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October 20, 1909. THE PRESBYTERI part of the church. It justifies the church in obtruding into society, in the effort to reconstruct it, into government to reorganize and administer it, into trade to regulate and shape it. It warrants political methods and political ends. It opens the way to the invoking of governmental power. It thrusts the kingdom of God into the kingdoms of men and upon their level, upon the pretext of uplifting them. It substitutes reform for religion, reconstruction for regeneration. The church has a social mission, and a true one. By the edification of her people through the ordinances of God's house, by the bringing of them into closer personal touch with Christ, she makes better men and women of them, and being better men and women they become more potential for good in the outward relations of life. She makes better citizens of them, and so touches through them, not of herself, the springs of civic righteousness. She stirs within them new love for the model of all that is beautiful, and thereby sweetens the domestic life. But the while she does all this it is not by herself attempting to reform or to make civic laws or to enforce them or to ;?t*?rfor.? family life, but by her faithfully attending to her mission of exalting Christ and urging men to take him in his fullness and power. THE COST OF IT. "Grapho," of The Advance, who never writes without spice, tells of a recent encounter on a street-car. He offered his seat to a lady. She replied, "I am not tired." "No, but you are a woman," was his courteous reply. She smiled and remarked, "I am a suffragist!" whereupon "Grapho" goes to thinking. And he does it with vigor. His first thought is that such a woman instinctively recognizes the fact that she has forfeited the deference to her sex which makes a man stand up to let her sit down. That is. if she claims pnnalitv at - J J ~V the polls she must take a heavier share of the physical hardships of life. He next meditates upon the question of the good that is to come of it, and concludes that the world will not be much bettered by multiplying the present one vote by two, on each side of political questions. The best that can come of it would be only to make a "stand-off." The result likely to come would be only the doubling of the power of the evil majority. The women who secure the franchise are not likely to set up another party or to go against their husbands to any appreciable extent. The claim of the women that they would control certain moral issues, as the temperance problem, is then thought over, and the thinker concludes that the practical results and conditions do not warrant any such expectation. It is in the South that prohibition has most widely swept over the States, but women do not vote in me soutn. in Colorado and Wyoming, where they have the franchise, they have not swept out the saloons. The chief result of giving woman the ballot would be the taking from her in public life of all that which elevates her and sets her apart as the object of deference, attention, thoughtful regard and care. This *\?ference and all that it carries with it grows out of a recognition by man of woman's superiority. Once made man's equal, she need not expect the undefined, but none the less real, homage, which is paid her. *? . . ' AN OF THE SOUTH. 3 A LESSON FROM SAN FRANCISCO. Dangers in City-Life. San Francisco has ever been a peculiar city in this land. Its early history was that of worldliness. Forty years ago. men on its streets or in its hotel corridors were not ashamed openly to avow themselves as atheists. While one man would say, I am a Methodist, or a Baptist, another would say with the same tone of voice. "And I am an yifidel." One reason of this may be found in the circumstances of its origin. Massachusetts was founded by men who were seeking opportunity for the worship of God. So were the Carolinas. But San Francisco is the child of a search for gold mines. And it would seem as if the impulse of its early history is still clinging to it. . We have just been reading in the "Christian Advocate" of Nashville a letter from Rev. Dr. C. F. Reid, concerning the progress of Christianity in that city. He tells us that in the year 1890 its population was about two hundred thousand, and the number of church members was 14,062. In the United States at large the evangelical church membership is about twenty per cent of the population. In San Francisco it was then only about seven per cent. Since 1890 nineteen years have passed. Dr. Reid tells that at the present the population of that city is four hundred thousand, and the number of church members (as learned from the year books of the different denominations) is now only 9,747?only between two 1*1 * f ' 1 ? - aim uirce per cent Ol tne population. In this there is a tremendous lesson for the Church of God. If the influences of city life have had such an effect as this in one city, is there not danger for all our cities? Can we feel easy about any of our large towns unless we are putting forth the most vigorous evangelistic effort. Dr. Reid, who is a Methodist, says that the decline is still going on. He says that a few years ago the number of Methodists in that city was about 3,500, but that at the present in all their eighteen churches, it is only 2.200. One reason for this decline is suggested by Dr. Reid in the neglect of the churches by the young. On Sunday "do not go to the churches to look for them, but rather to the fprrtpc aiul tViP raihiroir ctotinnc nrliorfl they are flocking by thousands to the parks and pleasure resorts. Find them in the cheap theatres and wine rooms. It is probable that not one in fifty of the young men between the ages of fifteen and thirty ever think of going to church." Another reason is in the lack of homes in that city. He describes it as a city of apartment houses, in which the children are reared on the streets. And they become children of the streets. When the churches lose ground, the devil ^ains. Dr. Reid ?tates that in San Francisco there are now i,800 bar rooms. In each of these there are two or three bar tenders. Count up. More than four thousand bartenders, and only 9,747 church memb?."S. If such be the experience of that city, what a warning have we to put forth our best efforts for our own hometowns! It must be done quickly.