It may naturally be taken for granted that the question which constitutes our subject refers to the Young Men's Societies as they at present exist in our churches, societies that bear a definite religious stamp and aim at the religious training of our young men. The young men who constitute these societies are almost without exception in the period of adolescence, and therefore in one of the most important periods of life. When the Board assigned this subject to me, it did not in the least doubt the need of these societies. If we should draw that inference from the interrogatory form in which the subject is cast, we would be doing the executives of the Federation a great injustice. They are firmly convinced of the necessity and importance of these societies. In bringing the subject under consideration to the foreground, they merely had the desire to promote a better understanding of the essential character of our Young Men's Societies, of their distinctive place as formative agencies, and of their proper function in the religious development of our young men.