THE plan here given in its present form grew out of an exigency in the operations of the Missionary Committee of the New York Sunday-School Union in the summer of 1856.

In their great endeavor to reach the neglected masses of children and youth, more than sixty thousand seemed to be beyond their reach. A more thorough work was needed. Occasional visits and ordinary attention did not so gain the acquaintance and confidence as to rescue these neglected ones. They were the most destitute and needy, and the most important to reach in our city. After much consideration and prayer, this plan was adopted, presented to, and accepted by the churches in New York and Brooklyn, and it was soon adopted by other cities and States also. Everywhere it has developed astonishing results, increasing Sabbath-schools and churches, and speedily transforming dark neighborhoods.

Forty-four churches of various evangelical denominations entered upon the work within a few months after its introduction, and quite uniformly the Sabbath-schools doubled their scholars within the first month or two, and in some marked instances church members and congregations were more than doubled in numbers within six months. As long as it was faithfully worked it everywhere prospered, demonstrating that the plan was a good one.

It is based on the great command, "Go ye and teach." It believes that every church-member should be a working Christian, a real missionary; that "every man should speak to his neighbor, and each one to his brother;" that every Christian's business should be so arranged as to give a wider scope for his religion, that he may become, in a degree, a voluntary missionary. It proposes to systematize the work. Mere voluntary personal effort is at times so fitful and evanescent as not to be sufficiently reliable.

The plan is for every church to take a definite district as its special missionary field—in the city a certain number of blocks and streets, and in the country a number of miles square, or neighborhoods, properly arranged so as to give every other church a portion of the field to work.

All this is to be subdivided by a committee of the church into small sub-sections of from five to fifteen families, proportionate to the number of able members. A sub-section is assigned to the member, and becomes his or her little parish, on which to bestow especial labor, sympathy, and prayers. He is to visit it every month, invite all the children to some Sunday-school, the family to church, supply with the Bible, tract, etc., and do all possible temporal and spiritual good. Once a month each church devotes one of the weekly prayer-meetings to hearing reports from the visitors, and conferring and praying over this great work. Special care is taken not to proselyte; not to take a child from one school to another, or induce a person to leave one church for another, but to respect the rights of all. Individuals are not considered under any obligations to confine their visits to their assigned districts, but still enjoy the Christian liberty of going everywhere and doing good to all men as they have opportunity.

This work is—1. A holy work. 2. A deliberate work. 3. It is a work of pure good-will.4. Says Rev. Dr. Chalmers: "No other ministration is to be offered than that of respect and kindness." 5. They are to go just so far "as they will be gratefully met by the population." 6. Visit rich and poor, but carefully select districts adapted to the visitors. 7. Seek the confidence of parents and children; be patient, be persevering, be courageous, be sympathetic, and take no notice of repulses. 8. Enter no house in vain. Leave some kind suggestion, counsel, or sympathy in regard to spiritual or temporal interests. 9. Relieve all want and distress possible; inculcate temperance, cleanliness, and economy. 10. Counsel with mothers with reference to their children. 11. Give a fraternal aspect to your visits, and avoid controversy, and generally even argument.

If each professing Christian in our churches who is able would become responsible for the regular visitation of but four neglected families, every family in our land would be faithfully visited. "What a plain, simple, magnificent idea is here presented!" A regular Christian army of occupation for our whole country. Says the Rev. Dr. Guthrie: "It would everywhere bring life into contact with death, and cover the whole outlying population, even as the prophet with his own body covered the dead body of the child." The motto is: Every child in the Sabbath-school, and every family in the Church.