine thousand visits from sailors of the United States navy. I say a thousandfold with justice when the attendance in one year at religious meetings in the United States army mounts up to the astounding figure of three hundred and eighty-seven thousand enlisted men. Wherever the man that wears the uniform of his country may be-in Alaska, in Porto Rico, in Guam, in Cuba, in the Philippines, or in China-the outstretched hand of the association goes to meet him, not only to save him from himself, but to save him for his country. England has followed the example of the United States, sending the agents of the association with her army to South Africa. France and Germany have established branches for the uplifting of military life in their garrison towns. Japan has sent two apostles of Christian living to battle side by side with her plucky little soldiers in China, fighting a dragon more deadly than that which waves upon the yellow Chinese battle-flag; and if the scented breezes "blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle," and "every prospect pleases," as it did in the good old days when the good old hymn was written, it is at least possible to say that "man is no longer vile" in Ceylon, when the Young Men's Christian Association takes charge, not only of English, but of Sinhalese soldiers, in their volunteer camps. No man who has had spread before his eyes the workings of this great, beneficent association in the camps of the army, can refrain from tossing his pebble on the cairn of grateful memory of the unselfish men and women who seek no monument and no prize beyond the simple words that "they went about doing good." Our elder brothers of the Civil War knew the United States Sanitary Commission and its noble work, but they never had the benefit of this organized work of the Christian association we have enjoyed. No man can honor more than I do the work of the Red Cross Society and of Clara Barton. The Red Cross Society has received and deserves the plaudits of the world. If, however, you ask a man whose duty it was to labor fourteen hours a day and seven days in the week in the camps of homesick volunteers throughout that long, hot summer of 1898, what one force worked most mightily for good for the health, for the moral as well as for the physical health, of the American soldier, that man will tell you, if he tells the truth: "The Young Men's Christian Association." The Red Cross Society cured disease; the Young Men's Christian Association prevented disease. No man can realize the weary, dull routine of a camp when all the excitement, all the incentive to glory, has been taken away. The homesick man soon becomes a sick soldier, indeed, and the entire energy of the officers is spent in providing amusements-games, baseball matches, band concerts, anything to occupy the man's leisure; for in a camp more than anywhere else is it true that Satan does "find some mischief still for idle hands to do." Vice is followed, not because it is vice, but because it serves to entertain; and the Young Men's Christian Association took up the problem in just that spirit. Their great tents through the Seventh Army corps, managed with consummate tact and ability, kept soldier after soldier from following the downward path under my own eyes in the great camp at Jacksonville. In those tents the men found a table where they could play games; they found paper on which they could write home; they found the home newspapers in which they could read the accounts of the old home baseball nine; they found all kinds of innocent amusements, and they found, best of all, an old-fashioned melodeon, with plenty of good, simple music-good, oldfashioned hymns for Sunday, and hearty, helpful, clean, enthusiastic music for week-days as well. No money was ever better spent than the money that was put into the hands of the agents of this association for the help of the soldiers in their time of need. Directly this organization benefits the sailor and the soldier; indirectly it benefits the United States of America. You have done well in giving the men that wear the blue shirt and the blue jacket a chance. They have done well in taking advantage of the chance you have given them. A navy that sends thirty-nine thousand visitors in one year to one Young Men's Christian Association house in one city cannot be the sink of iniquity that some of the enemies would seek to depict it. An army that can organize over two thousand religious meetings in one year cannot be a pit of infamy to be entered only by those who have failed in civil life. We have to thank the Young Men's Christian Association, not only for the good work that it has done for the soldier and for the sailor, but for the good report of the United States army and navy which it has spread throughout the United States of America. To this association we owe the fact that we are proud of our army and navy in time of peace as well as in time of war, and that there is no career in the world in which a man can lead, if he will, a cleaner, sweeter, more honorable life than in the ranks of the defenders of the United States of America. My service happened to be in the army. When I hear the army slandered, I like to remember a scene on the soil of Cuba on Christmas Eve. We were seated out in front of my quarters—an old brown tent in a sweet potato field-Major Michie of the regular army, my dearest friend and comrade-Robert E. Lee Michie of Virginia-it means something when Massa chusetts and Virginia go to war together-talking together on Christmas Eve about the things-well, about the things that men do talk about when they are hundreds of miles away from home and it is Christmas Eve. It was a bright, clear, moonlight night, and across the road a great rose garden sent up a thousand scents into the air, and above our heads another Sharon "waved in solemn praise her silent groves of palm." As we sat on talking, long past taps, suddenly there came the challenge of a sentinel, No. 10, of the Forty-ninth Iowa: "Twelve o'clock, and all's well." It was Christmas morning. Scarcely had the cry of the sentinel died away than from the bandsmen's tents of that regiment there rose up the good old Christmas hymn, the Portuguese hymn, and one clear, high baritone voice struck up with the good old words: "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord," and another and another, until the whole regiment was singing. The Sixth Missouri joined in, the Fourth Virginia, and Second Illinois, the One Hundred and Sixty-first Indiana, and so on down the line, until there, on that line of hilltops above the Queen City of the Antilles, a whole American army corps was welcoming in Christmas day with Christmas hymns. Of course, they sang "Coronation," and "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and "America," and all the rest. Perhaps there may be some even here who think that that first hymn was sung by chance. Well, there are some of us who go to war when we think we may be needed, who make little parade upon the housetops, perhaps, of our religion, yet who like to think that those things do not happen altogether by chance, for think just a minute: that Portuguese hymn, the music of it, "Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes," is the oldest Christian music of the Roman Catholic church. The words, "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord," is a good old Calvinist Protestant hymn. The Northern soldier knew that hymn as one he had learned beside his mother's knee; but to the Southern soldier it was that and something more. It was the favorite hymn of General Robert E. Lee, played at that great general's funeral. Catholic and Protestant, North and South, singing together on Christmas day in the morningthat's an American army. Not every soldier is a saint; not every soldier leads a pure life; but when the rank and file of our soldiers and sailors are slandered by their enemies, I like to remember that moonlight night; I like to remember, whatever else may be said of the boys that wear the blue, that never since Cromwell sent his Ironsides to battle has any nation produced an army that could open its first Christian year on foreign soil, not with drunkenness and debauchery, not even with sports and games, but with a voluntary Christian service of prayer and praise. THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY IN OUR ISLAND POSSESSIONS MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER, U. S. A. Opportunity always carries with it duty and responsibility. The parable of the talents was an admonition that responsibility is measured by the power possessed to accomplish good. This applies to nations as well as individuals. The eyes of the entire world are now upon the law-makers, rulers and thinkers of America. The civilized nations are asking: Is the republic of the United States-is a government of the people a sort of government which can meet such grave responsibilities and conditions as now confront the nation? The answer must be prompt, decided, and in the affirmative. Fifty years ago the Young Men's Christian Association was born. During that fifty years the progress of our country has been greater than that of almost any nation prior to that time during a period of centuries. Our population has increased fourfold. Our domain also has greatly expanded. In the year just closed our increase in wealth has been greater in amount than the total wealth of our country fifty years ago. In other words, in a single year we have been blessed with such prosperity that the increase in that single year has been greater than the wealth accumulated by the labor of our ancestors during a period of two hundred and forty-five years—from the landing at Jamestown in 1606 down to the organization of this association in 1851. In our new possessions we find a vast population. In the Philippines there are estimated to be eleven million people. They have a civilization which even antedates ours. They are not a bad people. What is the duty of Americans with regard to the soldiers that they send among those people? Their impressions of Americans and American civilization will be measured by the conduct of these soldiers. Wherever the army goes, it is of first importance that the soldiers live such lives as will give the right idea of American civilization! During the last three years the character of enlistments in the army has greatly improved. We draw our recruits from the best families of the farms and factories. Among them are also found many graduates of our colleges-the young men who leave home, given by a father and mother from patriotic motives to their country. When the boy who has had Christian and moral influences surrounding him all his life leaves home, the parents pray that the influences which have surrounded him at home may be extended to him in his new vocation, and that prayer is largely answered by the Young Men's Christian Association organized in the army. As a soldier, I appeal to the people in this country to lend all the aid possible to build up the Young Men's Christian Association in every place where the army goes. Nothing can be done that will add more to the spirit and strength and power of our country-a country of which every American becomes more proud every day. THE MEANING OF THE ASSOCIATION TO THE LIFE OF THE SAILOR REAR-ADMIRAL J. C. WATSON, U. S. N. The mere fact of my being willing to stand before so numerous an audience to testify the gratitude, the deep sense of obligation, that I feel for the work done by the great association of which this Jubilee convention is so worthy a representative, to all who know anything about my many limitations, is a very strong proof of how deep a sense of obligation I must rest under. The profound gratitude which I feel, not only for myself, but in behalf of the enlisted men of the navy and the army constrains me thus publicly to testify to the great helpfulness of the work done by your worthy agents in the Philippines. My testimony is added to that of General Wheeler and General Bird, both from personal observation, as mine is; and the enlisted men of our navy have shown in some degree their appreciation of your helping hand of brotherhood which you have held out and are holding out to them, by the large measure with which they have availed themselves of the privileges of the home near the navy-yard in Brooklyn, and also by their admiring love shown constantly towards that noble Christian woman who has made the erection of the ideal home for that naval branch a possibility; whose labors in connection with other like-minded, noble-spirited women, have contributed so much to make better the manhood of every one of us. Again I will say that we are thankful, and I hope, God willing, that we can express this gratitude better by our conduct in the future. than any words can do. THE NAVY'S NEED AND THE ASSOCIA- REAR-ADMIRAL F. J. HIGGINSON, U. S. N. It gives me great pleasure to express to you how deeply thankful we are that the International Committee has stretched out its generous arms and has taken in the soldiers and sailors of our country. Speaking for the sailors, I would say that we on board ship give them everything in the way of comforts that can be done consistent with the discipline of the ship. They |