I remember hearing a very wise man say once, a man grown old in the
service of a great church, that he had never taught his son religion
dogmatically at any time; that he and the boy's mother had agreed that
if the atmosphere of that home did not make a Christian of the boy,
nothing that they could say would make a Christian of him. They knew
that Christianity was catching, and if they did not have it, it would
not be communicated. If they did have it, it would penetrate while the
boy slept, almost; while he was unconscious of the sweet influences that
were about him, while he reckoned nothing of instruction, but merely
breathed into his lungs the wholesome air of a Christian home. That is
the principle of the Young Men's Christian Association--to make a place
where the atmosphere makes great ideals contagious. That is the reason
that I said, though I had forgotten that I said it, what is quoted on
the outer page of the program--that you can test a modern community by
the degree of its interest in its Young Men's Christian Association. You
can test whether it knows what road it wants to travel or not. You can
test whether it is deeply interested in the spiritual and essential
prosperity of its rising generation.
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