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SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK
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BV 1505 .W6 1910 World's Sunday-school
convention 1910 : World-wide Sunday-school
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WORLD-WIDE
SUNDAY-SCHOOL
WORK
THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE WORLD'S SIXTH
SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION, HELD IN
THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A.
MAY 19-24, 1910
APR 1 U 19]
EDITED BY ^-^- ' ^i^
WILLIAM N. HARTSHORN
Joint Secretary of the World's Sunday-School Association, 1904-1Q10 Chairman International Executive Committee since 1902
GEORGE W. PENNIMAN
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
PUBLISHED BY
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
Edward K. Warren, Chairman
14c Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A.
Title Copyrighted
by
W. N. HARTSHORN
Contents free for publication, as desired
Official Reporters
Rev. J. Clayton Youker Claude W. Youker
Assistants
Harry L. Parkinson Stuart & Lee
TO THE MEMORY
OF
Benjamin Franklin Jacobs
WHO FOR MANY YEARS WAS THE RECOGNIZED LEADER OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, IN WHOSE MIND AND HEART WAS BORN THE INTER- NATIONAL UNIFORM LESSON SYSTEM, AND TO WHOM WAS GIVEN THE VISION WHICH MATERIALIZED IN THE WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, AND WHICH MADE POSSIBLE THE WASHINGTON CONVENTION
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
FOREWORD
Convention Theme: '' The Sunday-School and the Great Commission '*
THIS BOOK CONTAINS
The Roll-Call of Nations. The Story of World-Wide Sunday- School Work, 1907-1910.
Ofl&cial Report of the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, Washington, D. C, May 19-24, 1910.
The Addresses of Many Distinguished Leaders, on Subjects of Vital Importance and Interest.
" The President's Estimate of the Sunday-School," by Hon. William H. Taft, President of the United States.
Survey of the World-wide Field by the World's Executive Com- mittee.
Eight Departmental Conferences Reported. Addresses by Specialists.
The Men's Bible Class Parade. A Graphic Story. Adjournment of Congress on Account of the Parade, and Other Features of Notable Character.
The World's Sunday-School Inventory. Statistics from 126 Countries and Groups of Islands.
Report of the Memorial Services in Memory of the Late King Edward VII of England.
A reservoir of Sunday-School Information, Inspiration and Statis- tics, for the Use of Pastors, Superintendents and Teachers through- out the World.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Official Call for the Convention i
World's Sunday-School Day Program 3
The Convention Program 7
Minutes of the Convention 25
Story of the Convention. — C. G. Trumbull 79
W. T. Ellis 88
World's Sunday-School Association, What is it? 91
World's Executive Committee Report 93
Message to Mission Boards 109
Message TO Theological Seminaries iii
Memorial TO THE Edinburgh Conference . ; 113
GENERAL ADDRESSES
The Convention Sermon. — Rev. F. B. Meyer 119
President W. H. Taft. — The President's Estimate of the Sunday- School 125
Bishop W. M. Bell. — " Many Nations but One Church " .... 128 Rev. Homer C. Stuntz. — " The Transforming Power of the Word
of God " 129
Rev. S. Parkes C adman. — " The Transforming Power of the Word
of God " 134
Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman. — " Four Elements in the Conception of
the Sunday-School Teacher " 137
Rev. E. Bourner Allen. — " The Sunday-School and the Nation," 145
Miss Margaret Slattery. — " As Thyself " 150
Rev. Richard Roberts. — " Jesus the Ruler of Nations " . . . . 157
Rev. E. a. Dowsett. — " Jesus and the Children " 161
Rev. a. L. Phillips. — " The Strength of the Sunday-School,
Measured by Its Literature " 165
Rev. E. Morris Fergusson. — " The Strength of the Sunday-School,
Measured by Its Convention " 167
Dr. H. M. Hamill. — " The Strength of the Sunday-School, Meas- ured by Its Personnel " 169
v
PAGE
Rev. Carey Bonner. — " The Strength of the Sunday-School,
Measured by Its Results." 171
Rev. S. D. Price. — " Utilizing Waste Material " 174
Bishop Yoitsu Honda. — "A Survey of Sunday-School Progress in
Japan, and the Urgency for the Evangelization of the Empire," 577
MEMORIAL SERVICES
In Honor of the Late King Edward VII 177
ROLL-CALL OF NATIONS
[Under this heading will be found the reports, addresses, etc., from representatives of the several countries named. Whatever had reference to these countries is Mkre inserted. — Ed.]
North America.
Hon. John Wanamaker 191
W. N. Hartshorn 194
The Philippines 198
Mexico 202
West Indies 205
Hawaii 209
Great Britain.
Rev. Carey Bonner 210
Scotland 214
Rev. J. Monro Gibson 216
Rev. John Hillman 219
Rev. Daniel Hayes 220
South America.
Robert E. Speer 223
John Hay 231
Argentina 234
Brazil 236
Chile 240
Peru 242
Europe.
Rev. H. C. Woodruff 242
Belgium 244
Bohemia 245
Bulgaria 246
Denmark 252
France 254
Germany 257
Hungary 261
Norway 262
Spain 263
Sweden 265
vi
PAGE
Africa.
Bishop J. C. Hartzell 269
The Moslem Peril in Africa 271
Algeria 280
Algiers Mission 282
Inland Mission 283
The Congo 285
Pagan East Africa 287
West Africa 288
South Africa Visitation 2i50
South Africa. — J. J. Doke 296
J. L. Dube 297
Egypt 298
Asia.
Bishop Yoitsu Honda 303
India Sunday-School Union 305
India 312
Korea 320
" Needs of the Moslem World " 336
Japan 345
China 347
Palestine 353
Persia 357
Siam 360
Syria 365
Turkey 368
Miscellaneous.
Malaysia 375
New Zealand 376
Australia 384
Russia 388
CONFERENCES
General Reports 391
Elementary Department 401
Home Department 453
Teacher-Training Department 459
Advanced Department 483
Adult Department 505
Home Visitation Department 519
Missionary Department 529
Temperance Department 535
Special Addresses, Departmental Organization 538
vii
PAGE
• • 545
Men's Bible Class Parade
SUNDAY.SCHOOL AND MISSIONARY EXPOSITION 54
The Inspirational Sunday-School Tour ^^^
Pledges for the Work 1910-1913 g
Five World's Sunday-School Conventions 5
World-Wide Sunday-School Statistics ^
Poem.— "The Song of the Teachers' • • ^
Delegates TO THE Convention • • ' ^^^
Addenda AND Errata ' ' ' ^^i
Geneva, 1913 623
Index
Vlll
PORTRAITS
LIST OF PORTRAITS
20. 22. 24.
25-
^6.
27.
29.
30.
31- 32.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs. Rev. Carey Bonner.
5. Mr. E. K. Warren.
4. Dr. George W. Bailey. Mr. George Shipway.
Mr. F. A. Wells.
Mr. A. B. McCrillis.
II. Bishop J. C. Hartzell.
14. Mr. H. J. Heinz.
17- President W. H. Taft. King Edward VII. Hon. C. W. Hamlin.
Justice J.J. Maclaren.
Mr. W. N. Hartshorn.
13. Mr. Andrew Crawford. Hon. John Wanamaker.
16. Rev. F. B. Meyer. Sir Francis F. Belsey.
19. Hon. James Bryce. 2 1 . King George V and Royal Family. 23. A Group of Missouri Congressmen. Group: The World's Tour Party, — Rev. F. B. Meyer, Mr. Marion
Lawrance, Prof. E. O. Excell. Group: The Washington Local Committee.
Group: Rev. G. H. Jupp, Rev. Theo. McNair, Rev. W. A. Shedd,
Rev. J. R. Alexander, Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Rev. E. H. Richards,
Rev. G. A. Simmons, Rev. J. P. McNaughton, Rev. G. H. Jones,
Rev. E. M. Sein, Rev. Frederick Brown, Rev. T. T. Holway, Rev.
S. M. Zwemer, W. A. Brown, Rev. A. B. Chappell, Rev. Aquila
Lucas.
Group: Rev. E. B. Turner, J. J. Doke, Rev. A. Jackson, Rev. John
W. Butler, Prof. Bieler, Rev. Julius Rohrbach, Rev. H. C. Rordam,
Prof. J. R. Chitambar, R. D. Christian, Rev. T. J. Scott, Rev. L. B.
Marek, Mrs. Layyah Barakat, Rev. Y. Tanaka, Hon. T. H. Yun,
Rev. Jean Paul Cook, Rev. H. C. Tucker.
Group: Mr. Hugh Cork, Rev. Carey Bonner, Bishop Yoitsu Honda,
Rev. H. C. Stuntz, Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, Mr. C. M.Alexander.
Group: Rev. S. H. Greene, Hon. P. H. Bristow, Mr. W. W. Millan,
Prof. Percy S. Foster, Mr. S. W. Woodward, Mr. W. Topham. Group: Rev. S. D. Price, Rev. E. Bourner Allen, Rev. H. C. Woodruff, Prof. M. G. Brumbaugh, Bishop W. M. Bell, Rev. C. R. Pittman, Mr. F. L. Brown, Prof. H. M. Hamill, Mrs. Julius Rohrbach, W. C. Johnston, Jr., Mrs. Wm. Butler, Mrs. E. A. Ford. Young Men's Bible Class, Corinth, Miss. The Convention Hall, Washington, D. C.
Note. — It was planned to include additional portraits and other illustrations in this sec- tion, and more than twenty pages of half-tone pictures, made for the book, must be omitted on account of the limitations of space.
The book has grown from less than six hundred pages — that we expected — to nearly seven hundred pages, and the demands upon the space by matters of an imperative charac- ter made it necessary to limit the list of portraits and illustrations to thirty pages.
It is a matter of keen regret that we were unable to secure the portraits of some of the participants in the convention.
Benjamin Franklin Jacobs
Originator and promoter of the International Uniform Lesson System; member of the International Lesson Committee, 1872-1902; Chairman of the Executive Committee, Inter- national Sunday-School Association, from its organization, 1881, until his death, 1902; Chair- man of the Executive Committee, Illinois Sunday-School Association, for thirty years; President of the World's Second Sunday-School Convention, St. Louis, 1903. *' Preeminent as an organizer and executive officer." " His name and fame are held supreme in all the countries of the world."
Dr. George W. Bailey, President World's Sunday-School Association
Born Paulsboro, N. J., 1841. Soldier in the Civil War. Graduate of University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Practicing physician. Coal merchant. Established the Weno- nah, N. J., Sunday-school, 1871. Member New Jersey State Sunday-School Association< twenty-seven years, serving as president several terms. Elected to the International Executive Committee, 1892; International Treasurer, 1893-1907; Chairman Executive Committee, World's Sunday-School Association, 1904-1910; elected President World's Association, 1910. Dr. Bailey originated the plan of " World's Sunday-School Day " which was observed in connection with the Rome Convention, 1907, and the Washington Con- vention, 1910; the program of 1910 was translated into more than a hundred languages and dialects, and millions of copies were printed. He is an elder in the Tabernacle Presbyterian- Church, Philadelphia, Pa., and a trustee of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church..
Mr. Edward K. Warren
Chairman Executive Committee, World's Sunday-School Association; President of World's Fourth Convention, Jerusalem, 1904; Vice-Chairman Executive Committee, International Sunday-School Association, and Chairman of the Central Committee. The son of a home mission pastor in Michigan. A successful business man, consecrated to Christian service, deeply interested in missionary work, and a liberal contributor to its support.
Rev. Carey Bonner, D.D.
Dr. Bonner is the General Secretary of the British Sunday-School Union, London, England, and one of the best known of the Sunday-school leaders of Europe. Dr. Bonner was elected Joint Secretary of the World's Fifth Sunday-school Convention, Rome, 1907; and at the World's Sixth Convention, Washington, D. C, 1910, was elected General Secretary for Europe. By reason of eminent abilities and an intelligent appreciation of the needs of the Sunday-school Dr. Bonner is a potent factor in the development of organized Sunday-school work throughout Europe and Asia, where the influence of the British Sunday-School Union has extended. He is also a popular musical author.
Mr. George Shipway, J. P.
Statistical Secretary^ World's Sunday-School Association. Elected at the Rome Convention 1907, reelected, Washington, D. C, 1910. Mr. Shipway is a prominent Christian layman and Sunday-school leader of Birmingham, England, and contributes largely of his time and means for the advancement of the interest of organized Sunday-school work. He was one of the foremost leaders among the English delegates both in the World's Convention, in Rome, 1907, and in Washington, 1910.
Mr. Fred A. Wells
Treasurer for America of the World's Association; Treasurer of the International Association since 1905. Mr. Wells is a leading contractor of Chicago, with offices in other large cities of the East. Though a business man with large interests, he devotes much time to the work of the church and Sunday-school. Mr. Wells is president of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.
Mr. A. B. McCrillis
A prominent flour merchant of Providence, R.I. Active in church and Sunday-school work for many years. Treasurer of the World's Association, 1904-1910; member of the International Association's Executive Committee since 1896; Vice-President since 1899; elected member World's Executive Committee, 1910. Mr. McCrillis is a leader in the Sunday-school forward move- ments and occupies a high place in the World's Sunday-school councils.
Justice John J. Maclaren, K.C., LL.D., D.C.L.
An eminent Canadian jurist and one of the most prominent laymen of the Methodist Church in the Dominion. Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeals. Identified with the Sunday-school for more than fifty years. Teacher of a Men's Bible Class, Toronto, Vice-President of the World's Association; member of the International Lesson Com- mittee since 1908; member of the International Executive Committee since 1893; President of the International Association, 1905-1908; one of the three life members of the International Committee.
Mr. William Newton Hartshorn
Chairman Executive Committee International Sunday-School Association since 1902; Secretary World's Sunday-School Association, 1905-1910; elected first Vice-President at Washington, May, 1910; Chairman Committee on Transportation, World's Convention, 1889, 1898, 1907, 1913. Was for seventeen years Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts State Sunday-School Association. President and Treasurer of the Modern Priscilla Publishing Co., Boston, Mass. Devotes most of his time to organized Sunday-school and other religious work.
Bishop Joseph G. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D,
Dr. Hartzell is bishop for Africa of the Methodist Episcopal Church; consecrated bishop 1896. Bishop Hartzell has been active in Sunday-school work in foreign lands, especially in Africa, for many years. At the World's Convention, Rome, 1907. he was the author of the report adopted by the convention: " Defining the Purpose, Policy and Field of the World's Sunday-School Association." Bishop Hartzell has been vice-president of the World's Associ- ation since 1907.
Mr. Andrew Crawford
Mr. Crawford is the secretary of the Scottish National Sunday-School Union, Glasgow, Scotland. Member of the executive committee of the World's Sunday-School Association, elected at Rome in 1907 and reelected, Washington, D. C, 1910. Recognized as a leader in the Sunday-School Forward Movement in Scotland. Mr. Crawford had an important and influential part in the Washington Convention, 19 10.
13
Hon. John Wanamaker
Mr. Wanamaker occupies a leading place among the merchant princes of America, and he has long"; held a commanding position in the political councils of Pennsylvania and the nation. He served with conspicuous ability as Postmaster-General of the United States under President Har- rison. He organized Bethany Presbyterian Sunday-School, Philadelphia, long the largest Sunday- school in America, and has been its superintendent from the beginning, for more than fifty-one years. He is honorary president of the Pennsylvania State Sabbath-School Association, of which for twelve years he was president.
Mr. H. J. Heinz
Mr. Heinz is one of America's leading manufacturers and business men. In many ways he has shown his interest in educational, philanthropic and religious work. He is the president of the Pennsylvania Sabbath -School Association, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Inter- national Sunday-School Association. He is one of the most liberal supporters of world-wide Sunday- school work. Through his active interest and generosity, the recent advances in Sunday-school organization and development in Japan have been made possible.
IS
Rev. Frederick Brotherton Meyer, B.A.
President World's Sunday-School Association, 1907-1910. During his presidency he visited various parts of the world and held conferences in the interests of Sunday-school work. No English-speaking man is better known as preacher, pastor, evangelist and writer of. devotional books. He is one of the foremost English non-conformists. He presided with rare genius over the Washington Convention, from which he returned to become pastor of one of the large Baptist churches of London. He was bom April 8, 1847.
16
S*r Francis Flint Belsey, London
President World's First Sunday-School Convention, London, July, 1889; Chairman of Council, The Sunday-School Union, London, representing 700,000 Sunday-school teachers. Sir Francis Flint Belsey was knighted by King Edward VH, in 19 10, in recognition of his splendid activity and usefulness at the head of the Sunday-school work of the Old World. — This great honor gives the Sunday-school a higher rating than ever before.
17
Hon. William Howard Taft, President of the United States
On Thursday evening, May 19, in Convention Hall, President Taft welcomed the World's Sunday-School Convention delegates to the city of Washington, and gave public testimony to the value of the Sunday-school.
" No matter what views are taken of general education, we all agree — Protestant, Catholic, and Jew alike — that Sunday-school education is absolutely necessary to secure moral uplift and religious spirit." President and Mrs. Taft were made life members of the World's Sunday-School Association. (The President's address, page 125.)
Hon. James Bryce, P.C., LL.D., D.C.L., British Ambassador to the United States
Mr. Bryce, who was to have addressed the Convention on May 24, was prevented from doing so by the death of his Majesty King Edward. " Had I been able to be with you, I should have said some words regarding the special and urgent need which seems to exist in our time for maintaining in the general scheme of education the place of religious instruction, and especially a proper knowledge of the Bible." (See letter to President Meyer, page 62.)
19
King Edward VII
November 9, 1841 — May 6, 1910
Proclaimed King, January 24, 1901. Coronation Ceremonies, August, 1902,
Memorial Services, see page 177.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
The Royal Family
King George V. Proclaimed King, May, 1910. Queen Mary. Married July 6, 1893.
Edward Albert, June 23, 1894; Albert Frederick, December 14, 1895; Victoria Alexandra,
April 25, 1897; Henry William, March 31, 1900; George Edward, December 20, 1902;
John Charles, July 12, 1905.
Hon. Courtney W. Hamlin, Member of Congress from Missouri
Mr. Hamlin introduced House Resolution 700: That the House of Representatives adjourn early Friday, May 20, 1910, that members might join in the Men's Adult Bible Class Parade. (See page 27.)
" I am, and have been since a young man, a member of the Baptist (Missionary) Church. My present membership is with the " Hamlin Memorial Baptist Church " of Springfield, Mo. My father, who is eighty-three years old, is the pastor in charge. I have attended Sunday-school since a little boy. I grew up on a farm, and when a small boy would walk about three miles, barefooted, to Sunday-school each Sunday. I was sent away to school; afterwards, studied law and have been engaged, actively, ever since in the practice until I was elected to Congress in 1902. During all these years I have tried to be active in the Sunday-school work. I was for years superintendent of the Sunday- school, then teacher. While in Washington City, I teach the Baraca Class in the Metropolitan Baptist Church."
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The World's Sunday-School Tour Party (See page 551)
Rev, F. B. Meyer, D.D., President World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Prof. E. O. Excell, Musical Director
Mr. Marion Lawrance, General Secretary International and the World's Sunday-School Associations
24
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A Group of Convention Speakers
Rev. Geo. H. Jupp; Rev. Theo. McNair; Rev. William A. Shedd; J. R. Alexander, D.D. Bishop J. C. Hartzell; E.H.Richards, D.D.; G. A. Simons, D.D.; Rev. J. P. McNaughton; Rev. George H. Jones; Rev. E. M. Sein; Rev. Frederick Brown; Rev. T. T. Holway. S. M. Zwemer, D.D. ; William A. Brown; Rev. A. B. Chappell; Rev. Aquila Lucas.
26
Rev. E. P. Turner
Hawaii
Jos. J. Doke
So. Africa
Archibald Jackson Rev. John W. Butler
Australia Mexico
Prof. Chas. Bieler Rev. Julius Rohrbach Rev. H. C. Rordam Prof. J. R. Chitambar
France Germany Denmark India
Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D. Russell D. Christian Rev. L. B. Marek Mrs. L. Baraka^
India Argentina Bohemia Syria
Rev. Y. Tanaka
Japan
Hon. T. H. Yun Rev. J. Paul Cook Rev. H. C. Tucker
Korea Algeria Brazil
27
A GROUP OF PROMINENT PARTICIPANTS IN THE WORLD'S SIXTH SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION
Mr. Hugh Cork
Illinois Statistical secretary of the World's Sunday-School Associ- ation and assistant general sec- retary of the International As- sociation. (See page 584.)
Rev. Carey Bonner, D. D.
England General secretary of the Brit- ish Sunday-School Union, and general secretary for Europe, of the World's Association. (See page 210,)
Bishop Yoitsu Honda
Japan Bishop of the Methodist churches in Japan, — a leader in the religious world; deeply interested in the Sunday-school (See 'page 303.)
Rev. H. C. Stuntz, D.D.
New York Assistant corresponding sec- retary of the Missionary Soci- ety, the M.E. Church; former missionary to the Philippines. (See page 129.)
J. Wilbur Chapman, LL.D.
Pennsylvania One of the world's best known evangelists. He recently returned from an evangelistic tour of the world. (See page 137.)
28
Mr. Charles M. Alexander
England Singing evangelist and co- worker with Dr. Chapman in his evangelistic work. He accom- panied Dr. Chapman around the world. (See page 59.)
Samuel H. Greene, D.D.
Pastor Calvary Baptist Church
Hon. P. H. Bristow
Chairman
W. W. Millan
Vice-Chairman
Members of the Washington Local Committee
A group of 22 members of the Washington Local Committee of 31 is printed on page 26. On this, page we present the portraits of four additional members, with larger pictures of Chairman Bristow and Treasurer Topham. We were unable to secure pictures of the five other members.
The Washington Committee received the well-merited commendation of the delegates and visitors for their efforts to make the convention one long to be remembered. The sentiment of appreciation was voiced by the Committee on Resolutions, whose report, adopted with great enthusiasm (see page 65), thanked the Local Committee " for the wisdom with which they have planned and the care with which they have provided for our comfort and the success of our great gathering."
Prof. Percy S. Foster
Chairman Music Committee
Washington Topham
Treasurer
S. W. Woodward
Member
29
A GROUP OF PROMINENT PARTICIPANTS IN THE WORLD'S SIXTH SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION
Rev. S. D. Price Rev. E. B. Allen Rev. H. C. Woodruff Prof. M. G. Brumbaugh
New Jersey Ohio Connecticut Pennsylvania
(Page 174) (Page 145) (Page 242) (Page 467)
Bishop W. M. Bell Rev. C. R. Pittman Mr. F. L. Brown Prof. H. M, Hamill
California Persia New York Tennessee
(Page 128) (Page 501) (Page 169)
Mrs. Julius Rohrbach W. C. Johnston, Jr. Mrs. Wm. Butler Mrs. E. A. Ford
Germany Colorado Mexico West Africa
Youngest delegate Oldest delegate
(Page 257) (Page 48) (Page 49) (Page 288)
30
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Convention Hall, Washington, D. C, May 19, 1910
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention was held in this hall — the largest auditorium of its kind in the city. The seating capacity is more than 6,000, and at several sessions during the convention every seat was taken and hundreds found standing room. It was stated that on the opening night of the convention, nearly 10,000 persons were in the hall.
Interior Convention Hall, Washington, D. C.
" Back of the platform, covering almost the entire end of the auditorium, was stretched a great map of the world. The world vision was steadily maintained during the sessions of the convention."
32
THE WORLD'S SIXTH SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION
OFFICIAL CALL
To All Who are Interested in the Work of the Sunday-School
THROUGHOUT THE WORLD:
Greeting.
At the World's Fifth Sunday-School Convention, held in the city of Rome, it was resolved that thereafter the organization should be known as the World's Sunday-School Association and should hold triennial con- ventions. An Executive Committee was chosen to carry forward the work of the Association and determine the time and place for holding the next convention.
After careful consideration of all the places suggested for our next meet- ing, the unanimous choice of the committee is the city of Washington, D. C. , United States of America.
In Jerusalem in 1904 we assembled in a tent erected upon the slope of a '* green hill just outside the city walls." On one side was Calvary, with the Garden Tomb not far away; on the other, the Mount of Olives, with Gethsemane nestling at its base. Our next convention met in 1907 in the city of the Caesars on the banks of the Tiber, the waters of which were once crimsoned with the blood of Christian martyrs who gave their lives in testi- mony of their faith.
The surroundings of these conventions were such that our thoughts naturally centered upon the beginnings and the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ. At Washington our minds will turn toward the future as we consider how best to use the facilities offered by modern civilization for promoting the study of the Word of God, and the development of the Sunday-school cause throughout the world.
Meeting in the capital of the youngest of the larger nations, we shall see much of the New World's life, — its material prosperity, its progress in science and art, in education and philanthropy; but preeminently the evidence of the faith and missionary spirit which are writing the story of Sunday-school achievement.
2 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Even as we were guided by the Holy Spirit in the selection of the places for holding the previous conventions, so now we believe the same unerring hand has led us to accept the cordial invitation of the Sunday-School Association of the District of Columbia to hold our next convention in the city of Washington.
Your Executive Committee therefore officially announces that the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention will be held in the city of Wash- ington, D. C, in the United States of America, may nineteenth to
TWENTY-FOURTH INCLUSIVE, IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TEN;
and all who are interested in the work and progress of the Sunday-school are invited to be present.
F. F. Belsey, F. B. Meyer,
Edward Towers, President.
E. K. Warren, William N. Hartshorn,
Past Presidents. Carey Bonner,
Secretaries. Geo. W. Bailey, Chairman of the Executive Committee^ Philadelphia, Penn., U. S. A.
PROGRAM
WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL DAY Sunday, May 22, 1910
Note. — A great number of ministers of the gospel in all lands will preach special sermons emphasizing the value of the Sunday-school, and urging upon parents and guardians the duty of training the children and youth in the knowledge of the Scriptures.
Sunday-schools in every important part of the world will observe this day by using as an opening exercise the following special Order of Service issued by the Executive Committee and which has been translated and printed in more than one hundred languages and dialects.
Order of Service
Singing: " Onward, Christian soldiers." Responsive Reading: Psalm 148.
Leader. — Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
School. — Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Leader. — Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
School. — Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
Leader. — Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded, and they were created.
All. — He hath also established them forever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.
Leader. — Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:
School. — Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Leader. — Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:
All. — Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:
Leader. — Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth.
School. — ^ Both young men and maidens; old men, and children: Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.
All. — He also exalteth the horn of the people, the praise of all his saints:
4 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the Lord. Singing: " The Morning Light is Breaking."
Leader. — This twenty-second day of May, 1910, is called World's Sunday-School Day because to-day we are remembering in our prayers our fellow Sunday-school workers and Bible students the world around, and especially those from many lands who are meeting in Washington, the capital city of the United States of America, in the World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention. Upon the request of the World's Sunday-School Association many sermons in the interest of the children and youth have been and are being preached today, and Sunday-schools throughout the world are following this order of service. We should greatly rejoice i n this privilege of forming a link in the chain of prayer which today is encircling the globe. Not all can attend the convention, but all may have a part in this loving service and thus strengthen the bond of fellowship in Christ. Let us pray :
(Note. — The leader is requested to include a petition for a blessing upon Sunday-schools throughout the world, and especially upon the World's Sunday-School Convention in session at Washington, closing with the Lord's Prayer. Or the following form may be used, by the leader or the entire school, as deemed best.)
Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, we turn to thee as children to a loving Father, rejoicing in thy care and looking up to thee in confidence. We bless thee for thy Word which tells us about Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and teaches us our duty to him and to the millions who are without the blessings of the Sunday-school. Use us, we pray thee, in extending the knowledge of thy name and thy Word, so that the people of every nation may be taught of thee in accordance with the last command of our risen Lord. Grant thy blessing this day upon the great Sunday-school army marching to victory under Jesus, the captain of our salvation; and we pray especially for that great company of thy servants from many lands who are to-day meeting in the city of Washington; and we ask for them the indwelling of thy Spirit, so that they may plan wisely for the upbuilding of thy Kingdom in all the earth. May thy presence be with the delegates to the convention as they take their homeward journey to lands near and far; and grant unto each one a safe return to their loved ones and a clearer vision of the work to which they are called by thee. And to thy name shall be all the glory. Our Father, who art in heaven, etc.
Leader. — Where and when have World's Sunday-School Conventions been held?
School. — The World's First Sunday-School Convention was held in London, England, September, 1889; the second in St. Louis, United States, September, 1893; the third in London, England, July, 1898; the fourth
World's Sunday-School Day 5
in Jerusalem, Palestine, April, 1904; and the fifth in the city of Rome, Italy, May, 1907.
Leader. — How many countries and religious denominations were represented in the conventions held in Jerusalem and Rome?
School. — In Jerusalem, 25 countries and 27 religious denominations. At Rome, 27 countries and 53 religious denominations.
Leader. — How many Sunday-schools are there in the world?
School. — The latest report shows that there are more than 275,000 Sunday-schools, with 25,000,000 officers, teachers and scholars.
Leader. — What is the World's Sunday-School Association?
School. — The World's Sunday-School Association is an organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Sunday-school is a most important factor in promoting the interests of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
Leader. — What is the purpose of the World's Sunday-School Association?
School. — It is the purpose of the Association to help answer the prayer " Thy kingdom come," by leading the church to realize the importance of the Sunday-school as a missionary agency in home and mission fields.
Leader. — What is the Association doing to carry the gospel to boys and girls in mission fields?
School. — Through letter writing and printed matter it keeps in touch with all parts of the world; it sends its representatives to mission fields to encourage the missionaries and assist them in organizing and supporting local unions or associations; it holds great conventions which bring to- gether missionaries and Sunday-school workers from every part of the world, and uses every available means of promoting the work of the Sunday- school generally.
Leader. — What has already been accomplished by such visitations and cooperation?
School. — In some European countries, in India, Japan, Mexico, and the West Indies, the Sunday-school workers are well organized for united service and fellowship. In Korea, China, North Africa, and South Africa, encouraging beginnings have been made. Asiatic Turkey and Palestine have received substantial assistance.
Leader. — Why did the World's Sunday-School Convention choose " The Sunday-School and the Great Commission " as its theme?
School. — The theme implies that the Sunday-school has its part in obeying the command of Christ, " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
6 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Leader. — In view of this command and promise, what is the duty of the church?
School. — It is the duty of the church (which includes the Sunday- school) to give the Word of God to the world as speedily as possible.
Leader. — What gives us confidence in the performance of this duty?
School. — The Word of God: " For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
Singing: " Jesus shall reign where'er the sun."
Leader. — Encouraged by this glimpse of what God is doing through the Sunday-school in mission lands, and strengthened by these moments of prayer in spiritual union with millions of Sunday-school workers in all parts of the world, let us with grateful hearts be more faithful to our own Sunday-school, which has its part in this world-wide work.
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
THEME: ''THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND THE GREAT COM- MISSION "
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 19 Convention Hall
Opening Session. 2.30 — Service of Praise: " O praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise him, all ye people."
3.00 — Reading of ScriptUx-es and Prayer: Rev. Earl Cranston, D.D., LL.D., bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
3.15 — Convention Sermon: Rev. F. B. Meyer, D.D., England presi- dent of the World's Sunday-School Convention.
Report of the chairman of the Executive Committee, George W. Bailey.
Appointment of committees.
4.30 — Benediction, Rev. Y. Tanaka, Japan.
Arlington Hotel
5.00 — Reception to Foreign Missionaries by Past- President Edward K. Warren and Mrs. Warren.
THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 19 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
7.30 — Service of Praise: " O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy."
8.00 — Reading of Scriptures and Prayer: Rt. Rev. Alfred T. Harding, D.D., bishop of the Diocese of the City of Washington.
8.15 — Welcome Service.
North America, Hon. Wm. H. Taft, President of the United States.
The Sunday-Schools of North America, Hon. John Wanamaker.
The District of Columbia, Rev. Samuel H. Greene, D.D., LL.D., pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Washington.
Response: Europe, Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., England; Asia, Bishop Yoitsu Honda, Japan; Africa, Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., Africa.
Benediction, Rev. J. A. MacKenzie, M.A., New Zealand.
8 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 20 7.00 to 7.30 — Private Devotions.
Two Simultaneous Sessions
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH
President Meyer in the chair.
9.00 — Praise and Prayer.
gjg — Roll-Call of Nations: Russia, Rev. G. A. Simons, D.D.; Bulgaria, Rev. Theo. T. Holway; Bohemia, Rev. L. E. Marek; Syria, Mrs. Layyah Barakat.
10.05 — Introductions: Rev. Henry Collins Woodruff, president of the Foreign Sunday-School Association, and others.
10.20 — Address: " Many Nations but One Church," Rev. William M. Bell, D.D., bishop of the United Brethren in Christ.
11.00 — Quiet Hour, President Meyer.
II. 30 — Benediction.
FIRST congregational CHURCH
Past- President Edward K. Warren presiding.
9.00 — Praise and Prayer.
9.15 — Roll-Call of Nations: Algeria, Rev. Jean Paul Cook; Egypt, Rev. J. R. Alexander. D.D.; Turkey, Rev. J. P. McNaughton, D.D.
10.05 — Introductions: Mr. Francis Connell, the superintendent, and Mr. J. W. Connell and Mr. John Hancock, representing the largest Sunday-school in the world — Stockport, England; Rev. A. Macgillvray, Canada.
10.20 — Address: "The Victories of the Gospel in Japan," Rev. N. Tamura, Japan.
11.00 — Quiet Hour, Rev. Richard Roberts, England.
11.30 — Benediction.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 20
Two Simultaneous Sessions calvary baptist church
Vice-President Justice J.J. Maclaren presiding.
2.30 — Service of Praise: " Praise ye the Lord; for it is good to sing praises to our God."
3.00 — Roll-Call of Nations: China, Rev. Frederick Brown; Siam, Rev. R. W. Post; East Africa, Rev. Erwin H. Richards; India, Prof. J. R. Chitambar, B.A.
Official Program 9
3.50 — Address: Hon. T. H. Yun, Korea.
4.15 — Introductions: Ex-Bailie Strachan, Scotland, and others.
4.30 — Benediction.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
President Meyer in the chair.
2.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing forth the honor of his name."
300 — Roll-Call of Nations: Chili, prepared by Charles G. Neumann, Esq.; Brazil, Rev. H. C. Tucker; Argentine, Mr. Russell D. Christian; Paraguay, prepared by Rev. John Hay.
3.50 — Address: Rev. Frank Johnson, editor of The Sunday-School Chronicle, London.
4.10 — Introduction: Rev. E. M. Sein, secretary for Mexico, and others.
4.30 — Benediction.
Adult Bible Class Parade
Note. — Parade forms at 6.00 p.m., on Tenth Street.
Route. — Down Pennsylvania Avenue, around the Capitol, and up New Jersey Avenue to the Convention Hall and Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church.
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 20
Four Simultaneous Sessions
calvary baptist church
For Women
Mrs. James S. Sherman presiding. (Women Foreign Missionaries
seated upon the platform.)
7.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth. O, sing praises unto the Lord."
7.50 — Reading of Scriptures and Prayer.
8.00 — Five-minute addresses: Mrs. D.G.Collins, Siam; Mrs. J. P. McNaughton, Turkey; Mrs. William Butler, India; Miss Bertha G. Johnson, India; Mrs. Layyah Barakat, Syria. 8.40 — Introductions.
9.00 — Address: " As Thyself," Miss Margaret Slattery. Offering for the work of the World's Sunday-School Association. Adjournment.
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH. SUNDAY-SCHOOL ROOM
For Women Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner presiding.
lo The World's Sixth Sunday -School Convention
7.30 — Service of Praise: " I will sing praises to the Lord as long as I live."
7.50 — Reading of Scriptures and Prayer.
8.00 — Address: " As Thyself," Miss Margaret Slattery.
8.25 — Five-minute addresses: Miss Clementina Butler, India; Mrs. E. A. Ford, West Africa; Miss Frances M. Parsons, Palestine; Mrs. Royal M. Cole, Turkey; Miss Jennie Moyer, India.
Offering for the work of the World's Sunday-School Association.
Adjournment.
CONVENTION HALL
For Men President Meyer in the chair.
Note. — At this session seats in the hall will be reserved for the men who participate in the parade, delegates from countries foreign to North America and foreign missionaries, seated on the platform.
7.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing aloud unto God, our strength; make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob."
8.00 — Scripture Reading and Prayer: Rev. Charles Wood, D.D., pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, Washington.
Greeting: Mr. Edward K. Warren.
Addresses: " The Transforming Power of the Word of God," Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, D.D.; Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D.D.
Offering for the work of the World's Sunday-School Association.
Benediction.
MT. VERNON M. E. CHURCH
For Men
Hon. John Stites presiding.
7.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works."
8.00 — Scripture Reading and Prayer: Rev. John M. Schick, D.D., pastor of Grace Reformed Church, Washington.
8.15 — Announcements.
Addresses: " Jesus Christ, the Ruler of Nations," Rev. Richard Roberts, London, England; "The Word of God in Korea," Rev. George Heber Jones, D.D., Korea.
Offering for the work of the World's Sunday-School Association.
Benediction.
Official Program ii
SATURDAY MORNING, MAY 21 7.00 to 7.30 — Private Devotions.
Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
9.00 — Praise and Prayer.
9.15 — A Presentation to the World's Sunday-School Association, Hon. Thomas H. Murray.
9.25 — Roll-Call of Nations: North America, Mr. William N. Hartshorn; Great Britain, Rev. Carey Bonner.
10.00 — Address: " The Needs of the Moslem World, and the Degra- dation and Suffering of Mohammedan Childhood," Rev. S. M. Zwemer, D.D.
Address: " The Call of Our Nearest Neighbors," Mr. Robert E. Speer.
1 1. 15 — Our Plans for the Next Triennium, Mr. Marion Lawrance.
Responses.
12.30 — Quiet Hour, President Meyer.
1. 00 — Adjournment of the convention to Monday morning at 9 o'clock.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 21 Two Special Services
CALVARY baptist CHURCH
3.30 — Conference with all the speakers that have been appointed for the Sunday afternoon and evening services.
CAPITOL AND PLAZA
5.00 — Brief Praise Service on Piazza and East Steps of the Capitol, in charge of the Musical Directors of the convention.
SUNDAY, MAY 22 Observance of World's Sunday-School Day in Washington
7.30 to 8.00 — Private Devotions with special prayer for Sunday-schools throughout the world.
9.30 — A study of methods of conducting Sunday-school work in the city of Washington.
Note. — Delegates have been appointed to visit the Sunday-schools and report interesting observations in writing to Mr. William G. Landes, chairman of special committee, at the Ebbitt House, before 9.00 a.m., Monday morning.
12 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Services in the Churches
Morning, Communion; Afternoon, Consecration; Evening, Conquest.
In the morning many of the churches will observe the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Pastors will occupy their own pulpits, as no assignments have been made. For particulars, consult Saturday evening papers.
In the afternoon, at 3 o'clock. Missionary Rallies for Boys and Girls, in twelve different churches, and at 4 o'clock Equipment Services in eleven different churches.
In the evening Missionary Meetings in more than one hundred churches with addresses in each church by a foreign missionary and by a home worker.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 22
3.00 — Missionary Rallies for Boys and Girls.
Theme — " Twentieth Century Sunday-School Crusaders."
Uniform Illustrated Program McKendree Methodist Episcopal Church Mr. George E. Hall, New Jersey, presiding.
Speakers: Rev. Carey Bonner, England; Mr. William T. Ellis, Penn- sylvania.
St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church Mr. Thomas Brown, England, presiding.
Speakers: Rev. Prof. Alberto Clot, Italy; Rev. H. L. Duhring, D.D., Pennsylvania.
Douglas Methodist Episcopal Church Mr. James S. Crowther, England, presiding.
Speakers: Prof. J. R. Chitambar, B.A., India; Miss Minnie Allen, Arkansas.
Fourth Presbyterian Church Mr. E. K. Warren, Michigan, presiding. Speakers: Prof. T. H. Yun, Korea; Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Illinois.
Church of the Reformation Mr. E. L. Sheffey, Virginia, presiding. Speakers: Rev. N. Tamura, Japan; Mrs. H. M. Hamill, Tennessee.
Rhode Island Avenue Methodist Protestant Church Mr. Fred A. Wells, Illinois, presiding.
Official Program 13
Speakers: Rev. N. E. Pressley, D.D., Mexico; Mr. Edmund D. Soper, New York.
Westminster Presbyterian Church Mr. J. B. Green, Alabama, presiding. Speakers: Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., India; Rev. Joseph Clark, D.D., Ohio.
West Street Presbyterian Church Mr. W. B. Jacobs, Illinois, presiding.
Speakers: Mr. Francis Connell, England; Miss Annie S. Harlow, Pennsylvania.
First Presbyterian Church Mr. Andrew Crawford, Scotland, presiding.
Speakers: Mr. George Winstone, New Zealand; Mrs. Herbert L. Hill, New York.
Emanuel Protestant Episcopal Church Mr. George Shipway, J. P., England, presiding. Speakers: Mr. William H. Stanes, India; Mrs. J. A. Walker, Colorado.
(Colored Churches) Lincoln Congregational Church Mr. W. N. Wiggins, Texas, presiding.
Speakers: Rev. Aquila Lucas, West Indies; Mr. William N. Hartshorn, Massachusetts.
Zion Baptist Church Mr. N. B. Broughton, North Carolina, presiding.
Speakers: Rev. Jean Paul Cook, Algeria; Rev. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Tennessee.
4.00 — Equipment Services, " Consecration."
Theme — " The Power of a Consecrated Life. ' '
Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church. Leader: Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, D.D., Philadelphia, Penn.
Congress Street Methodist Protestant Church. Leader: Rev. E. A. Steiner, D.D., Grinnell, la.
Mt. Pleasant Congregational Church. Leader: Rev. Wallace MacMullen, D.D., New York City.
Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church South. Leader: Prof. Charles R. Erdman, Princeton, N. J.
Memorial United Brethren Church. Leader: Rev. J. Monro Gibson, LL.D., London, England.
14 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
Ninth Street Christian Church. Leader: Prof. Rufus M. Jones, Haver- ford, Penn.
Fifth Baptist Church. Leader: Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., San Francisco, Cal.
Second Baptist Church. Leader: Rev. F. B. Meyer, D.D., London, England.
Anacostia Methodist Episcopal Church. Leader: Rev. C. R. Watson, D.D., Philadelphia, Penn.
(Colored Churches)
Vermont Avenue Baptist Church. Leader: Mr. William A. Brown, Chicago, 111.
Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church. Leader: Mr. John R. Pepper, Memphis, Tenn.
SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 22 Missionary Meetings (Sections of the convention in many churches with uniform program, " Conquest.")
Theme — "The Sunday-School and the Great Commission." Two speakers will be at each meeting, one of whom is a foreign missionary.
SPEAKERS FOR SUNDAY-EVENING MEETINGS
Mr. W. H. p. Anderson, India; Miss Clementina Butler, India; Rev. Frederick Brown, China; Mr. William A. Brown, Philippines; Rev. Louis Bogar, Hungary; Rev. John W. Butler, D.D., Mexico; Mrs. William Butler, India; Rev. Charles Buchanan, Malay; Mr. A. E. Chuchian, Turkey; Mr. Russell D. Christian, Argentina; Rev. Royal M. Cole, Turkey; Mrs. Royal M. Cole, Turkey; Rev. Jean Paul Cook, Algeria; Mrs. D. G. Collins, Siam; Rev. B. O. Campbell, Chile; Mrs. Lewis E. Carter, Turkey; Prof. Alberto Clot, Italy; Prof. J. R. Chitambar, India; Rev. L. J. Davies, China; Miss Dora Davis, Bulgaria; Mrs. Royal J. Dye, Congo; Rev. John L. Dube, South Africa; Rev. R. Ray Eldred, Congo; Rev. N. L. Euwer, Persia; Mr. R. C. Elliott, Mexico; Mr. Edward A. Ford, West Africa; Mrs. Edward A. Ford, West Africa; Rev. A. J. Fisher, China; Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, Africa; Miss Marie T. Hasenpflug, China; Bishop Y. Honda, Japan; Rev. Alfonso Herrera, Mexico; Rev. Theo. T. Holway, Bulgaria; Mr. Guy W. Holmes, Cuba; Rev. T. S. Johnson, D.D., India; Miss Bertha G. Johnson, India; Rev. Ulric R. Jones, China; Rev. George Heber Jones, D.D., Korea; Rev. W. T. Jones,
Official Program 15
Japan; Miss J. Edith Jenks, India; Miss Catherine E. Jackson, Malay; Rev. A. E. Kelsey, Palestine; Dr. Mary Ketring, China; Mr. John A. D. Kahn, India; Rev. A. Lucas, West Indies; Rev. E. K. McCord, Japan; Rev. J. P. McNaughton, D.D., Turkey; Mrs. J. P. McNaughton, Turkey; Rev. Theo. MacNair, D.D., Japan; Mr. M. S. Meimarides, Turkey; Rev. L. E. Marek, Bohemia; Rev. V. M. McCombs, Peru; Miss Leonora J. McDowell, Egypt; Miss Jennie Moyer, India; Mr. Kotaso Nishio, Japan; Mr. William J. Ohan, Palestine; Rev. A. Oltmans, Japan; Prof. Andres Osuna, Mexico; Miss Susan W. Orvis, Turkey; Rev. Y. Ono, Japan; Miss H. L. Osborne, China; Miss Frances M. Parsons, Palestine; Rev. Charles R. Pitman, Persia; Rev. R. W. Post, Siam; Miss Fidelia Phelps, South Africa; Rev. M. G. Papazian, Turkey; Rev. Alex. S. Philips, West Indies; Rev. N. E. Pressley, D.D., Mexico; Rev. Dr. Prowd, South America; Rev. Erwin H. Richards, Africa; Mr. Syngman Rhee, Korea; Senor Alvaro Reis, Brazil; Rev. Lawrence B. Ridgely, China; Rev. A, M. Sherman, China; Mr. W. H. Stanes, India; Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., India; Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, D.D., Philippines; Miss Susan Searle, Japan; Rev. G. A. Simons, D.D., Russia; Rev. E, M. Sein, Mexico; Rev. F. F. Soren, Brazil; Miss Lena M. Stanley, China; Rev. H. C. Tucker, Brazil; Rev. N. Tamura, Japan; Rev. S. Tanaka, Japan; Rev. Y. Tanaka; Japan; Miss I. Lillian Trotter, North Africa; Mrs. H. S. Vincent, Siam; Prof. T. H. Yun, Korea; Rev. S. D. Zwemer, D.D., Arabia; Charles H. Arndt, Pennsylvania; Mr. Arthur T. Arnold, West Virginia; Mr. Frank L. Brown, New York; Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Illinois; Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., California; Mrs. J. Woodbridge Barnes, New Jersey; Dr. Joseph Broughton, Georgia; Rev. Carey Bonner, England; Mr. William A. Brown, Illinois; Rev. C. W. Bispham, Pennsylvania; Rev. Joseph Clark, D.D., Ohio; Mr. C. M. Campbell, California; Rev. Edgar T. Capel, Quebec; Rev. Henry F. Cope , Illinois; Rev. Edward F. Cook, Tennessee; Mr. Francis Connell, England ; Mr. Hamilton S. Conant, Massachusetts; Mr. J. Shreve Durham, Illinois; Mr. R. F. Diffendorfer, New York; Mr. Edward S. Dunham, New Jersey; Rev. W. E. Doughty, New York; Rev. H. L. Duhring, D.D., Pennsyl- vania; Rev. S. M. Dick, D.D., Minnesota; Rev. H. A. Dowling, Arkansas; Prof. Charles R. Erdman, New Jersey; Mr. William T. Ellis, Pennsyl- vania; Mr. H. W. Ehnes, New York; Mr. Thomas V. Ellzey, Louisiana; Mr. J. H. Engle, Kansas; Rev. E. Morris Fergusson, New Jersey; Rev. F. Frankenfeld, Louisiana; Rev. R. Douglas Eraser, D.D., Ontario; Mr. H. M. Gooch, England; Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., England; Rev. Hugh C. Gibson, California; Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes, LL.D., Cali- fornia; Rev. S. Q. Helfenstein, D.D., Ohio; Rev. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Tennessee; Rev. D. Hayes, England; Rev. E. W. Halpenny, Ontario; Rev. John Hillman, England; Rev. Fred. P. Haggard, Massachusetts;
1 6 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Rev. R. A. Hiltz, M.A.,Ontario; Mr. Harry Wade Hicks, New York; Miss Annie S. Harlow, Pennsylvania; Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Massachusetts; Mr. Philip E. Howard, Pennsylvania; Mrs. Herbert L. Hill, New York; Miss Alice B. Hamlin, New Jersey; Mr. W. B. Jacobs, Illinois; Prof. Rufus M. Jones, Pennsylvania; Rev. Frank Johnson, England; Rev. Herbert Jukes, Idaho; Mr. W. G. Landes, Pennsylvania; Mr. Marion Lawrance; Illinois; Hon. Seth P. Leet, Quebec; Mr. H. E. Lufkin, Maine; Mr. Franklin McElfresh, Ph.D., Illinois; Rev. W. C. Merritt, Washington; Rev. George R. Merrill, D.D., Minnesota; Rev. Wallace MacMullen, D.D., New York; Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A., England; Rev. A. McLean, Ohio; Mr. Harry S. Myers, New York; Rev. J. A. McKamy, Massachusetts; Mr. C. R. N. Mackie, New Zealand; Rev. J. A. Mac- Kenzie, New Zealand; Rev. R. P. McKim, New Brunswick; Justice J. J. Maclaren, Ontario; President W. Douglas MacKenzie, Connecticut; Rev. A. Macgillvray, Ontario; Mr. E. H. Nichols, Illinois; Mr. W. C. Pearce, Illinois; Rev. A. L. Phillips, D.D., Virginia; Rev. W. I. Pressey, Rhode Island; Prof. Ira M. Price, Ph.D., Illinois; Mr. George W. Penni- man, Massachusetts; Rev. Charles A. Phipps, Oregon; Rev. W. B. Smiley, D.D., Pennsylvania; Mrs. DeWitt C. Snyder, New Jersey; Prof. E. A. Steiner, D.D., Iowa; Mr. Albert Swift, England; Mr. D. W. Sims, Alabama; Mr. William H. Scott, Pennsylvania; Mr. Edmund D. Soper; New York; Mr. F. C. Stevenson, M.D., Canada; Rev. Jacob Sallade, D.D., Pennsylvania; Mr. Allan Sutherland, Pennsylvania; Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, D.D., Pennsylvania; Mr. Charles G. Trumbull, Pennsyl- vania; Rev. James A. Worden, D.D., Pennsylvania; Mr. George Win- stone, New Zealand; Rev. Charles R. Watson, D.D., Pennsylvania; Rev. R. W. Woodroofe, Pennsylvania; Rev. W. Arthur Warner, Pennsylvania; Mr. W. N. Wiggins, Texas; Dr. Frank Woodbury, Nova Scotia; Mr. E. K. Warren, Michigan; Mr. I. W. Williamson, British Columbia; Prof. J. M. Way, South Carolina; Major Edward White, Georgia.
MONDAY MORNING, MAY 23 7.00 to 7.30 — Private Devotions.
Eight Simultaneous Conferences 9.00 — " Methods of Sunday-School Work."
Elementary Division McKendree Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Mrs. Mary Foster
Bryner.
Home Department McKendree Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Rev. C. E. Mogg, D.D.
Official Program 17
Teacher -Training Department First Presbyterian Church, in charge of Dr. Franklin McElfresh.
Advanced Division First Presbyterian Church, in charge of Mr. E. H. Nichols.
Adult Division Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Mr. W. C. Pearce.
House Visitation Department Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Mr. J. Shreve Durham.
Missionary Department
Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Mr. W. A. Brown. Temperance Department
Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, in charge of Mrs. Zillah Foster Stevens.
10.50 — All attending the Eight Conferences will assemble in Conven- tion Hall. General discussion in charge of Mr. Marion Lawrance.
Arlington Hotel 10.00 — Meeting of the Algerian Mission Band: Mrs. W. B. G. Rawson, president; Mrs. W. C. Pearce, secretary-treasurer.
MONDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 23 Two Simultaneous Sessions
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH
Vice-President Justice J. J. Maclaren presiding.
2.30 — Service of Praise: " O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation."
3.00 — Echoes of World's Sunday- School Day.
3.15 — Roll-Call of Nations: The Continent of Europe.
Introductions: Norway, Rev. J. N. Sellwold; Sweden, Mr. August Palm; Denmark, Rev. H. G. Rordam; France, Rev. Charles Bieler; Spain, Miss Alice Bushee, Germany, Pastor Julius Rohrbach; Italy, Rev. Alberto Clot.
Benediction.
FIRST congregational CHURCH
President Meyer in the chair.
2.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion."
3.00 — RoU-Call of Nations: The West India Islands, Rev. Aquila
1 8 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Lucas; South Africa, prepared by Arthur Black, England; New Zealand, Rev. J. A. MacKenzie, M.A.
3.45 — Introductions: Senor Alvaro Reis, Brazil; W. A. Duncan, Ph.D., founder of the Home Department; Rev. John L. Dube, South Africa.
4.30 — Address: " Light Breaking in Mexico," Rev. John W. Butler, D.D,, City of Mexico.
Benediction.
MONDAY EVENING, MAY 23 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
7.30 — Service of Praise: " Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord."
7.45 — Scripture Reading and Prayer: Rev. Samuel H. Woodrow, D.D., pastor of First Congregational Church, Washington.
8.00 — Presentation of the Mexican Flag.
8.15 — Address: "The Moslem Peril in Africa," Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, Africa.
8.45 — Introduction: Mr. Charles M. Alexander.
Address: Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D.
Benediction.
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24 7.00 to 7.30 — Private Devotions.
Two Simultaneous Sessions
CALVARY baptist CHURCH
President Meyer in the chair.
9.00 — Praise and Prayer: Conducted by Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D.
9.15 — Roll-Call of Nations: Palestine, Rev. A. E. Kelsey; Java, Rev. Charles S. Buchanan; Hungary, Rev. Louis Bogar; Persia, prepared by Rev. W. A. Shedd, read by Rev. Charles R. Pittman.
10.05 — Address: Bishop Yoitsu Honda, Japan.
10.30 — Introduction: Rev. Samuel D. Price, chairman of the Com- mittee on Utilizing Waste Material.
10.35 — Address: "Christ and the Children," Rev. E. A. Dowsett, England.
11.00 — Quiet Hour: President Meyer.
1 1.30 — Benediction.
FIRST congregational CHURCH
Mr. H. J. Heinz presiding. 9.00 — Praise and Prayer.
Official Program 19
9.15 — Roll-Call of Nations: Hawaii, prepared by Rev. E. B. Turner; The Philippines, Rev. W. A. Brown; Japan, Rev. Theo. MacNair, D.D.; Korea, Rev. George Heber Jones, D.D.
10.05 — Address: " The Sunday-School and the Nation," Rev. Ernest Bourner Allen, D.D.
10.30 — Introductions: Rev. Walter Walsh and others.
1 1. 00 — Quiet Hour.
11.30 — Benediction.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 24 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
2.30 — Service of Praise: " Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises unto our King, sing praises."
3.00 — The Strength of the Sunday-School Measured by Its — Litera- ture, Rev. A. L. Phillips, D.D.; Conventions, Rev. E. M. Fergusson; Personnel, Rev. H. M. Hamill, D.D.; Results, Rev. Carey Bonner, Eng- land.
3.50 — Greetings: Hon. James Bryce, British ambassador.
Report of Committee on Resolutions, Justice J. J. Maclaren, chairman.
Report of Committee on Place of Holding the Convention in 1913, Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, chairman.
Recommendations by the Executive Committee.
Election of officers.
Benediction.
TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 24 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
7.30 — Service of Praise: " I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people; I will sing unto thee among the nations."
8.00 — Reading of Scriptures and Prayer: Rev. George A. Miller, pastor Ninth Street Christian Church, Washington.
8.15 — Offering for the work of the World's Sunday-School Association.
8.30 — Congress of Nations. Flags of all nations represented in the convention assembled under the Conquest Flag.
" The World's Sunday-School Inventory," Mr. George Shipway, J. P.; Mr. Hugh Cork.
Brief addresses by representatives of many nations.
Introduction of the Officers for the Next Triennium.
Final Word.
Doxology.
Benediction.
20 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
OFFICERS OF THE WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
1907 to 1910
President Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A., England
Past Presidents of the World's Sunday-School Convention Sir Francis F. Belsey, J. P., England Mr. Edward Towers, England Mr. E. K. Warren, U. S. A.
Vice-Presidents Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Africa *Mr. Charles Waters, England Justice J. J. Maclaren, Canada Mr. E. W. Frichley, India
Honorary Vice-Presidents r The Venerable Archdeacon of London „ / D 7 • J Rev. J. Monro Gibson, M.A., LL.D. I The Rt. Hon. Lord Kinnaird (^ Mr. W. H. Groser, B.Sc.
( Hon. John Wanamaker United States of America -^ Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D. ( Mr. W. A. Wilson Germany, *Pastor Basche North Europe, Prince Bernadotte Europe, Bishop William Burt Russia, Baron Uxldill Japan, Mr. Kajinosuke Ibuka, M.A., D.D. Korea, Rev. S. A. Moffett, D.D. New Zealand, Rev. John MacKenzie, M.A. Australia, Mr. H. Lipson Hancock.
Joint Secretaries Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, U. S. A. Rev. Carey Bonner, England
Treasurer Mr. A. B. McCrillis, U. S. A.
*Deceased
Officers 2 1
Statistical Secretaries Mr. George Ship way, J. P., England Mr. Hugh Cork, U. S. A.
Executive Committee, 1907-1910
Chairman
Dr. George W. Bailey, U. S. A.
Recording Secretary Mr. Marion Lawrance, U. S. A.
Great Britain United States of America
Mr. Arthur Black Mr. H. J. Heinz
Mr. James S. Crowther Hon. J. W. Foster
Rev. Frank Johnson Mr. Fred A. Wells
Sir George White, M.P. Mr. Frank L. Brown
Mr. George Shipway, J. P. Mr. N. B. Broughton
Mr. Andrew Crawford Mr. D, S. Johnston Mr. Stephenson Richardson Rev. H. Elvet Lewis
Canada
Hon. Seth P. Leet, K.C. Mr. H. H. Fudger
North Europe {Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), Rev. Ole Olsen
Germany, Mr. J. G. Lehmann
France, Switzerland, and Belgium, Pastor Jean Laroche
Italy, Cav. Ernesto Filippini
Levant, Rev. J. P. McNaughton
India, Rev. Richard Burges
New Zealand, Mr. Peter Barr
Japan, Rev. T. M. MacNair, D.D.
Korea, Prof. T. H. Yun
China, Rev. W. Nelson Bitton
Australia, Archd. Jackson.
In addition, the President, Past Presidents, Joint Secretaries and Treasurer.
Central Committee
George W. Bailey, Chairman Mr. Andrew Crawford
Sir F. F. Belsey, J. P. Mr. William N. Hartshorn
Rev. Carey Bonner Mr. H. J. Heinz
Mr. Frank L. Brown
22
The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
THE WASHINGTON CONVENTION LOCAL COMMITTEE, 1910
P. H. Bristow, Chairman W. W. Millan, Vice- Chairman Charles A. Baker, Secretary Washington Topham, Treasurer
Chairmen of Subcommittees
Entertainment — Donald C. MacLeod, D.D.
Finance — Charles I. Corby
Publicity — Carleton R. Ball
Reception and Information — Rev. Charles H. Butler
Meetings and Meeting-Places — John M. Schick, D.D.
Ushers — M. A. Watson
Men's Bible Class Parade — W. W. Millan
Music — Prof. Percy S. Foster
Sunday-School and Missionary Exhibits — Rev. C. E. Guthrie
Other Members of Local Committee
Samuel H. Greene, D.D.
John W. Sumwalt, D.D.
J. Howard Wells, D.D.
Rev. Frank T. Benson
S. W. Woodward
A. L. Deitrich
J. H. Lichliter
J. A. Scott E. A. Gonger
S. H. Woodrow, D.D. R. H. McKim, D.D.
F. D. Power, D.D. A. K. Parris
J. J. Darlington J. H. Done H. L. Buell
G. J. Pillow
Co-operating Committee
Justice John M. Harlan Judge Stanton J. Peelle Hon. James Wilson Hon. Charles Nagle Admiral M. T. Endicott Bishop Alfred T. Harding Dr. Merrill E. Gates Senator A. J. Beveridge Hon. Sereno E. Payne Hon. Otto G. Foelker Hon. W. S. Hawley Hon. John M. Nelson Hon. John R. McLean
Paul C. Patterson
Hon. John A. Johnston
Hon. William E. Andrews
Hon. H. B. F. Macfarland
George Otis Smith
John B. Larner
Prof. William A. Wilbur
William T. Galliher
Charles Henry Butler
C. C. Glover
W. H. Hoeke
John B. Sleman, Jr.
Judge Thomas H. Anderson
Officers
n
Judge George W. Atkinson Hon. Willett M. Hayes Hon. George von L. Meyer Bishop Earl Cranston Rev. Charles Wood, D.D. Senator J. P. Dolliver Senator L. S. Overman Hon. James T. Lloyd Hon. E. S. Candler, Jr. Hon. J. H. Cassidy Theodore Noyes Henry L. West Hon. Cuno H. Rudolph
Hon. John W. Foster
Hon. Clifford Pinchot
Hon. B. H. Warner
Dr. Charles W. Needham
Prof. Alex. T. Stuart
W. K. Cooper
W. H. H. Smith
Col. Thomas S. Hopkins
A. F. Fox
G. W. F. Swartzell
Miles M. Shand
Hon. J. A. Fowler
Prof. P. M. Hughes
Reception Committee Hon. B. H. Warner, Chairman
Hon. Geo. D. McCreary
Hon. C. C. Pratt
John B. Sleman, Jr., Esq.
Hon. John W. Foster
Hon. C. H. Butler
Rev. W. P. Thirkield, D.D.
Hon. Wilbur J. Carr
Hon. John Barrett
Hon. Cuno H. Rudolph
Major W. V. Judson
Gen. John A. Johnston
A. B. Brown, Esq.
Hon. H. B. F. Macfarland
Hon. John C. Scofield
Theo. W. Noyes, Esq.
P. H. Bristow, Esq.
Rev. Donald C. MacLeod, D.D.
C. C. James, Esq.
S. W. Woodward, Esq.
Charles L Corby, Esq.
Rev. John M. Schick, D.D.
Rev. C. E. Guthrie
Rev. Samuel H. Greene, D.D.
Rev. S. H. Woodrow, D.D.
Rev. John W. Sumwalt, D.D.
Rev. R. H. McKim, D.D.
A. K. Parris, Esq.
J. J. Darlington, Esq.
The Sunday-School Exposition Committee
Mr. R. E. Diffendorfer, Director
C. R. Blackall, D.D., Consulting Director
Mr. Frank L. Brown, World's Sunday-School Association
Mr. Arthur Black, Sunday-School Union (London)
Rev. Charles R. Guthrie, Washington Local Committee
Mr. George F. Sutherland, Young People's Missionary Movement
Mr. Allan Sutherland, Editorial Association
Mr. Philip E. Howard, Publishers' Association
*' No matter what views are taken of general educa- tion, we all agree — Protestant, Catholic, and Jew alike — that Sunday-school education is absolutely necessary to secure moral uplift and religious spirit."
Hon. WILLIAM H. TAFT,
President of the United States.
Washington, D. C, May 19, 1910.
THE MINUTES OF THE CONVENTION
Rev. J. Clayton Youkek and Mk. C. W. Youker, Official Reporters
THE OPENING SESSION
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 19
Convention Hall
At 2.30 P.M. the hall was well filled with delegates. The choir space was occupied by a large chorus.
Prof. Percy S. Foster announced " Coronation," which was sung with deep feeling. Prof. Alvin W. Roper played the piano accompaniment.
Prof. E. O. Excell announced the hymn, " My faith looks up to Thee," which was sung prayerfully.
Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, England, President of the World's Sunday-School Association, was given an ovation as he took the chair.
President Meyer: My friends, I bid you welcome to this great con- vention. I ask the prayer of every person in this place that it shall be begun, continued, and ended for the glory of God and for the blessing of child life around the world. Welcome! welcome! God bless you.
Now you will understand that all thoughtful people, and those who love the great interests of humanity, have been overwhelmed with the sorrow which has overtaken the British people, with whom this generous people by whom we are being entertained deeply sympathize. We represent the children of the world today. I desire Bishop Hartzell, who was present at the coronation of the late king, and whose character, standing, and influence well befit him for the task, to move a resolution, which I will second, and then, in confirmation of it, this vast assembly may stand silently for a moment or two; and I desire the doors to be kept closed and that there be no moving about so that nothing may stay the solemnity of that wave of sympathy which is to roll from this place around the world, and which is to break especially upon those bereaved and mourning hearts in the palace in London. Bishop Hartzell!
Bishop Hartzell: "To her Majesty the Queen Mother Alexandra, London, England. The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, com- prising three thousand delegates from all parts of the world, at its first session, begs to off"er to Your Majesty and to the people of the British Empire its profound sympathy in this hour of overwhelming sorrow."
25
26 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
President Meyer: I second that. All those who agree to it will kindly signify so by standing and remaining standing. Then Bishop Hartzell will offer prayer.
The vast audience arose en masse.
Bishop Hartzell: Almighty God, we unite our hearts on this side of the ocean in a prayer for thy special blessing this moment to rest upon her Majesty the Queen Mother Alexandra, in this hour of overwhelming sorrow. Amen.
Professor Excell announced the hymn, " There's a land that is fairer than day." It was sung with sympathy and solemnity.
Rev. Earl Cranston, D.D., LL.D., bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church (the resident Bishop of Washington, D. C), read scriptural selections from the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy and from the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, and offered prayer. The audience joined Bishop Cranston in repeating the Lord's Prayer.
The Convention Sermon
President Meyer then preached the convention sermon, on the subject, " The Possibilities of Child Life." (See index.)
Introduction of the Chairman of the Executive Committee
President Meyer: I am not going to try to introduce the next speaker, but if under the blessing of God this convention is to mark an era in the history of Christendom it will be attributable to the labor and sweat of blood, to the time and the strength which have been put into it by one of the noblest men I have ever met, Dr. Bailey.
Dr. George W. Bailey: Mr. President and Dear Friends, — Many years since, I adopted a rule which was to do nothing myself if I could by any means find one who could perforn the particular service better. Fol- lowing that rule I have asked Mr. Marion Lawrance to read extracts from the report of your Chairman of the Executive Committee.
Report of the Executive Committee Mr. Lawrance read certain extracts. (See index.) Following the reading of the report, the benediction was pronounced by Rev. Y. Tanaka, of Japan.
THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 19 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
The exercises were opened with a service of praise conducted by the musical directors.
Minutes of the Convention 27
President Meyer: I hold in my hand the most remarkable letter that was ever addressed to me, without exception, and the sending and the receiving of this document I think will be registered by every daily paper around the world tomorrow morning, and you will see the great importance of the communication when it is read. It is sent to me as your President from the House of Representatives, and it has to do with our Sunday-School Convention. I do not know whether it honors more our work or honors more the men of your House of Representatives who have sent this to us. I am sure in Britain, if we had a communication of this sort from our legislature, we should do honor to our legislature by standing to receive it, and I ask this audience to stand while Mr. Marion Lawrence reads it to us.
A Remarkable Document
Mr. Lawrance read the following:
61st Congress
Second Session H. Res. 700
In the House of Representatives May 18, iqio
Hon. Courtney W. Hamlin, Springfield, Mo. [see index], submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Rules and ordered to be printed.
[This resolution was adopted May 19, 1910. — Ed.]
Resolution
Whereas there will convene in this city to-morrow the World's Sunday- School Convention, composed of representatives of all religious denomina- tions; and
Whereas there will be represented at this meeting practically all the civilized nations of the earth ; and
Whereas the people of the United States have always stood abreast of the foremost advocates of the Christian religion; and
Whereas the House of Representatives appreciates the honor conferred upon this nation in the selection of its capital as the meeting place of this convention; and
Whereas a parade of all the members and delegates to said convention, together with all other persons desiring to participate therein, will pass in review before the east front of the nation's Capitol at five o'clock post meridian, on Friday, the twentieth day of May, nineteen hundred and ten;
Therefore be it
Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the delegates assembled, as well as to the cause which they represent, and for the further purpose of permitting members of the House who may desire to do so to participate in said parade, the House do adjourn not later than four o'clock post meridian on Friday, May twentieth, nineteen hundred and ten.
Attest.
Alex McDowell, Clerk.
At the conclusion of the reading of the above, the Doxology was sung.
28 The World's Sixth Sunday -School Convention
Rt. Rev. Alfred T. Harding, D.D., bishop of the diocese of the city of Washington, read selections from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy and from the fourth chapter of Ephesians. The audience then joined with him in repeating the Lord's Prayer. The bishop followed with an earnest petition for the blessing of almighty God to rest upon the Sunday-school enterprise in its world-wide activity.
WELCOME ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. TAFT
When President Taft appeared, the convention arose and broke into cheer after cheer. When he reached the speakers' platform the convention was fairly hidden behind waving handkerchiefs. It was several minutes before President Meyer could be heard, the applause being deafening.
President Meyer: As president of this great gathering, I want to say how thankful we are that the great President of this mighty nation gives us some portion of his valuable time, and in introducing his Excellency to you I want to assure him that for twenty years I have prayed for the President of the United States every Sunday morning in my church, after our own King, and that practice is by no means uncommon in our country.
I introduce to you the President of the United States, and in doing so thank him as a Britisher for that noble cablegram which he sent to my people when our King lay dead. We can never forget that. I introduce him as a great man, and better than that as a true Christian, and I want now that we should stand and welcome him with our customary salute.
The vast audience lost no time in complying with the suggestion of President Meyer. The Chautauqua salute was wonderful; it seemed as if each delegate were waving a dozen handkerchiefs. The salute was followed by three cheers and a tiger, and then there was another salute and more cheers. The address of President Taft will be found on another page (see index).
At the conclusion of the President's address the audience arose, enthusi- astically cheered and saluted.
President Meyer: We are honored to-night not only by the presence of his Excellency, but by the presence of Mrs. Taft who has accompanied him.
Tremendous applause greeted the announcement of Mrs. Taft's presence. It was so insistent in its tone that President Taft went to his wife and escorted her to the speakers' platform. She graciously bowed her acknowl- edgments, and President Taft facetiously exclaimed, " The real President of the United States! " This sally elicited great applause, the convention ending its hilarity with a stanza of " My Country, 'tis of thee."
President Meyer: His Excellency is not going to hurry away; he does
Minutes of the Convention 29
us the honor to stay; and yet I do not wonder at it because the next speaker is a statesman and a man of commerce, and, better than that, the prince of the Sunday-school work, Hon. John Wanamaker. [Great applause.]
The Sunday-Schools of North America
Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, Penn., then addressed the convention, speaking for the Sunday-schools of North America. (See index.)
President Meyer: We cannot detain his Excellency and Mrs. Taft any longer, and I do want to hear you sjng as they pass out, for I have never heard an American audience sing it, " The Star-Spangled Banner."
The audience arose and heartily sang " The Star-Spangled Banner," President Meyer giving his arm to Mrs. Taft and escorting her to the entrance, the President following.
Welcome for the District of Columbia
Rev. Samuel H. Greene, D.D., LL.D., pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, city of Washington, welcomed the convention in the name of the District of Columbia Local Committee. He said :
Delegates to the World's Convention of Sunday-School Workers from the uttermost parts of the earth, — I am commissioned by our Local Committee to bear to 5'ou the greeting of our 160 Sunday-schools with 45,000 members, and to express to you their Christian welcome to our fair city. We rejoice in your presence. We are proud of the place of our adoption. We welcome you to her broad avenues and beautiful streets. We welcome you to her hospitable homes and to her great public buildings. We welcome you to her venerable institutions of learning. We welcome you to her sacred places, made sacred to us by the presence of our great men from the time of Washington down to this hour, graced by the presence of our Chief Execu- tive and the gracious word of a nation's welcome.
We welcome you in the name of our Christian churches: they are neither few nor insignificant. In the name of these who have labored with us many years and have wrought for the Master well in this capital city, we welcome you to a fellowship and a love seldom surpassed. We welcome you to the large fellowship of the present gathering and of the present hour. We welcome you to our Sunday-schools: our numbers are not few, our organizations are not incomplete; and some of the more recent and practical thoughts and plans for the enlargement of the work we are proud to own have been born among the Sunday-schools of our own fair city.
We welcome you because you are the friends of the Bible, because you believe in God and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, because you are
30 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
making it your business and increasingly the business of the church world- wide to teach the coming generations those principles which underlie the purity, integrity, and stability of individual, church, and national life. We rejoice that to the uttermost parts of the earth our religion is going in organized form to teach the youth and lead them into the way of life ever- lasting, instructing them concerning the things of the Kingdom.
We welcome you as the earnest representatives of organized, intelligent, and permanent study of that truth that makes men free. We are brothers of yours and we desire to strike hands with you on this glad occasion, and to rejoice with you in all that God has wrought. We pray that upon this great convention the blessing of the Almighty may rest; that a pentecostal scene may be here witnessed, and that when you go to your homes in the continents and in the isles of the sea you may carry with you a larger vision of the Most High, a completer grasp of the truth that makes men free, and a fresh and a living realization of the presence of the crucified and risen Christ.
Welcome, then, brethren of the continents and the isles of the sea! Welcome to our hearts and to our homes! Welcome to the fellowship and the uplift of the hour, and may the blessing of the Great Father be upon you and upon us. [Great applause.^
Responses to these addresses of welcome were made by Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., of London, England (see index), representing Europe; Bishop Yoitsu Honda, of Japan (see index), representing Asia; and Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., of Madeira, bishop for Africa of the Methodist Episcopal Church (see index), representing Africa.
The benediction was pronounced by Rev. J. A. Mackenzie, M.A., of New Zealand.
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 20
Two simultaneous meetings were held, one in the Calvary Baptist Church, the other in the First Congregational Church
Calvary Baptist Church
President Meyer in the chair.
Praise service conducted by Professor Excell.
Roll-Call of Nations
Responses to the Roll-Call of Nations were made as follows: Bulgaria. — Rev. Theo. T. Holway. (See index.) Bohemia. — Rev. L. E. Marek. (See index.) Syria. — Mrs. Layyah Barakat. (See index.)
Minutes of the Convention 31
Introductions
Miss Anna Jarvis, the originator of " Mothers' Day," was called to the platform and introduced to the convention. She said:
Friends, — I have the great honor and privilege of speaking to you this morning through the courtesy of Dr. George W. Bailey, of Philadelphia. Through his courtesy and kindness, " Mothers' Day " has now become known to the Sunday-schools of the world. I come to you this morning to ask you to honor the mothers of the world, or their memories. " Mother, the best mother who ever lived," is the slogan of the day. We have in our country a new holiday and holy day, called " Mothers' Day." The general object of that day is a simultaneous observance in every part of the world, your land and my land, of the memory of the best mother who ever lived, or in her honor, if that best mother is still living. On that day every one is asked to wear a white flower, preferably a white carnation, as the emblem of purity, fidelity, and truth; as the emblem of our mothers' suffering of the flesh. Every one is asked to wear a white carnation or any other white flower he may be able to obtain.
Another observance of the day is to write home, or to go home, or have your mother with you, or in any way whatever give her happiness; and, if she is not living, then give happiness to some one else in her name. It may set the blood tingling in your veins, and it may set the blood tingling in the veins of those who thought you had no heart.
I ask of each of you to take " Mothers' Day " into your Sunday-school, into your religious work, into your military, civic, fraternal, and business organization. It has great power in it for uplift. At the last observance of the day, every state observed it. Twenty-three governors issued procla- mations, and six other governors sent me letters of commendation. Letters have come to me from many places in those states, saying it was a day of the greatest inspiration and beauty that the church and Sunday-school have ever known. Again I ask you for your cooperation.
Rev. Henry Collins Woodruff, D.D,, president of the Foreign Sunday- School Association, was introduced. He made a response (see index).
" Many Nations but One Church " Bishop William M. Bell, D.D., San Francisco, Cal., bishop of the United Brethren Church, and president of the California State Sunday- School Association, gave an address on the subject " Many Nations but One Church." (See index.)
Memorial Service A memorial service, in memory of his late Majesty King Edward VII of England, was conducted by President Meyer.
32 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
[Similar services at the same hour — the time of the funeral of the late King in London — were held in the First Congregational Church and in the Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church,]
The memorial address was delivered by Rev. Percy Waller, D.D., vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cheltenham, England. (See index.)
The benediction was pronounced by President Meyer.
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 20
First Congregational Church
Mr. E. K. Warren, Three Oaks, Mich., past president of the World's Sunday-School Convention, presiding.
After praise and prayer, the Roll-Call of Nations was resumed. Algeria. — Rev. Jean Paul Cook. (See index.) Egypt. — Rev. J. R. Alexander, D.D. (See index.) Turkey. — Rev. J. P. McNaughton, D.D. (See index.)
Introductions
Chairman Warren introduced to the convention Mr. Francis Connell, the superintendent, and Mr. J. W. Connell and Mr. John Hancock, repre- senting the largest Sunday-school in the world, — Stockport, England. The gentlemen were most enthusiastically received.
Mr. Francis Connell: We feel it, Mr. President and ladies and gentle- men, a great privilege to represent the Stockport Sunday-school on this occasion, and at the same time we regard it as a great responsibility. We are plain business men, engaged, as most of you are, in business during the week, and we give our time on Sunday to the Sunday-school. In 1784, within three years of the great work of Robert Raikes, a number of busi- ness men in our town joined with the clergy and the ministers in the formation of a Sunday-school board, and for a few years they paid a number of men what was equivalent to thirty-six cents a day for teaching children in the Sunday-school.
Then came along a young man who had had the privilege of a liberal education. He offered his services voluntarily, and he was our first volun- teer Sunday-school teacher; his name should be mentioned here, Joseph Mayer. His parents had the honor of entertaining John Wesley on severa visits to the town of Stockport. I dare say that very largely is due to the spirit and influence of John Wesley, the founder of the great Wesleyan denomination, the fact of the existence of the Stockport Sunday-school.
The clergy and the ministers, to their great honor, stood aside and said, " We can trust this work to the business men of our town "; and from that day to this the whole of this Sunday-school work has been carried on
I
Minutes of the Convention 33
by business men, men who are engaged in business during the week and who give their time on Sunday.
In 1805 our great building was erected, and we have a hall there that has been used from Sunday to Sunday since that time, capable of seating about 2,300 persons. Every Sunday since then two sessions a day have been held in that Sunday-school, two sessions a day, morning and afternoon. In the evening you will find that the men and women who have been most active in the Sunday-school in the morning and the afternoon are the office bearers, the treasurers, the deacons, the secretaries of most of the churches and chapels of our town.
We take the Bible as our class book. We have no sectarian interests in our school, and yet we have all sectarian interests! I have been introduced as the superintendent; I ought to explain; I am the junior superintend- ent. We have three superintendents, called in our local parlance " gen- eral inspectors." I am the junior general inspector. I am the oldest in years, but the junior in that office. I have only been in this, in one way and another, about forty-six years. We have three persons in our school, two gentlemen and one lady, whose jubilee of service as teachers we shall celebrate this year. They have served fifty years. I said the Bible is our class book, the foundation of our school.
We do not confine our work to our own school. We have just built another hall, at a cost of 15,000 pounds sterling, which will accommodate an audience of 2,300 persons. We are supported by public subscription, having no endowment. We have the interest of all the denominations, and, as I have said, we do not confine our work to local interests.
Many years ago we placed on the rocky coast of Ireland a lifeboat. We thought it was a splendid work for a Sunday-school to put out a lifeboat to save life. We have the privilege of knowing that that boat has done splendid service. Having put out a boat to save human life, we have put out boats to save the spiritual lives of the people. We support a Bible woman in India; we support a colporteur in China; we support in our various churches and chapels such missionary interests as you support here.
That is an outline of our Sunday-school, I am glad to say that for three generations it has had the favor of the patronage of the royal house of Great Britain, The parents of our late good Queen Victoria had the Stock- port Sunday-school brought to their attention; they interested themselves in it, and conferred upon the Stockport Sunday-school their royal patron- age. In the reign of our good Queen Victoria that patronage was renewed and continued. It was graciously renewed by Queen Alexandra; and in this you see the touch of nature which has cemented the royal house of England to the cottage and the mansion. We value that royal favor not
34 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
only because of; its direct influence and prestige, but because of its recog- nition of the good work that is being done not only in the large Sunday- school, but in the humblest Sunday-school in the land.
We do not forget that while we have a large institution we have other responsibilities, and we recognize that the humblest teacher in the hum- blest school is doing a work which may be of even greater importance and usefulness than we are able to do.
Chairman Warren introduced Rev. A. Macgillvray, of Canada. He was most cordially received.
Rev. a. Macgillvray: Mr. Chairman, Fellow-Workers, — I am a humble representative from the larger half of the North American conti- nent, Canada, bringing you the greetings of 15,000 schools, 100,000 teach- ers, and 1,000,000 scholars, and telling you that, with you, we are aiming to possess and to hold the world for Christ, especially that portion of it where the lines have fallen unto us. It will interest you to hear that in the great land to the north of you the population is pouring in at the rate of 40,000 souls a month, and to meet that inflow of population the evangelical churches of Canada are establishing Sabbath-schools at the rate of 400 additional new Sabbath-schools per year.
Canada hopes to be great. Canada is growing great by the teaching and the preaching of the gospel. We pride ourselves most not upon our material resources and development , but upon the development and the growth of Christian character.
I have great pleasure in conveying to you the greetings of your fellow- workers to the north, and to join with you in every eff"ort to win and to hold the world for the Master.
The Victories of the Gospel in Japan
Rev. N. Tamura, of Japan, addressed the convention on " The Victories of the Gospel in Japan." (See index.)
Memorial Service
Memorial service in honor of the late King Edward VII.
Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., of London, England, led in the responsive readings, and Principal William Patrick, D.D., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, read the prayers.
The memorial address was delivered by Rev. Richard Roberts, of London. (See index.)
Minutes of the Convention 35
Third Memorial Service, Mt. Vernon M. E. Church
Memorial service in honor of the late King Edward VII, held at the Mt. Vernon Methodist Church.
Rev. Carey Bonner, London, England, general secretary British Sunday- School Union, and joint secretary of the World's Sunday-School Associa- tion, presiding.
The memorial address was delivered by Rev. Ernest Dowsett, pastor of Lewisham Congregational Church, London. (See index).
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 20
Simultaneous meetings, Calvary Baptist Church and First Congregational
Church
Calvary Baptist Church
Vice-President Justice J. J. Maclaren, of Ontario, Canada, presiding. Service of praise conducted by Prof. E. O. Excell.
Roll-Call of the Nations, continued
China. — Rev. Frederick Brown. (See index.) Siam. — Rev. R. W. Post. (See index.) East Africa. — Rev. Erwin H. Richards. (See index.) India. — Prof. J. R. Chitambar, B.A. (See index.)
The Needs and Opportunities of Korea as a Mission Field
Hon. T. H. Yun, Korea, addressed the convention on " The Needs and Opportunities of Korea as a Mission Field." (See index.)
Introductions
Ex-Bailie Peter Strachan, J. P., of Glasgow, Scotland, vice-chairman of the Scottish National Sabbath-School Union, was introduced, and in response spoke as follows. (See index.)
Rev. John L. Dube, of South Africa, was presented to the convention, and spoke as follows:
I represent the Zulu people, and my old teacher and friend, Rev. Mr. Richards, told you the kind of people my people were before they became Christians. I heard the wonderful story of love, and now, instead of trying to kill people, I am killing ignorance and sin, and all that pertains to the life of a heathen people.
I started some years ago to come to this country, not knowing just where I was going, but God led me to Oberlin University, where I worked my
36 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
way through in six years. I returned to my native land and started teaching my people under the trees. Now I have put up several buildings, and we have more than two hundred scholars going to our schools. If you knew what we had to deal with in that country, you would feel like praising God, as I do every day of my life, for I have seen the people there, even my own cousins, bow down before a snake and worship it. To-day I am trying to teach these people the Christian way of living, and they are responding.
Oh, how I do long for the day when the darkness and gloom shall be past, and when the sun of righteousness shall shine in all its glory. That will be a day of happiness for the children of Africa. Christianity will usher in a new civilization, and that dark land of ours shall be transformed into a land of Christian institutions; upon the hilltops shall be seen school- houses and churches. Then in truth will the dusky sons and daughters of Africa sing out loudly, " Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."
At the close of these remarks a delegate proposed three cheers for " the Booker T. Washington of Zululand," which were given with a will.
The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Frederick Brown, of China.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 20
First Congregational Church
President Meyer in the chair. Service of praise conducted by Professor Foster.
Rev. Samuel H. Woodrow, D.D., pastor First Congregational Church, Washington, D. C, offered prayer.
Roll-Call of the Nations, continued
Brazil. — Rev. H. C. Tucker. (See index.) Argentine. — Mr. Russell D. Christian. (See index.) Paraguay. — Prepared by Rev. John Hay. Read by Mr. Charles G. Trumbull, Philadelphia, Penn. (See index.)
Introductions
Rev. E. M. Sein, general secretary for Mexico, was introduced. For his response see index.
The program called for an address by Rev. Frank Johnson, editor of the Sunday-School Chronicle, London, England. Mr. Johnson was unable to attend. President Meyer called upon Rev. John Hillman, representing the British Sunday-School Union (see index), and Rev. Daniel Hayes, of London (see index), each of whom made an excellent address.
President Meyer pronounced the benediction.
Minutes of the Convention 37
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 20
Meeting for Men Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
Following the parade, the men marched to the convention hall. As the great throng marched in, carrying banners and singing, they were greeted with a tremendous volley of cheers from the large crowd which already partly filled the hall.
The men of some of the classes wore white sashes and caps as a dis- tinguishing mark. In the crowd was a brass band, the music of which, though the musicians played gallantly, was almost entirely drowned out by burst after burst of cheers and applause as the different men's organiza- tions filed in. Class yells rent the air.
There was a perfect forest of beautiful banners bearing striking mottoes, such as " The Saloon Must Go," " Justice Brewer was a Sunday-school Teacher," " Train up a Boy in the Way He should Go, and Go That Way Yourself," " Taft is Square on the Sunday-School," " Every Man a Brother," and a host of others.
In the midst of the tumult, a California contingent, with oranges strung around their necks, mounted to the elevated back part of the platform, and unfolded a huge sign reading, " International Convention, San Francisco, 1911."
President Meyer then requested all the standard-bearers to come to the front and form one long line. Then the entire audience rose, while the standard-bearers marched once around the hall. The line then came to a halt, and the first and last stanzas of " My Country, 'tis of Thee " were sung. Then the convention burst into a verse of " God Save the King." A verse of " Coronation " was then sung, followed by " Where He Leads Me I will Follow." The standard-bearers took their places, and the vast audience was seated.
Rev. Charles Wood, D.D., of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, Washington, read a few verses of the first chapter of Ephesians, and offered prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer, in which the audience joined.
Greetings by Past President Warren
Mr. E. K. Warren, of Michigan, gave the following hearty greeting.
I am down on the program for a greeting. Under the circumstances I wish to just melt a welcome in with it. Yesterday and to-day we have witnessed miracles that would have given heart and courage to the early church beyond measure. The marvelous fact of the great Congressional
38 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
body arranging to adjourn so that there would be nothing in the way of our parade being a wonderful success, and in order that some of its number might participate therein, is a marvelous recognition of the Sunday-school power in our land to-day.
Those of us who were permitted to see the thousands of spectators who gathered on the steps of our United States Capitol to witness that parade feel highly impressed when we remember that such parades, and the gathering of large numbers of people about the Capitol for outside purposes, are almost unknown, and the permission of the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House must be obtained, in order that such a request may be acted favorably upon; at least, so I am informed. If that is the case, we should feel grateful indeed to these two men for passing favorably on our request to hold this great gathering.
There is not a man in my hearing but what is a better man to-night than he was twenty-four hours ago, because of the coming to this platform of the President of this great United States, coming not in his official character, from a sense of duty to us, but coming as a Bible-loving, Bible- living magistrate, a man who knows and realizes that righteousness ex- alteth a nation, and so casting his influence along with us. And, more than all else, was it not a very beautiful thing that he should have been accom- panied by his gracious wife, showing also her interest in this great movement !
I have just one thought, and that is a good deal for me to have at one time. My thought is, " The Bible and the Sabbath! " You, and I, and every other Sunday-school scholar and teacher, stand for the Bible, and the Bible brings into the school and into the home, by the Bible reading, and the stress that is laid upon it, the proper keeping of the sabbath. I have said many times when the lesson came along in my own school that if any one wanted to really know and see a proof a thousand years old, continuing for centuries, that the Bible and the observance of the sabbath would exalt a nation, all they have to do is to look at our English brethren . No man can account for the wonderful way in which the Lord has used the English nation, except by the fact that they have stood solid upon God's Word as their foundation. I have had the pleasure of going to their church services in various parts of the world, where no other nation would be in power or have any authority, and even at the cataract of the Nile, one sabbath, a few years ago, we went into a quiet church and greatly enjoyed the service. Hear me, men! There is one thing I like about the service of the Church of England. It is largely given over to the reading of God's Word, and everybody responds gladly, " Lord, help us to keep thy com- mandments."
Just one thing more! We are here to-night, an English-speaking people.
Minutes of the Convention 39
If we were to hold this great World's Convention anywhere on the face of the globe, there is only one language that would be spoken at that con- vention, and that is the English language. In that language the conven- tion would be held.
In planning for the Jerusalem Convention no one asked what tongue would be used, although a score or more of tongues are spoken upon the streets of Jerusalem. The gutters of that city have run with human blood, that one nation might capture the city and take the power from another nation, and the next morning a new tongue would be spoken there; but with our tent set close by Calvary we took peaceable possession of Jerusa- lem and for four or five days the English language was the language of Jerusalem. Some speaker said in my hearing that he was quite anxious about the tongue that should be used in heaven. I never thought about that before, but, men and women, it lies with you and me that it shall be the English tongue that shall spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth.
The Transforming Power of the Word of God
Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, D.D., of New York, first assistant corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, gave an address on " The Transforming Power of the Word of God " (see index), and was followed by Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, of New York, upon the same topic (see index).
The benediction was pronounced by President Meyer.
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 20
Meeting for Men
Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church
Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., bishop of Africa, presiding. Rev. John M. Schick, D.D., pastor Grace Reformed Church, Washing- ton, D. C, read a part of the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, and offered prayer.
Jesus, the Ruler of Nations Address by Rev. Richard Roberts, London, England. (See index.)
The Word of God in Korea
Address by Rev. George Heber Jones, D.D., of Korea. (See index.) Bishop Hartzell pronounced the benediction.
40 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 20
Meeting for Women Calvary Baptist Church, Auditorium
Mrs. James S. Sherman, wife of the Vice-President of the United States, presiding.
Mrs. Phcebe A. Curtis, Columbus, Ohio, read the One Hundred and Seventeenth Psalm and offered prayer.
Mrs. Sherman: I am asked to give you a word of greeting. The princi- pal words of greeting were given you last night, and I can only ask you to listen to what the missionaries have done.
Everything is accomplished in two ways; by enthusiasm, first, and then by organization. The enthusiasm is what led the missionaries to take up the work, and the organization we have here to-day is what helps to carry it on.
Addresses by Missionaries
Five-minute addresses were given by the following-named missionaries: < Mrs. D. G. Collins, Siam (see index); Mrs. J. P. McNaughton, Turkey (see index); Mrs. William Butler, India (see index); Miss Bertha G. Johnson, India (see index); Mrs. Layyah Barakat, Syria (see index).
"As Thyself"
Following these brief addresses, Miss Margaret Slattery, of Fitchburg, Mass., addressed the meeting on the topic " As Thyself." (See index.)
Prayer by Mrs. William Butler
At the close of the address, Mrs. William Butler, the oldest missionary, and the oldest member of the World's Sunday-School Convention, offered prayer, as follows:
O Thou who did so love this world as to give Thyself to die for the sins of the world that Thou mightest bring every one of us up to God, we pray that Thou wilt bless this meeting which has been held here this evening. Bless every one of us that has been stirred up to work for Thee and for the glory of the blessed Saviour. God grant that all the world, north and south, east and west, shall be filled with the glory which shall be found to begin with this world's great assembly of Thy people who have been gathering together to ask how they are to do this work, to find out the secret of it. May the the blessed Holy Spirit come to each of you and show each one of you what must be done; that there must be a coming to God through the children of Christ, that there must be a coming to God through the influence of the Holy Spirit; and we pray that the blessed influence of the Father, Son, and
Minutes of the Convention 41
Holy Ghost may be poured out upon this nation that has sent so many of its sons and daughters to learn the lesson.
Oh, may there be a wonderful outpouring. Oh, may we see — may all the world see — that the holy river that flows from under the altar of God has begun to flow out in a wonderful manner, and that soon this wonderful river of God will spring out, and run down every hill and over every chasm until every soul on earth shall have tasted of the pure waters of the river of life and be saved.
We ask, O God, that thou wouldst hasten the salvation of the world, that thou wouldst hasten the day when this world shall take up the cross of our Lord, and Jesus, the Omnipresent One, shall reign forever and for- ever. Oh, we ask it in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen, amen.
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 2d
Meeting for Women Calvary Baptist Church, Sunday-School Room
Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Peoria, 111., elementary superintendent International Sunday-School Association, presiding.
Prayer was offered by Miss Hill.
Miss Margaret Slattery, of Fitchburg, Mass., then addressed the meet- ing on the topic " As Thyself." (See index.)
Five-minute addresses by missionaries were given as follows :
Miss Clementina Butler, India (see index); Mrs. E. A. Ford, West Africa (see index); Miss Frances M. Parsons, Palestine (see index); Mrs. J. A. Funk, Persia (see index); Miss Nellie A. Cole, Turkey (see index).
SATURDAY MORNING, MAY 21
Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
Prof. E. O. Excell and Rev. Carey Bonner conducted the service of praise, and President Meyer offered prayer.
Presentation of Portrait of B. F. Jacobs
Hon. Thomas H. Murray, Clearfield, Penn., on behalf of Mr. H. J. Heinz, of Pittsburg, Penn., presented to the convention a beautiful por- trait of the late B. F. Jacobs, " the chief promoter of a world-wide Sunday- school." Mr. Murray said:
Mr. President, Men and Women of a World-Wide Sunday-School, — The work, the example, the memory of those who have gone before, must not
42 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
be forgotten or lost sight of in the activities of those who remain. Their work is the foundation for our work. Their example is suggestive to us of greater zeal, greater courage, and greater fidelity. Their memory ought to be an inspiration, enlarging our faith and widening our vision to behold the greater things which God has prepared for his people. This beautiful portrait brings back to us the memory of one who stood out in the forefront of the work for what has come to be the Sunday-school of to-day. It reminds us that there was a time when we had no International Lesson Series, for he projected that beneficent plan at the Indianapolis Conven- tion in 1872. In that work he was chiefly aided by Bishop John H. Vincent, then of national fame and since of international fame in all good works, and in none more than in the Sunday-school. It also reminds us that there was a time when we had no international convention and no world's convention, for he more than any other brought together the Old World and the New into a Sunday-School Union, and developed the world- wide Sunday-school.
He died three days before the Tenth International Convention held at Denver, June 26, 1902. His dying message to that convention was in these words, " Men die, Jesus lives, and the work goes on." How prophetic these words, as illustrated by the marvelous growth during these swiftly passing years, of the work he so intelligently started ! If he were here to-day he might well say, " What hath God wrought! " He saw farther and builded better than he knew.
Who knows that he is not here to-day? If it be true that those who pass from us in the flesh return at times in spirit, such return may well likely be when we are nearest to them in work and sympathy. If so, what more auspicious place and time? Where else could a place be found in which are assembled so many of his surviving comrades from near and far as in this the capitol city of his own country; and when else a time when we are so closely allied to the work which filled his life here and out of which came his highest inspiration and best hope for the life there?
Mrs. Barakat, of Syria, in the remarkable address she made yesterday morning in Calvary Church, aptly called attention to the education of ancient Egypt, and contrasted its results with the education we stand for. It is true the civilization of Egypt brought forth two masterful achieve- ments. One was the art of embalming dead men. The other was the Pyramids, — to put certain of them in, when embalmed.
The glory of our civilization, represented by this vast assemblage, and particularly exemplified by this wonderful man, is that it deals with persons alive; the life of the child, — a life that will live in the heavens long after the Pyramids and all they contain shall have alike melted into the dust of the desert on which they stand.
Miniites of the Convention 43
The estimates put on his work at the Denver Convention in 1902, by the men who had stood shoulder to shoulder and hand to hand with him in that work, show that what is here stated of him is not overstated.
John Potts, of the North, who had worked with him for over a quarter of a century, said, " He was the greatest Sunday-school worker on earth."
H. M. Hamill, of the South, another co-worker with him, said, " Never, from the days of Xerxes with his three million men, has any one swayed so great and intelligent and consecrated a host as has this man." No man could have held in his grasp for nearly half a century the work that bears the name " International," without having been truly a great man.
Marion Lawrance, from everywhere, said, " By the touch of his hand, by the inspiration of his word and presence, he has been instrumental in starting in this public work at least more men and women than any other man that ever lived."
That convention by its resolution declared, " We recognize in Mr. Jacobs the greatest Sunday-school leader the world has ever known."
In deference to the great work he did, and to these men, some now gone, and others here to-day, who are honored by association with him, it has been deemed fitting that some memorial be here made of our apprecia- tion of him and his work.
To that end, and on behalf of Mr. H. J. Heinz, the faithful and efificient president of the Pennsylvania State Association, I now have the honor to present to the chairman of this World's Convention, this portrait of Benjamin Franklin Jacobs, the chief progenitor of a world-wide Sunday- school.
Response by President Meyer
President Meyer: I beg, in the name of the World's Sunday-School Association, to receive in your name and the name of all those for whom we stand this very beautiful portrait. The name of Mr. Jacobs is as fragrant across the Atlantic as it is here. We had many opportunities of knowing him as he came to fire our hearts with his burning enthusiasm. I love these words, " He was a burning and a shining light." There are some people who shine, but there are others who burn and shine, and Mr. Jacobs not onl}^ shone, but burned with the fire of a holy passion.
We hardly need to have any memento of that face or of that figure. He will live throughout long generations. But, if our children want to know the kind of a man he seemed, this portrait will speak at every successive gathering of this great convention wherever we meet, whether it be in Benares or Manila or Geneva. I believe this portrait will be carried about with us as they carried Joseph's bones of old, and that everywhere we shall put it forward on our platform to keep that dear name always before us.
44 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
I thank Mr. Heinz, who unfortunately through ill-health is compelled to be absent, — and I thank the gentleman who has so eloquently presented the portrait, — in the name of this great Sunday-School Association. Those of you who agree in the thanking, will kindly signify by the uplifted hand. We are unanimous!
Acknowledgment of Congressional Recognition
President Meyer: I want now a resolution to be read by my friend Dr. Carey Bonner, which I think you will all acquiesce in. It has been prepared by a few, but mainly by him at the direction of the Executive Committee.
Dr. Carey Bonner: Mr. President, My Comrades from All Parts of the World, — I have been asked to prepare and submit to this convention the following resolution:
To the Honorable House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. :
The members of the Sixth World's Sunday-School Convention assembled in the city of Washington, and consisting of over three thousand duly appointed delegates from all quarters of the globe, with ten thousand visiting Sunday-school workers, beg respectfully to offer this expression of profoundly grateful appreciation of your Resolutions, graciously forwarded to the convention.
They believe that the sending these Resolutions, and the unprecedented action of your House in adjourning in the interests of the Bible Class March, — past, — deeds so remarkably emphasized by the attendance at convention of his Excellency the President of the United States and his wife, as well as by the President's strong and inspiring address, will cheer and uplift the World's Sunday-School army of nearly twenty-eight million teachers and scholars, and will give an impetus to moral and religious movements throughout the world.
They further place on record their conviction that in thus giving national recognition to the Sunday-school your honorable House has established a precedent that will have far-reaching influence among other nations.
In tendering their thanks the members of the convention earnestly pray that God himself, the Fount of Light and Life, may at all times vouchsafe to you that wisdom which is " profitable to direct," so that by the framing and enactment of laws, making for the " righteousness " which alone " exalts a nation," your House may help to build up a people that through all the centuries will stand in the front rank among the civilized races of the earth.
I move, Mr. President, that this resolution be sent to the House of Representatives.
President Meyer: You have heard the resolution, read by Dr. Bonner, of thanks to the House of Representatives for the most unusual act of courtesy which they performed in adjourning yesterday. I beg to second
Minutes of the Convention 45
that heartily, and would like the audience to arise and by acclamation attest to that great House our sense of profound obligation. The motion unanimously and enthusiastically prevailed.
Roll-Call of Nations
North America
President Meyer: I want to introduce one of our most honored leaders. His voice may not be able to reach as far as formerly, but out of reverence for his personal character and inestimable service we shall quietly listen to a statement by Mr. Hartshorn.
Mr. William N. Hartshorn: I would that my voice could reach as far as my thoughts and my love for you and for this work. I must pause to say one word concerning the man whose portrait is before us. Next to the Lord Jesus Christ and my wife, B. F. Jacobs has been the inspirer of all of my Sunday-school work, and I love to honor the man to-day.
I am to cover the Sunday-school work of North America in ten minutes. I have sweat much over the job! [Laughter.] (See index.)
During the reading of his report, Mr. Hartshorn injected the following pertinent remarks: " The Lesson Committee never interprets the lesson text. I wish I could burn that into the memory of every man and every woman here! [Applause.] So many times we hear it said, We will not accept any lesson interpretation except that of our own church . " Now, you have it, my brethren! the Lesson Committee never write a word of in- terpretation of any lesson. They simply select from the Bible we all love the topic, the text and the golden-text, and your denominations and teachers do all the rest. [Loud applause.] "
Great Britain
President Meyer: The report from Great Britain will be deferred as I want to keep time with the program of this great convention.
The Needs of the Moslem World
Following the report by Mr. Hartshorn, on Sunday-school work in North America, Rev. S. M. Zwemer, D.D., of Arabia, gave an address on " The Needs of the Moslem World, and the Degradation and Sufferings of Mohammedan Childhood." (See index.)
The Call of Our Nearest Neighbors
Mr. Robert E. Speer, of New York, gave an address on " The Call of Our Nearest Neighbors." (See index.)
46 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
$75,000 for the Next Triennium, 1910-13
Mr. Marion Lawrance, of Chicago, 111., secretary of the Executive Committee of the World's Sunday-School Association, was introduced to speak of the plans of the World's Association for the next triennium. He said:
I know, my friends, that you are going to help in every way you can to answer to-day the great cry that is coming up from every corner of the world for the carrvdng of the gospel to the last man and woman, boy and girl, in all the world. If we sit silently by and do not endeavor to put into expression the impression of the last two addresses and the impression of these great days we have had together, it might almost be better for us to adjourn the world's convention sine die. We dare not be disobedient to the heavenly vision. We cannot be disobedient and be true to our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And whether or not the things we have been looking forward to this hour are going to culminate in that which is to be the embodiment of the prayers of our great committee, depends upon the next thirty minutes or hour in this place.
Through the splendid cooperation of my beloved assistant in the Inter- national office, Mr. Cork, and his helpers, we have before you to-day a device that has never appeared in a public place before, to my knowledge. We are facing the great world as you see it there on this map. That is another picture of the whole world. It is all there, and the clouds that Zwemer has been telling about, and that Speer has been telling about, are represented by these black cards. I would not have you imagine for a moment that all territory covered there is missionary ground, — not a bit of it, — because there are just as fine Sunday-schools covered up there as there are in those two great sections of the world that are uncovered; but, friends, it is organization that lives, organization that counts. Men die, but organizations go on, and those two uncovered spots of the world represent the home of the two great organizations that must join hands to carry on this great work.
Great Britain looks small there comparatively, but Great Britain is great, great in her people, and in her missionary zeal and enthusiasm, and we do well to learn many lessons from Great Britain; but that is the home of the Sunday-School Union of London. The other part shows a part of the United States and a part of Canada, the home of the International. The Sunday-school sun shines upon these two spots as on no other two spots of the world, and we, the privileged ones gathered here to-day, are to extend our hands across the sea and vow in the presence of God to try to uncover the world to the influence of the Sunday-school, the fiible teaching service, wherein we love to teach the boys and girls and the men
Minutes of the Convention 47
and women about Jesus Christ. I am going to represent you Americans; Bonner, my beloved associate, will represent Great Britain as I represent this country; he is general secretary of the Sunday-School Union of London.
[Mr, Bonner ascended the speakers' platform and stood by the side of Mr. Lawrance, clasping his hand. Mr. E. K. Warren ran up to them and threw the Union Jack over the shoulder of Mr. Bonner and Old Glory over the shoulder of Mr. Lawrance.]
We have all honor for all the flags of the world, but this means just this, that under these two flags the Anglo-Saxon people have upon themselves the responsibility under God of being the big brother to all other flags. We need not speak, — Zwemer and Speer have said all that needs be said,— but we need to lift our eyes to heaven, we need to lift our eyes to God, we need to have him anoint ourselves to-day so that we may see the world through the eyes of Jesus Christ. Mr. Bonner is going to lead us in prayer at this moment that we may see our day of opportunity to carry the Sunday-school through your beneficence to the whole world. Let us pray.
Rev. Carey Bonner, D.D.: Our Father, we pray only that in the quiet of these moments of communion we may realize that we are not our own , we have been bought with a price. We are thine. Oh, help us that we may look up into the face of Him who loved us and gave himself for us. Make us to feel the heart-throb of our Saviour. May our wills be thine, O Lord, and may we from many nations, owning one Saviour, be one in heart and mind to carry- thy love to the children of the whole world. For thy Name's sake. Amen.
Mr. Lawrance: To clear the way, just a statement or two. The World's First Convention in London did much for the world, but the one thing that stood out was India. The World's First Convention put the impress of the Sunday-school as never before on India. The World's Second Convention laid hands on Japan and Korea and China. The World's Third Convention laid hands on continental Europe. The World's Fourth Con- vention in Jerusalem gave to the whole world a proper estimate of the Sunday-school, and put the Sunday-school at a premium in the world. The World's Fifth Convention at Rome, three years ago, crystallized the Convention into an association.
We began our organic existence at that time, and during these three years our beloved President Meyer has devoted himself almost to this work; and Dr. Bailey, the St. John of our committee, has given his time wholly to this work, — and this great convention is the choicest testimony you could make to the work of President Meyer and Chairman Bailey. [Applause.] But now, as the result of this splendid work of the three years, we come before a World's Convention for the first time to ask that
48 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
it all be put into a substantial form, and that we raise some money with which to go forward. Up to this time not an officer of the Association has received one penny for his services. We have had no general secretary'. Dr. Meyer has given his time unstintedly for the last three years without a salary, from home most of that time, and with no remuneration from us. Dr. Bailey, the same way, only that he has poured of his own resources into it without limit.
Now, the time has come for us to do what our chairman asked us to do in his magnificent report. The time has come to put in a secretary, possibly joint secretaries, for these two great divisions of the world. The time has come, we dare no longer wait. We must put in a secretary who can devote his whole time to the work. We must put a man into Turkey, if it can be done; there must be a man also to answer that cry of Speer's for South America. We ought to put two men into Africa. We ought to do more than we are doing in China. Please understand this: The two great sections of the committee divide the world in a perfectly amicable way. For example. Great Britain, and that organization there, the Sunday-School Union, takes care of China in its own way, selecting its own men and paying them. We look after Japan. The whole world is to be divided that way, and it will all be carried on in the beautiful spirit of Christ who is the Lord of all.
Now, then, this convention is to make it possible to go forward and enlarge the work. We have just been getting ready. We are twenty-one years old to-day, and we ought to be ready to do a man's work, and we must do it. Not one cent is asked for any expense connected with this conven- tion. Through the splendid management of Dr. Bailey we close this con- vention with all bills paid, and nobody has a claim for a cent. The cards on this board [referring to the very large map erected on the platform and covered with small black cards] represent giving units of ten dollars; but, friends, if ten dollars is your gait we will never reach our goal; we know there are many here who ought not to give more than ten dollars.
It is understood that all pledges made and money paid by citizens of North America shall be turned over to the American section of the World's Sunday-School Committee, and that all pledges made and money paid by citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall be turned over to the British section of said committee. This pledge is regarded as a memoran- dum only and not as a legal obligation. Suppose a pledge should come in for China, that would go to Great Britain; or for any country, it would go to that particular division of our committee having that country in charge. We ask you for a very modest sum, only $25,000 a year.
Mr. Lawrance then introduced William C. Johnson, Jr., of Colorado, eight years of age, " the youngest delegate in our convention," who made
Minutes of the Convention 49
the first contribution to the world's work, one hundred dollars a year for three years.
Mr. E. K. Warren, past president, presented the subject of " World's Association Life Memberships," one thousand dollars a year for three years, and named Rev. F. B. Meyer, president, as the first life member of the Association. He followed by naming Dr. George W. Bailey and Marion Lawrance as life members, pledging in his own name three thousand dollars a year for three years for this purpose. After Mr. Warren had added the name of Bishop Hartzell to the list, a beautiful incident was introduced.
Mr. Lawrance said: I now have the honor of presenting to you the oldest delegate to this convention, a lady from Massachusetts whose husband was a pioneer missionary to India. She is over ninety years of age, and in her name Mr. Warren gives one hundred dollars a year for three years to the world's work. Her name is Mrs. William Butler. Her son is Dr. John W. Butler, who has been for thirty-five years a missionary for the great Methodist Church in old Mexico. He will stand by her side. [Dr. Butler escorted his mother to the speakers' platform, the convention standing. Mrs. Butler was given a Chautauqua salute.] We are greatly honored, we are very greatly honored! Let us pray through the heart and lips of Dr. Meyer for God's choicest blessings to rest upon this dear saint.
Dr. Meyer: O Lord Jesus, we commend thy dear servant to thy love. At even time may it be light. May the silver cord when it is loosened be loosened very gently, and may the river of her life kiss the great ocean in peace. God bless her and hers. For the Lord's sake. Amen.
Message from Mr. H. J. Heinz
The following wireless message was read :
Dr. Bailey: Mid-ocean, May 20. To the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, Washington, D. C. If the convention decides upon a definite and courageous forward movement by pledging sufficient financial support, put me down for one thousand dollars per annum for three years. — H.J. Heinz.
This was the beginning of the endeavors for life memberships. When the list was finally closed, life memberships (including those taken Monday and Tuesday, May 23 and 24) had been subscribed in the following names:
50 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Names of Life Members, $1,000 Each
Hon. Wm. Howard Taft Mrs. E. K. Warren
Mrs. Wm. Howard Taft Mrs. W. N. Hartshorn
King George \' Mrs. F. A. Wells
Hon. Theodore Roosevelt Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens
President Porfiro Diaz Mrs. W. C. Johnston
Hon. Wm. J. Bryan Dr. Booker T. Washington
Mrs. Wm. J. Bryan C. O. Frisbee
Rev. F. B. Meyer W. A. Wilson
Mrs. F. B. Meyer W. N. Wiggins
Bishop J. C. Hartzell Mr. Marion Lawrance
Sir Francis Flint Belsey Mr. Hugh Cork
Lady Henry Somerset Mr. W. C. Pearce
Rev. Carey Bonner Mr. Herbert H. Moninger
Dr. Geo. W. Bailey Bishop J. H. Vincent
Mrs. Geo. W. Bailey Mr. Thos. W. Synnott
Mr. E. K. Warren Prof. E. O. Excell Mr. Chas. L. Huston
It was understood that the amounts of the three life memberships first proposed by Mr. Warren are to be used in South America, and that the membership fee in the name of President Diaz shall be used in Mexico. [For statement of the pledges made during the convention, see index.] The benediction was pronounced by President Meyer.
MONDAY MORNING, MAY 23
Eight Simidtaneous Conferences on Methods of Sunday-School Work
These conferences were held in the McKendree Methodist Episcopal Church, the First Presbyterian Church, the Mt. Vernon Methodist Episco- pal Church and the Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, — two con- ferences at each church. (See index for conferences.)
At 10.50 A.M., those attending the eight conferences met in Convention Hall, under the direction of Mr. Marion Lawrance. Reports from the conferences were made as follows:
Tlie Elementary Department, Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Illinois; Home Department, Rev. C. E. Mogg, D.D., Ohio; Teacher Training, Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Tennessee; Advanced Department, Mr. E. H. Nichols, Illinois; Adult Bible Classes, Mr. W. C. Pearce, Illinois; Home Visitation, J. Shreve Durham, Illinois; Missionary, Rev. W. A. Brown, Illinois; Temperance, Prof. F S. Goodrich, Michigan.
Minutes of the Convention 51
Following these reports, the subject of life membership was again con- sidered, and several thousand dollars were subscribed, practically com- pleting the amount to $75,000 for three years.
The benediction was pronounced by Dr. H. M. Hamill, of Tennessee.
MONDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 23
Two Simultaneous Sessions, one in Calvary Baptist Church, one in First Congregational Church
Calvary Baptist Church
Vice-President Justice J. J. Maclaren presiding.
Roll-Call of Nations, continued Great Britain. — Rev. Carey Bonner, D.D. (See index.) Denmark. — Rev. H. C. Rordam. (See index.) France. — Rev. Charles Bieler. (See index.) Spain. — Miss Alice Bushee. (See index.) Germany. — Pastor Julius Rohrbach. (See index.) Itcdy. — Rev. Alberto Clot. (See index.)
Sweden. — Introduction of H. de Lagercrants, minister of Sweden to the United States. (See index.) Greeting by Mr. A. L. Skoog. (See index.) Report prepared by Herr Augustus Palm. (See index.)
Special Introductions
Dr. George W. Bailey presented to the audience Miss Jennie Culbertson Powers, of Germantown, Penn., a member of the West Side Presbyterian Sunday-school, a pupil who has not missed a Sunday-school session in thirty-five years. Also Miss Mary Rottenberg, of Louisville Ky., who has not missed a Sunday-school session in twenty-five years.
The singing of the Doxology closed this session.
MONDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 23 First Congregational Church
President Meyer in the chair.
Praise service led by Professor Excell.
Roll-Call of Nations, continued The West India Islands. — Rev. Aquila Lucas. (See index.) South Africa. — Prepared by Mr. Arthur Black, of England. Read by Mr. J. P. Edwards, of Liverpool, England. (See index.) New Zealand. — Rev. J. A. Mackenzie, M.A. (See index.) Korea. — Rev. George Heber Jones. (See index.)
52 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Introductions
Senor Alvaro Reis, of Brazil (see index); Dr. W. A. Duncan, of Syracuse, N. Y., founder of the Home Department (see index); Rev. J. J. Dobe, of South Africa (see index); and Rev. John L. Dube, of South Africa (see index), were introduced and made responses.
Light Breaking in Mexico
Rev. John W. Butler, D.D., Mexico City, president of the National Sunday-School Association of Mexico, addressed the convention on " Light Breaking in Mexico." (See index.)
MONDAY EVENING, MAY 23 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
Rev. Samuel H. Woodrow, D.D., pastor First Congregational Church, Washington, D. C, read a part of the second chapter of Isaiah, a part of the twenty-seventh chapter of the Book of Acts, and offered prayer.
The speaker's stand was draped with the American flag that was used at Jerusalem and at Rome, — loaned by Mr. E. K. Warren.
Message from Queen Alexandra
The convention stood while President Meyer read the following cable- gram from Buckingham Palace, London:
Buckingham Palace, London. To the President of the Sunday-School Convention, Washington:
Queen Alexandra sends her deep thanks to the Sunday-School Conven- tion for their kind cablegram of sympathy in her sorrow.
President Meyer: As a Britisher I want to thank you people from all the world, and especially you generous people of the United States, for your kind and loving sympathy in the hour of Britain's sorrow. Thank you.
Presentation of the Mexican Flag
President Meyer: We have now a most interesting ceremonial to take part in, namely, the presentation of the Mexican flag by Dr. Butler.
Rev. Dr. J. W. Butler ascended the speakers' platform and exhibited a beautiful Mexican flag, the convention cheering loudly. Dr. Butler's aged mother took a position on his right hand and the Rev. E. M. Sein, Sunday-school secretary for Mexico, stood at his left.
Dr. Butler: Mr. President, — I am commissioned by the National
Minutes of the Convention 53
Sunday-School Association of Mexico, of which I have the honor to be the president, to bring this flag to you, sir, with their love and best wishes for the prosperity of this convention and of the Sunday-school work the wide world over. This flag is the prettiest Mexican flag I have seen in my long residence of thirty-six years in that country. It is all embroidered with silk, and is the same on both sides, the work being very similar to the fine work made by the Japanese across the seas. We believe, sir, that it is worthy of a place by the side of Old Glory and the Union Jack. [Cheers.]
Dr. Butler called upon the delegates and others from Mexico to cheer the Mexican flag, and this they did with a will, arousing much enthusiasm.
Dr. Butler: You will notice in the centerpiece we have the Mexican coat of arms. It is taken from the old legend that where the Aztecs found an eagle, perched upon a cactus, struggling with a serpent, there they were to build the capital of their future empire. History tells us that they found the eagle on the cactus struggling with the serpent where the city of Mexico now stands. You will note the difference between this eagle and your grand old bird. I am sorry to say that our eagle still struggles with the serpent, the serpents of superstitition and idolatry and immorality.
Help us to flood Mexico with Bibles, help us to multiply the sabbath- schools, and one day our noble bird will give the old serpent a final blow and will then soar away. [Cheers.] In the clear atmosphere of Mexico, passing over the high volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, high up he will soar northward until he shall come to the Rio Grande and meet the Ameri- can bird, and then as they commune together at the Rio Grande let the people of both nations arise and once more sing the glorious song, " Peace on earth, good-will toward men," [Cheers.]
President Meyer: In the name of the World's Sunday-School Asso- ciation, I have great pleasure in receiving this very beautiful gift, and I think I may promise our Mexican friends that it shall always be draped alongside the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, and that these three shall be the beginning of a procession of banners that will be placed on our future platforms. I greatly appreciate the political references of my friend, and I do hope that not only in Mexico, but right around the world, the serpent may be under the foot of the Son of Man, that that ancient prophecy may be fulfilled that we, the children of Christ, shall tread in the dust the serpent's head.
I do rejoice in the wonderful gathering together of the people. It seems as though standard after standard, representing country after country and race after race, is being carried around with our Sunday-school move- ment, and I hope the time will come when that prophecy that our brother read just now [Dr. Woodrow] will be realized, and no flag will ever be
54 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Cotivention
borne in battle, but all of them grouped around the standard of the cross of Jesus Christ. [Cheers.] I gladly accept this gift.
Telegram to President Diaz of Mexico
Mr. Hartshorn: Before Mr. Lawrance takes the floor, I move that this message be sent to President Diaz of Mexico.
Washington, D. C, May 23, 19 10. President Porfirio Diaz,
City of Mexico, Mexico: The World's Sunday-School Convention, in session at Washington, D. C., — with more than ten thousand delegates and visitors from forty- five countries and nations of the world, — sends greetings to the loved and honored President of Mexico.
The convention — whose text-book is the Bible — assures the President of Mexico of its desire to cooperate with him and his people in teaching right living, whose results build individual character and exalt nations. May peace, progress, and prosperity abide in Mexico.
W. N. Hartshorn,
Secretary of the Convention.
The telegram as read was endorsed.
Messages Received
Mr. Marion Lawrance read several telegrams from near and remote places, conveying greetings and giving information relating to the observ- ance of World's Sunday-School Day.
Among the messages received during the convention were the following:
From the Sunday- School Committee of China: " The Sunday-School Committee of China prays for divine blessing on the work of the Washing- ton Convention for the spread of the Sunday-school movement throughout the world. Sunday-School Day is being observed throughout the eighteen provinces of China."
From Dr. Ernesto Philippini, General Secretary of the Italian Sunday- School Association, Rome: " World's Sunday-School Day was observed by Protestant Sunday-schools throughout Italy. Greetings to the brethren."
From the Waldensian Sunday-School Association, Florence, Italy: " World's Sunday-School Day was observed by every Waldensian Sunday- school in Italy."
From Richard Surges, General Secretary of the India Sunday-School Union, dated Simla, India: "World's Sunday-School Day is being observed in South Asia, beyond my most sanguine expectations."
Minutes of the Convention 55
From the Twentieth British Christian Endeavor Convention, Liverpool, England: " Warm Christian greetings to the representatives of all lands meeting in Washington in the interest of the great Sunday-school move- ment. We pray that God's richest blessing may rest upon all your meetings and that such plans may be adopted as shall greatly promote the winning of the world to Christ, through the boys and girls of all lands."
From Stockport, England, — the largest Sunday-school in the world: " Greetings from Stockport Sunday-School Union in the observance of Sunday-School Day."
From Dr. C. R. Blackall, Luzerne, Switzerland: " I am improving in health and with you in spirit, and pray for special blessings of the Master upon the convention. Rom. 10 : 15, ' How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things.' "
From J. W. Backman, Moderator, and Thomas H. Law, State Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in the United States: " The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, meeting in Lewisburgh, W. Va., have heard with a thrill of gratitude the message from your great convention, and congratulate you on the world-wide progress of the work so vital to the perpetuity and spreading triumph of the church of Christ."
[This message was in response to the message conveyed, by direction of the convention, by Hon. John Stites, of Louisville, Ky., president of the International Sunday-School Association, and which read as follows:
" The World's Sunday-School Convention, in session in Washington, D. C, sends love and fraternal greetings to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in session at Lewisburgh, W. Va., and wishes the prayers of the Assembly in the convention work of taking the Bible and Sunday-school to the heathen world in obedience to the command, " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Read Numbers 6 : 24, 25, 26."]
Brief messages indicating the observance of World's vSunday -School Day and presenting greetings to the World's Convention were received from the German Evangelical Association, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Rev. J. A. Bowman, president Manitoba Sunday-School Association; the Baltimore, Md., Sunday-School Association; Miss Trotter, Algiers, North Africa, representing the mission established by members of the World's Fifth Convention; Mr. Gil Bates, president, representing the Sunday-schools of Selma, Ala.; Mr. C. V. S. Remington, Central Congregational Church, Fall River, Mass.; G. W. Broyles, First Baptist Sunday-School, Buck- hannon, W^. Va.; the Sunday-schools of Brandon, Vt.; the Mount View Boulevard Presbyterian Sunday-school, Denver, Colo.; Leslie C. Lawrance, Detroit, Mich.
The following message was received from Atlanta, Ga.: " We heartily approve your action in electing Dr. Booker T. Washington a life member of the World's Sunday-School Association." (Signed) Bishop L. H.
56 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Holsey, J. W. E. Bowen, W. H. Crogman, T. H. Slater, E. W. Lee, William F. Penn, W. G. Alexander, H. R. Butler, H. H. Proctor, C. Max Minning, J. O. Ross, A. F. Herndon, C. C. Cater, H. A. Rucher, W. B. Matthews.
Greetings to Denominational Organizations
The report of W. N. Hartshorn, chairman of the committee to send greetings to national denominational organizations now in session, was read and unanimously adopted, as follows:
First: Your committee recommends that John Stites, Esq., Louisville, Ky., president of the International Sunday-School Association, and a member of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, now in session at Lewisburg, W. Va., be commissioned to bear greet- ings from this convention to that assembly.
Second: That Rev. John A. McKamy, D.D., of Boston, be commissioned to bear the greetings from this convention to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, now in session at Atlantic City.
Third: That Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., of San Francisco, be commissioned to bear greetings from this convention to the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America.
Election of Officers
The report of the Nominating Committee was read by Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., of San Francisco, Cal., and was unanimously adopted, as follows:
President Dr. George W. Bailey, Philadelphia, Penn., U. S. A.
Past Presidents
Sir Francis Flint Belsey, J. P., London, England. Mr. Edward Towers, Saxmundham, England. Mr. E. K. Warren, Three Oaks, Mich., U. S. A. Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A., London, England.
Vice-Presidents
Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Boston, Mass. Sir John Kirk, London, England. Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Funchal, M. L Justice J. J. Maclaren, Toronto, Ont. Mr. E. W. Fritchley, Fort Bombay, India.
Minutes of the Convention 57
Honorary Vice-Presidents
Hon. John Wanamaker, Philadelphia, Penn.
Rev. H. H. Bell, D.D., San Francisco, Cal.
Rev. E. I. Rexford, Montreal, P. Q.
Hon. John W. Foster, Washington, D. C.
The Venerable Archdeacon of London.
Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., London, England.
Rt. Hon. Lord Kinniard, London, England.
Mr. W. H. Groser, London, England.
Sir Robert Laidlaw, London, England.
Rev. J. G. Lehman, Kassel, Germany.
Prince Bernadotte, Stockholm, Sweden.
Bishop William Burt, Zurich, Switzerland.
Baron Uxkull, Liwa, Russia.
Mr. Kajinosuke Ibuka, Tokyo, Japan.
Rev. S. A. Moffett, Pyng Yang, Korea.
John A. Mackenzie, M.A., Christchurch, New Zealand.
Mr. H. LiPsoN Hancock, Moonta Mines, Australia.
Rev. Frank Thomas, Geneva, Switzerland.
Joint General Secretaries
Mr. Marion Lawrance, Chicago, 111., America. Rev. Carey Bonner, London, England, Europe.
Joint General Treasurers
Mr. F. A. Wells, Chicago, 111., America.
Sir George White, Norwich, England, Europe.
Joint Statistical Secretaries Mr. Hugh Cork, Chicago, 111., America. Mr. George Shipway, J. P., Birmingham, England, Europe.
Executive Committee
Chairman, Mr. E. K. Warren, Three Oaks, Mich., U. S. A.
Mr. H. J. Heinz, Pittsburg, Penn.
Mr. Frank L. Brown, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mr. W. A. Wilson, Houston, Tex.
Mr. William C. Johnston, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Mr. P. H. Bristow, Washington, D. C.
Mr. W. P. Crowell, Chicago, 111.
Mr. A. B. McCrillis, Providence, R. I.
58 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
Mr. T. VV. Synnott, Philadelphia, Penn. Mr. John Stites, Louisville, Ky. Rev. E. Y. MuLLiNS, D.D., Louisville, Ky. Frank Woodbury, M.D., Halifax, Nova Scotia. Rev. William Patrick, D.D., Winnipeg. Mr. Seth p. Leet, K.C, Montreal, P. Q. Mr. Arthur Black, Liverpool, England. Mr. James S. Crowther, London, England, Rev. Frank Johnson, London, England. Mr. Frank Clemens, Chelmsford, England. Rev. Richard Roberts, London, England. Mr. Andrew Crawford, Glasgow, Scotland. Mr. Stephen Richardson, Moyallon, Ireland. Rev. H. E. Lewis, London, England. Rev. Ole Olsen, Christiania, Norway. Pastor Jean Laroche, Paris, France. Cav. Ernesto Filippini, Rome, Italy. Rev. J. P. McNaughton, Smyrna, Turkey. Rev. Richard Burges, Jubbulpore, India. Mr. Peter Barr, Dunedin, New Zealand. Rev. T. M. MacNair, Tokyo, Japan. Prof. T. H. YuN, Songho, Korea. Rev. W. Nelson Bitton, Shanghai, China. Mr. Archibald Jackson, Melbourne, Australia. Rev. Emile Lenoir, Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. E. H. Nichols, Chicago, 111.
And the President, Past Presidents, Active Vice-Presidents, Joint Secretaries and Treasurers.
Recommendations
1. We recommend that the " Central Committee," which the Executive shall choose from its own membership, as nominated, shall be empowered to appoint two more members of said Executive Committee for the U. S. section.
2. We recommend that the Executive Committee be empowered to fill all vacancies occurring in its memberships.
Signed, — H. H. Bell, George W. Watts, E. H. Nichols, Seth P. Leet, Carey Bonner, Andrew Crawford.
President Meyer: When the story of this mighty convention comes to be written, the names of some of us who have figured most often upon the platform will be forgotten, but there will be one name which will always live upon the foundation stones of this great city of God, written there as are the names of the apostles upon the the golden city yonder; deep
Minutes of the Cojivention 59
down in the foundations of this mighty inovtMnent will be the name of Dr. Bailey. [Cheers.]
I have been in loving contact with him for the last three years. Letter after letter from his pen has been so gracious and so full of God and of common-sense that I have marveled. Those who used yesterday that wonderful service, in the morning and especially in the afternoon, will thank God for the sanctified tact and wisdom and grace with which Dr. Bailey has been endowed for drawing these services up and preparing them for use. Thank God for this man!
We refuse to allow the United States to monopolize him. [Great ap- plause.] He belongs to us all. He belongs to the world. The world claims this man, and I gladly propose that his name shall stand before you for the presidency of the World's Sunday-School Association. Who will second it? [There were many responses.] There is no other name, there can be but one voice, one great shout. Those of you who agree that he shall be the presi- dent, saj' aye. [There was a storm of ayes.] There is no contrary. [Cheers.]
The Moslem Peril in Africa
Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., bishop for Africa of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, addressed the convention on " The Moslem Peril in Africa." (See index.)
Introduction of Dr. Chapman and Mr. C. M. Alexander
Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, LL.D., evangelist, and his gospel singer and chorus leader, Mr. Charles M. Alexander, were then introduced, and were received with enthusiasm.
Mr. Alexander conducted a brief song service, at the close of which Dr. Chapman gave an address of great power. (See index.)
At the close of his address, Dr. Chapman said:
" Let us bow our heads in prayer! Blessed God, our Father, in the name of Jesus we ask for thy blessing upon those of us who preach the gospel and upon those of us who teach in the Sunday-school. Spirit of God, fall upon us to-night. As we go away from this great convention, may we go saying, * It was the gate of heaven! ' May we write this night in our books as the night of full surrender. Hear us in the prayer we offer. Bless us as we sing the ' Glory Song,' in the name of Jesus, our adorable Redeemer.
"And, if you, friends, would like to say from this night. My life shall count for Christ, then you may say aloud all over this building, Amen. And you may say it again, and again."
The responsive amen was immediate and emphatic. Dr. Chapman appealed to the various classes of workers represented in the convention to
6o The World's Sixth Sunday -School Convention
dedicate themselves anew to God, — the ministers, the Sunday-school superintendents, the Sunday-school teachers, church officers, Christian workers, — each class, being appealed to in turn, rising and promising with an " I do " to make the life count for Jesus.
Dr. Chapman then appealed to all Christians in the house to unite in a consecration of themselves to God.
Dr. Chapman: This is the greatest gathering of Christian people for such a purpose in the history of the world. There is more bound up in this moment than has ever been bound up in a single assembly since the world began. I think I know why it is true; I know Dr. Meyer, I know Dr. Bailey, I know these great Sunday-school workers, and I have received letters from many of them stained with tears, saying that this convention in their judgment was to be the turning of the tide for victory and for the ages to come. Now, if this is the great night because it is the climax of other nights; if this is the greatest assembly; if there is bound up here the greatest opportunity for blessing since the world began, — I ask how many of you with hands uplifted will write in your Bible some special dedi- cation, saying, " On this night in May I dedicate myself to walk with Jesus and work with Jesus and live for Jesus, and if need be, die for Jesus. I dedicate myself now." If you will, with your hands uplifted say it three times, — I do, I do, I do.
The throng with uplifted hands, the tremendous chorus of " I do! I do! I do! " the deep spiritual fervor, the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, made the occasion Pentecostal in its significance.
Dr. Chapman: O blessed God, our Father, shall we ever forget this moment? Is not this the turning of the tide to God for a world victory? We believe it, our Father, Accept the dedication we make. Bless Mr. Alexander as he leads us in this great song, so that it will stir us through and through. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Mr. Alexander lead the convention in singing the " Glory Song." Mr. Charles H. Gabriel, its composer, stood on the speakers* stand, at Mr. Alexander's request, and was given a Chautauqua salute.
Dr. Chapman then pronounced the benediction.
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24
Calvary Baptist Church
President Meyer in the chair.
The Lord's Prayer was repeated in concert.
Roll-Call of Nations, continued Palestine. — Rev. A. E. Kelsey. (See index.)
Minutes of the Convention 6i
Java-Malaysia. — In response to the call for " Java," Dr. T. J. Scott, of India, said:
I met Charles S. Buchanan, who is on the program to respond for Java and is not here, ten years ago, when he was graduating from a university in Ohio. I was a missionary returned from India. He came to me and asked if I thought a man could be used with his physical deformity — he had curvature of the spine. I said, " Go where God wants; he knows." He went to Singapore. When I returned to India I met him in Singapore. The missionaries told me that they thought when he landed that a great mistake had been made; his physical appearance seemed to distress them; but they found him so consecrated, so full of the divine Spirit, so helpful to them all in the religious life, they felt that God had sent him. Then they sent him down to Java. He is at work among the Mohammedans, and that work he would represent if here. He is getting hold of them and bringing them to Christ.
Report prepared by Rev. C. S. Buchanan. (See index.)
China. — Rev. I. T. Headland. (See index.)
Hungary. — Rev. Louis Bogar. (See index.)
Persia. — Report prepared by Rev. W. A. Shedd, read by Rev. Charles R. Pittman. (See index.)
Belgium. — Rev. Charles Bieler. (See index.)
Address by Bishop Honda, of Japan Bishop Yoitsu Honda, of Japan, gave a brief address. (See index.)
Utilizing the Waste Material
Rev. Samuel D. Price, of Camden, N. J., chairman of the Committee on Utilizing Waste Material, made a report. (See index.)
Christ and the Children
Rev. Ernest A. Dowsett, of London, England, gave an address on " Christ and the Children." (See index.)
President Meyer pronounced the benediction.
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24 First Congregational Church
Mr. William H. Scott, Philadelphia, Penn., presiding. Praise and prayer service led by Professor Foster.
62 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Roll-Call of Nations, continued
The Philippines. — Rev. W. A. Brown. (See index.) Japan. — Rev. Theo. MacNair, D.D. (See index.) The Congo. — C. C. Boone. (See index.) New Zealand. — George Winstone. (See index.)
" The Sunday-School and the Nation " Address by Rev. Ernest Bourner Allen, D.D., Toledo, Ohio. The session was closed Avith a " Quiet Hour " service, conducted by Dr. Allen.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 24 Convention Hall
President Meyer presiding.
The Strength of the Sunday-School
Addresses were delivered on " The Strength of the Sunday-School," with the divisions " Measured by Its Literature," by Rev. A. L. Phillips, D.D., Richmond, Va. (see index); " Measured b}' Its Conventions," Rev. E. Morris Fergusson, Philadelphia, Penn. (see index ); " Measured by Its Personnel," by Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Nashville, Tenn. (see index); and " Measured by Its Results," by Rev. Carey Bonner, London, England (see index.)
Letter from Hon. James Bryce The following letter from the British ambassador to the United States, Hon. James Bryce, was read by President Meyer:
[Official Seal]
Washington, D. C, May 14, 1910.
Dear Dr. Meyer, — Will you be good enough to convey to the gathering over which you are to preside my very great regret that I cannot, owing to the lamented death of his late Majesty King Edward, appear to deliver on May 24 the address I had promised for that day? I feel sure that the members of the congress, from wheresoever they come, will be in sympathy with us Englishmen and Canadians in our sorrow.
Had I been able to be with you, I should have said some words regarding the special and urgent need which seems to exist in our time for maintaining in the general scheme of education the place of religious instruction, and especially a proper knowledge of the Bible. There seems to be, both in the United States and in Britain, some danger lest the present generation should grow up less familiar with the Scriptures than were their fathers and grandfathers. This would be in many ways a great misfortune: and every effort should be made to avert it. You and I know the difficulties which surround the giving of religious instruction in schools supported by the state; it is all the more needful that all wc can do should be done to provide
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for young people in their early and impressionable years a knowledge of those fundamental truths of Christianity on which their morality may be based and which should be the inspiration of their lives. And they should especially learn these truths and precepts from the words of our Lord him- self in the gospels.
With every wish for happy results from this great gathering which you are holding here, I am,
Ver^' faithfully yours,
James Bryce.
Report of Committee on Resolutions
Justice J. J. Maclaren, of Toronto, Ont., chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, presented the following report which was enthusiastically adopted without a dissenting voice or vote.
To THE World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention:
We, your Committee on Resolutions, beg leave to submit the following report.
So mighty is the influence of the Sunday-school, so vast the place it fills in the operations of the church, so tremendous the achievements that are being, through it, wrought out in the sight of all men, that its purposes, its plans, and its aims are well known the world round. Nevertheless, we deem it expedient that the delegates to the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, assembled from every nation and clime, give some definite expression of the principles for which they stand and statement of the work whereunto they are committed. Therefore,
Be it Resolved that:
(i) Recognizing the Holy Scriptures as the inspired Word of God, through which he has revealed himself to men, and as the weapon with which we are to conquer the world for Christ our blessed Lord and Re- deemer, we declare the highest mission and aim of the Sunday-school to be to teach the Bible to all people of all lands. We do not dare to leave the destinies of any nation to a religious system which is not based on the Bible, or which prevents the free circulation of the Scriptures among the common people.
(2) Believing that the promotion of the Christian spirit is essential to the true development of national life, and that the Sunday-school has an indispensable function to discharge in securing this end, and that the man most needed in every line of useful activity is the man whose character is based upon the principles for which the Sunday-school stands, we call upon the nations to accord sympathy and support to the work of the Sunday-school; and.
Further believing that the greatest asset of a nation is a healthy and
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happy childhood, we record our joy in observing the signs of wide and increasing solicitude for the physical, moral, and spiritual welfare of the child.
(3) We recognize in the Sunday-school a great and growing factor in winning the world for Christ. The church is drawing nearly all of its minis- ters and missionaries, and the very large majority of its members, from the Sunday-school. The Sunday-school teacher, to whom the child is com- mitted at the period when it is most susceptible to Christian influences, has a rich opportunity; and multitudes of consecrated teachers, in many lands, are faithfully improving it by leading their scholars to the foot of the cross. We call upon Sunday-schools throughout the world to make themselves more efficient in missionary instruction and richer as a source of missionary inspiration, thus spreading the gospel in heathen lands while winning souls at home.
(4) As servants of the " Prince of Peace," whose kingdom is essentially a kingdom of brotherhood and good-will, we earnestly pray that the time may speedily come when wars shall be no more, and we hereby direct the presi- dent of the World's Sunday-School Association to communicate to the Third Hague Conference a copy of this resolution, as expressing the senti- ment of the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, representing the working Christian forces of all lands, in favor of universal peace among the nations of the earth, and its hope that the wise statesmen who as- semble in that tribunal may find a way to settle all international disputes by a system of honorable arbitration.
(5) We call special attention to the great importance of temperance in the Sunday-school. We believe that the recent progress in temperance sentiment and the decrease in intemperance in different countries is due, in great measure, to the temperance teaching in the Sunday-school. We deeply deplore the great evils arising from the prosecution of the liquor traf- fic by Christian countries among native backward races, and we trust that this traffic may soon be abolished by combined action on the part of the great Christian commercial countries and governments, and that this great barrier to the spread of the gospel may speedily be removed.
(6) We plead with our people and with those in all lands who are charged with the enactment and enforcement of law, for a stricter observance of the Lord's Day. Believing that the welfare of the church and its perpetuation as a vital force imperatively demand that we give at least one day, unre- servedly, to rest and worship, we urge Sunday-school people everywhere to present a solid front on this question and to stand firmly against the influ- ences which are operating, particularly in town and city, to turn the Lord's Day into a day of work or of amusement.
(7) According to general report, there is an increasing decadence in
Minutes of the Convention 65
family worship, and the family altar is disappearing at such a rate as to cause grave concern. Believing that full cooperation between the home and the Sunday-school is essential to best work in the school, and that Christian influences in the home are the most potent in the life of the child, we urge pastors and Sunday-school superintendents to take the lead in bringing teachers to a more general observance of family worship in their own homes, and in causing them to so teach that when a new home is established by young men and women of the Sunday-school it may have its family altar from the beginning.
(8) We express our deep sense of indebtedness to those churches and missionary societies and boards which have enabled niany of their mis- sionaries from foreign lands to contribute so largely to the success of this convention. We believe this will accomplish a twofold result, — (i) in arousing in the home schools a greater interest in missions, and (2) in extending in the foreign field the Sunday-school idea and methods. The purpose of this Association is to cooperate with all denominational agencies doing Sunday-school work, and we earnestly recommend con- ference with and welcome suggestions from all such agencies.
(9) We express our deep appreciation of the labors of the Sunday-School Exposition Committee, and our gratitude for the assistance to the work of the Sunday-school which, by its completeness and variety, the exposition affords. For the complete success of the exposition, the convention is indebted to the Young People's Missionary Movement, and we extend to them our hearty thanks for their generous cooperation and invaluable contributions.
(10) We rejoice in the increased interest in Bible study on the part of men in many lands, and recognize in the Adult Class Movement, embracing both men and women, a powerful stimulus to the spread of the Word of God and a mighty aid to the Sunday-school. We believe that the striking spectacle presented by some seven thousand Bible-class men marching in the great parade held during this convention must have created an impres- sion profound and widespread, and generated an influence which will prove inspiring and permanent.
Resolved further , That the thanks of this convention be, and they hereby are, extended to the local committee in charge of the arrangements for our meeting, and all auxiliary committees who have cooperated with them, for the wisdom with which they have planned and the care with which they have executed, in providing for our comfort and the success of our great gathering; to the pastor and trustees of Calvary Baptist Church for the use of their splendid church and Sunday-school house as convention head- quarters; to the pastors and official boards of the other churches where the many meetings and conferences incident to the convention have been
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held, for so generously and unreservedly opening their doors to us; and to the pastors generally of the city for cordially and graciously admitting to their pulpits our representatives, thus enabling us to carry the mes- sage of the convention to thousands who, of necessity, could not be ad- mitted to its sessions; to the splendid choir, to Mr. Alvin Roper and all other musicians who have participated; to Mr. Percy S. Foster, for organizing the choir, and to him and Prof. E. O. Excell for their spiritual leading of the singing; to the press of the city of Washington for the liberal space given the convention and the full and complete report of its pro- ceedings; to the Christian people and the general public of Washing- ton for courtesies and hospitalities too numerous to be recounted but too generous and cordial to be forgotten; to the police and street rail- way men for their marked and uniform courtesy and kindness to dele- gates and visitors; to the railroads that carried the delegates and visitors to the convention, for their courtesy in allowing special rates; to the speakers and all who have participated in the program of the conven- tion for their splendid contributions to its success and the rich inspiration they have brought us; to the officers and Executive Committee of the World's Sunday-School Association, for their consecrated and long-con- tinued work in arranging for this convention, — especially our beloved chairman of the Executive Committee and newly elected president, Dr. George W. Bailey, whose zeal has known no bounds and to whose devoted labors there has been no limit, and our retiring president. Dr. F. B. Meyer, for his magnificent service in the three years during which he has guided the destinies of the World's Sunday-School Association, to whom we extend the unqualified assurance that in retiring from office he takes with him the love and esteem of the Sunday-school people of the whole world.
Geneva, Switzerland, Selected for 19 13
Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Boston, Mass., chairman of the Committee on place of holding the World's Sunday-School Convention in 1913, moved that the convention be held in Geneva, Switzerland, if the way be clear.
In summing up the reason for the selection of Geneva, he said:
Geneva is on the great highway of the nations. It is central to Germany, France, Austria, and Italy. It is accessible from all parts of Europe. Its climate is admirable for a great gathering in midsummer. It is an appro- priate place where the nations may come together to consider the claim and advancement of the kingdom of God.
Geneva is the Jerusalem of Protestantism. It celebrated, last year, the four hundredth anniversary of John Calvin. It received him when he was driven from France. It was a safe harbor in the storm and stress of that period.
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John Knox and many other leaders, among the Protestant pastors, received their training in Geneva under Calvin. It has been the meeting place of the nations. It is the headquarters for religious and philanthropic movements of international character. It has halls admirably suited in which to hold the great meetings and conferences of the convention.
Bishop Hartzell, supporting the motion of Mr. Hartshorn, said:
The conviction is unanimous, I believe, that the place for this convention to go is in continental Europe, for it is felt that in the providence of God the next great step for us to take is to give the instruction and blessing of this convention to the Sunday-school workers in continental Europe. In the midst of the state churches in the different countries the Sunday-school work is far behind. They need and there are leaders in all these churches who will welcome the presence of a great world-wide Sunday-school con- vention.
I believe that in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe there is need that the presence of such a gathering as this should be felt so that every- where the sentiment should go forth that the Word of God is the great foundation stone of all true civilizations.
The report of the committee was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted, after which President Meyer pronounced the benediction.
TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 24 Convention Hall
President Meyer in the chair.
The service of praise was conducted by Professor Excel! and Professor Foster.
Rev. George A. Miller, pastor Ninth Street Christian Church, Washing- ton, read a part of the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, and offered prayer.
Introductions
President Meyer: I shall be very glad if my friend, Mr. Bristow, will come here for a moment and stand by my side. [Mr. Bristow complied.] Our friend Mr. Bristow, who stands by my side, is the chairman of the Washington committee that has made the arrangements for the meeting and for the kind and gracious hospitality that this city and these churches and these schools have given to our convention, and it is but a little thing apparently that he should stand by my side, but I want to assure him that this is the only way that we know of to tell him how we appreciate the work that he and his committee have done, and we say Thank you! thank you! thank you! [Cheers and a Chautauqua salute.]
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P. H. Bristow: I cannot accept for a moment these splendid words from the lips of our great president without saying to you how completely I would have failed had it not been for the chairmen of the subcommittees, — every member of these committes, every member of the whole committee, all the men and the women and the children who have helped me; it would have been a failure without them, and I want to divide the honors with them to-night.
President Meyer thanked the great choir for the splendid services it had rendered and praised its efficient training by Professor Foster.
Professor Foster gave expression to the appreciation of the choir and himself of the opportunity to serve.
M r. Lawrance read several telegrams and communications.
Registration H. L. BuELL: The Registration Committee has the pleasure of reporting that the total number of accredited delegates registered is 2,780. In addi- tion, more than 1,200 visitors from all parts of the United States and Canada have left their names, making a total of more than 4,000 on the rolls of this convention. The total number of countries represented is 24. The number of denominations is 47. There are present 175 missionaries. For list of delegates see index.
" The Twentieth Century Crusaders "
Children dressed in the costumes of the various nations of the earth then came into the convention hall. They divided into two columns. In the van of each column was a conquest flag which had upon it a representa- tion of a cross, and the legend " By this sign conquer." They came singing " Onward, Christian Soldiers." The flags of all nations were carried by them. They filed upon the platform and stood in a semicircular form, singing " I love to tell the story."
The final act was the placing of the flags in holders at the edge of the platform.
During the tableau the lights of the convention hall were turned out and the incandescent lights turned on in the great white cross above the rear of the platform. The effect was thrilling. There was no light but the radiance of the cross. Of course there was but one song for such a moment, and it was sung by all, — " In the cross of Christ I glory."
President Meyer complimented the ladies who managed the tableau, Mrs. W. H. Hoeke, Mrs. H. B. Moulton, and Mrs. Paul Fishbaugh.
Introduction of Mrs. F. B. Meyer
The members of the recent tour party, at the call of Mr. Lawrance,
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ascended the speakers' stand and stood together. The tour party consisted of F. B. Meyer, Mrs. F. B. Meyer, Marion Lawrance, Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Prof. E. O. Excell, Prof. Alvin Roper, and Mr. Bert Cashman.
Mr. Lawrance: I want you to look into the face of this good woman who has been a great inspiration to us on this tour . All the way she has spoken kind and cheerful words, always the right thing at the right time. She could have taken the place on the platform of any one of us — all but Dr. Meyer, perhaps. She has always been gracious and kind. [Mrs. Meyer was given a Chautauqua salute.]
Brief Addresses by Representatives of Several Nations
Hon. T. H. Yun, Korea: A few weeks ago, when I attended the great laymen's missionary congresses held in Chicago, I thought that they were the greatest meetings I had ever attend ed, but to-night I have to confess that this is the greatest meeting that I h ave ever had the honor to attend in all my life. As a representative of a land which was opened to the Christian missionaries only a few years ago, I feel grateful to God and to the missionaries whom America and England have sent out to Korea to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to my people, and I shall go back from this beautiful city carrying away with me the lessons and impressions which I have received from this great convention. And by the help of God I hope the Korean church may be able to report larger returns in the next con- vention than she has been to-day.
Bishop Yoitsu Honda, Japan: As this is the last moment to say farewell without ceremonial introduction I will present you two sacred voices from the New Testament. The first is, " Go, ye, therefore, into all nations and teach them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." The second voice is from Macedonia, " Come and help us! " All Christian workers come from these two verses. You, brothers and sisters, must obey the command of the Lord, the command to go and teach. And we must answer the cry of our brothers, " Come and help us." May this be our motto, " I will go and teach, I will go and help." With this motto I will go home and work. Remember us before God. I shall remember you. The name of Jesus Christ is to overcome all the world. Amen.
Prof. J. R. Chitambar, India: I will sing to you in my native language a song which reads,
" I don't know anything But the cross of Christ, On which our Lord was crucified."
yo The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
My visit to this wonderful country has been the source of a very great inspiration to me. I have come here in contact with Christianity in its stronghold.
During this convention my faith has been strengthened and my vision has been broadened. I have had a vision of my opportunities in my work among the young people in the land which I have the honor to represent. As I go back, I go back with the assurance of victory for the crucified One in India. India looks to you, dear friends, for the vision of Jesus and his cross. The conflict out there is very strong. While the armies of Christ are advancing, the hosts of the evil one are also mustering. The millions of Buddhists and Mohammedans are trying to oppose Christianity, and perhaps will try to take these children we are trying to get under Christian influence. Yet we know that although our opposition is strong, our Captain is mighty, even Jesus Christ the Everlasting Father, and victory is promised through grace.
There are one hundred million children in India, and if we can win them for Christ it will be a mighty host won for the Lord Jesus Christ. Just imagine one hundred million children won for Christ. They represent one third of the population of India. If we evangelize India, we will be evangel- izing one fifth of the human race. India is waiting for the day when from east to west and from north to south the people shall be saying to one another, " We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote." I want you kindly to remember India. Remember our Sunday-School Union work in your prayers.
There are only three ways in which you can help us: first, to pray; second, to go; third, to give. These are the three ways in which India and all foreign fields can be helped. And I am sure that the day is not far off, because I have had a vision of it here, when, like this Christian congregation, India, with her teeming millions, will sing the sweet refrain,
" We'll join the everlasting song, And crown him Lord of all."
Rev. Frederick Brown, China: For the sake of the children, I will give the Lord's Prayer in the Chinese language. I want to thank you on behalf of China. I came to this convention with a message, and it was that the Chinese children needed to have help in the formation of Sunday- schools, and I have already sent the message back to China that a secretary will probably be on this field in the autumn to organize Sunday-schools in that great land.
China, as you know, is the largest country in the world. It saw Babylon fall and Nineveh crumble in the dust; and yet until a few years ago Sunday- schools were almost unknown. In the city of Peking we organized a Sun-
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day-school, and what a transformation ensued! Before that Sunday-school was opened, when the missionary went on the streets he was reviled; " Foreign devil " met him at every corner. He was stoned, he was perse- cuted. And a lady thought if she could but get hold of the children and teach them in a Sunday-school that that would have an influence on their parents and that things might mend in that^direction ; and the result of that effort was wonderful in a very few months. Instead of the children calling names after you on the street, they would come along and sing a verse of ** Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." And they would come up to the missionary and say, " Teacher, when is Sunday; we are so anxious to come to Sunday-school? "
When that great Boxer rebellion came upon us, ten years ago, oh, what wonderful things we saw! I will only mention one. I was with the last man who left the city of Peking before the siege. A little school girl came to me with a Chinese letter, and she said, " Will you carry that to the coast and give it to my father? " I said, " I will," and I took it along the difficult road we had to travel, across the burning bridges, and right through the Boxer country. We escaped to the coast, and when I got to the place where that little girl's father resided I found he had been killed.
The letter remained in my pocket for a few days and then I opened it and I read it. It was a plea with her father by that little Sunday-school girl. It is one of the most precious treasures I possess. She pleaded that when the persecution should come on, and when he would have to stand and face death, it might be, that he would be true to Jesus Christ his Saviour, and that he would not forget that Jesus had died for him, and that he should count it an honor to die for Jesus.
To-day we are giving the Chinese children an opportunity. The secretary will go out and Sunday-schools will be established. I can almost imagine I hear the glorious strains of that doxology which we heard after the relief of Peking, when the people had been relieved.. — " Praise God from whom all blessings flow," — rising from that great country. Out of China's four hundred millions of people there will be a great multitude who shall be gathered into the kingdom of God through the efforts of the World's Sunday-School Association.
I thank you. I shall leave Washington to-morrow with a light heart. But the message has gone out, and in after years we shall hear the children of China praising God by the million, remembering that he has died for them as he has died for others.
China, we breathe for thee a brother's prayer, —
" O arm divine, make bare, And reap the harvest of salvation there."
•^2 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
President Meyer: I want to hear from Professor Excell, — " Uncle X," we call him. We have had him again and again on our tour. This is your last opportunity and mine to have the pleasure of hearing him sing.
Professor Excell in response had the choir sing " More like the Master."
Memorial to the Missionary Gathering in Edinburgh
President Meyer: In the report that was handed to most of you this morning, you will see that there is a memorial from this conference to the great missionary convention in Edinburgh. I beg to propose that the memorial as printed be our message to the convention in Edinburgh.
It was moved that this memorial as printed go from this convention to Edinburgh, and that Dr. Hamill be requested to present it in our name. The motion was unanimously adopted. (See index.)
President Meyer offered a fervent prayer for the blessing of God upon Dr. Hamill and upon the Edinburgh gathering.
Rev. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Tennessee: Just one word! We have had the child in our midst literally and spiritually, enthroned in our hearts, the center of all our concern, the plea of almost every speaker. The opening sermon of Dr. Meyer centered upon the child. The last scene of this great convention crystallizes among the children. I have one request to make for the deputation you shall send to Edinburgh, that when you go home from this great convention you shall include the members of that commission in your prayers.
I thank Dr. Meyer very much for remembering that the thing we most need is that God's people on this side shall pray that in going to this con- vention, the mightiest missionary conference of the century, perhaps the crux of the missionary situation, we may go with the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon us while we place the child in its midst and appeal for the speedy salvation of the world by rallying all missionary endeavor about the child.
A Message to the Mission Boards
A Message to the Mission Boards of Protestant Churches throughout the world was presented by the Executive Committee, and unanimously adopted by the convention. (See index.)
A Message to the Theological Seminaries
The Executive Committee also presented a message to the theological seminaries and schools of divinity throughout the world, which was adopted by a unanimous vote. (See index.)
Minutes of the Convention 73
Introduction of Officers for the Next Triennium
President Meyer: The moment has now come which during three years I have looked forward to from that hour when in the old city of Rome I was rather unexpectedly called to be your president. I did not quite understand at that moment all that it involved. I did not realize what lay ahead under the veil of the three years, just the number of years of the Saviour's ministry, which were given to me to minister for the children.
We have traveled through Africa and Europe. We have been in Con- stantinople, Smyrna, Ephesus, Egypt, through the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, Malaysia, China, and through many a spot in the old country, and in nineteen of your principal cities in America, and everywhere the one object has been to promote the love of the church for the child.
As I look back upon my own boyhood, I cannot remember the time when I gave my heart to God, only that the King of love came into the city of my heart so early in the dawn of boyhood that I never noticed his entrance and only when consciousness was wide awake did I discover that Jesus was on the throne. Oh, how wonderful that that boy, who sixty years ago gave himself to Christ, has been chosen for some inscrutable reason to occupy this position!
And now my task is done. Something has happened which eternity itself cannot efface from the tablets of my memory. My wife and I have done our best. I feel I may take the words of our dead king and say, " I have tried to do my duty," however full of failure that has been.
And now I transmit this high office — I have held many, but none com- parable to this — to one of God's own gentlemen, a man of rare culture, a man of devout piety, a man of great urbanity and courteousness by nature, a man who has proved himself in the preparation of this great convention to be a man of affairs; and without further eulogy, — for indeed it is not necessary, but as the expression of the most ardent affection, — I have the honor of passing the trust that I received from Mr, Warren, and which I have held for three great years, to my friend whom I have characterized, Dr. Bailey.
Dr. Bailey was received with cheers, and a Chautauqua salute, the audience standing.
Dr. George W. Bailey. President
Dr. George W. Bailey: Dear friends, I am sure you will pardon me if I fail to express my feelings at this time. You are very kind, and I trust I am not wanting in appreciation of the great honor which you have conferred upon me, the highest honor in the gift of organized Sunday-school work.
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There have been mysteries in connection with the work of the prepara- tion of this convention which we could not understand until we came to Washington: but the greatest mystery to me is the fact that I stand before you as your president. I do not understand it. I do not know what it means. All that I can do or say is that I believe it is the leading of our heavenly Father.
There have been so many unmistakable evidences that we have been guided through the last three years by a wiser than human intelligence that I cannot question that leadership. Otherwise I could not stand here. There have been many resolutions of thanks, I am told, presented to you this afternoon, and others have come to you to-night. There is one element in this convention, however, which I desire to thank; but before I express my gratitude in that direction I want to tell you how grateful I am for the earnest, constant, and wise support I have received at the hands of every member of my committee during the last three years. I want to acknowl- edge with gratitude ray dear friend, Marion Lawrance, and especially Mr. Cork who has sat at my left hand during the last three months. Nor should I forget those of the office force who have been zealous, faithful, and true in the performance of every duty. I desire to thank them.
But I beg to remind you that great conventions cannot be if only the speakers are great, and the president is great, — even the greatest presi- dent, that organized Sunday-school work has enjoyed in my knowledge, as is he who during the last three years has presided over you. We have had great music by our good friends Professor Excell and Professor Foster and those associated with them, but we cannot have a great convention without a great company of Christ-filled delegates, and I want to thank you. You have made this convention great.
Perhaps some of you recall the letter which I wrote to each delegate, making a number of suggestions, among them one that you should keep sweet. If there has been any one of the delegates to this convention who has failed to comply with this request, the knowledge of the failure has not reached me. From every hand I am told that you have behaved splendidly, I have admired your patience and your confidence as you sat here when it has been warm and uncomfortable, even at late hours of the night, and I have noticed the earnest and careful attention you have given to the per- formance of every duty, and your ready compliance with every request of our beloved president. I am sure I voice the sentiment of every member of the executive committee when I say, we thank you.
Three years ago, as I sat at the table in Dr. Meyer's home in London, we talked together of the affairs of the Kingdom. In the course of our conversation he said, " I have been a pastor for many years and always deeply interested in the Sunday-school, but at the Rome convention there
Minutes of the Convention 75
came to me a revelation, — as never before I was impressed with the great fact that if the world is to be saved the children must be saved." Dear friends, if this is true, and it is true, then we do not hesitate to de- clare that the easiest way, the most economical way, the logical way, and under existing conditions of church organization, the only way, of saving the world in this or any other generation is through the Sunday- school.
I thank you very much indeed for the honor you have conferred upon me. By the blessing of our heavenly Father and your prayers I hope for strength and wisdom to so perform the duties of the office that at the end of my administration I may enjoy as much of your confidence and affection as I do to-night.
I saw these beautiful flowers on the platform, but had no thought they were intended for me. Nor do I now know to whom I am indebted for them. Fragrant and beautiful as they are, they will soon fade, and lose their fragrance, but the memory of your great kindness upon this occasion will ever remain with me as a precious memory.
I trust, dear friends, that life, length of days, and happiness in Christian service may be the lot of each one of this magnificent audience, and if God wills, then we may meet in Geneva in 1913. Again I thank you.
Mr. E. K. Warren, Chairman of Executive Committee
President Bailey: I could not have accepted this position with a sense of relief had it not been for the fact that my good friend, Mr. E. K. Warren, known and loved throughout this whole country, is to be not only my help- mate, but is to be the actual leader of the work for the next three years as chairman of your World's Executive Committee.
Mr. E. K. Warren: He feels better than I do. I find myself in a very peculiar position to-night, friends. Six years ago at Jerusalem I laid down the chairmanship of the World's Sunday-School Executive Committee, and Dr. Bailey was my successor, and you do not know with what a sense of relief the change was made on my part and how magnificently the brother had led this great Association for six years, leading it forward into realms of usefulness which none of us even dreamed of in the day when he took up the chairmanship.
I also find myself on the platform with my dear brother Meyer, who succeeded me at Rome as the president of the World's Sunday-School Convention. At that time he gave me what I have always prized very highly and choose to call my certificate of character. I will wait a minute before I say a final word to him. I want you to understand that he is a much younger man than you realize. There is a difference of only one
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day in our ages. I was born the day in advance. That is the only thing in which we are very much alike. I have been shirking; he has been work- ing.
I am going to venture to give you briefly three items, one item from the Jerusalem convention, one from the Rome, and one from the Washington. Each one of these conventions has had some peculiar incident connected with it, something transpiring out of the ordinary, which marked them, in a great degree, peculiar only to its place and condition.
The Jerusalem convention was held within a stone's throw of Calvary, in an tent, just north of the Damascus gate. The evening of the first day the world was represented. We first had the welcomes, and then the re- sponses from different places. After three or four welcomes had been given our platform was covered with men of almost all nations, and one man stepped out to the front robed in the garments of a Jewish high priest. Two of his sons were on the platform with him and three or four men from his nation, the Samaritan, up near Gerizim, at Nablus, and when it came time for him to speak his part he took a manuscript and from it read — in what was, to some of us, an unknown tongue — an address of welcome.
After he was done another man stepped forward on the platform and he says, " The Samaritan high priest has welcomed you, you who are gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ from all parts of the world, and he has given you a welcome here and he has given it to you in the Hebrew tongue, reading from a Hebrew manuscript; now I am to interpret it to you, and I am a converted Jew." The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans and for eighteen hundred years that was the first public recorded occasion where the Jews and the Samaritans met since the wonderful interview at the well of the Lord Jesus Christ and the woman of Samaria. [Applause.] That, friends, seemed to date back to the days of our Lord, that wonderful convention at Jerusalem.
At Rome, many wonderful things happened, but the event I want to speak of was the meeting we held in that wonderful building, the Coliseum. Eighteen or nineteen hundred years it has been standing there. For many years — perhaps a century or two — they made a stone quarry out of it, and tore it apart for building material, and yet it is magnificent in its glory to-day; and the last session of the World's Convention in Rome was held in that memorable building. The Scripture was read, " Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses."
The early Christians had been taken to their martyrdom there. The pendulum of eighteen centuries had swung and the pilgrims of the Lord Jesus Christ were gathered there. The song sung was, " All hail the power of Jesus' name." What a great change had come in these eighteen centu- ries!
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Then we came to Washington. We have had wonderful events here. But it seems to me the most in keeping with this other was the meeting of last evening, when Dr. Chapman was speaking to this great audience and said to us that in his opinion it was the greatest gathering of Christian men and women that had been assembled in any time, since the early days at least, upon the face of the earth, eighteen or nineteen centuries inter- vening: and, in that wonderful consecration service with which he closed, five or six hundred pastors, six or seven hundred superintendents, and a thousand or more of teachers were led to new consecration, which means so much for the church of God in the years that are to come.
Dr. Bailey in his early statements to us stated that as he saw the field of opportunity now coming before this great Association he felt this to be the greatest time since the days of John the Baptist.
I want to say to the young men and to the young women, and especially to the secretaries of the states, provinces, and territories, and the nations of the earth, that we look to you for service and for help; we expect you to help us to fulfill the command of the Master indicated in the words,
" And if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." That is our mission.
And now, in your behalf and for you, you who are gathered here to-night and you who are representing scores and hundreds of churches and denomi- nations and associations, and thousands upon thousands of Sunday-schools, I want, my dear brother Meyer, to bring their thanks to you for the great services you have rendered in these last three years.
Three years ago at Rome we received a message from one in authority in the United States which gave us all great courage then. We have, now, my dear brother, one of our representative Americans in foreign lands, and the kings of the earth delight to honor him, — Theodore Roosevelt. I want to say to you, sir, and to your associates in Great Britain and the other parts of the earth, that not only the kings of the nations delight to honor you, but a nation of kings and queens do you honor.
The Closing Moment
Bishop Hartzell then led in prayer.
President Bailey: I have reserved for this moment the simple expres- sion of my appreciation of my good brother, Dr. Meyer, who came into my life three years ago, and who has been my inspiration all these years and the inspiration of this great convention. He will speak the final word and will pronounce the benediction, after which the World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention will stand adjourned, and I shall hope that we may meet in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1913.
78 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Conventien
Final Word
Dr. F. B. Meyer: " Depart ye, go ye out from hence; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go out in haste, nor go by flight : for the Lord shall go before you ; and the Holy One of Israel shall be your rearguard." Arise, let us go hence!
The peace of God that passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and may the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son, and Spirit rest upon ourselves, our homes, our schools, our churches, our countries, and the one Church of God throughout the world, till the day breakethand the shadows flee away. Amen.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONQUEST OF THE WORLD
A Graphic Story of the Convention. — Thrilling and Interesting Incidents
Charles Gallaudet Trumbull
The World's Sunday-School Convention which closed last week in Washington marks a summit of vision that overtops, for world-reach and world-conquest, anything that the century and a third of the modern Sunday-school movement has recorded.
The next place of meeting of the World's Sunday-School Convention is to be Geneva, Switzerland, in 1913, the time of year to be determined later.
More than four thousand persons were enrolled as members of the convention: 2,780 registered delegates and over 1,200 enrolled visitors. This number was largely increased at the meetings by thousands of Wash- ington attendants.
Representatives of twenty-four different countries were present, includ- ing forty-seven denominations; and one hundred and seventy-five mission- aries attended the convention.
It was a keen-visioned young Britisher who was speaking, and this is what he said: " These two days will do more to set Sunday-school work for- ward throughout the world than ten years, ordinarily, could do." He and a newly made American acquaintance were sitting together in a Washing- ton hotel lobby as they talked late into the night over the doings of that day in the capital city. " What do you mean by that? " asked the Ameri- can. " Just look at it, and see," was the answer; and then the Britisher called off in quick succession half a dozen events of that day and the next: and they proved his case. For the news of some of these was being flashed to the newspapers of North America, Great Britain, and Europe, while the significance of other events that had not the same spectacular news value was even greater. Follow the story of the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, as held at Washington, D. C, from May 19 to 24, 19 10, and see if his judgment was sound.
At the second session of the convention President F. B. Meyer, of London, announced that he was going to call for the reading of a letter which was the most remarkable he had ever had the privilege of receiving. " If we in Great Britain," Mr. Meyer said, " should receive such a message as this from our House of Parliament, we should wish to rise, in token of our respect and appreciation, while it was being read; and I shall now ask you to rise as Mr. Marion Lawrance reads to us this communication." Five
79
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thousand Sunday-school workers from every part of North America, and from Great Britain, and Europe, and missionaries from around the world, rose to their feet as Mr. Lawrance read the official communication, signed by the clerk of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, announcing that the House had voted to adjourn at 4 P.M., Friday, in order to allow such of its members as desired to join the men's parade, and in appreciation of the honor conferred upon the nation by the selection of Washington as the place for the World's Convention.
The thunders of applause that followed this reading must have carried almost to the Capitol. Before it had died down a chord was struck on the piano, and the praise of applause passed into the praise of song as five thousand throats joined in the long- meter doxology: " Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
While this was going on, outside on the pavements, crowding and pressing against every door leading into Convention Hall, was an unsatisfied, insistent army of some thousands of other eager workers struggling to force an entrance into the mammoth hall that would hold no more. There probably has never been anything like it before at any Sunday-school meeting in the world. Hurriedly a simultaneous meeting was arranged for in Calvary Baptist Church, and the announcement of this, as demanded by the crowds outside, only deepened the enthusiasm of the immense audience at the principal meeting.
Again the delegates were on their feet, this time singing " America," as the white-haired British president of the World's Sunday-School Associ- ation was now seen leading to the front of the platform the President of the United States. Mr. Meyer's first word, in introducing the President, was to express his gratitude for the cablegram of sympathy that President Taft had sent when the King of England lay dead; and then he told of his invariable custom, when pastor of a London church, of praying for the President of the United States, as he had done every Sunday for twenty years.
The address which President Taft made to the convention on the Sunday- school, its history, its function, and its vital place, was remarkable. He showed a careful knowledge of historical facts of which many a Sunday- school speaker is in ignorance, and a sympathetic appreciation of the real mission of the Sunday-school. He pointed out the insufficiency of secular education at its best, the actual peril of such education without religious training, and the absolute necessity of the Sunday-school for the doing of what would otherwise go undone.
Mrs. Taft had graciously attended the convention with the President and when this became known, the applause could not be quieted in any way except by her ascending the rostrum, where, upon the President's arm, she
The Sunday- School Conquest of the World 8i
smilingly and with genuine embarrassment acknowledged her ovation. As she stepped down from the rostrum, her husband turned back, and, facing the audience, shouted in a voice that could be heard above the applause, " The real President of the United States.''
It was a notable compliment to the convention that the President and his wife did not withdraw at once after his address, but remained to hear the following speaker, introduced by Mr. Meyer as " not only a leader of the business world, but the prince of Sunday-school workers, John Wana- maker." Mr. Wanamaker proved the thesis of his striking phrase, " The Sunday-school was not evolved — it was revealed."
In striking and pathetic contrast with the official message of sympathy and support from President Taft was the word of a French missionary from Algeria the next morninig, the Rev. Jean Paul Cook, when he told of his joy in the President's message, and then cited the common attitude of antagonism to Christianity on the part of the public men of France. He quoted a minister of the government as having said, " We must liberate the country from all the lies of the churches."
" The Sunday-School and the Great Commission " was the announced theme and the dominant keynote of this world-assemblage. Missionaries were there from many fields, bearing their testimony to the place of the Sunday-school as the form of work which, above all others, would win and hold the non-Christian world for Christ.
The world-vision was steadily maintained through the sessions of the convention. Back of the platform, covering almost the entire end wall of the auditorium, was stretched a great map of the world. In the center, between the hemispheres, were the words, " The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom"; and on the left- and right- hand sides of the map: " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation "; " And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them."
But while the child and the world-reach were never lost sight of, there was also effective emphasis on the work close at hand and the newly dis- covered place of the adult in the Sunday-school. A monster street-parade of members of men's Bible classes from all over North America was sched- uled for late on Friday afternoon. Early in the day it was cloudy, with a little rain. As six o'clock approached, the heavens seemed to open in the torrents that drenched the earth. Some few — who did not know the stuff of which World's Sunday-school Conventions are made — began to say, " I guess they won't have it." " You do? " retorted one worker to whom this remark was made. " You don't know them. The harder it rains, the more they'll have out." And this conviction was well founded; but the rain stopped just before parade time, and for almost an hour the
82 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
thousands who thronged the Capitol steps and the curbstones along the line of march watched a procession that stood for more to the life of the nation than any other procession that ever tramped through the streets of Washington. How they were cheered, as the men of state after state swung by in Christian vigor!
There were men in line from Alberta and from Arkansas, from Vermont, Louisiana, and Southern California; to list all the states and provinces here would be to name the most of North America. As a little boy dressed all in white marched sturdily along, by himself, between two companies of men, the crowds broke loose again in cheers. And so when the banners of the different states brought their messages into sight, — such messages as these: ,
" The Arkansas Travelers Here on Time."
" The Men of New Hampshire for the Man of Galilee."
" Kansas: Every Man a Brother."
" No Saloon in America after 1920."
" Train Up a Child in the Way He Should Go, But Go that Way Your- self."
A Pennsylvania brigade carried individual lighted transparencies, of Keystone shape, four-sided, and on every side was the symbol of the Men's Bible Class Movement : the circle of red with a white center, standing for the white life in the blood of Christ. Could there be a greater promise for our future national life than that of the light shining out into the dusk of the evening from this Christian symbol carried by men who were not ashamed of Him whose they are and whom they serve?
From the line of march the five thousand or so of men who paraded on the streets of Washington on the second day of the convention poured into Convention Hall and the Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church, while two simultaneous sessions for women were held in Calvary Baptist Church, where Mrs. Sherman, wife of the Vice-President, and Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, presided, while women missionaries from far-off fields and Miss Margaret Slattery addressed them. At the men's meeting Dr. Homer C. Stuntz, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, spoke on " The Transforming Power of the Word of God," and described instances of his theme from the Philippines that were as thrilling as anything of apostolic days. His interpretation of his text is one to be remembered: " * My word shall not return unto me void.' That is not prophecy; that is the determina- tion of omjiipotence."
One of the genuine surprises of the convention was the report of the chairman of the World's Executive Committee, Dr. George W. Bailey, of Philadelphia. Just twenty-one years old, the Association has already reached out and gripped the world for Christ. Its missionary vision grows
The Sunday- School Conquest of the World 83
brighter, its actual results larger, with every passing year. It has stirred up the minister-making plants of America — the theological seminaries — on the vital need of Sunday-school training for ministers if the Kingdom is to advance as it should. It is arousing foreign missionary boards to the central place of the Sunday-school in their work and opportunity. It discovers what parts of the civilized world are weak in Sunday-school work, in order that it may help them.
" From the Sunday-school standpoint," reported Chairman Bailey, " it is daybreak everywhere." It is not surprising that it now seemed time for a forward step of a kind never before taken by the World's Sunday- school work.
That time came on the morning of the third day, Saturday. One of the great living authorities on the Moslem world and religion, Dr. S. M. Zwemer, of Arabia, had made a burning arraignment of Mohammedanism as a religion that could give no place to the child, either on earth or in its own paradise; he pictured it in its hopelessness and vileness as the prodigal son of God; and he struck hard for the truth when he said: " Friends, we need to be through forever with lame apologies and whitewashings of the non-Christian religions." Robert E. Speer followed with an equally caustic searching out of the blight of Roman Catholicism in South America, first declaring for the truth of Zwemer's appeal against the peril of " those who know the name of Christ and set it beneath another name." Then he turned to the great continent to our south and showed, out of his six months' tour there during last year, a condition of such awful need as few in Christian lands have yet come to realize. The illiteracy, the illegitimacy of births, the immorality and degradation of people and priests, and the rich natural possibilities of the land, are voicing a Macedonian call not equaled, perhaps, elsewhere in the world. In seventy churches visited, Mr. Speer found only one Bible, and that one had been confiscated in the confessional. " We dare not,'' he challenged, " deliver any continent of earth to a religious organization that forbids the Bible to the common people.''
Then the convention was given over to Mr. Lawrance. He pointed out that the World's Sunday-School Association, now twenty-one years old, had just been getting ready for its real work all this time. Never has any officer or worker connected with it received a dollar in salary or remunera- tion. The tremendous achievements reported by the Chairman were the results of the free-will labors of those who took what time they could from their other work. Now the time seemed ripe for the World's Association to be put upon a financial basis which would enable it to command the whole time of a corps of workers, and thus move forward into greater conquests than ever.
84 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
On the platform, facing the five thousand delegates and visitors, was a great rectangular frame, about twelve feet high by twenty-one feet broad, the entire face of which was of a dead black except for two small spots Qf color, one of which was a map of North America, the other, of the British Isles. The blackness consisted of a great quantity of little three-inch card- board squares, attached to the board by pins. Each square represented a unit of ten dollars, and as ever>^ ten dollars should be pledged that morning, a black square was to be removed. A map of the entire world was concealed under all this blackness, the two " big brother " Christian countries alone standing disclosed. The world would emerge into the light as the darkness broke away with the pledging of money. The scheme was probably the most impressive object lesson in giving ever put before a great convention. The pledges were for each year of the three years between conventions, but the map was to show only one-year amounts.
Before that session closed, the world had broken through the darkness into light to the amount of some sixty thousand dollars pledged for Sunday- school world evangelization, — or twenty thousand dollars a year. But there was still a big irregular black region on the map.
At noon on Monday, two days later, Mr. Lawrance announced that a sectional Adult Bible Class Conference that morning had wanted to have a part in clearing the map, and had nominated Lady Henry Somerset for a thousand-dollar life membership, in honor of Frances E. Willard, pledging over five hundred dollars then and there. Then the convention went at the map again hard. Soon the thing was done. Again the long-meter doxology burst from the lips and hearts of the delegates as the last black blot on that world-map, from the farthest eastern shore of Asia, northeast of China on the Sea of Okhotsk, fell to the floor, and the hemispheres stood clear. Seventy-five thousand dollars for the Lord's work, as the World's Association's first try on its twenty-first birthday, was not an effort to be ashamed of.
This was not the only money raised. At a reunion of all former World's Convention pilgrims it was decided to give the new Advanced Division of the International Association a lift (the intermediate classes where the big leaks from the Sunday-school usually go on unchecked), and some five thousand dollars was pledged before they got through.
Think of a World's Sunday-School Convention holding simultaneous sessions on a single day in a consecutive chain of cities, towns, and villages belting the entire globe in every direction of the compass, and in more than two hundred different tongues. That is what occurred on World's Sunday- School Day, May 22, 1910. It was beyond question the most momentous fact and factor in Sunday-school work the world has ever known. A uni- form responsive exercise had been prepared and circulated throughout the
The Sunday-School Conquest of the World 85
world months before. It had been translated and printed n more than one hundred different languages and dialects, and was used orally in another hundred. Cablegrams from foreign missionary fields came to Dr. Bailey on that day, bearing the news of the observance of the event.
There was another mountain-peak time in the convention. It came Mon- day evening, when Chapman and Alexander were used, as they have been so mightily used around the world, to show the way to a deepened spiritual life. Dr. Chapman made a touching tribute to Mr, Meyer, who, he said, had by a single sentence spoken to him at Northfield in 1892 led him out of bondage into freedom, out of darkness into light. The sentence was this question: " If you are not willing to give up everything to Christ, are you willing to be made willing? " Then Dr. Chapman made very plain the four things that every Christian worker must have to be used of God: A clear conception of Jesus Christ; absolute surrender to God; the continued presenting of Christ to others, — which is surrender to God in personal work; and belief in the power of the gospel to transform the lives of others. One sentence that burned home was this: " Never until God has all there is of you will you he used as a soul winner. Never.'' A mighty dedication time followed, ministers, superintendents, and teachers rising by hundreds throughout the great hall in public declaration of their purpose to let God use them, by this pathway, as never before. Dr. Chapman would not have given this conclusion to the service had not Mr. Warren, presiding, asked him to do so. It was plainly of the Spirit's leading. Dr. Chapman did not hesitate to say that he believed it might be the turning-point in the world - tide for the greatest revival the world has yet seen. For the world is teem- ing with evidences that God wants to send such a revival.
One of the profoundest impressions created by any of the missionary addresses was that of a ten-minute paper prepared by an absent missionary and read for him, — Mr. John Hay, founder and director of the Inland South America Missionary Union. President Meyer said of it: "I have never heard a report like that. It is more like the first chapter of Romans than anything I ever heard. In ten minutes I have learned more of heart- breaking darkness and sin and need than I have ever heard before in my life." Mr. Hay's life is a record of prayer and faith that reminds one of George Miiller.
Much has had to be omitted here which was of first importance in the convention itself. The magnetic and inspiring musical leadership of E. O. Excell and Percy S. Foster; the brilliant and again delicately beautiful and lacelike piano- work of A. W. Roper; the cumulatively impressive Roll-Call of the Nations, session after session, when missionaries brought their God- given messages of cheer, of need, and of superhuman power; the report of W. N. Hartshorn, Chairman of the International Sunday-School Associa-
86 The World's Sixth Sunday -School Convention
tion, which gave the facts of the splendidly administered Christian corpora- tion which cares for the Sunday-school life of North America, which has fifty-four per cent of the Sunday-school membership of the world; the Sunday-School and Missionary Exposition in Artillery Hall, which through the generous cooperation of the Young People's Missionary Movement was probably the most complete and revealing assembling of Sunday-school and missionary literature and helps ever seen, — these are some of the things that deserve full recognition, but that cannot be adequately treated save in the volume which will give the complete report of the entire convention, and which every equipped Sunday-school worker in the world ought to possess.
The closing session was at hand. Those who had looked eagerly over the printed program expecting to find the richest and best saved for the last had found the announcement rather disappointing. The program said something about a Congress of Nations, a World's Sunday-school inventory, and one or two other items of the usual sort.
After the customary opening exercises, and a word from the president as to what was coming, we waited and listened. From far back in the great hall, a full city block away from the platform, the treble voices of children were heard in a hymn. It was " Onward, Christian Soldiers." Nearer and nearer the voices came, as the little company, sixty strong, bearing aloft the flags and colors of the nations of the world, marched sturdily down the two main aisles of the hall, climbed the steps of the great platform, and faced about in a V-shaped line extending from a point well back in the center to the right- and left-hand sides close to the front. We forgot we were in an American capital, for these were the children of the countries and races of the world who faced us, still singing the conquest hymn as they stood. We five thousand whom they faced sang with them now; we could not have helped it. More than half a hundred costumes there were, from the little American sailor boy, clothed all in Jackie's white, and carrying the Christian Conquest flag, to the Filipino girl, three little Chinese and Japanese maidens (and these almond-eyed tots were real natives), Turk, Dutch girl in wooden sabots, bare-kneed Scotch kilties, Swede, and too many others to remember: there they stood, the Twentieth Century Sunday-School Crusaders, facing and called into being by the World's Sunday-School Convention.
There was a pause; the music changed; and now, " I love to tell the story," rang out through the hall as the children and the delegates again sang together. Another pause — and then we were given " The World's Sunday-School Inventory," by Mr. Cork, whose work had made dry statistics fairly leap with meaning. Never before have any such figures of the World's Sunday-school life been assembled. Sunday-schools have been found and reported upon in 126 of the 192 countries and island-groups of
The Sunday-School Conquest of the World 87
the world; but in the remaining 66 the secretaries have not been able to find a single Sunday-school. For the countries in which there is Sunday- school effort the figures are full of cheer. There is a gain of almost three million in Sunday-school enrollment since the report at Rome in 1907, making the world's total Sunday-school membership nearly twenty-eight million. The average Sunday-school the world around numbers 97 mem- bers, and there is one Sunday-school to every 5,683 persons in the world. The lights all over the hall went out after we had heard this campaign message, and for an instant it seemed as if we were in entire darkness; but only for an instant: then there gleamed a white radiance from back of the children, and we saw, as a steady flame of pure white light, shining high up in the air between the two great hemispheres of the world's map which had faced us day after day during our meetings, the cross of Christ in living fire. " In the cross of Christ I glory " — the children's voices were leading us again, and our hearts sang with them. The cross glistened the more to many an eye that tried to watch it through a mist. As the lights throughout the hall shone out again the song changed:
" At the cross, at the cross. Where I first saw the light. And the burden of my heart rolled away."
But the other lights of the hall could not dim the light of the glistening cross between the hertiispheres; it burned on unchanged.
The marching hymn of victory was taken up again as the blessed little Crusaders, their work for that evening done, trudged down from the plat- form and away from us, their faces shining, their hearts uplifted that they could be part of this conquest which was so much bigger than they knew.
" Beautiful," said some one. Yes; but that is not the word. This was not merely a beautiful tableau. To those who saw, it was a vision as direct and as big with eternity-meanings as any that came to the apostle John on the isle of Patmos. The feet of those sixty children marked time with the march of Christ and his army upon the world. The world is never going to be saved through its grown folks. The Twentieth Century Sunday-School Crusaders are leading the final conquest of the world for Christ. At last we are yielding to Christ, and are answering the challenge of the Great Commission in Christ's own way. Only by the Sunday-school can we do his will and suffer the little children to come unto him. When we have done that, and have obeyed him, and the children of the world have been won, — then the world is won, and the fight is over.
(From two articles in the Sunday School Times, May 28 and June 4, 1910.)
EARTH'S ENDS MEET AT SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION Vivid Pen Pictures. — Remarkable Scenes. — Significant Facts
William T. Ellis
A HUGE pyramid of polyglot Bibles, surmounted by an illuminated globe, was the central figure at the exhibit, and perhaps best typified the World's Sunday-School Convention at Washington, May 19-24. The great gathering stood for an enlightened world, on the foundation of the Word of God. Or perhaps the beautiful badge, with which all Washington became familiar, told the tale of the convention — a world map, sur- mounted by a cross — salvation for the whole world through the cross of Christ. Yet again, it may be that the occasion will be best represented to many minds by the colored picture, " Crusaders of the Twentieth Century," which was lavishly used at the convention, and reproduced, after a fashion, at the final session in living tableau. It shows the children of many nations gathered beneath a world map, with many flags flying, but the cross flag highest, and the whole group inclosed in a border of the peace emblem — the dove of the Spirit.
Inevitably the convention will be recalled in the form of figures, pictures, or spectacles, rather than by any of its deliberations or actions. It was a pictorial convention throughout. Light, color, hugeness, movement, demonstrations — these were outstanding characteristics. A mammoth hall which seats six thousand gave opportunity for a partial display of the gathering's unusual bulk. Possibly the women outnumbered the men, but all alike were bareheaded. It was a middle-aged crowd; it had got over its Christian Endeavor effervescence, but not over its Christian Endeavor enthusiasm and eagerness for high idealism and broad outlook.
There were no yards of kaleidoscopic badges to give color to the multi- tude— a simple red ribbon marked " North America " differentiated the twenty-five hundred hosts from their approximately five hundred guests, whose blue ribbons proclaimed them from Great Britain, China, Bulgaria, Korea, Germany, Brazil, India, Mexico, Japan, etc. More than half a hundred nationalities were said by the leaders to be present, although not so many were officially registered. The convention was probably the most widely cosmopolitan gathering ever met on these shores. The universality of the Christian religion was visualized.
The convention " found itself " on the night of the first day, when Presi- dent Taft spoke. The hall was filled to its capacity; like a full glass, its
88
Earth's Ends Meet 89
contents rose above the brim. Outside, more than six thousand persons vainly sought for admittance. They kept sweet, and some of them went to the overflow meeting. When the President appeared, the people rose and sang, " My country, 'tis of thee." Then they waved their handker- chiefs. But that is an inadequate vent for enthusiasm, so they yelled and cheered, and then gave salvos of hand -clapping. The President seemed to be enjoying himself as much as the delegates. The quality of the audience visibly impressed him — and it was undeniably superior, partly because of the thousand or so preachers present, and more because of the elect ladies who are the mainstay of the Sunday-school teaching force. It was a world-wide leadership that was concentrated in Convention Hall that night. Albeit, it gave warm approval to the President's declaration that secular teaching is inadequate, and that we " all agree — Protestant, Catholic, and Jew — that the Sunday-school is absolutely necessary."
A convention keynote (what would a convention do without a keynote?) was struck by President Taft's allusion to the World's Sunday-School Association's part in the perpetuation of the peace of nations. One of the modern Mohawk braves would have seen little in this convention but the smoke of the peace pipe. Over and over the subject was touched upon — through no planning of the management — and always the delegates made plain the intensity of their conviction upon it. I sat beside Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, at Monday evening's session, and he remarked: " This con- vention stands for peace on earth and good-will among men; today we passed the naval appropriation bill, with one hundred and thirty millions for bloodshed and destruction. The convention sends out one message from Washington; the Senate sends another." It is not presumptuous to say that the influence of the Sunday-schools of the world for peace will ultimately be greater than that of Parliament for war.
Mr. Wanamaker's words were apropos, as he said amid cheers, " This nation has no greater forces nor firmer friends than the men and women who are marching under the Sunday-school banner, and using both weekdays and Sundays to make better citizens."
Congress, with its ear unusually close to the ground these days, early caught the sound of the tread of this host of voters and leaders of thought marching on to the capital. So about the first news that the delegates heard at the first session was the announcement that Congress had resolved to adjourn early on the following day, out of consideration for the parade of adult Bible classes. Some congressmen, bona fide Sunday-school men, did actually march in the procession, down Pennsylvania Avenue and around the Capitol.
That was a great sight. Torrents of rain immediately preceded the hour set for the demonstration, and people generally supposed that the parade
90 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
had been called off. Not so. About five thousand men, one half of the number originally expected, trudged through the wet streets in notably good formation. Everybody was afoot, even the marshal and his aides.
The onlookers, some ten thousand of them at the east front of the Capitol alone, were satisfied with their share. They saw men in blue who had marched over that same route at the close of the Civil War; and alongside of them were recruits for the newer, bigger war. One man had his five sons in line by his side. As the men marched they sang, and the reviewers sang with them, between cheers. There were many flags and banners and mottoes, especially of a temperance sort. Ohio named her statesmen who had been in the Sunday-school, and declared that " America's moral defense is the Sunday-school." " Where men go, boys will follow," said one motto. A class from Hanover, Penn., announced a continuous exis- tence of ninety-three years. " The men of America for the Man of Gali- lee," was a favorite motto.
The procession wound up in the Convention Hall, where the massing of the banners in front, after a procession around the hall, made a cheerful , stirring picture. How the men sang the national songs and old " Corona- tion! " The robust vocalization of that multitude's " C-r-r-o-o-w-n him " was in itself an uplift. So was the rendering by the host of preachers present of " This is my story."
There were some great speeches, too. Easily first was Dr. S. Parkes Cadman's on " The Transforming Power of the Word of God." He dared warn that self-conscious throng of five thousand or six thousand men " not to be misled by the vulgarity of bulk." In ringing summons he reminded them that " our fathers played the game, or we would not have been here.'' Dwelling upon the convention's favorite theme of peace he cried: "The Christian church should hold prior rights here " ; " Unassisted culture will never save America "; " We can only maintain the state, in its in- tegrity, power, and righteousness, as we maintain the Bible." Dr. Homer C. Stuntz stirred the delegates; likewise Robert E. Speer and Dr. J. Wil- bur Chapman and Dr. S. M. Zwemer and Bishop Hartzell.
The missionary note, which fairly dominated it, was the chief factor in the convention's cosmopolitanism. It seems that the Sunday-school is to take its place as a great missionary agency. This is the most significant fact about the convention. Not as an additional method, but as one of its master motives, the Sunday-school is to take on responsibility for world- evangelization. This will probably not become as spectacular as some other missionary movements; but what can mean more than the imparting of a sense of world-responsibility to the whole body of the youth of the churches?
(From an article in The Interior, Chicago, 111., June 2, 1910.)
What is the World's Sunday -School Association ?
What are its purposes, its plans, and its
relations to Denominational Missionary
Or(tanizations and Missionaries ?
1^ H>i
The World's Sunday-School Association is interdenominational in character, and, by co-operating with missionary or- ganizations and otherwise, seeks to extend the work and in- crease the efficiency of Sunday-Schools, especially in those regions of the world most in need of help.
FIRST — By focusing the attention of the Christian Church upon the Sunday-School as its most valuable asset, and by pro- moting a deeper interest in the work of foreign missions on the part of Sunday-Schools in the home field.
SECOND — By co-operating with missionaries and local and national Sunday-School associations in mission fields, assisting them in their efforts to secure Sunday-School literature, and calling their attention to improved methods of Sunday-School work, especially along lines of organization and teacher training.
THIRD — By sending expert Sunday-School workers, so far as our means will permit, to mission fields to assist in effecting national and local Sunday-School unions or associations, and otherwise encourage a deeper interest in the work of the Sunday-School.
91
FOUR GREAT DOCUMENTS
Report of the Executive Committee, Dr. George W. Bailey, Chairman.
Memorial to the Missionary Conference at Edinburgh.
A Message to the Mission Boards.
A Message to the Theological Seminaries.
REPORT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
DR. GEORGE W. BAILET. Philadelpdia, Pa.
To THE Delegates of the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Dear Brethren in the Lord: By the favor of our common Father and his blessing upon the labors of our united forces, the newly formed World's Sunday-School Association has moved forward during the past triennium in a way that bids fair soon to realize some of its founders' brightest dreams, and to open the way for new and ever greater progress.
Your attention is especially called to those parts of the following re- port which aim to show in what way, under God, as your committee believe, this progress can most surely be realized.
I. Mr. Charles Waters
Before we enter upon the consideration of the matters before us, let us pause to recall the fragrant memory of one whose name was dear to Sunday-school members, old and young, literally around the world.
"Then said the Interpreter, 'Come in; I will show thee that which will be profitable to thee.' So he bade Christian follow him into a room, the which when he had done. Christian saw the picture of a very grave person hanging against the wall; and this was the fashion of it: his eyes were lifted up to heaven, the best of books was in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back, he stood as if he pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over its head."
With this quotation from "Pilgrim's Progress" the Rev. Carey Bonner, General Secretary of the Sunday-School Union of Great Britain, intro- duced his strikingly beautiful tribute to the life and work of Mr. Charles Waters, founder and honorary secretar>' of the International Bible Read- ing Association, whose death, occurring January 7, 19 10, it is a sorrow to us to record. He has indeed been these many years "The Man with the Book" for countless hosts of God's children who owe their better acquaintance with the Word of God to the self-sacrificing, faithful, faith- filled, and tireless energies of this man who had a vision and who made his vision real. Mr. Waters' evangelistic platform has been said to have been, " Make the world familiar with the Bible, and the world is won for Christ." How splendidly he carried forward this great Bible-reading form
93
94 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
of evangelism is well known to all who are in touch with World's Sunday- school affairs. Almost a million persons were reading the Bible as a re- sult of the work of the I. B. R. A. at the time of Mr. Waters' death. Some of the greatest men of the British Empire, as the world views greatness, and some of the humblest of God's children, as the world sees it, united in expressing their sense of personal loss when our friend was called home. With them we join in our sorrow and sympathy, and in the note of thanks- giving and triumph for the way in which his life was so freely spent and so abundantly blessed.
2. A History
The World's Sunday-School Association had its birth in the mind and heart of Benjamin Franklin Jacobs, who, at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Sunday-School Association held at Chau- tauqua, New York, in 1886, suggested calling a convention of Sunday- school workers from all parts of the world to meet in the city of London in 1889.
Our friends of the Sunday-School Union in Great Britain entered into the plan with heartiness, and the child of these two great organizations made its first public appearance in the City Temple, London, July i, 1889, and emphasized its beginning by deciding to send Dr. J. L, Phillips to India, as a pioneer of organized Sunday-school work.
The World's Second Convention assembled in St. Louis, U. S. A., meeting in connection with the Seventh International Convention, in September, 1893. The work of the International Association claimed such a large percentage of the thought and interest of this meeting that the World's Convention did little more than turn the hearts of the dele- gates toward Japan, with a sort of tentative understanding that since the Sunday- School Union had assumed responsibility for organized Sunday- School work in India, the International Association would undertake the work in Japan. But the wheels turned slowly.
However, five years later, in 1898, the Third Convention met in the city of London, and one of the delegates was Mr. T. C. Ikehara, a Jap- anese, returning to his homeland as the representative of the Interna- tional Sunday-School Association for promoting Sunday-school work in his native country.
The time and place for holding the World's Fourth Convention were referred to the Executive Committee, with power, but no action was taken until in January, 1902, when the International Executive Committee met in an upper room in Chicago. The place for the world's next con- vention was under consideration. Many suggestions had been offered. Mr. E. K. Warren referred to his recent visit to Palestine, when as if
Report of Executive Committee 95
by inspiration Mr. W. N. Hartshorn said, "Jerusalem — the Garden Tomb — Easter morning, 1904!" and then the committee broke forth into song, which was followed by prayer.
In that choice company sat B. F. Jacobs, long-time Chairman of the International Executive Committee, to whom was given a vision of the promised land, which he greatly desired to see and conquer for Christ; but, like Moses, he was not permitted to go over thither.
Five months passed. Delegates from every part of North America and a few from Great Britain were journeying toward Denver, Colo., U. S. A., to hold the Tenth International Convention; but our chieftain lay prostrate upon a bed of fatal illness. He learned of the presence in Chicago of a long-time friend, a delegate to the Denver Convention, whom, against the protests of his family and physicians, he insisted upon seeing, if but for a moment. This friend found the hero of many victorious Sunday-school battles greatly prostrated. He was too weak to speak^ His greeting was the old, familiar smile. And then, as his friend knelt by his bed, with much effort he whispered, one word at a time, " Men-die-but-God-lives-and-his-work-goes-on. Give-my-love-to-the brethren." And in a few hours, even before the opening notes of the convention in Denver had been sung, he "was not, for God took him."
Mr. Jacob's last words proved to be a prophecy of early fulfillment. Truly, "God's work goes on." The Denver Convention was in session, and immediate action was necessary; and before the funeral service at the grave of our departed leader had been said, Mr. W. N. Hartshorn was chosen Chairman of the International Executive Committee, and Mr. E. K. Warren was elected Chairman of the World's Executive Com- mittee, subject to the approval of the British section, each taking a place made vacant by the death of one to whom the world is largely indebted, and whose labors made possible that which followed. Let us never for- get his splendid work in the cause which lies so near our hearts.
On the platform at the convention in Denver Mr. Warren supported the recommendation of the committee concerning the place for holding the World's Fourth Convention in an address so inspiring that the recom- mendation was enthusiastically adopted, and referred to our friends in Great Britain for their approval, which was cordially given, when the work of preparation for the Jerusalem Convention was entered upon by the Central Committee, and one of the largest of the transatlantic ships was chartered to carry the American delegates to the Holy Land.
The undertaking would never have come to fruition but for the un- bounded faith, and untiring zeal, supported by the unquestioned financial responsibility of the Central Committee, involving long journeys, fre- quent visits to New York, weary conferences ofttimes continuing until
96 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
after midnight, sleepless nights and days of anxiety; but God honored the efifort, and on the morning of March 8, 1904, eight hundred and seven- teen delegates to the World's Fourth Sunday- School Convention assem- bled on the good ship Grosser Kurfurst, whose prow was turned toward the rising sun.
The story of the success of the cruise of the Grosser Kurfurst, carrying the American delegates, and of the Augusta Victoria, carrying four hun- dred and eighty-five British delegates, and of the convention, where were represented twenty-six countries and twice that number of denominations and religious bodies, is familiar to the Sunday-school world; but those of us who were privileged to form a part of that company will ever re- member the unique gathering in a tent on the slope of that
" Green hill far away. Without a city wall," —
upon the crown of which was enacted the world's greatest tragedy.
In connection with the cruise of these two ships, and the convention in Jerusalem, the Sunday-school as a factor in winning a lost world to Jesus Christ leaped into prominence, and at once became a world power which under God will live and flourish and rejoice when the navies and armies of the kingdoms of earth are forgotten.
We are too close to the World's Fourth Sunday- School Convention to estimate it at anything like its true value. Historians will speak of it as a factor in the history of the Church, for it focused the attention of the Church and the world upon the Sunday-school, and it did something more! It gave to the delegates a missionary vision, which has grown brighter as the years pass. An extensive correspondence and conference with missionaries more and more clearly emphasizes the importance of that convention, and a moment's reflection on the part of those who are familiar with the progress of Sunday-school work in America and Great Britain will easily recall the strides of progress made in Sunday-school work, which may not be compared with any other period of six years in the history of the movement. In other words, the focusing of the attention of the Church upon its most important agency in spreading a knowledge of the truth, has awakened an interest in the movement here- tofore unknown.
3. From Jerusalem to Rome
The triennium between Jerusalem and Rome was in large measure devoted to studying Sunday-school conditions throughout the world. Correspondence and examination of missionary reports, conference with missionaries and representatives of foreign missionary boards, and the
Report of Executive Committee 97
reports presented at the Rome Convention, all made valuable contri- butions to our stock of information.
Following are some of the results of our investigations:
In the home land we found that with a few notable exceptions the theological seminaries were making no effort whatever to train the young men composing their student bodies for leadership in the work of the Sunday-schools.
A somewhat superficial inquiry of our foreign mission boards failed to reveal an instance where candidates for work in mission fields were required to possess special qualification for Sunday-school work. But we did find a great many missionaries who said in substance, "Our means are limited, and while our board is deeply interested in the educational side of our work, our appeals for proper equipment for the Sunday-school, as such, are not received with favor." One who is known throughout the world, and loved wherever he is known, whose name is doubtless familiar to every delegate present, a secretary of the board of foreign missions of one of our largest denominations, at the close of a conference with your chairman, as we were seated together in his office, said, "The fact is, we know very little about Sunday-school work here," referring, of course, to his own board.
We found the Young People's Missionary Movement well organized and doing splendid work by way of cultivating a missionary spirit on the part of Sunday-schools and young people's societies in the home lands.
In the course of our investigations, we found one exceptionally bright spot. The rest of the world may regard America as being in the lead in Sunday-school work, but a well-informed Welshman will tell you that Thomas Charles, of Bala, assembled his people, young and old, on Sunday evening to study the Scriptures ten years before Robert Raikes cleared the streets of Gloucester by inviting the youngsters to a school to study other things beside the Scriptures.
In the early days of the Sunday-school, Wales not only took a place in the vanguard, but she has retained it, and has for years been doing some of the things which the wisest of our number are planning to do some time in the future. Her system of grading the Sunday-school has much to commend it, and there is little room for improvement in her method of reaching adults, for they are all in the Sunday-school and studying the Scriptures. Teachers are chosen with much care, and there is abundance of good material from which to make the selection.
The secretary of the Calvinistic Methodist Sunday-school Union tells us that in 1907 the number of children belonging to families connected with churches of that denomination was 80,465, while the Sunday-school
98 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
membership was 222,339. Written and oral examinations are required, and good penmanship is not without appreciation, the favorite writing lesson being the " Sermon on the Mount." Gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded in order of merit.
Under the fostering care of the Sunday-School Union, in Britain, we found a number of the countries of Continental Europe with a more or less efficient Sunday-school organization, but in some other continental countries we failed to discover only the feeblest effort in Sunday-school work. May I mention Hungary as an example, with a population of twelve millions, including four millions of nominal Protestants. Mis- sionary work is made difficult by reason of the opposition on the part of the Protestant leaders in that country. Missionaries, and a few others who appreciate the Sunday-school, stand with outstretched arms, as it were, and unite in a cry to those of us who live in more highly-favored lands: "Please send some one to teach us how to organize and conduct Sunday-schools."
As a result of faithful missionarj'^ work in Turkey, that country may be said to be honeycombed with the Scriptures, as evidenced by the demand for copies of the Bible in Turkish and Arabic. In 1904 the American Press at Beirut was two years behind in its orders for the Scriptures in Arabic, and though the cost of an additional press was contributed by the delegates to the World's Fourth Convention, we are advised that the demand is so great that it has been impossible to fill the requests for shipment. The explanation is not difficult to discover. When the young men and women of that empire return to their homes from Robert Col- lege at Constantinople, American College at Beirut, and scores of smaller institutions located in that interesting country', those who have accepted Christ unconsciously, perhaps, become agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and are the medium through which thousands upon thousands of orders for the Bible are transmitted to Beirut. Of this scores of illustrations may be cited.
In India, with its hundred million children under fourteen years of age, splendid Sunday-school work is being done by the missionaries, supported by the India Sunday-School Union, an institution organized, and fostered by the Sunday- School Union of Britain, and at present under the management of Rev. Richard Burges, whose work has been supplemented during the past year by the appointment of an additional secretary.
In China we found but thirty-seven per cent of the churches with Sun- day-schools of any kind, and only twelve per cent having a primary de- partment.
In Japan, as the direct result of a recent visit by Mr. Frank L. Brown,
Report of Executive Committee 99
of Brooklyn, representing the American section of the World's Committee, cooperating with the missionaries, a most promising organization had recently been effected.
In Korea, that land of marvelous Christian activity, we found Sunday- schools many, attended for the most part by adults, and multiplying so rapidly that the limited number of missionaries was totally unable to meet the requirements, with the result, of course, that little or no atten- tion could be given to the children.
We turned our inquiry toward South America, the neglected continent, with its thirty-five millions of population, more than five millions of whom are in spiritual darkness, without a ray of light, probably having never heard the name of Jesus Christ.
The rest of the population, with marvelously few exceptions, are under the influence of religious teachers, who, if they know the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, withhold it from the people. Civilization in South Amer- ica has advanced more rapidly than Christianization. The State College at Lima was one hundred years old when the cornerstone of Harvard was laid. The only country that can claim to be even moderately evan- gelized is British Guiana, with its one hundred and eighty-one Sunday- schools, with seventeen thousand officers, teachers, and scholars.
4. A Forward Movement
These and similar conditions existing elsewhere greatly impressed your committee when we met in Rome in 1907; and after much prayer, a for- ward movement was decided upon, and the following policy adopted:
The World's Sunday-School Association is interdenominational in character, and by cooperating with missionary organizations, and other- wise, seeks to extend the work and increase the efficiency of Sunday- schools, especially in those regions of the world most in need of help.
First. By focusing the attention of the Christian Church upon the Sunday-school as its most valuable agency in promoting a deeper interest in the work of foreign missions on the part of Sunday-schools in the home
field.
Second. By cooperating with missionaries and local and national Sunday-school unions and associations in mission fields, assisting them in their efforts to secure Sunday-school literature, and calling their at- tention to improved methods of Sunday-school work, especially along lines of organization, teacher training, and soul winning.
Third. By cultivating a deeper interest in the work of the Sunday- school on the part of missionary boards of the various denominations, and
Fourth. By sending expert Sunday-school workers to mission fields to assist in effecting national and local Sunday-school unions or associations
loo The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
The British and American sections of your committee, being separated by the Atlantic Ocean, divided responsibilities. The British section, in addition to the work already inaugurated on the continent of Europe and in India, assumed responsibility for opening up the work in China and South Africa. In addition to the work already well under way in Japan, Mexico, and the West Indies, to the American section was assigned Turkey, Northern Africa, the Congo Free State, Korea, the Philippines, and, later, Central and South America.
5. Results
In addition to the fostering care of a number of organizations in con- tinental Europe, and the sympathetic and practical work in India, the British section has, by cooperation with the National Chinese Sunday- School Union organized in 1907, entered upon a vigorous Sunday-school campaign in that country, which represents one fourth of the population of the entire world ; and have secured the promise of financial assistance quite sufficient to support a secretary for five years.
Our president spent six months in a visit to South Africa, attending no fewer than eighty-three conferences, institutes, and conventions, after which he visited Turkey, the Malay Peninsula, and China, returning to his home via the Siberian Railway. During this tour he delivered more than two hundred and fifty addresses and sermons, many of them in the direct interest of Sunday-school work.
Mr. Arthur Black, of Liverpool, a member of the British section, fol- lowed up the work of Dr. Meyer in South Africa, strengthening old unions and organizing new ones, with most encouraging results.
The American section has, by the cooperation of the International Sunday-School Association, continued to sustain the work in Mexico, the West Indies, and Japan, supplying a secretary in each of these fields; and to-day we can claim that for efficiency the work in these fields will compare favorably with the work in our best organized states or provinces.
Two missionaries have been trained for leadership in the Sunday- school in Korea. One of these, to our great sorrow and disappointment, the Rev. Mr. Sidebotham, met a tragic death as he was about sailing for Korea. The other, Rev. Mr. Holdcroft, is on the field, fully measuring up to our expectations. The indications are that he will be used of God in teaching thousands of Scripture-hungry Koreans how themselves to teach the Word of God to their children.
Substantial assistance has been given to missions in North Africa; to Bulgaria, to aid our missionaries there to publish a Sunday-school hymn book; to the central, west, and east Turkey missions to enable them
Report of Executive Committee loi
to supply much-needed Sunday-school literature; to the National Sunday- School Association of Italy for the same purpose; to which might be added the splendid work of the Ladies' Algerian Mission Band, an organi- zation growing out of the cruise to the convention to Rome, the admin- istration of which, however, does not come under the care of your Execu- tive Committee.
The American delegates, sailing on the ship Romanic, en voyage to the World's Fifth Sunday-School Convention in Rome, spent a day in Algiers, and were so deeply impressed with the spiritual and moral destitution of the people that they subscribed the magnificent sum of fifty thousand dollars to enable Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to organize and conduct a mission school in that city.
This money was pledged by delegates without regard to their denomi- national connection, illustrating in a practical way the oneness in mind and heart of those who are foremost in the work of the World's Sunday- School Association.
Through the organization of what we are pleased to name "A Bureau for Utilizing Waste Material," many Sunday-schools in the homeland have been interested in particular missions, to whom they send papers, illus- trations, home-made picture ablums, etc., composed of material which would otherwise find its way into the waste basket.
Much time and some money has been expended in our efforts to open up the work in South America, with but indifferent success.
Without expense to the Association we have secured seven thousand copies of the picture, "The Twentieth Century Sunday-School Crusaders," to be given to seven thousand Sunday-schools in mission lands.
6. Our Leadership
The most pronounced feature of the World's Sunday-School Association is the unmistakable evidence that the work is being guided by a wiser than human intelligence. The developments, especially during the last three years, cannot be explained upon any other hypothesis. How di- vinely we were guided in the choice of our president, just at a time when he was promised freedom from the cares of the pastorate for a period of three years! And he now returns to the pastorate after a service in the interests of Sunday-school work throughout the world, the influence of which cannot be described. The story will be told only in the language of heaven.
Christian unity has been emphasized in a wonderful way. Think of the presence in Jerusalem of the representatives of 25 countries and 27 religious bodies; while in Rome 27 countries and 53 religious denominations came together without a note of discord.
I02 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
" We are not divided, All one body we."
In every stage of the work of preparation for the convention the guiding hand of our heavenly Father has been manifested. We planned for a comparatively small convention, but as page after page was turned it became evident that He was planning greater things than we at the be- ginning could have conceived.
7. Interdenominational Unity
But a single note of interdenominational dissatisfaction with the work of the Association has disturbed the harmony of the triennial just closing. A splendid spirit has permeated our relations one with another. And indications are not wanting to show that there is in the minds of at least a few of the leading prelates of the Church of Rome a hope that the day will soon dawn when Protestantism and the Church of Rome will find some common ground from which they may conduct a campaign against a common enemy. Many illustrations could be given.
The closing week of 1909 witnessed the presence in the city of New York of a company of Catholic priests who had traveled from the middle West for the purpose of a conference with one of our missionary boards with a view of finding, if possible, a method by which Catholics and Prot- estants could work together in caring for the immigrants who were pour- ing into that section of the United States.
The Society of St. Jerome, in the preface of a new Translation of the Gospels, issued under the "Imprimatur" of the Vatican, speaks of Protes- tants as "our brethren of another propaganda."
Despite the recent occurrence in Italy, the Church of Rome is becoming more and more tolerant towards Protestantism. When this shall be- come as complete as the toleration with which the Church of Rome is regarded by Protestants, there will dawn a day of exceptional promise for the kingdom of Him whom we love.
8. World's Sunday-School Statistics
For one hundred and thirty years, Sunday-schools have been multi- plying the world around, but it has remained for this convention to pub- lish anything like an accurate report of the number in existence. During the triennium just closing, the mail-bags of every country on the face of the earth have carried inquiries from our statistical secretaries, regard ing the number of Sunday-schools and the enrollment of the same. Two hundred and fifty-five foreign missionary societies have lent us their machinery, and more than five hundred foreign missionaries, one for each
Report of Executive Committee 103
denomination in each country where the denomination is at work, have given us their active cooperation. These results have been again sub- mitted to prominent Sunday-school leaders in many lands for criticism and correction; and, while we may not have found every Sunday-school we feel reasonably sure of the number that will be given for each country. It is encouraging to note that the first real attempt to gather the sta- tistics reveals the fact that the figures secured show an increase in almost every land over the estimates previously printed. China was reported at Rome as having 105 Sunday-schools, with an enrollment of 6,317. Forty missionary societies at work in China report to us a total of 1,832 Sunday-schools, with a total enrollment of 73,781. Japan was reported at Rome as having 1,074 schools, with a total enrollment of 51,540. The reports just gathered give a total of 1,588 schools, with an enrollment of 104,204. Korea was not reported at Rome, but we have the following figures fresh from this most active mission field: 1,847 schools, with an enrollment of 142,724. The world's Sunday-school enrollment was re- ported at Rome as 255,544 schools, 2,419,444 officers and teachers 22,618,392 scholars, making a grand total of 25,037,836. The present figures, which will be reported in detail on Tuesday night, are 285,999 schools, 2,607,371 officers and teachers, 25,403,823 scholars, making a grand total of 28,011,194.
9. The President's Tour
In the month of June, 1907, our president. Dr. Meyer, greatly encour- aged your committee by accepting an invitation to spend two months in the United States during the spring of 1910. At a subsequent meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Sunday- School Asso- ciation, it was decided that Mr. Lawrance should accompany Dr. Meyer in a tour, visiting a number of the largest cities east of the Rocky Moun- tains, and holding conventions and conferences in the interest of organized Sunday-school work. Mr. E. O. Excell cheerfully consented to join Dr. Meyer and Mr. Lawrance in the tour, and assume full responsibility for the music.
The object as originally planned was to promote an interest in the World's Sunday-School Convention, but, months before the first meeting of the tour was held in New Orleans, the interest in the convention was so great that there was little need of further publicity, and therefore the members of the party were requested to do two things:
First. To encourage the observance of World's Sunday-School Day on the part of those who would not be permitted to attend the convention ; and
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Second. To promote the interests of organized Sunday-school work as represented by the international and state associations.
The tour was opened in New Orleans on schedule time, then followed meetings in Dallas, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Newark, Brooklyn, and Boston, closing with a meeting in Philadelphia, May 15 to 17.
Bishop J. C. Hartzell of Africa arranged to return to America in time to join the tour party at Chicago, a privilege denied him in large measure by severe illness in his family.
Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Sunday-School Association, was also present at the meetings in New Orleans, Dallas, Mobile, and Boston.
The party addressed two hundred and thirteen sessions, with a average attendance of from eight hundred to a thousand persons. Some of the audiences numbered three thousand. In each place visited, a conference was held with pastors, the average attendance being from two hundred and fifty to three hundred.
Concerning the president's tour Mr. Lawrance says: "The eight- thousand-mile Inspirational Sunday- School Tour which has just been completed has surpassed our highest hopes. It will without doubt be regarded as one of the greatest enterprises ever undertaken for the ad- vancement of organized Sunday-school work in America and in the world."
Past- President E. K. Warren says: "The tour party are doing work the value of which we cannot possibly realize at the present time. Our nearness to it prevents our proper appreciation."
Another writes: "Dr. Meyer's messages have been uplifting, heart- searching, and precious. Mr. Lawrance renders most satisfactory and effective service everywhere, and the music under the direction of Mr. Excell, assisted by Mr. Roper, greatly inspires our audiences."
A friend in Chicago writes, after the meetings there, "This city has just passed through the most wonderful series of Sunday-school meetings within my memory."
The tour party was favored with the presence of Mrs. Meyer through- out the entire journey.
Our heavenly Father has kept this company of consecrated workers in good health from the beginning, and we rejoice with them in the accom- plishment of a great purpose.
10. World's Sunday-School Day
Early in the triennium your committee designated Sunday, May 22, 1910, to be observed in all lands as World's Sunday- School Day. With
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exceptional care an order of service for use as an opening exercise by Sunday-schools was prepared; and through the cooperation of many of the two hundred and fifty-five foreign mission boards, representative missionaries, Sunday-school publishing houses, the religious press, and other less prominent agencies, the indications are that the order of service will be used in every important country and missionary center, in more than two hundred languages and dialects.
Ministers of the gospel everywhere have been requested to observe the day by preaching a sermon emphasizing the work of the Sunday- school, urging upon parents and guardians the importance of training the children and youth in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and to include in their prayers a petition for the blessings of almighty God upon this convention.
It is safe to assume that upon this day millions of God's children will form a golden chain of sympathetic interest in the work of the Sunday- school.
As A MEANS OF FOCUSING THE ATTENTION OF THE ChURCH UPON THE
Sunday-school as its most important agency in bringing acknowledge OF Jesus Christ to the world, your Committee attaches more im- portance TO the observance OF World's Sunday- School Day than
TO THE direct RESULTS OF THE CONVENTION, AND CONSIDERS IT WORTH TO THE CAUSE MANY TIMES THE LABOR AND EXPENSE INVOLVED.
II. Sunday-School Missionary Exposition
Under the auspices of the Young People's Missionary Movement, supported by a carefully chosen representative committee, the work of assembling material from many lands has gone steadily forward with most gratifying results.
At the National Rifles' Artillery Hall you will find the most complete exposition of the kind ever exhibited.
Please note the volume and variety of the Sunday-school literature and appliances within the reach of our home schools as compared with the paucity of material for use in schools in mission lands.
12. The Local Committee
Our appreciation of the splendid work of the Washington Local Com- mittee cannot be expressed in a single sentence. With an organization as nearly perfect as such things can be, they have gone steadily forward, meeting every emergency, overcoming difficulties one after another, with an efficiency which could not be realized without the efTorts of a body of gentlemen of great heart and mind.
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The actual cost of entertaining the convention, in time and money, will amount to a large sum, much larger indeed than was anticipated when the invitation for the convention to assemble in Washington was given, but there has not been a single intimation of wavering in their determi- nation to make this convention a notable event in the history of Sunday- school work.
After an experience covering a period of many years in connection with a more or less close relationship to plans for many conventions, for efficiency of organization and zealous performance of duty, I cheer- fully and cordially yield the palm to the Washington Local Committee.
13. Finances
By the assistance of good friends of the cause, we expect to close the triennium with all bills paid, including the cost of promoting the observ- ance of World's Sunday-School Day throughout the world, without using any funds which may be pledged at this convention for future work.
14. What of the Future?
Thus far the work of the World's Sunday- School Association has been performed without the employment of a paid secretary or field worker; but the doors of opportunity open before us in such number, revealing fields so rich in promise, that the American section of your Executive Committee at a recent meeting unanimously agreed that certain forward steps ought to be taken. Knowledge is responsibility. We know what are some of the conditions, and what are some of the needs.
We must have a secretary- to direct the work, a man of brain and heart and knowledge; a man who would be welcomed in social and religious circles anywhere; one who understands the genius of organized Sunday- school work; a man with a vision reaching far enough to encompass the world; who lives near the Throne, and has power with the King, and withal a willingness to consecrate his life to the one purpose of bringing a knowledge of Jesus Christ to every boy and girl in the world.
We must have a man for work in connection with our missions and schools in Turkey and other parts of the Moslem world. For three years our friends in Turkey have been pleading for a secretary capable of leader- ship in the work in that country.
We must have a man for work on the neglected continent of South America.
We must, for a time at least, continue to cooperate with the national Sunday-school associations of Japan and Mexico.
We must have a man to visit Korea and the Philippines, to do for the
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peoples of these countries what has been done in Japan and Mexico, by way of organization and support.
We must press forward in the stupendous w^ork of winning China, nor can we turn a deaf ear to the cry of Hungary and other needy continental countries. These and other fields are ripe for the harvest.
Then w^e must have means to properly equip and sustain a central office with the necessary clerical assistance, and to meet the cost of postage, printing, etc.
On every hand there is an appreciation of the fact that this department of the Church is moving forward with ever-increasing impetus, and gath- ering added strength with every step of the way. From the Sunday- school standpoint it is daybreak everywhere.
What a glorious thing it is to live in this epoch-making period of the twentieth century! New^ discoveries are being made and records broken nearly every other day. Six days from New York to Berlin is the latest time between these two cities. The era of air locomotion has been ushered in, and nations are wondering what will be the result in time of war. Recently the paper stated that the thousand-mile bicycle record had been reduced by several hours. And the automobile running on a country road challenges the speed of the locomotive running on steel rails. A few months ago a man returned after a successful trip to the North Pole for which search has been made for more than three hundred years, and in which more than three hundred lives have been sacrificed.
The world of spiritual effort, perseverance, and skill also has its tri- umphs, concerning which perhaps not so much noise is made, but which make larger contributions to the sum of human happiness than is pos- sible in any other field of eflFort. Since the dawning of the twentieth century progress has been made in the development of the work of the Sunday-school far in advance of any previous period of the world's history. Here, too, all previous records have been broken.
At the World's Convention in Jerusalem we gained a vision of our missionary responsibility as a Sunday-school body. At the Rome Con- vention that vision materialized in organization.
To-day there must be taken another forward step.
In Korea one hundred thousand believers are endeavoring to win a million souls in one year.
Who will join the Twentieth Century Sunday-School Crusaders?
Oh, the power of the Cross! Could we but realize and enter into the enjoyment of the privilege which is ours, it were an easy matter to add ten million to the membership of our Sunday-schools in the next three years — an increase of less than forty per cent. Shall this be the word which is to go down from this convention?
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What though your particular field be limited? Missionaries in some sections of the world tell us if they had the men and means they could organize a Sunday-school every day of the week. Your school may form a connection with some such field and your quota be reached in this way.
Believe it can be done, and it will be done. Let us but give expression to our faith, and looking to God for guidance, enter upon the campaign with courage, born of a conviction that by the blessing of God we can and will succeed.
" Up, for the sun is shining,
March, e'er the day is done! Strike; for the enemy trembleth; Shout, for the victory's won! "
A MESSAGE TO MISSION BOARDS
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, in session at Washing- ton, D. C, U. S. A., May 24, 1910, unanimously voted that the following official communication be sent to the Mission Boards of Protestant churches throughout the world:
''Dear Fellow-Laborers:
"i. Why We Address You. — Your opportunity for encouraging Sunday- school work in mission fields is very great. The providential relation of the Sunday-school to world-evangelism is marvelous. The Sunday- school era is synchronous with the modern missionary movement. When Robert Raikes was inspired with the idea of the Sunday-school, William Carey was divinely and deeply moved with the duty of foreign missions. These two era-producing movements arose and developed in vital rela- tion as mighty coordinate forces. They should be prosecuted as one evangelistic enterprise. Mission Boards should keep in view this vital correlation. Not all has been done that was and is possible with greater emphasis on this work. More thought and organized purpose is demanded by mission boards to reinforce this important agency.
"2. Importance of the Sunday-School in Missions. — Here is the most powerful agency for mission work, because it rests on two vital coordinate factors, the Bible and the young. The Bible is our most effective evangel- izer, and early years the most effective time. We have cogent testimony that the Sunday-school, resting on the Bible, is the hope of the Church in the foreign field, as well as in the home land. Sir Thomas Chambers said, 'The Sunday-school has altered the whole moral tone and raised the spiritual atmosphere of England.' Adam Smith said, 'No plan has promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the Apostles.' All this is tremendously true in relation to mission work. A Burma missionary is of the opinion that ' in one or two generations the mass of heathen children could be elevated by the Sunday-school to the condition of ordinary childhood in Christian coun- tries.' The editor of The Missionary Review of the World aptly says, Save the children and you save the world.' This is our plea: Preempt childhood with Bible truth and you win the world. The child problem is humanity's problem. Missionaries realize the enhanced difficulty of reach- ing adult life. The adult mass, scarred and hardened and blasted by paganism, is dark and almost impenetrable. The young, plastic and impressible present a hopeful field for evangelism. There are in the
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unevangelized world at least 500,000,000 children under fourteen years of age, more than all the present population of Christendom. Here is the great field for the missionary. If the Sunday-school has made an era in the home land, it can make an era more wonderful in the foreign field.
"3. Note the Success of the Sunday- School in Mission Work. — We would emphasize the foregoing statements by some facts. The World's Sunday-School Association and the International Sunday- School Con- ventions have been seeking to develop world-wide Sunday-school work. As a result we find organized interdenominational Sunday-school unions in such great fields as India, China, Japan, and Mexico. In India, where the first of such unions was founded, the success has been marvelous. The Sunday-School Union of India now employs a Sunday-school missioner and two general secretaries with their wives; has twenty-two auxiliaries covering a large part of Southern Asia; teaches the Bible in sixty lan- guages and dialects; conducts an annual lesson examination, and has an estimated membership of 600,000 in some 10,000 schools. This move- ment is more recent in Japan, China, and Mexico, and the results will be just what our missionary societies will make them. Experienced mis- sionaries testify to the great importance and marked success of the Sunday- school as a real mission agency in preempting and molding childhood and youth. In the most successful fields, the native church has been largely raised up through the Sunday-school. An India missionary testifies that ' the boys learn of Christ, commit to memory our hymns, and speak of the former and sing the latter at home and on the streets; the message thus delivered may be more powerful than a bazaar sermon. Another writes, ' A large proportion of our Christians have come from the Sabbath-school.' This school also develops the church in spiritual life and power by its Bible training. It raises up an army of lay workers on the field. As stated, non-Christian children of the Sunday-school carry the gospel and Christian song into millions of homes. Miss Russell, of Japan, tells how a native policeman asked her what she had done down in his ward of Nagasaki, the children had become so much better behaved. The Sunday-school had done it. Beautiful and touching instances are given by missionaries of childhood conversion through the Sunday-school.
" 4. How Your Boards can Help the Sunday-School in Missions.
" (a) In your denominational board meetings and in the conference of missionary secretaries now held annually, you can study deeply the opportunity and possibilities of the Sunday-school as a missionary agency. There is a marvelous power here to be utilized by mission boards. By careful planning under God much more can be done than has been done. The boards must rise to the opportunity. You cannot afford to over- look in any degree this fruitful agency.
Message to Theological Seminaries ill
" (6) Seek to develop more fully this form of work in your particular mission. Send experts to plan the work and apply improved Sunday- school methods. Encourage any genius there may be in this line in your field. One or more specialists are always to be found. Lay the Sunday- school on the hearts of your missionaries.
" (c) Urge the attention of your missionary training institutions, Bible schools, theological seminaries, normal schools, etc., to the importance of the Sunday-school. They can raise up and train specialists and quali- fied workers. This has been tested, with eminent success.
" (d) Have your missionaries cooperate with interdenominational Sunday-school movements in your mission field. Such unions are being developed in great utility in some of the large mission fields. And every mission should have its own local Sunday-school union in the confer- ence, synod, etc., which should line up with the interdenominational unions. Much is thus to be learned and suggested. Here is union giving strength.
" (e) Finally, give all possible financial support to your missionaries for equipment on Sunday-school lines. Encourage calls for aid. In view of what has been said, this is in importance a ' preferred ' claim, Here is your best opportunity. Money is needed for such Sunday-school appliances as Bibles, Sunday-school periodicals, libraries, lesson series, question books, catechisms, hymn books, tickets, mottoes, decorations, maps, charts, blackboards, musical instruments, etc. These are the munitions of war in the great Sunday-school campaign that bring vic- tory. The young people themselves have run up the flag with the motto: ' The world for Christ in this generation!' May God help you, fellow- workers of the mission boards, in this conquest of the world for Jesus, to see, as did Joshua, the angel of the Lord with drawn sword, ready to aid in the siege laid for the capture of the world's pagan Jericho."
MESSAGE TO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES
The convention also voted that the following official communication be sent to the presidents, faculties, boards of directors, boards of trustees, and other governing bodies of Protestant theological seminaries and schools of divinity throughout the world:
*' Dear Brethren in the Lord. — As you doubtless know, there has been in recent years a great deepening of interest in the Sunday-school as a means of Christian nurture and religious education, and widespread efforts are now in progress to increase the efficiency of the Sunday-school.
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Here, as elsewhere in the affairs of the church, the pastor is the leader. Without his leadership in particular in the Sunday-school, the work always suffers. Yet it is becoming increasingly evident that very many of our pastors either lack vital interest in Sunday-school effort or feel them- selves to be without qualifications to guide and shape this important department of the work of the church. We are not unmindful of the many pastors who are efficient, but refer rather to the large class who themselves avow their own lack of fitness for this particular department of Christian effort. Many of them have expressed their regret that no training was provided for them in this matter during their years of study at the seminary.
" In view of this condition, we venture to express to you the very gen; eral desire among those close to the Sunday-school work that our theo- logical seminaries lend us a helping hand in this great matter. You will please understand that what we suggest is not by way of criticism of the seminaries. They have done and are doing splendid work. But the recent increase in general education, and the growing interest in efficient Sunday-school organization and teaching, and the exceeding value, along with the difficulty of the work, seem to us to call for increased provision for it in the training of our pastors, upon whom so much depends.
" We ask your sympathetic consideration of the following very sig- nificant facts. For one thing, thousands of our Sunday-schools languish from lack of efficient teaching, and the absence of efficient teaching is due primarily to lack of efficient teacher training, and this in turn arises through the lack of leadership. So also many schools are practically without organization, especially in the smaller towns and rural communi- ties. Yet a vast literature of pedagogy has come into existence in recent years, especially of Sunday-school pedagogy, of which too many of our pastors are without any adequate knowledge. This whole movement for better Sunday-school organization, improved methods and ideals of teaching, and in general for increased Sunday-school efficiency, would be vastly reinforced if a greater number of our pastoral leaders were thoroughly prepared to cooperate with it in the most effective manner.
" Our seminaries have rendered very fine service in training our pas- tors to be preachers. Have they done equally well in training them to be teachers? Was not our Lord first of all a teacher?
" You are already aware of the importance of the Sunday-school as a base of supplies for the growth of the church. You know how large a proportion of the converts in our churches come from the Sunday- schools. These are commonplaces in the thought of to-day. Along with these facts perhaps we have not so fully grasped the value of the Sunday- school as a sphere of influence and as an instrument of power for the
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pastor. It is becoming more and more evident to us that we most of all now need a return to a new teaching age of the church if we are to develop fully its moral and spiritual power and render the best service to our civilization and age. We have reason to fear that the absence of definite instruction on the subject of the Sunday-school in our theological seminaries leaves many a graduate not only without qualifications for this work, but indifferent to it. His sense of its value has not been aroused in any part of his theological training, and it is difficult afterwards for him to change his point of view. You will doubtless be interested in the fact that several theological institutions have already undertaken this work in an effective manner. Lecture courses on the Sunday-school have been maintained in some institutions where provision for the endowment of a chair could not at once be made.
" Feeling sure that you will fully sympathize with the motive and spirit in which we address you, we have ventured thus to lay this matter upon your mind and heart. It may be that your school has already under- taken this work or that you are planning to do so. If so, we greatly re- joice with you. If not, we ask whether, in your opinion, such an addition to your work, by establishing so practical a connection between theological education and the needs of the Kingdom, would not be of exceeding value."
MEMORIAL TO EDINBURGH MISSIONARY CONFERENCE
The convention voted that a deputation consisting of Dr. H. M. Hamill,
chairman, Mr. C. G. Trumbull, and others to be selected, present the
following memorial to the great Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. «
" To THE President and Members of the Conference;
''Dear Brethren and Fellow- Workers in Christ, — We bring you greet- ings from the sixth session of the World's Sunday-School Convention, which met May 19-24 in Washington, D. C, the capital city of the United States of America. By that convention this formal memorial was adopted, and we were appointed as special commissioners to appear before you in its behalf. It is a fact deserving your notice, and doubtless most pleas- ing to you, that the series of six great World's Sunday-School conven- tions, beginning at London, England, in 1889, and meeting, at intervals of about five years, successively at St. Louis, 1893; London, 1898; Jeru- salem, 1904; Rome, 1907; and, last and greatest, at Washington, 1910, have all been preeminently missionary in program, membership, and Spirit, their supreme purpose being to aid in the speedy evangelization
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of the world through the agency of the Sunday-school. At the Rome Convention, for instance, there were I,ii8 delegates, representing 37 nations and 52 Christian denominations; and at Washington there were delegates from 24 nations and 47 denominations. At these conventions, for twenty years, missionaries from all lands have been prominent, and have been given places of honor upon the platform and in the council room. So thoroughly, indeed, has the missionary spirit dominated these great Sunday-school meetings, and so manifestly has the modern mis- sionary movement advanced pari passu with them, that we feel justified in ascribing to the World's Sunday-School Convention much of the mis- sionary inspiration and method that now pervade the minds and hearts of Christendom.
" From such hallowed missionary fellowship and service in another body we therefore come with gladness into this great conference; and, after the example of our Divine Master, we set the child of the Sunday- school in the midst of you and make our plea with confidence in his be- half as the central figure in all missionary thought and movement.
" The child is father to the man, and the teaching and training of the present generation of children are the sure prophecy of what the Church of the next generation shall be. Whatever future missionary enterprises shall move the world will be begotten in the minds and hearts of our Sunday-school boys and girls. We need not recall to your minds how strongly and repeatedly the history of Protestantism enforces the ad- monition to train up the child in the way he should go. Luther, when the great German Reformation seemed most deeply rooted, rested not from his labors until he had made provision for sowing the good seed of that Reformation in the lives of the children of Germany. *I would that my men were not preachers,' he said, 'except they have first been schoolmasters.' John Wesley, at fourscore years, watching with the eye of a statesman the progress and results of the Raikes Mission Schools in Great Britain, and jealous for the future of the English Reformation^ declared, 'If we do not commit it to the children of the Sunday-school, it will be res unius aetatis,^ a work of one brief age only. It is not an acci- dent in the genesis and growth of modern missions that an age of heroic missionary endeavor and world-wide progress should have been contem- poraneous with the rise and progress of modern Sunday-schools; or that Carey and Coke and Judson and Moffat, and other great pioneer mis- sionaries were true yoke-fellows in purpose and method with the Sunday- school disciples of Robert Raikes. It is, indeed, a significant fact, as the modem Sunday-school movement has been circling the globe with its new order of schools, its Bible in multiplying translations, its growing body of students, now numbering thirty millions, its outposts in all the
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stragetic centers of both Christendom and heathendom, its great con- ventions dotting the world, that moving apace with it, always within loving and sympathetic call, that other great movement, the modern missionary crusade, in many divisions but one mighty host, has been concentrating its forces resistlessly upon the conquest of the world for Christ within a generation. God grant unto them success and give unto all of us the wisdom to see that the children playing in the streets of Edin- burgh. London, Washington, and the great centers of the world to-day are to be the crusaders of to-morrow, the pillars of that greater missionary Church of the future, and the good soldiers of Jesus Christ in battles yet to be won.
" We, therefore, brethren, most earnestly plead that childhood shall be one of the favored subjects for consideration by this Conference, and that the Sunday-school shall be accorded its high place as an agency under Providence for the promotion of world-wide missions. 'If you wish to introduce any ideas into a nation's life,' said Von Humboldt, the German statesman, 'you must put them in the schools.' The Sunday- school has a two-fold missionary power. It creates and perpetuates the missionary spirit, and it also converts and trains, as no other agency can, the heathen child. It operates as the greatest possible evangelizing institution in both home and foreign fields. At home the Sunday-school is the missionary dynamo, giving light, heat, and motion to the rising generation; in heathen lands it is the point of contact, the 'open door,' the surest and speediest means of missionary success. That 'heaven lies about us in our infancy,' as Wordsworth sang, is as true of the child of China and India as of Scotland and America. Bishop William Taylor, the 'lion of Africa,' often thrilled the hearts of his hearers as he told how after years of failure in attempts at adult evangelization, there came to him the realization that the African child, fresh from the hand of the Creator, was God's favored subject of salvation; and after this discovery by the great American missionary, there followed the first real fruits of his twenty years in the Dark Continent. In Japan and China and India the keen eyes of the aroused and imitative Orientals are turning eagerly to Christian lands for everything but the gospel of Christ. Shin- toism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, though discredited, are deemed good enough religions for the adult mind. But, with a pathos beyond words of expression, the children of these benighted countries are wel- coming with heaven-born gladness the Sunday-school teacher, with his Christ songs and pictures and his Bible stories. Some of us, out of our personal experiences, can testify how in heathen lands the little mis- sionary Sunday-school, though meagerly equipped and housed in un- seemly places and sorely handicapped in many ways, becomes the sure
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precursor of a congregation of believers, a church edifice, a native pastor and the center of moral and spiritual power in a community of idol-wor- shipers; while the most earnest and prolonged efforts at adult conversion often end in failure and heartache. No one knows better than the veteran missionary how difficult and unsatisfactory is the problem of saving the adult heathen, yet how easy it is to take the. child of the Orient by the hand and lead his tiny steps into the open door of Christ's kingdom. And no one wonders more than this same veteran over the slow appre- hension of this mighty child-key to missions by some of the mission boards and home secretaries and leaders. In several great books on modern missions, issuing within recent years from church presses, as a missionary has recently and pointedly remarked, there is not even a solitary chapter upon the Sunday-school as related to the method and growth of missions. A hundred glowing chapters set forth all possible facts and forms of missionary endeavor as affecting adult missionary work in home and foreign fields, but not one chapter is devoted to that mighty host of thirty millions of children and youth, marshaled each sabbath day in a half million Sunday-schools around the world, studying the Bible more and more as God's great handbook of missions, learning by missionary drill and song and letter and by story and picture and chart and map the knowledge of child-life and missionary enterprise in heathen lands, trained to pray for the heroic host of missionaries and the unsaved millions to whom they minister, and to give with increasing system, intelligence, and generosity to every missionary enterprise, and, best of all, learning in the golden years of youth to hear God's call to missionar^^ service, and making ready for the day when the Church shall confirm it.
" Such is this mighty missionary force of the modern Sunday-school, depreciated and neglected by some, and too long underestimated by all of us, yet surely coming, in these last days, to be recognized by the Church as its supreme missionary agency and opportunity."
GENERAL ADDRESSES
Rev. F. B. MEYER . . . President W. H. TAFT .
Bishop W. M. BELL . . . Rev. HOMER C. STUNTZ
and
Rev. S. PARKES CADMAN Dr. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN
The Convention Sermon. Address of Welcome.
" Many Nations but One Church."
} " The Transforming Power of the Word ^ of God."
" Four Elements in the Conception of the Sunday-School Teacher."
Rev.ERNESTBOURNER ALLEN, "The Sunday-School and the Nation." Miss MARGARET SLATTERY, "As Thyself."
Rev. RICHARD ROBERTS . . "Jesus Christ the Ruler of Nations." Rev. ERNEST A. DOWSETT . "Jesus and the Children."
Rev. A. L. PHILLIPS. . Rev. E. M. FERGUSSON Rev. H. M. HAMILL . . Rev. CAREY BONNER .
" The Strength of the Sunday-School — Measured, i. By Its Literature; 2. Conventions; 3. Personnel; 4. Results."
Rev. S. D. PRICE "Utilizing the Waste Material."
THE POSSIBILITIES OF CHILD-LIFE
Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A., London, England
" Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou estabHshed strength, because of thine adversaries, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." Psa. 8: 2.
The main thought in this psalm is the contrast between Bigness and Greatness. The universe is Big, but the smallest babe is Great — and greatness is more than bigness.
The bigness of the universe is viewed from the platform of this psalm — day and night. Here is the day-scene. " Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth." The eye sweeps over the panorama of the earth, its cornfields, mountains and lakes, its villages and cities, and as everywhere she is clothed in fairest beauty, through commerce with the sun, it is impossible to repress the exclamation: " How excellent is thy name in all the earth! "
A night-scene is suggested in the third verse. David looks on the heavens as tapestry woven by God's fingers, — the moon and stars as ordained by him. How much greater would his wonder have been, had he lived to-day, and known what we know of the vast distances of space, the gulf which separates us from the nearer fixed star, the constitution of the Milky Way, each starting point of which is a sun with its attendant worlds.
What tongue can set forth the deep thoughts that the midnight sky reveals to open eyes! Each generation that has looked into those star-lit spaces has been awed and stilled before their unspoken language. And yet, when compared with man, all this vast array of the material world sinks into insignificance. What is it when compared with a being made in the image of God and destined to live, when all these things have passed away as a dream? " The heavens shall perish, but thou remainest."
The universe is big, but a little child is Great. Whatever you may say of the magnificence or size of the nursery, you must admit that the babe which lies in yonder cradle is worth more than all its surroundings. The fabrics cast off from God's loins differ widely as the star-light, the rainbow dust, and the impalpable ether; but there is no material so rare and precious as the soul-plasmon, enshrined in the nature of a child. It is capable of becoming a John the beloved, or a Judas the apostate. Such soul-plasmon, capable of infinite happiness or misery, is placed in the charge of each parent, teacher, and pastor.
Infinite issues depend on the direction given to each young life, which
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may well appall us. Arnold of Rugby used to say that if the time came when he could receive a boy from his parents without caution, he would consider that the time had come for him to resign his position.
The infinite value of a child is attested by its susceptibility for God. " What is the son of man, that thou visitest him? " Frederick Harrison, the agnostic, in his autobiography, says, " You put yourself in the planetary space, a mere dot, and think that the almighty Maker can have discern- ment of you! " He postulates the existence of the Infinite, and then denies him the power to discern the minute. But surely if God is great enough to create worlds, he is great enough to regard the infinitesimal. The power which passes, on the one hand, beyond the range of the telescope, must pass equally beyond that of the microscope. He can tell the stars and call them by their names; he must be able to number the hairs of our heads.
The fact is that we put a wrong emphasis on these words. We quote them thus, " What is man! " Whereas we ought to quote them thus, " What is man, since thou visitest him! " Suppose that in an inconspicuous street of a great city a man has dwelt for years almost unrecognized by his neighbors. He has gone to and fro about his lowly duties, with hardly a greeting. But one day there is an unusual commotion in the street because a prominent scientist, or some other magnate, arrives at that poor house on a visit. Will not the whole neighborhood, as it sees the two men in intimate fellow- ship, awake suddenly to realize that its unrecognized neighbor is an alto- gether extraordinary person?
It is in this sense that we must read our text. How great is the son of man, since God can visit him, and find something in him, which responds to his own nature and satisfies the hunger of his heart for love! But does God visit even a little child? Certainly! " Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any — ." " Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." " Jesus called a little child unto him." The fact that a child may receive and believe in him proves conclusively that it has a profound affinity with the Son of God; and on this account, it outweighs in value all the universe in which it lives. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings " thou receivest praise which creation's myriad voices never equal.
The child's greatness is attested, also, by its capacity for rule. " Thou madest him to have dominion." Listen to the ancient word, — " And God said, Let us make man after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish, the fowl, and the cattle." It was then, in man's creation after the original weal, that man was crowned with glory and honor, and all things were put under his feet: Sheep and oxen are domestic animals, whilst the beasts of the field are the wild things of the forest. Alas, that crown has rolled from man's brow, though there are traces still of his ancient
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power. The lion cannot face his eye, the forest is silent as man's voice is heard in its glades. Indeed, man's empire has advanced beyond the psalmist's most sanguine dreams.
Man has acquired, lately, dominion over the air, which he navigates as his forefathers did the ocean. He has dominion over the swift lightning, and compels it to propel his locomotives and automobiles. He has dominion over the ether, and compels it to carry his messages from continent to continent. One has only to traverse this astonishing country to find abundant confirmation of our text.
Side by side, however, with our dominance over nature, it is true, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, that we see not yet all things put under man (Heb. 2). Stand beside the drinking-saloon, whence men and women emerge from whom alcohol has blotted all semblance of royalty. Read the record of some brutal prize-fight, where poor men batter each other's humanity, meant to be God's temple, to give pleasure to rich men, as brutalized as themselves. Think how, under cover of darkness, men and women cast themselves beneath the heavy wheels of the Juggernaut-car of passion. But what a comfort it is to lift our eyes, and see Jesus, who for the suffering of death has been crowned with glory and honor.
Jesus, enthroned and glorified, is the type and pattern of the height to which any child of Adam's race may be raised. That little child in your arms may not only become President of the United States, or other great statesman, preacher, writer, of the next age, but may share Christ's throne, may reign with him in light, may sit beside him in heavenly places, because it is written, " He hath washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us unto our Lord, kings and priests."
The third attestation of a child's greatness is given in the destined ultimate supremacy of the child's type of religion.
" Thou hast ordained strength out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." From the pure calm heavens, the psalmist turns to the contrast presented by the existence of moral evil. There are everywhere the enemy and the avenger; but they shall be stilled and silenced by the child-heart, with its simplicity, purity, and praise: " For God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to put to shame the strong and base things of the world, and things that are despised, and things that are not, that he may bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh may glory in his presence."
There are two types of religion. The first is that of the understanding, of tradition, of the unchanging shibboleth, of outward ceremonial; very clever, very exacting, very precise; every i dotted, every / crossed. It is the religion of the schools, the creeds, the heritage of church councils, the result of the tangled arenas of theological dispute. Will these formularies
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still the enemy and the avenger? Never! The body may carefully be posed, equipped in mail, and yet be dead, the hand nerveless, the eye lusterless.
The second is the religion of the heart, — reflecting such glimpses of eternal Truth and Beauty, which are possible to men. The Love that is attracted by nobility and purity; the Thought that is so deep, because so artless; the Faith that finds resistless reason in the beauty and goodness of things; the Humility that takes the lowest place; the snow-white Inno- cence that becomes purity of flame; the Forgivingness that takes no account of evil. The one is the religion of the man, the other of the child.
Take them out under the midnight sky, and tell me which is most in harmony with its pure serenity. Tell me which of the two is most fit to become greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Tell me which is likeliest to subdue the moral evil of the world. We need not argue the point further. The least acquaintance with the nature of things convinces us that not doc- trines, not creeds, not disputations, but the Love, Faith, and Forgiveness of the child-heart, are destined to conquer the world for God. It is surely wise, then, for the church of today to set the child in its midst, and turn again, and be converted. " I thank thee, O Father," said our Lord, " that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent, and didst reveal them unto babes." " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." To them it is given, and to the type of religion for which they stand, to still the enemy and the avenger.
This is what our Lord must have meant, when on the Tuesday in Passion- week, he quoted this verse to his critics. Outside there was a rim of sour- faced and bitter enemies; within there was an inner circle of sweet boys and girls. They were his stronghold. Their songs were perfected praise, and the best answer to the contemptuous criticism of his foes. That circle has been enlarging ever since. The first age of the church, the apostle beheld one hundred and forty-four thousand of them following the Lamb whithersoever he went; and who shall compute the number now, when from our homes he has called our sweetest and dearest to learn that song? And they have gone to him, without shyness and without fear. "In the beauties of holiness, as from the womb of the morning, thou hast thy little ones, pure and refreshing, and gentle as the dew-drops."
The enemy and avenger are abroad in Christian lands.
The drinking-saloon and the house of infamy; the desecration of the rest-day, and the purveyor of noxious literature ; the obscenity of the low music-hall, and the suggestiveness of moving-pictures, — these are among the enemies that prey on the vitals of Christian communities and cities. But they shall be stilled. Christ shall ultimately bring in his kingdom, in which there shall be nothing that deflects or worketh abomination or maketh a lie. And how? The solution of the World's Sunday-School
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Association is this: Gather all children into Sunday-schools. Let it be the objective of the teachers to win each one of them for God. Imbue them with taste so habituated to purity that they shall abhor whatever is in dis- sonance with them. Then they in turn will make the new state; and in- stead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree.
The enemy and avenger are abroad in heathendom.
Whatever may be said, theoretically, about their living up to the light they have, it is certain that the few who do so are a comparatively small minority. The descriptions given in Rom. i and Eph. 2 are only too true. Infanticide and superstition, cruelty and uncleanness, almost unchecked, reign and flourish. What can arrest them? Again the hope of the world is in work among the children. Let them be gathered into the schools of the missionary compounds for Sunday instruction. Many would come to this, who might be unwilling for the instruction of the week-day.
On the other hand, let the children at home be imbued with the mission- ary spirit. Let them be trained in a missionary atmosphere, and accus- tomed to respond to missionary appeals. Let their objective be the salva- tion of the children of heathendom. The hope of the evangelization of the world is in the evangelization of the children of the world. That is a more inviting task than to combat and disentwine the ingrained habits and prejudices of the adults.
In every child there is a susceptibility for God, which waits to be supplied with its appropriate object. As you present light to the eye and music to the ear, so you must present God in Christ to the child's nature; and its glad response will be faith. Simultaneously with that earliest look into the face of Christ, the spirit of Christ will perform his share in the crisis of the soul's life. It will be the moment of regeneration; for to as many as receive him, — i. e., who believe in his name, — the right is given to become sons of God, who are born, not of the will of the flesh, but of God.
The greatness of this divine act may not be recognized at the time. The dawn breaks so gradually that it is often impossible to fix its precise moment. The King of the inner city enters so early and gently that his presence is not realized at first, though afterwards it becomes the habitual experience of every waking hour.
The duty of the teacher is, therefore, to present Christ to the child. It is not necessary to drive it in upon itself to consider the processes which are set in operation. Instinctively the tendrils of the young soul will begin to entwine themselves around him; and simultaneously the Spirit of Life will crown the teacher's faithful endeavor with the divine fact of regeneration. Nothing less will satisfy the true teacher!
Let us all come back to the child-heart, with its lowliness and meekness,
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its unconsciousness and simplicity, its faith and love. In the Old Testament we are told of Naaman, who, marked with a warrior's scars, dipped seven times in the river, and his flesh came to him as the flesh of a little child. This combination should be the aim of all our striving, the stature and strength of manhood, with the clean and tender heart of a little child.
THE PRESIDENT'S ESTIMATE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL
Hon. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
President of the United States
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of. the World's Sunday- School Association, — One remark of your presiding officer sank so deeply into my mind that I must comment upon it at once. I hope he will continue to pray for the President of the United States. My experience is that it is needed.
It is a great honor to welcome to Washington, the city beautiful, a world's convention at a time when the city is most beautiful. From all parts of the world we welcome here the representatives of one of the two or three great instrumentalities for making the world better, for making it more moral, and for making it more religious.
As the twig is bent, so will the tree grow. Youth is the time to inculcate for lasting results moral and religious ideas. Our public-school education, under the system which, with various denominations, we are obliged to adopt, is only secular teaching, with the teaching of morality in general. But that is not enough, There are those who feel as if it were dangerous to have education at all unless associated with religious education; but we in our country, under our system, have not found it practical to have public education associated with distinctly religious education. Therefore we feel, even more than in countries where that is possible, the necessity for Sunday-schools.
Sunday-School Education Necessary
No matter what views are taken of general education, we all agree — Protes- tant, Catholic, and Jew alike — that Sunday-school education is absolutely necessary to secure moral uplift and religious spirit.
The invention of the Sunday-school is accredited to Robert Raikes in 1780 or 1 78 1. That there had been something equivalent to the Sunday- school, in one form or another, for centuries before that is doubtless true, and I think history shows that we knew something of the Sunday-school in this country before that time; but I think it was Mr. Raikes who pressed
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upon his countrymen the necessity for the use of this instrumentality in forwarding religion. At a time when he brought it forward the Sunday- school had to supply some of the uses of the great public schools of to-day, but it is undoubtedly true that the impulse which he gave to religious thought and religious fervor in those days had much to do with adding to the revival of religion under the inspiration of the evangelists, and of Wesley and others, who made that revival in the eighteenth century so noteworthy.
Adam Smith, Hannah More, and Rowland Hill, the man who gave us the post-office in most of its useful features, introduced the Sunday-school into London. It showed that Mr. Hill's mind was not only occupied with one means of spreading education, but that it also took up the subject of religious education as well. There were, as there will always be, in the spreading of any useful movement, conscientious members of the church who were opposed to the Sunday-school, but they have disappeared.
The Spread of the Sunday-School
The spread of the Sunday-school, the organization of the Sunday-School Union, in 1875, and the counting of heads a few years later, showed 200,000 pupils in the schools. In this country the Sunday-School Union and the spread of the Sunday-school movement seems to have been even wider and more thorough than in any other part of the world, — i ,600,000 teachers and 13,500,000 pupils, against 1,000,000 teachers and 12,000,000 pupils in the rest of the world. A movement of such strength is one we ought to welcome in every community, and testify to the respect we have for the good which it is doing.
It seems a work of supererogation to talk about the advantage of begin- ning moral and religious instruction with the earliest youth. We do not have to convince each other that that which we learn in youth lasts longest with us.
Influence of the Teachers
There is another great advantage connected with the Sunday-school teaching, namely, that it commands without money and without price one eighth as many teachers are there are pupils, who give their time to this work. I want to say that I believe the influence of the Sunday-school upon the teachers is in some respects even more beneficial than its influence upon the pupils. A boy or girl is a boy or girl. They take in moral lessons and they occasionally forget them. They learn their Bible verses, and some retain them, but many lose them. But the education that the teacher gets in preparing himself or herself to teach another, the responsibility that he
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assumes in developing tlie religious character of another, and the necessary depth and fervor of spirit which he must develop, if he is not a hypocrite, in trying to lead others, necessarily elevates him in a way which would be otherwise impossible.
Welcome to Washington
And now, my friends, I welcome you to Washington. I welcome you here with the hope that this convention, as the many others that you have had, may bring about a comparison of methods of teaching, an improve- ment in the methods of teaching, and an improvement in the way to awaken the hearts and souls of your little pupils, and that you may carry away from Washington the feeling that this meeting has done something to make progress in the great work of which you are guardians throughout the world.
The reference of your distinguished president to the death of the late king, and the feeling of mourning which it awakened on both sides of the ocean, brings to mind how much such a world's convention as this means in the perpetuation of the peace of nations and the love of each for the other.
MANY NATIONS BUT ONE CHURCH
Bishop William M. Bell, D.D., San Francisco, California
A STUDY of the political boundaries of the earth from century to century is both interesting and profitable. The facts that account for the segre- gating of the race into governmental groups deserve the careful attention of all intelligent people. The interpretation of the facts is no child's task.
The causes of division may well be noted and challenged; challenged in this age as never before. Many causes combine to lead to fresh inquiry as to the occasion and the tendency.
Many of the nations of the world, it is declared, are giving evidence of a growing national spirit and consciousness. It is certain, however, that the spirit of international interest and fellowship is growing with an unequaled rapidity at the present time. All the Christian nations are feeling the burden of race-wide welfare as never in human history. A growing humanism is tempering racial and class asperities; is overcoming prejudices and bridging over the chasms of separation.
A better world here and now is in the sympathetic thought of more people at this moment than in any previous age. More people are facing the searching demands of duty for personal and substantial devotion to the herculean task of universal human betterment than ever before.
There is a growing discernment of the fundamentals of social progress and efficiency; of political administrations and methods; of commercial stability and thrift; of economic adjustments and ideals. In proportion as these fundamentals of efficient government are popularized and made dominant throughout the world, in that proportion will the desire for isolated political existence and administration disappear. When all the nations of the earth have reached the altitude of Christ control, in the broad and comprehensive sense, they will flow together like drops of water.
Our modern world only needs to accept the purifying touch of the supreme and masterful Master, upon whose shoulders the prophet said the government should finally be, to make the race approximate political unity. In God's over-ruling providence the nations of the earth have each and all, as we may hope, fulfilled some distinct and noble mission, but the hour of a much larger expression of human brotherliness and brotherhood seems to be now due.
Isolation, lack of acquaintance, the different languages, imaginary or real divergence of interests, have all conspired to make many nations.
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But, above all these, the lack of common ideals may now be said to en- courage political divisions. For all constructive civilization and process, Christ is the essential vitalization. He himself is the vital ideal and potency. The world is slowly but surely moving upward to a mighty concentration on the Christ objectives. As individuals, groups, and nations reach his viewpoint we shall witness all sorts of unifying processes rapidly changing the temper, aspirations, and policies of nations. Who can be certain that our children may not see and participate in the United States of Great Britain and America?
Nations, governments, and the religious denominations are but means to certain desirable and constructive ends. The ends must be forever exalted in all sane thinking, above the means. All organism fails of right and claim as compared to life. Organizations of Christians for religious propaganda, or of citizens for governmental administrations, may change form or pass away, but the constructive spirit, life, and message of Christ and human government has the inherent right to new incarnation from age to age. The public welfare, the spiritual salvation and emanci- pation of all mankind, are the eads that must be exalted in any and all political or ecclesiastical organization.
Theoretically and mystically the Church is one, but, far more than it is now, it must become organically and really one. A growing fraternity between the nations is paralleled by a growing fraternity between the churches; but the Christian world is being impelled to more than a senti- mental fraternity.
Bonds of union stronger than federation must bring into coordination and aggregation the great body of Christians throughout the world. Babel was divisive, and Pentecost is unifying. The baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost will unite a divided Christendom. On the anvil of the main issue the white heat of the Pentecost will weld the churches into unity. Christ made known, apprehended, experienced, as the universal Saviour, is immediately potent for universal brotherhood, pledged and dominated for universal human betterment.
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD
Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, D.D., New York
God's Word is full of witness to its own power. God says of his own Word, "My Word shall not return unto me void." That is not prophecy, that is the determination of omnipotence.
" My Word shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that
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which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing to which I have sent it. " " M}' Word is a hammer, and is a fire." " My Word is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing and dividing asunder, and discerning the thought and intents of the heart." All the ages are bearing witness to the truth of this great claim that in the Word of God there is transforming power, because it reveals to us him. It has been my lot, in the something like fourteen years that I have been a foreign missionary in India, Malayasia and the Philippine Islands, to see some remarkable proofs that these claims for the Word of God are true. I shall spend my time to-night in giving you a few of them.
One of the first things our government did after Dewey had made that addition to the growing submarine navy of Spain, was to issue this order: " During the sovereignty of the United States government over the Fili- pino people, liberty of conscience and of worship shall be guaranteed to every inhabitant of the Philippine archipelago by all the resources of the paramount nation." We set eight million people free from an intolerable ecclesiastical despotism, to become a people.
I had been in the Philippine Islands about six months, possibly a little less, when a splendid looking young Filipino came to me, and asked for a private interview. He wanted the doors closed, and then he wanted the large sliding windows of the house closed. When we were all alone he said to me, with evidence of deep agitation, " I have come many miles to ask you one question which means more to us Filipinos than any other ques- tion I could ask." I could not imagine what the man wanted. He said, " I want to know of you, sir, if it is now safe — the soldiers tell me it is, but I cannot believe it — to have a copy of the Protestant Bible in my house and read it to my family? " Well, I did not look particularly inter- ested, I suppose. I had been so long accustomed to that, that it struck me as being a little bit tepid and insipid.
He saw that I was not impressed and he said: " Sir, this is a very impor- tant question to us Filipinos. You know, the law under which we have lived here is this " — and then he quoted to me part of the law, Section 219 of the Penal Code of Spain in the Philippines. "If any person or persons shall preach or teach or otherwise maintain any doctrine or doc- trines not established by the state, he shall be deemed guilty of a crime, and shall be punished at the discretion of the judge." He said, " Under the operation of that law my father was dragged from our house, and we never saw him again alive. That was when I was eleven years old. I have sup- ported my mother the best I could, and now I have a wife and two children. I want to know if it is safe." I shall never forget the thrill of pride I felt when I went to the window and opened it, and pointed to our flag flying over the city, and said to him, "My dear fellow, while that flag flies over
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this city you may take the Bible and climb up on the ridge pole of your house at twelve o'clock every day, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and read it out your loudest if you want to."
Three months later I went into that man's house, one hundred miles out in the provinces. He gave me a little supper of eight or nine courses, with all the leading men of the town present. After supper I began to preach at half past seven, through an interpreter, and preached until midnight; and I announced the service of the next day at six o'clock. There were five hundred people in line at five o'clock. I left town after four and a half days, with a church of one hundred and ninety-two members, and materials and money enough to build a church and also a lot, with the deed made out. That man was the first man to be converted, and was the second Filipino to be received as a minister in the annual conference of our church in the Philippines, and last winter was chosen to write the Sunday-school lesson notes for four of the denominations of the Philippine Islands. Talk about the transforming power of the Word of God! I would to God I might introduce to you to-night Teodoro Vasconcillo; I am sure you would give him an ovation, and through him an ovation to that mighty Word of God which transforms the lives of individuals and of nations, and makes the kingdom of God come on earth.
A little whole after I went to the Philippine Islands, I had an invita- tion to go out into the country about eight miles and baptize the children of one of the leading men. I could not go; I sent one of the missionaries. The man had hired an orchestra, and had built a little chapel for the service with his own money. The children were baptized and a little service was held. Our missionary asked him if he was a Catholic. He swore freely and artistically about the whole situation. There was no doing anything with him. Afterwards we asked what his business was, and found he was the owner of two gambling houses and two cockpits. When I asked one of the men of the town if he was a bright man, he said, " He began life as a driver of hired coaches, and now he is the richest man in town, and only forty years old."
That man, the third or fourth month we began our work there, began to take an interest. He bought a Bible. He began at the Book of Isaiah by my advice. I did not know how much he would understand of the whole book. He took Isaiah and the Gospel of John, and the Epistle to the Ephesians, and started in on that. He came in to me on the third afternoon and sat down and said, " I want you to explain this thing. I have read over here, in the sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, about the Lord, high and lifted up, and his train filling the temple, and I do not understand it. Is that figurative or literal, — figurativo 6 literal? What about it? " I went on and explained it to him.
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He brought a number of friends with him, and as he spoke a language or two besides Spanish, as soon as I began to explain about the coal touch- ing the lips, and the different parts, tears began to run down his cheeks, and he said, " Wait a minute " ; and then he would pour out first to this group and then to another, in the language they understood, that which I had explained to him. That man was afterwards powerfully converted, and after a tremendous spiritual struggle put padlocks on the doors of both his cockpits, rented both his gambling dens for legitimate business purposes, and for seven years has given his entire time to preaching the gospel at his own expense in the Philippine Islands.
Some months before I had to come away from the Philippine Islands on account of ill-health, one of our missionaries began a crusade against gambling. There never had been any voice lifted up in the Philippines against gambling by anybody; even those who were said to be moral leaders had the roulette wheel at their fairs, and the lottery was running full blast, and all unrebuked everywhere. The evangelical unions of the several Protestant missions began a tremendous campaign against the gambling habit, the outstanding vice of the Filipino. We took a great theater, seating eighteen hundred people. The race-track people in the city hired a lot of lewd fellows of the basest sort, and armed them with decayed vegetables and other missiles appropriate to their nefarious errand, and sent them to the theater to intimidate the speakers and break up the meeting. They put up a missionary, and after warding off the missiles for a minute or two, he gave it up.
Then they put up Simeon Bias, the converted gambler, the man whose life was transformed by the power of the Word of God, and they threw missiles at him until they piled up about his feet. He warded them off with his hands and went on, and rode down the storm. The chairman, being a man of acumen and penetration, saw it would not do to break the tide, so he passed the resolutions up to Simeon Bias, and he read them, and that great crowd of eighteen hundred Filipinos voted, apparently to a man, to ask the commission to pass rules, which they later passed, curbing the race- track evil and resulting in the closing of more than three hundred cockpits.
Let me give you just one incident that occurred over across the bay. Over in China, some years ago, there was a young fellow who was employed as the keeper of a gate in a missionary station compound, a Chinese lad of good education for his chance in life, and he gave his heart to God, after reading hourly, daily, and monthly, as he sat at his post of duty at the gate of the compound, the Word of God. He was married in his infancy, of course, — as they all are, — and the wife to whom he was married was not a Christian. When he married her he told her she must become a Christian, for in China they have the idea that the husband has the right to have his
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own way in his own home. She said she did not want to be a Christian, and he said she must be a Christian. She finally intimated more or less bluntly that she would not. Then, I regret to say, this man who had joined our church only a little while before, and had therefore not had very much training in the things of religion, took his wife to a secluded part of the missionary compound and persuaded her to be a Christian.
It is intimated by those who relate the incident that the pursuasion was of a somewhat emphatic character. At any rate, she outwardly gave her assent to the doctrines of the Christian faith, and after a year or two, more or less, unwillingly connected herself with the church. That is a discourag- ing beginning, is it not? That is beginning away down at the ground, is it not? Very well. I pass right over the years to the Boxer Movement, simply saying that the family had four sons and two daughters. Every one of the sons entered the ministry and every one of the daughters married a preacher. It was just a clean sweep of the family.
At the time of the Boxer Movement, one of the grandsons of the woman who was unwilling to begin to be a Christian was pastor of a church out about sixty miles or so from Peking. The Boxers seized him and his wife and daughter. They dragged him into the market place, and made the pattern of the cross in the dust. Then they said, " If you will stamp upon that cross, we will spare your life. We will not ask your wife to make any sign, or your daughter, but if you will just stamp on that cross with your foot we will spare you; if not, we must kill you." He said, " I can- not do it. My father and my father's father have been loyal to Jesus Christ and God, and I must not be disloyal in that way." He began to exhort them to turn to Jesus Christ, who loved them all; but they fell upon him and cut off his lips and cut out his tongue, and they tortured him right before his wife and daughter. The finally put all three of them to death, and carried their heads on pikes around the town.
Their son at the time was a student in the Peking University, preparing for the ministry, — the oldest son. When he finished his course, about three or four years ago, our bishop asked him where he preferred to work, if he had any preference, and the young man, with a break in his voice and tears in his eyes, said, " Bishop, I do not know if you will consider me worthy of such an appointment, but I have had a great longing come up in my heart to go to the town where they killed my father and mother and sister, and preach Jesus Christ and his love to them. If you cannot see your way to appoint me there, I have no other preference to express."
Men, that man today, by the transforming power of God's Word, working down through the generations from that grandfather to himself, is preaching the love of a crucified and risen Redeemer, who said from his cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do " ; preaching him, and his
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power to save, and his love and his glory to the very men and women who butchered his own father and mother and sister, and carried their heads about that very town in scorn and derision.
I bear my testimony before you to-night that up and down the heathen world, among eight or nine hundred millions of non-Christian people, God's Word is transforming hundreds of thousands — yes, millions of lives, changing them from the power of Satan unto God, turning them from darkness unto light, opening the prison house to them that are bound, and proclaiming unto them the acceptable year of the Lord.
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD
Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D.D., New York
We have now come to the time when we should lay aside even those things that do so easily beset a gathering of this kind, and throw our souls in absolute faith and utter dependence upon the naked fact of God and Jesus Christ.
The news we get from near and far, the triumphs of God's truth among the different nations of mankind, should certainly compel us to remember our past and to revise our present, and to make ourselves with lit lamp and girt loins, more than ever insistent, devoted, and consecrated for the days to come. When a preceding speaker said we had been honored today by the House of Representatives adjourning in our behalf, he should have added that they, too, had been honored, for they were honored just as much as we were. I wish we could have the Senate of the United States here to-night. We could do them a power of good. Neither would I mind having the Speaker of the House here, because there is no doubt in my mind that they would not have been there if the men who preceded us in this holy enterprise had not done what they did.
It was through religion, the religion of the Lord Christ under the sanctions of the Protestant conscience, formed under law, that representative govern- ment began to be among our people. It is a far cry, from Alfred the Great to King Edward VII, the Peacemaker of mankind and enfranchised citizen of the world, but in the millennium of unutterable splendor the light of life for nations, as for men, are the truths of God incarnated in the Bible.
Alfred the Great ordered the Bible to be translated into the tongue we now speak, and in the statutes of his realm certain chapters of the gospel were actually included. Then came his decease, and foreign wars, and
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Norman Conquest, and Plantagenet debauchery and Tudor persecution, and it was not until the reign of Henry VIII, and, after him, that of his great daughter Elizabeth, that the Word of God was set free to create the English empire and the American republic, and to give mankind throughout the world the transfer of power from the south to the north of Europe, so that the scepter has passed from the Tiber to the Thames, and from the rivers of Spain and Italy to the Potomac at Washington.
That has not been done under what we are apt to call, in our pious humors, providence. As a rule, we bring in providence when we cannot explain the situation, and thus follow the line of least resistance. It reminds me of an old dame in England who taught me my letters, and how to spell, and when we were negotiating a particularly difficult word she used to say, " Call that Jerusalem and go right on." So it is with a great many references to what we are pleased to call the providential growth of Ger- many, or the Scandinavian peninsula, or the Netherlands, or Scotland, or England, or the United States, or Canada.
Let me tell you, our fathers played the game, or we would not have been here. That is how it came about. Do men get figs from thistles or grapes from thorns? Never. The real greatness of nations, and the explanation of this marvelous transfer of power from the ancient kingdom of the Caesars to its present domain, is in the reverence which our fathers gave to the Holy Scriptures, which they vested with authority as the very heart and message of God and Christ Jesus to them and to the entire fabric of their civilization.
America, England, Germany, and other nations of mankind today, cannot keep their places by mere far-flung lines of battleships or mighty armaments, or battalions rolled in blood. Unless they exalt the God of the Bible, the sovereign and transcendent ideal which found them in barbarism and made them masters of civilization, they shall lose the prize, and other peoples, whom God will call and ordain, will assume the priesthood and ministry of the kingdom of heaven, and give it to the world.
The whole oriental civilization was built upon force. When Jesus came, after being nursed by his mother in Egypt under the shadow of the Sphinx, he declared that they who took to the sword should perish by the sword ; and I would to God that every Bible-school teacher, pastor, and student in this great convention would send out the message of peace in city, town, and hamlet, through every land represented here, that the huge armaments which are bleeding Christian civilization as white as veal may be reduced, and that we may come to justice, and arbitration, and unto the proper policing of the high seas, instead of wasting the revenues of God in such damnable debauchery as that.
Orientalism is gone. Any man who wants to convert the Pacific or
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Atlantic oceans into blood pools will find he is simply reverting to bar- barism. The intelligent and enlightened conscience of Christendom is against this business, and the Christian Church should maintain her prior rights here, and not leave it to men who sometimes despise us, and condemn our mission, to be the leaders in the great cause of humanitarianism, peace, and the just arbitration of international trouble.
Then, in the course of the years, came the Greek and the Roman, to whom I would pay proper respect. I ask every thoughtful man here to remember, wherever the kingdom of Caesar extended, Christ has never yet had his sway. Take your maps, such as James M. Thoburn studied and the Marquis of Salisbury advises us to study, and trace the outline of the realm of the ancient Caesars. Never there as yet has virgin Christianity had its untrammeled sway. In the north, among our fathers ensicklied over by the pale paganism of the past, the Man of Galilee appeared in all of his entrancing beauty. When he came he brought every other blessing with him, and when Germany, and England, and Scandinavia heard the voice of the Lord in the word of his servant, that was the hour when the palm passed from Greece and Rome, and came to us and to ours; and I am here to say tonight, though you richly endow your colleges, though you found academies on every street, unassisted culture will never save America and England.
Some one has asked me exactly what I meant by saying that, where you draw the line on the maps of Europe and Asia showing the frontier of the Roman empire, you will find that within the boundaries of that actual empire, from outlying province to outlying province, Christ has never yet founded a virgin kingdom. I meant by that, this: The previous civiliza- tion of paganism had been so entrancing, so masterly, and so intellectual, that it was a very fortunate thing for us that Christ found our fathers in their native state, without any previous great civilization, and with minds unoccupied by any rival learning, and he gave them the full beauty of his revelation with no other thing to oppose it. That is why the purer Chris- tianity has ever been in the north of Europe. It is because our fathers came from their simple Teutonic mythology, without the glorious paganism of Greece and Rome to interfere, into the full embrace of sovereign Christian truth.
I ask you tonight, if you are prepared to maintain this movement. Seventy-four years ago, when the mother of King Edward VII stood upon the dust of her ancestor, Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, the Archbishop administered to her the coronation oath, and after he had recited the glories of her kingdom, he said to her, " Now that I am about to crown thee Queen of this commonwealth, wilt thou maintain it? " She replied, her girlish voice lifting high and clear beneath that high em-
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bowered roof of Westminster's ancient abbey, " God being my helper, I will maintain." She did maintain, and her son who came after her, and who today has been carried to Windsor's sovereign hall, hath maintained.
Here sit six thousand monarchs, by right of primogeniture, crowned once again after thousands of years of struggle with the rights that God meant man to have when he was sufficiently intelligent and law-abiding, and obedient to the heavenly vision. You sit as representatives of other monarchs, of those who shall take seats of kingly power and glory resplen- dent in the days to come. What do the mighty names of the prophets, and the psalmists, and the confessors, and the martyrs, and the fathers mean to us, my brother men? Are they simply dim ghosts, passing away in the press of the years, lost in the thickening mists of time, or are they living presences, whose glorious influence draws our hearts to their hearts as flame is drawn to flame?
Think of the men in the last three hundred years that this same Bible has produced among us, not only in the Philippine Islands, where the book of the Acts of the Apostles has received another chapter, but in our own states and commonwealth. Think of Robert E. Lee, the chivalrous knight of the South. Think of " Stonewall " Jackson, who prayed all night and fought all day. Think of him who was the greatest American we ever had, — Abraham Lincoln. Think of the man before whose tomb I stood uncovered today, " Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full," that mighty magis- trate of freedom, of law, and of constitutionalism, George Washington. Think of William Ewart Gladstone, the greatest man given to parliamen- tary institutions in the last one hundred and fifty years.
If time permitted, I would call the roll until midnight. We ask them whence their victory came. In answer they point first to the Lamb who wrapped them in his crimson mantle of sacrifice, and then to the Book, the glorious bulwark of our civilization, and the authoress of our liberty, literature, and law. We can only maintain the state in its integrity and power and righteousness, as we maintain the Bible.
FOUR ELEMENTS IN THE CONCEPTION OF THE SUNDAY- SCHOOL TEACHER
Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, LL.D.
I SHALL speak, this evening, on four elements which must enter into the conception of every Sunday-school teacher as well as into his practice; likewise into the conception and practice of every minister of the gospel
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Without these, however highly we may be educated, however much we may lay claim to genius, we shall utterly fail.
The first is this: There must be a clear conception of the living Christ and his nearness to us.
In the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Exodus, the thirty- third verse, we have a description of the high-priest in the Holy Place. He has gone into the presence of God. Upon the hem of his robe there is a strange adornment; there is a golden bell, then a pomegranate, then another golden bell; the golden bells were to be between the pomegranates; thus the adornment of the robe was completed.
It would seem strange indeed that this adornment should be there did we not read that when he passed into the Holy Place these golden bells clashed and chimed, and the waiting people of Israel knew by the ringing of the bells that the high priest was living. The great day of atonement is on. They are waiting outside 'the place of God; their faces are turned in the direction whither the high priest is gone; their faces whiten as they hear no sound, when suddenly away in the distance they hear the ringing of the bells, and I see them turn and look into each other's face and say, " He is living! he is living! " And until I, as a minister, realize that I preach a living Christ, I have no power; and until you, as Sunday-school workers, reach the same conception, you, too, with all your method, with all your machinery, will be without power to move men and children to- wards God.
It is said that the great Dr. Dale, of Birmingham, was preparing one of his magnificent sermons for an Easter occasion. Suddenly he found that he had written on his manuscript this sentence, " Christ is living." He looked at it a second time; his eyes filled up with tears. They say he turned away from his manuscript, rose to his feet, began to move up and down his celebrated study, saying as he moved, " He is living! he is living! " and when the Easter time came he preached the masterpiece of all his great sermons. You and I must come to the same position. Our Christ is living. I know it for many reasons, but I know it most of all because he has power to save and power to keep.
Mr. Alexander and I came into the city of Sydney, in Australia, and there was placed in my hands a note that read: " Dear Sir, — For the first time in fourteen years I have been thinking. In all that time I have been Australia's most noted pickpocket. Again and again I have been thrown into prison. But yesterday, in the service whither I went to steal, I was made to think. I want to know if there is any help for me." I read the message before the people. I said, " If that man is in the building I will see him at the close, and no police officer will touch him." When I came out of the building he was standing there looking about, and he made his
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way quietly to my side and walked with me to the hotel, got down upon his knees, sobbed as I have rarely heard a man sob, then rose to his feet and said, " I do now accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour." And from that moment his life was changed. When we crossed the Pacific ocean he crossed with us, and to-day he is in Dr. W. W. White's institution, training to be a missionary, his face set again towards Australia, after being fourteen years a thief, lifted out of the miry pit, his feet planted upon the solid rock. And I know that Jesus Christ is living because he still has power to save all classes and conditions of men.
The second thing of which I speak is this: Knowing the living Christ there must be a complete surrender of ourselves unto Jesus.
I want to pay a tribute to Dr. Meyer; I wish I could do it more fittingly. I was seated in my home in the country, reading the New York Tribune, when my eye lighted upon a single sentence spoken by Dr. Meyer at North- field. I had never been in Northfield. I was prejudiced against evangelism. My conception of the ministry was entirely different and my success was exceedingly small, if indeed it was a success at all. I saw Dr. Meyer's statement, which read like this: " If you are not willing to give up ever>'- thing to Christ, then are you willing to be made willing? " I turned to a member of my family seated by my side and said, " That seems to be an easy thing/' and I began to offer the prayer, "Lord, make me willing! make me willing! " Then I came to know Dr. Meyer. Then I sat at his feet as I heard him preach.
I heard him give his great sermon on " The Castaway," and the sixteenth day of October, 1892, under the influence of this man of God, I stepped out of bondage into freedom; I turned away from darkness to light; I turned away from the wrong conception of the ministry to what I believe to-day is the right conception of the ministry. My ideal was lifted as high as the highest heavens. I owe that to him. D. L. Moody and F. B. Meyer have been two great names in all my ministerial experience. And I say, this evening, that never, until God has all there is of you, will he use you as a soul winner, whether you be a minister of the gospel, whether you be a superintendent of a Sunday-school, or whether you be a teacher of a class.
But that is not all. Can any of you tell me why it was that in 1727 John Wesley could not shake a single village on this continent of ours? His name was a hissing, almost a byword. But in 1739 John Wesley shook three kingdoms. Can you tell me? I know why it was. Crossing the Pacific Ocean I read the story of his surrender. He says that in 1739 he gave God his mind, he gave God his heart, he gave God his will, he gave God his love, he gave God himself — and John Wesley made three kingdoms throb with the power of God. He must have all there is of you.
And yet that is not all. I went one day into Northfield to take breakfast
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at the home of D. L. Moody with Dr. Meyer. I had been Hving a strenu- ous life; my experience was not satisfactory. I was standing in front of the great evangelist's house waiting to be summoned to breakfast, and I said to Dr. Meyer, " Can you tell me what is the matter with me? Under your influence I reached the place of surrender on the sixteenth day of October, 1892, but now my experience is this and my failure is here and my weakness is at this point."
I shall never forget how he laid his hand gently upon my shoulder, and seeming to change the subject he said, " Have you ever tried to breathe out three times without breathing in once? " and I thought that was a new form of breathing exercise, and I said, " Certainly not." He said, " Try it this morning." And I breathed out once and then I had to stop, and I can see the smile across his face as he said, " I want you to know this, dear brother, that your breathing out is in proportion to your breathing in; you must always breathe in before you breathe out; good morning," he Said, and left me; and I had learned my lesson. And many a Sunday-school teacher has surrendered to God and then lost the power of God for he has breathed out more than he has breathed in. Many a busy minister in these days, many a great Christian leader, has had a day of definite surrender, and then he has gone into the thick of the fight and poured out his soul unto men, and he has failed. Why? because he has lost at the point of breathing in of God's almighty power.
First, a conception of the living Christ; second, an absolute surrender to God; and, third, a presentation of Jesus Christ to others. Or, if I should change it, I would say, a yielding of oneself to God in the matter of personal work.
It is not enough for us as ministers to stand and preach. We will fail of our full ministry if we lose the personal touch upon the lives of men. The other evening, at the General Assembly at Atlantic City, a distinguished minister said that he turned away from his preparation of sermons, that he said good-by for the day to his wife, that he walked up and down the streets of the city where he lived, asking God to direct him. "And," said he, " I came back to my home in the evening having led thirteen strong men to Jesus Christ, and I never could have moved them if I had stood day after day preaching from the pulpit."
I was in Salem, Oregon, a little while ago, when there came to the pulpit a distinguished man, and I said to the minister, " Who is he? " He said, "He is the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Oregon." They said, " Ask him how he became a Christian." I put the question to him. He told me he became a Christian by the personal touch of the minister, and when I turned to the minister this was his testimony; he said, " I scarcely knew the chief justice, but I went into my study, I
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wrote a letter, I stained it with my tears; then I trembled to think of my unusual bravery and I tore the letter up. I called my wife into the room. She said ' Write it again.' I rewrote the letter.
" Then we got down on our knees; and then sent the letter to him; in less than an hour there came back this message from the chambers of the justices of the Supreme Court: * Dear Mr. Ketcham, — I have been waiting all my life to have some one invite me personally to come to Jesus Christ. Not all the preaching in the world could move me, not all the singing of songs could stir me like your message.' " And I tell you this evening that we as ministers have not fulfilled our full obligation until we have added that touch to our experience. The other day there arose in a Brooklyn Sunday-school a little boy who said he wanted to confess Jesus Christ as his Saviour. The church officers took him into a room alone. Then the minister said to him, " Now tell me how you came to Jesus? " The boy said, " Doctor, it was last Sunday; my Sunday-school teacher had finished her message, and she laid her hand upon my shoulder and said, ' I wish you would walk with me in Prospect Park.' She took me away where people could not see us, and while seated on a bench by my side she threw her arm over my shoulder and called me by name and said, ' Don't you think it is about time that you settled the question of your soul's salvation? ' And before I knew it my eyes were filled with tears and I was sobbing, and in Prospect Park I yielded myself to Jesus Christ."
I, myself, largely came into a conception of Jesus by the influence of a Sunday-school teacher.
I have traveled many thousands of miles, but I could go blindfolded into that Methodist Sunday-school and to that old form. I could place my hand on the very spot in that floor where I stood when the deepest impression that was ever made upon my life, with the exception of that which was made by my mother, was made by a Sunday-school teacher who did not count her work finished when she had taught her lesson, but who thought she must reach her hand out and lift me to my feet to acknowledge my Saviour. She influenced a thousand boys to turn their faces toward the kingdom of God.
And I hold there must be a fourth thing in these days. I think the tide is rising. I know there are dark spots upon the horizon. I know that there are awful wrongs that must be righted. I know that the economic condi- tion of things calls for the deepest consideration on the part of all thought- ful students of to-day. I know that if you look at it in one way it seems almost as if we had met with our defeat. Nevertheless, I thnk the tide is rising. I saw it to-day in the great missionary convention. I saw it to-day in this magnificent gathering of Sunday-school workers. I saw it last Sunday with eight thousand people cheering the name of Jesus in the
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General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. I saw it last night with eight thousand people standing, tears rolling down their cheeks, as men and women were lifting their hands to say that they would like to know Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour.
I saw it in the Fiji Islands; I saw it in the New Hebrides; I saw it in the Philippines; I saw it in Australia; I saw it in China. In southern China there is sweeping to-day, and was while we were present, such a revival through a certain province as has never been known since the day of Pente- cost. Five thousand Chinese people waiting morning, noon, and night upon Jesus Christ! We saw it in China, we saw it in Shanghai with six hundred students gathered together to hear the gospel, and sixty-five of them making a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. We saw it in Peking with the same remarkable results. We saw it in Japan, where in Kioto not less than seventy-five men sprang to their feet when the gospel had been preached through an interpreter, and as they pushed their way to the front they came sobbing out penitent cries to Jesus Christ.
We saw it in Korea, where there is to-day the mightiest work of grace in progress that I believe the world has known. I never have seen such missionaries, I never have been in such an atmosphere of prayer; I stood to preach when the tears so blinded me I could not see my audience; I sat down upon a chair and I heard prayers ascend to God, such prayers as I suppose have never risen from the hearts burdened for souls in that great continent. We saw it in Korea, where the missionaries are saying, " In a single year we will seek to lead at least a million souls to Jesus Christ." We saw it in Wales, where a distinguished minister said he believed the hour had come when a new Welsh revival would come upon that country.
Evans Roberts himself is quoted as saying that he believes that the movement which has been started quite equals the movement in his own day and surpasses it in this, that to-day the ministers of the church seem to be on fire with a passion for souls. I stood in the presence of one hun- dred and fifty Welsh ministers, a few weeks ago, telling them the marvelous story, when suddenly one of them began to sing. I never heard singing until I heard it in Wales. He had scarcely finished his verse when another took it up and he was in the midst of his when a third took it up, and for twenty minutes I stood leaning upon a table while the wave of harmony would start from this side of the building and from that, and from that, and then I saw those one hundred and fifty ministers drop upon their knees, and almost upon their faces, and pray as I think I have never heard ministers pray. So I say the tide is rising. The days are getting better; hopes for the future are brighter; and that leads me to say my last thing.
We can have no success in this business unless we believe absolutely in the power of the gospel to transform individual lives, the power of the
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gospel to stir communities, and the power of the gospel to break the shackles of sin that bind men and hold them as worse than prisoners. But with these four things, victory is absolutely sure. They call me an optimist. Who would not be an optimist if he had journeyed sixty thousand miles and never known His name to fail, — if he had journeyed sixty thousand miles and never known men to turn away from the preaching of his gospel? I believe that within five years we will see the mightiest revival of religion that the world has ever known. I have already seen the waves start, I have already heard the first shouts of victory.
In the city of Melbourne, eleven thousand people in a great building like this, only larger, one of the lord bishops of the Anglican church said to me, " I think it might be well for you to divide the audience this evening and ask the men to go into the banquet hall," and I did so; two thousand men surged in, others could not gain entrance; standing upon a little platform half the size of this, his lordship said to me, " If I were you I should make the most definite appeal possible."
These men were standing so close together you could scarcely put your hand between their bodies — for there were no seats in the room. I gave the invitation. Hand after hand was lifted up. Then his lordship said to me, " I think you might invite the men to move forward." I said, " Let every man in this building who will accept Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour move to the front "; and the scene was beyond description. Men came who were members of parliament; men came who were high in the city government ; men came whose clothing was rags; men came who were just beginning life's journey; other men hobbled forward who had reached the end and made it a wreck; and when they stood about his lordship he said to me, " You might ask them to kneel."
Five hundred men went on their knees. Then the Australia men began to sing as they alone can sing this old hymn, the words of which we know but the music for which we have never sung in America:
" Oh for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise."
And they came to the closing verse, when a Salvation Army official started to sing this, and twenty times they sang it through:
" He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free ; His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood avails for me."
Twenty times they sang it to the accompaniment of sobbing.
I say this, that what we saw in Melbourne may be seen in New York; and what we saw in Melbourne may be seen in Washington; and what we
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saw in Melbourne may be seen in London — only every man of us standing in the pulpit, and every Sunday-school worker, must come to the place where he will say, " The only power that can stir an individual, the only- power that can stir a community, the only power that can shake the world, is centered in Him who died upon Calvary that we might live."
I tell you, friends, especially the ministers, it will pay us to believe this ; it will pay us. In Bendigo, Australia, they said to us, " We want you to go and see an aged minister who is dying." We stepped into his little house. He was lying upon his bed, his face as white as the linen, and I wish the man who wrote the " Glory Song " could have been there. Our names were announced. I said to the old man, " Can you sing? " " Yes," he aid, " I can sing." I said " What shall Mr. Alexander lead you in sing- ing? " And he said, " Let him lead me in the ' Glory Song.' " And he did. When they came to the chorus it was like the music of heaven. I reached out and took his hand and said, "If He should come to-day it would be well, wouldn't it? " and he broke forth into this, with his hands outreaching, face shining, tears falling, —
" On the jasper threshold standing, Like a pilgrim safely landing. See the strange bright scenes expanding, — Oh, 'tis heaven at last!
" Left behind us all the grieving. All the wounded spirits leaving, All the hopes of sin deceiving, — Oh, 'tis heaven at last!
" Christ himself, the living splendor, Christ, the sunlight, mild and tender, Praises to the Lamb we'll render, — Oh, 'tis heaven at last! "
His arms dropped by his side, his eyes were shut, his face became deathly white; we thought he had gone home. I turned to my friend and said, " Wouldn't you like to go like that? " And if I preach a living Christ, if my whole nature is his to control, if I have a passion for souls, if I believe in the gospel, one day I shall see Him — I shall See Him!
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THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND THE NATION
Rev. Ernest Bourner Allen, D.D., Toledo, Ohio
I. The future welfare of any country is inseparably bound up with the progress and efficiency of its Sunday-schools.
A nation's childhood is its hope and power. If, therefore, there is waste or wickedness at these sources of its life, there will be weakness and woe at the end. If a child's footfall outside his door compels the astronomer at Greenwich to reckon with it in adjusting his instruments and computing his observations, then the march of a nation's childhood, millions strong, compels our reckoning in the measurement of the nation which is yet to be. For no land can live whose children are not safe. The moral welfare of the children, therefore, is the immediate concern of the patriot. There are three reasons why this is so.
It is so, in the first place, because of the tendency to turn religious and moral instruction over to the church; in the second place, because the Sunday-school is the only agency which is systematically and compre- hensively seeking to train children morally and religiously; and in the third place, because the Sunday-school deals with life primarily, and not with facts and things. Notice, if you will, the tendency today to turn religious and moral instruction over to the church. This is strikingly shown by two facts, — first, by the fact that there is less religious instruc- tion in the home than formerly. The old-fashioned family with its altar, and its influence upon the religious life of the community, has never been surpassed as a factor in religious education; but the type is diminishing.
Returned missionaries, after being away ten or twenty years from the home land, comment upon the fact that they come into homes where the Bible is not so frequently read, nor prayer so often offered, as before. The ideals of the Christian home to-day do not so often include the reading of the Bible, the instruction of the children, family prayer, and worship. These things are turned over to the church.
In a large degree the Bible and religious instruction are omitted today from the public school.
In the early days. New England deliberately inculcated religion in her public schools. Sixty-five years ago, four fifths of the towns of Massachu- setts prescribed the reading of the Bible as a part of the regular instruction; but in two generations the religious function has largely departed from the public school.
Now, there is a general demand, such as has been voiced by the National Educational Association, that something shall be put back into the educa- tional life which shall produce character, the type of which we had a genera- tion ago. This must be done by some other agency than the public school,
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because we have carried to its limit the logic of the division of church and state, so that the public school has turned over its religious and moral instruction to another agency.
The church accepts the responsibility for this division of labor. It falls directly to the Sunday-school to take up this work. It is the greatest agency fitted for the task, providentially equipped at the present time to supply this lack in the home and the school, when the home is defective and the school is deficient, and to aid the nation in retaining its moral power and its religious life. I think Dr. Coe is quite right when he says that the future generations of this country will be trained in religion by the church, or not at all.
The Sunday-school is the greatest agency for this task, because it is dealing with the nation's childhood in a representative and systematic way. There are fifteen millions enrolled in the Sunday-schools of North America at the present time. According to the twelfth census, thirty-four per cent of our people, or twenty-eight million, six hundred and eighty thousand of them, are between the ages of five and twenty. This is about twice the number which is to be found in the day school today, but it is only half the number between the ages of five and twenty which is really available. That is to say, there are as many people enrolled in the Sunday-school today as there are in the day school.
The taunt is sometimes made that the Sunday-school does not hold the children, that they leave early. We ought to have our attention called to the fact that the Sunday-school is not the only place they leave early, not the only place where they may be missed; for Dr. Draper, the New York Commissioner of Education, has called our attention to the fact that two fifths — practically one third — of those who enter the elementary schools today never finish their course.
Not half of our children go beyond the fifth or the sixth grade of the public school; one sixth of those who enter the high school is the largest proportion to graduate. The length of the school life of the average boy or girl in America today is only four years, and that comes before he is twelve years of age, or old enough to appreciate its importance and grasp its mean- ing. Therefore, because the public school does not enroll all of the children of the country; because it does not give them the moral and religious train- ing they should have; because it does not hold them for a very long period of time, the Sunday-school becomes the most important and influential factor in putting religious and moral instruction into the lives of the children of the nation.
The Sunday-school is dealing with life, and not with facts or things. They asked the king of Sparta where the walls of his little kingdom were, by means of which he could protect himself from Athens. The next day he
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drew his army up on the greensward, and pointing to them, said with par- donable pride, " These are the walls of Sparta, and every man a brick." Therefore, as the Sunday-school trains the child, it is putting a brick into the wall that shall protect the nation through the course of all the years.
Mr. Emerson was right when he said, " The glory of a nation does not depend upon the size of its census, or the size of its cities, or the size of its crops, but upon the kind of man the country turns out." It is the concern of the Sunday-school to turn out the right type of manhood, and thus protect the nation.
2. The Sunday-school accepts its responsibility for the welfare of the nation, and is faithfully meeting its task.
It is teaching the permanent principles of righteousness proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets. There is no agency today proclaiming with greater fidelity the fact that " righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people." Whether a man sits in the governor's chair, or in the director's office, or in the humblest shop or store, we are laying emphasis upon the stewardship of manhood, and the responsibility that comes with it. We are saying a stinging word of rebuke to that Congress- man, from one of the western states, I think, who said, pathetically," Of course, I believe that honesty is the best policy in the long run, but the trouble is that no Congressman who practices honesty has a long run." We are seeing, indeed, that he does have a long run, and in the other direc- tion! We have taken with some literalness that phrase of Old Testament scripture, " The wicked flee when no man pursueth," and we have added, " They make far better time when somebody is after them."
We are training in the Sunday-school today a generation which applauds that noble utterance of Kossuth, when he came before his constituents and said, " My hands are empty, but they are clean." That is the type of citizenship and leadership which we are demanding. We are laying emphasis today upon a type of life which has conscience in it. We like that spirit which was in the old Puritans, who " set their consciences by the will of God as countrymen set their clocks by the sun. They never had to be searched for in order to be found, for they were always there," said the historian.
A type of righteousness such as is proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets is exactly the type which we need in our nation today. The most significant revival of the past ten years has not been in Korea, Australia, or the centers of our own country, but in that magnificent revival of civic spirit and social righteousness, in which the ideals of the Old Testament prophets and the Puritan fathers have come to their own; and if you ask the reason, it is because into the hearts and lives of a generation
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of boys and girls these things have been poured by faithful men and women.
The Sunday-school is teaching the social ideals of Jesus Christ.
It is endeavoring, in accordance with those ideals, to introduce a civiliza- tion of brotherly men, who shall be rightly related to God and to one an- other. This is a brotherhood which is not merely sentimental. There are a great many people today who love the whole world in general, but who love nobody in particular. This is perplexing, for when you love anybody in particular you must do something for them. It is perfectly possible to have a namby-pamby sentiment toward the whole world, that does not issue in any service for particular individuals. This brotherhood of Jesus Christ is not like that. It is not even selective. It does not limit itself to one church, or one state, or one country. It purposes to help any man on the Jericho road, whether he is black or brown, red or yellow, ignorant or learned; whether he lives in America, or China, or Africa. Any man upon the world's Jericho road is the brother of the man who accepts the social teaching of Jesus Christ.
Because this brotherhood believes in the introduction of this civilization of brotherly men into the world, it will not refuse to walk with any man under the banner of the cross; it will not refuse to play with any man under the banner of the cross. There you have touched two of the gravest and greatest social problems of our day. One is largely social in its type, and the other is economic. When a generation comes in, taught in the Sunday-school the brotherhood of Jesus Christ as he proclaimed it, we shall have a settlement of our racial problems and our industrial problems according to the spirit of our Lord.
In introducing or teaching these social ideals, the Sunday-school is laying emphasis upon the nobility of toil. Jesus Christ was a carpenter; he was a laboring man. No man who toils today but is kin to him; and we need to say it oftener, perhaps, than we do. Every man's task is his life-preserver. If you have not a job, you are in danger, and Christianity is saying that it is a noble thing to toil and to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. That also carries with it by implication the thought that character does not inhere simply in exterior things. It is the inner thing upon which Christian- ity lays emphasis.
I want to call your attention to the fact that the word " duds " comes from the same root as the word " dude,'' so that when you get duds you get a dude, and that is all you do get. We are saying in our Sunday-schools that it is not the clothes a man wears that give him entree, but the character of his life. I like that little lad in one of our western states who was bound to go to Sunday-school in spite of his clothes. He had two pairs of pants, a black pair and a brown pair. The black ones were out at the knees, and
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the brown ones were out — somewhere else; but he was bound to go to Sunday-school so he put on both pairs! That is the spirit upon which the Sunday-school is laying emphasis today.
In teaching the ideals of Jesus Christ the Sunday-school stands for the duty of peace. Some of you have stood in these last days by the tomb of Washington. Did you mark its simplicity? Did you note that there is nothing there which suggests miUtary glory? If you stand on the other side of the ocean at the magnificent tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, there you have everything which suggests military prowess and glory. I take it that the difference between the two tombs is, in a way, the difference between the two types of character and civilization. In these latter days we want to see emphasized more and more the type of character which our beloved and honored Washington represented. Let us pray for the day when
" The war drum shall sound no longer, and the battle-flag be furled, In the parliament of man, the federation of the world."
In proclaiming the social ideals of Jesus Christ, the Sunday-school lays emphasis upon the unbrotherliness of the saloon. Eighty thousand men went down to drunkards' graves last year.
I am proud of the fact that in 1908 we put eleven thousand saloons out of business in this country, and that in 1909 we did even better, closing forty every day. In 1870 nine per cent of our people were living in dry territory, but by the progress of the temperance cause, in 1910, fifty per cent of our people are living in dry territory. It is possible to bring up a boy today who does not know what the open saloon means.
If you ask whence came this tidal wave that has swept over the nation in these last years, I would say that it is due in part to the fact that we have scientific temperance instruction in the public school; in part to the influ- ence of those praying women, who used to kneel in the streets and pray that God would remove the saloon from our land; and last, but far from least, it is due to the fact that for forty years there has been scientific temperance instruction in our Sunday-schools. Those saloon keepers who laughed and sneered, a few years ago, because the boys and girls carried banners in the parade, forgot to read one of them, which said, " Tremble, King Alcohol; we shall grow up." They have grown up!
Finally, in proclaiming the social ideals of Jesus Christ the Sunday-school lays emphasis upon the necessity of regenerative processes in order to secure the permanent betterment of society. How are we going to get a better age? " Educate them," say some. " Give them proper environ- ment," say others. All of these schemes are being tried out today. I want to ask now much better a pig you would have if you took him out of the sty and let him live in the parlor? Is it the sty that makes the pig, or the
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pig that makes the sty? Did the fact that he was away from home make the boy a prodigal son? No, it was at home, in its environment, that he started in. You must get inside of the boy in order to make the sort of society that we want in the world today.
We are experimenting with society through all sorts of methods, and we forget sometimes it is a regenerative process in the life that is needed in order to make the right sort of manhood and womanhood.
All these schemes for the betterment of the human race will fail, unless the regenerative process of God in the human soul is allowed to do its work. The Sunday-school is saying today, " Ye must be born again." Do you think the Sunday-school has anything to do with the welfare of the nation? Then go out and save the nation by teaching its childhood these Old Testament ideals of righteousness, these social ideals of Jesus Christ.
ADDRESS: "AS THYSELF"
Miss Margaret Slattery, Fitchburg, Mass.
It was such a still, calm Sunday there by the sea at the cottage, a hush had stolen over all their hearts. In the early morning they had come to that quiet place away from the noise and the rush and the din of the great city, and he had with him that day many of his guests, friends who, like himself, wanted to run away from the city. And every Sunday morning he took them there to the church. He went to the church for just one reason: he gave the church to that little seaside town, and he enjoyed walking down that little aisle and seating himself in the pew, the eyes of every worshiper fastened upon him and his guests as they went. Sometimes the humble fisher folk, sometimes those who passed their summer by the sea, forgot to bow their heads while they looked and saw him as he strode down the aisle .
He gave the church in his mother's name. When she was a little girl she worshiped there, and there she grew up and found him whom she loved; it was there she married and gave herself to the strong, powerful prince of the world, his father. And when she went away she asked if he would not like to remember her by putting there on the site of the old wooden church this building, — beautiful, simple like herself, — and he had done so. And now he brought his city guests down the aisle and into the pew, and they were seated.
The pastor did not preach that morning, and the man was disappointed. A young man stood in the pulpit, a young man who was not a preacher, and he announced that if he had been a preacher he would have taken a text,
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but since he was no preacher he would choose no text. He had things to say, and he hurled them at that man with his friends who sat there in the pew, not meaning to at all, but because of the passion that was in his soul he must speak; and he said:
" I have a sentence instead of a text, and I found it away out in a cabin on a little by-path in the great primeval forest; I found it above a rude great fireplace, carved roughly by a man who had long ceased to read for himself and who remembered only the crude printing of his childhood days when, across the water in a little English school, he learned how to write. I read, ' As,' a great word standing by itself; and then, with capitals and small letters all mixed up, I read the next line, — * If it were,' — and under that in huge letters, — * Thyself.' I read it over and over again, — ' As if it were thyself.' It followed me; I could not get away from it, and I have brought it to you."
Then he made them see with his eyes what he had seen of men. He brought them down to the fundamentals of life where all stand alike. He made them see the common passions and the common views of men; he made them understand the crying need of the world. And the great man heard, and it would not leave him.
In the afternoon the friends went away on a long auto trip to enjoy the seashore and left him there on the veranda, where he turned to the calm, silent sea. His eyes closed, the sea faded, the wonderful long beach that stretched down to meet it went out of sight ; and he heard again the noise and the roar and the din of the city streets, and by his side there seemed a form which said, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" He said, " That is the word I have heard and heard again. Where shall I hurry? " And the voice said, " As if it were thyself! Look, consider, judge, act, as if it were thy- self."
And he found himself in a great building. Led up and up and up, he came to a little room. The door was open and in one corner he saw a man's white face, and a cough that came and went told the rest; and though it was Sunday he saw there in the room the woman he had meant to give everything he had in the world, and she ironed, ironed, ironed. He hurried away, and as he went he saw in the next room a little girl only eleven years old, sewing; and in one corner of the room sat the man who brought her into the world, his heavy head hanging low, his eyes closed. He watched the little girl as she sewed as those children sew who know that if the pile in the corner is not finished by morning it will mean no more, and no more means no food; and so she sewed and sewed. As he hesitated a moment, to look back, the voice said, " As if it were thyself; as if it were thyself."
Just then his friends came up the veranda steps and he opened his eyes
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and saw it was not so. But before he slept that night he wrote a letter, and the letter said: " As soon as possible tear down those buildings on Avenue B at the corner and put up the new ones; I shall instruct you further. They must go." And as he folded his arms and dropped his pen he said, " I must look, consider, judge, act ' as if it were thyself.' "
The message of the young man who stood at the pulpit that day is the message of the world to the church, of the world to the Sunday-school bodies gathered here and elsewhere, to consider what we shall do to help the world to be true and fine and great; to help men to be happy — for that is what we are living for; and if we are not making men happy we have no right to exist. And I have come to tell you to look, consider, judge, act, as if it were thyself.
But it is hard to act as if we were another; the hardest psychological problem in the world is to project one's mental self into the mental state of another. It takes years of training and great imagination, and one summons to his aid every law of the mental world of which he is conscious, and even then it is hard to project one's self into another's self, to be even for a mo- ment another, so that he may understand. We do not understand each other because we are so limited, because we are so sure the world in which we live is the world; and we have not yet learned to understand. But until we get back to fundamentals we shall never be able to solve these problems, until we can see " as thyself."
It is hard for me to understand that small boy who sat all day to-day by that sliding shaft. Women, some of you may have seen them sit there, perhaps, when you went on your first visit to the mines. You saw him there, picking slate from that sliding shaft. Oh, how sadly it comes, coal and coal and coal! How can one understand what he is, what he feels, how he faces the church and how he faces the world. Could you imagine your own boy there, too! As I remember the hundreds of boys' faces — bright, fine, and splendid — that come into the school building every day, I can- not conceive of this boy's outlook on the world. It is so hard to understand, to feel that until we get to the place where he is and see as he sees it.
Then think of the little girl, multiplied by hundreds and thousands. The girls who are our sisters and the women who are our sisters, — the girls who have missed the way who never meant to miss the way; girls who were just girls, who wanted clothes and jewels and good times and love. That is what they wanted, just as every girl that ever lived wants it. It is impossible for us to understand our sisters; we cannot project ourselves into the world in which they live.
There is only one way by which the church may even hope to understand those whom it terms — I hate the word — those whom it terms "the masses." There is only one way in which the church can ever hope to
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understand, — in which the Sunday-school can ever hope to understand, — to instruct youth, so that when it comes up to the place of maturity and action it can act aright. And it is to catch just a little of the spirit of that Wonderful One, the Rabbi, the Teacher, the Master, who centuries ago walked up and down the streets of Jerusalem.
He still speaks to the hearts of men, because He says to-day as he said then, centuries ago, when they asked him, " What is the great command- ment? " He answered and said, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Christ was the fairest man that ever lived ; he never made misstatements ; he never spoke short of the truth; he never asked a man to love his neighbor better than himself — simply as himself. And until we can catch something of that spirit we cannot understand. Universal understanding comes only through the catching of a little of the spirit of the Christ.
Until the Sunday-school teacher and the Sunday-school body and the church at large catches something of the spirit of it, they can never move with tremendous power into the hearts and lives of men. — The church exists for this.
We represent a great body who are training the church of the next few years, and unless we train aright that church as to what it is to do, it will not reach the tremendous problem which is facing the church universally to-day. And so a tremendous task and a splendid possibility await us. It is ours to make the Bible and creed understood " as thyself "; it is for us to take young men strong in their jmanhood, and young women, and pour peace and truth and zeal deep into their souls, " as thyself." And when we have done this then we shall have in the next generation a church that will grow up to understand. When one understands then he may do.
Oh, I would have the church not so comfortable, not so comfortable. One morning I sat in a beautiful home, — I had been speaking the night before, and when I went down into the wonderful dining room I looked into the conservatory where there were real roses blooming while there was snow outside, and it was so beautiful I had to say to myself, " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house." And my host came down and sat in a great arm-chair and crossed his arms and said to me,' Well, what do you think of us? " " Well," I said, " I think it is wonderful." " We are pretty comfortable here. I have often thought I would move to the city, but we are pretty comfortable here," and he took up his paper and began to read, and I looked out of the window. I did not mean to look out.
I saw there in the snow a little girl with a red shawl over her head and a tin pail in her hand, walking along by the railroad where the street crossed and came to his mill. I saw that her stockings were ragged and her dress was thin, and I saw her stoop and drop pieces of coal into the pail, one by
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one. And I heard him say, " We are pretty comfortable here; we are pretty comfortable." I did not want him to give to her father and mother his home; they could not have kept it long if he had; I did not want him to give to them his money; they could not have kept it, they did not know how. But I did not want him to be comfortable while she picked up the coal. That was all. I wished I could say it so he could under- stand, so he would know!
The church must not be comfortable in the next few years, and I am going to do all that I can to make it exceedingly uncomfortable. It is the demand of life — not the demand of creed, but the demand of life; for then it will satisfy and it will be sane; it will be natural and happy and the tasks will be solved.
Whenever there has been a need realized the need has been answered. The reason there has not come the answer to the need of the world is because the church has not realized the need.
Won't you show those boys and girls who sit to-day in your Sunday- schools how to grow up so they will realize the need? We are not teaching them now to be goody-goody, but to hate it; we are not teaching them merely to say verses, although it may be a very good thing to learn verses; we are teaching them that you may go to church and be a very mean sort of a creature, and that sitting at the end of the pew does not make you good. We are teaching them in a new sense the reality of things, and when they grow up, how to seize it and know it. And in the strength of the mental power of their manhood and womanhood the need will be realized; and when it is realized it will be answered. It always has been; it always will be answered.
We shall get to work; we are here at this great convention to raise en- thusiasm, and we have done it. Nobody could have watched that long procession of men, — and I think they were the finest looking men I have ever seen, — nobody could have watched them and not felt the power of that great army. All over the country they march and march; but that is not all they do. When they cease to march they say and do things; they do not march alone. They will be a power that must be reckoned with, and when they are reckoned with they will be answered. That is what we are doing now; we are here to get enthusiasm, and we have it.
Long ago they used to think that if a teacher meant to do well she there- fore did well. I think the most uncomfortable people to live with are those who mean to do well and never do it. The teacher who only means to do well does not amount to very much.
Have you ever seen fifty boys in the eighth grade raise their hands at once? Find an eighth grade somewhere and get some teacher to ask a question and see them just once raise their hands, — fifty boys! There is
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nothing whatever like it in the world, — the eagerness, the response, — it is real. Our state gave one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars and built for us a building for industrial education; but the men who built it were not as much interested in the grounds as in the building. If they had been they would not have left so many bottles and so much glass around. There were bottles of all sorts, some which had been used for tea, and some for I don't know what; and there were cans left there, too. They were to have been taken away by the contractor, but the contractor forgot them before the frost came, and they were frozen in.
This spring when the grounds began to thaw and the children had to go out for recess there were several accidents. First one small boy was cut and then a boy of fourteen had a serious cut that had to be sewed up, and finally I went into the eighth grade and said: " I have got something I want the advice of the boys about. What shall we do about that glass? I think I will have to take away the recesses until the ground is thawed enough for the men to take the bottles and the glass and the tin cans away.' I looked at their faces and saw that taking away the recess did not meet with their approval at all, and that I must try another way.
I said, " I see you do not believe in my taking away recess," and a boy who always has something to say and is ready to volunteer to help me said, " I think we could take those out with picks and shovels and the things down in the cellar the men use. I think we could dig them out, every one of them." I said, " It would be an awful task; it is frozen hard." Then an- other boy who always solves my problems said, " I think if, instead of studying this afternoon, you would let us go out on the grounds we could dig them up." That met with approval, and the fifty hands went up. The response was wonderful. O women, I wish you might have seen them dig with the picks and shovels, and the smaller boys go around and collect the glass and carry it away. When it was all finished, a Winthrop, a boy who loves to look back on a long line of ancestors of which he is very proud, and a boy whose English ought to be perfect, but it was not, said to me, " Well, they need to nobody get hurt out there now; they don't need to."
O women, I wish I knew, or somebody knew, how to say it to the whole Christian Church and to the Sunday-school force of teachers in such a way that their hands would come up as did the hands of those boys, in such a way that they would seize the tools — any tools — that would promise to clear the playgrounds of life of the things that hurt, so we might look into each others' faces some day and say, " Nobody need get hurt there now." That is what is coming to us some day, and we must with patience wait.
You remember Gail Hamilton had a little nephew who taught her many things. One day the little nephew came to Gail Hamilton and said, " Say,
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did you know Frank could ride a bicycle? " " No, I do not know it. He cannot ride that big wheel; he is too small." " Yes, he can.'" " I do not believe he can." " Will you come out to the corner and watch him? " " Yes," said Gail Hamilton; " I will,"
So they went out to the corner and the little fellow came with the wheel and was very much excited. He tried to mount it, but he could not. He tried again, but as soon as he succeeded in mounting, the wheel tipped over. He tried it again, but it was a dead failure. Discouragement crept over his small face as he made one more attempt, but he ended by falling in the dust. Then Gail Hamilton's nephew looked up into her face and said to her, " He still can! He still can! "
That is why I came to you. When you go home and you meet dis- couragements that are bound to come and you meet things that are hard, remember that growth comes only with patience, and comes slowly. Who are you that you should turn your Sunday-school upside down? The world never grew by being turned upside down. All those who have tried to re- form the world that way have not lasted very long. The world has been reformed through steady growth, and it is the way your Sunday-school will be reformed and grow into all the miracles of its power. And when it seems to you that nothing is being accomplished and criticisms come to you and the church and the Sunday-school at large, say to yourself with the strength and the power of that small boy, " It still can."
It was strange, that He who stood there in Galilee should have dared to say what He said on that day, looking into the faces of the few fishermen and most of them unlettered, saying to them, " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." And it has been done. They have gone into all the world ; every creature has not heard it — every creature shall hear it! — but the world has heard it. It has been translated into all languages. You saw the splendid power of that matchless sen- tence, " God so loved that he gave his only Son." And when once man- kind hears that, the beginning of progress dawns upon him and he is awakened to life.
Money is pouring in, and the motto which we have upon our banner and upon our ornaments is a motto which means just what it says. Money and gifts are pouring in. We are glad to-night to have the honor and the privilege just for these few moments to stand on a platform where are those who have not poured in money, who have not poured in things — but self; who have gone and who understand, who understand what the sen- tence means.
You remember that sixteen-year old girl who slept in the room where she had been so many years, and on the morning of her birthday she awoke and looked over to where the trained nurse sat, and the nurse came over
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to the bedside and looked into the face of the girl and said, " This birthday present came this morning from your mother." The mother was light- hearted ; she loved life and could not stay in the room with the girl who was bound to be ill as long as she lived. She was across the water in Italy, but she remembered her daughter and she had sent, so that it would come at just the right time, a rare and wonderful Italian vase. And the trained nurse came over to the bedside with the vase and said, " Look at that; your mother sent it so carefully that it came right on your birthday," and for a moment the girl looked at it, so wonderful and beautiful, and then turned to the nurse and said, " Take it away, take it away. O mother, mother, do not send me anything more; no books, no flowers, no vases, no pictures. Send me no more. I want you, you! "
Women, the world wants money, needs it; the church wants money, needs it; the men and women walking up and down the streets of life need money. But the cry of the world is the cry of the sixteen-year-old girl, " I want you, you! " And wherever you go you touch the funda- mental law of humanity. And men and women live who have done it. These women have done it; those who have spoken to you to-night. May God bless them in what they have done and strengthen them in what they will do, and help us all to face life, saying, as we see its problems, '* As thyself."
JESUS CHRIST THE RULER OF NATIONS
Rev. Richard Roberts, London, England
In the city of Damascus, there is a mosque which was once a Christian church. One of the great doorways of this mosque is now walled up and hidden behind a high street wall. If you can borrow, and have the cour- age to scale, a crazy Syrian ladder, you may climb to the level of the architrave and read in Greek this inscription, — " Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth to all generations,"
At first sight one is appalled by the irony of this inscription, this old aspiration stranded and left high and dry by the receding tides of history. When faith begins to assert itself it sees that that is no grim irony of the spirit of history, but a promise and a prophecy; and there it remains, in spite of all efforts to obscure it, graven deep, a symbol and a pledge of the sure empire of the Son of God.
In the mosque of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople, which has suffered the same fate as the mosque in Damascus, on the ceiling of the semi-cupola near the place where the altar used to be, there was once a figure in mosaic.
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of our Lord. The authorities of the mosque have time and again overlaid it with gilt paint, but the outline of it is never obscured, it still works its way out through the gilt. Was it not written of him long ago, " He could not be hid." And there he cannot be hidden, and it means that despite all obscuration he will yet come, and his kingdom will come in power over the whole earth.
And this kingdom is coming today with a greater, more irresistible momentum than ever. At home the volume of intelligent dynamic interest in the missionary enterprise is ever growing; away in the wide world the opportunities are larger and more hopeful than they have ever been. China is in the throes of a great awakening, and, indeed, a wave of renaissance seems to have passed over the entire east, from Turkey to the rising of the sun. And in the policies of the kingdom of God the significance of this fact is that God has been driving his furrows across the face of the eastern world to prepare it for the seed of the kingdom. This is the era of great opportu- nity. God is ready, Christ is ready, the world is ready. The great enter- prise, the great adventure, the great conquest, is now waiting upon us.
Now, I take it that the meaning of the topic assigned to me is that I should say something of the significance of the life of Jesus to the life of the nation. And I might speak on this subject through the night and do no more than touch the fringe of it. The social, economic, and political conse- quences of the reign of Jesus we can only dimly speculate upon. We know how the influence of Jesus has humanized the laws of the western world, has taught respect for womanhood, and has made the life of the child tolerable.
Once upon a time there were some in this country who sought to detract the Christian religion, and they received their answer from one of the greatest Americans, — James Russell Lowell. I am quoting from memory, and cannot give the exact words: " When these people," he said, " can find anywhere on this earth, a piece of ground ten feet square where womanhood is respected, where old age is reverenced, where men and women live their lives in decency and comfort, where human life is held in due regard; when these people can discover any such place where Christianity has not first gone and cleared the way, it will then be in order for them to go and air these views."
The answer is overwhelming, and the life which you and I are able to live today in security, decency, we owe to Jesus of Nazareth. All that is fair and ennobling in our modern civilization, we must trace, soon or late, to the manger at Bethlehem. And it is our obligation, as well as our privilege, to give the world these same messages that we enjoy.
Suffer me in a few words to point out what the gospel can do for a na- tion's life, — what the over-lordship means to a people.
First of all, it means the Christianization of a national conscience; or,
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in other words, the substitution of the social interest for the individual. I can best illustrate this from a movement which is now in progress in this country. The word graft, with the peculiar connotation it possesses today, is a gift the English tongue owes to America; the slang itself is not confined to America. We have it in England, too; but what does the corruption of our public life originate in? Simply in the tendency to subordinate public service to personal self-aggrandizement; to exploit the public in the inter- est of the few. Now, it does not need a very long time to discover in America a movement in the opposite direction, — a growing revolt against the ex- ploitation of a municipality in favor of a few individuals, of the government in the favor of a few privileged interests. That is what Judge Lindsay's " fight with the beast " means. It is the coming of the social point of view. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And there is no country in the world that does not need it. And there is no country into which the faithful preaching of the gospel and the sovereignty of Jesus will not bring it to be.
Secondly, it means the humanizing of our social organization. The most appalling fact of our modern civilization is its disregard of human life. To- day, property is more sacred than humanity, and the common manhood of most countries is being exploited in the interest of wealth. And if this is true of civilized countries, it is even more true of the rest. The reign of Jesus will confer a new value upon human life. The brutality of our social organization will disappear. And the selfishness, the competition which is at the root of it will give way to cooperation and good brotherhood. The strife of capital and labor, the war of class with class will cease — the lion will lie down with the lamb.
It means a revolution of the current ideas of national well-being. There can be perhaps no better evidence of the fundamental paganism of our modern civilization than the thorough-going materialism of our concep- tions of national welfare. What are we out to seek? How do we estimate national greatness? In terms of territorial aggrandizement, the expansion of commerce, — and for this kind of national welfare the only possible dynamic and security is force. So we increase our armies and expand our navies. We arm ourselves to the teeth. We spend our resources upon sharpening what Mr. Roosevelt calls the fighting edge; and, whatever this may be, it is not in the least degree Christian, for it is a Christian principle that a man's life and a nation's life consisteth not in the multitude of the things it possesses, — it is not might, but right that exalteth a nation.
The lordship of Jesus puts the emphasis on an entirely different thing. The wealth of a nation consists in the abundance of its moral manhood, and our national economics are meant not to capture markets, but to make men. And this carries with it a great deal more, the making of manhood means the building of brotherhood; the human emphasis will necessarily
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be a social emphasis, and the brotherhood of men will produce the sister- hood of nations; and out of that sisterhood will be evolved at last the per- fect commonwealth, which will grow from more to more, pass on from glory to glory, long after the last of our little national politics have been dissolved and forgotten, after the last dreadnought has been scrapped and sold for old iron, and our armies are remembered only as an obsolete barbarism.
Last of all, the sovereignty of Jesus Christ means that we shall revise our estimate of the value and significance of child-life. A true Christian civilization will put the child where Jesus put him, — in the midst. But we slaughter the children today. The appalling rate of mortality among infants is the standing reproach of our modern civilization, and when the child is not slain, he is maimed and handicapped by the greed which pro- duces overcrowded tenements, builds the saloon, and neglects sanitation, and by the ignorance and indifference which permits these things. Perhaps it is the best evidence of a growing Christianity in the West that we are now approaching, and conceiving, and studying the problems of our national life in terms of the child. Social reformers despair of doing any- thing real for the adult and are turning their attention more and more to the child. That is commendable, — it means that we are beginning at the beginning of things. We are just learning the elementary Christian princi- ples, — that a wholesome, happy childhood is the greatest asset of a nation. Was it not said long ago of the Holy City, " The streets of the city shall be full of children playing "?
For all this and more the lordship of Jesus stands. And we are met in this convention for the hastening of the empire. The gospel stands for a world with commonwealths of humanity and righteousness and peace; and this is the enterprise to which we are committed. This is the glorious adventure which our convention is to further and advance, and we are here to seek that epic, heroic touch which will do the thing — for it can be done if we have a mind to it.
In the little city of Antioch, long ago, there was a handful of Christians poor, insignificant — yet mighty enough in faith, courageous enough in outlook to dare to look out with calm, aspiring eyes over the western world, and to dream the wild, magnificent dream of conquering it for Jesus Christ, bold enough to act out and make that dream come true. That is the spirit we hold today. The longing, the passion, as we look out and behold the great multitudes over on the waste places of the world, in their sin and sorrow and misery, that will make us feel —
*' With a thrill the intolerable craving Shiver through us like a trumpet call. Oh! to save those, to perish for their saving, Do for their life, be offered for them all."
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This convention stands for a certain method of world conquest. Just as the teaching and preaching of the medical arms of the missionary force have their place in the great adventure, so the Sunday-school has also its part to play in the work of saving the world for Jesus Christ. Evangelists and physicians are seeking to win today. The Sunday-school is out to win the world's tomorrow, into the empire of the Son of God. And I am per- suaded that this is the most radical, most penetrating work that needs to be done.
The Sunday-school has a unique, distinctive share in the business of executing the great commission. It is out to capture the next generation for the kingdom of God. It is laying the foundations of that world-wide commonwealth of which I have been speaking. It is instilling Christianity into the hearts and minds of the boys and girls who are to be bearing the burden of tomorrow and working out the destinies of the nations, north, south, east, and west. And this is the most hopeful of all the works of the missionary enterprise.
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN
Rev. E. a. Dowsett, London, England
No subject ever given into our keeping has brought us under its spell as this has done. It has about it all the magic and charm of youth, which, as we yield to it makes us young again. It takes us back to the old sweet home and to the heaven of a mother's face!
Jesus and the children; we love Jesus, and we love the children, and it is no slight thing to be loved by them both in return. Jesus' love finds us; toil worn, weary, and stained with the dust of the world, he finds us and takes us as he took his garments, up the Mount, and he transfigures us. In this company we become white and shining.
The children's love keeps us; keeps us from losing the shining, from growing cold and old. Their little fingers cling to our garments and win us from hardness and suspicion. With Jesus and the children we need never despair of men or of ourselves, — they shame, they purify, they refine, they ennoble us.
And we are thinking of the children's way at this moment:
" We nearer to our wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin Are * wistful ' thinking of their road."
We know that as the oak sleeps in the acorn, as the torrent sleeps in the stream, as music sleeps in the egg of a nightingale, so unmeasured possi-
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bilities slumber in the children. These little people, just awaking to a world of wonder, are the future world makers, the new democracy. Theirs are the battles yet to win; theirs is the page of history yet to fill; where we have failed they will succeed, and for that which we have wasted they will demand a reckoning.
Were the children our sole responsibility we might well tremble as we pursue our task, but my subject reminds me these children are in the shadow of the Divine hand, the little ones are not only in our keeping but in his, and we will watch this morning His way with the children; we will try and discover the principles Jesus enunciated in his teaching with regard to their perfect education, and we will seek to put those principles into our own discipleship:
" Yield thy poor best, and mark not how or why; Lest one day, seeing all about thee spread A mighty crowd, and marvelously fed, Thy heart break out into a bitter cry ' I might have furnished, I, yea, even I, The two small fishes and the barley bread.' "
Let us watch, then, for a moment, Jesus' way with the children, and three guiding principles leap clearly out from his teaching for our instruction and equipment for service.
(i) " Suffer the little children to come unto Me." That is the principle of definition.
(2) "Take heed that ye despise not one." That is the principle of compassion.
(3) " The Son of man is come to seek and to save." That is the prin- ciple of contagion.
I. The Principle of Definition. " Suffer the little children to come unto Me." Help them to define their relation to Me, help men to receive My estimate of greatness. The true ideal. Dr. Morgan has said, toward which we are to move in the training of our children, must be the realization of the character upon which Jesus has set the chaplet of his sevenfold benediction, a benediction not upon having, not upon doing, but upon being; his teaching that a man is great if his character is what it ought to be. Suffer the children so to come, and let them so come, as little ones. " The first six years of our life make us; all that is added after is only veneer."
The child cannot define his relation to Jesus too early. Jesse would keep the youngest of his children from the sacrifice in mistaken kindness. Samuel would anoint the eldest in mistaken zeal. We can sympathize! We are forever making the same mistake. We feel, some of us, there is no greater problem before the church than the problem of its young men
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and women, the problem of the senior scholars — by all means, we say, let us win them.
Has it ever occurred to you that the seniors might have been suffered to come years ago. Is not the problem of our senior scholars due in large measure to the fact that we have lost the morning hour? Win the young for Christ. Yes, by all means; but win the younger, win the youngest! Suffer the jittle children to come.
It will not turn the child against Jesus by helping him to define relation- ship to him quite early. The child does not turn against bread in his man- hood because you give it the food of a child early, and I have never known the morning sun to wither a daisy. Jesus to the children is food and sunshine. See that they are fed of him; see that they live in the sunshine. God has his golden stairway to the youngest heart, and the little children may know the meaning of the anointing oil! Suffer them to come, for from the womb of the morning are the men and women coming who shall oflfer themselves willingly in the day of God's power.
2. The Principle of Compassion. " Take heed that ye despise not one! " Individualize your love, Jesus seems to say; get into touch with the lonely personality of your scholar; do not be careless over one.
Want of reverence may make you careless. A child may not appeal to you; in fact, at heart you may dislike him. Remember how Jesus loves him; remember God made all, God loves all, God cares for all, and with more of reverence you shall win that child.
Want of knowledge may make you careless. You may have a child most difficult to manage, an unruly child that almost makes you despair. Only because you have not yet discovered the point to touch, you have not yet found the golden key to his heart. Take care that ye despise not one, for their angels do always behold the face of the Father. It is as if Jesus says to us, seek your children one by one; seek their angels.
So wise men ever seek, looking for the angel within the form they see; and seeking, find. You pick up from a broken road a fragment of crystal, — the angel behind that morsel is the law of form. You watch some day the rain falling and perceive through the rain its angel, — the law of gravitation. Watch the child and at back of the most difficult and most impossible is the law of their individuality. Despise not that; there is communion there with the child and its Father, God.
Individualize your love. Jesus was forever doing it. Few turned to him from the crowd, but when he got alone with men then, — the fig-tree for Nathaniel, the night wind for Nicodemus, and the cool, deep water for the woman at the well, assured them that the speaking man was the man divine. The individual revelation worked the moral miracle. " Take heed that ye despise not one."
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3. The Principle of Contagion. " The son of man is come to seek and to save." Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. " Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus who . . . emptied himself, who humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto the death of the cross."
Magnetize the principles of definition and of compassion by the last gjeat principle of a consecrated life. You can never lift another higher than to your own mark. Your children will be just what you are yourself. What manner of men ought we to be in this high calling of Jesus Christ, — ourselves a flame of purity, if they are to be pure; a well of goodness, if they are to grow good ; an altar fire forever burning upon the altar, if they are to be kindled. The Son of Man came — the higher expelling the lower, by the holy contagion seeking and saving the lost.
My friend, the Rev. Frank Johnson, editor of the Sunday-School Chronicle, tells how he was once traveling in the same compartment with a soldier who much annoyed Mr. Johnson by whistling all sorts of music-hall choruses. But at one station a porter passed by, whistling a snatch of Gounod's " Glory to Thee," and to the editor's amazement when the soldier started whistling again he whistled " Glory to Thee " also. A fragment of genius had expelled the lower types and fancies; the marvel had been worked by contagion.
Touch the child's instincts, and assist him in selecting the material which is being carried up to build the temple of his mind.
Touch again that selected material and interpret it with large and wise ideas of God. " Let the study of the facts and laws of nature be interpreted as modes of divine activity and terms of divine thought. Let geography tell its story of seas and rivers and continents, but let not Him be forgotten who hangeth the earth upon nothing. Let philosophy pursue her quest of the true, the beautiful, and the good, but teach the child that these things are but the shadows of His face. Let literature make her spacious appeal on the great thoughts of men, but let it be known that the inspiration of the Almighty hath given man understanding."
When Jesus is with the children he asks for an early definition of their relation to himself, he appeals for a deep compassion in the disciple's heart , so that not one is despised; but above all he appeals for that surrender to his lordship which shall put the fine gold into our influence and make us rich. Sit then at his feet in humble submission and quiet faith. He the Master, ourselves the disciples, he the fullness, we the vessels waiting to be filled; ourselves the mown grass, Jesus the falling dew; we the rain- drops, Jesus the transfiguring sun, — and we will take up the burden of the coming years in Bishop Moule's hymn of consecration, —
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" My Master, lead me to thy door, Pierce this now willing ear once more, Thy bonds are freedom, let me stay With thee to toil, endure, obey.
" Yes, ear and heart and thought and will, Use all in thy dear slavery still ; Self's weary liberties I cast Beneath thy feet, there keep them fast.
" Tread them still down and then I know These hands shall with thy gifts o'erflow ; And pierced ears shall hear the tone Which tells me thou and I are one! "
THE STRENGTH OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, MEASURED BY ITS LITERATURE
Rev. A. L. Phillips, D.D., Richmond, Virginia
In this discussion, by Sunday-school literature is meant the Bible and all books, periodicals, leaflets, and cards used in explanation of the Inter- national Bible Lesson, whether uniform or graded, all children's and young people's papers circulated through the Sunday-school; all Sunday-school libraries; all song books of whatever kind; and all the varied forms of literature written and distributed to explain and promote Sunday-school work in all languages in every continent and island over the whole earth.
To the inhabitants of this world the most enlightening, enlivening, purify- ing, pervasive, and powerful force known is the sun. The Bible is the sun of the Sunday-school. Without it we dwell in darkness that may be felt, dead alike to men and God, impure, seclusive, narrow, impotent. How- ever far removed from the reigning centers of population, of light and power, any little Sunday-school may be, possessed of the opened Word of God, it has all the elements of achievement. God dwells in the Book, and forth from it comes the strength of the Almighty.
Science teaches us to measure strength in terms of resistance and of achievement. Tried by both methods, Sunday-school literature ranks high as a force in human life. Its mere presence in the school makes idle- ness and intemperance and impurity unwelcome and uncomfortable. It makes ceaseless war on the seductions of bad companions and infected books. It stands before the garden gates " with the flame of a sword turning every way."
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But the highest glory of this literature lies in its power of achievement. The message that it conveys to the people is essentially true. The Uniform Lesson System alone has enabled the whole Church of God throughout the earth for a generation to bring into captivity the ripest and most reverent scholarship of the age to discover and proclaim the truth. Theologian and linguist, orientalist and geographer, scientist and artist, poet and phil- osopher, have rejoiced to make their treasures of truth known to rich and poor alike through the Uniform Lessons.
This literature is designed to acquaint all men with the whole revelation of God, and to bring the whole nature of every man under subjection to God. To impure and enslaved sinners it offers cleansing by the blood of Christ and freedom through his dominion in the soul. To the weak it brings strength. Hungry souls here feed on honey out of the rock and cakes from the finest of the wheat. Water of life there overflows for souls that are like the dry and barren land where no water is. With clear tones of a silver trumpet it proclaims deliverance to all who pass through the flames. Here are rest for the weary, joy for tears of sorrow, heaven for the forlorn pilgrim.
The forms in which this literature is clothed are attractive indeed. Whether the lessons be uniform or graded, one can see everywhere most intelligent and elaborate efforts to select from the whole body of truth that which is adapted to the varying ages and capacities of the pupils, so that the babe may have milk, and the man may eat meat. Pathology, psy- chology, and pedagogy are being explored minutely to discover effective methods of organization, equipment, instruction, and discipline applicable to the spiritual necessities of the pupil at various stages of his growth. Denominational Sunday-school boards and publishing houses are in gener- ous competition with each other and with private editors and publishers to present their literature in varied forms, beautifully illustrated and printed with rare mechanical skill.
Who is equal to the task of describing the fruits of this literature? It has led in multitudes of cases directly to the conversion of pupils of all ages, and has emphasized the possibilities of early discipleship. It offers to child- hood heroes of the most perfect type, and to youth appealing subjects that challenge his awakening intellect, and to both adapted forms of Christian service. It rightly relates the Bible, prayer, and service to the unfolding spiritual life. Before young and eager eyes it lifts high the purest ideals of national morals and life, and glorifies patriotism into a noble service to God . It exalts character as the " chief concern of mortals here below," and is helping mightily to make righteousness and love dominant amongst the sons of men, and to exalt peace as the harbinger of the universal brother- hood of men.
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This literature has not only expressed the Church's sense of the need of special training for teachers, but has offered to those who desire it excellent courses of study in the Bible, the pupil, the teacher, and teaching, and the school. To officers, teachers, and workers of every character, it gives the inspiration of the life and writings of such men as Stephen Paxson, H. Clay Trumbull, B. F. Jacobs, and John H. Vincent.
This literature has entered the homes of people, and in a most important sense is their guide and inspiration to religious culture. Not to name other forms, the Home Department Quarterly, the Young People's Paper, and the Sunday-school library have brought the home under an unredeemable debt. In tens of thousands of homes throughout the world on each Lord's Day may be seen fathers and mothers and children singing praises to God from the Sunday-school song book. Do you not hear them now? Listen!
The Sunday-school has been most generous in providing literature of all sorts for all the people. Even a cursory glance at the wonderful exhibit of material made in connection with this convention will convince any one of the phenomenal results of the labors of editors and publishers to supply the miles of paper, the rivers of ink, the tons of type needed to satisfy the demands of the millions who are seeking the light from them.
Mr. Marion Lawrance estimated that in 1906 there were four hundred and eighty million copies of Sunday-school periodicals in circulation. In one form or another these pages speak in their own tongues to Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, to Burmans, Siamese and Indians, to Kaffirs and the people of Congo and Uganda, to Europeans, to South Americans, to Australians, to New Zealanders, and to North Americans. They may be found in the snow huts of Greenland, in the jungles of India, on the selvas of Brazil, on mountain and plain, in the mansion and in the log cabin.
The end is not yet! We shall not be satisfied until the Sunday-school tells from the printed page to every man in the world in his " own tongue the mighty works of God," until the Holy Spirit shall come again in fire and we shall see a new Pentecost.
THE STRENGTH OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, MEASURED BY ITS CONVENTIONS
Rev. E. Morris Fergusson, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nothing is ever great because it is large. Goliath was large, but David was great. Goliath had physical strength; but when his physical strength met the spiritual strength of the stripling, the giant crumpled up, and the boy that stood for Jehovah marched on.
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The Sunday-schools of the world are great, not because they number twenty-seven millions, but because they have a strong faith in Jesus Christ and the Word of God, a strong love for the children and the learners of every age, and a strong will to be one. The faith shows itself in the literature of which Dr. Phillips has been telling us; the love shows itself in that " far-flung battle line " of heroic endeavor that has been reported to us from every nation under heaven; and the will to be one shows itself in this great convention. The Sunday-schools of the world are great, and this convention proves it.
But this is no ordinary convention. This is a convention of conventions. We are at the apex of a world-series of conventions, eighteen thousand a year in the International field alone; at least twenty thousand in the world we represent. Twenty thousand Sunday-school conventions a year, and this is the head convention of them all; and every one of them stands for a common faith, a common love and a common will to be one in Christ Jesus. Nothing can separate us from his love, and nothing can or will separate us one from the other. This convention, with every one of the twenty thousand behind it, is the seal of that covenant of Christian brotherhood.
But back of every one of these conventions is an organization. Not one of these twenty thousand conventions happened to be held. There was a living organism that held the convention. In the world field as a whole, in the International field, in the national, provincial, state, insular, county, city, district, township, and hamlet fields, the Sunday-school organization is back of the convention. With its right hand it reaches out to find and embrace every school, little and big, near and remote; with its left hand it gathers up all the modern methods and ideas that make for progress and uplift. Back of it is the larger convention to which it is auxiliary; in front is the field, the exactly delimited territor^^ which it is to occupy in the name of Christ and the Sunday-school cause. The organization is the living organization of the Sunday-school progress of which the convention is the conscious expression. Twenty thousand such are represented here.
But there is more. Back of every convention is an organization; and back of every organization is a man. While many unite, some one faithful worker carries the load, plans the advances, gets his brethren to co- operate, and makes the organization go. I am a neighbor and long-time fellow- worker to Dr. Bailey, our noble executive chairman; and I know that fourteen months ago he was already on the home stretch of this con- vention's work. And so is it all down the long line. The Sunday-school is strong because of its conventions, and of its organizations, and of the men and the women who freely give their time and money and heart-force to make the work a living reality.
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Back of this great convention, back of its committee, back of Dr. Bailey and all the rest, there is also a Man, — Christ Jesus, our divine Lord. Let us look to him; let us honor him with our lives and services; let us find him in the children and the childlike whom we teach, even to those who are the least of these his brethren. Then shall we be strong; and before our strength the armies of indifference and opposition shall melt away.
THE STRENGTH OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, MEASURED BY ITS PERSONNEL
Dr. H. M. Hamill, Nashville, Tennessee
If I were a writer of church history, I would devote its brightest pages to the story of the Sunday-school leadership of all times. If I were both artist and writer, I would set before you in successive groups the forms and faces of these chosen benefactors of the race.
My first group, as it ought to be, would be taken from the Bible. In the foreground would be a copy of Michael Angelo's Moses, the vicegerent of Jehovah, author of the Mosaic Code in which all righteous systems of law are rooted, founder of the Jewish Church and ritual, and foremost figure for four thousand years in sacred history. In his hand I would place a parch- ment and write on it his last message to the fathers and mothers of Israel: " These words of mine shall be in thy heart and thou shall diligently teach them to thy children."
At his right hand would stand Samuel, last of the Judges, and first of the Prophets, the founder of training schools for Hebrew prophets and teachers; and at the left would be that poSt-exilian leader, Ezra, second only to Moses in Jewish estimation, with the book of the law open before him, reading its words distinctly and " causing the people to understand the reading," as they waited by the water gate of Jerusalem. In the center of my Bible group, and prototyped by prophet, priest, and king of Old Testament, would be the Great Teacher, going about " teaching and preaching " and calling the little child unto him and making childhood the objective of his kingdom.
My second group would be composed of the noble figures of the Re- formers, partly standing amid the shadows of medievalism, but with faces lighted by the dawn of Protestantism. Men might challenge me as I did it, but I would give a place of honor in this group to Borromeo of Milan, that fine old Catholic saint, who organized many schools of religious in- struction after the likeness of our own times, and was a lover of children when his love was greatly needed by them.
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Foremost of this group would be Luther, who crystallized in the Sunday- school the truth of the Reformation committed to him and who said, " I would rather my young men would not become preachers and pastors except they had first been school masters." With him would be John Knox, stout defender of the faith of the fathers, who, like Luther, saw hope for the Scottish Reformation only by way of putting it in the minds and hearts of the children. Wesley, the ecclesiastical statesman, whom Macau- lay ranked with Richelieu, the first to endorse the schools of Raikes and to free them from the bondage of the paid teacher; and Asbury, the apostle from England, who crossed the Atlantic with the first American Sunday- school in his saddle-bags and planted it, in 1786, within a hundred miles of Washington, would complete the picture.
My third group would follow after generations of Sunday-school growth had intervened, and some of its figures would quickly be recognized by the veterans of this convention. Beneath them I would place the legend, " Old World Sunday-School Leaders." As a testimony to these days of domi- nancy of ideas and plans of teacher-training, I would set before you that world pioneer of normal Sunday-school books and classes, William H. Grosser of England.
By him would be Charles Waters, organizer of the International Bible- Reading Association, who before he had passed into the heavens had set the Christian world to keeping step in Bible study with the International lesson; Sir F. F. Belsey, the one Sunday-school knight of the twentieth century, on whom the gracious touch of his King was laid before the scepter fell from his lifeless hand; Count Bernstoff of Germany; McCall of France; Towers and Bonner, and Glover, and Johnson of London, with a host of others not less worthy, as representatives of the Sunday-school personnel of our mother land.
My last group would be a composite of the Old and the Young Guard of American Sunday-school leadership. In the background would be the empire builders, the sappers and miners, the heroic Sunday-school spirits who made possible the convention. Frelinghuysen and Stuart are earlier presidents of the national convention and the little band who founded the American Sunday-School Union and started it on its great career; with Wells and Pardee, and Chidlaw, Paxson, and the like, the real fathers of our world-wide Sunday-school movement.
Of a later time, when war drums had ceased to beat and battle flags were furled, there would be Moody, the child evangelist; Reynolds, the inter- national organizer; Vincent, the Sunday-school inventor, the first to form a training class of teachers and to hold a Sunday-school institute, and the one who forty years ago put forth from brain and heart a system of lessons so perfect that all the doctors and professors of divinity have not materially
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improved it. As true yoke-fellows with him is that great-hearted Baptist layman of Chicago, who put wings to Vincent's ideas and sent them round the globe, — Benjamin Franklin Jacobs. John Hall, the great inter- national peacemaker; Broadus, the first seminary manufacturer of the modern Sunday-school pastor; Henry Clay Trumbull, the Nestor of American Sunday-school secretaries and writers; W. A. Duncan, the home helper and founder of the home department, would hold the second line.
In the forefront would stand John Potts — peace, and honor, and great reverence to this stalwart Sunday-school prince of Canada! Beside him, yet in the flesh, would be our longtime counselors and devoted cousins, Justice J. J. Maclaren and Judge Seth P. Leet, who for a generation have been prominent in executive ranks, and J. Monro Gibson, of the first lesson committee; Excell, with waving baton and voice of charm, would have worthy place, for
" With rings on fingers and bells on toes, He makes music wherever he goes."
Bailey, as the tireless deus ex machina; Warren, the Lord Bountiful, the giver of great and timely gifts; Hartshorn, the reorganizer and rebuilder; Lawrance, the Sunday-school worker's friend; and, last though not least, Meyer, the world-president and introducer, patron of other lesser presi- dents and potentates, would be the closing figure in a long and noble line.
[By unanimous vote of the convention, on motion of Marion Lawrance, the name of " Hamill " — teacher-training superintendent, and master of assemblies, was ordered added to the list which enumerates " the last group." — Ed.]
THE STRENGTH OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, MEASURED BY ITS RESULTS
Rev. Carey Bonner, London, England
" The prophet that hath a vision — let him tell his vision; and he that hath my word let him speak my word faithfully."
Results of the spiritual and eternal cannot be chronicled in facts and figures. Only insight, however partial, can indicate them. Therefore, I tell my dream.
Thus ran the vision, in passing scenes, transcripts from life. An elderly man, in his hand a letter from a far country; the writing unknown. He is absorbed in interest as he reads — a glow is on his face; something glistens in his eyes as he says, " Thank God! At last! " Read and see what moves him. It is toward the end of the letter. " You little thought to hear this
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from the lad who gave you so much trouble." " I cannot but write to you, for I see things now as never before. God has opened my eyes and called me. I am leading a school here now. And it is to you I owe the change; you» my teacher! You have molded my life." And, as he reads, the old man murmurs, " After many days." And, see, he is kneeling in voiceless thanksgiving.
Another scene. It is away off, in the great loneliness of Alaska. A stal- wart young lumberman is alone in the giant forests; his chum is dead; for days and weeks he has not clasped a human hand. Is there no companion to whom he can speak? By an almost forgotten instinct, he looks up to the silent stars. The hush of eternity is upon him. A scene flashes upon his mind — a city Sunday-school — and he remembers the influence of a man whose life was hidden with Christ in God, and the verses he taught his lads. Unconsciously the memories sweeping over him clear away the effect of years of neglect. His head is bared, and, kneeling on the grass, the strong man sobs out, " Father, I am an outcast; I have sinned against heaven, and before thee; I will arise and go to my Father. Father! " And, in the hushed stillness of his spirit, a voice says, " Son, thou art at home."
I am in England's metropolis, in a crowd drawn to hear one of her greatest preachers of Christ's evangel. Breathlessly all are listening as he dwells upon the power of soul over soul. " I know of what I speak. This is my witness. Nearly all that I have and am, spiritually and intellectu- ally, I (once a country lad following the plow) owe to a humble, unknown village teacher, a woman who took a class of us lads and, by prayer and devotion, brought Jesus Christ to us, and brought us to him; a woman who, by introducing us to good books, awakened our minds as well as trained our characters. This is my testimony. There is no more blessed influence than that of one soul upon another."
And in my dream I saw other results, and learned that " love needs its small interpreters. The child can teach the man." There was one who had just made the great discovery, and thus he spake:
" I stooped to help a little child and drive away its fears;
When lo! the wondrous Babe, all undefiled, smiled at me through its tears."
And I saw that, henceforth, that man labored in awe and love, realizing that whoever, for Christ's sake, served a child was in touch with the Eternal.
And yet once more I saw and read a transcript from life. I look in the home of a working man. The Sunday is wet, and he has forbidden his one small girl to go to Sunday-school. She was just about to start. Her dis- appointment is great. " Very well, father; we'll pretend, then, we are
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having Sunday-school in the parlor." And the little maid takes the books from out her satchel. " Now, father, you be the superintendent "; and she stands him up at a table. " Give out this hymn." And, half ashamed, and nervous, he obeys and announces, " I think when I read," etc. To- gether they sing, joined by the wondering mother, who comes in from the kitchen. " Now, father," says the child, in the unconscious authority of innocence, " the superintendent reads a chapter. Here it is." And, falteringly, he reads: " A certain man had two sons," etc. Strange memo- ries awake; unwonted emotions surge through his soul. " And, now, father," says the little maid, " you must pray." Pray! Not for years had his lips framed a petition. He had forgotten how to pray. As they kneeled — the silence could be felt — then: " God! God! Be merciful to me, a sinner." The prayer was heard. The following Sunday, a self-conscious, half-timid man walked early into the Sunday-school, hand locked in his girl's hand for courage. " Sir," said he to the superintendent, " I want to come to this school. I am an ignorant man, and if you've a class for infants, I reckon that'll do for me; and I'll go in it." But ever since then he has sat at the feet of a Divine Instructor; and the learner for some years has been a teacher of little children.
Thus this man (and how many others!) was drawn away from the city of destruction; and " the hand that led him forth was the hand of a little child."
Once more I looked — a sabbath day in an unknown village, and from the school-house an aged woman walking, tired and dejected. Reaching her cottage, she falls on her knees and prays. " For forty years, my Lord," said the quavering voice, " I have tried to serve thee in my classes of boys and girls; and it has a been failure. I cannot teach. But, O my Saviour, I have loved them. It was all I could do. But I have loved them."
A few weeks, and the tired woman lies almost at rest, passing, how calmly! At length, the hand of the watcher is lifted — the blind is drawn down. " All is over," whispers the watcher. " Over! " Nay! I look up and see the heavens are open; through the gates of the City Beautiful enters the worn-out soul. And, behold! at the gates a crowd; and as she enters, hands of welcome are held out. " Teacher! Teacher! " cry the welcomers. And I saw, as the gates were closing, that those who welcomed her were a great host; and I heard another who said: " Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me." " Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Results! Thus ran my vision; and as I saw men and women taking up the task divine, what were the qualities and graces they unwittingly em- ployed? Devotion, sympathy, unselfivsh service, influence, trust in, God, and love.
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And, lo! no pen could write their story, no rule could measure their greatness.
Then, as the vision passed, a voice was heard. " Go," said the voice; " speak to those who still labor. Say, there is One who knows the result. But say to them, ' Manhood is more than machinery. Character counts. Faith alone is victory. There can be no waste in service, for there is no king but Jesus. Love is power; and love is deathless.' "
Then chanted the voice a song of inspiration:
" Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow, — What are you weaving? Labor or sorrow? Look to your looms again: Faster and faster Fly the great shuttles prepared by the Master. Life' J in the loom. Room for it! Room!
" Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow, Lighten the labor and sweeten the sorrow; Now, while the shuttles fly faster and faster. Up, and be at it, at work with the Master. jH^e stands at your loom. Room for Him! Room!
" Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow, Look at your fabric of labor and sorrow, Seamy and dark with despair and disaster, — Turn it, and, lo! the design of the Master. The Lord's at the loom. Room for Him! Room! "
UTILIZING WASTE MATERIAL
Rev. Samuel D. Price, Camden, New Jersey
By waste material is here meant the Sunday-school supplies which have been used in the schools of the home land and which would be still very use- ful if they could be placed in the hands of those who are doing such success- ful work on the foreign field. There is a demand by the missionaries for many things which usually are thrown away or destroyed after they have told the Bible story once.
The call is especially loud for the lesson picture cards and the large quarterly picture roll. No matter what language one speaks, all but the blind can be both instructed and pleased with these bright pictures illus- trating Bible story or Bible land. These pictures are never thrown away after they reach the mission station. They help to tell the facts of life and love in the church service, the Sunday-school, and on the itinerating trips; they are used as rewards for attendance at Sunday-school and for commit-
Utilizing Waste Material 175
ting to memory various passages of the Bible. In the homes these pictures are often the only decorations to brighten the walls. To illustrate the ab- sence of home decorations, a missionary from Laos said that the natives treasure even the label from a match box, and that in one instance such a label was the only adornment in the home.
Then there is a demand, where English is spoken, for illustrated papers, such as are distributed in many of our schools each week. Recently a school in Maryland asked where some papers that had been used by the primary department could be sent. At the same time there came a request from India for papers in very easy English — the older girls in that school were just beginning to study our language. The papers that otherwise would be thrown away are now going abroad, where they are doing even more good than when first used at home.
Many mission stations have written for larger things, such as a stere- opticon and slides, maps of the Bible lands, hymn books, used Children's Day, Easter, and Christmas exercises. These requests are honored as far as possible, but the demand far exceeds the supply. And yet in storerooms and closets adjoining our Sunday-school rooms are supplies of this kind in abundance, wasted because not utilized. When you go home search your school buildings and note the wealth of material that the missionaries could use to great advantage.
Hand work, now so general in the elementary grades, and scrap books of pictures, either cards or prints cut from magazines and papers, would bring much joy as well as instruction if sent to some boy or girl across the sea. Many of these books, made in the Sunday-school or by the children in their homes, are now on their way to some mission station. Teachers are especially pleased to cooperate in this particular method of help, as it creates an interest and point of contact, thus facilitating and stimulating in missionary instruction.
The plan is very simple. The work in the home school can be done by any individual who is willing, or by a committee. Some merely receive the things of the right kind that are brought in; others make a decided effort to obtain this " waste material " — there is an abundance of it in every home. Then a letter should be sent to the undersigned, who was appointed by the Executive Committee of the World's Sunday-School Association, stating what you have for the work abroad and asking for the name of a missionary to whom the things are to be forwarded. A name of a missionary of your own denomination is returned, together with a card of introduction.
On the reverse side of that card the following general instructions are printed:
" Send all pictures and printed matter by mail in packages containing not more than four pounds each. You can forward as many packages as
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you please at one time. The rate for postage is two ounces for one cent Enclose the card of introduction in the package and. send a letter at the same time to the missionary, who will acknowledge receipt of the package. The missionaries are especially eager to receive the large picture rolls and the small lesson picture cards. A current magazine, after you are through with it, would be greatly enjoyed by any missionary, and the cost to mail is rarely over four cents if you take out the advertisements.
" Do not forward papers in English for the natives, except for the sake of the pictures, until you learn b^^ special correspondence that English is read in that particular field."
If any prefer to send a large quantity at one time a box can be prepared. The freight charge from New York City to the different countries varies from fifty cents to one dollar and a half per cubic foot. Of course, all charges to destination should be prepaid. The exact cost can be learned by applying to your local freight office.
The various foreign mission boards are cooperatng heartily in this work of sending " waste material, or by-products," to their various stations. In some instances they are even paying the freight charges from New York City to destination.
A few characteristic letters are quoted in part: " We should be so grate- ful for some picture rolls, which can be used not only in the Sunday-school lessons, but in the junior prayer meetings and in teaching Bible stories." " We cannot preach with full liberty, but these picture presentations of the gospel are all the more eagerly received." " Nothing has been of more value in my work of reaching the children than the Bible picture rolls. I can reach as many children as I have cards. At least one hundred and fifty per Sunday are needed." " I have fifteen Sunday-schools. Rolls or cards are of great help and value to us." " We paste Scripture texts on the backs of the cards, and in this way we send the gospel where it could not otherwise reach." " Many will come through the rain to get a card, and after getting a collection of them they are framed." " The people at home cannot appre- ciate how much the Chinese like bright-colored pictures, not only for the children, but the grown-up people, even literar>' men, will come begging for these pictures. They mount these pictures on heavy paper, and they last for years." " For anything you may be able to do to enhance the value of the work we shall be grateful." " I have thought of this for a long time and have been anxious to help my native congregations in the way your com- mittee suggests. I shall be grateful from time to time to receive a package of lesson pictures or cards, for they will greatly assist us to teach the people the ' Old, Old Story.' "
Schools in America and England are urged to write to me for the name of some missionary to whom supplies can be sent.
MEMORIAL SERVICES
EDWARD VII
Nov. 9, 1841 — MAY 6, 1910
PROCLAIMED KING JAN. 24, 1901
CORONATION CEREMONIES AUGUST. 1902
MEMORIAL SERVICES
In Honor of the Memory of King Edward VII
Friday, May 20, 1910
Three services were held:
Calvary Baptist Church, President Rev. F. B. Meyer presiding; Rev. Percy Waller, D.D., Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cheltenham, England, speaker.
First Congregational Church, Past President Mr. E. K. Warren presiding; Rev. Richard Roberts, London, England, speaker.
Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Carey Bonner, General Secretary of the Sunday-School Union, Great Britain, presiding; Rev. Ernest A. Dowsett, London, England, speaker.
Order of Service at each church was as follows.
ORDER OF SERVICE
I. Introductory Sentences
" Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as Head over all."
n. Opening Hymn
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come. Our shelter from the stormy blast.
And our eternal home;
Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame, From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream.
Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
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Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come. Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home. Amen.
III. Scripture Reading
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place
In all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth.
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction;
And sayest, Return, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight
Are but as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep:
In the morning they are like grass which groweth up;
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up;
In the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
O satisfy us in the morning with thy mercy;
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory upon their children.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us:
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
IV. Prayers
{Used today in the Burial Service of his Majesty)
Minister. Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; we give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver our most gra- cious sovereign King Edward the Seventh out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching thee, that it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy king- dom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen,
V. The Collect
Minister. O merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, in whom whosoever believeth shall live, though he die; and whosoever liveth and believeth in him, shall not die eternally; who also hath taught us, by his holy Apostle, Saint Paul, not
Memorial Services i8i
to be sorry, as men without hope, for them that sleep in Him; We meekly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; that, when we shall depart this life, we may rest in Him, as our hope is this our gracious sovereign doth; and that, at the general resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight; and receive that blessing, which thy well-beloved Son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear thee, saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Grant this, we beseech thee, O merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer. Amen.
VI. Hymn
God of the living, in whose eyes Unveiled thy whole creation lies; All souls are thine — we must not say That those are dead who pass away; From this our world of flesh set free, We know them living unto thee.
Released from earthly toil and strife,
With thee is hidden still their life;
Thine are their thoughts, their works, their powers,
All thine, and yet most truly ours;
For well we know, where'er they be.
Our dead are living unto thee.
Thy word is true, thy will is just;
To thee we leave them. Lord, in trust;
We bless thee for the love which gave
Thy Son to fill a human grave.
That none might fear that world to see.
Where all are living unto thee.
O Giver unto man of breath, O Holder of the keys of death, O Quickener of the life within, Save us from death, the death of sin; That body, soul, and spirit be Forever living unto thee. Amen.
John Ellerton.
VH. Memorial Address VIII. Hymn
Lord, while for all mankind we pray,
Of every clime and coast, O hear us for our native land,
The land we love the most.
Our fathers' sepulchers are here, And here our kindred dwell;
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Our children, too, how should we love Another land so well?
Unite us in the sacred love Of knowledge, truth, and thee;
And let our hills and valleys shout The songs of liberty.
Lord of the nations, thus to thee Our country we commend:
Be thou her refuge and her trust. Her everlasting Friend. Amen.
IX. Brief Prayer
X. American National Anthem
J. R. Wrejord.
My Country! 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died ! Land of the pilgrims' pride! From every mountain side
Let freedom ring!
S. F. Smith.
XL Prayer for his most Gracious Majesty, King George V
British National Anthem
God save our gracious King, Long live our noble King,
God save the King! Send him victorious, Happy and glorious. Long to reign over us:
God save the King! Amen.
Anon.
XU. Benediction
Followed by the" Dead March " hy Handel.
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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES
Rev. Percy Waller, D.D., Cheltenham, England My Fellow-Mourners: Let us place ourselves in the presence of God, the almighty Lord, who is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining, for death has come up into our royal palace; our sover- eign lord, King Edward, lies dead. Whenever any one comes to that point, be he prince or peasant, be he kinsman or stranger, our first duty is just to bow down and lay our hands upon our mouths, like David, when he said, " Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. ... I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it "; or as Nehemiah, after hearing grievously heavy tidings, " And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven." Then we are in the right position. " Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." We know in whose hands are the keys of hell and of death, and we would never take them from the hands of the loving Lord, nor try to turn them as they lie there, and say, " Not now, not thus, not yet." He doeth all things well; we will bow beneath his hand.
Next, let us place ourselves in the heart of the English empire, and stand in thought in the streets of London, or of Windsor. Our grief is no private one; our sorrow is world-wide. We stand in thought at the heart of the empire. The mourners throng the streets, and from the steeple the funeral bell tolls slowly. Not amid the acclamations and shouts of welcome, as in life, but in silence that may be felt; not amid the cheers which he was wont to hear, but amid the tears of his people, — King Edward passes forever to his last resting place.
Why is he thus mourned, and why was he so beloved? Because he sought to live out that motto, " I serve "; because he stood for peace at home and abroad; because he lent the weight of his royal influence to lift up the fallen, to comfort the needy, to relieve the weary and distressed. It is all so sudden! Even now we can hardly realize it. But, amid our tears, truly we may thank God that he died in harness, with his loved ones at his side, and that his suffering was short. But oh, one is taken and the other left! The two who for forty-seven years lived together in a beautiful life, in death are now divided. Pray for our widowed queen, that the God of the widow may be very gracious to her, and forget it not as the days go on, and at every turn she misses him. Oh, cry mightily to God that he will
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overshadow her with his presence and sustain her with his strong hand, until, in his infinite love, he sets her at her lost one's side again.
What now? What of the morrow, and the morrows? When our good Queen Victoria passed, we felt the same — what now? But the nation turned to prayer, that nation that had had to thank God twice for having raised up our prince's precious life from sickness that was nigh unto death. Twice in his life had our sovereign passed up the great aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral to acknowledge God's answer to a nation's prayer; and God heard the nation's prayer, and gave him strength to take up the reins of government, and grace to persevere faithfully unto the end, so that at the last he could say, " I think I have done my duty."
Can we be less full of faith now? Verily, no. The Lord reigneth, he is King forever, and he giveth more grace. It is God's way. The hope of the world lies not in the sepulcher, but in the cradle. " Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth." " The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." Therefore, I pray you, pray unceasingly for King George V. and for Queen Mary. He will not fail when His people cry unto Him in faith. Fellow Christians, we will not sorrow as those who have no hope. Though we have looked down into the open grave, I bid you look up into the open heavens. God is our refuge and strength, there- fore we will not fear.
Long, long ago, a Roman general lay dying. He sighed as he looked back at all he had done, and how little there was to show for it all. At that mo- ment an officer came in to ask for the watchword for the night, and the dying general, with all the strength he could command, raised himself up on his elbow, and said, " Lahorimus" — " Let us toil on." I pass on to every one of you that inspiring word. Let us hope and trust, let us watch and pray, and labor until our Master comes.
Rev. Richard Roberts, London
It is an enterprise far beyond my capacity to give anything like adequate expression to the sorrow which fills our hearts today. A whole nation, a great empire, is bowed with grief around the grave of a sovereign greatly loved . . . and one lonely figure amid the multitude, a figure beautiful with the perfection of queenly grace, commands the sympathy and the loving anxiety of a whole world. We think of the bereaved lady, and of that sorrowing city which now at this hour lays to rest a great regal personality, who was in a unique way the embodiment of the national spirit and the object of the affectionate devotion of his empire.
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The name by which Edward VII will be known in history is " The Peace- maker." How much he sought to do, and how much he actually accom- plished in the furtherance of international good-will, will never be told. But one thing we know, — that he loved peace and labored for it; and next to the domestic well-being of his own people, he had no passion more exigent than that of building up the sisterhood of nations and hastening on that great commonwealth of peace and good brotherhood — which is the kingdom of God. He was a great statesman, and more, — he was a great idealist; no mere impracticable visionary, but a man who dreamed dreams and then set out to make them come true.
And so the passing of Edward Vllis a loss not merely to his own people, but to the whole wide world. How much more he might have accomplished in the way of making peace it is idle to speculate; but God knows his own business best. And to us in our disappointment and distress and bewilder- ment surely the word is spoken today that was spoken long ago, — "Be still and know that I am God." There is no room for panic, no cause for fear. God's in his heaven — let us be still, confident, in perfect peace. He doeth all things well.
There are two lines of F. W. Faber's which we may recall today with gratitude, for they remind us that all the great calamities and disasters of our lives must be seen in perspective, if they are to be seen right.
" 'Tis ever thus in thy husbandry. Lord,
Thou sowest the grief of today for the grace of tomorrow."
And the grief of today is already large with the grace of tomorrow. In England, the grace of good-will and forbearance has invaded and over- whelmed the acrimonies of political controversy. The grief of today has knit together men of all creeds and views in the ties of a mutual sympathy. A nation sharply, even bitterly, divided by controversy, has been welded into a grateful surprised unity around the grave of its king. He who was in life the peacemaker has made peace by his death. England has been cleansed of bitterness by a common sorrow.
The time has not come to estimate the character and personality of King Edward. We must be able to put a little distance into that picture to get it true. But there are two things which stand out very clearly in his life The first is his big human heart. King Edward was never
"lOn heights too high for our aspiring, Coldly sublime, intolerably just."
We felt him always very near to us. He was not so much the father o. his people as their brother and their friend. He lived in the heart of his subjects, — as they knew they lived in his. And the thousand and one
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kindnesses which were told of him endeared him to his people beyond words. The second outstanding quality was his great good sense, his per- fect tactfulness, his endless considerateness for others. And the story of those last days, when, despite his growing weakness, he still struggled with the business of state and concerns of his people, will never die out of the memory of those whom he loved so to the end.
Well, he is gone — but his work remains. And he has left to the English- speaking people a tradition to maintain and a destiny to fulfill which is altogether worthy of them. Do you remember how Ezekiel once said, — "In the evening my wife died, in the morning I did as I was commanded." The king is dead, but let us do as we are commanded, — commanded by the voice of God in the memory of Edward VII, — to go on with the work of building up the commonwealth and the peace of God. Let us cease from mourning and go back again to carry the burden he has left us and to establish the dominion which is to endure to all generations, the empire of the Prince of Peace.
And that is indeed what we are here for. As I looked on that great multitude last night, I felt it easier than I have ever found it to say, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." And I might have added, " I believe in the holy world-brotherhood that is to be." This convention is the symbol and the promise of it. And when we think of Edward VII's great labor for peace and of this great convention, it is not hard even now to
" See the glory gaining on the shade Till the nations all are one. And all their voices blend in choric hallelujah to their Maker, It is finished! Man is made! "
" The king is dead. Yes, but there is another King: one Jesus."
Rev. Ernest A. Dowsett, London
In Psalm 46 there are three words which in the multitude of thoughts within us shall comfort our souls: " Come," " Behold," " Be still! "
Come, beloved, in fellowship of unutterable sympathy with our stricken and broken-hearted people in Great Britain today.
The whole world loved our gracious king, but the whole world cannot understand just how the Britishers loved King Edward. We loved him as our king, we loved him most as a man. We loved him for his honesty, for his kindly courtesy toward all. We felt, whatever our rank, " that in not a few essential matters he was one of ourselves."
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As the Times said on the morning of his death, " Nothing pleased the English people better than his broad human sympathies, than his open and manifest joy in life. That was the secret of his spell which he undoubtedly exercised on the masses of the people." To me it was essentially the King's Song, and he sang it for himself and loved to sing it into the lives of all he touched.
Yet I think one thing pleased us even more, — above all considerations of personal convenience and amusement. King Edward placed his duty to his people first. To do his duty was, I think, the king's prayer which ever was interwoven with his common round and trivial task, and I was not sur- prised to read in one of your American papers that his last words were born of that very ideal, — "I think I have done my duty." These things made the king's life most precious to us and precious above all things, because it moved in sincere devotion to the cause of peace and in manifold labors on its behalf.
Behold! Behold, then, the desolation! The king's song has fallen apart, the king's prayer has been only half said, the king's life has dropped its burden; and the loss of a king " so cautious, so courageous, so tactful in the management of men and affairs," at a time when we thought we could not do without him, is a public calamity.
No Englishman will enter a church today without a troubled face, a heavy heart, and the sense of a companionship, now only a memory, which yesterday was an inspiration!
Be still! Listen to the message. " Be still, and know that I am God." May God in his mercy grant that stillness to the Queen Mother Alexandra. May God in his mercy make her to lie down by the still waters today; may grace be given to the queen and ourselves to lift the troubled face into the untroubled face of a risen Jesus, to hear the sweet name " Mary " singing through her tears, and to utter that word of emancipation, " Rabboni," unto her living Lord.
May grace be given to us all to take our eyes off the changing circum- stances of life and fix them upon Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
" He giveth unto man the breath, He holdeth all the keys of death, He quickeneth the life within."
And in this gift, in this ability to keep, in this divine quickening, our God is ever discovering the beauty of earth's broken things.
Be still! Know that the Divine Artist weaves His golden tapestries from the fragments of human lives.
Be still! Know that in His presence a Book of Remembrance is written,
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a book in which unperfected toils are not forgotten, in which nothing is lost, but that that which is begun in His spirit must work out its mission and attain its end.
" A broken song, it fell apart Just as it left the singer's heart, A broken prayer hardly half said By a tired child at his trundle bed;
" A broken life hardly half told When it dropped the burden it scarce could hold; * Of these songs and prayers and lives undone,
God gathers the fragments, every one."
" Surely the Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge."
ROLL-CALL OF THE NATIONS
A Survey of World-Wide Snnday-ScKool Wort
CONTINENTS, NATIONS, AND COUNTRIES REPORTING
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NORTH AMERICA |
AFRICA |
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The International Field |
Algeria |
East Africa |
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Mexico |
Algiers |
West Africa |
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The Philippines |
The Congo South Africa |
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The West Indies |
Egypt |
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Hawaii |
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GREAT BRITAIN |
ASIA |
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England Scotland |
India |
Persia |
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Korea |
Turkey |
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SOUTH AMERICA |
Japan |
Siam |
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Brazil Argentine |
China |
Syria |
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Chile Peru |
Palestine |
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EUROPE |
MAYLASIA |
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Belgium Hungary |
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Bohemia Norway |
NEW ZEALAND |
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Bulgaria Italy |
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Denmark Russia |
AUSTRALIA |
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France Spain |
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Germany Sweden |
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOLS OF NORTH AMERICA
John Wanamaker, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The presence of the Chief Executive of the Government of the United States here tonight, as a Christian gentleman interested in the setting up of God's kingdom in the world, is quite in line with his office and in accordance with his nature to promote the best welfare of all the people.
This great nation has no forces or friends for which it should be more grateful than those that march under the banners of its schools.
At the Golden Jubilee of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, last February, I heard President Taft make what seemed to me the best address for foreign missions I ever heard. Tonight he appears in this high court as attorney-in-chief for the Sunday-schools of North America, and with his wonderful grasp of the facts, and his learning and rare skill as a lawyer, has won the case for the plaintiff, it being so declared here and now by this great audience as the jury — let Caesar have his tribute and let God also have his own.
Neither stars of the night, nor the sun of day, nor the angels in heaven, can look down upon another such sight upon this earth as great as the world's whole army of the Sunday-schools. The larger half of it in number of schools, number of teachers and officers, and number of scholars, is in North America, and all told in this country alone in round figures is not less to- night than fifteen millions strong. If Edison were a wizard mighty enough to call them up, what a multitude it would be! But its value is not to be counted by membership. It is the only army in the world in which the drill and exercises have to do with the heart as well as the body and mind.
The Sunday-school was not evolved — it was revealed. It is not an agency of man's device — it came to man through the mind and heart of God. Men have not always taken account of this, but they are beginning to take a fairer account. We are glad to be on the weighing scales, but let the scales be justly balanced.
The march of the Sunday-school army of North America has not been as rapid as desired, nor has it been as efficient as hoped for. It has suffered not only from the fire of the adversary, but, like Paul the Apostle, from perils among false brethren, receiving often more than forty stripes, and it has been turned out of house and home to cold and nakedness and hunger and thirst. But in spite of all things its song has been, " Onward, Christian soldiers," and I verily believe that tonight there are Sunday-schools enough, if properly distributed, to fairly cover every county and every
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township of each county in every one of the forty-eight states and terri- tories represented by the stars and stripes of America.
The Sunday-school has been the pioneer of the common schools and the mother of churches in the territories and the new states. We have taught young and old the alphabet from our spelling books and our Bibles, as well as the A, B, C's of salvation, calling nothing common that helps either old or young to good citizenship and to righteousness as revealed in the gospels, insisting on only their larger definitions, salvation meaning in the truest sense the new life begotten of God in the man or child.
It is a mistake to suppose that a purely academic and scientific educa- tion in school, college, or university is sufficient. There must be a religious education as well, if good citizenship is to be safeguarded.
Heaven forbid that any calamity should come to so fair a land, but the greatest calamity that could possibly come would be the loosening of the braces of the law and the breaking down of the fences about the home and the family, and the failure to lift up the character and support of the Sunday- schools. The Sunday-school teachers of America engaged in training the young by God's plan are responsible for the forming and uplifting of the character of future America. It is righteousness that exalteth a nationl Give the youth of America the simple, plain, all-powerful gospel of Jesus Christ and the kindling embers in their young souls will soon burst forth in such a flame that the whole world would catch the blaze.
Said William Ewart Gladstone: " Talk of the questions of the day! there is but one question, and that is the gospel — it can and will correct every- thing needing correction. My only hope for the world is in bringing the human mind into contact with Divine Revelation."
The nations not English want an English education either in the schools of America or Britain. The nations of the earth believe in America and England. They hear and heed them as they are hearing Theodore Roose- velt. They will love them as they have loved Edward VII and honored him for his love of peace and good- will. When President Taft has com- pleted his present term of office and the next one, he will be the world's missionary for righteous laws. Universal Peace, that the birds may build their nests in the cannons' mouths and spears be beaten into pruning hooks, and war shall be no more in any land.
The next ten years are likely to be the most potential of all years in the shaping of the destinies of the world. Mr. Roosevelt is saying everywhere that a country is what its people are. It is not the palaces and public buildings, not its boulevards and bourses, not its hospitals or museums, its ships or its wealth, — proper to be proud of as they are, — but that Character is the rock foundation on which alone a nation must build righteous principles and upright living.
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With a foresight almost superhuman, he recognizes the presence in the world of forces that make for the overthrow of dishonesties in public life and the rebuilding everywhere of an honorable and Christian home life and patriotic citizenship.
Let us hail and hasten the day.
The Sunday-school idea has a new vision, and its improvements and en- largements are marching on. Like the tariff, it has been revised upward. Its candle-power has immensely increased in the past ten years. It is a thoroughly organized force through new systems, new education, and new literature, all unlike the Sunday-school of our childhood, as much as Ful- ton's boat on the Hudson is unlike the Cunard Company's Lusitania.
With our British brethren we cry, " God save the King! " and our British delegates, brothers and sisters, and our comrades all over the two hemispheres shout with us, — God save the Children.
We believe that God is for the children and that the children are for God .
We believe that though man cannot always reveal himself to other men, that God can reveal himself even to a little child and put a seal on his life, that he may by spiritual wisdom confound the mighty unbeliever and dumbfound the doctors in the temples of philosophies and sciences that reject divine authority. And again it shall be said, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise."
Christ came not in the magnificence of manhood, but in the insignificance of babyhood. He was not revealed to us in the glory of maturity, but in the innocence and defenselessness of his infancy and the beauty of his boyhood.
Surely there must have been some momentous purpoBe in this, for the babyhood could easily have been hidden.
But divine wisdom, seeing that a period of his life following maturity would be cut off, allowed us the childhood, youth, and young manhood to be the complete picture of the most important period of all life.
Oh, men and brethren, beloved fellow- workers, as Mary, that God-crowned mother, gathered to her breast the endangered, defenseless babe Jesus and hastened with him from the decree of death, may we see and seek the defenseless young and helpless little ones that are near our gate, and hasten with them from the shadow of death that lies over their track, and thereby follow the example of the holy mother; and so shall we fulfill the eternal obligation and responsibility that has been laid upon us.
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A SURVEY OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN NORTH AMERICA
W. N. Hartshorn, Boston, Massachusetts, Chairman Executive Committee, The International Sunday-School Association
The International Sunday-School Association, whose field is the con- tinent of North America, greets the organized Sunday-school forces of the world. These forces are united as never before, keeping step to the music of Bethlehem in their march against the forces of evil, to conquer the world for Christ.
North America has set for its Sunday-school goal: every available woman and child, in every community, to be in the Sunday-school; every member of the Sunday-school to be in the church; and every member of the church to be in the Sunday-school.
The standing and character of the men in control of any movement determine its success or failure. John Wanamaker, the world's most famous Christian merchant, said in Boston, in 1896, "We must give the Sunday-schools of North America a higher rating."
William H. Taft, the President of the United States, in this the greatest Sunday-school convention the world has ever known, has declared his estimate of the purpose and necessity for the teachings of the Sunday- school for the safe building and perpetuity of this nation.
The words of our good President, and the action of our House of Repre- sentatives, spoken and done on Thursday, May 19, in Washington, will be heard and known around the world. The one million, six hundred thousand officers and teachers will be inspired with new courage and, under God, this convention may mark a new era in the Sunday-school life and activities of North America.
The Sunday-school is no longer a problem for women and youth alone, but for men and women who are in the front ranks of commercial, in- dustrial, and educational activities. It surpasses all other agencies in keeping an open Bible in the hands of the people, and by it the church will rise or fall. In North America the Sunday-schools have become the greatest asset and the most productive agency in the possession of the churches.
Approved statistics show that ninety per cent of our pastors and church workers, and eighty per cent of all church members, enter the church through the Sunday-school, and that fully seventy-five per cent of all churches begin as Sunday-schools and then develop into churches. It is the business, therefore, of the churches of North America to guard with jealous care the life of the Sunday-school, because of what it produces.
The greatest single agency for organizing new Sunday-schools in North America is the American Sunday- School Union. In its life of eighty-
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six years, it has established 121,000 Sunday-schools, out of which have grown more than 50,000 churches. It now employs, annually, 270 secretaries and missionaries. It has distributed Sunday-school literature and Bibles to the value of $11,000,000. The present annual expenditures are $210,000.
The various denominations and individual churches also organize hundreds of new schools each year. It is in these Sunday-schools that Christian men and women are discovered and trained for leadership. There is no branch of church work for the young people that does not take its officers, for the most part, from the ranks of the Sunday-school.
"The Laymen's Missionary Movement" of North America — prob- ably the greatest laymen's movement of all the centuries — has discovered its leaders and their associates in, and is recruiting them from, the ranks of the Sunday-school.
The convention statistics will show 161,000 Sunday-schools in North America, with an average enrollment for each school of 93; officers and teachers, 1,622,000; scholars, 13,461,000; making a total enrollment for North America of more than 15,000,000. This number is 54 per cent of the total enrollment found in the 192 countries and groups of islands in all the world.
The Sunday-school of today will be the church of tomorrow. What, then, is North America doing today to maintain the efficiency of the Sunday-school, to train its teachers to teach and to develop leadership within its ranks? We must give answer in five minutes.
First, we gratefully accept the service that can only come to us by way of the International Sunday-School Association and its auxiliary organizations. Through the township, the county, the district, and the state organizations, there is no school so remote or isolated in the whole continent of North America, whose officers and teaichers may not touch elbows and be encouraged by fellowship and comradeship, because it is one of a great host and all inspired with a single purpose.
During the present International triennium, ending June, 191 1, it is estimated that no less than fifty thousand Sunday-school conventions and conferences will be held in North America, the supreme purpose of which is instruction and inspiration. In a sense, these meetings are so many "pipes" connecting the individual officers and teachers of these Sunday- schools with the International "reservoir," into which are gathered, from all the world, tested and approved methods, and suggestions born only of experience.
The International Sunday-School Association exercises no authority. It organizes no new Sunday-schools. Its supreme purpose is to serve. It contributes more than fifty thousand dollars, annually, that it may serve the Sunday-schools of North America. Its motto is "Co-operation,"
196 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
not "Competition." It gathers strength from the strong, and wisdom from the wise, that it may impart to others.
It is the habit of the Sunday-school leaders in North America to seek to do the best they can with what they have, and then by attendance at conventions gain from others what they lack, and then through knowl- edge of conditions and wise adaptation, make this knowledge tributary to the further development and permanent success of their own schools.
One of the great forces in the development of the Sunday-school work of North America is the International Lesson Committee, which was created by the National Sunday-School Convention at Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1872. The fifteen members of the American Section are selected from the leading denominations by the International Sunday- School Association. The British members are selected by the British Sunday-School Union. This committee serves for six years. It selects the topic, the text, and the golden text for the Uniform Lessons, which embrace the entire Bible during the life of each committee. The Lesson Committee never interprets the lesson text. This duty belongs abso- lutely and only to the different denominations. Thus, while there is only one Uniform lesson for sixteen million people in North America, there may be as many interpretations as there are denominations.
At the request of a large American constituency, and after several conferences of the leaders, the Twelfth International Sunday-School Convention, which met in Louisville in June, 1908, unanimously instructed the Lesson Committee to prepare two series of lessons, — one a Uniform, or ungraded. Series, which has been in continuous and successful use since 1872; and also a thoroughly Graded Series of lessons. Please keep in mind that this series of graded lessons is not to take the place of, but it is in addition to, the series of uniform lessons which have been in use nearly forty years.
It is now less than one year since three of the graded courses have been in use; four additional courses will be ready for use by the schools at the beginning of the year. It is only after a thorough trial by the schools, that we can hope for a verdict upon the merits of these series of graded lessons.
Another mighty force in maintaining the efficiency of the Sunday-school in North America is the denominational and independent publishing houses. These houses employ a large corp of lesson editors and writers, and the aggregate output of their publications is enormous.
A suggestion as to the amount of capital invested and labor employed to furnish Sunday-school literature in this country, alone, is found in the fact that one house, only, employs a corp of editors, writers, and workers, to prepare and produce, in a single year, more than fifty-one
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million pieces of Sunday-school literature. The total output of the Sunday- school publishers of North America in a single year probably exceeds half a billion pieces of literature.
Still another mighty factor in the Sunday-school work of North Amer- ica is the International Executive Committee; which comprises one man from each state, province, and territory, and from eleven districts. This committee meets once a year. Each member serves without compensa- tion and provides his own traveling and hotel expenses when on duty.
This great committee, numbering nearly one hundred men, repre- senting all parts of the continent of North America and including within its numbers, judges, lawyers, educators, manufacturers, merchants, pastors, and those in almost every walk of life, is kept busy and made efficient by a place on the various subcommittees as follows:
Central Committee Temperance Department
Finance Committee Visitation Department
Educational Department Home Department
Elementary Department Field Workers' Department
Advanced Division Theological Seminaries
Adult Department Work among the Negroes
Missionary Department Work in Mexico Work in West Indies and South America
Each of these departments is in charge of ten, or more, committeemen, with its chairman. The Executive Committee employs an International superintendent who devotes his or her entire time to the development of the department, and as a rule visits most of the states and provinces once each year in the interest of the department, and is usually present at the annual state or provincial convention.
The organization of the Executive Committee is as follows:
W. N. Hartshorn, Chairman
E. K. Warren, Chairman Central Committee
Fred A. Wells, Treasurer
Rev. George R. Merrill, D.D., Secretary
The superintendents of the various departments who give their entire time and are in the regular employ of the association, are as follows:
Marion Lawrance, General Secretary
Hugh Cork, Assistant General Secretary
W. C. Pearce, Adult Department
Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Elementary
Rev, Franklin McElfresh, Ph.D., Teacher Training
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J. Shreve Durham, Visitation
W. C. Merritt, Secretary for Northwest
Rev. E. M. Skin, Secretary for Mexico
Rev. A. Lucas, West Indies, Central and South America
William A, Brown, Missionary
It is impossible in the space of ten minutes to give even a suggestion of the work and its results, carried on in these various departments, and by these trained superintendents. I will, therefore, refer you to the index, which will give you the pages in the official Report where the details of this work and its results will be set forth.
The Sunday-school statistics of our field — the continent of North America — are in their larger groups as follows: Sunday-schools, 161,685; officers and teachers, 1,622,890; pupils, 13,461,274; total enrollment, 15,084,164.
MODERN MISSIONS IN THE PHILLIPINES
William A. Brown, Chicago, Illinois
The American occupation of the Philippines has meant the saving of countless millions of lives and countless billions of treasure.
Speaking humanly, had not America been in the Philippines, the be- leagured legations in Peking in 1900 would not have been relieved; and had not the legations_been relieved, we might even yet be in the throes of such a disastrous war as the world has never known. Our being in the Philip- pines made possible the preservation of the integrity of China's territory, the largest contribution ever made by one race to another.
Our being in the Philippines opened the way for the Anglo-Japanese alliance, the first alliance of that kind since the morning stars sang together. Our being in the Philippines preserved the neutrality of the nations and restricted the area of open combat in the war between Russia and Japan, and made possible the earlier cessation of hostilities and the treaty of Portsmouth.
In the days of the Spaniard in the Philippines, the natives were required to kneel before their rulers and to kiss the back of the hand extended to them in scorn and derision. Now all that is changed. On the occasion of Governor Taft's first official visit to the provinces, to the man who expected to kneel before him and to kiss his hand, the governor extended his open palm and gripping the other by the hand, said, " How do you do; how are you! " And half a billion are now feeling the thrill of that brotherhood under the impulse of the American belief that a man is a man, " for a' that, and a' that."
Roll' Call of NaUons — The Philippines 199
America has worked wonders in the Philippines. Consider these great deeds among the achievements of only ten years: We have pacified the islands; we have given them a stable form of government; we have given them an incorruptible system of judiciary, and freed justice from the seem- ing embarrassment of the trial by jury; we have given them a public-school system that has brought opportunity within the reach of all; and the first teachers of the schools were American soldiers who opened schools for the instruction of the natives before the war was over; we have given them a public assembly; we have so sanitized the islands that they are now strangers to the plague and the pestilence; we have given them a common means of communication ; we have made the people neighborly by the new systems of transportation; we have given them penny postage; we found the jails filled with political prisoners against whom no formal charges had been made, — we opened the doors and set the prisoners free; we found a Bagumbayan, a field of blood, where, under Spain, innocent men by the thousands were shot down, without ever knowing the charge lodged against them. But there is no longer a field of blood; for that beach of silvery sand skirting the bay, once a place of carnage, is now the lovely Luneta, the most beautiful spot in Manila. Take that as the one most striking contrast between the old days of Catholic Spain and the free days of Protestant America.
Yet America's greatest gift to the Filipinos is the Word of God and the freedom of worship. The hand of the oppressor has been most heavily seen in the forced service of the people. Their religion may be best defined as Mariolatry. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. They bow down to the work of their own hands.
The second commandment, forbidding the making of images, is not printed in Catholic catechisms in the Philippines. The worship of images centers in the cult of the Virgin of Antipolo, — a black wood doll gorgeously arrayed in robes of spun gold bedecked in precious gems and wearing a crown brilliant with jewels of priceless worth. This little wooden image of the Virgin of Antipolo is rich in this world's goods, for vast estates and large fortunes have been given to her. In December, 1904, the Roman Catholic world celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the dogmatic definition of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. In the Philippines this celebration served as the occasion for the most enthusiastic worship of the little wooden image. The little black doll was brought from Antipolo to Manila on a boat elaborately fitted for its comfort. That it might not be too hurried or too wearied, the journey was broken at suitable intervals.
The day the image reached Manila multitudes thronged the highways to pay their homage. The pageant was patronized by the American Catholics, and as a mark of distinction the wife of a prominent government official
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walked one block bareheaded behind the idol, carrying a lighted candle. When the procession approached the Walled City, it was met by a large escort of American Catholics led by the archbishop, and the little wooden image was taken with great honors to the cathedral, where it was enthroned before the altar, high and lifted up. For days the superstitious populace crowded the cathedral, and with lighted candles mounted the stairs that led behind the image, where they might kiss the hem of its golden garment. And on the altar stairs mothers laid their babies that the idol might bless them. And, seeming to fear that the people might not understand how fully he approved their worship of the Virgin, the archbishop, an American, issued a letter to the young men in the Philippines urging them to put their trust in the Virgin, telling them that no prayer off ered in her name had ever been denied, and quoted, as applying to the Virgin, several of the prayer promises in the New Testament where our Lord is named.
The religious practices of the Filipinos are idolatrous. For a deity they worship the Virgin, and the burning of Bibles their priests call an act of faith. In the old days two men attempted to circulate the sacred Scrip- tures in the islands; both men were poisoned: one died in terrible torture, and the other, scarcely living, was forbidden to ever again set foot in the Philippines. Another law forbade any body of evangelical Christians owning property, and made impossible our acts of Christian worship. All that is now changed; and the Filipinos have a right to enter in and be saved. And they are coming in crowds. That story is the romance of modern missions.
The Filipinos respond freely to the preaching of the gospel. Three things make their response so eager: i, the change of the government and all that it implies; 2, the atrocious iniquities of many of the friars; 3, and the heart hunger awakened in many minds by even the vision of the veiled Christ as seen in Catholicism, for however far short the friars came, their measure of Christianity is incomparably superior to the best in heathenism. You may see an evidence of the response of the Filipinos to the gospel when you consider the fact that to-day nearly one hundred thousand souls have come from darkness to light and are numbered among the evangelical forces. And yet it might have been many times that number. In the beginning of missionary work the leaders of three million of Filipinos spent an afternoon urging the missionaries to undertake the religious instruction and redemption of so vast a throng. Seldom if ever did so large a number of people come seeking salvation at Christian altars, and instruction from Christian pulpits. But they had to be denied. For not all the missions together have ever had as many missionaries in the Philippines as single missions should have had.
In view of the small missionary staff, I marvel at the results of these
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brief years. The Bible has been translated in the major languages in the islands, and the gospels and Scripture portions have been circulated widely in most of the dialects. Christian literature is distributed by the million pages. And in many places to read at all means to read either the Bible or books about the Bible. Training schools are established for the blessing of the people, and hospitals and dispensaries mark the onward march of the missionaries. The large success that has attended the preaching of the gospel would not have been possible but for the spirit of unity that charac- terizes the mission force in the Philippines.
The islands are divided among the several mission boards, which pre- vents crowding the easily accessible places and provides the wider dis- tribution of the men on the field. The earlier missionaries cannot be too highly commended for this partition of the peoples to be reached. The spirit of unity and cooperation has gone beyond the mere partitioning of the fields. In the Philippines the Methodists and the Presbyterians have a Union Theological Seminary for the training of their men for the Christian ministry!
In the face of still greater opportunities two needs are paramount: The English language is being taught to the Filipinos by the best trained teachers from our land. There is not a city in the Philippines but that you can find in it an interpreter trained in the public school, who can under- stand your thoughts and put them in the language of his own people. Of no similar portion of the habitable globe is there such ready access to most of the people as in the Philippine Islands. Every exigency of the situation demands of us that we now undertake more largely than we ever have the redemption of these islands and fulfill for them that age-long hope that has buoyed them in every conflict they had with Spain, that inspired their Rizals with as high devotion as characterized any member of our race.
We must redeem these islands, purchased at such a price. We cannot now turn back; we have put our hand to the plow. The Lord God Al- mighty will hold us accountable as he will hold no others accountable for the redemption of these islands of the distant seas. Then steps should be taken for the formation of a Sunday- School Association led by one whose gifts and training qualify him for the highest type of missionary service. We Christians of America dare not do less for the Filipinos in the Sunday-school than we are doing for them in the public school.
Another urgent need grows out of the opportunity presented by the thousands of Filipinos wbo have completed the public school and are now approaching institutions of higher learning. There should be founded immediately in the city of Manila a Christian university, where the men and women " of many faiths, but of the one Name," might come together to teach the unsearchable riches of His gospel, and to impart the wisdom that
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is imperishable. This university ought to be so founded as to be for all who serve the growing church in its unchanging needs. There are multitudes in the Philippines who want to be free. I know, as you know, and as they cannot now know, that the only freedom that shall outlast the stars, is the freedom that is found alone in Christ Jesus our Lord. I know, as you know and as they shall some day know, that the only citizenship that is abiding is the citizenship that is in the kingdom of our God. And, that they may know the " truth that makes all men free," I plead for a Christian university, which shall gather together all in one, and make them new creations in Christ Jesus our Lord.
LIGHT BREAKING IN MEXICO
Rev. John W. Butler, D.D., City of Mexico
Mexico is the nearest foreign field in which the International Sunday- School Association is working; is a country of about eighteen million people, and has attracted world-wide attention in these later days because of its magnificent president and wonderful modern developments.
It is a country in which the American people have within the past few years invested nine hundred million dollars and the British people at least one half that amount. It is a land of tremendous resources, and a future before it of great possibilities.
This country was for four hundred years under Spanish oppression, and, as in the case of all her foreign possessions, Spain ruled and ruined. Light first began to break in Mexico when the people struck for independence, just one hundred years ago, and further light came when the Mexicans began a struggle in 1837 for emancipation from papal rule. This struggle, which was partly consummated in 1857 and confirmed in 1873, brought about the separation of church and state, the confiscation of the immense property holdings of the church, the expulsion of the secret religious orders, and the opening of the country for liberty of worship and liberty of the press.
Light came into the country through the circulation of the holy Scrip- tures. When you were born, Mr. Chairman, the Bible was a prohibited book in the republic of Mexico; and even today it is prohibited by the priests and burned by them at every possible opportunity.
When the American army first went into that country, in 1847, colpor- teurs from the American Bible Society followed in the wake of the army and distributed thousands of copies of the holy Book. In many cases we have found that a Bible left by some of the chaplains connected with the army has been the origin of a Christian church.
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When I first visited the town of Tlacuilotepec I preached to a house full of hungry souls. The origin of the work there had been a Bible sold by a traveling colporteur to the wife of the leading merchant of the little town. Some time later this good woman fell ill. In her last hours her neighbors gathered about her and insisted upon sending for a father confessor. This the dying woman refused to accede to. Finally she told them to bring the Bible which she had bought from the colporteur. Opening the same she read aloud to her neighbors the beautiful fourteenth chapter of St. John. Then she told them she needed no priest such as they proposed to bring, for the great High Priest was living in her heart, and made this chapter glori- ously real to her in the dying hour. When strength failed, so she could no longer hold the book in her hand, she placed it under her head, and with this as a pillow she breathed her soul sweetly out into life eternal.
Another means by which the light is breaking in Mexico is the work that you are helping us to do there, viz., the establishment and conduct of sabbath-schools. When many of us were born there was not a single sabbath-school in that land; today there are about eight hundred, and the number is rapidly growing. We find the average Sabbath-school scholar in Mexico is a live missionary. Some time ago a little boy in our sabbath- school at Orizaba came over to the mission house and said to the missionary, " I had a beautiful dream last night, and in my dream I saw my father coming to Christ; I want you to pray for him." In a little while the little fellow's father was converted.
We want these sabbath-schools planted all over that fair land, for each one will be a lighthouse, directing weary souls to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ.
The other day I sat in the national palace in company with Bishop Nuelsen, talking with President Diaz. The bishop congratulated the president on the wonderful progress of his country and especially along educational lines, a work in which the " Grand Old Man " of Mexico is intensely interested and for which he has done so much.
Then I said to him, "Mr. President, we have just been visiting your part of the country, the state where you were born. We have visited the heart of the Zapotec nation of which you are a member. We are glad to say that our work among your people is truly encouraging. Prince Prez, the direct descendant of the last Zapotic king, is an official member of our church in the town of Zaachila." The president's eyes flashed beautifully and he said with great earnestness: " When I first started out with my work, over thirty years ago, my people furnished me a regiment of men, and do you know, sir," said the president, " that that regiment through all its history has never once known defeat?
"We believe that our Sunday-school army, which you are helping us to
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organize, is marching under the orders of a King who will never know defeat, but will lead us on to certain victory, a victory which means the enlightenment and salvation of the Mexican millions."
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK, MEXICO
Rev. E. M. Sein, General Secretary of Mexico
I BRING you Christian greeting from our people, and especially from the nineteen thousand members enrolled in our Sunday-schools. By special request I bring greetings from the Mexican Sunday-schools in Texas, where I spent last Sunday; they requested me especially to bring their greetings with the greetings of the Sunday-schools of Mexico, which I am glad to do.
Three points characterize our work at present. In the first place, we have awakened an interest in the Sunday-school work as it never was before. We have more people studying Sunday-school books and learn- ing about methods of work than ever before. When I took up the work, five years ago, there were only two district conventions in the country-; now we have ten which have been organized. This has been the result of five years' work and travel on horseback, by trains, and in other un- inviting ways. An extensive correspondence with all the workers in our country has contributed to awaken this great interest.
In the second place, I would mention the preparation of literature for our Sunday-schools. We liave a number of tracts translated into Spanish, and also a number of books, three of which are already in circulation, and others are being prepared. We succeeded in arousing interest in some of the missionary boards, so they use a certain amount of the profits for the publication of a little manual or book which they will choose to circulate among our people in Mexico. The having of more literature at our command is helping us to develop Sunday-school work in Mexico which was neglected for many years.
We are pushing as fast as we can the organization of teacher-training classes. A few are doing excellent work and we expect to graduate schol- ars by the time we hold our national convention in the city of Mexico next September. This is going to elevate the standard of teaching in our Sunday-schools and will arouse a spirit of activity, study, and preparation for better work and larger results.
Another fact which I wish to bring to you is the number of our diffi- culties. It is hard to realize what you are able to do unless you know
Roll- Call of Nations — West Indies 205
where the difficulties are. There is not the cooperation between the churches and the Sunday-schools of the different denominations that we should expect. There is little cooperation, and this interferes to a large degree with the advancement of our work.
Then, too, we have the growing indifference to religious matters in our country. We have fifteen thousand scholars in the Protestant schools of Mexico and have two hundred and fifty thousand in the government schools of the republic; those that attend the Sunday-schools receive some religious influence and education, those that attend the government institutions do not receive any at all: on the contrary, there is a tendency towards religious indifference.
How to bring these boys and girls and young people under the influence of the gospel and the teaching of Christ is the greatest problem we have before us. There is an abundance of agnostic literature. The works of Spencer are all in the Spanish language; also the works of Darwin and Voltaire and other French writers are circulated extensively in the colleges. This is indeed a great difficulty for the Sunday-school movement, but we are not discouraged. It is a great battle for the few missionaries in the country, few workers; still, we are determined to do our best, knowing that we are serving the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the great King and Captain of our salvation. In his name we shall triumph, and we ask your prayers to help us in this great work.
THE WEST INDIES, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
Rev. Aquila Lucas
The inception of your mission to this field was at the World's Sunday- school Convention in Rome, 1907. At that time Jamaica, Panama, and Cuba had only received an introductory visit, which was scarcely more than heeding your behest to "Go up and view the land." Puerto Rico, British Honduras, Columbia, and the Danish West Indies had not been visited at all. But this field, like others reported today, knew that prog- ress was your watchword, and it has moved steadily forward, widening its circle and increasing its usefulness.
If you take a map of the geographical area lying between the fifth and twenty-fifth degrees north of the equator, you may note the order followed during the last tour: Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, Costa Rica, Bocas del Toro, British Honduras, Colombia, Trinidad, Tobago, British Guiana, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat,
2o6 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Antigua, Nevis, St. Kitts, and St. Thomas. Some one in those regions called it the circuit of the Caribbean Sea.
One day, when face to face with the work in Puerto Rico, I recorded the prayer, "O Lord, lift up this work to a higher standard of usefulness." Reviewing the months since then, gratefully I say, "Verily Thou dost answer prayer."
Years ago Elizabeth Barrett Browning stirred the hearts of philan- thropists in England by her poem, "The Cry of the Children," but if she had known child life in the West Indies, she would have uttered an appeal even more piteous than for those in mines and factories of her day. Nearly all the children of the Sunday-schools are perhaps as poor as those seen by Robert Raikes. A missionary said, "Scarcely any of them know first lessons of pure home life, and the church has to put in the very first founda- tions of morals and religion." The adults in poverty are often housed so badly as to make purity of moral life almost an impossibility.
Among many of these peoples there is a marked cruelty towards chil- dren, even by parents. They seem to have inherited from their past history the principle that might overcomes right, of using physical power against the weak without considering whether the child has any rights to be reverently respected. The scriptural teaching as to children's rights, "that the children are tender," that God has provided instruction as to the conduct of the adult towards them, that home and church and state should succeed each other in considering the great question. What shall the future of this child be? — all this comes as a new revelation to them. These conditions call for one's tender pity as we see them flocking to the Sunday-schools.
The missionaries well say, "Our only hope lies in what we can do for the children," and the work of this association comes aptly to their aid.
" Open the door for the children,
See, they are coming in throngs; Bid them sit down to the banquet;
Teach them your beautiful songs; Pray you the Father to bless them,
Pray you that grace may be given; Open the door for the children,
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
But 2Ls these in great numbers come to the doors of the church at Sunday- school hour, I question the missionaries as to the kind of teachers who are to instruct these. One leader says, "Our tezichers know nothing either how to study the Scripture, how to prepare a lesson, how to teach it, or to manage children for the reception of it." Another said, "I have nearly a thousand children in the schools of my many preaching places; I could
Roll-Call of Nations — West Indies 207
have twice that number if I had teachers for them." All that has been said in this more favored North about the need of teacher-training may be said with a hundredfold intensity over that field.
Among the English-speaking constituents of Sunday-school work there is a great dearth of literature, and of the ability to purchase it, even if it were at hand. To some poor Sunday-schools I have been sending from my home some illustrated Sunday-school papers for distribution. The reports which have come back of the good which has been brought about by these would almost surpass the belief of our northern schools, where literature is abundant. In some of my children's meetings I have dis- tributed small quantities of pictures illustrating the Sunday-school lessons, and the gladness with which these have been received would show to some of you a great opportunity.
When in conference with select would-be workers who seem as ready as any of us to learn and to do, I have longed for the ability to put into their hands even one little book to help such a company to follow up my teachings. Some pastors have told me things which illustrate a great hunger on the part of these peoples for pure knowledge which make me feel that the crumbs falling from the table of our well-to-do Sunday- schools in this North would be a rich repast to them.
What is being done to meet these needs? First, I must mention a faith- ful band of missionaries. Let it be remembered that in the Spanish parts, as Puerto Rico and Cuba, the work of an open Bible has been permitted only about ten years, and as I look on these fields today I exclaim, "What hath God wrought!" In Puerto Rico there are fifteen thousand, two hundred and thirty-three persons studying Bible lessons in two hundred and thirty-nine Sunday-schools. Statistics will show an encouraging con- dition in numbers in Cuba.
In the British West Indies and the Danish West Indies the Sunday- school scholars are very numerous. Organization has been effected, not always on the first visit, but as soon as the people had sufficiently grasped the meaning of it. The highest type of work is done in the island of Trini- dad. The teacher-training course followed in the Canadian Presbyterian College for the East Indians, the semi-annual examinations on the Sunday- school lessons throughout that island and Tobago, with other features, make them an example to any part of this International work.
In Puerto Rico one pastor said, "Since the meetings held among us by the International Association, Sunday-school work over the twenty- three places under my care has increased fifty per cent." The convention held in Cuba, last November, would have graced any district here in the North. Jamaica, British Guiana, and indeed each field, is worthy of mention for improvement in some one or other feature of the
2o8 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
work. In convention and institutes for teachers, in sermons on Sunday for those who do not come to God's house at any other time, in lessons and talks to assembled children, in much conferential conversation with parents and committees, — one composite aim has ever been kept to the front, an aim which includes higher ideals for the home life, a higher appreciation by the Christian Church of its golden opportunity in child- hood and youth, and the absolute duty as well as advantage of training, however slowly, the present and prospective teachers to whom the church intrusts these young souls.
The past history and present resultant conditions would check un- reasonable expectation of results spectacular and attractive to those who walk only by sight. Walls of brick or stone rise quickly and visibly under the hands of diligent workmen, and convince the passerby that some- thing is doing. But attempts to build character either of an individual, a nation, or a race appeals to a vision of a higher kind. He who labors on such a field must have the vision of faith in him whose we are and whom we serve, whose word shall accomplish that whereto He has sent it. Representing this great movement, we strive to build on fundamental principles and for enduring success.
It is a great joy to hear from different parts of the field, "We have teacher-training classes"; "We have so many regular weekly teacher meetings"; "We have graded and organized our school on plans suggested by the International"; "Our teachers are beginning to take a deeper interest in their scholars." Thus from the seed sown, "the blade" is already beginning to be seen in many instances, and the promise is often beyond what was expected. Those things which are sometimes called discouragements are overbalanced by the good things, and the exceeding great and precious promises sustain the workers "Ye shall reap — ye shall reap in due season. Ye shall reap in due season if ye faint not."
"Lo, the promise of a shower Drops already from above; But the Lord will shortly pour All the spirit of his love."
Roll- Call of Nations ■■ — Hawaii 209
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN HAW AH
Rev. E. B. Turner, Paia Maui, Hawaii
We who have been privileged to live in the "Paradise of the Pacific" the Hawaiian Islands, one of God's most beautiful creations, for years have been hearing the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, and we have known that the kingdom of God was near at hand.
Ninety years ago these islands were bound by the inexorable laws of heathenism and savage superstition and cruelty; and not a single native, outside of royalty, owned a foot of land or could call his life his own. To- day there are 100 churches of the Congregational faith, scattered over the islands, not to mention about 25 others of the Methodist and Epis- copal fellowship. These 100 churches, with a membership of 7,189, are served by 90 ordained ministers. Each of these churches has a Sunday- school with a combined membership of 8,783. In these schools during the last year there was an increase of 1,612 scholars.
Counting the schools of other Protestant denominations, there are 125 Sunday-schools in the Hawaiian Islands, with a membership of 10,000 scholars. These schools are a mighty power for righteousness in the Master's kingdom. Their teaching tends to combat the increasing mate- rialism which has come with the long-continued prosperity of the islands, and they create a strong sentiment in favor of temperance and right living,
In our Hawaiian Sunday-schools we do not need to build a fence of fathers about our doors to keep the children in the Sunday-schools. The fence is there. One of the strongest features of our work in the native schools is the large number of men and women in our adult Bible classes.
Our Semi-Annual Island and our Annual Territorial conventions are an inspiration to all, and are worth going miles to attend. Distances being so great and travel so expensive, we take a solid week of each year, for a convention, the time of which is divided proportionately, and the interest of the churches, the Sunday-schools, and the Christian Endeavor societies are considered.
Rev. Henry P. Judd, our new superintendent of Sunday-school work, reports as follows:
"During the ten and a half months of my service as Sunday-school missionary connected with the Hawaiian Board, I have visited the island of Hawaii twice. The first time was from September 9 to September 18, at the time of the Hawaii Association meeting at Puula, Puna. My second visit was from February 17 to March 26. During my sojourn on Hawaii, I visited the churches and Sunday-schools of Jau, Kona, Kohala, and Hamakua, giving sermons and addresses and trying to encourage the Christian people in their church life.
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"I have been twice to Maui on Sunday-school business. The first time was when I made a tour of West Maui and, later, East Maui with the Rev. R. B. Dodge, of Wailuku. We visited all of the schools of Maui except two.
"One of my endeavors during the past year has been to learn the Ha- waiian language, and so be able to speak to the people without the medium of an interpreter. I am very far at present from a state of proficiency, but hope to make progress.
"My work is closely allied with the general work of the churches, and I am in a position to be of assistance to the ministers and laymen during my visits to the various churches. As yet I have not taken steps towards a very complete organization of the various departments that obtain in the state organizations upon the mainland. We have, however, se- lected chairmen for the several branches of the work and they have given valuable assistance. In the course of time we hope to have a more com- plete organization than now. It is the faithful and steady work of the pastors and teachers that accomplishes the largest results, and to these we must look for a growth in our Sunday-schools, both in numbers and in influence and spiritual power. It is within my power to encourage and stimulate interest among the leaders, and suggest ways and means whereby the schools may be improved. I can accomplish this through personal interviews, correspondence, addresses at the Sunday-school associations and before the schools, and by means of suitable literature.
"But all these means will be of little value unless the Sunday-school leaders are conscious of their responsibility for their own schools and are endeavoring to do their part in the great work of bringing the young and old of Hawaii to a knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father."
GREAT BRITAIN
Rev. Carey Bonner, General Secretary of the British Sunday- School Union
King George V, when Prince of Wales, gave the call to the commercial men of the nation, "Wake up, England!" It would seem that another King — one Jesus — has sounded a clarion cry to the people of his kingdom: for the old motherland is awakening to the truth that the training of the child today is the only way of building up the church of tomorrow.
Roll' Coll of Nations — Great Britain 211
Five years after Raikes founded the Sunday-school, 250,000 scholars were reported as Britain's strength. A century later, 5,700,000 young people were in British Sunday-schools. To-day Britain, with Ireland, has a magnificent Sunday-school army of 738,000 teachers, 7,680,000 scholars.
A wave of religious indifference has, during the last three or four years caused a serious leakage, numerically. But, taking the past ten years, the Sunday-schools have, when compared with the average increase of population, shown an increase of four per cent.
The chief leakage is among scholars of the upper middle division, — especially among boys from twelve to fourteen. The two outstanding imperative problems of today, therefore, are those of the intermediate school and of winning the boy. Here the awakening is evidencing itself. We are learning that twentieth century work cannot be done effectively with eighteenth century tools. Nothing but a high quality of service will suffice for the task to which Christ bids us. The oldest and most active interdenominational association is The Sunday-School Union, which has been the pioneer in all modern reforms. With a national repre- sentative council of one hundred and eighty members, and with honorary officers, its various departments are under the control of twenty com- mittees.
For carrying out its operations it has a permanent paid staff of 85, including the general secretary, business manager, editor of its paper. Christian lecturers, and evangelists, lady demonstrators in primary work, and others. Affiliated with it are 400 unions, British, colonial, and foreign. This is an aggressive missionary society. Through the Indian Sunday- School Union it has 6 agents in the field, with 8,719 schools. Its officers cooperate with missionary societies already in India. The Scripture examination, in the last three years, has been taken up by over 150,000 candidates. Fifty editions of helps on the lessons are issued in 20 lan- guages. There are 22 provincial auxiliaries, with a Sunday-school mem- bership of 421,000. The Sunday- School Union has itself raised promised funds of money amounting to |i2,500, — spread over five years, — for supporting a Sunday-School Union in China.
On the continent of Europe it helps to maintain 29 Sunday-school missionaries, laboring in 13 countries. Its I. B. R. A. has a membership of 960,000, in various parts of the world, issuing Scripture portions in 30 languages.
It is an educational organization, having a training college for teachers, with courses of study and examinations in the science and art of Teaching the Old and New Testament; Christian evidences, Christian history, and Christian ethics.
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Its extension lecturer, Mr. G. Hamilton Archibald, concentrates his great gifts to promoting the Primary Department by courses of lectures, delivered in different parts of the kingdom to the actually large audiences. — Lectures followed up by visits from trained lady demonstrators, who guide the teachers of primary schools in better methods. So marked has been the growth of this movement that a national committee of pri- mary workers has been in existence for a year and a half, and a residential training college for primary leaders is in full swing. There are now up- wards of fifteen hundred primary departments in Great Britain. These educational plans are largely helped by provincial unions. In many cases the universities of the district cooperate in promoting lectures on teaching by university experts. Steady advance has been made in pro- moting senior departments, or, as they are now called, "Sunday and week- night institutes," a method that has solved the senior scholar problem. The union educates through literature, — publishing books, educational, devotional, musical, and general; periodicals for young people,- and for teachers; chief of these being the "Sunday-School Chronicle"; supplying graded lesson helps, and general information and inspiration to teachers.
The Scottish Sabbath-School Union carries on a fine campaign, re- ligious and moral, in that country. The churches' awakening has been most marked by a distinct progress in developing denominational depart- ments for the Sunday-school and the young people.
The Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Union Methodist, Primitive Methodist, Presbyterian, Society of Friends, Con- gregational, Moravian, have all their denominational secretaries and committees. And the latest to fall in line is the Baptist denomination. There is a growing determination to consider the denominational and interdenominational organizations as cooperators and in no sense as rivals. In Wales, the denominations chiefly guide the Sunday-schools; and a similar condition obtains in Protestant Ireland.
The awakening is shown by the slowly changed attitude of the press toward the Sunday-school movement. Naturally religious papers give prominence to this all-important side of the churches' work. But the leading daily papers, such as the Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Chronicle, and, notably, the Daily News, are finding it worth while to keep well abreast of the reformed Sunday-school movement. The press can be the mightiest destructive force in a nation, and it is cause for profound thankfulness to cherish its support of a power working for righteousness.
In the theological colleges, increased attention is being given to the Sunday-school. Some of the leading principals and professors are offi- cially identified with the Sunday- School Union; with the denominational Sunday-school organizations, or with the International Lesson Committee,
Roll-Call of Nations — Great Britain 213
British Section. In five of the colleges the Sunday-School Union's gen- eral secretary, who was appointed Ridley lecturer, has been delivering courses of lectures to the students upon the church and its relations to young people. Clearly, the church's greatest problem of dealing with the young people will be practically solved when the ministers of the future realize its supreme importance and embrace their greatest oppor- tunity, by leading in the training of their children and young people.
Denominational and interdenominational organizations alike are giving special attention to the problems already named, and the Boys' Brigade, the Boys' Life Brigade, the Church Lads' Brigade, and are doing superb service. The recently formed National Peace Scouts movement seems to be destined to lay hold of the boys and train them in Christian man- hood and Christly service, in a wonderful manner, especially when the movement is linked to the brigades. Generally there is a disposition to recognize that whilst the key words of the old methods were "instruct," the new keynote that is to dominate the future will be "train." Per- haps one of the most remarkable evidences of progress is the national recognition of the service of Sunday-school men. Among the knights and baronets created by the late king, are Sir Francis Belsey, Sir J. Wil- liams Benn, Sir Albert Spicer, Sir George White, and Sir J. H. Yoxall, — all officially connected with the Sunday- School Union, — and Sir Andrew Fraser, late president of the Indian Sunday-School Union; and Sir Robert Laidlaw, who has just consented to be president of the Sunday- School Union for 191 1.
The opening years of the twentieth century have been those of supreme opportunity for the church and Sunday-school. In Britain, as in the land of the prophet of old there were those who were with folded hands, praying "Awake, and of the Lord, put on thy strength"; in these later days, to us, as to them, "God has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat" ; and from high heaven the summons is sounded, "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion! shake thyself from the dust, — Arise!"
And as the churches of Great Britain heed the clarion call, use their opportunities, and "possess their possessions," there shall sound forth the anthem from "voices of young men and maidens, from old men and children."
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation."
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SCOTLAND
Ex-Bailie P, Strachan, J. P., Vice-Chairman of the Scottish National Sabbath-School Union, Glasgow
Scotland, "bonnie Scotland," "land of the mountain and the flood," land of the "Martyrs, and of the Covenanters" — the men who fought for, and who won for us, our civil and religious liberty; to whom under God we owe a very deep debt of gratitude! May we, by imbibing their spirit, show ourselves worthy sons and daughters of such heroes of the faith!
Scotchmen are everywhere famed for their cautiousness, — the gift of thinking before they leap. Often second thoughts are safer and wiser than first.
Glasgow is said to be the second city of the empire, though not the capital of Scotland. Certainly, so far as the fostering and maturing of the Sunday-school movement is concerned, she has not only led, but continues to lead, the way. In the year 1795 (one hundred and fifteen years ago) a society for managing the sabbath-schools in Glasgow was organized. It consisted of a president, secretary, and treasurer, with sixteen members, — four each from the town council, the ministers of the town, the elders of the town, and the subscribers, — showing an evi- dence at that early date of the widespread interest in and official recog- nition of the work. In 1838 the Glasgow Sabbath-School Union was organized; the work of which was carried forward with great enthusiasm, and marked success until the year 1898, when at Paisley, at a meeting of the "Scottish National Sabbath-School Convention," it was unani- mously resolved to ask the Glasgow Sabbath-School Union to assume the title of the "Scottish National Sabbath-School Union." After due con- sideration, it was agreed at the annual meeting, held on April 27, 1899, to accede to the request.
It is sometimes asked. What's in a name? There is much in a name as herein indicated. Glasgow is but a small part of Scotland, yet how the hearts, the united prayers, and the outstretched arms of the Union embrace the whole of Scotland.
By the extended visits of Mr. Davidson, the Union's traveling mis- sionary, much good work has been accomplished in many remote parts of the land, where teachers and scholars are comparatively few, and shut out from the greater centers of light and life, often feeling as did the prophet of old, — We, and only we, are left to guide and to teach. Under such environment his visits have proved as "good news from a far country," and as "cold water to thirsty souls," inspiring with fresh hope, and giving renewed energy to the lonely hearts, with heaven-bom inspiration to
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the attempting of greater things for God, and the bairns. May the good seed thus sown continue to bear fruit — in thirty, sixty, and even an hundredfold.
The Union seeks, further, to encourage, unite, and increase sabbath- schools and district unions, for as yet there is much land to be possessed. The children who are still outside of our Sunday-schools may safely be numbered by the thousands. In some churches a short children's service, conducted by the minister, takes the place of the Sabbath-school proper, while the rolls of schools connected with some of the wealthier congre- gations number from forty to ninety. The religious instruction of the young being given in the home, or, as in too many instances, entirely neglected. Everything is being done by the Union to remedy this state of matters. It has often been said that "union is strength." Much has been and is still being done, to foster the spirit of unity. Regular com- munication, and visitation of schools, and district unions, suggesting in the spirit of Christian brotherhood improved methods, imparting information, and leaving with them seasonable words of encouragement, alike useful to giver and receiver.
Excellent work is being done by our committee on local unions. Almost every month the hearts of the directors and general council are being gladdened and cheered by fresh additions to the numbers. At the close of last year the total stood at seventy, a very gratifying result. The results of this year just to hand show an increase of eleven, making a total of eighty-one. The importance and value of this department of the Union's work cannot be overestimated.
The Children's Committee are doing good and useful service by means of "bands of hope," "evangelistic services," "boys' non-smoking leagues," and by giving greater attention to the improving and perfecting of the praise, instilling early into the young minds the need of forming habits of sobriety; the training and cultivating of infant voices to join in the praise; the encouraging of thrift, health of body and mind by non-smoking the evangelistic, to lead them to decision for Christ and his service.
Much is also being done by way of encouraging our young people to the more careful study of lessons, by examination, which is meeting with marked success. Last year there was an increase of over a thousand in the number of pupils who took part, as compared with the previous year. In Glasgow and suburbs, the total of 8,569 is an increase of 1,641 over the previous year, and similar results are being borne out all over Scotland.
Everything is being done to raise the standard of proficiency on the part of our teachers — first, by providing a central "teachers' training class," which meets every Saturday afternoon from October till March inclusive, when a model lesson is conducted by one of our professional
2i6 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
day-school teachers, which is well attended, and found to be most help- ful, especially by the younger teachers. Second, a course of "normal training classes," bearing on the threefold subjects, "The Principles and Art of Teaching," "Evidences of Christianity," "Scripture History and Doctrine."
From year to year marked interest is being shown, as evidenced by the high percentage of marks gained at the annual examination in each department of these classes. These hopeful results show us that the sabbath-school movement is taking its rightful place, as a great educa- tional system, worthy of the best talent and training that Christian men and women can bestow. Much of this success is due to the faithful, wise, and energetic efforts on the part of Mr. Andrew Crawford, the trusted, tried, and true secretary of the Scottish National Sabbath- School Union.
I cannot close this brief summary without making reference to the great national convention held in Glasgow eighteen months ago. Much preparation and united prayer had gone up for its success. The meetings, which extended over the greater part of the week, were largely attended from start to finish. It was felt by all to be a time of marked enthusiasm, enlarged inspiration, and quickened zeal, the fruits of which are still being reaped.
In conclusion, we in Scotland, not in letters of silver or of gold, but upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts, are keeping before us the great central fact of all history, that Christ Jesus loved and died for the whole world. We are teaching this to our children and in a practical way are asking them to pray and give for their brothers and sisters in Africa, China, India, and the wide world over; so that His kingdom may come and His will be done on earth as in heaven.
RESPONSE FOR EUROPE
Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., London, England
Since the time of Cecil Rhodes and the project of the Cape to Cairo Railway we have talked a great deal in England about thinking in con- tinents. You cannot think in anything else here; we have got to do it to cover our field. We talk about it over there, we do it here. I am, however, taking to myself the comfort that I have the smallest of the continents to answer for, but, though it is the smallest, even my own extreme modesty will not allow me to speak of it as the least important.
In Europe, we have the embarrassment of races and tongues, so many
RoU-Call of Nations — Great Britain 217
of them as make it very hard for any one to speak of the continent as a whole; but there is this much, that all Europe's representatives at this convention are here with one heart and soul; one Name is on our lips, — the Name abov6 every name; and one ambition is in our hearts, — to crown him Lord of all, of all the nations of Europe, and of all the nations of earth.
Can we claim ourselves as the most Christian continent of the three? Nominally it is — oh, that it were so in deed and in truth, from the capes on the west to the slopes on the east, from Scandanavia on the north to the Latins and Greeks in the south.
We talk of the Concert of Europe; the music of the Concert of Europe is not like our music here. We talk of it in irony sometimes, — sometimes in bitterest irony, — but it is coming, and it is that love of which we have been singing which is to bring it, and that alone, — the love of Christ. We have the first notes of it here; we have the prelude of the great har- mony to come. Here we have almost every country in Europe repre- sented, and there is not one discordant note. We have the great concert of Europe here in Washington.
There is a great deal in Europe to discourage us at present, but I would rather sound a note of cheer. We begin to see how the great political movements of our time, even those which seemed hostile to the gospel are opening up the way. I wanted to speak of some of these, but I must keep within my time and will have to ask you to take it for granted and ask you to hope and pray and expect that the Lord, who is the desire of all nations, shall come to his own.
The portentous growth of armaments in Europe is too terrible to think of. Have you seen these biting lines?
"The Saviour came with trembling lips, He counted Europe's battleships, Yet millions lacked their daily bread — 'So much for Calvary,' he said."
But Calvary will conquer yet, and is conquering in spite of this dread- ful arming of nation against nation.
Never has there been a more rapid growth in amity. There is, first, the great cordiality, in which we all rejoice, — cordiality is not the word, it is love, — between the United States and our Great Britain. We join hands with you for peace. Peace is the ideal of Mr. Roosevelt, and King Edward stood for peace all the way through. These two nations, united for peace, are the great hope of the future.
As for the intellectual movements which have caused so much alarm, do we not begin to see how the ultimate effect will be the clearing of the air, and the bringing out into stronger relief than ever one great Figure,
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that of our divine Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ? As of old it was Christ or Barabbas, so it is now in this twentieth century Christ or chaos. The world is beginnmg to see that the alternative is Christ or chaos. The world is not going to say chaos, it is going to say Christ.
One of the great privileges of the Celtic fellowship was the meeting of the different nationalities. I had the great pleasure of an interesting conversation with Pastor Rohrbach, of Berlin, and he told me something worth while. He said that a few weeks ago there was a lecturer who lectured before a great audience in Berlin and he tried to prove that there was not sufficient evidence for the historic Christ. That seemed dread- ful, but what is the result? In a few weeks, perhaps only a week, there was a great gathering in Berlin, and it was addressed by the representa- tives of the church who took up the cudgels on the other side, and the largest building was crowded again and again, and there was an overflow, and where did that overflow go? It went into the great Dom, the great cathedral of Berlin; and there we see in that city, which sometimes seems to us so exceedingly cold towards our Master, the name of Christ still exalted ; and these services in the Dom are still going on. So that I verily believe, even though there are so many on the other side, the nations will say, not chaos but Christ.
Now, I want to speak of the Young Men's Christian Association work on the continent, and also about our continental work and about our Sunday-schools, because they are doing an immense work. Let me tell you about St. Petersburg. The average attendance in a training class there for scholars is one hundred and fifty!
Mr. Wanamaker very properly called attention to the great importance of two years, and expressed the hope that the next two years would count for ten. My friends, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years," and when I think of that passage I think of this day of this convention and I think of the coming day of the missionary gathering on the other side in Edinburgh; and I wonder whether we may not have a fresh illus- tration of that wonderful declaration of Scripture, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years."
May Europe still lead the way in the bringing in of His kingdom!
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THE NOBILITY OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL SERVICE
Rev. John Hillman, British Sunday-School Union, London
Mr. President, and Comrades in the Noblest Enterprise the World has ever known: Although I represent the Sunday- School Union of Great Britain, I am here today as an emergency man, filling the gap that has been caused by the absence of the gentleman whose name is on the program, the Rev. Frank Johnson, editor of our Sunday- School Chronicle, a paper that has done more, perhaps, for the forwarding of the Sunday-school movement in our country than any other literature we have issued from the press.
All my life I have been interested in the Sunday-school; but for a good many years I have been associated with municipal affairs in a great metro- politan area.
In coming down your beautiful streets yesterday, I saw colored men sweeping the streets. I ventured to ask one of them if they ever watered the roads. He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "When?" His reply was, "When God Almighty sends it down." I thought that was very good. God Almighty has been sending it down just now, that sort of refreshing rain, and everything without is more beautiful as the result. But I am sure you will all agree with me that in another and a better and a finer sense God Almighty has been sending it down on this city during the days of this week, and we shall go away refreshed, strengthened, encouraged, and stimulated to nobler efforts and to deeper consecration to the sublim- est service that it is possible for human hands to touch.
I have sometimes tried, in the old country, to encourage, to inspire and to hearten Sunday-school teachers by reminding them of the nobility of the service they render. I have again and again given it as my delib- erate conviction that if it ever came to a question as to which of the two institutions should be dispensed with, the Sunday-school or the Christian pulpit, I as a preacher of the gospel would say, "If one of them has to go, let the Christian pulpit go and let the Sunday-school remain." They are both useful, perhaps they are both essential, but inasmuch as you Sunday-school teachers deal with living truth at the plastic period when the character is in the course of formation, I venture to submit that your work exceeds in importance the work of a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And I have again and again tried to encourage my comrades by re- minding them that theirs is a preventive ministry. It is not your mission to go down into the slums and rescue the perishing in the ordinary sense of the term; it is not your specific business to save the wreck; but, on the other hand, by the grace of God, if I may use the figxire for the moment,
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you may prevent to some extent the very eflfacement of the divine image from the human soul. Though, of course, we all sympathize with men like General Booth in our own country, men who are doing rescue work, men whose names are printed in the newspapers and whose praises are constantly trumpeted abroad, yet I venture to believe that by and by, when the books of God are opened and an equitable judgment is pro- nounced by the all discriminating King, many an obscure Sunday-school teacher in some small country village, whose name has never been in the newspaper and ncA er known to fame, will be awarded a position which perhaps may be the envy in the great hereafter of many men who in this life have all had their reward.
Comrades in this holy service, see to it that this work gets, as it de- mands, your very best, — the best of intellect, the best of heart, the best of everything, — for the best and noblest of enterprises and for the glory of the name of God.
CHILDREN OF THE CONGO AND OF LONDON
Rev. Daniel Hayes, London, England
There is an inscription on the face of the monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, erected to the memory of General Gordon who perished in Khartoum, which reads as follows: "He at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his sympathy to the suffering, his substance to the poor, and his heart to God."
I feel that I cannot do better than to ask every delegate in this assembly this afternoon to lay upon his heart that beautiful inscription and make it the motto of his life. You could not take a more beautiful motto for your life than that inscription. You may easily reverse it and apply it to every Sunday-school worker throughout the world; because you have given your hearts to God, and because he has filled your hearts with the very power of his life, you are here as delegates from your respective schools and churches and districts, and, therefore, you are giving week by week the best of your heart, the best of your mind, the best of your time, and the best of your strength.
I have not always lived in a London slum. For some years I worked as a missionary on the banks of the Congo. I am so glad that on this side of the Atlantic Ocean there are thousands and thousands of hearts which have been stirred to their depths by the story of atrocities com- mitted on the banks of the upper Congo. I was out there as one of the pioneers.
Of all the children in the world that are lovely and attractive and beauti-
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fui, whose hearts are simple and full of friendliness and love, none appeal more than the Congo children. It has been my joy to work on that upper river among the children. We begin there with the child. We go out into the African forest, sit down under the shade of the palm, and gather the Congo children about us and teach them their alphabet, and teach them the first lessons of Christian faith, and I know no greater joy than the joy that comes to the heart of the man who is willing to sit down with the simple, uncivilized people there and teach them the things of God. It may be that some of you have been wondering where you would like to devote your service.
In Central Africa there are tens of thousands of square miles of terri- tory unclaimed for Jesus Christ. There are tribes upon tribes unclaimed for Jesus Christ. There are millions of little children, boys and girls, unclaimed for Christ. And yet along the banks of their river there are today schools scattered here and there, from the western ocean to the eastern ocean, and the child of our Sunday-school in Central Africa is to be, I believe, the missionary of the future, and the preacher of the future, the translator of the future, — the missionary in all respects of the future,
I need not say one word to you this afternoon with respect to our diffi- culties. One of the great difficulties which the missionaries have got to face in Central Africa is the difficulty imposed upon us by a power that ought to use every bit of its energy to civilize the people, to uplift the people, to redeem the people, and to bless the people, — not to de- stroy them, not to oppress them, not to crush them, not to stamp them out as it is doing this very hour.
In 1897, one Sunday morning after our service was through, I heard the firing of a gun, and then I went into the town to see what had actually transpired, and I draw a curtain over the major part of the story. I found a little laddie with his dimpled cheeks, his smooth velvety cheeks, and eyes all glistening with love at the very sight of a white face, and his hand had been severed by the cruel soldiers. And I want you to take them all into your pity and here today say, "The Congo shall be on my heart, and the child of the Congo shall have my prayers." The child of the Congo we may bring to the foot of that cross which is on your badge.
In spite of the cruelty and oppression, and in spite of the forced labor in the rubber traffic, and in spite of the atrocities, by the cross of Christ, by the passion of it, by the love of it, by the strength of it, by the beauty of it, and by the power of it, even Africa's sons on the banks of the Congo shall be lifted up to His throne until He shall embrace them and they shall have part in the kingdom of God.
President Meyer: You may take five minutes to talk about the London children.
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Rev. Daniel Hayes: First of all, may I give you a sample of a London child? The story of a little lad comes to my mind. He went around to the doctor's at two o'clock at night and knocked at the door. The doctor came down and said, "What is the matter?" "Another mouth at our house." "Oh, yes," the doctor said; "never mind; if God sends the mouths he will send the bread to fill them." "But," said the bright, keen East London waif who turns somersaults beside the trams as they run to the center of the city, "He sends all the mouths to our house and all the bread to yours."
London has its slums. What we do for the children in East London is, first of all, to gather them in. We have a large Sunday-school in East London which registers sixteen hundred scholars, and our only grief is we have not room to accommodate them. We have to put them here, there, and everywhere. We are willing to build an institution so we can accommodate them, and I wish you would let me come to America to plead the cause of the East London child for part of the year. We gather them into our great graded Sunday-school. In that Sunday-school we have been able to hold the young men and young women in our adult classes so that today we have young men of seventeen or eighteen up to twenty- four, staying in their classes and presided over by their teachers on Sunday.
In the second place, for over three years we have fed upwards of two thousand hungry, half-starved, if not altogether starved, children week by week, in one of the halls of our mission. It is a great sight to see them come every day for their dinner. Their meal is not at all like the menu of your hotels in Washington, but they come and get our cottage pudding, or get roast beans and a dish of soup, and sometimes if you watch you will see a little toddler of a child with a little bit of pudding in the bot- tom of the basin floating in the soup; it is not a very good mixture; if you ask him what he is going to do with that drop of soup and bit of pud- ding he will say, "I'm taking it home to my brother that hasn't any." If you heard a little boy or girl say that in my church, it would touch your heart.
There are nearly two thousand fed every week at the mission, and we have fed them for three years. And in addition to that, we have a large medical mission with an average attendance of eight or nine thousand ^ and the big percentage of those patients are children, out of whose faces all the color has disappeared, half-fed, wan and rickety. They come to our doctor and he prescribes for them emulsions, malt extracts, and what not. Their mothers continue to bring them until the color comes back; with glad hearts the others take them to and fro, and then they cease to come, and we go to their homes in order to see how the children are farinc;.
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We make provision also through our maternity home so they may come in and go out of the home, and we care for the mothers and the little ones when they first come into the world. There is not time to tell you stories about the work, but that is what we are trying to do for the Lon- don slum child. Children throughout East London, when they see me walking along the streets, pull my coat-tail and say, "Hello!" and they come crowding along. There is no friend in East London like the child, Mr. Meyer, and the children in East London, whether they are in the slums or the alleys, know their friends, and if you move among them like one of themselves they are your choicest, warmest, best friends.
SOUTH AMERICA
THE CALL OF OUR NEAREST NEIGHBORS
Robert E. Speer, D.D., New York
The Mohammedan world had to wait many centuries before its call was heard by the Christian Church throughout these western lands.
Centuries ago Raymond Lully dreamed that he had been at last raised up to awaken the Church of Christ to reclaim, with the Spirit and the weapons of Christ, those sections of Christ's dominion which had been usurped by another, and he died his martyr's death with his dream still unfulfilled. Nearly one hundred years ago Henry Martyn dreamed that same great dream and lived his meteor life and died his heroic and lonely death, hoping that at last in his day the awakening of Christendom to claim the Mohammedan world had come. And again, for three gener- ations nearly, the Christian Church has slept.
May it not be that now at last, at the beginning of this new century, and under the summons of another prophetic voice taking up the call of Raymond Lully and Henry Martyn, the Christian Church may awake to a realization of her duty to those scores of millions of men and women who know the name of Christ and set it beneath another name? I bring the call of another neglected section of the world, of the sixty millions and more of our nearest neighbors in the Latin- American lands.
Our eyes have been fixed chiefly, these last years, upon the remaining 800,000,000 of people of Asia. We are told that among these 800,000,000 of people in Asia the great industrial future of the world lies. Perhaps it does, but will you remember, this morning, that Brazil alone, with about 15,000,000 of population, exports more goods to the rest of the
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world than all of the Chinese empire, with twenty-seven times the popu- lation of Brazil?
The Argentine Republic, with only 6,000,000 population, has more exports and imports by $116,000,000 than the whole empire of Japan, with seven times the population of the Argentine Republic. The annual exports of the Chinese empire, embracing one fourth of the human race, are $188,000,000. If they were as great per capita as the exports of the Argentine Republic the exports of China annually would be not $188,000 - 000 but $25,000,000,000.
We have been told that our great industrial prospect for tke future is to be found in closer commercial relations with the great Asiatic world. During the first eight months of the current government fiscal year, our entire exports to the whole of Asia were only $72,000,000, a loss of $2,000,000 as compared with the preceding year, while we exported to our neighboring countries on this western hemisphere $300,000,000 worth of goods, $60,000,000 more than in the same period a year ago, and we sold to the little island of Port Rico more than we sold to either China or Japan; and we sold to the little island of Cuba more than we sold to China and Japan combined.
In looking out over these 60,000,000 of people in South America, we are looking upon one of the greatest industrial and commercial oppor- tunities in the world, with a continent of immense undeveloped resources, with an unparalleled river system awaiting development, with a people who instead of being effete are only awaiting the touch which is to make of them, as it can make of the individual man, a new creation. For the call of the Latin-American peoples is not only the call of their immense commercial possibilities, but it is the call also of the great opportunity for the development there of noble, serviceable lives.
The Latin-American peoples on our own hemisphere are like the Latin peoples of Europe, peoples of great and brilliant possibilities. The lead- ing man, perhaps, in the last Hague Conference was one of Brazil's repre- sentatives, Dr. Ruy Barboza. There is no more conspicuous statesman on the western hemisphere than Brazil's minister of foreign affairs, Ruy Blanco, who has won peacefully one diplomatic victory after another in his own land and stands as one of the great supporters of peace among the 60,000,000 of people of South America.
Among the common people there are immense possibilities of undevel- oped character and service. Where in the world will you find a more patriotic people? Where in the world will you find a more idealistic people? Where in the world will you find people who have been as willing as the South American people have been for one hundred years to die for great ideas and for great causes and for great personal loyalties?
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We bring to you here, this morning, the call of these Latin-American peoples springing from their undeveloped opportunities and possibilities; the call of 60,000,000 of people lying at our very door and awaiting at our hands, and at no other hands, the help that is to make of them great and powerful nations, and to enable them to discharge their duty of serv- ice to the world.
In the second place, the call of these Latin-American peoples is the call not of their possibilities only but the call of their need. There is a need, first of all, of social morality and righteousness. You cannot build a great nation except on pure homes. The Japanese statesmen of the present day know the problem they are wrestling with in Japan, the problem of how to lay in personal and family life these foundations of unblemished purity on which alone you can build a great nation. That is one reason why the civilized world has nothing to fear from Moham- medanism; Mohammedanism can never invade, can never break down, those sections of the world which are really under the dominion of Christ
You cannot build a great nation on rotten moral foundations. And the South American people know how urgent is the need of the intro- duction of some great cleansing moral power that will wash clean the great common life of those lands. If you want a dignified description of it, I would suggest that you turn to the Acts and Decrees of the Plenary Council of the Latin-American Archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church, held in the City of Rome in the year 1899.
No word that I could speak here this morning could describe in such clear and sweeping language as those Acts and Decrees describe the moral conditions of the great masses of the Latin-American peoples, demanding the introduction of that gospel which from the beginning until now is the washing and cleansing of the moral life. Thej' stand face to face with the need of clean and upright political principle.
The city of Buenos Aires is the fourth largest city on the western hemi- sphere, with a population of about 1,400,000 people. In the national elections in the city of Buenos Aires in the year 1908 there were only 15,000 votes cast out of a population of 1,400,000 people. There is one little symptom, revealing far better than a long philosophical disquisition could do, the need of political righteousness and integrity in the South American nations.
Over the mountains in Chile eighty per cent of all the little children die under the age of two years, — four fifths of the children of that land which ought to be one of the most salubrious and healthful lands in the world. The average mortality of the land is double the average mor- tality of the whole continent of Europe. Why? Because the South American nations need, as their best men recognize, that integrity of
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public conscience and political principle which will deal adequately with the great national hygienic necessities of those peoples. There is need not only of social morality and of political principle, but of common integrity and conscience in everyday life, the need of clean, unequivocal, absolutely straightforward and Christlike character.
The call of the Latin-American lands is the call of their opportunities and possibilities and their needs.
How is that call to be met? You can create that character which must be laid at the base of the South American life only in two ways. First of all, by education. Now, the South American republics have always been interested in education. There are some great universities and professional schools there that would do credit to any land or to any city; but the great masses of the population of South America, their very best men will tell you, live in absolute intellectual night.
Eighty per cent of the population of Brazil are illiterate. How can you establish Sunday-schools far and wide over a land four fifths of whose people cannot read the Bible? Sixty per cent of the population of Chile are illiterate. Fifty per cent of the population of Argentina, over ten years of age, are illiterate. It would be a low estimate to say that half of the whole population of South America are unable to read or write.
You can bring the whole thing home more vividly by a single concrete illustration. Take the state of Kansas, for example, which has a popu- lation of about 1,500,000 people; compare that state with the following South American republics combined, viz., Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay: those six republics have a population eight times the population of the state of Kansas. Kansas has 2,000 more school teachers in it than all those six South American republics com- bined; and has as many of its children in the public schools as all those six South American republics combined. One fourth of the entire popu- lation of Kansas is in the public school, and but one thirtieth of all those six South American republics which I have named.
The average percentage of the population of South America in school over the whole of that great continent, is just about four or five per cent. And we are looking out over a continent whose needs can only be met, first of all, by that intelligence, by that opening of the mind, without which no people can be great. Not only by education, but by an education of the kind in which you and I alone believe here today, — I mean an education permeated through and through by the Christian spirit, and which has as its undimmed ideal and aim the creation of Christian faith and the creation of Christian character. It is only that type of education which can best deal with these great needs and enable these brilliant peoples to fulfill their destiny and discharge their world duty.
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Where is that education to come from? It has to come from the great Christian churches of the Protestant lands. There are only one or two colleges in the whole of South America today that are really Christian, — colleges whose collegiate work endeavors to meet the needs of that great multitude of people; and as for Sunday-schools, I suppose there are five times as many children in the Sunday-schools of Japan as there are in the whole of South America combined, as there are three times as many schools with three times as many teachers and three times as many pupils in the public schools of Japan alone as there are in the like population of the whole of South America.
I went to seventy different churches in South America belonging to the great religious system that has dominated that land, and in only one of all those churches was there a Bible, and that Bible was a Bible of the British and Foreign Bible Society that had been confiscated in the confessional! In only one of those churches was there a Sunday-school — in only one! — and the leading priests of that land, Argentina, where I found that Sunday-school, did not know it was there, even that one, and they told me they knew of no Sunday-schools for childhood conducted, save in Protestant churches, in the whole of the Argentine Republic.
South America has been in the hands, for three hundred years, of a great religious organization which has deliberately denied the Bible to the South American peoples and which has never dreamed of the insti- tution for the gathering of the children together for its study. I do not want to speak harshly or unjustly, — nothing is further from our hearts here this morning than any uncharitable judgment of any other organ- ization of our fellow-men, but I can put it all in the testimony of two bodies of competent witnesses: one was a little group of men in the city of Buenos Aires, made up of the British consul, the leading Scotch mer- chants of the city, and six or eight men who lead in the great Christian and philanthropic activities of that mighty city.
I asked them what the warrant was for our carrying on our Protestant mission work in South American lands; and they said, first of all, it was warranted because the Roman Catholic Church, as they knew it in the Argentine Republic, was not a Christian organization; second, because the only forces that could make it Christian, that could purify and correct it, were the forces that had to come in from the Protestant churches of northern and of European lands.
In the third place, if we did not now reach the 6,000,000 people of the Argentine Republic, who were without God, we would have on our hands in a few years fifty millions to reach, who would be without God. In the fourth place, that we are not invading the territory of any other church because the great masses of the Argentine people were absolutely
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unbelieving and atheistic, and two of a parish force in the city of Buenos Aires told me that in their own parish of eight}^ thousand souls only six per cent had been inside of the church at all.
Fifth, because of the great mass of emigrants pouring into that land from Great Britain, Germany, and Denmark, and also Waldensians, who will become atheists if we do not follow and hold them for God and the service of the church: Sixth, honest ideals, — for that great institution in Argentine and the whole of South America held intolerable ideals, the ideal of the suppression of personal liberty, the ideal of a closed and a sealed Bible, the ideal of antagonism to the principles of popular institutions and those moral convictions on which alone safe and popular institutions can be built up; and on these grounds we were not only justified but called by all the high sanctions of duty to man to come in with our message for those needy and waiting people.
I put that same question, a few days later, to Professor Monteverde, of the University of Uruguay, in the city of Montevideo. He had been brought up in the very atmosphere of which he was speaking. He said to me, "I will tell you why you are justified in coming here, why you American Methodists (and they are the only missionary body that is trying to evangelize the Republic of Uruguay), why they are justified in carrying on their missions in this land; in the first place, the Roman Catholic Church of Uruguay is not the same as the Roman Catholic Church in the United States." I know that there are some people here who will say that it is, but I have Professor Monteverde who lives in the midst of it and knows better.
"In the second place, because, although it has been here ever since this republic was founded, and before, it has not taught the people religion. In the third place, because it has denied them the Bible. In the fourth place, because it has been a demoralizing influence. In the fifth place, because it is despised and condemned by all the best people in the Uru- guay Republic. And last of all, because it hates and antagonizes, and has always done so, every movement for progress or liberty of opinion or advancement of life in these South American lands."
I am not saying that these charges are true. I am simply' quoting them as the testimony of witnesses who are capable of giving valid and care- ful testimony. And I boil it all down, for the purpose of our conference this morning, to one point, — we dare not deliver any continent of the earth to a religious organization which forbids the Bible to the com- mon people.
The South American religion is the only great religion of the world which has no sacred book. The Confucianists have their Analects;
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the Buddhists have their great poems; the Hindu faith has its own great sacred literature; the Mohammedans have their Koran, — but the South American religion is the one great religion of the world that has no sacred book.
We dare not hand over the sixty millions of people in these South x^merican lands to a domination which shuts them oflf from that Book which we know to have been the fountain of the great cleansing tides of life that have poured over our northern lands and saved these lands. We are bound to share that Book, through the agencies which we repre- sent here this morning, with the sixty millions of people of these Latin- American countries.
Last of all, the need, the call of which we bring today from these Latin- American lands, is, first of all, a neglected call. These people have been here all these years. We watched them in their struggle for politi- cal independence. We have been bound to them by the closest and most friendly ties, and we, of all the people of the earth, should have been thinking of their deeper necessities, but we have left them to struggle single-handed with their great problems. These little handfuls of Prot- estant churches, scattered up and down South America, have been left alone by us to cope with the problem of the moral redemption of a whole continent as well as the moral equipment of the continent to take its place in the life of the world.
Take the republic of Chile alone! There are two cities with a popu- lation exceeding one hundred thousand; there are six with a population of between one hundred thousand and twenty thousand; there are forty with a population of between twenty thousand and five thousand; there are one hundred and sixty towns with a population of between five thousand and one thousand; there are four thousand eight hundred and eighty-four villages with less than one thousand of population; there are between five and six thousand organized communities, and in only sixty of those communities are there any representatives of the Protes- tant Church, the only organization which can carry the Bible and spir- itual freedom into the lives of the three millions of people in that enter- prising republic.
Take the great valleys and plains of Central South America! I rode up the Magdalena River, the whole of the six hundred miles journey, to Honda to reach the capitol city of Bogota, and then I went up the Andes Mountains and over the plateaus of Bolivia and down the plateaus to the Pacific Ocean. I have been on three long trips up into the interior of Brazil. There are great sections of the South American people for whom the Protestant churches of the world have not so much as lifted their hand. It is a great neglected need that we are looking out on today,
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a need as woefully neglected, almost, as that great dark summons from Islam.
It is not only a great neglected need, but it is a pressing and an urgent need. There is the pressing and urgent need always of every man for Christ. " Thou, O Christ, art all I want," we sung here. Well, is he not also all they want? By so much as he is dear to us, as our hearts look on him with deepest love, as we know him to be the spring of all our life and our joy, my friends, we owe him to every other man and to every other woman and to ever^' other child in the world, and we owe him now.
Before they pass out into that other land, they have a right to know of him, and they must know of him in our own generation or in what generation can they know of him? Shall we answer this call today? As we are putting money into other interests and enterprises for the benefit of these western lands, shall we pass the spiritual needs of Latin- America by? We have put seven thousand of our own flesh and blood into the digging of the Panama Canal, and twenty-seven thousand laborers whom we have sent there to cooperate with them, and the nation has just begun its immense task of pouring wealth and life into that great achievement for the good of the world.
It is a thing we must do, and money is a little thing over against a great task like that; and life is a little thing over against a great task like that; but if we are prepared, as we are, to put our money and life into that great achievement for the good of the commerce of the world, shall the Christian Church not be willing to put money and life into yet deeper interests, into an investment lying closer still to the pitiful needs of the Latin-American peoples?
I bring this call and lay it on your hearts here today. It comes back to my mind just now in the voice of one man — I spoke about that incident in the Rochester convention. It was one night on our journey up the Magdalena River in Colombia to the city of Bogota. We were in one of the old-fashioned stern-wheel river boats that burn wood for fuel. Every few hours it would tie up to the shore and restock. We were still in the broad reaches of the river where it was possible to run by night, I remember being dimly awakened late one evening by our boat tying up against the west bank of the Magdalena, and I heard the men carry the gangway out and lay one end upon the shore. I saw the light of the torches, dim and flickering, against the white trunks and deep green foliage of the tropical forest, and after a while I heard the murmur of the men, busy about their task of bringing the wood from the shore where it was heaped in great stacks, and piling it up between the stanchions of the lower deck.
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I dropped off into sleep again, when I was suddenly awakened by the sound of a heavy body plunging into the water and the sound of hurry- ing footsteps and the anxious voice of a man crying out in Spanish, "O hombre!" O man, O brother, O friend! Then there was a hush for a moment, and then a low sobbing cry from the stream and all was still, and the brown waters of the Magdalena went swirling by. The men finished up their task and came back on board, and the moorings were thrown off and our boat went sobbing on its way upward in the night.
In the morning I asked the captain about it. He said it had been a Colombian private soldier who had gone to sleep on the lower and un- protected deck and had rolled off into the water in his sleep. We were at the mouth of a little swift and dangerous river, the man had been unable to swim, the night was dark, the river was swift, help was late, and the man was gone.
Ever since then I have heard the cry of that Colombian soldier ring- ing in my heart, "O brother! O brother! O friend! O friend!" It has seemed to me to be the voice of the sixty millions of our neighbors who are right at our door and calling to us for the help which we, and we alone, have to give. Shall they find in us, as they call this morning, the heart of a brother, the heart of a friend?
THE SPIRITUAL OBLIGATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO THE PEOPLES OF SOUTH AMERICA
Mr. John Hay, of Paraguay
This paper was read by Mr. Charles G. Trumbull, of the Sunday School Times, Philadelphia, Penn., who prefaced its reading by saying: Mr. Hay is a layman. He was a tradesman in Scotland. As he grew towards young manhood he more and more turned to the giving of his whole life to the mission field. Sixteen years ago, after a brief training in mission- ary work in Great Britain, he went out to the forests of Paraguay.
Last fall he came to my home in Philadelphia with a letter of intro- duction from some one in Edinburgh. I received him gladly as a matter of duty, but he had not been with me very long until I held on to him as a matter of privilege. I learned the story of the sixteen years. It has never been my privilege to know personally a man whose life and work and testings and achievements were more like those of George Miiller.
For years he has not asked money for his work; he asks the Lord. He lets his cause be known, and little by little the story is forthcoming. Mr.
232 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
E. K. Warren has decided to accept the honorary presidency of the United States Council of the South American Missionary Union, of which Mr. Hay is the founder and a director.
Mr. John Hay's Paper
Through the medium of this great assembly I would tell the children scattered far to North, South, East, and West, of conquests waiting to be won by virtue of their witness unto God by prayer, and gift, and work, in South America.
"The Word of God commands us, A land in need entreats us, The love of Christ constrains us,"
to send missionaries to South America because:
Though South America has been called Christian and civilized, for one hundred years, it is in some respects more in need of enlightment today than even China or Japan. Fifty years ago Japan was a pagan nation, but today there are three times as many teachers, and three times as many pupils, in the schools of Japan as in the schools of all South America. Everybody who knows anything about Japan says it is right and needful to send teachers there; and if that is true, surely it is three times more needful to send teachers to South America. Our society has been asked to open a school in Concepcion, in the north of Paraguay, and there are good teachers willing to go; but we cannot build the school or send out the teachers for lack of means. The percentage of the popu- lation in Paraguay that can neither read nor write is ninety.
Another evidence of the urgent need for missionaries in South America is the appalling immorality there. In Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Vene- zuela, and Paraguay, the population is illegitimate to the extent of eighteen, twenty-seven, fifty, fifty-eight, and ninety-five per cent. Only six per cent of British blood, and seven per cent of French blood is thus tainted. I heard a comparison made between college students in China and col- lege students in South America. It showed fifty per cent living pure lives in China, and not more than five per cent in South America. If on moral grounds there is urgent need for Christian missionaries in China, it would seem that for the same reason there is ten times more urgency in South America.
The priests who should give their voice against this corruption that calls aloud for cleansing, are dumb because of their own impurity.
Even if the priests were pure, and preached a pure gospel instead of a pagan Mariolatry, masquerading in the garments of Christianity, their number is fearfully inadequate. There are but two hundred and fifty
Roll-Call of Nations — South America 233
priests to the 6,000,000 of the great Argentine Republic. In Ireland, with a population, in 1901, of 3,300,000, the number of priests, monks, and nuns was 14,145.
Time fails me to talk in detail of the awful conditions that exist of slavery and lawlessness; the exploitation of the ignorant, the oppression of the weak, the leprosy and loathsome disease, the misery and despair of the sick and the dying without medical or spiritual succor in direct consequence of the appalling spiritual darkness. And this in that part of South America that has been called Christian for four hundred years!
But we only begin to understand the urgency of South America's need when we realize that in addition to the pagan population there are mul- titudes who have thrown aside all religious belief; and five millions of savage Indians who have never seen a missionary or heard a gospel mes- sage. Dare any one say this brings no obligation? I have worked among the Indians of Paraguay, and I have seen the gospel transform them into Christian citizens and evangelists and teachers after every other power that earth knows had failed to make it possible for even armed men to reach their haunts with safety.
Other tribes yet unreached call to us for light, and we are reaching out among the forest Indians of Paraguay. They are a wretched and hunted people. Their children are often captured and sold after their parents are shot down.
We reach them through dense forests where paths have to be cleared to get our horses along, often traveling barefoot in deep mud, fording rivers, and crossing dangerous swamps behind which the Indians hide for a measure of protection from their enemies. We find them wearing loin-cloths only, their faces and bodies painted, and using long, powerful bows and arrows in their hunting. They are bitter and suspicious; but we are winning their confidence amid almost insuperable difficulties.
We cannot go forward, however, without more help from the home church. In the Paraguayan Chaco I saw the gospel make the Indians stop killing their children, stop burying alive their babies, stop killing their old people. I saw Christianity and civilization taking the place of these customs, churches and schools built, decent homes instead of palm- leaf shelters, and beds, chairs, tables, knives, forks, plates, spoons, and kerosene lamps, instead of a skin on the ground, gourds and fingers, and a flaming palm leaf. We have put in the entering wedge; will you help us to drive it home to the heart of South America, among the millions of Indians yet unreached in the great valley of the Amazon River?
Men are eagerly seeking commercial advantage in South America. "There is a mine in Peru in which twenty American men put more money, before they took out a dollar, than all the Protestant churches of the
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world have put into South America during the past one hundred years in which we have had these obligations facing us; and in 1909 the British investments in the Argentine Republic alone were no less than ;^23,522,8i6. Surely this is relentlessly passing the sick man by, even at our door! Christ says, " Seek first the kingdom of Heaven." Here is an opportunity for investment in the stocks and bonds of heaven unrivaled by any other in the world, even in the countries of the Orient.
THE NEEDS OF ARGENTINA
Mr. Russell D. Christian, Brooklyn, New York
Argentina is called one of those God-forsaken countries down in the so-called " neglected continent." We would rather be called, as Dr. Francis E. Clark called us, " the continent of opportunity." It is a country large enough to include in its boundaries Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland, or one third of Europe.
The city of Buenos Aires is the fourth largest city on the American continent and the second largest Latin city in the world. It has four hundred miles of electric-car surface lines upon its streets. It is one of the cleanest and healthiest cities in the world; the death rate is about 14.6 per 1,000.
We are as free as the United States. On the 25th of this month we shall celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of our liberty. It was on the 25th of May, 18 10, that our country threw off the Spanish yoke. Today we are a free country. We are free in the religious sense, for although she has not yet come to a separation of church and state, yet it is possible for any one, no matter what the religion or creed, to take possession of one of the public plazas on Sunday afternoon and preach anything he likes, provided he gives notice to the police beforehand, so that they may protect him.
Just as you in North America have been receiving millions upon mil- lions from Europe, so we are doing the same. But there is this difference, — they come here and found a gospel; down there they have no gospel to give the foreigner. The only gospel recognized by the people down there is the gospel of honest toil and just reward. They work down there. A man who is unwilling to work has to get out.
My own work in connection with the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation down there has given me ample opportunity to see this. For two and a half years I had charge of the employment bureau. I dealt
Roll-Call of Nations — A rgeniina 235
with men who had juat arrived in the city, who came there with the expectation they were going to drop into something good right away. I am sorry to say that I had at least five or six men absolutely stranded because they were not able to work; they had never done anything in their lives; they came down there and thought everybody would be looking after them; and they had to move on.
Our Protestant churches have done nothing more than to scratch the surface. They are inadequate. The missionaries who come to us do not speak the language to start with, and they are not attractive because their manipulation of the Spanish language is poor. Then, too, the work has been done for the English people or the German people down there. Among the natives practically nothing is being done.
William C. Morris started, twelve years ago, a free school down in a poor section of the city. He began with nine children; today he has five thousand children coming to his schools. We call them the Argentine Evangelical Schools. The government pays him thirty thousand Argen- tine dollars a year as a subsidy for the good work he is doing. A child goes into that school and the first thing he learns is, "God is love." The second thing he learns is his duty, for all around the wall in signs of large letters he sees the real principles of true living.
Our Young Men's Christian Association down there has perhaps the greatest opportunity of all, for we have just started an extensive branch. We have the support in the form of an advisory committee of the leading men of the country, including the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of education. The denominations in every direction are sup- porting us. We feel that we have the key to the situation in our hands, because our young men will ultimately become the real rulers of the country and hold the public offices. If we can reach them we are going to do a wonderful work.
The Sunday-school, so far, has very little to it. We have thirty-five Sunday-schools in the city of Buenos Aires, with about one thousand children. We want some of you people to come down and help us; will you come?
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SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONDITIONS IN BRAZIL
Rev, H. C. Tucker, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
One of the complex problems confronting the Christian Church is that of placing the Bible in the hands of Brazil's twenty millions of souls, and of interpreting to the heart of the nation the eternal truths of this sacred volume.
Less than a half century ago South America was indeed a "neglected" and almost unknown continent of 35,000,000 or 40,000,000 of in- habitants, without the Bible and the Sunday-school.
The Bible was not on the list of books which, by permission of the crown of Portugal, might be circulated in Brazil in colonial times. Until quite recently it has been to the great masses of the country an almost unknown, and certainly an unread and unstudied. Book. A prominent Brazilian priest of the Roman Catholic Church, as late as the year 1903 wrote, "For a long time, we must confess, the gospel has been for the Catholics (meaning the Brazilians at large) a closed book, an unknown book, and for this reason the God of the gospel is becoming an unknown God."
The Romish Church, for nearly four centuries the state church, with the purse of the empire at her command to build and maintain her in- stitutions and to enrich her treasury, never published in the Portuguese language a single edition of the Bible in cheap and convenient form for circulation among the people. Even at the present day the only edition of the entire Bible, authorized by the Vatican, to be had is one supplied by a private publishing company at the rate of $12.35 per copy. This price is, of course, absolutely prohibitive.
The American and the British and Foreign Bible societies have been engaged during the last half century in efforts to place the Scriptures in the hands of the people. The work has been prosecuted amid many difficulties and discouragements, but the Bible has now reached a cir- culation of about one hundred thousand copies annually.
Various mission boards of the Protestant churches have initiated work in this field during the last fifty years, and their labors have been crowned with encouraging success. A reasonable estimate places the present evangelical forces in Brazil at about 75 ordained foreign mis- sionaries, 40 single women missionaries, 125 ordained native preachers, and 30,000 communicants. There are four missionary Young Men's Christian Association secretaries and a considerable number of teachers, colporteurs, and others actively engaged in the work.
The Sunday-school is an important part of this evangelical move- ment, and has been a prominent factor in the achievement of its results,
Roll-Call of Nations — Brazil 237
and will be increasingly essential to the permanent establishment of a vigorous and intelligent faith and piety based upon the knowledge of the Word of God. The Sunday-schools in the various evangelical churches in Brazil now number 413, with 743 officers, 1,397 teachers and 16,033 pupils.
For more than the three first centuries of the life of the Brazilian nation the people were without the Bible.
When the Bible societies and Protestant missions began their first efforts to circulate the Scriptures in the country, the Romish priests insisted that the Bible was not a book for the people, and threatened with excommunication all who would attempt to read it. They re- peatedly instigated persecutions against the colporteurs and had the Bibles burned and destroyed.
Any effort to circulate the Bible and to teach the people to read and study it meets with this widespread belief that the Bible is not a book for the masses but is exclusively for the priests. To univer- sal neglect and indifference was added fear and prohibition by the church.
The last official census of Brazil, taken in 1890, showed that less than twenty per cent of the entire population of the country including chil- dren of all ages, could read. This condition, together with the general lack of a knowledge of the Bible, increases the difficulty of obtaining from among the first converts of the young church persons qualified to become Sunday-school superintendents and teachers, as well as con- stituting a problem in the way of those to be taught. The missionary in Brazil must prepare the article out of the crude material gathered from conditions as above indicated.
Lesson helps, Sunday-school literature, special works for superin- tendents and teachers, are factors of incalculable importance in the development of the Sunday-school. These do not exist for Brazil in the Portuguese language except in a very limited way.
The missionary and evangelical forces are expending money and effort and are making some progress in preparing comments and helps on the International Lessons. Almost every separate denomination is doing a little something for itself in this direction; and in one or more instances the same church is trying to prepare in different sections of the field two different sets of helps and publications. These things ought not so to be.
An enthusiastic, capable Sunday-school leader could render the cause great help by a series of lectures, institutes, conventions, and mass meet- ings in a number of the principal centers. All the facilities offered by our modern Christian civilization for promoting the study of the Word
238 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
of God should as far ae possible be made available to the Sunday-school cause in Brazil.
A great awakening of industrial development and social betterment is sweeping over the country. Foreign capital and enterprise, machinery and modern inventions, literature and travel, are all contributing pow- erfully to this awakening. The new social and intellectual conditions created by these movements furnish a great opportunity for the Sunday- school and place upon Sunday-school workers a great responsibility.
In an effort to awake from the lethargy and illiteracy of ages that has settled down over the nation, attention is being directed to chil- dren as never before in the history of Brazil. Education, infant mor- tality, juvenile crime, and kindred subjects are being considered more and more, and there are signs of a coming revival of interest and reforma- tion in behalf of the children of the land. The Sunday-school finds at present in Brazil one of its sublimest opportunities of leading the young to an intelligent study of God's Word and of winning the nation to Christ.
The recent political revolution from a monarchy to a republic, the decrees separating church and state, the influence of the modern awak- ening and enlightenment, the circulation of the Scriptures, and the evangelical missionary movement, are being so widely and strongly felt in the life of the nation as to force the Romish church authorities and to lead the people to a changed position with reference to the right and privilege of reading and studying the Bible. They are now begin- ning to print and circulate the separate gospels and portions in cheap form.
Along with the industrial development and the social and religious awakening, the tide of immigration from European and other countries is destined to increase more and more as the years go by. The Sunday- school that has done and is doing so much for the immigrant and his child in the United States has a sublime opportunity and a great re- sponsibility towards the thousands that must soon rush in to settle up the vast undeveloped, rich and fertile fields of Brazil and all South America.
Roll-Call of Nations — Brazil 239
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS IN BRAZIL
Rev. Alvaro Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I BRING cordial greetings from the evangelical churches in Brazil, and come to express to you my deep gratitude for having sent us your sons and daughters as missionaries, whose labors have been so richly blessed of God.
The history of the gospel in Brazil can be divided into three chapters. The first commenced in 1557, when Admiral Villegaignon attempted to establish a French colony. This colony continued for ten years, when the French were expelled from Brazil.
The second chapter began in 1624, when the Dutch attempted to establish a colony, and it continued until 1654, when the Dutch were expelled from Brazil, and the zeal against " foreign usurpers " was united with religious hatred, and the expulsion of the Dutch was the extinction of Protestantism. The second chapter of the evangelization of Brazil, like the first, closed and was sealed in Christian blood.
The third chapter began in 1819, when the English obtained per- mission to build a church in Rio de Janeiro. This has been productive of more glorious results. Today there are more than 6,000 members of the English Church in Brazil. In 1832 the Methodists attempted to establish a missionary work, but were not successful until later. At present they count 2 general conferences, many churches, many schools and colleges, 83 Sunday-schools, with 3,636 pupils and 6,000 church members. Dr. Robert Kalley, a Scotch physician, afterwards a minister, established the gospel work in Brazil in 1859. The Congregational Church founded by him numbers today about fifteen hundred members.
In the same year, the first Presbyterian missionary. Rev. Ashbell G. Simonton, — arrived in Brazil, and from that time the work of the Presbyterian Church was extended throughout the entire country, and today Presbyterianism counts 10 presbyteries, 3 synods, i general assem- bly, 3 small seminaries, many schools and colleges, about 150 churches and congregations with 15,000 church members, and 159 Sunday-schools with 7,216 pupils.
In Brazil, today, the missionary churches. Episcopal, Congregational, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian, all are working for the evangeli- zation of Brazil. Altogether they count more than 30,000 members, 453 Sunday-schools with 16,033 pupils. More than 2,000 are converted and received annually in the churches of Brazil.
Including the English and Lutheran churches, the Protestant army in Brazil numbers more than 200,000. We have always been cruelly persecuted, and still are to the present day. Since the republic was
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proclaimed, in 1889, we have suffered eighty persecutions. But the more we are persecuted, the more the good work goes on and prospers. We are not discouraged by the persecutions, for we know it is one of the best signs of life in the church. Another sign of growth and spiritual life in the church is the number of young men who are offering themselves for the gospel ministry. We have in our Presby- terian Church about fifty candidates.
And lastly, another sign of great spiritual life is the glorious fact that our church is fulfilling the Lord's command, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Never before has there been so great and efficient efforts made in our church for the accomplishment of Sunday-school work as today.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS WORK IN CHILE
Mr. Charles G. Neuman
Chile, one of the most progressive countries, was originated by the Spaniards, who planted the Catholic faith on such a firm basis as to make it comparatively a difficult proposition at first to accomplish much headway in what seemed to Chileans anything but what they believe to be the true religion of Christ. The Sunday-schools, most of which are taught among the poorer classes, are growing rapidly. The wealthier families often admit their appreciation of the work done among their people by the Protestant ministers, but cannot acknowledge any help for fear of losing their social position.
The first mention of any Protestant church or Sunday-school in Chile was about 1856. A Union Church particularly for foreigners was then erected in Valparaiso. It was said that this was the only church that was not Catholic on the Spanish coast from California to Cape Horn, for several years, and was protected by a board fence twelve feet high.
The first pastor of the Union Church was an American. He was also the founder of the first Sunday-school in Chile, and became a very prominent figure in Christian work, in spite of the hardships and diffi- culties he had to encounter. His fearlessness, tenacity, wisdom, and tact, won success in every attempt.
About 1823 Valparaiso was the harbor for the British squadron on the Pacific side, and there were invariably from four to five men-of-war in the bay. Services were held on Sundays, and all foreigners who de- sired to attend were welcome to the use of boats that lay in readiness to take them on board. Children were also welcomed, but had no ad-
Roll' Call of Nations — Chile 241
vantage of any Sunday-school until the fortunate arrival of Dr. Trumbull, the first pastor.
The first Sunday-school of Valparaiso could not pride itself on its very large attendance; but patience, perseverance, and faithful work has increased its number to about three hundred. There are also several branches in different sections of the port, besides Sunday-schools of various denominations.
Sunday-schools among the Chilean people are, almost without ex- ception, Presbyterian or Methodist, and include more adults than chil- dren. They enjoy the characteristic method of Sunday-school doctrine much more than a regular church service, because most of them are practically uneducated and cannot always comprehend a sermon unless it be very plain-spoken and straight to the point.
Santiago, the capital of Chile, is situated about three hundred miles inland from Valparaiso. The rites and observances of religion were until recently much more exacting than in Valparaiso, hindering in every way all attempts in favor of Protestant worship, until the firm steadfastness of English-speaking people brought about a formal organi- zation in favor of a Santiago Union Church. From 1885 foreigners were no longer destitute of a house of worship, and the Sunday-school that started with about twenty has increased its attendnace to one hundred and more, and when the time draws near for the annual Sunday- school picnic, the classes double their number.
Chilean Sunday-schools in Santiago are perhaps more numerous than in Valparaiso, and are doing good work among the poor and needy. It is really wonderful to watch the improvements in the home life of those poverty-stricken families, that have given their lives up to the almighty Father for care and protection. They not only look after the general welfare of their homes and children, but hunger for knowledge, and attend night schools, that they may be able to read and appreciate the life gems of that one precious book, the Bible. This is not only in Santiago and Valparaiso, but all over Chile where the Sunday-schools are located.
At first all this work was done almost exclusively by either English or American missionaries, but for the last fifteen years young Chilean men are volunteering to teach and work among their own people. Many of them have taken theological courses in the United States to be well equipped for the "Great Call."
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DIFFICULTIES IN PERU
Rev. Vernon M. McCombs, Callao, Peru
Ever since coming to Peru we have tried in vain to obviate or over- come the following great difficulties:
1. To present the gospel to a picture-loving and illiterate people with- out the invaluable aid of the lesson picture cards, and the leaf-cluster (chart) with Spanish texts and such aids as are used in the United States.
2. Adequate Spanish Sunday-school lesson helps for teachers and students; if they exist we should be able to discover them easily. A great lack.
3. The two versions in Spanish of the Bible, a tool for our foes, a confusion in responsive services.
4. The lack of a definite Spanish secretary or department or com- mittee to look after the needs of our native Sunday-schools and young people's societies. Our missionary secretaries do their utmost, but perhaps you can awaken a move along this line for all the boards and fields. They should carefully visit the fields. The possibilities of such a department are almost limitless.
5. The extra cost of supplies for foreign work: Our church papers are at the same price as at home. Why may not our supplies be so provided?
6. An absolute dearth of Spanish library books for the Sunday-school. Oh, the influence of the damning devil's food poured out in these cities! All else, practically, is uninteresting or philosophical.
EUROPE
THE FOREIGN SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
Rev. Henry C Woodruff, D.D., Bridgeport, Connecticut
It affords me great pleasure to be authorized and permitted to pre- sent to this convention the greetings and congratulations of the Foreign Sunday-School Association.
Dante, in the opening lines of the second canto of the Paradiso, ad- dresses those
" Who in some pretty ^ittle boat . . . have been following Behind my ship."
The figure of the ship and the little boat applies fitly to the respective size of your organization and ours, but in this instance it was the little boat which was in the advance, a pioneer in the movement in whose
Roll-Call of Nations — Europe 243
progress today we are all rejoicing. Since I received the honor of appear- ing here I have come across a copy of a resolution adopted by the Council of the London Sunday- School Union, speaking of ray father, the late Mr. Albert Woodruff, as one " whose name will always be honorably associated with Sunday-school history as that of the originator of Sunday- school missions on the continent of Europe."
It will not perhaps be deemed inappropriate if I recall for a moment the situation when my father had his vision and entered upon his work. There was then, outside of England and America, and missions whose headquarters were in those countries, only what chemists would call " a trace " of Sunday-schools upon the continent of Europe.
To Mr. Buscarlet and Pastor Appia, who were the first with whom we began Sunday-schools in Italy, Sunday-schools came as a novelty. In Germany they were considered as unnecessary, — well enough for America but needless in Germany because of the religious education imparted in the day schools, — and they were regarded even with something of suspicion as opening the way for religious instruction by women. An almost total absence of any conception that the laity had any oppor- tunity or responsibility regarding Christian work constituted the promi- nent feature of the situation. They were totally unequipped for it, even if they had had the conception. Any apparatus, such as Sunday- school papers and library books, etc., was, of course, equally conspicuous by its absence.
What I have called my father's vasion was the enlistment and direc- tion of this laity in Christian activity upon the methods of the Sunday- school, which had been so fruitful of good, not only for the children, but preeminently in its reflex influence upon the workers in this country and Great Britain. To obedience to that vision my father addressed himself during the closing years of his life, and of that obedience our association and its work are the results.
You have invited us to listen to a phenomenally long list of reports from different countries of Sunday-school work in them. It would be hardly a rash conjecture that the history of the Sunday-school work in the majority of those countries, if exhaustively analyzed, would show traces of my father's work and that of the association which he organized. It is literally true that the Continental Committee at London itself, as well as France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Belgium Hungary, Russia, Bohemia, Moravia, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, Loanda, India, China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and other countries in Central and South America were affected by his work or touched by our correspondence during his lifetime. Our latest new departure has been the extension of the work to the Philippines.
244 ^^^ World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Our aim has not been to establish Sunday-schools which should de- pend wholly upon us for support. It has been rather to stir up the Chris- tian laity of other countries to engage in what was to be their own work and to direct and aid them in it when needed.
Our work has been chiefly carried on by correspondence with hun- dreds of workers abroad by an association of ladies and gentlemen. The voluntary character of this organization has proved it economical, and qualifies it for indefinite extension, with small increase of expense of administration, and the results in view of the means at our command have shown it efficient. The correspondence has been chiefly with in- dividual schools, though a number of the correspondents abroad have been leaders in the work and in charge of several schools.
We have never intended to be a publishing society, but the exigencies of the situation made some suitable religious reading for children neces- sary, and we felt obliged to supply it. We have begun children's papers in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Japan, and aided them in France and Switzerland. One has reached self-support; another, nearly so.
We have also in this same line published translations of standard library books to the aggregate of over one hundred and eight thousand volumes, of which " Christie's Old Organ " is an instance and type. This list embraces fifteen or sixteen different books. " Christie's Old Organ " has been published in twenty-one different languages; others in from one to fifteen.
In general purpose, though with differing detail and method, our work is closely connected with your own. Sometimes the relation is like that of the snowplow which breaks the way; sometimes that of seed-sowing which supplies the plant which can be later trained; some- times, perhaps, only that of a drop of oil which lubricates the larger machine and makes its work easier and smoother.
PROGRESS IN BELGIUM
Rev. Henri Anet, M.A., B.D., Lize-Serang, Belgium
Belgium, one of the smallest kingdoms of Europe, and nevertheless a very important industrial and commercial land, is almost completely Roman Catholic.
For about eighty years an evangelistic agency, now called the Mis- sionary Church in Belgium, has done its best to teach to the Belgians, in the mining districts, the true gospel of our Lord.
The Missionary Church in Belgium has recognized the utility of Sunday-
Roll' Call of Nations — Bohemia 245
schools for evangelizing a country. There are in Belgium S5 Sunday- schools held in Protestant church buildings, with an attendance of 2,282 pupils, 1,875 children of Protestant families, and 407 Roman Catholic children. There are also 48 distinctly missionary Sunday-schools, held in private houses, very often in a kitchen, with an attendance of 195 Protestant and 1,600 non- Protestant children.
Since 1902, there has been a very satisfactory progress in every direc- tion. The number of schools has increased by thirty-seven per cent., the number of pupils by thirty-two percent., and the number of teachers by seventeen per cent.
Recently the Belgian Sunday-schools have been visited by a Swiss clergyman. Pastor Eug. Boorn, of Morges. He writes after his visit: " Your work is new, original, full of unexpected sides. If there are shades, there are also splendid rays of light. Sin, ignorance, error, will appear in Belgium more basely than elsewhere, but the power of the gospel of Christ is at work in a way that exceeds all description. Those who want to know what is God's might for the salvation of men need not to go to the mission fields of Africa or Asia, — they will see in your country the transforming power of the Spirit. They will understand that the Acts of the Apostles are not a closed book, and will be unable to say. Those things of the past will never be seen again."
Sunday-school work is prosperous in Belgium much more than in many Protestant countries. It makes up for what is lacking in family or day-school education. It is a real mission among those little ones whom Jesus loved so much.
BOHEMIA SUNDAY-SCHOOLS
Rev. L. E. Marek, Prague, Bohemia
I come from the country of John Huss and of the Unity of Brethren, from a small country which is yet rich by the touching history of Chris- tian work and the great sufferings endured for the sake of the gospel of Christ.
The great teacher, the last bishop of the Unity of Brethren, taught his people, before all else, that the young should be led to the Father, and this the Bohemian Protestant Church never forgot. It used diverse methods in trying to fulfill this task, but it did not close itself against the methods and he advice of foreign friends. Thus it accepted the Sunday-school as an invaluable help for the religious education of children.
The knowledge about Sunday-schools came to our country from Scotland in the beginning of the sixties, where our young theologian
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at that time were following their studies. But into our church life it was implanted from America. The visit of two ministers of our Reformed Church, in 1869, and then especially the coming of Dr. Cathell in 187 1 and 1 88 1, to our country, called forth a lively interest in the blessed work. The report of 1884 says of Dr. Cathell, that everywhere, at the conventions, publicly and privately, he recommended the Sunday- school; so that he might well be called the " father of our Sunday-school. ' '
In 1884 the Sunday-schools of the Reformed Church had 64 Sunday- schools, 244 leaders and 2,383 pupils. The work did not progress as well as we hoped; but the Sunday-school was not allowed to die. We have in Bohemia and Moravia today, 126 Sunday-schools, with 145 teachers and 2,663 children; and together with the other denominations it is 145 Sunday-schools, with 196 teachers and 3,504 pupils. The native Bohemian Protestant Church has still much to gain. Its needs are many, and it has to be strengthened and helped by the foreign friends who are happier than we are.
A great need that exists is the want of Christian literature for the young. I cannot but emphasize our great thankfulness for what the Foreign Sunday- School Association did in the matter for our children, presenting them a series of helpful translations. We need many helps for the study of he Bible, and we need a well-furnished Sunday- school magazine with a view of promoting the Sunday-school cause.
One more need is for an experienced and tried Sunday-school worker to be sent to us, who would be able to understand our needs, our position, and our circumstances. His coming would not be in vain. The field to be cultivated is large, and the soil is fruitful. We hope the nation may be won to Christ again, and we believe the Sunday-school is one of the most powerful means to that end. I call to you, "Give us a helping hand."
EUROPEAN TURKEY AND BULGARIA
Rev. Theodore T. Holway, Samokov, Bulgaria
Since the World's Fifth Sunday-School Convention in Rome, the field I represent, European Turkey and Bulgaria, has taken a long step forward politically.
After thirty years of subjection to the Ottoman Empire as a dependent principality^ Bulgaria has become an independent kingdom. The tribute of two hundred thousand dollars per annum is to be paid no more. She now takes her place, as five centuries ago, at the council-board of na- tions, fully justified in feeling that four out of six million Bulgarians have at last come into their own.
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The Young Turks also have made that masterly change in the Near East which is one of the miracles of modern history. Racial strifes between Greek and Bulgarian, Servian and Wallachian and Turk, have, for the time at least, largely ceased. Political murders in Macedonia are far less frequent. Our letters are not read by post-office officials before being forwarded. Our books are not often forfeited at the fron- tier, as formerly, nor our papers mutilated or thrown into the waste basket by the censor. Magazines are no longer delivered to us with whole articles cut out McClure's, as reached us during the publication of Miss Stone's story of her captivity. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom in travel, speak eloquently of a great change in Mace- donia and Albania.
There are still a few drawbacks. Complaints reach us of continued oppression and governmental trickery; but, under the circumstances, that is not at all strange. We trust that with time the Young Turks will succeed in fulfilling all our hopes for their regime.
But while there has been marvelous material progress and marked political advancement in the Balkans, what can be said for evangelical progress?
I. Past Achievements. This work is being carried on mainly among a nominally Christian people. We labor with the six million Bulgarians. They are all members by birth of Eastern (or so-called Greek) Catholic Church, even though large numbers of such members are real atheists, and many more infidels, and nearly all ignorant of the Bible. Through no fault of their own, Protestant workers have been vigorously opposed by leaders of the Bulgarian Church almost from the beginning, and their plans and their methods have been more or less suspected as op- posed to national development. The whole of Macedonia has long been cursed by national propaganda. Greeks, Bulgarians, and Servians have established schools all through the land, furnishing free tuition, clothing, and, wherever necessary, board to all their pupils, in return for which their families became known as Bulgarians, Greeks, or Servians, as the case might be. This meant antagonism to racial interests. A family would thus become a traitor to its own people, and was treated as such. The few Roman Catholic schools similarly cooled the national ambitions of their students. The Hamidian regime, benefited by such racial conflicts, assiduously fanned them. Thus it is not strange that our work, different in spirit and method though it was, was misunder- stood and looked upon as merely another of the many propagandas. Not long ago representatives of a certain Bulgarian village in Macedonia came to our mission in Salonica, asking what price we would pay them if their village would become Protestant. They believed that, in addi-
248 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
tion to the money hoped for, they would thereby become American citizens and thus gain the protection of the United States government. Such offers were often made by individuals.
These and similar conditions have made our progress slower than it would otherwise have been. We rejoice, however, in the progress already made, and fully believe that the time has now come when growth will be much more rapid than in the past. The last annual report of our missions gives the following Sunday-schools:
A. B. C. F. M., 56, with 2,583 pupils; Methodist, 19 Sunday-schools, 47 officers and teachers, 705 pupils; Baptist, 3 Sunday-schools, 15 officers and teachers, 200 pupils; a total of 78 schools and 3,488 pupils.
In many of our smaller village churches the Bible school takes the place of the second sabbath service. Practically all the church members are also members of the Bible school. We urge constant and faithful study of the Word of God on all. Each must be ready to give a reason for the faith that is in him. Often the Sunday-school will contain more adults than children. Bibles, not quarterlies or lesson leaves, are used, though we employ the International lessons in the main, and have (since 1886) a regular quarterly; and an additional treatment of the lesson in our missionary monthly paper has just been commenced. Both of these lesson helps are prepared by Bulgarian pastors, and the quar- terly is entirely financed by the Bulgarian Evangelical Society. This personal experience and individual familiarity with the Word of God has made many of our friends firm in their faith in the hour of trial. The positive knowledge of the Bible, gained from preaching, and still more from Bible study in the home and Bible school, has made them able to often answer the criticisms of the orthodox priests and of other vigorous opponents. They know Whom they have believed, and why they believe.
Sunday-school cards, with the same pictures which you have, with the title and golden text printed in Bulgarian, have been widely scat- tered wherever we have work. Many a home in the heart of Macedonia, as well as in Bulgaria, and some even in Albania, is decorated in whole or in part by such Bible cards. I have also seen the large roll pictures in homes, the owners of which have purchased them at about cost price; occasionally, too, on saloon walls, together with calendar sheets and advertisements of beer, plows, insurance, etc., will appear the " Fall of Jericho," " The Siege of Jerusalem," or some scene from the life of Christ. In this way the Word of God finds quiet and interesting entry into many a heart.
Our publication departments have furnished a good part of the small amount of decent literature for young people in the country.
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With the generous assistance of the World's Sunday- School Association, and, I believe, the London Sunday-School Union, we have just pub- lished a small " Children's Hymn Book," for use among our evangelical sabbath-schools of whatever denomination, — a book printed on our own mission press, by boys of our own school, and in what we consider a very creditable manner. It is also nicely illustrated. In accordance with the desires of your Executive Committee, when sending their cheque, some copies are to be given free, where the school children are too poor to buy it. It has been quite well received, and is, I believe, the only collection of children's songs in the language.
In all nominally Christian countries, missionary achievements can never be measured by the numbers of schools and scholars and publi- cations, however encouraging such statistics may be. The indirect influence, the stimulating effect on the state church, the unconscious molding of public opinion, — these, too, are a very important part of the work accomplished. Briefly stated, some other results of the strong emphasis we have constantly put on the Bible school, together with our other activities, are as follows:
1. Opposition is breaking down. The earlier bitter opposition is dis- appearing. Friendliness is taking the place of enmity, and confidence of suspicion. Our services are well attended. Our schools are crowded. Our colporteurs are welcomed in the villages, and our sales of Scriptures are excellent.
On the centennial of William Ewart Gladstone's birth, celebrated throughout Bulgaria last December by a national holiday, the govern- ment itself ordered that in Philippopolis (the second city in the kingdom) the memorial service should be held in our church, the memorial sermon preached by our pastor, and the memorial music directed by the leading orthodox chorister in the city, with a joint choir of singers from his church and ours.
Prominent army officers and high-placed government officials have put their children in our schools, saying that they wished them to develop a strong, pure, earnest character, and sometimes adding, " Even if it means making them Protestants, I shall not be offended."
2. The laity have been aroused. There is a general discontent with the inactivity shown by the national church. In many places we learn that the laity have gone to their priests saying, " Why don't you teach us the Bible, and preach to us as the Protestants do." They are seeing clearly the grave menace to morals, the growing atheism, the ruinous materialism, and the proneness of the clergy in their councils to spend their time in discussing permission to the priests to marry a second time, or the raising of their salaries (which are paid by the state), instead
250 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
of earneatly studying how to meet the spiritual needs of their people. The laity also want the church services, which are now wholly liturgical and conducted in the little-understood Slavic, to be in the vernacular. What should we think here if our whole church service were in the Anglo- Saxon. In view of these things, is it any wonder that the theological students loathe the seminary and have nicknamed it "The Bastile of the Soul," or that there are few candidates for the priesthood!
3. This aroused laity is leading to an awakening church. There is a move towards Puritanism in the church itself. " The Spiritual Prod " (the organ of this Puritan element) still continues to goad the Holy Synod and to wield an increasing influence for good. (Unfortunately these leaders, while endeavoring to arouse the Bulgarian Church to a new and energetic organic life, do not themselves seem to know the power of the Holy Spirit.) As a result of their efforts, for the first time in modern history, the Bulgarian Church is to meet next month in a general council, with representatives from clergy and laity alike, for the purpose of considering reforms in religious methods. And one of the main questions to be discussed there is the advisability of the use of Bulgarian instead of the little-known Slavic in the church services.
Preaching is being introduced in many parts of Bulgaria. The bishop of Philippopolis recently ordered all his priests to preach to their people regularly, and in order that he might know that they did preach, re- quired them to report to him each month the subjects and texts of their recent sermons. Since many of the priests are incapable of preaching, he has also appointed two traveling preachers, who started out by preach- ing against the Protestants, but one of whom not long ago attended a sabbath-school session in our church and, at its close, warmly shook hands with our preacher, saying: " We're working for the same end, brother! Let's work together! "
4. Claiming more or less dissatisfaction with our translation of the Bible as Protestant, the Holy Synod (or governing body of the church) has just issued its own translation (made from the Russian) of the four gospels, and has sold already this year more than twenty thousand copies. The full edition of forty-five thousand copies will doubtless be sold out within a very few months. We are told by competent judges that this sale will not diminish our sales a particle, but rather tend to increase them. Still, so long as the Word of God is spread, we care little by whom, — by them or us.
From these few facts out of many, you can see something of the prog- ress made up to the present. There is much to encourage. There is still more to stimulate. Past achievements, however, can never meet present needs. Let me speak in brief, therefore, of the latter.
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II. Some Present Needs. Fresh liberty always carries with it fresh dangers as well as great blessings. The Bulgarians have made remark- able material progress in the thirty- two years of their freedom. The Young Turks, too, have taken long strides ahead since the Proclamation of the Constitution, July 24, 1908. But along with that material prog- ress and the broader mental vision of possible attainments has come a growth in Western vices. Materialism is strong. Haeckel's " Riddle of the Universe" and Buchner's " Kraft und Stoff " are rapidly doing their ruinous work. Atheistic socialism is preaching, along with some good things (including temperance in certain places), atheism and free love, i.e., under existing conditions. The children and young people see and hear these things in their school life. Some teachers in the largest schools have publicly denied God's existence, rejected his Word, and ridiculed his laws. Immoral novels, infidel books, yellow journalism, are pouring into the country like a flood. Outside of the few large cities in Macedonia, the whole population has had little else to read in the past except the Bible, our mission paper, and a few mission publications. The censor forbade most other books, including some of ours. Now they, too, just learning the delights of literature, are deluged with sala- cious novels and malicious infidel books. Albania, with its two million inhabitants, has only very recently introduced its first printing presses. With what food shall these Albanians satisfy their intellectual hunger? There are no native spiritual forces. If they are left to find their own mental food, it will undoubtedly be of a type similar to that which curses Bulgaria. If, on the contrary, they are to have a pure, uplifting, en- nobling, spiritual literature, it behooves us to lead the way in furnish- ing it. The missionary work which we are just beginning to do there ought to be the center from which such a literature would flow out to the people. Unfortunately, the funds at our disposal are utterly inade- quate to do this.
For the six million Bulgarians, the missions, in addition to various publications prepared with their own funds, and with contributions from the tract societies, have received valuable aid from the Foreign Sunday- School Association of Brooklyn, N. Y., with which they have prepared a few good stories for children. The time has come, however, when much more must be done to meet the growing need. There should be published a number of interesting stories of high moral tone, such as " A Titus," "Stephen," "Three People," and something of Ralph Connor's or George MacDonald's, as well as two or four of the " Self and Sex " series, — the latter being especially needed now. In addition to selling these books, they could be made to reach a large number who are too poor to buy, by means of traveling circulating libraries. These libraries
252 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
might well contain a number of books on up-to-date Sunday-school methods, on missions, etc., in English, which most workers understand.
While speaking of books, let me here publicly express the gratitude of many preachers and other Bulgarian workers for the continued gen- erosity of Rev. F. N. Peloubet, by which many of them receive annually copies of his "Notes on the Sunday-School Lessons." I need not assure you that they prove a great help, not only in our Bible schools, but also in sermon preparation. Thanks also to various friends who furnish some of our workers with the Sunday School Times. Indeed, if only a number of those among you who do not keep your copies of the Times would prepare your lessons early in the week, you could mail your own copies to some of our teachers who are not now able to subscribe for it, nor to see another worker's copy (my own copy often serves four or five teachers); and it would still be in time for their treatment of the same lesson. For in Bulgaria and Turkey, the calendar is thirteen days behind our western date, so that our lessons are usually just two weeks later than yours. The same plan would of course apply to any other Sunday-school weekly.
The urgency of present needs, the greatness of present opportunity and the arousing of latent lay powers in our home lands today, all make possible in our Sunday-schools a plan which has been already adopted in some classes. A friend of ours in St. Louis plans to have her class of girls, neither large nor rich, raise the full support of a Bible woman each year. The class adopts her as their own missionary worker. And this is in addition to what the church there already does for mission work. It is the undertaking of that class alone. How many of your classes will undertake a similar work? Or, if you preferred, you could take a ten-dollar, twenty-dollar, or thirty-dollar share in the work of some preacher, or help in the support of some promising scholar in a mission school, in whose life-work your pupils would thus have a personal share.
DENMARK MISSION SUNDAY-SCHOOLS
Rev. H. C. Rordon, Chicago, Illinois
The Sunday-school in Denmark is a child of the Danish State Church. In Copenhagen the Sunday-school work is under the auspices of the Christian Society for Home Missions, in Copenhagen, and under the auspices of the Christian Society of Home Missions in Denmark for the remainder of Denmark.
These two societies are closely connected. Jointly they arrange a
Roll-Call of Nations — Denmark 253
series of lessons to be used throughout the country. This is so arranged as to cover a period of four years. They publish a Children's Weekly, which contains stories suitable for children and information with re- gard to foreign missions. That this has brought a direct result is evi- dent, for all the Sunday-schools pay for the maintenance of a missionary in India.
A hymn book, to be used in the Sunday-schools and at the children's services, has been published for the use of the children. A weekly which contains well-written articles, both instructive and enriching, and ex- planations of the following Sunday's lesson, is published for the guidance of the teachers.
To further educate the teachers, meetings are held every Friday even- ing, at which the lesson is read and discussed and suggestions made as to what would be most advantageous and bring best results in the work among the children. There are courses given to the benefit of the teachers, in which stress is laid upon their knowledge of the Bible, to make them competent to carry on their work.
The Sunday-schools in Scandinavia often meet to confer with each other as to best methods in carrying on the work. This meeting will be held in Copenhagen this year. The arrangement of the Sunday- school in Denmark is usually like that here, namely, a division into classes. Each teacher has a group of children around him to whom he explains the day's lesson. The object is to make the lesson as clear as possible, so large colored pictures are often used, which help to gain the children's interest.
In this connection I wish to call the attention of this assemblage to the Church Year's Clock at this Sunday-school exhibition. It has been sent to me from Denmark, and recommends itself by the practical way in which it shows how the church year is divided and in what part of the church year we now find ourselves. This is shown by a hand which can be moved from Sunday to Sunday. The different church festivals are shown by pictures along the edge of the dial. Each Sunday-school is independent, but the Home Mission Society gives pecuniary aid where it is needed.
x\ll of Denmark, outside of Copenhagen, is divided into twenty-six dioceses, according to the ecclesiastical or political divisions. Each diocese has a superintendent, who is the leader of his diocese and pro- motes the progress of the work through an annual meeting of the diocese, meetings with the parents, and special children's services. Representa- tives from all the dioceses meet every other year.
The statistics which I am able to give are, I am sorry to say, not very complete, as some of the printed slips have not reached me.
254 ^^^ World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
Outside of Copenhagen there are now 774 Sunday-schools, with 3,071 workers and 50,210 children. In Copenhagen there are 47 Sunday- schools with 11,144 children and 784 teachers.
These figures may seem very low when one takes into consideration that there are between two and three million people in Denmark, but various circumstances make them so. First of all, these are the Sunday- schools under the home mission boards only. There are many inde- pendent churches, both of Lutheran and other denominations, which support Sunday-schools, and these have not been included in the sta- tistics. Besides, there is religious teaching in all private and public schools, so that the special need for the Sunday-school is not so strongly felt.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS IN FRANCE
Prof. Charles Bieler, Paris, France
There are certain names that are never pronounced in vain in the United States, — today I represent among you the country of Lafayette and Rochambeau.
As often as in Paris, when crossing the Place de Corrosel, I have ad- mired that fine statue of Lafayette erected there as a token of your gratitude towards that nobleman, I have always thought, — France has good friends across the ocean; American citizens will never refuse to encourage any sort of effort for the good of the French people.
Therefore I am extremely glad of this occasion to describe the work done among the children of your French friends. Our Sunday- School Society was founded in 1857, by a young man, in his boyhood an ener- getic Sunday-school worker, Jean Paul Cook.
Now, after the labors of eight successive agents during sixty-eight years, the Sunday-School Society helps about 1,200 schools, 7,000 teachers, and 67,000 scholars by its information bureau, its publications, the visits of its missionary agents, its lectures, and normal classes.
The chief characteristic is its interdenominational one, uniting, as it does, the five principal Protestant churches working in France; the children of the Reformed, Lutheran, Free, Methodist, and Baptist churches, with a few exceptions, study the same national — not inter- national — list of lessons, read the same leaflets, sing the same hymn book, and belong to the same union, managed by an interdenominational committee.
Roll' Call of Nations — France 255
A second characteristic of the French Sunday-schools is their demo- cratic spirit. Even in the fashionable districts of our big cities the child of the "ouvrier" mixes in the same class with the son of the wealthy and noble. I know of a touching friendship of a gentleman's sons with a Sunday-school mate who was the son of a washerwoman. The two boys addressed each other with the familiar "/« " of intimate chums, and asked one another to their respective homes.
A third characteristic of the French Sunday-school is its working session: Ecole du Jeudi, held on Thursday, which is the school holiday. When poor children form a majority, they are kept after the Bible class for needlework and other manual occupations, as well as for singing and games. These interesting Thursday classes, to which it is always easy to attract many Roman Catholic children, are one of the most important factors in the evangelization of our French youth.
The religiou^Pteaching is completed by a course of preparation for communion, which is given once or twice a week during two successive winters by the pastor. It is a comprehensive study of Christian doc- trine and ethics, which, with God's blessing, often marks a turning- point in the religious career of our children.
The number of scholars in one school varies from ten to twelve pupils — in thinly populated country districts — to six hundred, as in the school of the Reformed Church in Nimes. In Paris the Reformed churches have 40 Sunday-schools, the Lutheran 12, other denominations 18, and the McAll missions 10, making for the capital about 20 Sunday- schools, with 4,000 to 5,000 pupils.
There are a few characteristics that our children's meetings take in their endeavors to meet the various needs of our different regions.
First, the Kitchen Sunday-Schools. In many places of the north of France, as of Belgium, you will find in a kitchen a Sunday-school with wooden boards placed on two stools for seats, the odorous cabbage soup for incense, a crowd of slum children for an audience, and a stalwart young miner for a teacher. This man may have been formerly a drunk- ard and a prize fighter, but he has been converted in an open-air meet- ing and now his robust frame bends on the little pagans he has gathered in the streets, and his voice becomes soft and melodious as he speaks of Jesus to these little ones whom he must win for the Good Shepherd's fiock.
Leaving the grimy north behind us, let us glide together along the canals and rivers of the Seine and the Loire. On each border we admire well-cultivated fields and beautiful country roads bordered on both sides by straight lines of poplars. A village close by is nestling amongst some trees, and on the canal a curious long barge is anchored ; the flag hoisted
256 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
high explains that it is "La bonne houvelle,'' one of the McAll mission boats. Sweet singing is to be heard from the spacious hall inside, and standing on the bank the more timid of the village children are hesi- tating between the desire of crossing the little bridge and joining their friends on the boat and the fear of " Monsieur le Cure's " reproaches. Curiosity and the charm of music take the upper hand, and very soon the hall is packed with a sympathetic crowd of little listeners. These floating Sunday-schools furnish excellent recruits to the ranks of conquer- ing Christianity in France.
After the invigorating breeze of the river you will perhaps hesitate to follow me now into the Stable Sunday- School, with its heavy, warm atmosphere of hay, and of cows, and of closed windows. But these poor inhabitants of the higher regions of the Hautes Alpes, on account of the scarcity of fuel, are obliged to live in cow houses; and they do it, not only in the colder winter months, but the whole /ear round. In winter the children are often kept by the deep snow from attending church, and the devoted pastor during the week goes the round of the most out-of-the-way houses, so as to teach Sunday-school in the house. And these are not the less fruitful sessions, when teachers and pupils bend together on the sacred pages in the intimacy of this novel scene.
Our last visit will be to the barn-like mission hall of one of the poorest Parisian suburbs, where Pastor Larriaux, the honorary president of our Sunday-School Union, has been working for thirty-three years. A foreign missionary has come to speak; one little girl has received from her father, who was a ragpicker, like many a member of that church, a doll found amongst the rubbish of a wealthy mansion. The child, who never parted from her precious treasure, listened with rapt atten- tion to the missionary's words, now and then, however, giving a furtive kiss to her darling.
When the appeal for sacrifice for the missionary cause came, the little girl gazed a long time at her doll, and, after a moment's hesitation, gave it a fond embrace, and carried it with a bright smile shining through her tears to the desk, asking that her only earthly treasure should be sent to a little African convert.
Are members of this conference ready to display the same spirit of sacrifice in favor of our work in France? We have been generously helped for years by your Foreign Sunday-School Association of New York. Would not other friends of France help, by personal subscription, the Sunday-School Society of France to maintain and develop the excellent work of evangelization of the French children?
In a little book entitled " Colonial Verses," I was reading the other day those verses:
Roll- Call of Nations — Germany 257
". . . By happy chance of lofty circumstances Our Godmother was France, In days of old.*'
I wish I could reverse those verses and say :
By happy chance of happy circumstances Our Godmother is the United States, In present days.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS IN GERMANY
Rev. Julius Rohrbach, Berlin, Germany
The history of the Sunday-school movement among the Free Churches of Germany, including Baptists, Methodists, " Evangelische Gemein- schaft," and other independent communities, is full of interest, encour- agement, and cause for praising the Lord our God.
From very small beginnings, and under great difficulties, caused by prejudice and Stats-Church interference, they have struggled into life and liberty, progress and prosperity, and are more and more becoming a power for good in our church and national life.
When, about the middle of the last century, men like Oucken, Koebner, and Schmann, of the Baptist denomination, commenced their mission in Germany, it was only natural that they made provision for the re- ligious instruction of the young in Sunday-schools. Pastor Oucken was the first one to introduce Sunday-schools into Germany. The young plant grew slowly and steadily, and after a few years, the founding of about sixty schools with one hundred and fifty teachers and some one thousand scholars was reported. Yet those early years were times of oppression and persecution.
Not a few faithful preachers and teachers found themselves — for their self-denying eflForts — behind prison walls, there to reconsider and to strengthen their conviction and testimony for Christ on behalf of the children.
The historian of that period (1840-1850) says: " These were hard times our Baptists fathers passed through; the early history of our Sunday-schools is a story of suflFering, and might be written with blood and tears."
About the same time (1850) the Methodist Episcopal Church of America sent their first missionaries, Drs. Jacoby, Doring, and Nippert, to Ger-
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many. They began work in Wiirtemberg, at Frankfort and Bremen, both among young and old; and not seldom their preachers and teachers, being accused of " dangerous sectarianism," had to appear before unfavorable magistrates.
The Wesleyans began Sunday-school work about 1840 in Wiirtemberg and Southern Germany, and the *' Evangelische Gemeinschaft," a branch of the large Methodist Church of America, was the first to introduce the system of groups or classes in their Sunday-schools. Besides these, there were numbers of smaller independent communities, in the " Wup- perthal, at Elberfeld and Barmen, who carried on Sunday-school work in connection with their preaching stations, published valuable " helps," and began special preparation classes for Sunday-school teachers.
All this had to be done under much opposition and persecution, caused chiefly by clerical officials, — even day-school teachers, — who despised and rejected that kind of religious instruction which was given by mostly uneducated teachers and Sunday-school helpers; yet, notwithstanding all, teachers and scholars sought help from God in prayer, and enjoyed times of spiritual quickening with real conversions among the young. In 1870 the Baptists of Germany had about 280 schools, with 360 teach- ers and '^,500 scholars; the Methodists, about 100 schools, with 200 teachers and 4,000 scholars. In 1870 all the various branches of the Free Churches numbered in all about 700 Sunday-schools, with 1,200 teachers and 18,000 scholars. Thus far the streams of Sunday-school life among the Free Churches in Germany flowed in the narrow beds of their own churches or denominations.
A new period commenced in 1885, when the Continental Sunday- School Mission, a branch of the Sunday-School Union of London, helped the Free Churches to form a Free Church Sunday-School Union, by granting some financial help towards the support of a Sunday-school missionary. A Free Church Sunday-School Union was formed, with its executive committee in Berlin.
By the untiring efforts of our Sunday-school agents, the work quickly deepened and spread. During the first three years some 645 meetings were held with adults, to gain their practical interest on behalf of Sunday- schools, 245 with teachers, and 192 with scholars. In 1891 we held our first Sunday- School Convention in Berlin; in 1894 our second at Halle, and in 1897 our third convention at Frankfort-on-the-Main, when already some 1,116 schools, with 4,415 teachers and nearly 60,000 children, belonged to our Free Church Sunday-School Union.
Most encouraging were the accounts given of revival services for teachers and conversions among children. The International Bible Reading Association helped a great deal to introduce the lessons into
Roll-Call of Nations — Germany 259
the daily family circle, and good Sunday-school literature was being provided. More and more the need of the better equipment of our Sunday-school teachers was felt, and this was met by the publication of ** Helps for Teachers." This led to special courses for Sunday-school teachers, lasting from three to eight and fourteen days. In these teacher- training courses, subjects such as the following were treated: i. The soul life of the child; its constitution and development and how best to influence it for God. 2. The Sunday-school teacher; his inward and outward equipment for the work. 3. Methods of teaching children. These " teacher-training courses " prepared, in many places, the way for regular classes for Bible and child study, carried on by able and experienced men, preachers or Sunday-school teachers.
Thus the teacher-training movement has begun, which leads us to expect much fruit in our Sunday-school work in Germany. The impor- tance of these well-trained teachers will be easily understood when we consider that there is, right through the Fatherland, a general breaking off from the bonds of a traditional church system, and a separation of church and state, a mesalliance which proved satisfactory to neither. Our well-trained Sunday-school teachers will become the subaltern officers who, with their pastors, will stand in the breach and carry the war against infidelity and immorality and worldliness, to a glorious victory for the cause of Christ and the kingdom of God.
From Germany, Sunday-schools have spread to Austria, Bohemia, the Balkan States in southern Europe, and to Russia. Our missionary was also privileged to attend the World's Sunday-School Convention at Rome in 1906. He was able to report some 1,448 Sunday-schools, with some 6,043 teachers and 86,000 children. During the past three years these have increased to about 1,750 Sunday-schools, with 7,500 teachers and officials, and nearly 100,000 children.
But, more than this, the little well-illustrated weekly paper, the "Morgenstern," published by the Baptist Christian Tract Society in Kassel, is taken by some twenty-five thousand children.
The International Bible Reading Association, formed by the late Mr. Waters, of London, has also a membership of about twenty-five thousand, and thereby Sunday-school lessons are brought within the sacredness of the Christian home and the family altar.
The Methodist Book Depot at Bremen has likewise published valu- able " helps for teachers," a Sunday-School magazine for teachers, and thousands of little books for children.
The " Evangellsche Gemeinschaft " publishes the Evangelical Sunday- School Friend, and the Evangelical Children s Friend.
Singing is a great feature of our Sunday-school life, and the little
26o The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
hymnal called the " Singing Bird " has actually got inside of thousands of children's hearts and lives.
The missionary cause is also not overlooked. Monthly addresses on missionary subjects are given and collections taken for the work abroad. Our Methodist Sunday-schools are also keen on increasing their Sunday- school libraries, some of which are well stocked and much appreciated by the young folk.
This steady progress of Sunday-school work in the Free Churches of Germany, during the past twenty-five or thirty years, calls forth much gratitude to God, who so abundantly has blessed the efforts of the mission- aries, pastors, and teachers, and graciously worked by his Spirit in the heart of the children, stirs us up to still greater devotion and more concen- trated zeal to bring the children to Christ and to carry out his command: " Suffer the little ones to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Sunday-School Statistics of the Free Churches, Germany, 1906-1909
Presented by Rev. Julius Rohrbach, Berlin
Officers Schools or Teachers Enrollment
Denomination 1906 1909 1906 1909 1906 1909
Baptists 478 497 2,248 2,420 27,000 29,000
Methodists 487 542 1,917 2,134 24,440 27,667
Ev. Gemeinschaft 278 313 1,378 1,723 23,000 28,000
Independent Churches 60 100 144 300 3,880 4,000
Moravians 14 i4 77 77 998 998
Presbyterians i i 16 16 304 250
Salvation Army 130 142 263 501 6,400 7,720
Other independent schools .. . 141 329 2,283
1,448 1,750 6,043 7.500 86,022 99.918
In 1906 the Baptists had 204 infant classes; in 1909, they had 223; in 1906, 76 adult Bible classes, and in 1909 they had 97. The amount of money {marks) for missions used was from 2,869 ^' ^^ ^906 to 3,402 M.. in 1909.
Roll' Call of Nations — Hungary 261
NO SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIFE IN HUNGARY
Rev. Louis Bogar, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
There is no Sunday-school life in Hungary. In some churches, chil- dren are kept in church after the service, Sunday afternoon, and popular lectures are delivered to them in which some spiritual truths are brought out in a comprehensive manner and in a simple way. But this is not the regular and systematic religious teaching which corresponds to the American Sunday-school.
We have a different adjustment of our educational situation in Hungary than you have in America. Boys and girls in all the schools except the universities, thoughout Hungary, are thoroughly instructed in Bib- lical knowledge by their respective denominational leaders, either by clergymen or professional teachers, four hours per week at least. This instruction is obligatory under the law.
Although the children have some fine lectures on Biblical topics, they do not receive much spirituality. They are not brought into loving personal touch with the living Christ. There is, therefore, great need for the establishment of the Sunday-school in Hungary, in order that we may mold characters in the likeness of Christ Jesus.
The success of Sunday-schools among Hungarians in America justifies me in saying that Sunday-schools would receive ready response among our children in Hungary. Many Hungarians in America are preparing themselves for the ministry and for missionary work because of the inspirations they received in the Sunday-schools.
I am sure the parents in Hungary would approve the introduction of the Sunday-school, and that, in addition to the Sunday-school, would organize among themselves clubs and Bible classes and brotherhoods.
A Sunday-school missionary is needed in Hungary, — one who could bring a message of cheer and hope. He could go from town to town, and would be able to start Sunday-schools everywhere. Good Christian people would be interested in his work.
Dr. Bosryak might be interested in the work. He is a man of influence and power, and has done a wonderful work for the children of Hungary. He has been instrumental, through his intelligent system of work, in assisting fifty-three thousand children to rise from sin to salvation. His method of work has interested the International Child Protective Society, and he is called again to the Internation convention in Copen- hagen next year to present his study of child-saving plans. There is a wonderful opportunity for Sunday-school work in my country, and the field is ready. Will you send us help?
262 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
NORWAY SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION
J. M. Sell WOLD, Christiania, Norway
The report given at the Convention at Rome, May, 1907, stated the origin of our work and its growth until this time. Up to 1850 all re- ligious work in Norway was limited to the Lutheran state church, and no Sunday-school work was done. In the fifties. Evangelical Free Church was introduced, and with it came the Sunday-school work. The be- ginnings were very small, and it took about twenty years before the Sunday-school idea was rooted among the people.
The first Sunday-school missionary, Mr. O. Jensen, was appointed with aid from the Sunday-School Union in London, in 1877. His labor marked a good step onward, and Sunday-schools were organized in various parts of the country. He died in 1879.
The work was growing, however, and two missionaries were later appointed, Pastor Ole Olsen for the western district and Pastor C. M. Seehuus for the eastern. In 1898 the country was divided into three districts, and three missionaries were appointed, — B. Jorgensen, G. Nesse and W. Grytten. The work has been active along this line ever since. Brethren Jorgensen and Grytten have closed their labors as Sunday-school missionaries, and H. Bastiansen and O. Larsen have taken their places, and the three appointed brethren are giving their entire time to the work. Their main work has been among the Free Church people, but doors are opening more and more among the established church people.
Our organization is called the Norwegian Sunday-School Union. It has a principal committee of seven members, and a secretary located in Christiania. There are also three district committees located in the various districts, helping the work. The International Sunday- School lessons are issued in editions of eight to ten thousand copies, and every year the I. B. R. A. card in editions of six to ten thousand. The Sunday- School Teacher is a monthly journal published by the Union for the benefit of the teachers. Literature of various kinds, such as tracts, songs, circulars, programs, etc., is published, and several thousand copies are sold every year. The Lutheran Church, the established church of our country, is taking hold of Sunday-school work with hopeful interest, and is organizing its forces for a strong future work.
As is the case all over the world, when spiritual revivals are stirring the people, the largest per cent of the harvest is from among the young people and the Sunday-school. This fact makes us believe that Sunday- school work is the most hopeful of all Christian work, and it encourages us to strengthen this work with all the wisdom and energy that can be
Roll- Call of Nations — Spain 263
put into it. It certainly is the brightest side of all our future work as a Christian nation.
The main work in our union may be stated thus: Children's meetings, teachers' meetings, sermons, addresses to promote the work and stir the interest among parents and young people, showing biblical and his- torical pictures, and collecting money for the work. From time to time large meetings are held at different points with good success. Three such meetings have been held this winter. About a dozen papers for children and young people are published in Norway, and about ten thousand crowns are used in missionary work for the Sunday-school cause every year, besides the running expenses of the schools.
There are, however, from three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand children in Norway who are not gathered in Sunday-schools, and this fact appeals strongly to us to do our very best in this work.
The Sunday-School Union of London has for many years given noble and most valuable aid to our work, and it is with sincere thankfulness that we acknowledge this. A great deal of the success gained in our Sunday-school work may rightly be ascribed to this agency. It is with gratitude we give our friends in England our sincere thanks, hoping still to have the privilege of their strengthening aid in the Master's cause among us.
CHANGED CONDITIONS IN SPAIN
Miss Alice H. Bushee, Woonsocket, Rhode Island
Spain has never been a unity. The different parts of the country differ geographically and in so many ways that the country has been full of little civil fights during the past centuries; and the great unifying power in the time of the war against the Mohammedan Moors was the church with patriotism. The church fought for eight centuries to get back its own religion and to rule its own country, and at the end of those eight centuries it seems that it thought, " We will hereafter have no more trouble with an alien religion — we will all believe alike"; and Protestants, Jews, Moors, and Mohammedans were persecuted equally; so that we do not find in Spain the same conditions as in other Catholic countries of Europe.
We have no Hussites, no Huguenots, no Waldensians; our Protestant people are only forty-two years old. The church unified the people to a great extent, so that it narrowed the education down to the lowest point, and the religion became externally as the people themselves were. It was not until 1868 that the revolution took place which brought a
264 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
change and made it possible for other people who were not of the state religion to enter and live there.
Forty years ago no Protestant could live as a Protestant in the coun- try and worship God in his own way if it became known to the people, but since then there has been religious toleration. Yet there is no re- ligious liberty in Spain. No Protestant church spire would be allowed in Spain; not even a school-building could have on the outside door a notice that inside there was an evangelical service. The church services are carried on in private halls or in private houses or in schoolhouses. If, perchance, a building is put up it must not have the appearance of a church. The Episcopal Church in Madrid, when it erected its new building, was obliged by order of the government to take down the cross which had been put over the door.
I have noticed, during the eighteen years I have been there, a change in the tone of the newspapers. There was no newspaper in the country, except those published by the Protestant Church, that would dare to mention in its columns a notice of the meetings of the Protestant Church; but now for several years there are two or three in Madrid which are willing to print a notice of a special Protestant service in the church in that city.
Missionaries began to enter Spain in 1868. Some had been in Gibraltar for several years before, waiting to enter. When they came, they not only established churches, but everywhere day-schools and Sunday- schools. The only difference, it seems to me, between the day-schools and the Sunday-schools is that the day-schools are forming Christian thinkers, whereas the Sunday-schools are forming thinking Christians. One of the great republican deputies in Congress, two or three years ago, in pleading for more money to be given for education, said, " We need to teach our boys to reason, to think." He was thinking of the ban that had been put upon reasoning and thinking in the past years. He said, " We want to make good citizens."
And that is the settled idea of these day-schools and Sunday-schools, — to make good citizens, thinking. Christian citizens. One of the great Spanish men, not a Protestant, said, " The only places in Spain where the religion of Christ is taught are in the Protestant schools in Madrid and in the provinces; there the child is taught to love his neighbor; there he is taught charity and kindness, not only in theory, but also in practice." There are perhaps one hundred and twenty-five of these day-schools with the Sunday-schools in the country, and the effect of the teaching of these schools is shown in the liberalizing of the thought of the country.
If you hear, within a little while, that Spain has declared for absolute
Roll- Call of Nations — Sweden 265
liberty of conscience and liberty of religion, remember that the young men who have been brought up in these day-schools and Sunday-schools have been holding mass meetings in the great cities, asking the govern- ment to give them religious liberty. The country wants help and needs it. Do not feel discouraged. If people say to you, " Spain never advances," tell them it does.
GREETINGS FROM SWEDEN
H. DE Lagercrants, Minister of Sweden to the United States
It is my duty to represent my country where I am accredited by my king. But something more than that brings me here: It is my deep personal sympathy with the work that is represented by the largest Sunday- school conference the world has ever seen. And I have one reason more: The eldest brother of his Majesty the King, his Royal Highness Prince Oscar Bernadotte, is, as some of you may be aware, the vice-president of the World's Sunday-School Association of Northern Europe. I have the right, and I take that right with great pleasure, to bring from him to you his hearty sympathy and his best wishes for the glorious work that is carried on by the Sunday-schools all over the world.
This modern life, with its industrial strain and hard struggle for a living, has a tendency to put the dollar on the throne where the Lord ought to be, and there is a great danger for our modern race if the chil- dren should not be taught that there is a higher standard for living than the dollar, the pound, or the krone.
I am glad to know that there is a splendid body of people in the world who endeavor to make the young people see this. I am sorry to say that I know that there are thousands of Sunday-schools that teach the children the gospel of doubt, the Sunday-schools of atheists; and Sunday-schools, which are growing in number, which teach hatred. I believe we all ought to join hands to do what we can to make the children see that the world has something better to give than only the daily struggle for a living.
In Sweden the Sunday-schools have done a good work comparatively. In 1909, we had 7,000 Sunday-schools, 24,000 Sunday-school teachers, and 320,000 children, which means a great deal in a country with a little more than five million inhabitants. Since the convention in Rome, the Sunday-schools have increased, — the schools by 400, the teachers by 2,000, and the children by 32,000.
We do believe that the side on which you are fighting, and the side on which I am humbly happy to say I am fighting myself, is going to
266 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
conquer. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is on our side. On behalf of all your colleagues over on the other side of the ocean in Sweden, I wish you every success in the fight for the truth and the right.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN SWEDEN
Herr August Palm, Stockholm, Sweden
The first attempts, about 1833, to organize Sunday-school work in Sweden were made by the daughter of an English consul in Stockholm, and by Rev. G. Scott, an English Wesleyan missionary. On account of persecution by the people, and opposition by the clergy, the work was not successful.
In 1 85 1 Mr. Palmquist, a teacher in a Stockholm public school, and a countess, — Lady Ehrenborg, — visited the exhibition in London and became deeply interested in Sunday-school work in England.
Upon their return they tried to put into practice what they had seen. Mr. Palmquist, who was an inspector for the poor, invited some of the poorer children on Christmas Eve to his house. He did not dare to invite his own school children. First of all, the children got a big portion of porridge and milk, and he read a chapter in the New Testament, prayed, and held a sort of Sunday-school. He told the children what he had seen in London, and asked them to come back the following Sunday and unite in such a school. They responded, and the first of the now existing Sunday- schools was organized in Sweden, in the First Baptist Church in Stockholm, and is still prospering. This school became the parent Sunday-school for the free churches in Sweden.
In 1852 Lady Ehrenborg, knowing nothing of Mr. Palmquist's school, began a course of training for teachers, and, in the following year, organized a Sunday-school. She became the superintendent and her pupils became teachers. This school was the parent school of the Established Church, or rather, among the Lutherans.
The Sunday-School Union of London, having heard of this beginning, wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Palmquist, asked him to visit other places and organize schools, and enclosed money for traveling expenses. He organized schools in some other cities.
During the first twenty years progress was slow, but in 1871 a Sunday- School Union was organized in the province of Nerike. Through the help of the London Sunday-School Union a missionary, Mr. Aug. Palm, was sent out on the field; a periodical, Tlie Sunday-School Teacher, was printed, and hymn books for children were prepared.
Roll- Call of Nations — Sweden 267
The missionary not only organized new Sunday-schools and reorganized old ones (very few were at that time divided into classes), but organized provincial Sunday-school unions in various districts. Another important work was courses of training for teachers. Sometimes they continued for one or two months. New missionaries were engaged, — in general, one or two for each district union, — and, with help from London, twenty missionaries and more were kept on the field for several years.
In 1894 the different provincial unions were united in the Swedish Sunday-School Union. The Baptist Union supports some missionaries, and the Congregational Union has a staff of missionaries, mostly day- school teachers, who use their vacations for this work. At present the Swedish Sunday-School Union has only ten to twelve missionaries for the whole year, and some, extra parts of the year.
Only non-conformists gather statistics. The latest information is as follows:
Schools Teachers Scholars
Congregationalist, 2,675 8,978 126,262
Baptist, 1 ,152 4,641 60,099
Methodist, 199 1,321 19.369
Salvation Army, 201 948 15.446
4,227 15,888 221,176
These denominations have had an increase since the Rome Convention as follows: Schools, 372; teachers, 1,868; scholars, 22,778. It is estimated that the Alliance non-conformists have about 725 schools, 2,500 teachers, and 34,500 scholars. We estimate that the Lutheran have 2,000 schools, 6,000 teachers, and 65,000 scholars; making a total of 6,952 schools, 24,388 teachers, and 320,676 scholars; showing a total Sunday-school member- ship of 345.064.
The best thing of our Sunday-school work, however, is not the figures. It is the abundant blessing the Lord has granted his servants. Frequently we have had the joy to see smaller or larger revivals nearly all over the country. Often our missionaries have to break off their journeys and the courses of training for teachers, and " draw in the nets," because there is a great lack of preachers in many districts.
On the other side, we have scarcely had such an opposition as just now. In earlier years we often met persecution, and preachers were forced to give up preaching and disappear, but now the opposition has another form. Resolutions at meetings, articles in paper's, and even placards are posted with notice to parents not to send their children to the Christian Sunday-school.
268 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
This opposition has been taken up even by the children. One of our missionaries visited, last quarter, a large iron manufactory, where there is a little Sunday-school of only thirty-two children (although there are more than five hundred children of the school age). The school had its Christmas festival and the missionary was invited, as speaker. Just as he was giving his address he heard a noise outside the door. The sound spread itself as a ring round the whole building, and so it continued for a considerable time. The missionary had to break off his address, and when he asked what it was, he got the answer, " A demonstration against the Sunday-school." The children who do not attend the school made their protest against the Sunday-school work in a real socialistic manner, and the mischief was done unblamed.
The missionary adds, " Although I have been a Sunday-school mis- sionary for more than twenty years, I never before have seen a demon- stration by children against the Sunday-school." But, thank God, such is not the state everywhere. Neverthelesss, we have yet much to be done. There are provinces where the Sunday-school is scarcely known, and we grieve for this very much because we have found the Sunday-school work the most blessed mission branch in our country.
Without the mentioning of the rich fruit our Lutheran brethren have had in their mission, we can say that most of the members in our non- conformist denominations, now very near two hundred thousand, and nearly all of our sixty-five thousand members in our young people's societies, are the fruit of the Sunday-school work.
SWEDISH MISSION COVENANT
A. L. Skoog, Stockholm, Sweden
Never has the Sunday-school been of such extraordinary importance as at present, when rationalism and materialism are advancing through the Protestant church like raging floods, devastating what were previously green and promising fields.
In Sweden, from which North America received her first Protestant Chris- tian inhabitants, a very active Sunday-school work has been carried on for several decades. This grows in compass and significance every year. Though the forces are, in many respects, feeble and defective, we are convinced that the seed is good and that out of it will spring up in due season a glorious harvest.
On Sunday, May 22, a special service devoted to the Sunday-school cause will be held in most of the Christian churches of our country. We
Roll-Call of Nations — Africa 269
shall probably consequently be with you in spirit, though invisibly. Un- fortunately, we are not in condition to send a delegate to the convention, but we send the expression of the cordial sympathy of the Swedish Mission Covenant, and hope, on the strength of God's promise, that our prayers shall not be without a blessing for the convention.
AFRICA
A GALL TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Bishop J. C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., Madeira, Africa
Geologists tell us that Africa is, perhaps, the oldest continent, and our geographies tell us that it is the largest. Both Asia and Europe and their multiplied millions could find room upon the continent of Africa and not be crowded. Going to Africa and staying there a few months has made Theodore Roosevelt a greater man even than he was before.
On the African continent, during the past twenty-five years, a series of great providential events has come to pass, unparalleled in the same space of time on any other continent. Its vast domain of twelve million five hundred thousand square miles has been explored. Colonial em- pires, covering the whole territory, under the leadership of Great Britain, France, Germany, and other nations, are being developed. A conti- nental system of railways from Cape to Cairo, six thousand miles, and from Cape Verde on the west to Cape Guardafui on the east, is being built; some of the largest deposits of gold and silver, and probably of copper, are in this continent; its agricultural wealth is very great, and the prophecy of Victor Hugo, that " the twentieth century would make a world of Africa," is being fulfilled. The Christian missionary and explorer have been a chief factor in the inauguration and inspiration of these vast movements, and today the whole continent is ready for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My greeting from Africa comes from the two thousand five hundred Christian men and women who represent the missionary boards of the Protestant world. Great beginnings have been made in the evangeli- zation of that continental world. When we recall that the exploration and partition of Africa among European nations, and that the vast work of nation building, is progressing, all without any war between the great nations interested, we have an illustration of the remarkable
270 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convmition
era of Christian civilization and diplomacy into which we have come. These events also serve to impress upon us the fact that, after long centuries of waiting, God has lifted the veil of mystery from the con- tinent which has the oldest civilization, and was the hiding place for the infant Christ, and on which, during the early centuries of the Chris- tian era, the Church of Christ had its greatest strength.
More than that, God in a most marvelous manner has opened the way for the Christian ministry among the one hundred and seventy- five millions of Africa. England with its three million square miles, France with a still larger area, Germany with an empire many times larger than Germany in Europe, — not to mention the vast domains of Portugal and other nations, — are sending in as leaders men of high character; they are expending many hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of natural resources of the continent. Under the im- proved conditions, the native population will multiply, and multitudes go into the continent from other sections of the world.
Africa's day has come! It is God's last continental challenge to the Christian Church, and in no other part of the world can the influence and practical methods of the great Sunday-School Movement which we represent do more for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. We are at the beginning of things in many respects in Christian work. True, in South Africa we have some great cities, and various sections of the Christian Church are strong among the million and a half of white popu- lation. It is also true that along the east and west coasts, and to some extent in the interior, there are mission stations, some of them great in their beginnings, and it is also true that in Egypt and North Africa the forces of civilization are gathering new strength, and great cities are growing and political reforms and commercial enterprises are in progress.
On the other hand, these are only the beginnings of what are to be in the civilization of that continent. Africa's call to the Christian Church today is that she hear the voice of God with enlarged vision, and, with heroic faith, go forward to victory.
As I have traveled in that continent the past fourteen years, in the superintendence of missionary work on both coasts and in North and South Africa, I have often felt that the slowest moving forces in Africa are those which represent the Christian Church. For steamship lines, mining or farming enterprises; for exploration, scientific study; or for sporting expeditions, — no matter how many thousands or millions of dollars are needed, — the money is forthcoming. But, for carrying for- ward of the great Christian movements, the Church is giving paltry sums as compared with her opportunities and responsibilities.
Roll- Call of Nations — Africa 271
THE MOSLEM PERIL IN AFRICA
Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., LL.D., of Africa
Mohammedanism is the most thoroughly organized and powerful opponent of Christianity.
It is remarkable how the Christian Church has failed to understand the significance of that great movement.
For centuries the terror inspired by the sword of the Saracen and Turk made missions among Moslems impossible.
In the great missionary movement of modern times, begun under Carey at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Moslem lands were neglected. Only here and there were isolated cases of heroic work. Writers on mis- sions showed woeful ignorance and lack of interest as to Moslem peoples. A recent history of Protestant missions published in Germany — a book of six hundred pages — gives one paragraph to the Moslem world, and says that the work is hopeless. The Church as a whole is at last being awakened. In 1910 Dr. J. L. Barton, of the American Board, said at the Haystack Centennial, " This is the first time work for Moslems has been openly discussed upon the platform of the American Board." In the jubilee volume, " Fifty Years' Work," of the same society, no reference whatever is made to the Moslem world.
It was not until 1907 that the Foreign Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, after nearly a hundred years of large suc- cess in foreign lands, in some of which are vast Moslem populations, took up the question of direct work among them, which led to the authori- zation of the American Mission in North Africa. But the Church of Christ is rapidly awakening, and its leaders are coming to fully under- stand that the most momentous missionary problem of the twentieth century is the evangelization of the Mohammedan world.
Every day, from one to five times, two hundred and thirty millions of people of the earth bow with their faces toward Mecca, the spiritual capital of Islam, and utter their creed, " There is but one God, and Mo- hammed is his prophet." It is impossible to realize the full significance of these daily religious performances spread over vast areas of three con- tinents. They represent one seventh of the world's population. There is unity of faith among them, there is loyalty to forms of worship, and generally there is willingness to suffer martyrdom for their belief. Day by day for centuries their religious ceremonies have been going forward, and the number of votaries is increasing.
Mohammed was born less than seven hundred years after Christ. One hundred years after the death of the false prophet there were ten thousand mosques scattered from the Atlantic Ocean eastward to the Persian Gulf
272 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
from the minarets of which the creed was daily proclaimed. The move- ment had risen to the most marvelous military power of its type in the history of the world. First one nation was subdued and then another, until the Persian Empire on the east, where dwelt the worshipers of the sun, and the Christian Roman Empire on the west, were humiliated by the victories of this fanatical militant host. The Christian Church was driven into Europe, and even there its strongholds threatened by the sword of Mohammed. The Moslem Empire became larger than the domains of the Roman Empire in its palmiest age.
Consider the territory now dominated by Mohammedanism. Begin- ning with the Atlantic Ocean just south of Gibraltar, and going eastward, all North Africa is in its grip; then in Syria, Arabia, and Persia, and east- ward into vast areas of India, China, and Malaysia, and up into Russia, there are vast sections of the earth occupied by Moslem millions. In many places they form a majority of the people.
The relation of these vast territories to the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia is indeed significant. They are intimately related to all the great movements of the world as to government and political reforms, as well as the moral movements in bettering the conditions of the races, and especially to nearly all the great foreign missionary movements of our time. Like great mountain ranges, this anti-Christian power lies across the continents. It has some great truths which gild the mountain- tops, as, for example, the unity of God. Even this conception, however, is robbed of its true significance, for Islam's God knows nothing of sympa- thetic love or sacrifice for men. As one goes down those vast mountain slopes among the multiplied millions of people which are represented, ignorance and superstition increase, and at last the foothills are found to be resting in the midst of degraded womanhood and immoral manhood, where well-ordered civilization is impossible.
I do not forget that there have been some great Moslem civilizations, that Spain had a university for over six hundred years, that there are other great centers of learning from which have gone forth historians and scholars. I do not forget that some of the finest triumphs of archi- tecture in the history of the world were built by the Moguls in India, the Moslems in Spain and elsewhere; but I speak of the Moslem world, as it is today, — a blight and a curse to humanity wherever its power prevails. Moral teachings and moral lives have but little relation to each other.
Islam is the only world-wide religious organization challenging the Christian Church for the empire of the world. All other false religions which are at all aggressive are practically confined to races and sections of continents. This one, with its Arab language spoken by at least five
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hundred millions of people, in which her gifted poets have sung, her philos- ophers taught, and her historians written; with the simplest creed that ever was proclaimed; standing for social and religious fraternity among all peoples, irrespective of race or continent; with its people inspired by a passion to bring " infidels " to their belief, and urged on in all its wide domain by its leaders, — this mighty, aggressive force confronts in battle array the Nazarene and his followers for the conquest of the world.
True, the sword has largely passed from the hands of Islam into that of Christian nations, and, as a factor in the political movements of the world, the great nations have lost their patience with Islam, and, as in Turkey, among Moslem people themselves the most bestial and corrupt practices are being discarded and religious liberty proclaimed. Still, by these movements Moslem leaders are being driven to the methods of persuasion and missionary activity which, in the end, are more powerful than the sword in the propagation of a faith.
Between Christ and Mohammed there can be no compromise. The issues are fundamental. To worship Christ is, to the Moslem, idolatry; to grant religious liberty, unless forced by environment, is disloyalty to God; to give to woman her proper place in the family and social life is to do violence to the teachings and practices of every Moslem land; and to organize a government, pure in its laws, wise in its administration, in the interest of its people, has been shown to be impossible, — especially in modern times among the followers of that faith.
Missionary leaders in nearly all Moslem lands regard Africa as the most strategic and immediately urgent center in this world conflict.
In discussing the missionary work in Africa, with special reference to this Moslem peril, after his return from his last world-wide visit to missions, Mr. John R. Mott said to me that he regarded China as first in importance as a foreign-mission field because of her vast numbers, possible wealth, relation to the Orient, and the capabilities of her people; next he put Russia, with her one hundred and sixty millions of people awakening with great rapidity; and third in point of importance he put the continent of Africa. He then added these very remarkable words: "In view of the fact that one fourth of the Moslem world, fifty-nine millions^ is in Africa; and in view of the fact that fJiey are inspired by missionary zeal and, unless the Christian Church awakens to its responsibilities, will convert to Islam the one hundred millions of native heathen Africans who huve not yet heard the gospel, and thereby make the whole continent practically Moslem, — my judgment is that today the most immediately urgent missionary problem of the Christian Church is the evangelization of that one hundred millions of pagan heathen Africans."
The conquest of North Africa by the Moslems began in the seventh
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century. At that time in this section of the continent was the larger and more intelligent half of the early Christian Church. One has only to recall the fact that from North Africa came more than half of the leading church fathers in the early centuries of the Christian era — among whom were Cyprian, Origen, TertuUian, Athanasius, and St. Augustine — to understand what the Christian Church of North Africa was. Alexandria was for centuries the chief center of Christian learning.
The council which saved the divinity of Christ to the Christian creed had the majority of its members, led by the immortal Athanasius, from North Africa. Thirty years of fire and sword, and centuries of patient missionary effort, annihilated the Christian Church of Africa. For nearly thirteen centuries this Moslem power has maintained its supremacy, not only in North Africa, but has been extending its influence southward to other sections of the continent. Mecca is the spiritual capital of the followers of Mohammed, Constantinople is the political capital, but North Africa is the intellectual and aggressive missionary center.
There are now three distinct and great movements for the conquest of the continent, — from Egypt up the Nile southward; from Morocco southward along the western coast, each current gradually extending into the vast areas of central Africa; on the east coast from Zanzibar, the headquarters of the Moslem slave trade for centuries, the Islam tide went inland up to the great lakes where it now has many followers. In all the chief centers of the continent down the coast, east and west, as far south as Cape Town and Durban, in all the principal cities of South Africa, there are well-built, and some very expensive, mosques.
Then, scattered throughout the whole continent, are to be found indi- viduals and little groups who seem never to lose their faith in the midst of Christians or pagans, and who everywhere seek to bring others to their belief. From nearly every great center in Africa each year companies of pilgrims make their way to Mecca and back again. Having done this a man is looked up to with special honor and respect, and his influence in propagating his faith is multiplied.
A little over fifty years ago a devout Moslem was driven from Mecca because he reproved the people for their sins. He hid himself in the south- ern part of Tunisia in North Africa, away from local influences and be- yond the reach of European governments, and began what is known as the Senusian movement. This has grown to be among Moslems what Jesuitism is among the Roman Catholics. It seeks to unite all secret Moslem orders. It has its agents everywhere. It is said to have one hundred and twenty centers in North Africa, where numbers of young men are being inspired and taught by trained leaders.
Islam has its greatest intellectual center in Cairo. There is a university,
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founded nearly a thousand years ago, in which there are said to be over ten thousand students, with two hundred and fifty professors. When asked what was taught there, one of the professors said, " We teach God." There is a university at Tunis, with several hundred students; one at Algiers; one at Fez; and others elsewhere. I suppose that today, in Africa alone, there are in these universities, and other institutions which have for their special work the training of young men to teach the Islam faith, from fifteen to twenty thousand. As they spread themselves over the continent, it is said that every one is a missionary for his faith. It is almost everywhere true. They have no missionary organizations back of them. They go out as teachers, and, if they fail in this, they become laborers, and with the opening up of the continent they spread to every part of it.
Religious liberty now being guaranteed by the Christian nations which now govern nearly all the African continent works to the great advantage of the Moslem missionary. As a rule, the native Africans do not want Mohammedanism as their religion, and there have been large sections where they have persistently withstood their operations. But with the coming of religious liberty, backed by government authority, the Moslem has his chance. Usually he is a man of more intelligence than the native heathen. He has a definite faith, short and simple in phrase. He has a passion for proselyting, and, unless the native pagan heathen is fortified by having first learned of the gospel, it is easy to understand how the Moslem faith will advance.
It must be remembered that the Moslem faith is no exotic plant in Africa; it is a native church, and among its fifty-nine millions, most of whom are in the northern part of the continent, are peoples of every race, whose African ancestors reach back many generations. The mission- ary problem in Africa is not one of pagan heathenism. That form of belief melts away rapidly in the presence of the Sun of Righteousness, or yields to the persistent teaching of the Moslem faith and practices.
The missionary problem in Africa is the Moslem problem, and the issue is clear and definite and immediate, — whether Mohammed or Christ shall rule in all that vast section of the world.
Today there are, perhaps, one hundred and seventy- five millions of people in Africa. The territory is larger than the United States, China, India, and all Europe put together. With good government, improved hygienic conditions, the abolition of native wars, and preventing of fam- ines, the races will multiply in numbers and, in a comparatively few cen- turies, instead of one hundred and seventy-five millions, there will be five hundred millions and six hundred millions. The Church of the twen- tieth century must decide whether the future continent and its vast popu-
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lations shall be dominated by the spirit of Christ or by the debasing influence of the Islam faith.
The seriousness of the outlook in this mighty struggle for a continent increases when we recall how insignificant in point of numbers, material resources, and organized effort the Christian Church is in Africa today. Of those who are nominally Christian, the greatest numbers are in Abys- sinia. Just how many we do not know, — perhaps four millions or five millions. It is a remnant of the early church which never surrendered, either on a battlefield or in social or political life, to the invading Moslem. They are a most interesting people, but their religion is corrupt in doctrine and in practice. Their priests are inefficient, and as an evangelizing force there must be an evolution of several generations of improvement before their influence can be felt outside of their own domain.
Then, there is the remnant of the early Coptic Church in Egypt, also in many respects a most interesting people, who have maintained among them the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, but, as a Christian force to evangelize even Egypt, they themselves must first be brought back to the simplicity of their earlier faith and given a new life and preparation as messengers of the Cross. Of these there are, perhaps, six hundred thousand. Christian missionary movements have had their influence among them, and in the end they may not only be aids for reaching the Moslems about them, but may themselves become evangelized. But that day is a long way ofif.
A more pathetic and sad chapter in Christian missions cannot be found than in the history and final failure and extinction of the early Roman Catholic missions among the native Africans. As the natives to this day put it, they have their own idol houses and do not care for the white man's. All this, too, in spite of the fact that more heroic and devoted missionaries never worked among heathen peoples than many of those earlier Roman Catholic priests. Today better methods are being es- tablished, but, as an evangelizing force in the development of Christian character, they are accomplishing but little.
In South Africa the Roman Catholic Church is strong in all the Euro- pean white centers. The greatest single movement of this section of the church in modern times was from North Africa, under the leadership of what are termed " The White Fathers." I have been at their college at Tunis, where they are educating white priests for work among the native heathen. As to the Moslem problem in Africa, Catholicism has practically surrendered its efforts. There have been more than two hun- dred Roman Catholic martyrs among the Moslems in that continent.
In conversing with a very distinguished Roman Catholic priest recently, while discussHig this Moslem question, he referred to the seven hundredth
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anniversary of the Franciscan order, recently celebrated in Syria, and where it was said that, during those years, not more than seven hundred converts had been made from the Moslem faith, — on an average of one a year, — and these were mosth' among those who desired to learn the language and prepare themselves to be efficient servants. The teach- ing of Rome concerning the worship of Mary, as well as her ritualistic extravagances, are permanent barriers in reaching the Moslem natives that cannot be overcome.
Let us now turn to the modern Protestant Christian forces in the con- tinent of Africa. As that is coming to be recognized more and more, in all foreign mission fields, the hope of ultimate victory lies in the doctrines, spirit, and methods of Protestantism.
The great Protestant center of the continent is in South Africa, where, under the British flag, has recently been organized a new nation, called New South Africa, a nation destined to grow in numbers and wealth, and which will send forth northward into the heart of the continent the healing streams of a pure faith, and largely help to insure a godly and liberty-loving civilization. Here are the Church of England, the Wes- leyan Methodists, the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other branches of Protestantism. Among them are strong, self-supporting churches, with synods, conventions, and conferences. There are nearly one million five hundred thousand of these white people. More than half are Dutch; most of the remainder are English, There is a strong sprinkling of French Huguenot blood.
Here lies the greatest hope for the evangelization of Africa from the Christian forces upon the continent itself. There are nearly one hundred missionary organizations of the United States, Great Britain, and the European continent operating in Africa. Many of these are weak and insignificant as to number of workers and influence, but a large proportion are efficient, and some of them strong. There are probably twenty-five hundred of these foreign missionaries backed by the several boards at work in different parts of the continent, from Egypt to the far south. But they have scarcely yet touched pagan Africa, and outside the be- ginnings in Egypt and North Africa, the Moslem problem has been almost entirely ignored.
It is very difficult, in estimating these semi-Christian and Christian forces, to give figures. It should be mentioned that there are more than one million Europeans in North Africa west of Egypt, but they are a mixed multitude, — Roman Catholic, infidel, Protestant, and Jew. There shall have to come a mighty baptism of divine power among most of them, and good Christian leadership, before they can be reckoned upon as much of an evangelizing or even moral force.
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To count all who are either nominally or in fact Christians, the number would go to several millions, and if all these were actually Christians, and inspired by a purpose to save their fellowmen, how insignificant in numbers they would appear in the presence of the fifty-nine millions of aggressive Moslems, and a hundred million pagan heathen. I suppose that an estimate of two million five hundred thousand to three millions would be liberal as representing those upon the continent of Africa who today represent what the Christian Church understands to be evangelical, aggressive, Christian manhood.
In the presence of these facts, what intelligent student of Christian missions can fail to be profoundly impressed with the outlook in Africa? Which shall it be, — Mohammed or Christ? Unless the Christian Church grapples intelligently with this question, and multiplies — and that right soon — by the hundreds — yea, thousands — her representatives, and follows them with enthusiastic prayers and necessary resources, within a very few centuries, three or four at the farthest, outside of South Africa and a few other centers, Africa is assuredly to be a Moslem continent.
I speak for every missionary in Africa. I speak for every converted pagan who is a leader among his people, — every one of whom under- stands the difference between Christ and Mohammed; and my word is one of appeal that the leaders of our missionary boards, and the friends of Christ everywhere, will hold up that continent before God in mighty prayer and faith for its redemption. The field is wide open among those hundred millions of pagans. They listen readily to the gospel of Christ, and when reached by Christianity, with the most ordinary leadership even among their own people, the Moslem faith has little effect upon them.
What is wanted is a mighty movement, led not by a few score, but by many hundreds of consecrated men, to permeate that great mass of pagan humanity, with one or two stays long enough in centers to indoc- trinate some by teaching the simple truths of the gospel, and organize them into a simple church. Then on to new centers, until the whole mass is permeated. Later, let other reinforcements go in. Some such move- ment is the call of God, without which the Moslem peril to Africa of today will mean a Moslem Africa tomorrow.
There is no more pathetic and powerful plea to the Christian Church on the face of the earth among less favored races than the plea of that one hundred millions of pagan Africans for the gospel of Jesus Christ. There they are, accessible, teachable, and faithful. It was recently my privilege to station one hundred and thirty-seven native African pastor- teachers and their wives from one mission center. Those young men, all of whom were in native kraals in barbaric heathenism less than nine years before, as they stood before me with their intelligent faces, one by
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one giving the report of his work the past year, presented a scene to strengthen one's faith tremendously in the possibilities of the ordinary training school, and the leadership of Christian missionaries devoted to God in preparing a native ministry for pagan races. Those millions are waiting for the gospel. Shall they wait in vain?
More than a half century ago, Ann Wilkins, a devoted missionary from New York, had a Christian school among the native Africans on the shore of St. Paul's River in Liberia. Most of her boys and girls were converted to Christ. After years of faithful service, she returned home and soon passed to her reward. A few years ago a commission, composed of Liberians and representatives of the English government, were traveling in the interior, fixing the boundary line between Sierra Leone and Liberia. One Saturday they came to a large kraal, or native town, and concluded to camp near by and spend the Sabbath. Wherever else they had gone they had found representatives of the Moslem faith as teachers or workers among the larger tribes. Here they did not find any, and were surprised.
On asking the reason, the matter was explained by one of the old men who said, " Some of our people became acquainted with Ann Wilkins' God when they were in school, and some who learned to read afterwards taught others. We kept on reading about her God, and we don't want any other. So we have been waiting for Ann Wilkins' God to come, and would not permit any Moslem teacher among us." The next day they had Easter services, and the natives made a rude banner of their own, and, when the travelers explained to them what Easter meant, and that it would cost something to send some one to tell them about Ann Wilkins' God, they took a collection, and over sixty dollars were raised. Later on that money was placed in my hands to help send a teacher to those people who are waiting for Ann Wilkins' God.
O Church of Christ, today on the continent of the oldest civilization, where the infant Christ found a hiding-place, whence the Cyrenean came who carried the cross for our Saviour up Calvary's heights, the continent of the future in wealth and population, — O Church of Christ, on that continent, now at our very doors, a hundred million souls who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ are waiting for Ann Wilkins' God!
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ALGERIA UNDER THE FRENCH FLAG
Rev. Jean Paul Cook, Algiers, Africa
I represent North Africa, especially the countries of Algeria and Eunesco, which are under the French flag. Three years ago, when the delegates of the Fifth Sunday-School Convention were on their way to Rome, I had the great honor to welcome them in Algiers, and, in the name of the North African missionaries, with other friends, to show them the work which is carried on in these countries. I am happy to say that one of your churches in America has heard the call, and that the Methodist Episcopal Church has now begun there a most interesting work.
When we speak of North Africa we cannot help thinking of the great and mighty Christian churches which lived there, and the powerful spiritual men like Augustine and others who worked in those first centuries. But the invasions of the Arabs, carrying with the sword the teaching of the false prophet, put down the Christians, whose faith was lacking, and for centuries Islam was the master of the place. But, thank God, Chris- tians are finding their way back to North Africa to conquer for Christ the whole land.
The work is still very small, and needs sympathy and help. It may be divided in two different sections: the French work in French churches, and missionary and evangelistic work among the different races.
When the French took possession of Algiers in 1830, and the land around, they sent a good many colonists. Among them a few were Protestants, and they founded reformed and Lutheran churches. But, living far from the mother country, and isolated among infidels and Roman Catholics, their faith kept cool and some of them lost it entirely. A few churches have existed and seem to be going up the current. There are now in Algeria about 29 French churches, with 37 Sunday-schools and 750 chil- dren. It is very little, but it is something, specially if we understand the difl[iculties of the work.
France has been passing through a crisis now, and among official au- thorities in France, atheism is now the standard. No religious teaching is given in the schools, and even the contrar>^ is taught. The Minister of Public Instruction has said, " We must liberate the country of the lies of the different churches." Another minister said in the House of Deputies, in a discourse which was printed and billed on the walls of all the towers and valleys of France and its colonies, " We have put out the lights of heaven." Books in the schools have been corrected, and whenever the name of God is found, it has been changed. In one book we used to read: " When the astronomer contemplated the skies with all the stars, he used to repeat, * It seems to me I see God himself behind all
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these worlds.* " Now it has been changed thus: " When the astronomer contemplated the skies with all the stars, he used to repeat, ' Science raises man above himself.* *'
Teachers are not allowed to interest themselves in Christmas trees, and they may lose their situation if they work in Sunday-schools. The work is hard, and we may honor those who do their utmost under such difficulties to teach the children. Of course there will be a change. We begin to note a new feeling rising. The Sunday-school society of France, of which my dear father was one of the founders, with his friend, the late Albert Woodruff, of Brooklyn, and which I represent here today with Pro- fessor Bieler, is doing a wonderful work in France and in its colonies, and many schools have been started and encouraged to resist that invasion of atheism. But more ought to be done, and might be done, if only the Christian Church put its will on it.
Thirty years ago there was not one single missionary working in North Africa among the different natives, Kelylos, Arabs, or Jews. Now we are about fifty, all scattered along that great country. There are 958 Kelylo children, 345 Arabs, and 155 Jews who receive their religious instruction in different classes on Sunday and on week days. Many illiterate, ignorant Moslem boys can recite whole chapters of the gospel and recite parts of the Bible. The agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in North Africa was telling to me, a few days ago in Algiers, that at Tangiers, Morocco, he found Mohammedan boys who could recite the whole gospel of Luke, from the first verse to the end.
In North Africa, we have 2,400 children under religious teaching. It is a small number in comparison with the 5,000,000 inhabitants. There are races in Algeria where there is not yet one missionary, and no Sunday- school, no missionary among the thousands who live and die and know not they have a Saviour.
But, what have we got to attract the children? Here you have pleasant Sunday-schools, festivals, tea parties, Christmas trees, distribution of books, -pictures and music. There we have nothing. Once a year we give a piece of soap. Once a year we give them the stuff to make a shirt. Those who come regularly have a whole shirt, the others only a half, and they must do the best they can. We are poor and need plenty of things, and we should be so pleased to receive some of your lovely rolls.
As I was leaving Algiers, a lady missionary there for more than twenty years gave me a verse for you. It expresses the need of North Africa. You will read it in Lamentations 2: 19. " Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.'*
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ALGIERS MISSION BAND
Miss I. L. Trotter and Miss B. G. L. Haworth, Algiers, Africa
Our last report to American friends was dated in September, 1909. We referred then to the reinforcements for whose arrival we were hoping. October and November saw them settled. The Danish newcomers started on language study and helped in children's work here in Algiers, as did Miss Rodie, the new missionary supported from America, and the friend who accompanied her. Two others went to strengthen the hands of those holding the village posts of Blida and Miliana.
The first blow came when one of our Danish helpers was attacked with typhus, which has been very prevalent, and this was the beginning of a series of troubles, severe physical prostration of one kind and another; and in each case the sickness or its sequence deprived us of a second worker to take care of the first. So through the spring months we have found progress crippled in Algiers and Blida.
Picture one of the narrow, climbing streets in the most crowded part of the native town of Algiers. In it stands a little white, native house, secured last year for God's kingdom. It is all ready for use, — repaired and whitewashed; a room in which two workers could sleep, right down among the people; a room where Arab guests could be lodged; a workroom in which the children of the neighborhood are already begging to be received and taught handicrafts, — all ready, but no workers free.
Another point is up on the mountains above Blida: a one-roomed house, with thatched roof and no windows, just like all the little humble homes around, standing in an orchard of figs and lemons and cherries, rented — orchard and all — for twenty dollars a year. We have already begun gathering the children there from the neighboring hamlets, but the little we can do only shows up what we might do if a couple of workers could be spared for following it up, lodging there and pushing ahead into the villages above. These village people are inspiring in the way they gather up and keep, sometimes for two or three years at a stretch, the fragments of truth that a stray visit brings them.
These villages, and the little mountain outpost near Algiers, and the ever-expanding stretches of native quarters in the town of Blida below, form the " parish " of Miss Ridley, the first helper supported by the fund started on the Romanic, after its memorable visit to us three years ago. We feel that the prayers that rose for us then, and have risen since, have wrought in the unseen world and brought us the rapid openings of fresh opportunity that have marked our path from that time onward.
Above all, opportunity marks our way with the children; new possi- bilities of having them with us were breaking out just before all had to
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be shut down for quarantine, and the shorthandedness that followed and has lasted till now. And even in this shorthandedness we are wel- coming new joys in little housemaidens being allowed to sleep in the house in town where you saw us, and the first family of tiny fatherless girls is lodged in Dar Naama on the hill above.
So we ask you to pray on. Pray for those still held out of the work by sickness or its results, that God may use the enforced quiet to deepen their preparation for the conflict and so defeat the works of the devil. Pray for conquering power, — the devil knows the " growing points " and makes for them. Ask that he may be baffled in his efforts and that God may win a wider victory through each of his counter moves.
And through all the partial " putbacks " of our special corner this spring, we can see that " our God is marching on " in the wise issues for the county. The Gospel of St. John has been finally put into its colloquial form and will soon see the light; and in the weeks following come the inauguration of the Methodist Episcopal Church with all that means for the future. We had the pleasure of a few words of greeting from Bishop Hartzell to the missionaries and mission workers from town and country, gathered at the Dar Naama Conference, before he left for America.
So we go on with hope and cheer. As Dr. Zwemer said in a recent paper: "There is no doubt about the final issue, — praise God for this, — it is only a question of time; we fight to win! Here in the dust of the battle we do not always see the now, or why, or where, of every move; but we believe in our Leader who sees and knows and can never fail."
AFRICA INLAND MISSION
Rev. Charles E. Hurlburt, Kijabe, British East Africa
The fifty missionaries of the Africa Inland Mission send greetings to the World's Sunday- School Convention, and speak not alone for them- selves, but for the Sunday-school children at ten mission stations among four different tribes of people, and also for a far greater throng who need the prayers of the world's Sunday-schools.
The little groups of children who gather from Sunday to Sunday at the various mission stations, sing the same songs which the children sing in other lands, and with the same spirit, when they learn the meaning of the words. Their eyes kindle with delight as they hear of other chil- dren meeting to study the things of God in far distant lands; and while few of them can grasp any clear idea of the conditions that obtain in other lands, they are as bright and alert to hear the strange stories as
284 Th£ World's Sixth Sunday -School Co7ivenMo7i
any children could be, and are far from the gross stupidity which is often attributed to them by those who are ignorant of real conditions in the dark continent.
You would be strangely moved if you were to step into one of these Sunday-schools. In most cases you would find the children but scantily clothed, and that in crude, ill-smelling skins. You would find them quicker to memorize hymns and Scripture texts than most children, and yet their homeward path would echo with strange sounds and wild cries mixed with snatches of the Sunday-school hymns.
But, if your great convention would listen for a moment to a voice from the dark continent, we would ask you rather to hear the message that would come from tens of thousands of little children whom the mis- sions have not yet been able to reach — little children whose childhood days are spent in low thatched huts, which they share in common with the sheep, goats, and other domestic animals; or who play about these huts in filthiness, which is only exceeded by the language they use and which has been taught them by their parents and older brothers and sisters, into whose lives no ray of light, no teaching of purity, no message of divine grace has ever come; little children who through lack of proper sanitary knowledge or of skillful medical treatment are doomed to suffer all their days; or, too feeble to be considered of any value, and only an annoyance and care, are thrown out into the wilds to die alone or to be torn by wild beasts; little children whose rugged physical life defies all the hardships of their childhood, and who grow up into boy- hood and girlhood steeped in vice, superstition, and filth of body, mind, and spirit, and who, with infinite possibilities of good, grow up to man- hood and womanhood more dwarfed and distorted in soul than their suffering brothers and sisters are in body.
And all this for lack of Sunday-schools in Africa. A great work has been done in the dark continent; many avenues of light are penetrating the interior, but a greater work waits to be done.
Will the great Washington convention pause a moment in the study of the great work which is being done, and pray that Sunday-schools may be established in every tribe in the great dark continent?
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THE CONGO MISSION
Rev. Clinton C. Boone, Raleigh, North Carolina
Perhaps the children of no nation on the globe have received so much help from the children of other nations as have the children of Africa. In 1906 the grand old Congo River was graced with a beautiful steamer which was the gift of the Christian Endeavorers of England.
The American children said they could not be behind. One of our steamers had been capsized on the Upper Congo, drowning a missionary and twenty-two of the natives. The steamer was almost a wreck, and worthless. The gentleman who had been engineer on the wrecked steamer was authorized by the Presbyterian Society to come at once to America and present a petition for a new steamer. The older people had done so much for the evangelization of Africa that they imposed the task of giving the new steamer to the children, and most nobly did the children of the Southern Presbyterian Society put their hands to the wheel, and in two years' time we in the Congo received material enough to build an even larger mission steamer than the old one. This is a fair example of the magnificent assistance that the children of other nations are rendering their less fortunate brothers and sisters in the Congo.
We have more children in Sunday-schools in the Congo, in proportion to the inhabitants, than perhaps any other land, because all of our day- schools are schools which teach the Bible. The principal text-book of all the mission societies is the Bible. The Bible has been translated, which is a very great assistance indeed in teaching the people of the Congo. Our work in the Congo is principally in the day-schools. Thou- sands of children in that land, from homes of heathen darkness, are com- ing into the day-schools, and they are teaching them the Word of God, which is destined to lead them to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.
While we are doing much to teach the children the Bible, you must understand that it is not easy. We are working under more serious diffi- culties than perhaps would be encountered in any other land on the globe. I have heard the Japanese and Chinese tell of their modes of travel, about their roads and trains and oxcarts, but we come to you today with empty hands from the Congo, after all of these years, with the exception of the Congo railway and the mission steamers.
That great country, nine hundred thousand miles square, is a road- less country, save for the few track paths that have been there through the centuries. The rivers, which are many, and swarm with crocodiles, are unbridged; and the tall grass and the trackless forests through which we must pass are great barriers to our missionary work. Not only that,
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but our great intensity of heat, which prostrates so many of our faith- ful missionaries, is one of the greatest barriers we have in our work. It is the land of sorrow and a land of disease.
Before I undertook the work for the Congo mission, I once read of Africa being described as " the open sore of the world," and I did not believe it; but when I had been there for five years, in the jungles, in the intense heat, surrounded by every malady to which the human form is heir, I said, " Of all the lands in the world, Africa is the most miserable, the most oppressive, and filled with the most disease." I promised the missionaries, when leaving the Congo, not to speak in America about the dread malady that has swept that country, because we do not want to give up our work in Africa, and we have so few missionaries who will undertake the task of reaching the people in that dark continent, that we do not want the work to be discouraged in the least degree; but I would just like to touch upon this subject briefly.
It h£Ls been said that the germ is transmitted by the tsetse fly, but whether that is true or not remains to be proved. It is a most deadly disease. The Belgian government sent out a man to investigate it, and in two years' time he himself had contracted the disease, and gone the way of all flesh. Many of our best missionaries have gone down to their graves in this way.
It is agreed that the African people are more responsive, and more anxious to receive the Word of God, than any other heathen people in all the world. Our schoolhouses are not large enough in many of our missions, and our teaching force is not sufficient. In some places three services are conducted at once, one inside and two outside, to accom- modate the thronging hundreds that come, anxious to know about the Word of God. I traveled throughout the Congo on an evangelistic tour of eighteen days, and every day I went to a new town, and in every town we received a petition for a teacher and a school.
Let me give you just one incident: When the first edition of the Yakusu Bible had been printed, and was being carried up the Congo to the natives for whom it was intended, the news that the steamer was coming pre- ceded her, and spread along the river from town to town. At last, cis she drew near one town, there was a great concourse of people standing on the bank of the river. When the steamer made the landing, they begged the missionary in charge to let them have some Bibles, saying that they had come for many miles to get them. He told them that he could not do it, that he would have to unload the entire cargo. But they insisted, and came out in their canoes and boarded the steamer, and they had to stop in midstream and unload, and they gave out every single copy of the Bible they had on board.
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The Bible has done more to redeem Africa and the Congo than any other agency. The nations of the world have done much to redeem Africa; but I want to say to you that the Bible in the hands of David Livingstone of England has done more to lift up the Congo people than all the nations of the world.
I plead for them today, those people of the Congo, that you send them the Bible. It is destined to do for the Congo people what it has done for the other nations of the world. The missionary has always preceded the government. What did we know about India, or Burmah, or China, until our pioneer missionaries, after years of toil, carried into them the Word of God? Therefore, let us send more missionaries to the Congo, consecrated to the love of Christ, and anxious to follow the lowly Nazarene, that they may teach the Congo people the true principles of religion.
Let them carry to those people the injunction, " Seek ye first the king- dom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"; and then when we join in the great millennium, when all nations under the sun shall gather about the great white throne of God, Africa and the Congo will be able to join in the song of praise.
IN PAGAN AFRICA
Rev. Erwin H. Richards, D.D., East Africa
The continent of Africa is immensely great. The black man was created by the Almighty; he did not come from a white man. You can- not get a black man from a white one, nor a white one from a black one. The black man's color is scientifically perfect and is thoroughly benevo- lent on the part of the Almighty. He will not tan; the sun cannot prostrate him. I have never heard of a case of sunstroke. The African is made for the continent; he is a man. But he can be greatly improved. He will buy all you want to sell him; he will produce much that you want to buy. It will pay you to evangelize him.
Livingstone made known the continent. Stanley made known the wealth of Africa; he showed us the dollars. The different governments of the earth met on the continent of Europe and parceled out Africa. They never shot a gun nor wounded a man, and the partition will endure. The nation which had the most Bible got the most land; the nations with a less amount of Bible, like Italy and Portugal, got the smallest amount of land; and the nation with no Bible at all never got a square inch of it. The division of the continent was for the purpose of policing it. The African has always been his own worst enemy; he has spent his whole
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time in splitting his brother's head. But today the country is divided up, policed and safe, and you and I can walk about it everywhere in safety. One hundred years ago Chaka and his army overspread Natal and Cape Colony and butchered off millions of human beings with no provocation and in cold blood, nor had the helpless ones so much as food to feed the hordes who butchered them. Today self-supporting churches cover the region. In Uganda, Stanley translated a few chapters of Luke, and almost immediately human butchery stopped.
In Blantyre, where they sold a man for two yards and a woman for six yards of cloth, a human life was nothing. Five thousand people sat there last Sunday, clad and in their right minds, and from Victoria Falls on the north to the ocean on the south, we have 250,000 who believe in Christ. Today more than a million human beings in South and East Africa believe in God.
When Livingstone listened to the call of Moffat to come into South Africa and help him, it did not make him any smaller. His spirit went to God who gave it, his heart was buried in the land which he loved, and his body laid to rest in Westminster Abbey; yet this is not the burial place of Livingstone. Livingstone is buried today in the hearts of every Christian being on the face of the earth who has heard of him, and if you will come to Africa, it will not make you any smaller. The small man lives only for himself.
THE FIELD AND THE NEED IN WEST AFRICA
Mrs. Edward A. Ford, Libreville, Gabun, West Africa
If you were one wife of five, ten, twenty, forty, one hundred, or one hundred and forty; if you were or had been sold when maybe only a few days old to an old man, to the highest bidder, to the one who came to your father and offered the most goods, — or could put down, at the time, the greatest amount of goods; if you had been taken away, at the age of three or four years, when you could be weaned from your mother, to the husband's town, or to that man's town, — the man who bought you and owns you, and put you under the care of one of the many wives, to be taught the duties of an African wife, — maybe you would appre- ciate the gospel, when it is preached, as do today, in the cannibal regions in the interior, so many thousands of the women who gather there Sunday after Sunday.
O, women, if you could see some of the pictures, — some of the scenes I have witnessed! If you were among them you would appreciate, you would be anxious to give them what they ask as they come to hear the
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Word! I wish you could see oui- missionaries teaching and preaching to them Sunday after Sunday, and in the week days, at our several stations !
Then, I wish you could come to the coast where the work is much harder, where the results do not seem to be so great, where the classes cannot be counted by the hundred or thousand, but where you can see the Chris- tian men and women and boys and girls of the Sunday-school. There you will see the young husband who is trying to be like a Christian hus- band, who has one wife and is trying to treat that wife as the white man treats his wife.
You will also see results of some of the work that cannot very well be put down on paper. You will see the husband carrying water for his wife, and you will see, as I have seen, the young husband who had yielded to the temptation of beating his wife, but who now no longer does so. It is hard for you to realize what it means for that young man to give up that practice, — that custom, — a practice and a custom that is ex- pected by the women. Just before my marriage, when I was sewing with a group of women, they teased me somewhat about the event. They said that I would not be so happy if I were going to marry a man who would beat me; and yet, on the other hand, when I saw a young wife, after she had been beaten by her husband, and said something to her about it, she laughed and treated it as quite natural, as, of course, it was.
Yet they do appreciate, and they do learn to love people when they know about the love of Jesus! I wish you could see the mother, the same mother heart that we have in this country, the mother who watches tenderly and anxiously over her child, the mother longing to give the best she can to her child, and glad to have the Sunday-school, and glad to have the day-school, and glad to have the missionary teacher for that child! I rejoice to think that in the great command it was " Go and teach " as well as to " Preach," because the teaching is so much needed! As I talk with these women I find that they are satisfied in a way.
I remember very well rebuking a man for allowing his wife to carry a big heavy load on her back. I could not speak the language that she spoke, but he understood the language that I spoke, and he translated to her what I said. She laughingly replied, " Oh, no, no; it's all right this way! " She was to be the burden- bearer; she did not know any better; she was satisfied; but, friends, we know better! If we could have a glimpse of the light, would we not be glad to have our sisters come over to teach us?
I can recall a little boy who had been a Sunday-school boy and seeing a young man die who had entered the ministry. This boy was converted, and upon expressing a desire to become a preacher was asked why. He replied, " Because it is the need of my heart! " Oh, how often that has
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come to me, — "It is the need of my heart! " It should be the need of the heart of us all, — to go out and give what we have that is so much better! We know it is better if they do not, and they need it just as much as we do — " as if it were thyself! "
A VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA BY THE DEPUTATION FROM
WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, APRIL —
AUGUST, 1909
Reported by Arthur Black, Liverpool, England
Our visit to South Africa sprang out of the formation of the World's Sunday-School Association at the Rome Convention; South Africa was included in the sphere of influence of the British Section. The following year, the president. Rev. F. B. Meyer, visited the country, under the auspices of the Free Church Council, and held conferences of teachers, discussed problems of young people in every place he visited, and pre- pared the way for our special tour, which Dr. Bailey and Mr. Lawrance had already suggested.
Mr. Hunt, a young Englishman, who had been recommended to the British Committee by Mr. Mej^er, offered his services in the arrangements of the tour. He knew South Africa and many of its workers, and with the help of the Sunday-School Union and other publishers — chiefly American — gathered a capital exhibit of Sunday-school material, which roused much interest everywhere. Rev. T. E. Ruth, the minister of my own church in Liverpool, and Mrs. Ruth, accompanied me, and we sailed from Southampton April 3, carrying letters of introduction from Lord Crewe and Colonel Seely, of the Colonial Office, the British and American officers of the World's Sunday-School Association, the president of the National Free Church Council, the Lord Bishop of Liverpool, and others.
We landed at Cape Town April 20, and were warmly welcomed by officers of the Church Council. Our first meeting was held at Kimberley, April 23, and our last at Cape Town on August 10. Between those dates we held fifty-eight general conferences, twelve ministers' conferences, twenty- five public meetings. Mr. Ruth preached forty- five times, and I, twenty-six. We addressed nineteen united children's gatherings, and visited nine Sunday-schools in session. Mr. Ruth gave twelve addresses to men's meetings, while I gave nine lantern talks on " World Sunday- Schools." Other miscellaneous gatherings brought up our record to two hundred and twenty-six.
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The towns visited with those named above were, — Middleburg (C. C), Graaff Reinet, Grahamstown, King William's Town, East London, Lovedale, Queenstown, Mossel Bay, Georgetown, and Wellington, in Cape Colony; Bloemfontein, in Orange River Colony; Johannesburg and Pre- toria, in the Transvaal; Ladismith, Pietermaritzburg, and Durban, in Natal. Mr. and Mrs. Ruth paid a flying visit one thousand miles north wards to the Zambesi Falls, while I attended the first three days of the third general missionary conference of South Africa at Bloemfontein, and spent another three days in Maseru, Basuto Land. Otherwise we worked together for those memorable sixteen weeks.
British South Africa has an area of 900,000 square miles, and a white population of about 1,100,000, the majority being Dutch, the rest mainly British. The native population is about 4,600,000, and the colored peo- ple over 560,000, a total population of nearly 6,500,000. The white com- munities are therefore outnumbered by more than four to one, and are thinly scattered over this vast area.
Our mission was to carry a message of good-will from the World's Association, to investigate the actual conditions of the field, to focus the attention of churches and missionary societies on the wonderful possi- bilities of a widespread and well-directed campaign of educational evangel- ism. Our emphasis was placed upon Christian union, religious education, and the evangelization of the world. These were our main themes of conversation, conferences, platform and pulpit advocacy; and there was a gladdening response.
We dealt with the organized Sunday-school, teacher training, the World movement, etc., and discussed every aspect of the modern Sunday- school and its relations. Considering the small constituency in most places, the attendances and interest were very encouraging, and grew towards the end of each visit. Some of our morning hours with groups of ministers, conferring on the spiritual and church aspects of the Sunday- school, were very valuable.
The official welcome by the local church councils or Sunday-school unions was very cordial, while the hospitality lavished upon us in the homes of the people will always be gratefully remembered. The mayors of Cape Town, Kimberley, Johannesburg, and Durban honored us with their presence and support. Statesmen like Sir John Eraser, Sir Henry Bale, Sir David Hunter also backed our mission. It is gratifying that in this new land, this voluntary agency for character-making has the strong sanction of public men.
It has been our hope in setting out that our effort should culminate in the formation of a Sunday-School Association for South Africa. It was evident, in a week or two, however, that for unknown, uninvited
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novices to attempt to force this would be a mistake. We determined, therefore, to bend our energies towards creating a demand for a higher standard of Sunday-school work, widening the outlook on religious edu- cation, and encouraging the movement towards Christian reunion, and thus to pave the way for future combination in Sunday-school effort.
The political union of the four colonies now happily accomplished, and the proposed organic union of Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congre- gationalist churches in such a hopeful stage of negotiations, are favorable omens. The racial prejudices between British and Dutch are being grad- ually broken down by education, intermarriage, commerce, and by the instinct of national preservation, and perhaps chiefly by the spirit of missionary service for the redemption of Africa,
We found the churches, like business concerns, suffering from acute financial depression. " Retrenchment " had a pathetic meaning out there, — families driven away for lack of employment, churches struggling against crippling debts, societies emaciated for lack of supplies. We determined, therefore, neither to ask for money for our own expenses, though a few kind gifts were handed us, nor to promote any fund for the proposed Sunday-School Association, though two or three generous promises have been made. We would be content with preparing the way, and waiting until, in the judgment of interested leaders on the spot, the time was ripe for action.
The Sunday-school has a firm footing in South Africa among both British and Dutch. We did not find any place without Sunday-school accommodation. The general complaint was not of the absence of schools, but of their small size, which prevented anything like grading. Only one or two British schools had adopted primary methods, or had separate senior departments. The denominations have been generous, sometimes competitive, in their provision of places for public worship, and the chief Sunday-school difficulties seemed to be unsuitable buildings, scarcity of teachers, loss of senior scholars, lack of equipment, and suitable liter- ature. The love of pleasure, greed of gain, and Sunday sports combine to make an atmosphere in which the culture of young souls is difficult.
The Dutch Reformed Church, by far the strongest in the colonies, has its Sunday-school department that is busy planning much larger things. The Rev. P. H. Albertyn, the secretary, joint minister of a church of two thousand members in the old Dutch center of Graaff Reinet, has the largest Sunday-school in South Africa, of eight hundred members, graded, with a good proportion of senior scholars, practically all of whom, after special preparation classes, graduate into full church- membership, the graduation examination being popularly known as the " Boer Matric." The school, under the continued inspiration of the Mur-
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ray family, raises over two hundred pounds a year for missions. Many country Dutch churches have a large membership distributed over a wide area, for whom special provision is made in small farm Sunday- schools and Bible classes.
We strongly recommended some simple method corresponding to the Home Department. At present the International lessons are not in general use, though preliminary inquiries are now being made thereon. We discussed with Mr. Albertyn, who is now engaged on a text-book for Dutch Sunday-school teachers, many of his problems, and he is keen to go forward.
One of the finest Sundaj'-school services we held was in Wellington, in Dr. Andrew Murray's church, where about twelve hundred scholars and friends attended. Our conversations with this great apostle of re- ligious education and foreign missions left deep impressions on our mind. This venerable leader sees in the young people the strategic position for the churches, and he has advocated for some years the appointment of a well-qualified Sunday-school missionary among the Dutch churches.
Sunday-school unions exist at Kimberley, Johannesburg, Pietermaritz- burg, King William's Town, Port Elizabeth, and one or two small group unions in the suburbs of Cape Town. The church councils in such places as Bloemfontein, East London, and Grahamstown, that hold a watching brief for work among the young, arranged our meetings. Sunday-school unions with good promise of success have since been founded for Cape Town and District and for Durban. The Anglican Church, with some half dozen exceptions, is of the High-Church order, and disinclined to associate with the other denominations in any religious work.
Since our visit we have heard of forward movements, especially in Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. The latter has the largest and most active union, with some progressive officers. It has remodeled its con- stitution, adopted uniform registers in its schools, runs its lecture course for teachers, and is preparing for a large exhibit of Sunday-school ma- terial in August, to which visitors will be invited from afar. We have great hopes as to the large service this union may render to the whole movement in South Africa.
The number of Dutch and British Sunday scholars is not easy to com- pute, but a careful estimate puts them down at about ninety thousand, or about one in twelve of the white population. This, in a country where there is a small proportion of children among the British, is not discour- aging. The Students' Christian Association has five thousand seven hundred members banded into Bible-study groups. This is splendid work, supplemental to the Sunday-school, and partly compensates for the serious dropping off of older scholars generally remarked.
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The missionary aspect fascinated us. To mark the progress made in South Africa since our childhood, when Moffat and Livingstone were living heroes, was an education and a thanksgiving. We visited and spoke in several of the colored and native mission schools, spent a day or two at the famous Lovedale Training Institution, where the wonderful process of making seven hundred students, many of them raw material, into Christian men and women is well carried on by teaching and handi- craft and example.
The noble work of the pioneers has borne abundant fruit. Modern missions run forward on the roads they made. British South Africa is almost completely divided into spheres of influence for the thirty societies at work (about one half of them British). There are over six hundred and fifty stations, one for eight thousand of the native population, far more than the proportion demanded by Mr. Mott as a basis for world evangelization. Scholars are busily engaged at grammars and text- books and the other requisites for the diffusion of knowledge and the building up of a Christian society. The training of native teachers and the establishment of Christian family life are main problems, for, with- out religious instruction and surroundings, children grow up unprotected by the old native customs, and exposed to the dangers of low white civilization.
The number of scholars in the mission schools is set down at about one hundred and sixty thousand. How many of these are Sunday-school children is not known, — probably a much smaller number. The native day-school teacher is often tempted to neglect Bible teaching if there is no inspection test, and the intelligent native, proud of his powers as a local preacher, is apt to despise the little child as too small a subject for his attention.
Our chief hope is in the native training institutions. Lovedale is the most famous of nearly a dozen smaller and younger institutions that throughout the land are giving higher education on a Christian basis to the native youth.
I addressed the third general missionary conference for South Africa on the subject of Sunday-school extension. I reminded the seventy members that not a quarter of the children were enrolled as scholars, and that, of those attending, about sixty per cent were in or below stand- ard one, and but a few ever passed beyond the fourth standard. Yet if the recent rate of increase were maintained, another quarter of a century would see half a million native children in the schools, — far more than the present number of scholars in the whole of vast Africa. To deal ade- quately with this rapid growth, everything depended upon an efficient system of teacher training. There appeared to be need of additional
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lesson courses in the vernacular, of helps for scholars and teachers, of schools of method in Sunday-school management, etc.
The following resolution was adopted:
" That this Conference, having heard the statement of the deputation of the World's Sunday-School Association, would welcome the formation of a South African Sunday-School Association, having as its aim the improvement and extension of this branch of church and missionary effort among the young; and this Conference authorizes its Executive Committee to join with existing local Sunday-school unions and denomi- national bodies in South Africa in discussing such proposals."
To sum up, the chief general recommendations made to our South African fellow-workers in view of the present and future needs of South Africa were, —
The establishment of a business agency in Cape Town, with branches at Johannesburg and Durban, for the supply of Sunday-school literature, and as centers of information on the educational side of the work. The depots of the Bible Society in these towns might consent to act as agents.
The promotion of teacher training through lecture courses, normal and correspondence classes, libraries, and annual Sunday-school insti- tutes at such centers as Johannesburg or Wellington.
The formation of a Sunday-School Association for South Africa, with headquarters, say, at Cape Town or Johannesburg, with a small govern- ing executive on the spot and corresponding members in all the chief centers.
The appointment of an organizing secretary, with a trained native assistant knowing two or three of the chief vernaculars, — their aim being to extend the range of the Sunday-school and increase its efficiency as a spiritual and evangelistic agency, working through existing churches, denominational boards, and missionary societies.
The holding of a national conference of representatives every three or four years.
A small representative executive should secure guarantees to put a man in the field to agitate, educate, organize! There could hardly be a better investment for the kingdom of God in South Africa.
Our visit has touched us with some of the radiant hope of the South African poet:
" O Africa! long lost in night, On the horizon gleams the light Of breaking dawn.
Thy name hath been slave of the world; But when thy banner is unfurled,
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Triumphant liberty shall wave Its standard o'er foul slavery's grave, And earth, decaying earth, shall see Her freest, fairest child, in thee."
Ethiopia stretches out her hands to God!
SOUTH AFRICA
Rev. J. J. DoKE, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Sunday- School Union in South Africa comprises only twenty- one schools, but it is full of throbbing life, and I rejoice to say that the work is growing and prospering in our hands.
Lately we have turned our thoughts especially to the question of the training of teachers. Of course we look to America as being the sum of all wisdom with regard to Sunday-school work, and I was surprised last week in Chicago to hear one of your ministers say that his Sunday- school teachers were not altogether a satisfaction to him. I think he said that when he saw one of them coming into his school, loaded up with literary helps, he said to himself, " There is more of harness than horse there." I was amazed at this.
We have in South Africa men and women who live busy lives during the whole of the week, who are yet willing to lay their best on the altar of Sunday-school enterprise. We are trying to help them so that they may be able with the least difficulty to become most efficient in this great work. Now, Dr. Meyer, I want you to look back to that day when, under the blessing of God, you were able to bring together, in a holy, solemn consecration meeting, the ministers of the Dutch Church and the ministers of the British churches. It was a work that would have written success on your brow even though you had not been able to do any more than that for us in that sunny land.
This is a wonderful year to us. We are beginning to form a great em- pire under the Southern Cross. This month we are beginning that great union of our colonies which is another forward step toward the realization of the dream of Christian faith, when men the world over shall brothers be, " for a' that." I believe that, in this great merging and unifying in brotherly love of the races of the new empire of South Africa, our Sunday- schools will have a great part.
The children cannot mingle without loving one another. They may fight sometimes, but that is only by way of play. It is around the cross of Christ in the Sunday-school, and in the playground of the day-school,
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that they learn that they are all kin, and we are working toward the great goal that they all may be one. Brethren, pray for us.
Let Africa rest upon your souls when you pray. Take the map and see the extent of it; realize what multitudes of people are within our bor- ders; think of the work we have to do; then pray for us. As the spring- time has come to you here, with its warm breath calling into life the beauti- ful blossoms, and the green of the woodlands, so the springtime is coming to us in South Africa, and we desire to arise and send back with joy the song of praise to God, who alone doeth all things well.
THE ZULUS
Rev. John L. Dube, Ohlange, Phenix, South Africa
I STAND here as the child of the missionary effort. Prior to the coming of the Dutch and English to South Africa, the Zulus held sway over all that territory south of the Zambesi.
It was not until 1879 that the Zulu power was broken by England, and it was not done without a terrible struggle. In several battles the English were defeated by the Zulus, but finally the Zulus had to submit to superior force of arms. It was very hard for the Zulus, who were free and independent, to come under a foreign yoke, but when we look back upon it now we see the providence of God in it all, because into all that territory of ours missionaries have brought the wonderful story which was first told to the shepherds of Bethlehem, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men."
Wherever that story has been told, the curtain of darkness has been lifted, and the sons and daughters of our people have seen the light. Prob- ably I would not be standing here before you this afternoon, I might now be running wild, like thousands of my people, without God and without hope, if I had not heard the story; and in my simple way I am trying to help my people who have not yet heard the story. I go into some of those kraals in South Africa, and see the boys and girls all kneeling around their grandmother, from whom they get their only schooling, learning nothing but superstition, learning that the Great, Great One has gone away up into the heavens and has left them to take care of themselves; and they have become the slaves of the magician and the medicine man.
I am trying to teach them the Christian way of living, and by the efforts of the missionaries, and those of my own people who have heard the story, and who have tried to improve themselves by studying and learn- ing more of Jesus, that dark country of ours will soon be a country where God is honored, and those boys and girls who today bow down before
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their ancestral spirits — represented by snakes — will soon learn of the love of Jesus, and our country will be transformed into a Christian land. I wish that you would pray that as we men of Africa scatter the seed of light through the dark corners of our land, God may help us and give us courage for the work, that we may win that land for Him.
THE SABBATH-SCHOOL IN EGYPT
Rev. J. R. Alexander, D.D., Assiut, Egypt
It is my privilege to bring you the greetings of nearly seventeen thousand Sabbath-school scholars and teachers in the valley of the Nile.
Almost as soon as the missionary landed in Egypt, he opened a sabbath- school. At first it was a very primitive and small work, — just informal talks on some Bible subject, both the missionary and his pupils (two or three, perhaps) talking and asking questions.
Scripture teaching and spiritual teaching for the young in Egypt, apart from the regular ministrations of the pulpit, are effected in two ways, — the day-schools and the sabbath-school proper. Day-schools for boys and girls were early opened, and the Bible or some part of it was a daily text-book; indeed, it was the principal reading book, for special graded school readers in Arabic had then no existence.
The missionary, whether man or woman, being the head of the school, and chief teacher, made every effort to bring the truths of Jesus' love and his salvation home to the hearts and lives of the pupils. To this day the day-schools in Egypt — the boarding schools and colleges for young men and boys, for young women and girls, under the care of the mission and the native church — have the Word of Christ as a part of their daily curriculum. Bible facts, Bible truths, God's love, man's needs, the life and salvation of Jesus, the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, the morality of the man of God, the imminence of God in all the affairs of men, the blessedness of the man whose sins are forgiven and whose iniquities are covered through Jesus Christ, the blessed hope of the righteousness in Christ, and the hopelessness of those who know not Christ, are daily taught the eighteen thousand boys and girls (Christians, Moham- medans, and Jews) who attend these schools.
These Christian schools in Egypt have been and are Bible schools, if not sabbath-schools. Five days each week a daily Bible lesson is given to each class, — the sabbath-school is additional. Through these schools many thousand young people of two generations have been taught the fear of God and the love of the Saviour. They have been, in a very effective way, the nursery, the training schools, of the evangelical church of Egypt.
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As a factor in the missionary crusade in Egypt in training the children and youth in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and in the development of Christian character and Christian life, these schools which many might think of as secular schools have most important claims. Are they just the modern successors of the famous Catechetical School of Pantaenus and Clement of Alexandria in the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Church in Egypt? Their motto is still the same, " No faith without knowledge, no knowledge without faith." " Unless you believe you will not understand " the basic principles of science, nor the doctrines of salvation (John 7: 17).
But the sabbath-school as a special effort to impart Bible truth and Bible religion has not been neglected. Its exercises and methods were for a time rather informal and general, but as the work of the mission grew, as churches were gathered and the communities became influenced by the gospel, as confidence was gained and the desire for Bible knowledge and Bible morality was developed, sabbath-schools after the model of the sabbath-school of the West were formed. The classification of the pupils has not been, and is not yet, as complete and well defined as in the sabbath-schools of Europe and America. Very few schools have infant and primary and junior departments. Many of the adjuncts for making the room attractive and securing the interest of the younger and smaller pupils are wanting.
The sabbath-school as a movmeent is in existence in every mission church and meeting place from Alexandria to Assuan. Nearly every day-school, under the leadership of the teacher, has a sabbath-school on the Lord's Day. The effort and purpose of the movement are to gather men and women, boys and girls, into classes for the systematic study of God's word. Most of the sabbath-schools of Egypt have been placed by the Synod of the Nile under the direction of a committee which, year by year, is endeavoring to make the schools more effective agencies in the evangelizing and salvation of the coming generations.
In many places an effort is made to have the men and women of the church and Christian community meet together for the common study of the Bible, following the lessons as prescribed — and an average of several thousand adults are thus taught every sabbath.
During the year 1909 the number of sabbath-schools in the American Mission alone, in Egypt, and the average daily attendance, were as fol- lows: Number of schools, 218; teachers and officers, 544; attendance of men, 5,129; women, 3,235; boys, 4,903; girls, 2,661. Total attendance in American Mission sabbath-schools, 16,472. In other missions in Egypt there are 13 schools, 33 officers and teachers, 444 scholars, with a total enrollment of 477.
300 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
On the mission field there is, of course, a great want of teachers for sabbath-school work having the proper spiritual and intellectual equip- ment and the true ideal of the informative and saving purpose of the sabbath-school. But teachers are gradually being trained and prepared. In Assiiit College, the Mission Training College for young men and the Pressly Institute for young women, is the largest and best organized sabbath- school in Egypt. It has become, to a large extent, the model sabbath- school for Christian workers in Egypt. It enrolls over seven hundred pupils, divided into more than forty classes.
The teachers are the college teachers and the advanced students. The students of this college become the principals, superintendents, and teach- ers of the Protestant schools in Egypt, the preachers, pastors, and lay leaders in the evangelical churches and missions throughout the country, and naturally they carry with them the ideals, methods, and inspiration of their college sabbath-school. Through these men and women and their fellows of the successive college classes, the sabbath-school work of Egypt will be developed more effectively as the years go by.
Our sabbath-school literature is limited in variety, but it is of good quality. In the college was originated a sabbath-school lesson leaflet, a four- page paper containing in the Arabic language an excellent commen- tary on the lesson assigned. About ten thousand copies of this leaflet are in weekly use in the sabbath-schools of Egypt; a number of copies are used also in the Sudan, and some in sabbath-schools in Syria. The lessons used are those selected by the International Lesson Committee.
A very interesting and useful sabbath-school paper, intended for inter- mediate classes as well as young men and women, has been established by the sabbath-school committee. It is ably edited by a young man, an elder in the church at Alexandria, educated at Assiut and trained in the college sabbath-school. About two thousand copies of this maga- zine, called the Star of the East {Negin el Mechrak), are weekly distributed throughout the schools in the valley of the Nile.
A small illustrated card, about the size of a postal card, with the lesson on one side and an illustrative picture on the other, has been prepared by one of the Egyptian pastors, a graduate of the college, with the ap- proval of the sabbath-school committee, for the use of the smaller children. It is rapidly proving its worth, as nearly four thousand copies are required each week in the various schools in Egypt and the Sudan.
Many of the teachers use Peloubet's Notes, the Practical Commentary, the Sunday-School Times, the Bible Teacher, and other publications of the United Presbyterian Board.
In the sabbath- schools, the scholars, large and small, are taught to give to the Lord a share of what he has given them. The students of
Roll- Call of Nations — Egypt 301
the college and a number of other schools give regularly and systematically. At the beginning of the year each pupil makes a definite, voluntary pledge to give each sabbath a certain sum. This sum is taken out of their " spend- ing money," and they have but little as compared with western students. As many of them are very poor, their gifts are often very small. Their pledge may be a coin equal to an eighth of a cent in value, or a fourth of a cent, or a half, or three fourths or a cent, or a cent and a half, or two cents, or five cents, and very few except the teachers give more than five cents per week, but each one gives according to his pledge.
The regular, proportionate, definite giving, though the gifts are in such insignificant amounts, produce splendid results, both in the sum total of money and in the formation of habits of liberality in the pupil. The gifts of the sabbath-schools of Egypt last year amounted to over $2,250, nine hundred dollars of which was given by the students and teachers of the two schools of the college. This sum was all devoted to Christian work in Egypt and the Sudan as carried on by the Synod of the Nile. The sabbath-school illustrated card, the leaflet, and The Star of the East are all self-supporting.
The sabbath-schOols in Egypt are a great factor in developing and promoting native support of home mission work in Egypt, work among Mohammedans, and that in the Sudan. Some of the schools have under- taken the support, partial or entire, of individual native missionaries in Egypt and the Sudan. Year by year the sabbath-school scholars are " growing in the grace of giving also," and thus, we hope, are being trained to spend and be spent in the service of their Lord.
In many places the largest gains to the church have been from the sabbath-schools. In one congregation, last year, ten of the sabbath- school scholars gave themselves to Christ. In the two schools of the college, ninety-six young men and young women began the Christian life in the church of Christ.
Notwithstanding the political unrest and agitation in Egypt during the past two years, nearly four thousand Mohammedan children were enrolled in 1909 in the Protestant day and boarding schools and colleges in Egypt. A number of these boys and girls have attended the sabbath- schools. Two Mohammedan boys at Alexandria have plainly expressed themselves as believing in Christ. Another at Abnul is ready to confess Christ. At Luxor, one evening, a young man entered the church while the congregation were singing in worship. He took up a psalmbook, found the place, and began to sing. He knew the book and the tune. He was a young Mohammedan, a pupil of the day-school and of the sab- bath-school. In the boarding schools, the Mohammedan girls learn, in the sabbath-schools, scripture verses, and often they may be heard repeating,
302 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
"Jesus said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Mohammedan men, even, come to church because their children come. At a preaching place in Alexandria, a Mohammedan, when asked why he attended the Christian services, merely pushed forward his little son and said, " He comes, so I come."
A native pastor says, " The sabbath-school gives the best opportunity for training new members and unbelievers in the Christian faith." In a sabbath-school in the Delta there are i Jew, 17 Mohammedans, 96 Copts, and 11 Protestants, or 114 out of 125 pupils from homes outside of gospel influences. This school is a sample of many sabbath-schools in Cairo, Alexandria, and Lower Egypt.
In these schools, together with the mission day schools, boarding schools, and colleges, in every one of which Christ's Word is a part of the curriculum, many Mohammedan young people are hearing of Christ and his love, and are learning to love him. It was not a sabbath-school scholar who assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister three months ago. There were no sabbath-scholars in the crowd of young men and boys who, a few weeks ago, while Mr. Roosevelt was in Cairo, paraded in front of Shepheard's Hotel shouting, " Down with Roosevelt."
The sabbath-schools in Egypt are truly training schools for the church of the future. In them the Christian men and women of tomorrow in Egypt are learning habits of Bible study, learning to give for Christ's work, learning to pray to him and to sing praise to him.
My word " shall not return unto me void," — "it shall accomplish " — " it shall prosper " (Isa. 55: 11). The Egyptians shall know, are knowing, Jehovah (Isa. 19: 21).
Sabbath-Schools in Egypt. Statistical Summary
|
Officers, |
Total |
|||
|
Missionary Societies |
No. of Schools |
Teachers |
Scholars |
Enrollment |
|
United Presbyterian |
||||
|
American Mission, |
218 |
544 |
15.928 |
16,472 |
|
Church Missionary |
||||
|
Society, English, |
5 |
14 |
270 |
284 |
|
Egypt General Mis- |
||||
|
sion, British, |
4 |
7 |
57 |
64 |
|
North African Mis- |
||||
|
sion, British, |
2 |
9 |
52 |
61 |
|
Sudan Pioneer Mis- |
||||
|
sion, German, |
I |
I |
30 |
31 |
|
Mission to the Jews, |
I |
2 |
35 |
37 |
|
Totals, |
231 |
577 |
16,372 |
16,949 |
Roll-Call of Nations — Asia 303
Sabbath-school lesson leaSets, copies distributed weekly, 10,500
Sabbath-school paper {Star 0} the East), distributed weekly, 2,000
Sabbath-school illustrated card, distributed weekly, 4,000
Sabbath-school contributions, for 1909 (year), 2,250
There are a few scattered Coptic sabbath-schools taught by teachers trained in the American Mission College, — one at Suhag, with two hundred scholars, which gave for the lesson leaflet, last year, fifteen dollars; another at Girgah, with thirty scholars.
" The entrance of thy word giveth light."
ASIA
RESPONSE FOR ASIA
Bishop Yoitsu Honda, Japan
Asia, which I have to represent, is the greater portion of the^ world. It includes many old nations, such as Persia, India, and China, and even the Holy Land, the father land of Christianity.
Japan, my own country, is younger and smaller than other nations. As a mission field, we only celebrated the semi-centennial anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries into Japan about one year ago. The oldest Protestant church is only thirty-eight years old. My own church, the Independent and United Methodist Church, is only a three-year-old child. Being so, this thought came into my mind: it is a rule of oriental society, the younger must serve the elder, and the smaller the greater. Japan, being younger in her age and smaller in her size, should advance toward the rank of the superiors. Another thought in connection with the place of the World's Sunday-School Convention, — Washington, the capital of the United States of America. It was Amer- ica that led the young Japan out into the wide world, and then sent out missionaries who were the first organizers of the Sunday-school in Japan. Considering these points, I have accepted the appointment.
First of all, I return my hearty thanks to all friends who receive us so cordially and generously into this great capital. For us to see this vast continent, with its limitless natural resources, and full of enter- prises, is itself an entertaining experience. And to be among the immense population, where distinction of race and nation disappear in the new world, is a powerful inspiration. We thank you for your hospitality in such a country, and pray for your success in attaining to the ideal of
304 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
the kingdom of God on earth. Now let me tell you a little of Japan as a representative countr>' in Asia.
Japan had a reputation once, as you know, for its facility in evangeli- zation, but I say frankly she has lost her fame recently, and now seems likely to have a record of a somewhat different character, which we do not like much ourselves. That is of the army and navy, which are in a sense a heavy burden upon us, and have occasioned many severe criti- cisms and suspicions from outside nations. I wish you to be a little patient, however, for there is a good sign of hope for the future, — that is our Sunday-school movement. There was a remarkable progress in the last decade. In 1900 the numbers of the officers and scholars of all Sunday- schools throughout Japan were 33,039, and in 19 10 it is reported to have been 104,949. It has been genuine progress — marching on quietly, just like the Japanese army in the battlefield. Awarding credit for this, w'c owe it to the visits of Dr. Brown, 1904, and Dr. and Mrs. Hamill in 1908. Their special visits to the far East were valued and very helpful. By the grace of our Father in heaven, may we keep up this ratio of progress; the result will be wonderful.
On April 3, 19 10, we had a rally day of Sunday-school children at Tokyo in a large hall specially built for wrestling (a peculiar art in Japan, cultivated for centuries). The number of children aggregated 10,000, and there were 3,000 teachers and guardians who accompanied them. It was an impressive and inspiring gathering. One of the speakers, Hon. R. Hattori, a member of the national congress, said he was one of the children who attended the first Sunday-school ever organized for chil- dren, by a missionary lady at Yokohama, thirty-six years ago. I hope most sincerely that our Sunday-school children will not cease wrestling with the Lord, like Jacob at Peniel, saying, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." At the present time the nations are enlarging the army and increasing the navy, and they say they will guarantee peace. They call the twentieth century " the age of armed peace." I admit there is much truth in this. It is a necessary evil to have a large army and navy, and especially so with us, for Japan is not rich compared with other pow- ers. But Japan, situated in unguarded Asia, seems to require a large army and navy. Still, in increasing her armament, Japan is simply keeping up with the fashion among powerful nations. After all, how effective is this fashion for keeping the peace of the world? The world needs uni- versal peace. It wants true peace, a peaceful peace.
Count Okuma, in Tokyo, is reported by some as being a " jingoist." In fact, he is a peace advocate. He is now the president of the Peace Society of Japan. He says he would like to live one hundred and twenty- five years, and he hopes to do so. I don't know what is his real motive
Roll-Call of Nations — India 305
for a long life. I suppose his chief aim is to see a better condition of peace in the world. I suppose there are many good men or women like minded with our old count; but how they can satisfy their great aspiration is the question. I believe the movement of the Sunday-School Association is a good solution of this problem, if it is not the solution.
The Lord God be glorified. The World's Sunday-School Association is growing rapidly. Coming back to the American capital, I remember that Commodore Perry was sent to Japan in 1853 by the order of the government seated in this capital. His fleet anchored, the first time, in Yedo Bay on a Sunday in July, 1853. He called together the officers and the crew and read the Word of God and worshiped God. This was the first Sunday observed in Japan. Although Japan is not evangelized yet, Sunday is kept officially and publicly throughout the country. So seven million school children are all free on Sunday. This must be a special providence for this noble movement.
Remember Japan and all Asia. Asia is preparing to receive the Chris- tianity that is coming back to its old home. Remember Asia and help us. It will profit you much, and magnify the name of our common Lord.
** BETWEEN THE HIMALAYAS AND THE EQUATOR"
Story of the India Sunday-School Union
Rev. Richard Burges, General Secretary, India Sunday-School Union, Jubbulpore, India
In the year that Bonaparte, fired by personal ambition, was mobilizing his forces at Boulogne to " take " England; in the year when the martial Maharathas had reason to hope that India would soon be theirs by right of conquest; in the year when Lake at Delhi, and Wellesley at Assaye, won destiny-deciding battles, — in that year, 1803, the first Sunday- school in India — probably in Asia — was established.
It was a quiet affair. A " trio " of boys did it. One of them was the son of an indigo planter, and the sire of the other was " William Carey the Great." No historian of national crises took note of the event. It was left these boys in Serampore, Bengal, to lay the foundations of a work which, in a spiritual sense, has done more for India than conquests on field of blood.
At the very time when "Victoria the Good " was proclaimed " Empress of India," a less ostentatious event was taking place. It was the founding in 1876 of the India Sunday-School Union, in Allahabad, by a company of missionaries and laymen representing eight missionary societies. Until
306 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
1890, Rev. T. J. Scott, the founder of the union, was honorary secretary, when he was succeeded by Dr. J. L. Phillips, who served for five years and was supported by the Sunday-School Union of London. Since 1896 Mr. W. H. Stanes and Rev. T. H. Johnson, M.D., have been identified with the progressive work of the India Sunday-School Union, and since 1906 the headquarters have been at Jubbulpore, the nerve center of the railway, postal, and telegraph systems.
In India, which has been described as " the fulcrum of the British Empire," the number of children under fourteen years of age equals the whole population of North and South America, and it is nearly three times the population of the British Isles. Christianity is represented by one per cent of the population, and one in every four hundred and fifty-three of the population is in the Sunday-school.
The constituency of the India Sunday-School Union embraces India, Ceylon, and Malayasia in its twenty-two auxiliaries, and the union keeps in touch with the Philippine Islands, Siam, Afghanistan, Arabia, and other adjacent countries.
The children number ten thousand times ten thousand, and to speak to them all one should know a hundred dialects belonging to a dozen linguistic families.
The purpose of the India Sunday-School Union is to (i) emphasize the spiritual character of Sunday-school teaching; (2) consolidate and extend Sunday-school work; (3) educate teachers in the best principles and methods of Bible study and teaching; (4) produce and foster the growth of English and vernacular literature for teachers and scholars; (5) encourage special services among young people; (6) focus the attention of the Christian Church upon the child as her most valuable asset; (7) unite, for mutual help, all Sunday-schools conducted by Protestant missions in Southern Asia.
The Union studiously avoids all interference with the management and doctrine of Sunday-schools. Each Sunday-school belongs to the church of which it is a part, and not to the India Sunday-School Union. The policy is one of help and suggestion, and not of control.
The Indian Committee of the Sunday-School Union, London, supplies the India Sunday-School Union, chiefly by means of contributions from I. B. R. A. members, with the services of the general secretary, together with other help, which approximates five hundred dollars per year.
The Central Committee, whose president is Mr. R. G. Monteath, J. P., chairman of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce, is composed of repre- sentative persons, residing in different parts of the empire, who are re- sponsible to the constitution for the administration of affairs, and thus binds together twenty-two auxiliaries with their forty committees. The
Roll' Call of Nations — India 307
chief purpose of the India Sunday-School Union is to make it a great Bible-teaching and character-building agency.
Those who would like to hear about the nature of the material the Sunday-school teacher works upon will have food for reflection in the following facts. Only divine grace can transform.
" When I grow bigger," said a Bhil boy, " you shall not work so hard."
These words were addressed by a very small boy in a mission orphanage to the matron, who rose early and sat up late to get her work done. The Bhils live in the mountain fastnesses of Mid-India and are an ancient people of the Kolarian family.
" Very kind of you," said the matron; " but what will you do? "
" I'll steal," was the prompt reply.
" That would be sin, my boy," explained the matron.
" How can that be ? " asked the lad. " Stealing is only a sin if it is found out."
Further explanation did not make much impression on the boy. He persisted in explaining how he proposed to steal and not be found out. " My plan would be to go frequently through the village with my eyes open. I should then discover who keeps goats and where goats are kept. On a dark night I would secure a goat and kill it. Quickly a dainty piece of meat would be removed and the rest buried. Over the grave, grass and leaves would be spread. Next morning there would be an inquiry by the police about the lost goat."
" You would then be caught," said the matron.
" No, not at all," said the Bhil boy. " That dainty piece of goat flesh would be put in a place where the police would find it, and having pos- sessed themselves of it, they would make no further investigation."
" The next step would be to dig up the goat, which would be enough food for many days."
The statistics for 1908 show 11,429 schools, 16,456 teachers, and 442,489 scholars, — a total enrollment of teachers and scholars of 458,945. This is an increase in membership over the previous year of 37,866. We be- lieve that if all existing Sunday-schools were reported, the figures would reach a membership of from 650,000 to 700,000. In 1901 the Sunday- school membership was one in every 1,864 o^ the total population, and in 1908 it was one in every 453. This includes the Straits Settlements. In the whole population of the central provinces, there is one Sunday- school member in every 758.
The International Bible Reading Association has made steady progress. The registered Indian membership in English is about 6,000, and in 13 vernaculars, 8,000. On a very conservative estimate, it is believed that 905 of all Sunday-schools in Southern Asia use the International Uniform
3o8 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Lessons. Southern Asia has a representative on the International Lesson Committee in Bishop F. W. Warne, D.D.
The India Sunday- School Journal has an unbroken record of twenty years, and although it does not pay its way in a financial sense, the deficit must be regarded as the salary of a " missionary in print." It is printed in English, as all the educated classes can express themselves in that language. English is the only language in which they can all understand themselves. Half its pages expound the International lessons and the rest are devoted to setting high ideals before the teachers, and helping them to realize them.
Of the fifty vernaculars in which our Sunday-schools are conducted, twenty have Biblical Expository Leaflets on the current lessons. To maintain the expositions at a high standard of excellence, nearly forty editors put heart and brain into their preparation. Homes inaccessible to the most experienced missionary easily surrender to a Sunday-school child with a message of Christ's redeeming love on his lips and a pictured Sunday-school leaflet in his hand.
For thirteen years a Scripture examination has been held on the les- sons which have been taught from January to June. In 1909 the entries were 19,162, and the number that failed to pass were 5,617. Answers were in twenty languages. Since 1886 the India Sunday-School Union has granted 103,000 certificates to teachers and scholars. In connection with this examination there is a roll of honor. To the one candidate who in the first class stands highest in each language and department, oral excluded, a hall-marked silver medal is given. In the year 1909, seventy-eight medals were earned. The average marks obtained by these candidates was a decimal fraction under ninety per cent. This is a remarkable record for a non-Christian land.
The majority of the Sunday-school membership in Southern Asia is non-Christian. This will come as most astonishing information to those hitherto unacquainted with the facts. Most of the girls marry while still very young, and pass into the shut-in life of the zenana. Many interesting and even thrilling stories could be told of the courage of the boys and girls in standing firmly amidst all the persecutions.
Mr. W. H. Stanes has, since 1901, been the "children's missioner of the India Sunday-School Union." He charms the children and their friends and wins many of them for the Saviour. He spends his private means, — receives no salary, and travels at his own charges. Most of the year 1909 was spent in Western Australia, where God greatly blessed his missions.
The Central Committee welcomed with unfeigned joy, in October, 1909, Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Annett, who had come in the capacity of Sunday-
Roll' Call of Nations — India 309
school missionaries for Southern India and Ceylon. Their headquarters are at Bangalore, and they will devote themselves chiefly to teacher training.
It is strange but true that many head-masters of Hindu day schools not only allow but encourage regular visits from Christian teachers. To these visitors the head masters hand over temporary command. Thus for a while the school — teachers and scholars alike — sit at the feet of the Christian visitors. From the children's point of view the occasion is regarded as one of the most joyous in the week. We have been fre- quently amazed at the minute knowledge of Scripture and song such children imbibe.
Children are the best missionaries. What stories they know, those they tell. What songs they know, those they sing. What leaflets they receive, those they explain to others. The people are reached when the children are reached. And, when the seed is sown, who can tell where- unto it may grow? Note!
See that Indian guru on the roadside! The whole countryside knows him as " Vithoba's Pilgrim," for in search of spiritual peace he has wan- dered from one shrine to another, covering great distances in Western India. Today he is in Kolhapur. Sitting, tailor-like, on a tiger-skin, without clothing, save a loin-cloth and a string of beads, he is reading aloud his Mantras or religious Hindu books. In an hour or so the sun will be at its fiercest. Then the guru's hair, the growth of years, nearly two yards long, bound round his head, will be his protection. To complete his toilet he has besmeared his whole body with the ashes of burnt cow dung. There he sits and receives the pious homage of passersby, for he is the personification of the highest Hindu ideals.
A tiny girl just out of school bounds up to the guru. She hears him read of over three hundred million gods, and at once says, " That is not true; there is but one God." An uneven dialogue ensues, and it is punctuated by the little Marathi lass giving him her booklet, which tells of another guru, even Jesus.
It is a long and thrilling story, the afterrlife of this guru. The Nazarene conquered! Satoba Ranji Ranbhide became not only a Christian con- vert, but a most effective Christian pastor.
In a single decade of work he gathered out of Hinduism a church of three hundred adult converts and three hundred and fifty baptized chil- dren. Referring to his guru life before the small girl arrested him, he said: " It was like attempting to grasp at a fistful of water, — nothing remained in the grasp after all the effort." In Jesus he found a Saviour, who made Satoba, in turn, a Christian guru of his own generation. " A little child shall lead them. '
310 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
"What are the results?" some critic will inquire. Let but one more be given. Soon after my recent visit to Calicut, cholera broke out, de- populating many homes altogether. The pestilence overtook two mem- bers of the schools before mentioned, and in the hour of suflfering and death these girls found no solace in the religion of their fathers. Even in the presence of the Hindus, and even with the inherited tendencies of idolatrous generations, they remembered rather the Scripture learned in school. " Jesus, save my life," " Jesus, save me for I am thine," were the words they spoke as they passed out of darkness into the Light. I expect to see those dear girls again, not in Calicut, but in the " city which hath foundation."
Do these young people stand firmly in the day of persecution? A fair question. For answer let an unvarnished story of a girl be told.
After climbing a narrow staircase, early on a sabbath morning, we came into a school. The room was spacious, but the school was small. Super- intendent and teachers were on duty. I gave an address. It seemed worth while, for all listened eagerly. I could not fail to see that all the windows were broken, and the premises wore an " after-the-battle " kind of look. And so it proved; there had been a battle. A girl of that mission school had left her ancestral idols to serve Christ. Partly owing to that and partly to the present unrest, a furious mob had taken revenge. The case had to be tried by the court, but the law was merciful and protective to the tender convert.
That case cost much. It cost the mission damaged premises and re- duced the school to a wee thing. It cost the public purse much, for three hundred police were required to guard the girl on her way to the trials. It cost the Hindus humiliation, for the judge exposed their fabric of lies which they advanced as evidence. Those girls to whom I spoke had clung to the mission ship by continuing to attend day and Sunday- school. They had actually sat for our Scripture examination in that building which the mob in its fury had battered. The young convert is still of the same mind and is now under careful training. Pray for her.
Do the boys face the fire with the same courage as the girls? For answer let Rai Charan's story be told.
This Hindu lad had lived in Dhamsar, Bengal, and for years attended the Sunday-school. He even entered the Scripture examination, con- ducted annually by our India Sunday-School Union, and carried off, several years, a certificate for proficiency. The Word of God found its way into the heart of Rai Charan, so much so that he made a confession of Christ and was baptized in Barisal. How angered were his brothers! They would have laid violent hands upon Rai Charan if they could.
Roll' Call of Nations — India 311
Then the old mother came to plead. She was a village woman and had never left home before.
Many hours did she spend in begging her son to forsake Christ and return to their village home. Curses and pleadings were the weapons she used alternately, but she failed. The Rev. William Carey, to whom I am indebted for this story, shall describe the rest of the sad incident:
" He would be glad to go back, he said, if she would let him be a Chris- tian, but not else. He spoke to her with the utmost gentleness and affec- tion, unwinding her arms from his body, and leading her the while into one of the Christian houses, where he begged her to stay with him, that she, too, might learn to know the Christ. My wife and I both talked to her, but she answered with scornful anger, the hurt to her mother-love too sore and deep for any other feeling but that.
" At last, flinging her boy from her, she crouched on the ground and wailed for him aloud as for one dead. Long after I had gone back to my study, I could hear that bitter cry, and it was kept up all along the road by the riverside as her other sons led her away."
The most thoughtful students of human life are the most ready to recognize that children are the twentieth century's most valuable assets. Each of our sixteen thousand Sunday-school teachers is a citizen of a positively valuable character, in that he goes forth regularly and per- sistently, from his Bible study and prayer, to teach young India those principles which make for righteousness.
The soil of India sustains one fifth of the world's people and three fourths of King George's empire, but only one-fiftieth part of the world's Sunday-school membership.
The India Sunday-School Union has a small share in promoting the evangelization, in this generation, of India's one hundred million children under fifteen years of age, and its Central Committee earnestly solicits the prayerful and practical sympathy of every Christian citizen.
" O Father, touch the East with light, The Light that shined when hope was born."
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WINNING THE CHILDREN OF INDIA
Prof. J. R. Chitambar, Lucknow, India
The India Sunday-School Union is an Indian, national, interdenomi- national, missionary agency to the one hundred million children of India. It is a Bible-teaching and character-building agency having for its motto, " Young India for Christ."
We are convinced of the fact that our children are the most valuable assets of our country in that they will be men and women in the near future and that for this reason we must bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The Lord has blessed our Sunday-school work during the past three decades, and we praise him for what has been accomplished.
The Union was organized more than thirty-three years ago, very largely through the efforts of the Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., now of Ocean Grove, N. J., who is in our midst here today. It has twenty- two auxiliaries con- nected with it, and has an estimated membership of 650,000, or one Sunday- school member to every 453 of the entire population. In 1901 the proportion was one to every 1,864 of the whole population.
The Union works in over fifty languages. It had no inconsiderable share in founding and financing the China Sunday-School Union in 1907. This may seem very insignificant to some of you, and we ourselves are aware of the fact that there is much land yet to be possessed. But an emphatic recognition of the fact that there is so much to be done does not dim the luster of what has already been accomplished, nor does it chill the ardor of those who are in India fighting against the common enemies of mankind in sin and the world.
India is at the present day experiencing a remarkable awakening, and we believe that she is passing through a very great crisis, and that her future attitude, especially in the realm of religion, will be according as you and I who are Christ's disciples discharge our duties as Christians. In this transition period we have unparalleled opportunities of impressing upon the minds of our young people the sublime truths of the Christian religion. Our union stands for salvation through Jesus Christ, loyalty to the church to which the Sunday-school belongs, and for a mutually helpful fraternity among church and Sunday-school workers between the Himalayas and the Equator.
We have hard problems to face and very heavy financial burdens to bear, but the Lord knoweth what things we have need of and he will surely provide. With your support and sympathetic prayers, we are pushing the noble cause, and are " not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:
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for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one (India included] that believeth."
We long to win the children of India for Christ, — one hundred million children for Christ! That is one third of the population of the country! What an opportunity! The speediest way to evangelize India in this generation is through the children, and the conquest of these children will mean ultimate triumph for the Crucified One. Friends, in behalf of India, I appeal to you to hold up our hands, and the Lord will hasten the day when India, yes, heathen, idol-worshiping India, but my beloved mother land, — when India, with her three hundred million people., will spread her trophies at His feet and crown Him Lord of all.
THE REWARDS OF SERVICE
Mrs. William Butler, Newton, Mass.
(For many years a missionary, with her husband, Rev. Dr. William Butler, in India.)
I COME before you tonight not with any message to urge you on to more devotion, but to tell you that I have discovered a new thing, a new motto, for the Sunday-School Association, if they will accept it.
The elders of the tribes of Israel were gathered into one great camp, and God gave to Moses that wonderful message of command which has ruled the world ever since. This message is a command. It is for the sabbath-schools. God says to Moses, and through him to the children of Israel: " Thou shalt teach all these my statutes and my commands; thou shalt teach them to thy children, to thy wife, to thy husband; thou shalt teach them when thou risest up in the morning and when thou liest down at night, when thou walkest out and when thou stayCvSt in the house. Thou shalt teach them."
If that teaching had gone on, where would we be tonight? We would be better Christians, more devoted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. May I recommend you all to that verse in the fifth chapter of Deuter- onomy, where He gives His imperative command. Now the church, I am glad to say, is beginning to realize that that command must be obeyed or God will not be pleased. On that command hangs all the fidelity, all the truth and earnestness, all the sublimity, of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take it as your watchword, and let every woman here and every man here, every sister and every brother, be determined that he will teach this at all times.
A little more than a year ago we had the privilege, in Boston, of the
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great revival meetings. At one of these I was honored by being per- mitted to sit on the platform. I did not know what was to follow that, but about four weeks after that a letter came to me from the West, and in this letter the writer said: " I have never seen you, but I know who you are and I have just heard through the papers that you were at the meeting and that you are well. I want to tell you that in the year 1850, fifty-nine years ago, my husband heard your missionary husband. He was then a young man in Sunday-school, and heard him in Boston, and he urged him to give his heart to Christ. He was only a little chap of seven years, but your husband led him to the Saviour and he accepted Him, and He saved him, and He has kept him all these fifty-nine years since your husband talked in Boston that day." Teachers, there is a motto for you. Work! Work! Work! You do not know where the seed may fall; you do not know who may catch it, but be sure that God is carrying it to some hearts.
Another letter tells me another delightful piece of news from a boy whom I helped to nurse through a very violent case of smallpox, that awful disease that every one dreads. I never have heard of him since then till this letter came, and he writes from St. Louis to tell me that for nearly sixty years he has remembered what I said to him at that time, has given his heart to Christ, is a loving, working, zealous member of the Baptist church in Kansas City.
Is it possible that words dropped from you or from me may bring forth fruit after sixty years? Can God take care of the seed all that time?
Yes, he can, he does, and he will. Over in Montana and in St. Louis are two men that were converted sixty and seventy years ago. That is the way the work is to go on. They are there working for Jesus, as mis- sionaries, — devoted Christians who will give their lives and service to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why do we speak of these things? Because we cannot recompense these missionaries for the trials and sufferings they have endured. We cannot recompense them; we cannot repay them for the toil and self- sacrifice they have endured and had to sustain. But there is a recompense, and it is because I have seen the recompense that I speak here to you tonight.
I have been in London and have seen the great- gathering of the court royal and the great men connected with the crown. I went there one day, a very cloudy, murky, stormy day, and the brilliant display of jew- elry was quite under a cloud. I said to an attendant, " Will you not have the electric lights turned on, that we may see these things better?" He very politely said he would, and turned on the lights, and in an in- stant there was a blaze of refulgence in that great treasure house, the
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grandest in the world, — a blaze of glory and of light. It was inspiring; it was indescribable; nothing could describe it adequately.
Immediately those words of Jesus came to my mind, " In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace and joy "; and further on he says, " Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. I have purchased a crown for you, and I will give it to you."
Then comes that wondrous outburst, that glorious motto, " Seek that reward that Jesus Christ is going to give to every one that believes on him." He that overcometh, she that overcometh, all the trouble, all the sins, all the trials shall — what? " Sit down with me on my throne as I have sat down with my Father on his throne." Oh, that you may be there, each one of you, — there with your glorious keepsake, as it were, Jesus Christ, your glorious memento! There I hope we will all meet.
WITH THE CHILDREN OF INDIA
Miss Clementina Butler, Newton, Mass.
None of God's commands are impossible to fulfill! Sometimes the conditions seem impossible to us, but when the hour strikes, and God wants us, his power is behind his commands!
How can we reach the children in the foreign lands? Possibly, it has been difficult in times past. Mrs. Bryner has referred to my mother's experience, and if I may take a moment I shall refer to it.
Nearly fifty-four years ago she began to gather children for a Sunday- school, hired a hall and engaged helpers, — translators, — but nobody came; then she sent out and invited them to come; still no one came. She offered to pay them to come, and finally she went down to the lowest part of the city, — the slums, — within a certain enclosure where there was no idea of cleanliness, of order, or of anything else.
She went to the humblest hut and there saw a woman, oh, so very degraded, and said: " Will you let your little children come to my school? I will pay them for coming." " What do you want them for? " she de- manded; " haven't you any children of your own? " " Yes," she re- sponded. "Well, then, what do you want mine for?" She answered: " I want to teach them to read and write, and sew, to be clean, and how to keep their homes"; and the woman looked up with a terrible scowl upon her face, and said: " You shall never have them! " and it looked as though it would not be possible to have a Sunday-school of even a half a dozen little children.
Fifty years after that time my mother went back to India and stood
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on the streets of that very city and saw three thousand Christian young people, children of the Sunday-school, pass in a procession such as made our hearts glad today. When people tell you that missions are not ad- vancing, there is just one figure, and that was a small delegation, who had been won through that mission.
But it is extremely difficult to teach the thoughts to the children. For instance, it is quite difficult to teach some of the ignorant people in the heathen lands what is meant by the love of God. A friend of mine went to a certain well, in an Indian village, to which the women came just at about twilight to draw water for the use of their families. No men are about at this time, as at this period of the day it is the privilege of the women to go out. Of course, it is made a place for a little village gossip. This friend could speak the language perfectly. She sat on the curb of the well, just as our Master did, and talked to these women as they laid down their jars, and tried to explain to them what was meant by saying that " God so loved the world," and, though her knowledge of the lan- guage was complete, there was no word she could use by which she could make them understand.
Finally, after much effort in trying to explain this word, she said to one, " What is it that you feel toward that little child which you hold in your arms? " The woman hesitated, thought a moment, and said, " I feel a going out toward him, — my heart! " and the missionary said: " That's what I have been trying to tell you about the great God up there, — his love for you." But it was hard for her comprehension. But you can show the little children in the Sunday-school, by your love and your life, what you mean! The language is there, and the child under- stands it !
Let me tell you about a little child, an orphan, who came into one of our Sunday-schools. She heard, one day, that there was to be a testimony meeting, a fellowship meeting, where people are afforded an opportunity to speak. She had been one or two years under Christian care, and ex- pressed a desire to attend. There was no good reason why she should not, and, of course, she was permitted to do so.
She took a front seat and was very nervous. By and by she began to cry, and the leader of the meeting asked her what was the matter, and she responded, " Why, I want to testify! " The minister said, " If you wish to say anything, you may"; and she repeated, "I want to testify," and the tears came thick and fast. Finally, she stood up, folded her arms, and said, " Jesus wept," and a smile of satisfaction came over her face. Nothing was said to her then, but the next day her teacher asked, " What did you mean by the testimony you gave last night? " and she answered, " The day before I did something very wrong, and
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didn't you tell me when I sinned it made Jesus Christ sorry? I thought you would know that it was because I had done something wrong! "
O friends, if we can teach the children that God loves them and that his heart is grieved when they sin, we have put something into their hearts which the whole of heathendom has never done for any man, woman, or child!
May I tell you of a boy of a class of people of the lowest of the low, — away down so low that no respectable man wants to go near them. A Sunday-school was held in this community once a week, the missionary sitting upon the ground, — anywhere where there may be a little quiet, — and tried to teach these children, in all stages of dress and undress, and of ignorance and superstition — to instill into their hearts the truth, the love of God.
Into this school came a bright little boy who evidently listened to what was said, for only a few months later a plague swept over that sec- tion like a devouring flame. This boy was touched by it, and died. There was not time to send for the missionary, but after he died the father went to this missionary and said, " Will you come and conduct the funeral for my little boy in the Hindu burial ground? "
It was learned that this boy, who had been in this Sunday-school only a few brief weeks, when dying, turned to his father, and assured him that he was not afraid to die because he knew about Jesus Christ! The effect of the testimony of that child affected the whole caste, and they followed, in procession, this missionary to the heathen burying-ground ! Friends, it can be done!
A few moments ago we sang the Coronation hymn, which was a vow. Shall we consider these people of India? Some one said to me the other day, — one who calls herself a Christian, — "I think that, after all, their religion is good enough for them! " A so-called member of the Chris- tian Church! Would it be good enough if we considered these people in the heathen land as we consider ourselves?
This wonderful message has come to us, — would it be good enough for us? Ah, friends, let this thought come into our hearts, that they have just the same right to it as we have; and, if the message brings comfort and joy to us, and inspiration to our life, why should they not have it?
A gentleman once asked an officer in the British army how long it would take a proclamation from the Queen of England to reach every man, woman, and child; how long it would take a message from that good queen to go to every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth; and, after thinking it over, knowing full well the weary weeks on the sea, and the long marches in Africa, he said: " It might take eighteen months."
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If a proclamation from an earthly queen might reach every man, woman, and child in eighteen months, where is the church, — the Christian Church? Friends, let us be up and doing, and consider these people as ourselves!
BOYS AND GIRLS IN INDIA
Miss Bertha G. Johnson, India
On Sunday morning come out with me into our Sunday-school yard three hundred miles south of Bombay, as our girls are coming to our Sunday-school. Two hundred of our girls march through the streets over a mile away into our Sunday-school in the town. Three hundred and fifty, sometimes four hundred, gather in that Sunday-school in the town of Kolhapur, and there is no place for the little ones inside, we are so crowded.
It has been my pleasure to have the little ones under my care on the compound, — and I have had the little ones from a year and a half old up to seven years of age, seventy-five and sometimes ninety little ones gathered together. Watch them as they come through the streets; watch them, big and little, even the tiny little folks that are only a year and a half old. Here they come. Watch them as they sit down on the floor; we have no carpets on our floors there, we have nice mud floors, and our little children all sit down on the nice mud floor, the tiny folks in the front row and those a little larger in the next row, and then the next, until in the last row are the seven-year-olds.
Listen to them as they sing their songs! Every little child sings with all his might. Listen to them as they repeat the Twenty-Third Psalm. If I did not put up my hand, these little tots would go on to the Twenty- Fourth and Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth psalms. And after they have had their songs, and we have our lesson, how quiet they are. Possibly one of these tiny tots in the front row gets tired and wants to go to sleep. Then we put it right down on the floor and let it go to sleep, and it does not bother us any more. And if there are some feeling a little bit lone- some, and they get fretful, we just pick them up, and one little fellow may fall asleep on one arm; but we don't mind that, you don't have to teach with both arms. Then another one wants to be taken up, and so we take him up and have one in each arm. You don't have to use any arms at all to teach — and then we have our lesson.
I would like to have you listen to those little folks and see them as they file around to get their sweets, for on Sunday morning we give them a little treat, and that treat is three little peppermints each. The little
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folks file around the first row and get their little mints, and then they hold them in their little hands and pass back to their places; and then every little tot sits down at the tap of the bell, holding his little sweets in his hands, and we have our prayer and then we have our Lord's Prayer, and then we have the quiet time.
One day I asked a little girl what she said, and she replied, " I said, ' Dear heavenly Father, make me a good girl.' " Then the bell taps, and after the prayer the first little row files out, and then the next, and so on until they have all filed out; and then the " peppers " disappear.
Now, I want to give you just one glimpse of the forty little boys in my school. I want you to know one little boy who was my baby, a little fellow between four and five years old. One day he marched up to a bad boy, put up his little finger, and said, " All of you must be good, for if you are not good, you will make God feel bad and Mrs. Sada will whip you." And he knew all about it, too.
One glimpse of our Hindoo school, a girls' school. One day I saw a little boy and girl through the door of the school, and I asked the girl to come in, but did not take the boy in because it was a girls' school. For two weeks the little boy came with his sister and stayed outside. Finally I said to him, " Come in and sit down beside your sister and be a good boy," and after that he came in. One morning, after they had been com- ing to the school for about six weeks, they failed to appear, and when I sent for them I learned that he had the plague. Then I found out the reason he never left his sister. They were orphans and his mother had told him he must never leave his sister. When the little girl came back she told me that just as he was dying he said, " Go to the Mrs. Sada and tell her that I love Jesus," and he died, saying " Jesus, precious Jesus."
I want to give you the prayer of the little boy that I spoke of who said the boys must all be good. Before I left he said he wanted to pray for me, and this is what he said: " Dear heavenly Father, bless the Mrs. Sada, make her well and bring her back to us soon. Bless all the little boys over in America and tell them about Jesus. Bless all the little chil- dren all over the world and tell them about Jesus. Bless all the little girls and teach them to love Jesus. Bless all the missionaries at home in Amer- ica and send them back quickly to India. Amen."
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THE WORD OF GOD IN KOREA Rev. Geo. Heber Jones, D.D., Seoul, Korea
My subject suggests two lines of thought — the written Word of God in Korea, and the incarnate Word of God in Korea.
In Korea we are dealing with the first generation of Christians. My memory goes back to the time when there was no Word of God in Korea; when the Korean language did not possess its matchless eloquence, when Korean life was barren of its splendid power, and when the Korean out- look was dim through a lack of that hope and that enlightenment which the Word ot God brings when it is the possession of any people.
The first thing we had to do was to translate the Word of God into the Korean language, and as I stand before you tonight I have the su- preme privilege of saying that the entire Word of God has at last been translated into the Korean tongue and is now the possession of the Korean people. In order to do this work it was necessary practically to create the language in which it could be expressed, and in that one simple act the reconstruction of the Korean language was undertaken.
Out of the work by the missionaries, beginning with the translation of the Bible and then passing on to the translation of the text-books necessary to explain it, and the translation of text-books which underlie a modern education, there has been brought into the Korean language at least twenty-five thousand new words, and the missionaries have thus been used of God to lay the pathways through which the feet of the com- ing generations must tread in order to reach the goal of enlightenment. Has that not been a wonderful achievement in itself?
Then, after translating the Word of God, it was necessary to get it out into the hands of the people. How would the people receive it? Friends, listen to this! The largest selling book in the Korean tongue tonight is the Christian Bible. It has been sent out among the Korean people literally by the hundred thousand copies.
To give you just one item of information, we started in at the end of last year on a campaign to carry the gospel message to one million Koreans. The Korean church organized itself for that purpose. As a simple appar- atus which the native workers might take and use to register the results of their endeavor, one million copies of the Gospel of Luke were published by the Bible societies, placed in the hands of the workers at the cost of one sen, or half a cent, apiece. I have returns already showing that up to the middle of April the native Christians engaged in this evangelistic campaign had taken from the Bible societies seven hundred thousand copies of that gospel to put into the hands of their people.
Now, the spoken word may be thoughtlessly heard and forgotten, but
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when the printed word is carried into a home it remains there a constant witness to the message which it brings, and a witness that cannot be silenced. I believe the time is not far distant when in all the homes of Korea the Word of God will be found.
It is said that the Rev. John Ross, a missionary in Manchuria, who made the first translation of the New Testament, sent copies up into the north of Korea. In one village the copies were burned by the villagers and the ashes were scattered on the waters of the Yalu. The news of this fact was brought to Mr. Ross, and he, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God as I believe, said, " Then the waters of the Yalu have be- come the channel through which the message shall go, and they that drink the water of that river which has once carried the ashes of the New Testament will one of these days feel the force of the message that is in the New Testament," and throughout that Yalu valley today there are multiplied thousands of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
After getting the Word of God into the hands of the Koreans, there must be the time and the organization for the study of it. Now, we had to go about that in a way in Korea that would strike you as very strange. For instance, in those early years in my own ministry in Korea, I had to indicate to the Koreans what day was the sabbath. The sabbath was unknown to them; it was unmarked in their calendar. They had no conscience concerning the sabbath day, and it was necessary to instill into the Korean life, along with the Word of God, the sabbath day.
In those early days we had to issue, and we did it by the tens of thousands of copies, a sheet calendar showing the days in the native calendar that were the sabbath day, and the Christians alone were in possession of the knowledge of what day was the sabbath. Through the power of that Word's getting into the hearts of the people, the sabbath day has become one of the great institutions of the Korean people, and in the Korean church we have a loyalty and a purity in the observance of the sabbath day that is a source of inspiration to the church the world around.
I cannot go into that in detail, but let me show you how it grips the Korean people. Some time ago some Korean Christians emigrated to Mexico and secured employment upon a plantation in Yucatan. They worked through the week, and on the sabbath day they remained in their homes as was their custom. The bosses routed them out and said, " Why don't you go to the fields? " The Koreans said, " We are Chris- tians; on this day we cease our labor and worship Almighty God; we are not going to work today." " Oh," said the bosses, " there is not any sabbath here; you cannot idle away the time; you will go to the fields and work or we will put you in jail." " Well," said the Korean Christians, " then we will go to jail"; and they marched them off to jail and they
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spent the sabbath day in praising God, in prayer and preaching, and in worship of the great Father of all.
On Monday they were released and worked through the week. The next sabbath, instead of going to the fields, they formed in a body and marched to the jail; they called up the jailer and said, " We understand that you put Christians in jail on Sunday down here; here we are, please imprison us." And those Korean Christians wore out the oppression of those bosses, and vindicated for themselves, in a strange and distant land of exile, the right to observe the sabbath day and to study his precious Word on it.
Now, it was necessary to stir up the institutions by which this Word of God could be studied. We had two lines of organization for that pur- pose. We had the sabbath-school. It is in embryonic form at present because of the conditions there which are inseparable from the first gen- eration of Christians. I remember when Dr. Hamill and Mr. Frank L. Brown came to Korea to visit us, they came to our sabbath-schools, and they looked over them, and saw there in serried ranks men and women and but very few of the children; and I remember one of them called up a Korean Christian and said, " Are your children here? " and the Korean Christian said, " No." " Where are they? " " Well," he said, " you see in our country we cannot leave our houses unguarded, so the children are at home watching the house while father and mother are here in the Sunday-school studying the Word of God."
We do not stand for that thing, but we have been up against a great problem as to how to arrange it so that, on the one hand, the parents can have the proper instruction and the children, on the other hand, as well. That condition which these great leaders saw is rapidly passing away. Now we have our special schools for children, — Sunday-schools, — but it was hard at first to get the Koreans to understand that, if it came to a choice between the adults going to Sunday-school and the children going, it was better for the adults to stay at home and the children to go to the school.
The second institution is in the form of our Bible institutes. The foreign missionary in Korea today is charged with the duty of visiting the centers where he will meet the workers, the official members of the church, the Sunday-school teachers, and the believers, and spend from a week to ten days or two weeks, putting in ten hours a day, just training them in God's Word. Those men and those women will come, the men carrying the rice on their backs that they will eat during the period they are there, and the wives trudging along, some of them with little babies on their backs. I have known women to walk one hundred miles in order to get to an institute of that kind and spend a week there, and then walk
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back all the way, carrying a child on her back. And how they enjoy those seasons together!
In 1909, we know that in these Bible institutes over fifty thousand Koreans took the courses of study. Now, we had up to that time only about two hundred and fifty thousand believers in the Lord in Korea. In other words, in the special Bible training classes, one in every five of the entire membership of the Korean church has taken the course of study laid down. Now, you can see the value of that in the training of these workers.
In our meetings, when we present the invitation to men to come to Jesus, and seekers stand up, — a dozen, fifteen or twenty of them, — they come forward to the altar, and we have our season of prayer; and you go into any Korean church there, and you can call on any official member of the church or any Sunday-school teacher, or any full member in the church, and that man knows how to kneel beside that seeker and show him the way into the kingdom of God.
When we have men up for admission into the Christian Church, they come before the official board; they are examined concerning their belief and their practice, and then, when they have satisfied the recognized authorities of the church that they are about ready, this question is always put to them, " Brother, we are satisfied; we have but one question to ask: Have you led some soul to Jesus Christ? Is there some one in the church who is there because you led him there? " And if the man says, " Yes, there is," then he is voted in; but if he says, " No, I know of no one that I have led to Christ," then one of the older members of the church will say to him, " Brother, look upon our nation; they are still in dark- ness, and will never know Christ unless you and I bring them the message; don't you think before you enter this high and holy privilege in the Church of God you ought to help some soul to a like precious faith with yourself? " and the man says, " Yes." Then they say to him, " Are you willing to postpone your entrance into full membership in the church until you have done so? " and the man, or the woman — for the women go through the same test — says, " Yes, I am "; and they go out to get their ticket of admission to the Christian Church, which is another soul won to the like precious faith with themselves. It is because of this training, based upon the Word of God, that this splendid activity has been introduced into the thought and into the view of the Christians of Korea as the one worthy expression of their membership in the Church of God.
That is what the Word of God has wrought. The printed Word of God has brought to the Koreans the incarnate Word of our Lord, and that has meant everything to them. There is victory in the air in Korea, and we believe we shall see that entire nation brought to the Lord Jesus Christ
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within the lifetime of this generation. But why do we believe that? Because in our midst there stands that Sublime Presence, Jesus Christ, making himself known to each individual Christian so that he can say, " I have met Him, I know Him." Let me prove that to you.
In the north of Korea lived a Christian man who had two sons; one was a bad son and the other was a good son. He said, " I will show my love for my good son by making over to him the water-mill," which was his business; and so he was about to do, when that daj^ in reading this Holy Word, he came to this message of the Master, " He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me." He paused and thought a moment. He said, " Do I love Jesus Christ? Do I love him as much as I do my good son? Do I love him enough to give him the water-mill? " And he thought a moment, and then he looked into the face of that Christ who condescended to come that day down through the spaces of blue to Korea and stand in that mud hut, — that man looked up into the face of the Lord that stood beside him and said, " Lord, I do; thou shalt have the water-mill." He said to his pastor, " Make out the deeds; I will hand over the water-mill to the church."
The Christians gathered to decide what they would do with it, and their decision was that with the income from it a Bible woman should be employed to carry this written Word of God into the darkened homes all through that region. But it was because that incarnate Word had been brought into the life of the Koreans through this written Word and the power of the Spirit of God that that was brought to pass. And these preachers that we have there, how their lives are full of power because of their loyalty to that incarnate Word who never deserts them.
I have a brother in Korea, as dear to me as though he were of the same blood and race. We grew up together. It was he who taught me to speak the Korean language, and as soon as my thick and stammering tongue could frame its words and express its thoughts I began upon him until he surrendered to Jesus Christ and became his follower. He entered the ministry. He has become the pastor of our great church in the city of Seoul. Last fall a false and malicious charge was laid against him, and he was seized by the police authorities, who were unfriendly to the Christian faith, and to humiliate him he was handcuffed and dragged in disgrace through the streets of the capital and thrown into a small, filthy cell, where he was confined with eighteen criminals of the very worst sort. He was kept there against all pleas for justice for five long months, and then brought to trial.
The maliciousness and ridiculousness of the charge was shown, and he was released with his character vindicated and not a stain upon it, and he went forth free, but where he found eighteen criminals of the lowest
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sort he left behind him as a result of his life and his tettimony eighteen believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. All the time he was there that in- carnate Word of God, who had our humanity and is now able to make himself manifest to men, stood beside that Korean Christian.
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, stands in the midst of Korea. Some years ago we obtained a foothold in the Yellow Sea province. It was in the days when the laws proclaimed death to any Korean that became a follower of Jesus Christ. When the governor of the province heard it he said, " I will stop that; I will stamp those Christians out; I will hoe them out as though they were weeds in my garden." And one day there came in through the city gates soldiers and policemen and yamen runners with orders from the governor to seize the Christians.
They got three of our men. Three miles outside the city wall, after beating them, they released two, but one man they carried in bonds to the provincial capital, forty miles away. The day after he arrived the governor sat in judgment upon him. The Christian was brought in, his arms cruelly bound behind him. The governor began by saying, " I know you are a Christian; Christianity is contrary to our laws; will you give it up? If you do not give it up I have power to kill you and I will kill you." The Christian thought a moment and then this was his answer, " Your Excellency, I know you have power to kill me; but, sir, I have power to die. Give up Jesus Christ! I can't do that; all my hopes for this life and for everlasting life are based on him; you have been mis- informed about us; we are good people; that is all I can say; if I must die, then I will die."
And the sentence was given. He was ordered to be beaten to death. He was led out into the prison yard, and they began to beat him; they struck him the number of blows that always spelled out death, but when they got through, to their surprise he was not dead. We don't know how it came about. It may be that those that kept the count lost it, or it may be that there was an unseen but pierced hand that interposed and broke the force of those blows. When they reported it to the governor, he said, " All right, put that fellow in the stocks, and tomorrow at dawn take him to the common execution ground and cut his head off." But the next morning they did not do that, for that night telegrams reached the governor from the court in Seoul that he dared not ignore, and he was only too glad at dawn to send his own secretary to take the prisoner out of the stocks and to put him in his own chair; and, bruised and broken as he was, he sent him back over the road that he had been dragged.
I hurried down to see the Christian. He was one of my own sons in the gospel. I will never forget the day when I went into his house and saw
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him lying there, helpless and crippled. And I say to you, men, had it been the face of St. Polycarp himself, I could not have looked with greater reverence than I did upon the face of that Korean. He told me that immediately after they had put him in the stocks the prisoners tried to torment him by painting the death awaiting him on the morrow, but he said, " I feared not, and as they gave me opportunity I told them the story of Jesus Christ."
Oh, can't you get the vision of that, — that Korean in the stocks awaiting death, yet using his last moment and his last strength in telling about our Lord? He said, " By and by it was dark and the prisoners fell asleep; I could not sleep, but some time before dawn it seemed as though the sky above the prison burst open and a great flood of light came down into the cell where I sat; I looked up, and I saw a form as it walked along a golden street, and it walked down into my cell and stood beside me; I looked into His face and I recognized it; I knew Him by the thorn scars in his brow; O pastor, that night in that death cell I met Jesus Christ."
Now, men, did he? What are you going to say to him? But you and I will say that, overcome by fatigue, he had fallen asleep and had a dream; but I can never shake myself free from the thought that if there is a soul on this earth for whom the divine Son of God would once more swing over the battlements of heaven and come through the starry s paces and over the sin-cursed earth of ours again, it would be to visit some suffering, tortured son of his in the stocks in the death cell of a prison in a heathen land, awaiting death at dawn for the sake of the testimony of our Lord.
Yes, the Word of God in Korea. It is there, and He is there. And it seems to me that I can see Him tonight as He towers up in the high alti- tudes of His immortal splendor, and His voice comes over the seas and over the mountains to this great crowded camp of white Christianity, and it says to us, " Here am I; come up here and help me lift these people up out of those depths of abysmal shame to that place which I bought for them by Gethsemane's bloody sweat and Calvary's agony and the cry that rent the skies in twain, — to that place I bought for them by all the passion of the Son of God." Oh, what will it mean if the Sunday- schools of this world will say to Him, " Lead on, Lord; we wiJl follow Thee"?
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THE FIELD AND THE NEEDS OF KOREA
Rev. Geo. Heber Jones, Seoul, Korea
Korea is glad to make her response to the roll-call of the nations and to answer Present.
Though venerable with age, yet still she is young in the family of nations. Three thousand years of history of the old civilization are back of her; but only twenty-five years of the new. She possesses a land fertile and productive. Her people, numbering nearly fifteen million, are awake. She has opened her heart to the coming of the gospel in a response that is an inspiration to the great Christian force at work in her midst and a promise of the realization of that motto which has become a mark of the present Christian era, and the slogan of every great forward movement of the Christian Church, — " the evangelization of the world in this generation."
There are four things which the success of Christianity in Korea most clearly demonstrates, namely, the fact that a needy and waiting world is longing to receive our Christ; that the method of the preaching of the gospel through precept and life is irresistible; that the principles and teachings of Christianity as set forth in God's Word are spirit, truth; and that He, himself, is the all-conquering Lord of all men.
Korea as a field. The country is small, having a geographical area about the size of Great Britain, on which there lives a population of twelve million to fifteen million. Twenty-five years ago Korea was practically an unknown land. Its seas were uncharted, its coasts unsurveyed, and the hearts of the people were closed and doubled-barred and locked against all foreign influence.
When the missionaries first obtained entrance to this nation, they found the people living in the midst of physical conditions which beggar de- scription. Disease was rampant; smallpox epidemic all the time; the land was often swept by Asiatic cholera, and the mortality among chil- dren was shocking. The social conditions which prevailed were such as are found among all ungospelized people. The great mass of the common people were ground down under the heavy heel of an hereditary aris- tocracy. The common man had no rights which the noble was bound to respect. Child marriage was the general practice; concubinage a recognized social institution. Woman was either a drudge or a toy.
There were no schools for girls, and those which existed for boys were on ancient models, giving no instruction in such fundamentals as arith- metic, geography, modern history, and science. Business as understood among modern men was practically unknown. The lowest^rate for loans
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was sixty per cent a year, while poor securities were accepted at one hundred and twenty per cent a year.
The religious condition of the people was pitiable. Their idea of God conceived of him as a multiplicity of inferior deities and spirits, the fruit- ful source of many of the misfortunes and tragedies which mar life. These gods were represented by degrading fetishes, and fear, instead of love, was the dominating principle of worship. The Koreans had once known Buddhism, but its power was broken. Confucianism was the state religion, and existed alongside this lower faith of spirit worship.
The Koreans regarded with suspicion the early work of the mission- aries in their midst. Laws originally directed against Roman Christianity proclaimed death to any Korean who became a convert to the Christian faith. The Bible was untranslated. There were no church buildings, no Christian literature, and no Christian thought in the land. Out of conditions like these the marvelous changes which confront us today have been wrought, and as we survey them we must veil our faces in humble gratitude to almighty God as we recognize what he has wrought rather than the achievements of human skill and ability.
Christianity has affected a complete conquest of national sentiment among the Korean people. Those who once feared and even hated the Christian faith now throng its churches, and there are very few church structures in Korea today that are large enough to accommodate their congregations. Churches multiply so rapidly that it Is impossible for the missionaries to keep in touch with them all. There are now about two hundred and fifty thousand believers In our Lord, making an average of one convert an hour for every hour of the day and night since the first missionary set foot on Korean soil twenty-five years ago. Churches have been organized at the average rate of two a week, while the past year's record has shown that more than one church a day was organized for every day of the year.
This, however, but partially tells the story. Last September the mis- sionaries, after prayerfully considering the harvest now waiting to be gathered for Jesus Christ there, have called upon the churches in America to join them In prayer for one million souls from Korea in 19 lo. If the mission stations now existing In Korea were placed upon the plane of Immediate efficiency, this harvest of one million souls could be gathered, and, with a Christian church of a million members there, the eventual and speedy evangelization of Korea would be an assured fact.
This waiting and favorable attitude of the masses of the Korean peo- ple toward the Christian faith is shared by the higher classes. The im- perial house has given many manifestations of approval of Christianity. When the cornerstone of the Young Men's Christian Association build-
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ing, in Seoul, was laid, a building given to the young men of Korea by that splendid American Christian business man, Mr. John Wanamaker, the principal part of the function was taken by his Imperial Highness, the Crown Prince of Korea, who was present as the representative of the reigning family, and was attended by the prime minister, with all the ministers of state, and his Excellency Prince Ito and the higher officials of the Japanese Residency General.
Prince Ito, in all his administration of Korea, recognized that alongside of the political problem of reform in the peninsular empire there was the deeper problem of the moral uplift of the people. He looked to the missionaries of the Christian faith to solve that moral problem. Thus all classes in Korea have united in recognizing the paramount position of the Christian faith as a great reconstructive force in the new life of the nation.
No less remarkable has been the triumph of Christian ideals in the reconstruction of the social and economic life of Korea. Womanhood has been raised to higher planes in the estimation of the Korean men. Girls' schools, first started by the Christians, are slowly springing up in various parts of the country. The legal age of marriage has been raised to sixteen years for girls and eighteen years for boys. Concubinage is disappearing wherever Christian influence is given right of way.
The common man has discovered himself, and the pure Christian de- mocracy which found its first expression in Korean life in the Christian churches of the land is coming to be recognized as but the vindication of the natural rights of all Korean men. Labor has been redeemed from the contempt in which it was held. The business life is being recon- structed, and business confidence and business competence, leading to more workable ideas of business credit, are already making their appear- ance.
The leadership of education is practically in the hands of the Christian Church. Of the two thousand schools registered in the department of education in 1909, and constituting Korea's modern system of education, more than fourteen hundred are maintained by the Christians. Thus, out of every three boys being educated in Korea today along modern lines, two are being educated under Christian influences. The great majority of these boys and girls leave our schools honest and active Christian workers.
As a result of the premier position of Christianity in the new education of Korea, the government has listed the Christian Bible as an approved text-book for all schools wishing to adopt it. Thus a non- Christian govern- ment is showing the way that might well be followed in all Christian nations.
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The Christian conquest of the thought-life of Korea is one of the notable events in Korean history. The idea of old gods has lost its power over the Korean people, and the concept of the true God is now coming to be known far out beyond the Christian pale. The Bible has been trans- lated and is the largest selling book in Korea. Christian literature has multiplied and is read in the villages and hamlets throughout the Korean peninsula, in the manner in which the ordinary newspaper is read in America.
There is a deep and holy enthusiasm felt by great multitudes of the Korean people for the new faith. They have reached the conclusion that Christianity is to become the national religious faith of Korea, and that through it and by it alone can the Koreans ever arise to higher planes of life out of the depths of misery, ignorance, and inferiority into which they have been plunged by centuries of religious night.
But, outshining these triumphs, has been the conquest of the personal life of the Koreans by the Christian faith. When once converted the Korean becomes more than a church member; he becomes an earnest, loyal, enthusiastic witness to the power of Jesus Christ to save. These humble converts, so generally misunderstood as a nation, looked down upon and despised by the passing visitor, and so often misinterpreted by friends and strangers alike, show a depth and power of moral nature, a height and brilliancy of religious genius, which has challenged the admiration of the Christian world.
The study and practice of the Word of God plays a large part both in all church plans and church policies and in the personal life and activity of the Korean. It is found in all Christian homes and is the cherished foundation of the family altar. They study the Word of God. One of the most fruitful lines of work we have is the Bible Institute, a workers' training-school, held at all central points and attended by workers, Sunday- school teachers, church office bearers, and many of the members of the Korean church. This constitutes one of the greatest laymen's move- ments to be found anywhere on earth.
They practice the Word of God. One day a tall Korean, who lived one hundred miles away, came into my study and said that he wished to recite some verses in the Bible to me. I listened to him as he repeated in Korean, without a verbal error, the entire Sermon on the Mount. When I called attention to his marvelous memory and told him that to memorize it would do no good, but that he must practice it, his answer was: " That is the way I learned it. I tried to memorize it but it wouldn't stick, so I would learn one verse, go out and practice that verse on some- body, and then I found it would stick." Thus, verse by verse, this humble Korean Christian had mastered and put in practice the most
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matchless utterance on the noblest life that ever fell from the lips of man.
The Korean Christians manifest a personal consecration to the largest and most practical form of personal service. They give of their money, systematically and proportionately, and the sum total of their giving for self-support is astonishing. The unit of coinage is of the value of one twentieth of one American cent. The average wage of the laboring man is twenty cents a day, and labor is not so common there as it is here. Out of poverty such as these conditions indicate, the Korean Christians last year gave one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars American gold for Christian work. Eighty-five per cent of all the work conducted by the native church is self-supporting.
The Korean also gives in a generous measure of his time. We have a new form of collection there called the nal-yenbo, or " day collection," that is, many of our men voluntarily make a promise of ten or fifteen days' service for the Lord, to be paid a day at a time during the following six months. On this day of service (and they never count Sunday as such a day) the individual Christian will visit his friends and neighbors and even go to villages and towns at a distance in order to hold religious con- versation with men and urge them to accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour. This form of contribution is playing a large part in the campaign for one million souls this year.
I know of one church the members of which subscribed three thousand days of service, to be paid off during the twelve calendar months of 1910 for six months. Another group averaged over eight thousand days of service. In the northern part of Korea the members of the Christian churches gave a total of sixty-seven thousand days. Early in the cam- paign for one million souls the total number of days of service pledged by the entire church of Korea was equal to the continuous service of one man for three hundred years. The one million Koreans now standing with their faces turned towards the Christian faith and waiting the com- ing of Christian workers to guide them into the brighter life of the Chris- tian day constitutes the harvest wrought out by splendid service of this kind.
The Korean Christian has a wonderful prayer life. Instead of the hastiness which marks so much of the prayer life of modern times, rob- bing it of its power and effectiveness, the Korean ideal of prayer is ani- mated by a real moral earnestness. He regards prayer not only as a precious privilege, but as a primary method of work. Individuals will spend hours in prayer. The men of churches will meet together and spend the whole night in prayer.
But, you will ask me, How do the Koreans find time for prayer like
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this? My answer is, They don't find it, they take it, and they take it as deliberately as they do their time in which to earn their daily bread.
A Korean pastor, feeling that his church needed a special induement of power for the great evangelistic campaign about to begin, took his laymen into his confidence and together they covenanted to go to the church each morning at four o'clock and seek God's blessing on the church. For a few mornings they escaped observation, but were discovered and other members began to drop in and join them. Seeing the interest mani- fested, the pastor determined to lay the matter before his people, so he told them on Sunday morning what he had in mind and asked any who desired to join them in prayer to come the next morning to the service. On Monday morning he found three hundred men awaiting him. A few mornings later, the company had grown to five hundred, and a little later he had seven hundred of his men out every morning to join him in that prayer service. And remember that four o'clock in the morning in Korea is very much the same as it would be in our New England states.
The Korean is loyal to strict observance of the sabbath day. There are no people in Christendom who observe more religiously the sanctity of the sabbath day than the Christian Koreans.
There is a oneness of heart among the missions, the missionaries, and the Korean churches which represents in the truest sense the real Chris- tian ideal. No more remarkable sight has been offered in the Christian world than that which happened last autumn when, through a rearrange- ment of boundaries between the Presbyterians and Methodists, scores of churches and thousands of converts were transferred from one to the other communion, the whole movement being achieved not only without loss of prestige to either church, but with an actual gain of emphasis upon the solidarity of the Christian forces there, and their heart union and singleness of purpose in Christ Jesus.
Korea is now plotted out into great parishes worked by the different communions, with economy of force and concentration of strength, con- tributing to the largest efficiency. Harmony of method and policy have thrust the missions in Korea along converging lines of activity, and already the goal begins to emerge into view in our vision of Korea's future, which is one great strong national Christian church in that land.
I would not have you believe that the work has been completed in Korea. Over eleven million people remain to be converted. Though the present outlook is radiant with promise, there are great perils and menaces hidden away in that future. It is clearly evident that to Chris- tianize that nation there must be large and very conspicuous cooperation for the next few years by the parent churches in America and Great Brit- ain with the infant church of Korea. Without this there will set in a
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reaction which will be felt not only in the present generation, but which will spread its disheartening and paralyzing influence over generations to come.
The call for Christian aid from Korea must be heeded. It is a call that comes out of the depths of an historic opportunity; it is heard in the moan and sob of lost multitudes; it comes ringing in the voice of a courageous but sore-pressed infant church; it is sounded in clarion notes of our Christ himself as he stands on Korea's shores and summons us to this mighty advance.
Korea is the most vulnerable spot in heathenism. It is the most re- sponsive nation in eastern Asia. Its land occupies a strategic position. Its people, because of their religious genius, are destined to play a large part in Christian strategy, and this is the strategic time in Korea's history. We must either advance or lose the day in Korea.
THE NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF KOREA
Hon. T. H. Yun, Songdo, Korea
What Korea needs, whether she realizes it or not, is a faith in the al- mighty God who created this earth for man, and not man for the earth. Korea must know that Christ died for the ungodly, and that God is a God of love, and hope, and consolation.
Korea needs a personal God, a living Saviour, and a sustaining hope. What is to satisfy these needs? Agnostic and rational Confucianism, which has deprived woman of her rights, and the common people of their voice, can never give Korea what she needs today. Can Buddhism do it, with its deep philosophic dreams? The doctrine of transmigration may cheer a hog with the hope that it may, in the next birth, be incarnated into a millionaire; the doctrine of transmigration may restrain the pas- sions of a millionaire by the fear of being born a hog in the next generation; the doctrine of transmigration may comfort an oppressed woman with the hope that she may, in the next generation, change sexes with her husband; but these vaporings of superheated Indian brains have never given, and will never give, Korea a clear conception of guilt, of sin, of a Saviour, and of the hope of a conscious immortality.
Can the gospel meet these needs? Will Korea find her help in the gospel, in God, whom to fear is to be delivered from all other fears? Will Korea find through the gospel a Saviour who can give her peace? If the gospel cannot .^nothing else will.
If such are the needs of Korea, what are her opportunities? Twenty- five years ago there was not a single missionary in Korea; today, after
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twenty-five years of labor, we have nearly two hundred thousand Chris- tians in Korea. Twenty- five years ago there was not a Sunday-school; today there are more than 1,847 Sunday-schools. Twenty-five years ago there was not a Sunday-school scholar; today there are more than 140,000 Sunday-school scholars. Twenty-five years ago there was not a portion of the Bible in Korea; today over 4,000,000 copies of the New Testament, and portions of the Bible, are scattered all over the country.
There are seven missions working in Korea, in which four great Ameri- can denominations are represented; these are the Northern Presbyterian Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church North; the Southern Presby- terian Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In Korea the land has been so divided among the missionaries that there is no competition, no overlapping, and no duplication of work. When a Korean, converted in Presbyterian territory, goes to the territory which belongs to the Methodist Church, he becomes what is better than a Presbyterian, — he becomes a Methodist. You see I am a Methodist. But when a Methodist moves into territory which belongs to the Presbyterian mis- sion, he becomes what is better than either, — he becomes a Christian.
The Sunday-school has been emphasized from the start. Almost all the congregations are Sunday-schools, and almost all of the Sunday- schools are congregations. The harvest is so great, and the laborers so few, that no missionary has been able to give even part of his time to the Sunday-school purely as such, yet the seven missions in Korea report 1,847 schools, with 142,724 scholars.
I must thank you personally, on behalf of the Korean Christians, for the excellent lectures and instructions which Dr. Hamill and his good wife gave to the Korean Christians two years ago. Encouraging reports of the Korean Sunday-schools are no doubt largely due to the wider in- terest awakened in the Korean churches by the necessarily brief but all- important labor of that man and woman of God. It was a pity that no mission was able to set aside a man to follow up the work. If it were possible to have some one who could devote his entire time and energy to the training of teachers and the organization of the scattered Korean Sunday-schools on a national basis, the result would amply justify the outlay of time and labor.
On the strength of these figures and facts, I desire to remind you of the important fact that Korea is today more open to the gospel than she has ever been before, and that she is more responsive today than she will ever be hereafter. Although Korea presents a unique opportunity for the entrance of the gospel, yet in that land it is as it has ever been since the days of the apostle Paul, that where a great door is opened, there are many adversaries.
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Confucianism and Buddhism are trying to check the advance of the gospel by supreme efforts. Christianity, the only friend, the only light, the only hope for Korea, is a thorn in the flesh of the principalities, pow- ers, and rulers of darkness in that land. New ideas of agnosticism and skepticism, of higher criticism and new philosophy, imported from abroad under the names of advanced philosophy, manufactured in some lecture rooms which need more fresh air than fresh philosophy, are making many disciples, and present a greater hindrance to the gospel than native igno- rance and superstition.
These lines of thought are spreading so rapidly that if the missionaries and teachers cannot give the new converts proper instruction and ade- quate guidance, this will constitute a grave danger. Digestion is said to be a more delicate and important task than swallowing, and I am in- clined to believe that a piece of meat undigested inside of a man will give him more trouble than all the cattle upon a thousand hills.
These dangers can be averted in large measure by a sufficient number of strong missionaries, by the expending and strengthening of Sunday- school organizations, and adequate equipment in Christian schools, wherein the rising generations can be properly educated, where preachers, teach- ers, and Bible women can be trained, and by these means the Christian movement shall gain irresistible momentum.
The names of three American citizens, though not missionaries, are associated with institutions that preach the love and mercy of the gospel in their own way, and those are the names of Mr. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, — who gave Korea the Young Men's Christian Association; Mr. Severance, of Cleveland, Ohio, founder of the magnificent hospital of the Presbyterian mission; and Mr. Harvey, of Lynchburg, Va., after whom the beautiful hospital in Sondo has been named.
Like a storm-tossed boat seeking a haven, as a frightened child clings closely to the mother's breast, the little kingdom of Korea, crushed and heart-broken, is flying to the bosom of Jesus.
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THE NEEDS OF THE MOSLEM WORLD, AND THE DEGRADA- TION AND SUFFERING OF MOHAMMEDAN CHILDHOOD
Rev. S. M. Zwemer, D.D., Arabia
Mohammed was, without doubt, the greatest Arab that ever lived. He was a genius and a poet and a great religious leader. But Mohammed could never have said, ** Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Mohammed and his book and his life and his ideals are not those of the little child whom Jesus places in the midst. Mohammed's religion has but little place for the child. His life story is not a book to be read by the fireside to boys and girls. His religious book, the Koran, has very little in it about and for children. In fact, the only chapter in Mo- hammed's bible which is a continued story is the story of Joseph, and even that is unfit to be read to children.
And the ideals of Mohammed, shown both in his ethics and in his ac- count of paradise, are also not intended for children. There is no place for a child in the Mohammedan paradise.
" I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men, How he called little children as lambs to his fold,
I should like to have been with him then. I wish that his hands had been placed on my head.
That his arms had been thrown around me. That I might have seen his kind look when he said,
Let the little ones come unto me."
Is Jesus not saying, " Suffer them to come unto me " as he looks out upon the great world of Moslem children?
When we face this great question of Mohammedan childhood and of Mohammedan manhood and womanhood, we face one of the greatest unsolved missionary problems. It is a direct challenge to our faith, and it is a reproach to Christendom. When we mention Mohammedanism we couple with it that great universal term " a world." You cannot speak of a Jewish world or a Buddhist world or a Hindoo world ; but we all know that when we use the term " a Moslem world " we are not speaking in extravagant phrase, but describing an actual reality.
When I think of Jesus Christ, and of his mission, and of his passion, and of his life, and of his love, I can think of no stronger word by which to put this problem on my heart and on your hearts than simply that one ex-
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pression, " the Moslem world." I think of these lines written Cor little children at Christmas time,
" The little boy of heavenly birth,
And far from home today, Comes down to find his ball, the earth,
Which sin has cast away. O brothers, let us, one and all. Join in to get him back his ball."
We speak of a Moslem world; how many Mohammedans are there? Let us put the question regarding Mohammedan children. Beginning far in the East, in the Philippine Island groups, there are no less than one hundred thousand boys and girls who are Moslems under the American flag in the Philippine Islands. There are 4,000,000 living in China, and Russia has 7,000,000 boys and girls who follow the false prophet. Turn- ing from Russia to Central Asia, there are 4,000,000 more; in Persia, 2,000,000, and in Arabia perhaps 1,500,000 boys and girls who know no other name than the name of Mohammed. In Turkey there are 4,000,000. This is perhaps a low estimate.
In India there are 20,000,000 boys and girls, young men and young women, who have no other name to live by and to die by than the name of Mohammed. In Africa there are 18,000,000 of Moslem boys and girls, a vast army ever increasing in numbers and in power. Turning from Africa to Malaysia there are 10,000,000 of Moslem boys and girls in the great islands of Java, Sumatra, the Celebes, and the great Archipelago.
And still you have not counted them all, because there are Moslem boys and girls in Thibet and Madagascar and Burmah and French Guiana and the West India Island groups, and in Bulgaria and in Turkey in Europe. There is a whole world of Moslem children of probably no less than 70,000,000 at a low estimate of those who look up to Mohammed and who repeat his prayer, having no higher life to live by than the life of Mohammed, their prophet. How do they live, this great army of Moslem boys and girls? They live, first of all, in an environment which is wholly and absolutely Moslem, because there is no religion in the world which has so deeply impressed art and literature and all social life in which it lives as has the Moslem religion. Like fossils embedded in limestone rock, so Islam is embedded in the social life, in the architecture and in the daily life and customs of all these millions. They live and breathe and take in that religion from their earliest youth.
In all orthodox Moslem families the child is no sooner born than a priest or the father goes and whispers into the ear of the child, " La illaha
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iUala Mohammud resoul Allah, — There is no God but one, and Mohammed is the prophet of God." The only feast of childhood is the Feast of Cir- cumcision, when the child, in Arabic phrase, is purified by being admitted into that great brotherhood of Moslem believers. The environment is indeed Moslem.
What is Islamism? Would you exchange the environment of Morocco for the environment of China? Would you exchange the environment of Afghanistan for the environment of Hindoo India? I think there are men here in this vast audience who will admit that as regards social degra- dation, as regards the great force of gravitation towards wickedness and impurity and licentiousness, there is no power in any part of the non- Christian world which matches for a single moment the awful power of the degrading religion of Islam.
I will not give the testimony of missionaries, they might be prejudiced; I will quote the testimony of the German philosopher and scholar, Schlegel, who, in his philosophic history, characterizes Islam thus: " A prophet without miracles; a religion without mysteries; a morality without love; which has always encouraged a thirst for blood, and which began and ended in the most unbounded sensuality." I cite you to James Freeman Clarke, who characterizes the Mohammedan religion as the worst form of monotheism, and he himself a Unitarian! I cite the great historian, who says that the Mohammedan faith put the impress of God's approval upon polygamy, concubinage, freedom of divorce and slavery, all the way from the Pillars of Hercules to the Pacific. A religion which has as environment like that is the breathing-place for the Moslem boys and girls throughout that great Moslem world. That is their environment.
How are they educated? Their youth begins early and it ends early. Moslems are precocious in regard to their ideas and ideals for their boys and girls. Hear the testimony from Mohammed the prophet himself! He is reported to have said this: " Whosoever does not give his daughter in marriage before she hath reached the age of twelve years is responsible for any sin she may commit," and as the result of a tradition like that, which puts the imprint of Mohammed's own life and character upon the Moslem's ideals of womanhood, we find throughout the whole Moslem world that a girl marries at the average age of twelve, is a mother at four- teen and a grandmother at thirty. May God forgive us if we lose from our vision the great pathetic sight of little children going down, not to a refining home life, but to Mohammedan hovels and harems and seraglios in the year which we call the year of our Lord 1910!
Now, I want to impress upon you the life of Mohammedan boyhood. Only a woman should tell the needs, the dire sufTering and the degra- dation of our Moslem sisters. A man's lips are sealed because of his igno-
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ranee. Hence, a great veil hangs over the horror of those lives. But a man can tell of the degradation of Mohammedan boyhood and manhood. Think of your own boy today at some college or preparatory school ! Think of the Mohammedan boy with the same passions, the same loves, and the same desires of healthy manhood!
But your boy in Cornell or Yale or Harvard, when he is pressed by his fierce temptations, turns to the life of Jesus Christ; he looks up to heaven where even the streets are pure gold, and opens the Book, every page of which breathes purity and love and life and power. The Moslem boy in his college in Lahore or Calcutta or Cairo or Bokhara, turns where? He turns from his fierce temptations to Mohammed's life, and to the Koran, which contains the awful statement, " When Zeid was finished with her, we married her to you." That is the highest ideal of Mohammed's inspiration of God! The Moslem boy turns from Mohammed's life to Mohammed's book, and he finds things that are unspeakable in their power to tempt men to fall; and he turns from Mohammed's book to Mohammed's heavenly home, and God pity him if he looks for purity in a place which has been well described by Stanley Lane-Poole as " Mo- hammed's eternal brothel prepared for true believers."
I know I am using plain language this morning, but, friends, we need to put away forever lame apologies when we speak of the non-Christian religions of the world, at least as regards this great non-Christian re- ligion, the greatest of them all in strength, power and creed and aggres- sive propagation, — the Moslem religion. I think it is entirely possible for a Christian to hate the swine country, and hate all that pertains to the swine country, and yet love the prodigal son.
I want to speak to you now, not on the numbers of the Moslem boys and girls, nor on their condition, intellectually, socially, and morally, but I want to hold up before you the great ideal of Jesus Christ. " When he was a great way off, — a great way off! — his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
I submit this morning that, of all the non-Christian religions, Islam is the prodigal son. The prodigal son of the Old Testament was Ishmael. He goes out from the house of the covenant, and Jesus Christ, true to his great heart, — the same yesterday, today and forever, — went out to find that prodigal; and we open the pages of Genesis and find that the angel of the covenant, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, — our Christ, — heard the voice of the lad where he lay. Not only Ishmael was thirsting, but Hagar was thirsting, too; but God was thirsting to de- liver and save Ishmael. And this, in one way, is simply a parable of the great longing and thirsting and heart-hunger of Mohammedan childhood and Mohammedan womanhood and manhood for better things.
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I say to you that, if we are blind to it, and deaf to it, and dumb to it, there are eyes that see, there are ears that hear, and there is a voice that calls today to us in unmistakable accents that these Moslem children are our brothers and our sisters. God's compassion for the Moslem world is inevitable because he is the loving God. I believe that God hears the prayer of the Moslem children. I believe that God hears the prayer of the great Moslem world that goes up to him five times a day.
I shall never forget how I was first impressed by that in Arabia. After I had been there four weeks, we went on a short desert journey, and the way was long and weary and I remained on the camel when the cry for prayer went out. A little girl had perched up on the saddle behind me, — a little Bedouin child, — she slipped down and went down on the decert sand. There was no water there for her to wash with so she rubbed her hands with the sand and rubbed her face with the dry sand as Mohammed had taught her, and then she turned toward the holy city of Mecca, and said the following words, the Lord's prayer of the Mohammedan Koran: " In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate King of the day of fate: thee do we entreat and thee do we supplicate to lead us in the way that is straight and not the way of those whom thou dost hate nor those that deviate. Amen."
You know, and I know, that the only way that is straight and the only way that leads to heaven's gate is not the crooked path of Mohammed, but the living way of Jesus Christ. Not only does God hear their prayers, but will answer their cry, for God knows their heart-hunger.
The strangest fact in Mohammedan theology is this, — that the missing link in the Moslem's creed is the cross of Christ and the mediatorship of Jesus Christ. Every heresy in Mohammedan history has been caused by a search for a mediator, some one who will stand between the soul and God. They are simply interpretations of the hunger of the human heart for some one to be a great mediator between God and man. Does God not hear that cry, the inarticulate cry of his prodigal son? I believe that God sees their sacrifice.
It is only four weeks ago when an audience perhaps three times as large as this gathered in the valley just outside of Mecca, and every one of those pilgrims brought his sacrifice, and the knives did their work and the beasts were flung down, and the great Moslem festival of sacrifice was observed. But how true are the words written by Watts, the great hymn writer,
" Not all the blood of beasts On Meccan altars slain Can give the guilty conscience peace Or wash away the stain."
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Only the blood of Christ, the heavenly I^mb, can do that. And are you and I going to stand behind the barred gates of Mecca when without the gates God himself is seeing the symbols of the old sacrificial rite, typifying the sacrifice on Calvary? Is God's heart not thirsting to tell them of his love, for he loved the world? I believe God loves the Moslems and follows them not only in their weary pilgrimages, but in their prayers and fastings, and God's heart is proving it by his providence, for today he tells all his people to go out into the Mohammedan world, as well as into the heathen world, and take the message of his Son and of his love.
I shall never forget how, at the Cairo conference, some years ago, Dr. Johannes Lipsius, one of the great advocates in Germany of missions to the Moslems, in a single sentence brought to our hearts the substance of his own thought in regard to the Moslem problem. He said: " We say the time has not yet come to evangelize the Moslem world because we have forgotten to wind our clock. We say the doors of the Moham- medan world are locked because we have forgotten to pull the key out of our pocket. We say the Mohammedans cannot be converted because we ourselves are not yet converted."
The attitude of the Church of Jesus Christ all down the ages towards the Moslem has been the attitude of the elder brother in the parable, and that is the attitude today of probably three fourths of the so-called nominal Christians in Egypt, and North Africa, and Syria, and Persia. We ought to pray that God will not only revive the spirit of interest in this country, but that he will baptize the oriental churches with the passion of his love. We know they have much to forgive.
It is easy for us to forgive the Mohammedans, — we are at a safe dis- tance from them of thousands of miles, — but it is very hard for our brothers at Adana and at Tarsus to forgive. God give them that spirit, and when they get that spirit Christ himself will baptize the nations with his power, and make it possible for us to have Sunday-schools in every Moslem land, Christ in every Moslem home, and his Word in every Moslem school.
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THE NATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION OF JAPAN
Rev. T. M. MacNair, D.D., Tokyo, Japan
The National Sunday-School Association of Japan was organized in April, 1907. The step was taken at the instance of the Japan Branch of the Evangelical Alliance and of a local missionary organization called the Standing Committee of Cooperating Christian Missions. It was on the occasion, however, of a visit to Japan by Mr. Frank L. Brown, of Brooklyn, who spent about three months in the country, beginning with December, 1906, and contributed greatly by his presence to the success of the movement.
The organization of the Japan Association was formally effected at a meeting made up of delegates, about seventy in number, called together from widely separated parts of the empire. A constitution was adopted and an outline of plans formed, covering the preparation of Sunday- school lesson and other literature, and the establishment of district asso- ciations throughout Japan proper and the Japanese communities in Formosa and Korea.
These plans would not have been practicable but for the large measure of Sunday-school development already reached by the missions of the several denominations and the churches with which they are connected; but it was recognized that the time had come for bringing the Sunday- schools together, in Japan as elsewhere, in a union enterprise, and the same was entered upon with enthusiasm.
The financing of the work thus undertaken was facilitated by a gift of one thousand dollars from Mr. H. J. Heinz, of Pittsburgh, to be used chiefly for the maintenance of a central office, and of visitation and other work. This gift has been continued from year to year. It has been sup- plemented by grants from certain of the mission treasuries, in consid- eration of the fact that the work of preparing interdenominational Sunday- school lessons, done previously by an inter-mission committee, was turned over to the association and is now wholly under its care.
In addition to these two foreign means of support, there is one arising from the sale of literature, as yet inconsiderable; and another source is that of sustaining membership. The Sunday-schools that are enrolled in the several district associations are expected to contribute to the central fund, and many of them are doing so.
There are now twenty-six district associations out of a projected total of fifty. Eight of these date from the first year, 1907; ten from the second; and eight from the third. These district associations are the result of visits paid to the various localities, north and south, by the secretaries
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and others connected with the national organization, and also of the visits by Mr. Brown, just mentioned, and one made a year later by Dr. and Mrs. H. M. Hamill, of Nashville, Tenn. Dr. and Mrs. Hamill were in Japan (and Korea) for all of six months, including the second annual convention, in April, 1908, in which they took a prominent part.
The Sunday-school institute and exhibit were made features of this visitation work as far as practicable, and wherever the visitors went they were welcomed, and their appeal received the endorsement of pastors and others of all denominations. In one instance a Greek Church pastor emphasized his approval by accepting office in a local association.
At the four annual conventions held up to the present time, encour- aging delegations have come together, and the same general procedure has been followed as in similar conventions held in the West; but the most conspicuous feature has been that of the mass-meeting of local Sunday-school scholars. The progress of Christian work in Japan was well indicated, even at the first of these gatherings, the convention of 1907, when twelve hundred children were assembled in the large hall of the Young Men's Christian Association in Tokyo, filling it to overflow- ing. A fourth gathering of children was held in April, 1910, in the same city, and the twelve hundred had become twelve thousand.
The lesson literature provided, or planned for, by the association is partly graded and partly based on the International Lesson Course. The former is for the younger scholars more especially, and covers a period of eleven years.
Its preparation is now practically complete, and the larger part already in use, and the remainder is to be taken up as rapidly as the schools that have adopted the system can be made to grow into it. One difficulty in bringing this about is the lack of suitable meeting-places. Sunday-schools are usually held in rooms that have been prepared for ordinary church services, and these are mostly small and incapable of subdivision into the classrooms so necessary for graded work. It is often practicable, however, to arrange separately for a class or two of little beginners.
In addition to lessons for the younger scholars, the association has published a series based upon the International Lessons, continuing in this the work done by the missions as already referred to. Thus, for the time being, a partly graded course is maintained, and with it the well-known International, and any decision as between the two, or for the adoption of both, to be provided for separately, is left for the guid- ance of experience.
The important subject of teacher-training has received the attention of the association, and a course of study is now furnished covering all the principal phases of Sunday-school effort. Upward of five hundred
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printed copies have been sold during the past year, which means the use of the course by a still larger number of persons.
Several books on distinctively Sunday-school topics have been issued by the association, or are now in process, and serve to supplement this training course for the teachers and to form a suitable nucleus for Sunday- school libraries. One of these is Mr. Marion Lawrance's book on " How to Conduct a Sunday-School."
A beginning has been made toward providing a Sunday-school paper, though it affords as yet but little more than a medium for the circulation of news. It is the intention of the association that, when funds are avail- able, this paper shall be enlarged and made to fill a place in Japan similar to that taken in America by the Sunday School Times.
It remains to mention the rewards that are offered for furthering Sunday- school development and stimulating the zeal and progress of teachers and scholars. One of these is a beautiful prize-banner, the gift of Mr. Heinz, which is for presentation, at each annual convention, to the district asso- ciation that has been most active and successful the preceding year.
Other and minor rewards are for individuals, — one kind for scholars and one for teachers. The former are given on the usual grounds of good conduct, attendance, and scholarship. In 1908 there were four hundred and twenty scholars to receive them, and in 1909 nearly double that number, and from a much larger number of schools.
The certificate of merit which teachers may receive is conditioned upon regular and continuous service in the same school for a period of at least five years. The first occasion for this award was the Christmas season of 1909, when a hundred and ten persons were found to have qualified for it.
This prize giving is noticeable, apart from its effect upon teachers and scholars, for the welcome accorded to it by pastors and others, who recog- nize its value as a means of increasing interest in the church and its work.
In concluding this report for the National Sunday-School Association of Japan, it is proper to mention again, and thereby emphasize, the timely effort from America which helped establish it. The work of the missions and of the Japanese churches in this direction had reached a point where only the touch thus given to it was needed to set the movement on foot, and with the result that at least half of the Sunday-schools of the empire have come under its influence. The number of schools is about 1,500 and that of scholars between 90,000 and 100,000.
The union has already been fruitful of much good, and is undoubtedly destined to play a great part in the future upbuilding of the church, and in the work of bringing into the church the still unevangelized masses of the people. Among both Christians and those who form the large
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class known as " inquirers," the Bible is a much-read book. Perhaps nowhere is it so conspicuously a book for consultation and reference dur- ing the hours of public Christian worship as in Japan, and this habit is calculated to grow only the stronger as the influences of the Sunday- school upon it increase. The habit is clearly providential and must prove of great efficacy in the binding together of church and school thus with the text-book common to both, whereby also both church and school will be rendered effective as factors in the development of Christian life. (Rev. T. Ukai and Rev. K. Mito are general secretaries, with Dr. Mac- Nair, of the National Sunday-School Association of Japan.)
THE VICTORIES OF CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN
Rev. Naomi Tamura, Tokyo, Japan
Fifty years ago Japan was a sealed country. America knocked so hard at our barred door that it was thrown open. We are glad to say that today our doors are open wide enough to swallow up the whole world.
Christianity has had untold difficulties to enter into the heart of Japan. It was a gigantic enterprise to overcome the old religious systems, like Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintoism, which had been rooted cen- tury after century in the soil of the Sunrise Kingdom. It was a great battle to fight in our behalf. Christianity in Japan, from the beginning, never surrendered to any religious system, nor suffered itself to be nation- alized. Forward! Aggression! Expansion! were our battle cries.
Today I stand face to face with you, a specimen of the history of Japan personified. My life, though it is humble and insignificant, tells the history of the New Japan. New Japan began with my birth. The first missionary of the cross landed on our shores when I was a baby. The curriculum of my early education was Chinese literature, and the code of my morality was Bushido, and the royalty of our emperor was my only religion. I wore two swords, and I was mighty proud to be a Samurai.
The first Christian church in Japan sprang from this Samurai class in the schoolroom. The school and church in Japan were twin sisters. Drs. Brown and Ballagh in Yokohama, Drs. Verbeck and Thompson in Tokyo, Drs. Neesima and Davis in Kioto, Dr. Clark in Sapporo, and Captain Jains in Kumamoto, were the most wonderful molding power and influence among the promising and aggressive young men in Japan. Most of their students are today Christian teachers and writers and pastors in New Japan.
I was baptized thirty-six years ago, and was one of the handful of young
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men who organized the first Presbyterian church in Tokyo. This was almost the beginning of Christian activity in our vast city. There was no translation of the Bible, but a few of the Gospels; no dignified hymns to be sung; no big preachers to be heard. I remember well that a Scotch missionary, being a couple of years in Japan, preached often for us; but his accent was such that we could not well understand him. The first sermon I ever preached had a long text, — the Ten Commandments. Though I had a long text, I could not preach more than ten minutes. I was nervous. I felt that every one in the audience had two heads. I was ordained thirty years ago, and am still pastor of the same church.
The Christian Church in Japan is not advancing by leaps and bounds in any sense, as it is in Korea today. Once we made a great jump. That was twenty-five years ago, and as a result we fell down. Christianity in Japan today is growing in a steady, healthy way. You cannot tell of the growth of Christianity in Japan by statistics. There are thousands and thousands of Christians in Japan outside of the organized Christian communities; and their influence is so great that it penetrates to every corner, and some day a volcanic explosion will be manifest.
There is not the slightest doubt that Japan will become a Christian nation. It is merely a question of time. Buddhism has lost its control- ling power and influence in Japan. Bushido has no vigorous roots to enable it to stand long. Do you think that any nation can build a character with- out any religion?
We have tried in many ways to Christianize Japan in the past twenty- five years, but we have found by experience that the surest and quickest way to do so is by educating the children and leading them to Christ in their tender years. Luther is right in saying that to convert the hard- ened sinner is more difficult than to train an ox. The new psychology emphasizes the fact that habit is everything. We are foolishly spending too much time to straighten crooked trees, rather than in training the tender ones. I have four elders in my church. They were all trained in our Sunday-school, and were baptized. I also married them, and am now training their children. We think that this is a healthy way to build up a strong church in any country!
One missionary who was working in the hardest field in Japan told me that he never baptized any one who had not been trained in a Sunday- school somewhere. There is a mighty difference between those who be- come Christians in their old age, late in life, and those who become Chris- tians in youth. One of our greatest troubles in our Christian work is the neglect of Christian education. There is no religious education in our public schools. If our children are suffered to grow up without any religious education, what a calamity it will be to Japan.
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During the last four years we have been pushing forward and reorgan- izing our Sunday-schools throughout Japan; publishing eleven different graded Sunday-school lessons, and training efficient teachers. We have now more than one hundred thousand Sunday-school scholars in Japan. This reveals our great future. If we take hold of all the children in Japan, then we shall soon win the victory.
I believe that the greatest revival in the twentieth century is to lead all the children to Christ. The Sunday-school is one of the greatest fac- tors in Christianizing the whole world. That day is coming. Are you ready? Then victory is ours.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN CHINA
Rev. Frederick Brown, F.R.G.S.
(Report prepared by W. N. Bitton, Secretary China Centenary Conference Sunday-School Committee)
For at least two generations the bulk of missionary effort in China has been given to the work of preaching directly to the heathen, and it was the adult heathen who was aimed at rather than the child.
Prejudice had to be broken down, the country had to be more or less occupied, and a friendly interest in the work of Christianity and in the person of the foreign missionary quickened, before institutional forms of work could be used effectively. The result was that the Sunday-school enterprise in China did not begin to exercise its claim upon the mission workers generally until these last two decades.
For many years in certain districts of China considerable efforts in the direction of Sunday-school work have been attempted. These, how- ever, were not correlated, and were largely dependent upon the energy of a mission or a few individuals. North China, with its long-established Sunday-school work, and the Sunday-School Lessons Committee; and the region of Foochow, with its Sunday-School Association and its wide- spread work, are instances of districts where work has been systemati- cally carried on for a considerable time. So in certain of the treaty ports, Sunday-school work was not neglected. Among the missions, the Method- ist churches may be spoken of as especially active in the Sunday-school.
Some time before the meeting of the China Centenary Missionary Conference, it had been felt that mission work in China was missing a great opportunity in its neglect of Sunday-schools, and that the times were ripe for a forward movement. The paper which was read before the conference by Rev. William C. White, of the Church Missionary
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Society, made a deep impression on the minds of those present, showing as it did how entirely inadequate had been the attempts made to reach the children of this land and to provide for their education in the Chris- tian life.
As the result of this, a representative committee was appointed to take up the question of Sunday-school work throughout the whole of China, with a view to organizing a Sunday-School Union for this empire. The following is a list of the members of this committee:
Members of Executive Committee: Rev. W. H. Lacy, chairman; Rev. W. N. Bitton, secretary; Rev. T. D. Begg, treasurer; Rev. D. W. Lyon, Rev. D. MacGillvary, Rev. J. W. Cline, Rev. J. N. Hayward, Mr. F. C. Cooper, Rev. J. Darroch; associated with Mrs. S. L. Hart, Rev. W. Hunter, Rev. H. W. Oldham, Rev. S. H. Littell, Rev. J. R. Goddard, Rev. J. Endicott, Rev. A. Grainger, Rev. F. S. Joyce, Dr. W. F. Seymour, Rev. W. C. White, Rev. J. C. Owen, Rev. W. Giesewetter, Rev. F. Brown, Mr. E. J. Blandford.
During the conference a number of missionaries and laymen who were interested specially in Sunday-school work held a meeting in one of the private rooms of the Astor House, and members of the Laymen's Move- ment present gave promises of support. Valuable preliminary work had been done by Mr. Frank L. Brown, of New York, who stayed a short time in Shanghai on his way to the Rome convention. The visit of Mr. Burges, of India, also assisted very largely in the focusing of ideas and gave to the movement a practical turn by bringing its supporters into touch with the work accomplished in India. Rev. Frank A. Smith, of the International Sunday-School Association, who was present at the Con- ference, brought the weight of his influence to bear upon friends from the United States, and much of the immediate result of the meeting held in the Astor House is due to Mr. Smith's influence and advice.
After the Rome convention the committee appointed to carry on the work of Sunday-schools elected an executive committee from its number, and putting itself in communication with the British Sunday-School Union, received promises of substantial aid in the event of a secretary being appointed on the mission field. It had been felt that the appoint- ment of a permanent secretary, who should spend his whole time in organ- izing the Sunday-school movement in China, was essential to success. Various attempts were made to secure the services of men who were known to be interested in Sunday-school work, and at last the executive committee secured the appointment of the Rev. J. Darroch, a former member of the China Inland Mission, whose literary accomplishments had been recognized in so marked a degree that he was made chairman of the conference committee on Christian literature. Mr. Darroch sig-
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nified his willingness to take up this ofl&ce after a brief furlough in England, and was to become organizing secretary of the Sunday-School Union for China from the first of September, 1908, assuming the responsibilities of office in China from the first of January, 1909.
The executive committee formulated a budget in connection with the probable expenses of the organization of the movement. It was assumed that the secretarial expenses would be met through the agency of the British Sunday-School Union, and from that society an income of five hundred pounds per annlim was anticipated. It was expected that, in addition to this sum, about two thousand dollars per annum would be needed to meet the expenses of publication, of office staff, and for travel- ing; and at the time it was hoped that subscriptions would be forthcom- ing from interested friends in the United States whose individual prom- ises had given some potential evidence of their good-will. Unfortunately, in the event these expectations were unrealized. The British Sunday- School Union found itself financially handicapped, so that it was unable to meet the demands made upon it, and Dr. J. Darroch in the interval accepted another appointment from the Religious Tract Society of Lon- don, which society, however, kindly permitted him to devote part of his time for a definite period of six months to the assistance of the China Sunday-school committee and its work.
The committee is negotiating with a Chinese Christian pastor, who has been educated abroad, for his services as secretary to the organization. His salary will be met by the funds which are available through the help of the British Sunday-School Union, and some measure of usefulness is assured by the services of such a man. This committee, however, still feels that the ideal at which the Sunday-schools of China should aim is to have both a foreign and a Chinese secretary, and to arrange for a good deal of traveling to be done by one or the other of them in order that local organizations may be pushed forward as rapidly as possible in the big centers of Christian work in this land. There will be no Sunday- School Union in China until the constituent parts are established. There is a great deal of work along this line to be accomplished.
It is not possible to give accurate figures as to the number of Sunday- schools and scholars in China today, but it is certain that, with the better era now dawning, and the passing away of the old prejudices and super- stitions, a new and priceless opportunity of winning the children for Christ is being presented to us.
There are two Sunday-schools in China with more than one thousand scholars. There are a number with upwards of three hundred, and many of fifty to one hundred scholars each. A large proportion of these children are heathen. Not only do the pupils acquire a knowledge
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of the gospel and, in a measure, a love for the Saviour, but they carry that knowledge to their parents, and lady workers find a welcome for them- selves and their message in homes which but for the little scholar and his enthusiasm for his teacher had else been barred against them.
The Centenary Conference Sunday-School Committee has now been at work for more than a year. Its publications are:
1. The Notes on the Sunday-School Lessons. This booklet contains the lessons for the last quarter in 1909. The earlier lessons were published monthly. It is issued in Mandarin and Wenli. The book is printed on good white foreign paper. It has over sixty pages and several illustra- tions. Each lesson in the book contains: {a) The text of the lesson from the Revised New Testament. (In next year's Lesson Notes this will be omitted, as several missionaries have complained that the inclusion of the text in the book induces those who have it to use it to the exclusion of their Testaments.) (6) The golden text, (c) The daily Bible readings of the International Bible Reading Society, which are arranged to give help on the subject of the lesson, {d) The aim or gist of the lesson ex- pressed in a sentence or two to show what is the chief thought to be im- pressed on the minds of the scholars, {e) Historical notes on the names of persons and places found in the text. (/) An introduction connecting the lesson for the day with what has gone before, (g) An exposition of the text, {h) Questions for the class.
2. The Leaflet. It contains: (o) An illustration. (6) The golden text, (c) The text of the lesson from the Revised New Testament, {d) Inter- national Bible readings for the week, {e) The gist of the lesson in three or four numbered sentences. (/) The questions which the teacher will ask the class. The price of these leaflets is purposely being made so cheap that they may be freely given to the scholars. Fifty cents will purchase ten sheets for each Sunday of the year. The illustrated sheets may be used as tracts as well as for their primary purpose in the Sunday-schools.
3. Picture Cards. This year we issued picture cards containing the illustration, the golden text, and the lesson questions. As these contained nothing that is not to be found in greater fullness in the illustrated leaflet, they will be discontinued. We are preparing instead a series of cards with colored floral and picture borders. There will be twelve cards in the first, which will be the " I am " series. Each card will contain a text and on the back a Bible passage, or may be a hymn illustrative of the text. One card will have as the text, " I am the good shepherd," etc., and on the back of the card will be printted the Twenty-Third Psalm. Another, " I am the bread of life," and on the back, cognate texts.
The Religious Tract Society, London, is prepared to give grants of books as prizes to Sunday-schools as soon as we are ready to make use
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oi them. The chief difficulty is that there is such a lack of suitable chil- dren's books in Chinese. Something is being done in the preparation of these, and we hope that we shall ere long be able to remedy our poverty in this respect.
Nothing has given greater pleasure to the Sunday-school committee than the freedom with which their efforts have been criticised and sug- gestions offered for the improvement of the literature produced. Such criticisms will be welcomed in the future as in the past, and when we have succeeded in making our Sunday-schools more nearly what they ought to be and what they are capable of developing into, we shall have taken one big stride towards our goal, — the evangelization of China.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN PEKING
Rev. I. T. Headland, Peking, China
I WILL tell you of one Sunday-school started in Peking some fourteen or fifteen years ago. We had a regular Christian Sunday-school in the church of about seven hundred and fifty. We started a heathen Sunday- school in a room ten feet square. The people in the United States sent us advertising cards, and we printed the Lord's Prayer on sheets of paper and pasted them on the back of picture cards and gave them to the chil- dren. As soon as they learned the Lord's Prayer we gave them one with the Ten Commandments, and then the Apostles' Creed and part of the Gospel by John. Of course our Sunday-school began to increase.
Before we started this Sunday-school the little boys would run out in the street and cslW '' Kueitze! kueitze! kueitze! '' and then start to run. That meant " foreign devil." No wonder they started to run! We had to knock down the partition between that ten-foot room and another ten-foot room, and that gave us a room ten by twenty; and then we had to take out another partition, and that made it ten by thirty. We had no other partition which we could take out after that, and when we took them into the church in the afternoon there was room for about five hundred, and it was soon filled.
Bishop McCabe said, " Build a bigger church and he would get the money to pay for it." We built a church that held fifteen hundred; and it was soon filled. You should have seen those children! Remember, it is a heathen Sunday-school. You should have seen them come to Sunday- school. They would come to the front gate, a little girl with bound feet; she would hold one child in her arms, another child on her back, and lead another one by the hand, and walk on her heels. They would come up
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to the front gate without any clothes on. You have heard the little Hindoo rhyme, I suppose? They illustrated it.
" The poor benighted Hindoo, He does the best he kin do; From first to last he sticks to his caste, And for pants he makes his skin do."
We could not take them in that way, so we sent them back, telling them to get a coat or a pair of trousers. So our Sunday-school was not nicely dressed, for they would return in big coats or big trousers. But I would rather have a good little boy or a good little girl in bad clothes than a bad little boy or a bad little girl in good clothes. So our Sunday-school in- creased, and you should have heard them study the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments and the Creed and the Gospel by John. It was one chorus of voices.
That Sunday-school changed that whole corner of the city of Peking. I was going along the street, one day, and in a little police station on the side of the street there was a lot of children and they were singing —
" Round the throne of God in heaven Ten thousand children stand."
We would ride out again in this section of the city and the little folks would come out and call, " When is the sabbath day, so we can go to Sunday-school? " There is but one thing that will change a corner of such a city so that the children instead of crying " Foreign devil! " will ask, " When is the sabbath day, so we can go to Sunday-school."
They have the same kind of hearts that we have. I found it out in a peculiar way. I began to study Mother Goose rhymes. I will give you a sample to show you how the hearts of the little folks over there are the same as the hearts of the little folks here, for this delighted the hearts of the little folks there: " One day I heard an old nurse saying to a boy —
*' * The little mousy brown Climbed up the candlestick To steal and eat the tallow; He could not get down ; He called for his grandmother But his grandmother was in town; He doubled up in a wheel And rolled himself down.' "
We put the gospel into the children and it has changed the whole comer of that great city.
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BIBLE SCHOOL WORK IN PALESTINE
Rev. a. E. Kelsey, Jerusalem, Palestine
In our mission in the villages lying ten to fifteen miles north of Jeru- salem, we have between three hundred and four hundred children weekly studying the International lessons in the Arabic, their own language.
The teachers have Wilde's publications and the Sunday School Times to assist them in preparation, for all of our teachers know English, having been trained in our mission schools. Once a week these teachers gather in our mission parlor at Ramallah and discuss the lesson for the following Sunday. Thus in five villages of that land, at least three of which are mentioned by name in the Bible, the children, coming from Greek Catho- lic and Mohammedan homes, are pursuing the International lessons before our American children have their breakfasts.
Through the agencies of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of this country, the Church Missionary Society of England, the Free Church of Scotland, and several independent missions, several thousand children in the cities and villages from Hebron to Damascus are being instructed weekly in the truths of the Bible, most of the schools following the International lessons.
But this is not a fourth part of the Bible instruction our children re- ceive. We are so old-fashioned over there that we do not think the study of the Bible will hurt children on week days. Look into the desk of one of the pupils in our boarding schools and you find a geography, history, grammar, arithmetic, dictionary, and a Bible. We do not think that a child is well educated unless he is rooted and grounded in the great text-book of the Christian faith.
For long years the Bible was an exile from the land of its nativity, and when our missionaries went to the Holy Land, about seventy-five years ago, they found the Mohammedan's book, the Koran. For a thou- sand years, with the exception of Crusader times, the faith of Islam had prevailed in that land and the Koran had been the great text-book in all their schools. With what results? Ignorance, superstition, and vice reigned on every hand. Women and girls were men's chattels and were on a par with the donkey.
The missionary's first task was to give the people the Bible in their own language, the Arabic. Then through schools and colleges they have been giving the children a record of the life and works of the Man who once lived in that land and at whose name " every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
The World's Sunday-School Convention of 1904 at Jerusalem gave a
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great impetus to our Bible-school work. In the first place, it made an impression on the official class. Many of them had little conception of the mighty force and power of Christianity lying back of our seemingly feeble missionary band.
It greatly encouraged the missionaries, as hundreds of Christian workers from the homelands for the first time came into sympathetic touch with the foreign field. Moreover, it established a bond of sympathy and co- operation between the several missionary organizations that had not before been as much in evidence as it should have been, and this spirit has been increasing ever since.
There is still a great unoccupied field for Sunday-school work in Pales- tine. Hundreds of villages on this side of Jordan, and practically all of the land beyond, are still without the Bible, with its message of light to those who sit in darkness. The illiteracy of the people forbids our push- ing our Bible-school work any faster than we can preempt the territory with our day schools. We have our well-equipped training schools for our workers, but except as increased funds are forthcoming from Chris- tian America and England can we extend our work into the regions beyond.
Consequently the problem of extending the blessings of the study of the Bible to the children now living in Bible lands is to be solved by a greater liberality on the part of those in the home lands who owe so much to the life-giving waters which first flowed forth to a thirsty world from the life of One who climbed those Judean hills, who taught on the shores of the blue Galilee, and who, when in the land beyond Jordan, gathered the children in his arms and said, " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Six years ago, on a beautiful spring day, Dr. Bailey, Dr. Henry, of Philadelphia, my brother and I ate our lunch in the shade of a tree on the northern shore of Galilee not far from the site of ancient Capernaum. Our boatman had broiled fish from the sea for us, and, as we ate, our minds were filled with thoughts of the One who had taught and wrought on those shores. But, as we ate, there gathered around us a dozen half- naked, dark-skinned, hungry-looking Bedouin children. We gave them the fragments of our meal and then, through our dragoman, we tried to talk to them of the Christ who loved little children.
We found, alas, that those children who lived in his land, and bathed in blue Galilee, and at night slept under the stars that look down upon his earthly abode, had not so much as heard his name.
The thousands of children in that land today who with outstretched hands follow the traveler and cry " Baksheesh! '' are a challenge to the Christian world to place within those hands the Bible, which is able to make them wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
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THE CHILDREN OF PALESTINE
Miss Frances M. Parsons, Jerusalem, Palestine
I WENT to Jerusalem when Palestine was seemingly more directly under the cross than it is today! It is under a cross! It is a cursed land, although it is the Holy Land! It rejected our Lord and Saviour and today it is downtrodden; but, praise the Lord, those days are almost ended! It is marvelous the way the prophecy is being fulfilled there! I have lived in Jerusalem all the time. I was led to open a little boarding-school be- cause we needed teachers who were efficient, who were really filled with the Spirit, willing to go with us into the villages, in the hard places.
In Palestine there are about one hundred villages, almost entirely Moslem, although some of them are partly what they call Christian, belonging to the Eastern churches, with their dead form and ceremony. The people are tired of it. We wanted teachers, — and we wanted the village children. The parents were not able to pay for them and so I began the work in faith, and for thirteen years the Lord has enabled me to succeed. I asked no one to give any money to help support these children. I began with four children; now we have twenty-eight, and each year we have been able to meet the expenses.
It is a work that is worth while. These girls must be taken out of the villages. They cannot be educated in the day school and become teach- ers, but what we want is to have these girls ready and prepared to become teachers and go with us into the villages, and then open the day schools and help the girls as much as we can in our own villages, and then put them into the boarding-schools, and in that way provide for the future.
These villages are upon our hearts. They are in a destitute condition. There is no land on the face of the earth that is so downtrodden and op- pressed. The people have much that is good and noble in their natures but are greatly oppressed by the government, — a government that could do so much for them. They are not permitted to do anything by which they can prosper.
Even if they seek coal in the mountain side, they cannot take any of it out for their own comfort. They are allowed to dig out roots from the ground to burn, but nothing can be taken out of the earth. Silver, copper, and all minerals are there, but they are not permitted to touch them. You can hardly imagine such a condition of affairs.
When I went to Palestine fifteen years ago, there were not many Jewish colonies. The Jews, however, were returning slowly, but they were poor and oppressed Jews who had been sent there and supported by the wealthy Jews. Today there are more Jews in Jerusalem — in Palestine — than there were in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and they are returning
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daily. The growth is marvelous. They are buying property, and prop- erty, therefore, is increasing in value; and if we do not purchase our school building soon, we shall not be able to secure it. We need to be established there. We want to buy a property for a girls' school and a boys' school.
God has sent us there to be witness not only to the Jews, but to the Moslems, — Moslems, Turks, or whatever you call them. Do you know that they are seeking the gospel, that they are begging us to give them the Word? They are tired of this form and ceremony, and they are send- ing their boys and girls to our schools and Sunday-schools and churches.
We have a large Sunday-school in Jerusalem, and we have a good one in Hebron. Many are attending these Sunday-schools and are learning the Truth. I wish you could hear them repeat the Scripture. Some of the blind girls learned the whole Book of Acts, and repeated it Sunday after Sunday. All the children that are in our Sunday-schools and day schools are learning Scripture marvelously!
I have some treasures in my school. There is one little girl who had been with me ten years. She came a cripple. She had fallen off the roof and broken her hip, and was taken to the hospital and had an iron brace put on her leg. She walked on crutches. It was thought that she would never be right again. One evening, when reading the story of how Jesus healed the man who was lame, this girl spoke up and said: " If he could heal that man, why can't he heal me? " " He can," I replied; " if you believe in him." We talked about it, and later I prepared her for bed, taking off her brace as I always did, and putting it on in the morning.
The next morning I heard a great commotion in her room. I went in and to my surprise found the girls clapping their hands and dancing about the room. Seeing me, they cried out, " Oh, Alboa can walk! " She could walk. She went back to her village when vacation time came, and did not return for a long time, but kept begging to be sent back. This was one of the girls who was supposed not to have any mind or soul; but she wanted to come, and she walked back, and has been with me ever since. This 3'ear she graduates, — • ready to become a teacher, — one of the noblest and dearest girls I have ever seen. Her sister was to be married when nine years old, but I interceded, and for sixty-five dollars they gave her to me, and she, also, is doing beautifully.
I could tell you of so many cases. There are open doors on every side, — for Moslems, Jews, and these nominal Christians, — if only we had the means. Help us by prayer, and by your gifts, that we may go into these villages; and pray, too, for the peace of Jerusalem!
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THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN PERSIA
Rev. W. a. Shedd, Urumia, Persia
The Sunday-school in Persia is nearly as old as the missionary enter- prise, which may be dated from the arrival of the Rev. Justin Perkins and Dr. Asahel Grant in Urumia in 1835.
The systematic instruction of the people in the Bible on Sundays was insisted on by Dr. Perkins, Miss Fiske, and the other early missionaries. The soil was ready, for the history and traditions of the Nestorians in- culcate special reverence for the Word of God. This reverence in later times was shown mainly by the careful preservation of precious manu- script copies of the Bible and by special honor shown to these copies of the Scripture; but in the earlier ages of this ancient church it was shown in the schools of Edessa and Nisibin in the multiplication of copies, the writing of commentaries, and the systematic study of the Bible.
As evangelical congregations were formed among the Nestorian Syrians, the practice was to have two gatherings of the whole congregation on Sundays, — one for the preaching of the Word and one for its regular study. This practice has continued, and the second church service is the Sunday- school. Among the evangelical churches in the district of Urumia in Persia there are 45 Sunday-schools, with 2,905 scholars in attendance.
Over the Turkish border, but still among the Nestorian Syrians, are 17 more schools, with 545 pupils. These are all connected with the Syrian Evangelical Church and the American Presbyterian Mission, but the influence of the Sunday-school has extended somewhat beyond this body, for there are several Nestorian churches and even a few Russian Orthodox churches that keep up regular Sunday-schools.
A widely traveled church leader, when visiting one of these Syriac Sunday-schools in Urumia, in company with the writer, exclaimed that it was like a Welsh school, for it included the whole congregation, adults and children. The general order in these schools is much the same as that in an American Sunday-school, though perhaps a good deal less.
The pupils of the parochial day school, whenever it is in session, attend as regularly as on week days; and the singing of songs and the recitation of verses is a feature that delights the parents as much as the children. In the smaller congregations all are usually seated on the floor, each class in a ring about its teacher. The International lessons are followed, and the Syriac lesson quarterly has a circulation of about 1,000 copies.
I do not think that the teachers have yet the esprit du corps that many American teachers have, nor that the bond between teacher and pupils is as close as it ought to be, but much faithful work is done. Separate
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classrooms and other Sunday-school conveniences arc, of course, lacking. The superintendent is usually the pastor.
Elsewhere in Persia the Sunday-school has been established as soon as scholars could be had, and there is scarcely a regular congregation for worship without the Sunday-school auxiliary. In all, in connection with the Presbyterian Mission, and that of the Church Missionary Society, there are some fifteen schools and not far from a thousand pupils. In these one would be struck with the variety of languages, — Armenian, Turkish, Persian, English, Syriac, and Kurdish. In addition to these regular schools in every mission station, there are also little companies, esipecially of Mohammedan girls and women, who come to the rooms of the missionaries to hear the stories and learn the lessons of the gospel. Altogether there are about eighty Sunday-schools and nearly 5,000 pupils.
The Sii'nday-school in Persia has educated two generations of church members and has made the Syrian Evangelical Church a body of Chris- tians who know and love the written Word of God. It has been the train- ing school, in which the laymen of the church, men and women, have received not only instruction in the facts of the faith, but also training in practical Christian work. It has taken many a new member and by teaching him how to read has put in his hand the key to first-hand knowl- edge of the Word. It has contributed largely to the formation of the habit of each member owning a New Testament, if not a complete Bible.
In brief, it has been the most important church agency in building up the members in the knowledge of Christ and his Word. It is doing this work whenever a congregation is gathered in Persia, of whatever race or nation it may be.
I plead for the needs of these schools. If methods and helps are im- portant in a Christian land, where home and other influences cooperate so largely with the Sunday-schools, what must we say as to a Mohammedan land? Surely we need, just so far as they can be adapted and made effect- ive, the best methods, helps, and appliances. To be more precise and practical, the best Sunday-school literature sent to missionaries engaged in Sunday-school work will be a great help. The native pastors in many cases, and in some cases the laymen, can use English helps. Maps and pictures are useful.
More important still is the need of a good vernacular literature in all the languages used, both periodicals and books, calculated to stimulate and make fruitful the study of the Bible. Attractive books to help peo- ple to understand the Bible are greatly needed in Syriac, Armenian, Persian, and Turkish, and these languages in the dialects used in Persia would reach not only people in Persia, but also in Transcaucasia and in parts of Turkey.
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The new movement towards light and liberty brings such pressure for an advance in educational and evangelistic work that there is a very small margin left in the regular mission funds for literature; and yet this very movement makes it exceedingly important to create a good literature.
The work of the Sunday-school and its friends in Persia is to enable Persian Christians to know their Bibles and to make the Bible as attrac- tive as possible to all. What a great work it is to train the nation that intellectually is the keenest of all Mohammedan nations in the Word of God, the treasury of wisdom and the key of knowledge!
CONDITION OF MOHAMMEDAN WOMEN
Mrs. J. A. Funk, Hamadan, Persia
I WOULD like to take you on a journey to Persia, which is one of the old Bible lands. When you go home and teach the scholars in your class about the rebuilding of the Temple, tell them that you saw the person who came from where the decree was found for rebuilding the Temple.
If I could only draw the contrast between Christian Russia and Mo- hammedan Persia I am sure that there is not one woman in all this audience who would say that their religion is good enough for them! I got very much out of patience with the woman who made such a statement as that, — that their religion was good enough for them!
All that woman is, all the love that woman enjoys, all the respect that she has, all the love and care that she has, she owes to Christianity!
We would not want, for a moment, to be in one of those Mohammedan homes! Homes, if they may be called such, where the women are shut in by mud walls, where it is considered a sin for her to look upon the face of a man who is not her husband ! It is considered a sin for a man to look upon the face of his wife, or of one of his wives! There is no love in their religion, there is no love of the neighbor.
Think of our Christian religion with the music left out! Well, that's Mohammedism! There's no music in it, there's no music in their worship, there are no songs of praise and there is no comfort. I have seen these poor women shut in behind mud walls, — locked in, — to spend their whole lives there!
We are trying to help them, and there is only one thing that is going to change those lives, that is going to take that awful look of degra- dation, of hopelessness, off of their faces and out of the lives of these men and women, and that is the beautiful inspiration that we get from our
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Bible! Think of how they go through life, — no music in it, — and when they come to die, with no hope! It is all a religion of works!
They are not sure of salvation! They have never heard that beautiful verse: " I am the resurrection and the life," or " In my father's house are many mansions." They neied us, and they need what we have to give.
You know Christianity by its fruits, — " Ye shall know them," — which is the same thing in Mohammedism! There is nothing that elevates, nothing that helps; no morality, no good there; and if you ever hear any one say that their religion is good enough for them, just come over and see!
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN SIAM
Rev. R. W. Post, Nakawn, Siam
SiAM is the country of the Freeman. It is the common, everyday term; just as in America we call ourselves Americans, so in Siam they call them- selves Freemen. The Kingdom of the White Elephant is comparatively little known, for its area of 215,000 square miles, and its population of 6,500,000, is dwarfed by the larger areas and swarming populations of India and China.
Yet in many ways Siam is different from its great neighbors. It is an independent nation. The Siamese form the stepping-stone between the Mongol and Malay races. The Siamese language has five tones, showing the influence of China, but the Pali and Sanscrit have had most to do in its formation. At present, growth and change are rapid. There is an alphabet of about fifty-two characters. The religion is believed to be the purest Buddhism in the world.
What of the Sunday-school in this land, which is of a truth the utter- most part of the earth? We will consider the hindrances, present status, and things necessary to an advance movement.
The greatest hindrance is the fact that the religion of the land is Bud- dhism, while the Sunday-school teaches of salvation through Jesus Christ. The children constantly hear that Buddhism is " our religion," and that it is " the religion of Siam," and that is true. When Christianity is spoken of at all, it is spoken of as the " foreigner's religion." Buddhism is taught in the temples, government schools, in official forms and legal papers, by the daily offering to the priests, on the numerous festival occasions, and by the wayside as the passerby worships, from the street, the many images of Buddha, conspicuously placed near the highways and byways of every town in Siam.
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The general sentiment of the people being that they have no part in Christianity, it is almost as difficult to get a child to go to a Christian Sunday-school in Siam as it would be to get an American boy to go to a Buddhist Sunday-school. Here there would be more opposition, but in Siam there is a harder thing, — lack of interest in Christian truth. Buddhist priests are always the friends of the missionary, and are more curious as to the missionary's message than the layman.
This indifference to religious teaching, especially, concerning a religion which they, true to our human nature, naturally think to be not so good as their own, is not surprising. Buddhism does teach of a Supreme Spirit. But you and I would not be Christians did we not believe that Christ taught of an ever-present and omnipotent Helper. Christianity assures us of a living, loving Creator, Governor, and Saviour, of peace and of heaven.
Very few thousands of the millions of boys and girls in Siam have ever heard Jesus* words, " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Children are especially susceptible. Therefore the Sunday-school, teaching as it does that Jesus loves every child in all Siam, will be a great power.
Another great hindrance is the inadequacy of the Sunday-school forces on the field. There is a great lack of ministers and church members, and the scholars in the Sunday-schools are pitiably few in number. Further- more, these scholars lacked lesson helps until 1909. Yet, as we consider the present status of our Sunday-school work in Siam, we will see that the results are greater than we have a right to expect.
The king of Siam rules a population of 6,500,000, and there are only 4,154 church members and 3,648 Sunday-school scholars. Most of these Christians are indeed babes in Christ, and many live at a distance from the missionary. When those in the outlying groups gather to learn about Jesus, whether led by a missionary — who can be with them but once or twice a year — or by one of their own number, Sunday-school methods and helps would be of great assistance. It has been impossible to have Sunday-schools in these scattered groups because of the lack of these helps. I trust that the helps now in use, containing the lesson, brief com- ment, and references, may make it possible to organize Sunday-schools in most, if not all, of these needy places.
The Sunday-schools which have been at work for many years at our mission stations have done a great deal in the way of educating the senti- ment of the communities in which they are established toward a favorable consideration of the claims of Jesus Christ. Most of the church members living in the towns where missionaries are located have been, and are. members of the Sunday-school.
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The Sunday-school is welcomed by the Siamese whom it can reach, and it is one of the things indispensable to the evangelization of their country. No consideration of a home field is complete without a state- ment of what remains to be done. In America we have about one out of every seven in the Sunday-school, while in Siam we have only one out of 1,260. The field is the world, and as we think of Siam as a part of our world responsibility, I believe we will do more than ever before to push forward the work of feeding His lambs in that far-away field.
There are some things urgently needed to enable the Sunday-school work in Siam to move forward. Lesson helps, both for adults and for boys and girls, should be provided. Then papers with attractive stories for young and old would be of immense value in Siam, where the per cent of illiteracy among the men and boys is very small indeed, and quite a number of the girls and women can read.
The Siamese are attracted by a good story, either spoken or written, so that Sunday-school papers and a few well-chosen books would open an avenue to many a Siamese heart. At present the literature of the land consists of the classics, including the Buddhist Scriptures, the text-books of the government graded schools, and novels. The novels are passed from hand to hand in town and country until worn out, very often being read aloud to quite a circle. It would be a wise and productive invest- ment of money if provision should be made for the initial cost of publish- ing these papers and books.
We have men who organize Sunday-schools and who edit Sunday- school papers, in this and other countries, and we need men in Siam for the same work. I hope that before many years pass by we will have at least one Sunday-school missionary who will raise up a corps of Siamese colaborers. Many children must be taught to love Jesus before any great and enduring progress can be made in the work of evangelizing Siam.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS IN LAOS LAND
Mrs. D. G. Collins, Laos, Siam
I represent Laos, in northern Siam. We have two missions, Siam and Laos. Bangkok, the capital of Siam, is exactly on the other side of the globe from Washington city, and in the same latitude as Mexico City, and in order to reach that capital we must go about seven thousand miles farther inland to the city of Kiang Hai, where we have been at work for the last twenty-four years.
Siam is south of China. It is estimated that there are at least ten
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niilUou people who speak the Laos language. They are not a nation, but a people. A part of them you will find in China, a part in Burma, and a part over in French Cochin China, and the rest in Siam. That is the part which I represent.
The language of the Laos people is a tone language; that is, every word that you speak must have its right tone or you may make grievous mis- takes. We might make serious mistakes. If we wish to say, " Knock and it shall be opened unto you," a little change of the tone would mean, " Knock and it will be sold unto you." If you wish to tell a man to saddle a horse, a little change of tone might make you tell him to saddle a dog. In the language there are twenty-four different tones to the same spelling. You see it is an act of memory.
In each of the five stations of the Laos mission where missionaries re- side, we have organized churches, and in each of these churches there is an organized sabbath-school, with superintendent, teachers, and classes, with the regular selections and music, and with Sunday-school lesson helps, just as you have here in the churches at home.
Our Laos people are exceedingly fond of music, and sing well all the parts when trained, so that a part of each service is spent in singing God's praises in their own language. They have learned to sing all the four parts and sometimes give very good music.
In each of the fifteen organized country churches we also have Sunday- schools, and the superintendent is usually an elder in the church, and often for want of teachers the whole school is thrown into one large class, so that old and young are studying together throughout the whole country.
We also have many other schools. One large group consists of a few families, living long distances from any organized church, sometimes out on the plains, sometimes up on the mountain sides, and often even with- out an elder to lead them. In vacation times, however, the boys and girls from our boarding schools become the leaders in these far-away, out-of-the-way places. The people will meet alternately in the various homes, and in many cases regular organization follows.
These schools also have their lesson helps. Our boarding-school pupils spend a great deal of their time while in school in studying the Bible. We have classes in all grades studying some part of the Bible, and in this way they become prepared to take up the work when they go back to their homes. Most of our people, both young and old, are very faith- ful in the study of the Scriptures seven days in the week.
In the earlier history of our mission we had only the four Gospels and Genesis. We thought then it was a very hard thing to have so little of the Bible to put into the hands of the people. But we have learned that it was a blessing in disguise, because they were compelled to become
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familiar with the gospel truths as contained in these portions of the Scrip- ture.
Of the adult people in the Laos land who " come into the religion," as the heathen people say, about one half or two thirds of the men are able to read. Of the women, none can read. It was formerly considered a disgrace for a woman or girl to know how to read. The coming of the missionaries has changed all this, as evidenced by the numbers of girls who come into our girls' schools.
Many of the older people now also learn to read. " Auntie Wan " learned to read both Siamese and Laos after she was fifty-six years of age. Both Siamese and Laos are " tone " languages, with five tones in each. We have two more than that, but the ABC characters are very different.
Some two or three years ago, in one of the outer villages, some distance from any missionary, a man and his wife who had become Christians decided that they would learn to read the Bible together, in their own language. Before long the man had mastered the alphabet, and was reading in his Bible. His wife did not acquire the language so rapidly. At first her husband, with great patience, admonished her very gently, then more urgently, each time with little apparent result. Finally he punished her, with the desired effect. When he was remonstrated with by one of the missionaries, he said she had promised to learn to read, and of course she ought to do it.
This man sold medicine to the people, and often left his village to make sales. " When I go away," he said, " and the people come to buy medi- cine, with no one to read the directions telling them how to take the medi- cines, they do not buy and I lose the sales. Now my wife can read the directions to them and I do not lose the sales." But the women do not all need this vigorous teaching, as shown by the case of " Auntie Wan," and also by the case of grandmother Teum Tah, who learned to read her Bible when she was sixty-seven years of age.
An encouraging feature of our work is found not only in the people who come from outer darkness into the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, but the children of the second and third generations, who show by their bright, happy faces, and their activity in church work, the effect of the Christian training which they receive in their homes, in the mission schools, and sabbath-schools.
Our Sunday-school lesson helps had its birth about twelve years ago, as a Christian Endeavor help. It was then only a small leaflet. It has grown until it now contains about thirty-five pages, and one half the space is given to news from outside countries, so that this is the first and only newspaper published in the Laos language. It is issued monthly.
Roll- Call of Nations — Syria 365
The subject-matter must be gathered, translated, and prepared by the busy missionary, and then sent out all over Laos by mail or carriers. We cannot order the paper, already printed, to be sent to us, as you can do here at home.
Our Laos children do not hurry home from Sunday-school because they are tired, or want to read a book, or go for a walk, as so many children do in this country. Instead, they gather in the church, usually in the front pews, forming a good part of the congregation, and consider it a great privilege to lead in the singing, often rendering special numbers as a choir. The " Glory Song " and other similar songs are favorites there as well as here.
Last year about three thousand of our Laos people were members of the sabbath-school, many walking miles to get there. We feel that the best way to evangelize the Laos people is through the children trained in our day schools and sabbath-schools.
THE NEEDS OF SYRIA
Mrs. Layyah Barakat, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
When the missionaries first went to Syria, they could not do much with the grown people. They worked very hard to lead the people to Christ, and they found out that the best and the only way was to reach the children; and they cried out, and said, " Give us the children of Syria today, and we shall give you Christian men and women in the future."
They started their schools, and in one of those schools was a little bare- foot child, a fatherless child. She never would have had an education if it had not been for the efforts of the missionaries and the poverty of her people. She only went to the mission school to learn how to sew, so as to be useful and earn her living. However, in the mission school God led her into a wonderful life.
It was in the Sunday-school that she found Jesus Christ. It was from that school that little Syrian girl developed into a Christian woman, who was willing to give every drop of blood in her veins in the service of Jesus. From that school she went out to work in her country, and then she went to work in Egypt, and at last, in a wonderful way, God brought her to the United States, and that little barefoot Syrian girl is now the woman who is speaking to you.
You talk about doing missionary work! Beloved, it is very easy to preach, but it is very hard to practice. Today, and in the last ten years, there has been a great fever among our people to come to the United
366 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
States. There are over fifty thousand Syrians all over North America. They come here believing that everybody in America is a Christian like the missionaries. They and their children are scattered throughout the country. They have been used to going to sabbath-school themselves, but in Christian America they hear the call of Sunday papers and Sunday- afternoon amusement, and are attracted from the Sunday-school.
I cannot tell you how much I, an oriental woman, love the Stars and Stripes. I love them wherever they float, because it was under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, in my native land, that my life was saved; it was under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes that my life and my chil- dren's lives were saved during the massacre in Egypt. It is under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes today that I, an oriental woman, dare stand on this platform and speak to you. The world today is looking to Old Glory to send the gospel to it. The world is waiting for you and for your sabbath-school.
Christian people of America, if you want to exist forever, if you want this Old Glory to float over land and sea for Christ, lift up the banner of the Cross! Lift the Bible high! Teach your children in the Sunday- school! Our own Arabic proverb says to us, " The teaching and instruct- ing of a little child is like the engraving in the stone; it never goes away"; and the teaching in the sabbath-school and the training of the children is going to save America. When the American boys and girls are not ashamed to lift the Bible high, they will carry it further and further, not only working in the foreign fields, but at home in America.
I believe my Saviour said to his disciples, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel"; but I believe he also said, " Begin in Jerusalem, and then go out to Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." Oh, for true, consecrated teachers in the Sunday-school, who will teach and instruct the little children to give their lives to God, that when they grow up they may indeed carry the gospel not only to their own country, but to the uttermost parts of the world. God bless America! I love this flag. May it ever float side by side with the Union Jack, and may the two Christian countries go forward, lifting high the banner of Christ.
Roll- Call of Nations — Syria 367
** LIKE A GREEN OLIVE TREE "
Mrs. Lay yah Barakat
(Address at the meeting for women)
You have heard about the little boys and girls who were brought up on the floor, the mud floor. This woman that is talking to you was brought up on a mud floor, and not only that, but she has been barefooted a great part of her life and childhood. She had to carry a jar on her shoulder and go to the fountain to bring the water every Sunday morning, and from under the windows of that missionary chapel she used to listen to the gospel, and, glory be to God! I know what it is to love Him. But I want to say more than that in my five minutes.
You know in the Fifty- Second Psalm, where he sings so sweetly, in the eighth verse: " But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God." I want every woman in this convention to go home pleading with God that she may be a green olive tree in the house of God.
The oriental language is a figurative language, and the psalmist had to bring the green olive tree to the oriental people that they might under- stand what he was talking about. It should be remembered, first of all, that he wants to be in the house of the Lord. You know the green olive tree in a Mohammedan court or mosque is not placed there for its beauty only, but is put there that by its presence it may help some one to get peace .
The olive tree will never give bountiful fruit unless it is planted on rock; its roots must be cleaved to the rock, and from that rock it will suck its strength. When the rain comes that rock will suck it all up and store it there, and then the olive tree becomes green and fruitful because it is planted there and receives its strength from the rock. Cling to the Cross and put your aim in life on Him who is the Rock of Ages of your life!
The green olive tree does not only need to be planted on the rock, but in order to give ripe berries it must be gr;afted; they must cut it and graft the new leaves on it, that it may give life. Oh, for the power of the Holy Spirit to graft our hearts and lives and the lives of all, that we may live for Him.
Then another thing : you know the olive you eat is a very poor specimen of olive. It was bitter and was put through lime water to cure it. As long as there is no oil it is bitter, but as soon as the oil enters into it the bitterness leaves it and it will change. It will not look so attractive, it will turn black like a prune; but as soon as oil is put into it the olive will become beautiful and good to eat. Oh, for the power of the Holy Spirit, that our fruit may be touched with it, that we through Him may live to serve Him and lead the world to Christ.
368 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Then again, the green olive trees do not need anybody to go and pick the olives from them. When you pick the fruit it is bitter, but leave the fruit on the tree and it will ripen, and as soon as the berry is full of oil it will drop under the tree and you can go and pick it up. The little chil- dren have the happiest time then, and the time when the olive berries drop down is the glorious time for the poor peasant children.
Many a barefooted little girl and boy has been waiting and longing for the fruit of the olive trees, and when they are ripe and drop on the ground the children go and pick them, and eat and sing and rejoice; there they pick the berries, one by one, and put them in their baskets. Then the merchant goes down there and they will exchange the olive berries for cloth, so the children can be clothed. The fruit of the olive tree will clothe the naked children. The shoemaker goes there, and the peasants have no money, but they have olive fruit, and he takes the olives in ex- change for shoes. The olive clothes the poor children, it feeds the hungry children, and it gives them shoes.
Oh, for a Christianity to feed the hungry that are dying for the love of Christ, to touch the hearts and feed those hungry for the bread of life, and to become a green olive tree in the house of God!
I hope you will remember me "when you read that psalm, and when you come to the eighth verse, "But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God." And in your church be a green olive tree, in your church, in your Sunday-school, in your missionary society, in your temper- ance society.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN THE NORTHERN LEVANT
Rev. J. P. McNaughton, D. D., Smyrna, Turkey
In the inception and progress of mission work in Turkey, emphasis has always been laid on the necessity of child training in the principles of the evangelical faith.
The initial difficulty to be overcome was the almost universal illiteracy that prevailed. Education was wholly denied to females, and the per- centage of males that could read was exceedingly small. Even now few of the older women can read, and these are only among the Protestants.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that when the missionaries came to Turkey they found the Christian communities without Bibles or schools. The Bibles found were written in the ancient languages of the people, differing so much from the vernacular that if they could be read they could not be understood. The only schools that existed were
RoU-Call of Nations — Turkey 369
in connection with the monasteries, and attended by few except those who had the priesthood in contemplation.
To the problem of dispelling the gross ignorance and superstition that was almost universal, the three great forces that have ever been peerless in solving the problems of religion and civilization were applied, namely, the preaching, including the teaching, of the Word of God; education, and the product of the printing press. These three potent elements of enlightenment have never been divorced during the whole history of our mission work in Turkey.
Intelligent Christians and Christians of intelligence have ever been the ideal for which our work has stood. In the day schools the study of the Bible has always been emphasized. The first lesson of the morning has generally been the Bible lesson — no superficial study, but systematic work on which examinations at the close of the year are held.
Turkey is noted for the cosmopolitan character of its people. The numerous races with their distinct languages presented an educational problem of unusual difficulty. In some districts the Armenian, in others the Greek, while in others the Turkish or Arabic language is demanded. Preachers must be educated in all these languages. In some of our schools there are now taught seven languages. As soon as possible the Bible was translated into the leading languages of the empire, and schools of the modern type were opened to which children flocked in increasing numbers, till now not less than twenty-five thousand pupils are found in attendance. These schools are graded from the kindergarten through to the college and theological seminary. Practically all our day pupils attend the Sunday-school. They supplement one another. The teachers are often the same; the lessons, however, are different.
The early history of the Sunday-school in Turkey differed little from that of England and America, the lessons taught being ungraded and unsystematized, no two teachers presenting the same lesson. With the inception of the International series of lessons, the Sunday-schools through- out the world were revolutionized. Foreign missionaries soon saw the* greiat advantages of the new system, and in a brief period all the Sunday- schools in Turkey were soon brought in line with the world movement.
No one today thinks of apologizing for the Sunday-school. Its history is its best defense.
The importance of the Sunday-school work has impressed some of the missionaries so much that they do not hesitate to give it the supreme place among purely evangelical agencies.
The Bible lesson is made the principal service on Sunday; the whole congregation divided up into groups receive instruction suitable to the different ages and capacities of the hearers. That perplexing question of
370 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
how to induce people to attend the second service is wholly absent in Turkey. It is always taken for granted that the lesson is for all, and not specially for the younger members of the congregation; and thus it claims the full allegiance of the entire congregation.
This position relieves our church in Turkey of another difficulty that causes the greatest anxiety to every leader in Christian work in Protestant countries, namely. What is to be done with the boy who feels that he has outgrown the Sunday-school? In Turkey no boy outgrows the Sunday- school. The Bible lesson is given such prominence, no one feels that it is primarily intended for the children.
All intelligent mission work has its chief significance in the future. Foundation laying and seed sowing must of necessity be the chief func- tions of the missionary. Setting in motion forces that have molded our own best life is about all that foreigners can hope to accomplish. The missionary himself is but a temporary expedient. The man indigenous to the soil is the permanent factor. Ultimate success depends upon him. As the future of every land is in the hands of the young, it is importairt that the future man should be seized in the formative period of his life. The Sunday-school has been the training and recruiting agency of the church. Practically all church members, all pastors, teachers, and other workers, have had the foundations of their character laid in the Sunday- school. The church looks to this agency to make up the depletion by death and to increase the number of its members.
Recognizing the great importance of this department of the work, it was early employed, and its advocates have not been disappointed. To- day there are thirty thousand pupils in our Sunday-schools, taught by three thousand teachers. A large part of this great army is composed of children from non- Protestant families, — and here is where another most important function of this agency is operative. Children who would not be allowed to attend the regular preaching services of the church are permitted and encouraged to attend the Sunday-school.
Every city and town throughout the empire has its hosts of children who spend their Sundays on the streets in amusement and mischief. The Sunday-school is the refuge for many of these. They are attracted by the singing, picture cards, but, most of all, by the warm welcome of those in charge. These children are the unconscious agents in furthering the propaganda of our missionary enterprise, by introducing into their dark, hopeless homes the bright picture cards that later adorn the walls, and the child's paper and tracts that bear messages of the gospel to their parents and neighbors.
The future of Sunday-school work in the Turkish empire should be one of development and extension. It has passed from the infantile and
Roll-Call of Nations — Turkey 37 1
adolescent conditions to full-grown manhood. It is ready to do a man's work, and with the fearless spirit of maturity it regards the future with confidence.
What does the future hold out to it?
1. The perfecting of the organization in the evangelical churches.
(a) To this end the most urgent need is that of a trained secretary, who will give all his time to the developing and coordinating of its in- terests. There should be a Sunday-School Union in each of the missions of the empire, and conventions where delegates from these unions should meet for conference at stated times. At the present time there is a union in only one of these missions. (6) Departments that have proved useful in other countries, such as the Home Department and Cradle Roll, should be introduced, (c) Classes for training teachers should be organized. In many of our schools the grading is deficient, simply for lack of suitable teachers. In the out-stations there are often only the pastor and the teacher of the day school to take charge of the Sunday-school. The pastor can take the adults and the teacher could handle with efficiency one class; but what can she do with a large number of children whose ages range from three to fifteen years?
2. The extension of the organization to other bodies.
(o) The Armenian nation has evinced more sympathy with the aims of the evangelical movement than any other. In some cases, where their day-school teachers have had their training in the missionary educational institutions, they have caught the spirit of their teachers and, feeling the need of their children for religious instruction, have opened Sunday-schools. (&) While the Greeks have not shown equal sympathy with our aims, there is no reason why they might not in the future realize the advantages gained through such an agency as the Sunday-school.
Thousands of the young of both sexes from both the Armenians and Greeks are attending our schools and colleges. In their hands lies a power that might be utilized in introducing this agency into many of their churches. They stand in unique relations to both the missionary aim and the aspiration of their own people. They could, as no others could, apply the principles for which the Sunday-school stands. A sympa- thetic and broad-minded secretary could find unlimited fields in these old churches for the extension of his work.
3. The granting of freedom and a constitutional government will mean the invasion of our schools and colleges by Moslem children. This will probably be the strategic point for the missionary.
One of the rules to which no exception is made is that every pupil must take the regular Bible lesson. No exception will be made for the follow- ers of the prophet. Christian education, perhaps more than any other
372 The World* s Sixth Sunday-School Convention
instrument, will form the entering wedge that must ultimately rend that great system. This point gained, it will be but a step into the Sunday- school. True, the work of this agency among the Moslems is in the dis- tant future, but the fact that it is within measurable distance fills us with hope.
Turkey is the strategic center of the Moslem world. The sultan, the caliph of the prophet, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the supreme pontiff of the faith, both reside in Constantinople. Mecca, the destination in pilgrimage of every true Mohammedan, is in Arabia, one of the provinces of the empire. Anything affecting that great religious system in Turkey will be felt throughout the Moslem world, with its two hundred and thirty million adherents.
A CALL TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD
Mrs. J. P. McNaughton, Smyrna, Turkey
I WOULD like to bring to your minds a picture which I have seen, and which may be familiar to some of those present. If you have not seen it, you must imagine a background of hills, rocky and parched and dry, without grass or tree or shrub. The glare of a Syrian sky is upon them.
Up over the hills are straggling crowds of worn and weary men, and yet on their faces there is a look of enthusiasm, and the light of victory is in their eyes. They carry banners on which are crosses of red, and they wear the same symbol on their breasts. They are the hosts of the Cru- saders who have taken the Holy Land, and are now entering Jerusalem, the Holy City; they claim it for their Lord.
The long marches, the fearful difficulties which they have encountered, are all forgotten. The tomb of the Saviour is now in the hands of Chris- tians. There is no page of history which has the interest for us that this holds, and we never tire of reading it. The call of the Middle Ages to the Christian worid was answered nobly, in the way that the warriors of that day knew how to answer; and they went forth, sacrificing all that life held dear, ready to face death in order to honor their Lord.
Centuries have rolled away since that call echoed through the Christian world. Again a voice, and a loud one, comes from the East, and again the Christian world is summoned to arise and go to the help of that land around which cluster so many precious memories. That country has for centuries lain in darkness; war has devastated it; cruel monarchs with unlimited power have crushed the life out of the people; oppression and wrong have been rampant; a mighty cry has been going up to the ears
Roll-Call of Nations — Turkey 373
of almighty God from thousands of widows and orphans and from deso- late homes.
A startling change in political matters has recently taken place in Tur- key; fetters have been broken, and the cruel chains of oppression have been thrown off. Liberty and justice have been proclaimed, and a new nation has come forth, seeking for recognition from the civilized world, and worthy of sympathy and help for the brave stand she has taken, and for the uncertain future which lies before her.
A new call comes to the Christian world at the beginning of this twen- tieth century, and it comes from the same land to which the Crusaders of the Middle Ages hurried with eager feet. The present call does not come to us with the blare of trumpets, with the unfurling of flags, and the girding on of sword and spear; but it is none the less urgent, and demands no less of endeavor, of sacrifice, and of devotion. It is a call which If adequately answered will mean the devotion of many lives to service, the giving of time and money and effort to achieve the result.
The cry comes to us, women of the Church of God, and the part we are to take is in the forefront; much of the responsibility and effort is for us to bear. Millions of women in eastern lands are waiting for us, waiting for Christian women to rise up in the strength of their devotion, and with all that is theirs as the outgrowth of Christian training and experi- ence. They are waiting for us to plan for them, to lead them and guide them into the light which has been ours for so long. They are waiting for us to come over and enter their darkened homes and tell them what life means and what makes it worth the living.
They are waiting for us to gather the children, the thousands of neglected children, into schools and orphanages, there to be trained and become workers for their own people. They are waiting for the hand to comfort them when they are in pain, and wipe away the tears of anguish and sorrow. They are waiting for some one to point them to Christ, their Saviour from sin, their friend and ours. They are waiting for the Word of God to show them the path of truth and right.
Do we hear the call in all of its power? Are our hearts stirred as were the brave Crusaders of old? Are we ready to go forth, the strong to help the weak?
The tomb of the Saviour is today in the hands of strangers. Our effort is not to wrest it from them, but to teach them to reverence it as we do, to understand its deep meaning, and to unite with us in worshiping the risen Lord, who is their Saviour as he is ours.
374 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
WORK AMONG GIRLS IN TURKEY
Miss Nellie A. Cole, Bitlis, Turkey
More than forty years ago my father and mother went out to the in- terior of Turkey, — to the region about Mount Ararat. I went there six years ago and remained about three, assisting them in their work.
It was not long ago that those interested in the welfare of Turkey were crying out, almost in despair, " How long, O Lord, are such conditions to continue? " When, lo, all through the country there came a gleam of hope, of joy, and ambition! The new form of government brought it about. We are not yet sure what the government will do, but we have hopes for a great deal; and with this feeling of hope and joy comes the impulse, a desire, for the betterment of those who heretofore have been largely shut away from education.
In the interior of Turkey the girls are really considered more as neces- sary articles of household furniture than human beings. They are un- welcome when they come into the world. Why are they so unwelcome? It is such an expense for a poor parent to get them married, because, before doing so, she must be provided with a dowry. The conditions of the country are such that no girl is safe, — she is likely to be carried off. There is no chance for her to earn her living to enable her to wait for the right one; and, marriage being considered a part of her destiny, she therefore must enter into matrimony, no matter if she has never seen the man who is to be her husband.
This form of education is spreading all through Turkey to a larger extent than ever before. Not the least, it is getting the younger generation started along the same line; and it is for this reason, especially, that I am going to return there to teach kindergarten methods and start normal training classes, so that the native girls may be equipped to go out into the villages where I cannot go — because one person cannot cover all the ground.
.1 am also to take charge of the Armenian Sunday-school. We have many nationalities in the one field, — the Greeks, the Turks, the Armen- ians, the Gourds, and others. I was born in Turkey so I naturally feel that it is my work. Sometimes we forget that we have kindergartens here. Those out there need them much more, because the home is not what it is here. We forget that those living there are not living under the favorable circumstances that we are. We have hopes and ambitions, and they have hopes and ambitions, and they have souls just as dear as ours, and just as necessary to be saved!
Roll-Call of Nations — Java 375
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS OF MALAYSIA
Rev. Charles S. Buchanan, Tjisaroea, Java
Malaysia, from the standpoint of the Sunday-school, is a new field, and, from that of missionary work, one but recently occupied. This division of the world's surface comprises the East Indies, the Philippines, and the Malay Peninsula with its few close-lying islands. At present the Philippines are a field within themselves, and are not treated in this paper.
The first-mentioned division of Mala^'sia, the East Indies, is practi- cally all under the Dutch crown, while the last, the Malay Peninsula, with its immediate islands, is practically all under British government. This fact makes the conditions for Sunday-school work in the two terri- tories quite different. Immigration to British Malaysia is encouraged; to Dutch Malaysia it is not. To British Malaysia people of China and India are now coming in a constant stream, so that the great majority of the business is in the hands of these foreigners, which consists chiefly of mining and commerce. The population therefore is not so settled as that of Dutch Malaysia, where the native population is larger and where the chief occupation is agriculture. Indeed, the great majority of the population of British Malaysia is foreign, while in Dutch Malaysia the foreign population is but a small per cent of the whole.
In Malacca, Malay Peninsula, Morrison and Milne did their first mis- sionary work among the Chinese, and thence moved to China as soon as that empire was open. But all present missionary work in British Malaysia is of comparatively recent origin. The chief societies at work are the " Brethren" and the Presbyterians of England and the Methodist Episcopalians of America.
Much of the so-called Sunday-school work of this territory is a phase of pioneer mission work, taking the form of a compromise between a Sunday-school session and street preaching. In the majority of the mis- sion schools, " Sunday-schools " are conducted Friday afternoons, which among the older pupils partake of the nature of Bible classes. In this territory much missionary work is done among the immigrant Chinese and Indians, and, as these people are not accompanied in any large meas- ure by their families and are therefore a floating population, Sunday- school work is almost an impossibility.
Among the Malay-speaking or Straits-born Chinese (usually called " Babas"), who are a very well-to-do class, where successful missionary work has been carried on, definitely organized Sunday-schools are in operation. This is true also of all the non-conformist congregations among the Europeans; but as these are few, they do not add much to the whole
376 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
of the Sunday-school work done in British Malaysia. In but few places has the recent graded-lesson system with examinations been introduced.
In Dutch Malaysia certain continental missionary societies have been at work for fifty years or more. There is no island of importance that has no mission work, some of which is remarkably successful; but what Sunday-school work there is can scarcely be said to be carried on along up-to-date lines. Besides these Continental societies, the Methodist Episcopal and the Seventh-Day Adventist are the only others that prom- ise to develop a large work in the future. These last two have so recently entered this field that they have but few congregations where the organi- zation of Sunday-schools is practical. Nevertheless, the people, being an agricultural people, a settled population and denser, the day should not be far distant when excellent Sunday-schools should be in operation throughout much of the whole archipelago.
Malaysia is indeed a new field for Sunday-school work, but the next twenty-five years will tell a different story from the past twenty-five. It is, in a word, fallow ground. There are no old traditions to discard, no old methods to revise. Practically everything lies in the future.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN NEW ZEALAND
Rev. J. A. Mackenzie, M.A., Shannon, New Zealand
(Report compiled by Rev. George H. Jupp, General Secretary of the Youth of the Church Committee of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand; and Rev. A. B. Chappell, M.A., Organizing Agent of the Methodist Church of Australasia in New Zealand.)
The name, " Dominion of New Zealand," denotes a British colony which consists of three main islands with a number of small and sparsely inhabited groups lying at distances up to six hundred miles off the coast.
The North Island of New Zealand is five hundred and fifty miles long and two hundred and eighty miles broad at its greatest width. Immedi- ately south of and separated from the North Island by Cook Strait is the South Island, — five hundred and fifty miles long and one hundred and eighty miles wide. Again south and separated from the South Island by Foveaux Strait is Stewart Island, a small one containing only six hundred and sixty-five square miles in its whole area.
These islands are the real New Zealand. The Dominion is a pastoral and an agricultural country. There is abundance of water and plenty of timber. A good system of communication, by rail and sea, between the main centers has been established. But outlying districts are difficult of access.
Roll' Call of Nations — New Zealand
377
The following tables deal with inhabitants of the three islands men- tioned above. The figures are also exclusive of Maoris, of whom there are about 47,731 persons.
(The statistics given are those of the denominations having the largest membership and likely to be of most value for the purpose set forth.) Estimated population (European) of New Zealand, Jan. i, 1909, 960,642 Population at last census (April, 1906), 888,578
All figures for totals of denominations given below in first column are based on census of 1906. All others are the latest available.
|
1 |
\ 1 |
3 . |
|||
|
Denomination |
Members |
Average Attendance |
V |
||
|
Church of England, |
366,828 |
33,812 |
2,812 |
||
|
Presbyterian, |
203,597 |
34,516 |
25,703 |
3,377 |
7,718 |
|
Methodist Church > |
|||||
|
of Australasia in >- |
63,603 |
22,690 |
15,957 |
2,264 |
3,200 |
|
New Zealand ) |
|||||
|
Primitive Methodists, |
27,796 |
6,214 |
4,682 |
649 |
* |
|
Baptists, |
17,747 |
5.460 |
706 |
857 |
|
|
Congregationalists, |
7,360 |
2,804 |
1,882 |
314 |
|
|
Church of Christ, |
7,061 |
3,215 |
357 |
380 |
* Figures not known.
There are three local Sunday-school unions of an interdenominational nature in New Zealand. The most efficient of these has its headquarters in Auckland. Here there is the Sunday-School Union Bookroom, a large and well-stocked book store, carrying on a general business in books, but specializing in Sunday-school material and literature. The union has also an organizing secretary, and makes every effort to extend Sunday- school work and interest, especially in the sparsely settled districts of the province of which Auckland is the chief center. Teacher-training classes are arranged, and the great worth of Sunday-school work is kept before those who are engaged in it already.
The other local Sunday-school unions are in Wellington, in the south of the North Island, and in Otago, in the south of the South Island. The work carried on is neither so elaborate nor so thorough^as that in Auckland.
378 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
What is Being Done by the Various Denominations
The Church of England. — New Zealand is divided into several dioceses for the purpose of carrying on the work of this branch of the Christian Church. Each diocese arranges its own Sunday-school work, but no distinctive policy guides Sunday-school work as far as any diocese is concerned.
Presbyterian. — A committee of the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church, known as the " Youth of the Church Committee," has charge of all work among the children and the young men and women of the church. This committee has two divisions, — Sabbath-School Com- mittee, of which Rev. John Mackenzie, M.A., is convener, and Bible Class, of which Rev. Dr. Gible is convener, — and these present a combined report to the assembly.
The Sabbath-School Committee is endeavoring to organize the teachers of each presbytery into Presbyterial sabbath-school associations. These associations endeavor (a) to awaken the minds of the present teachers to the possibilities of their work; {h) to increase their personal efficiency and so the efficiency of their schools; (c) to organize new Sunday-schools where necessary; {d) to awaken the consciences of the church generally to the importance of the religious development of the young.
The training of teachers is regarded as of supreme importance, and every effort is being made to induce the teachers to band themselves into classes. So far, it has been found most practicable to band the teachers of individual schools together rather than to have larger classes composed of teachers gathered from a number of separate schools. The text-books are those published by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and known as the " Teacher-Training Handbooks." The teachers are sympathetic toward the scheme, and a large number study the books, though not a large number have come forward to the yearly examinations so far. The six books are taken two per year, so that the teacher-training scheme provides for a three-years' course in Scripture, doctrine, and art of teaching.
The young men and women are banded together in the Bible class unions of the church. There are 353 classes altogether, 217 of which are conducted by those who are not ministers. The men have their Young Men's Bible Class Union; the young women, their Young Women's Bible Class Union. These unions are self-governing as far as the internal affairs of the organizations are concerned, but they are subject to the jurisdic- tion of the " Youth of the Church Committee." Similarly the individual Bible Class is self-governing but subject to the minister and session of the congregation with which it is connected.
Each union has an executive council for the whole Dominion, with
Roll-Call of Nations — New Zealand 379
district committees to take charge of the interests of the classes in a limited area. Each union holds its annual conference at Easter time each year. This is principally a business meeting. A combined Bible Class con- ference is also held at Christmas time. This is in no sense a business gathering. Addresses on practical Bible class problems are delivered, and discussions on such themes are promoted.
The link between the Sunday-schools and the senior Bible classes is effected by means of the junior Bible class system. These junior Bible classes, composed of the senior classes of the Sunday-school, are connected with the Sunday-school, are present at the opening exercises of the school, and are counted as part of the Sunday-school, but are urged to affiliate with one of the Bible class unions. They are urged to come to the Easter and summer conferences, and a recognized place is given the juniors at these gatherings. At the present time there are 168 junior classes, with 2,288 members.
The grading of the Sunday-schools depends upon general considerations of ability, age, and day-school grouping. The International Association's graded lessons will be introduced in many schools, and this will have a commanding influence upon the grading.
The lessons are partly elective in the infant classes. The Uniform International scheme is used in the main school. In the Bible classes a syllabus of studies, comprising Bible, mission, and general topics, is drawn up about every six months. Local conferences of Sunday-school teachers are organized in convenient centers, and practical matters are discussed.
The " Youth Committee" has for seven years had a secretary whose whole time is given to fostering Sunday-school and Bible class work. Rev. J. C. Jamieson occupied the post for five years, and now Rev. George H. Jupp is secretary. The assembly has affirmed the necessity of two agents being employed and a scheme is being arranged by which the salary of a second agent may be secured. In connection with the Sunday- schools a special missionary magazine — The Break of Day — is issued. It has been taken up very heartily by the scholars.
Methodist Church of Australasia in New Zealand. — Practically all that has been said under the Presbyterian church work might be repeated, with minor alterations, concerning the Methodist church. A Sunday- school Advisory Board, presided over by Rev. W. Slade, has been es- tablished as a committee of conference. This board provides for the uni- fication and coordination of the Sunday-school department, and embraces the whole of the church's work among young people.
Teacher-training is regarded as of very great importance indeed. Ham- ill's ** Legion of Honor Lessons " has been adopted as a text-book for ex-
380 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
amination and diploma-gaining- Between twa. hundred and three hundred teachers are studying the text-book. Two half-yearly examinations have been held, seventy-five per cent of the candidates passing with honors.
The Bible class system is similar to that of the Presbyterian church. There are district and New Zealand unions for men and women. These are self-governing, though connection with the Sunday-school is in most cases vital. There are two hundred classes, with a membership of 3,200 men and women.
The Junior Bible class system is in vogue in this church also. These classes approximate in methods to the senior Bible classes. The numbers are included in the Sunday-school returns. The annual conferences of the Bible class unions are held during Easter of each year. The remarks regarding lessons and grading which have been made in regard to Presby- terian schools apply here also.
For four years the Methodist Church has employed an organizing agent, the third minister to hold the position being Rev. A. B. Chappell, M.A. It is to be regretted that it has been unavoidably necessary to close the office for the present at least.
Primitive Methodist. — In this branch of the Christian Church, the Sunday-schools use the International lessons, as a general rule. Con- siderations of age and size determine the grading of scholars. There is no definite system of teacher training, though in a few isolated cases ministers take classes of teachers. Almost all of the ninety-one schools have adult Bible classes for each sex.
Baptist Church. — The International lessons are those principally used in these schools, and age and educational ability are the deciding factors in the grading of the scholars. There is no coordinated system of teacher- training, but classes are held in some schools.
Congregationalist Church. — The International lessons are generally used. No uniform system of grading the scholars is adopted, neither is there anything definite being done in the matter of teacher training. There is no adult class system, but several of the churches have adult Bible classes.
Church of Christ. — In this denomination the Bible-school system is in operation, the helps used being those published by their church in America.
The need in all our Sunday-school and Bible-class work may be summed up:
(a) To get the members of all our churches to realize the tremendous importance of these branches of Christian work. Too few of our Chris- tian people have become aware of the transcendent importance to the church of its young people.
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{b) To open the minds of our Sunday-school teachers to their own possibilities and opportunities. We have very great latent power in our staflFs, but this can only be made available when the teachers themselves understand the real value of their work and their need of training.
(c) The introduction of a properly graded lesson system.
{d) Better facilities for work in the Sunday-school among the children.
{e) A greater amount of care to be taken in holding the senior scholars of our schools. A great deal of hard work is being undertaken in this matter, and much has been accomplished, but more must be done.
We have much to be thankful for in New Zealand. The problems facing us are numerous and pressing, but unmistakable signs of a tide which is already flowing are not wanting. But a year or two ago many of our needs seemed absolutely removed from the possibility of being satisfied. Today we can see the way to making good what is wanted. Teacher- training classes are an accomplished fact. The senior Sunday- school scholars are being held to the school and the church. All along the line there is a forward movement, and we are realizing that God does not fail nor forsake us.
AMONG THE CHINESE IN NEW ZEALAND
In connection w4th the formal report, Rev. J. A. Mackenzie, of New Zealand, spoke as follows:
Although New Zealand is very far from America in distance, and very far from America in size, I think the motto I saw on one of the banners in the parade the other night describes New Zealand exactly, and that motto was, " Young, but awake." I think I can say that without boast- ing. We in New Zealand, as the people in many other lands, look to America chiefly for guidance and help in Sunday-school m.atters; and if any of you good folk here were to drop into one of our city schools in New Zealand, I think it would both please and surprise you to find how many of the appliances and methods you use here are being used there.
I will tell you a little story about missions which will interest some of you. It is how a new mission came to be started in China through a New Zealander, and how God has honored our small and young land by allow- ing such a thing to be. We have in New Zealand a good many Chinese. There used to be more of them; they came out originally in large numbers to one of the gold rushes.
For a good while nothing was done for them. Then it was laid on the heart of a good man to work among them. He familiarized himself with their language, and worked among them for many years, with very little seeming result. One part of his work was to walk on foot over what
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totaled up thousands of miles in the course of a few years, visiting every separate hut, climbing mountains, and enduring all sorts of hardships. In the course of time a nice little church was built, and a congregation organized. Then this good man took a trip to Canton. It was from the inland villages near Canton that most of the New Zealand Chinese came.
Before he went, he went among the Chinese with whom he had been working, and offered to carry greetings, letters, or anything else they wished to send to their people over in China. They gave him many things, among which was a large sum of money. When he got to Canton he went inland, and spent quite a long time delivering these messages and the money, taking their formal receipts for the money. Then he returned to New Zealand, and delivered the receipts and the greetings and the let- ters he had. Then the idea took possession of him, " That is the field of work to which God is calling us in New Zealand; the door has been opened." That was about ten years ago. Today we have about a dozen missionaries working there, and we are building a hospital, and we have a doctor who has volunteered to go out next year.
The villages inland from Canton were intensely anti-foreign, so much so that some missionaries who came and tried to teach the people were not able to stay there; and when those who followed this good man came first to the villages, they were stoned, and greeted with all sorts of curses, derision, and hatred; but once it was known they were acquainted with the good teacher who came to them from their friends in New Zealand, they were listened to at once, and made welcome in every house.
So God opened the door of that not inconsiderable part of China, with hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people in it, to one little branch of the Church of Jesus Christ from a far-off island of the sea, largely — entirely, humanly speaking — through the consecrated life of one man working among the Chinese in New Zealand.
WORK OF THE AUCKLAND SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION
Mr. George Winstone, Auckland, New Zealand
Our Sunday-School Union in Auckland, which numbers 22,000, is only a small portion of the Sunday-schools there. Those schools are composed of all denominations who believe in the triune God, and who desire to join our association. I know of nothing that has done more to cement in one big friendly bond the whole of the Christian churches than our Sunday- School Union. We unite in one common name for the Master's glory.
I cannot speak to you, as our friends have done, about the foreign mis-
Roll-Call of Nations — New Zealand 383
sion field, but we have our home mission work among the Maoris. That race is much smaller than it was years ago, when the gospel was taken to them in the early part of the last century. When the gospel was first taken to them, they were glad to receive it, and our missionaries had very great success indeed. They were a strong and noble race.
They soon resented the intrusion of the white man. They saw he was going to take away their country, and they rose in war to try and exter- minate the white race, and drive it out. Great Britian had to send troops in order to protect the white people, and ultimately the Maori race was subdued. To the glory of Britain be it said that a fair agreement was arrived at with the Maoris. Their rights as the owners of the country were respected, and Britain has had to pay for those lands.
There are a number of the Maoris still holding land, and whenever they are dealt with it is on a fair and equitable basis. This war greatly hindered the work of God among them, but I am glad to say that our Christian teachers are overtaking them again. Though many of them returned to their former idolatry, though many of them lapsed into their former state altogether, in regard to religious matters, the gospel is winning its way among them with great success.
Our Sunday-schools are contributing, many of them, toward keeping missionaries in the field among the Maoris, and they are also contributing toward following up the work done by our own brethren, who are going into the back sections of our country, where there are no sabbath-schools and no churches, and by their efforts trying to spread the gospel, by means of teachers and preachers, among those who would be otherwise without it, were it not for the help which they give.
I have been glad and much encouraged to hear the note which has been sounded on the temperance question since I have been in America. You know, we in New Zealand have been looking to you in America; we have been quoting you as an example. We are laboring under somewhat different circumstances in New Zealand than you are here. Our government passed a law, some sixteen years ago, by which it gave us local option upon ob- taining a three-fifths majority of the electors, in favor of that. You will see that is a most unfair proposition, we all realize it to be so.
The demand of the temperance people was so strong that the govern- ment had to put some statute on the book by which we could give effect to our temperance ideas, so they gave us this. They thought it was un- workable, that we would never do anything. But the first election we carried one electoral district. We have our elections every three years, and I am very pleased to tell you that, in the face of these tremendous odds, we are still winning our way, and several districts have gone dry, and are likely never to be wet again. Not one has gone back yet.
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At our last election it was inspiring indeed to see the enthusiasm with which all denominations of the Christian Church worked. When the elec- tion was over, you should have seen the radiant faces of the temperance workers and the dejected looks of the publicans, for many districts went dry, and even in the city of Auckland, the chief city of New Zealand, there were great reductions. I attribute these things to our Sunday-school. We have been doing all we could to emphasize this work, and although there is still much room for improvement, still we feel greatly encouraged.
Just one thing more I would like to touch upon, which seems to be a weak spot in our Sunday-school work in New Zealand. I picked up a morning paper the other day and read this headline, " Sunday-School Going Out." What was it attributable to? The fact that the teachers who do the work of instructing were not qualified for their work; that they came unprepared, and not knowing even as much as the children did. What shall we say to those friends who do come to work? Shall we ignore them? The number of those who volunteer is so insufficient, what are the superintendents to do? They must use some material, or else close the school door; so they use the best they can get. This is a weakness that we feel in New Zealand.
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN AUSTRALIA
Archibald Jackson, Melbourne, Australia
If a line were drawn from west to east through the middle of our great island continent, and dots, commencing at the eastern intersection of the coast line, were placed equidistant, southward, westward, and northward, representing the capitals of the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and West Australia, it would give a fairly good idea of the distribution of the population of the commonwealth.
The majority of the people inhabit the capitals with the exception of a few inland cities, the product in most cases of the gold mining industry. The great spaces to the north, the northwest, and central Australia are only slowly being opened up by the pioneers of civilization and of commerce, and the Church of Christ is seeking as far as resources at command will permit to leaven the new life with the gospel of Jesus. The part of the Sunday-school in this missionary effort is honorable and far-reaching in eflfect.
In the whole of the states the churches have given special attention to the work and development of the Sunday-school, and organized effort, with a view to improvement, had grown in nearly all the states, out of denominational effort.
Roll- Call of Nations — A ustralia 385
Queensland
In the north, Queensland, the population is scattered over a vast area, and only in the chief cities, such as Brisbane and the towns, has it been possible to aim at any degree of efficiency in Sunday-school methods.
In this state there are denominational Sunday-school unions, and also the Queensland Sunday-School Union. Cooperation is not as fully carried out as it might be, but excellent work is being done by the distribution of literature, conventions, and correspondence. Each denomination cares diligently for its own schools, and Presbyterian schools have sent out their own special Sunday-school missionary, with van and horse, to minister to isolated communities, establish small mission schools, and distribute literature along the tracks.
In this country of great distances a minister or missionary may have a parish one hundred miles square. Many parishes are much greater. Sunday-schools in the homes of the settlers or in the state schools may be counted by the score, and only the great day will declare the splendid work done in this way by the nameless workers who conduct them. By a system of examinations, which is common in all the states, the Sunday-school organizations are seeking to improve the teaching in the schools and edu- cate the teachers. Lectures on the art of teaching are a feature of the work in all the states.
New South Wales
The capital of the parent state, Sydney, on the famous Port Jackson, is the largest of Australian cities and is regarded as the most progressive commercially. Organization has been confined to denominational agen- cies, and these have been conducted with a zeal and efficiency that have been fruitful in good results. In all efforts improvement in teaching as well as school methods has been given a foremost place.
In the spring of 1909, the various denominational unions joined in hold- ing a Sunday-School convention. This new departure provoked great interest. An excellent program was presented, and a well-attended series of meetings resulted. A fine spirit of interdenominational fellowship pre- vailed, and it was felt that the convention was the beginning of better things. A proposal to form an interdenominational association was cor- dially received and it was agreed to give the consideration of this a first place at the convention to be held in 19 10. A zealous spirit of inquiry is abroad in the mother state, and the forward denominational Sunday- school movement has promoted a desire for united cooperation where possible.
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Victoria
This is the smallest of the states on the continent. Its limitation in area has been compensated for by its fertility and mineral resources, es- pecially gold. Melbourne, its capital, is no mean rival, commercially, of Sydney, and the whole life of its people has been characterized by virility and a professional spirit. Over thirty years ago a splendid band of men belonging to several denominations organized the State Sunday-School Union, and its work has had a marked effect on Sunday-schools throughout the state. The union has its own premises, publishing business, and book store, and the secretaryship has been filled by a paid officer for some twenty- seven years or more.
At its call the Protestant denominations have cooperated in large move- ments, and a spirit of brotherliness has been manifested that has greatly helped the work. Recently more than fifteen hundred teachers attended a series of suburban weekly lectures, and many of them came forward to a subsequent examination. Scriptural examinations for scholars are con- ducted on a large scale by the denominations and also by the union, and teacher training occupies a prominent place.
The Sunday-School Union employs a traveling agent, and something like three hundred mission schools in isolated country districts are associ- ated with it. This is one of the most interesting and useful of the union's many activities.
The Normal College for Teachers in connection with the union is a well- organized institution with a two-years' course of study, and in conception and for efficiency it is unexcelled unless by the residential colleges and de- partment classes in connection with theological halls. For more than twenty years this college has done a magnificent work. Within the last two years the Protestant churches have shown a progressive spirit by the formation of Sunday-school departments and the setting apart of special workers. From this new effort it is anticipated there will be a rich reward in the near future.
South Australia
Here is an old and well-established union on an interdenominational basis. Its agencies are much the same as those in the other states, and re- cently it has shown the initiative in moving to secure the services of a well- known Sunday-school expert from Great Britian. The generosity of de- ceased pioneers has enabled this union to institute a department of lend- ing libraries. These are constantly in use among the country schools throughout the state, and the books are greatly appreciated in the homes of the settlers. In South Australia the progress of some of the denomi- nations is an illustration of the value of Sunday-schools in a new land.
RolU Call of Nations — A tistraUa 387
West x^ustralia
It is only in recent years that the great west has been opened up. The discovery of rich gold fields led to a large increase in population, and laid a heavy burden of responsibility upon the churches. Sunday-school workers from the eastern states making their homes in the west took with them their interest and enthusiasm, and the work has grown thereby. Denominational organization has been followed by interdenominational, and improvement is being sought by earnest teachers. The difficulties in the west are great, and there remains much land to be possessed. There is need for heartening and encouragement, and there is in this direction an opening for deputation and convention work that would accomplish great good. How to give this help is the problem, for Perth is six days by steamer from Melbourne.
Tasmania
The island state of Tasmania is included in the commonwealth. In its chief cities, Launceston and Hobart, there are large and efficient Sunday- schools. There is no interdenominational organization, and there is scope for Sunday-school missionary work throughout the whole of the state. Individual workers have left their mark on the schools they have super- intended, but the standard they reached was not made general. This is not peculiar to Tasmania or iVustralia, and marks a weakness in our system that needs attention.
Statistics
The lack of trustworthy statistics is to be deplored, and it is hoped that one of the older unions will endeavor to secure the services of a competent officer to undertake the duties of statistician, not locally, but for Australia. Figures presented, from time to time, are not as reliable as they ought to be, and valuable information is lost through lack of a necessar>' painstaking officer.
The Outlook
There is in the minds of many a conviction that lately there has been a lessening of interest and that the schools have not progressed. This has led to much discussion, and it is cheering to note that the discussion has not been profitless. The formation of Sunday-school departments in connection with the churches will make for greater efficiency and a larger enrollment. Changing conditions call for changed methods and adapta- bility, but the greatest need is for consecrated men and women and leaders inspired by the spirit of God.
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The International Graded Lessons
We are looking forward with interest to the complete scheme 19 12- 19 1 7, The change is generally regarded with favor, but it is felt that we must, to do the lessons justice, put the whole school on a higher level. If the lessons will help to do, this they will be doubly welcome.
While we publish loyally a considerable number of lesson helps for scholars and teachers, we are indebted to British and American houses for large supplies. This has raised what seems to me a matter of impor- tance, viz., uniformity in regard to the use of the Scripture text. The British Union keeps to the Authorized Version, and explains it by the Revised. Possibly there is a connection between this and the cheap editions of the Bible issued by the Bible Society in England. American publishers are leaning towards the adoption of the American Revision in lesson helps, by placing it alongside the Authorized.
Mr. Jackson also presented the formal greetings of the Sunday-school workers to the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention.
RUSSIA NATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION
The first convention of Sunday-school representatives in Russia was held at Rostoff on Dom in October, 1909, and the Russia National Sunday - School Union was formed.
Pastor W. Fetler, St. Petersburg; W. P. Stephanoff, M.N. Yasnovsky, M. I. Fetler, H. W. Beklimisheff, M. Timothekko, and J. Wints, at the re- quest of the Conference, sent the following message to the Washington Convention:
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, " Peace be unto you ": We send you, all the Sunday-school teachers and Sunday-schools in America, separated from us by so great a distance, and yet so near to our hearts in Christ, the warmest greetings, accompanied by our sincere prayers for great blessings on you.
We should also like you to know that God's work in Russia is greatly progressing. New communities are springing up daily in towns and vil- lages. Our most pressing need is the organization of Sunday-schools in all our communities; it has been voted for in our conference and the question is decided.
For this purpose it is necessary to send out experienced brothers and sisters to many different places, but as this work is entirely new to us, and we are so poor in all ways, both materially and in the wisdom of God, we, therefore, apply to you, brothers, with the earnest request' for your prayers that the Lord Jesus, the Friend of children, may teach us how to organize aright the Sunday-schools everywhere and enable us with all diligence and sincere love to " feed his lambs."
DEPARTMENT CONFERENCES
EIGHT CONFERENCES REPORTED
Elementary Department Home Department Teacher-Training Department Advanced Division
Adult Department Home Visitation Department Missionary Department Temperance Department
A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE CONFERENCES
Presented at the Convention Monday Morning, May 23 (See Page 50)
[Note. — The Conference reports, with addresses, etc., follow this brief survey.]
The Elementary Department
Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Chicago, Illinois, International Elementary Superintendent
Our Department has nearly one half the membership of the Sunday- school membership, on its Cradle Roll and on its Beginners', Primary, and Junior departments.
At our conference, this morning, young ladies at the door were told to give out our Elementary Button, one each, to the persons who should come in. The five hundred were soon exhausted, and our conference room was filled, and standing room was at a premium.
Fifteen of our state and provincial elementary superintendents had been chosen to present to our conference the points of our standard of excellence for elementary workers, so that we might know our aim, which has been helping so many of the schools during the past months and years. We have ten points to this standard. I will simply name them, telling you that these fifteen women so boiled down the important features of each point that within the forty-five minutes we were through with presenting that standard of excellence as a whole to our conference.
Point I. Cradle Roll for the babies.
Point 2. Beginners' Department, for the little people, three, four, and five years of age, who are too young to attend day school.
Point J. The Primary Department, for our children six, seven, and eight, who have some knowledge of day-school ways, but who do not yet read well enough to read with the Bible in their hands as a text-book.
Point 4. The Junior Department, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, when facts about the Bible, when the handling of the Bible, and when more memorizing of the Bible are required, and when written work is intro- duced in connection with the. school.
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Point 5. A separate department or a separate room, a separate corner or a separate section, — some way of keeping each one of these depart- ments in its own section of the Sunday-school building or rooms.
Point 6. The blackboard, or a substitute, used in each one of these departments, believing that the boys and girls are helped by being taught through the eye as well as through the ear.
Point 7. For the Beginners' children, the Beginners' Graded Lessons.
Point 8. For the Primary children, their new graded lessons or the supplemental lessons with the Uniform; supplemental lessons or memory work, the ages graded.
Point 9. For the Junior Department, the new graded lessons or else supplemental or memory work with the Uniform lessons.
Point 10. The last point is that every teacher shall be a member of a training class or a member of a reading'circle, reading some good book of a general nature each year, and also a book pertaining to the work of the Elementary Division. If not either one of these, she shall be a member of a Graded Union. We feel sure that this standard is helping the time to come when all the children shall be taught of the Lord, and the knowledge of the Lord shall be known from the least to the greatest.
The Home Department
Rev. Curtis E. Mogg, D.D., Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania
We have had a tremendous conference, — snappy, bright, enthu- siastic, — and, of course, we finished but half of the published program.
We have eight hundred thousand members everywhere around the world. We thought the county, town, and state superintendents ought to keep in touch with the individual teachers. In Ohio, there are fourteen hundred superintendents in touch with the state office.
We also found that there was a street-car class in Lexington, Ky., of over one hundred; a police home department in Atlanta of over one hundred; and in Alberta a fine department of many people who could not go anywhere else because they were all in jail.
The Home Department is necessitated by the Primary Department. The Cradle Roll mothers and the Primary mothers must give half an hour a week to teaching the children the lesson.
The youngest member of the Home Department was reported by a lady. As a baby lay crying, the father said, " This baby is crying because it wants to join the Home Department; put him down," — forty-five seconds old, the youngest recorded member we have ever had!
Survey of Conferences 393
We are simply going to work to girdle the globe with the Home De- partment, so that we can reach out and touch hands, forming a circle of light and joy and salvation.
Teacher-Training Department
Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Nashville, Tennessee, Chairman International Committee on Education
There were only three addresses. The opening address was devoted to a brief statement and review of the history of the teacher-training movement in the world. Emphasis was given to the fact that England, in the person of Dr. Grosser, furnished, perhaps, the pioneer in the move- ment, and that our English brethren had cooperated with our work in America from the beginning, and possibly had antedated us. Especial emphasis was given to the large place held by Bishop John H. Vincent as the inventor of Sunday-school teacher training, as Horace Mann had been of secular teacher training; and then the great leaders of the move- ment were enumerated in chronological order, not forgetting Pardee and Ralph Wells and Chidlaw and Paxson and others of the older date, and Hurlburt and Worden and others of the later date.
It was noticeably called to the attention of the conference that the first class of teacher training in the world was held in a little room in a Methodist church in Joliet, III., and was organized by the young John H. Vincent; and that Chicago led the world in the institution of its perma- nent institutes for the benefit of Sunday-school workers; and that while the fire broke out in the West, it broke out in New York state at the same time, but the great movement went from West to East, and not, as Bishop Berkeley declared, from East to West.
A brief history, with some attempted appreciation, will be printed in a few days. Any one who will address a postcard to H. M. Hamill, Nash- ville, Tenn., will receive a copy of it. It may be a pleasure to you to have it for reference. I promise it will be exact so far as history can give it.
The next speaker was Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, the man who was taken from America to organize the educational work of Porto Rico. I wish you could have heard his really great address. He is the super- intendent of the Philadelphia public schools.
He began by taking an illustration from his own public schools. There are four thousand and four hundred teachers to meet the many thousands of pupils at a definite moment, and yet in twelve centers of Philadelphia one hundred more teachers sit waiting for the ring of the telephone bell,
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so that, in case any regular teacher is absent, a substitute teacher, well trained, might instantly take her place; and he likened it to the methods of the Sunday-school, which goes out into the streets and stands on the corner and asks any passerby to teach a Sunday-school class in an emer- gency.
He closed his splendid address with what to the reporter was a singularly unique and beautiful illustration of the modes of teaching, — the Roman, the Greek, and the Hebrew, which was expressed in Christ. The Greek appealed to the emotions, the inferior form of teaching; the Roman appealed to the reason, the higher form of teaching; Jesus Christ appealed to the will, " Ye shall know the truth." " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them," said Jesus.
Dr. Henry F. Cope, the secretary of the Religious Education Asso- ciation, addressed us. The secretary of that great association ought to have been appointed to us and held an honored place among us. His plan was unfolded to us, and he read from many communications of the presidents of the universities of the country favoring the introduction of the plan of teacher training into the curricula of all the greater and lesser colleges and schools of this country.
Advanced Division
Mr. E. H. Nichols, Chicago, Illinois, Chairman International Advanced Division
It is not my province to report methods, for we are too young. Our work has just within the last year been fairly started.
We comprise the Intermediate and the Senior departments, that unique department including the boys and girls in their teens, the department that has so long been neglected, the department from which we lose three out of every four to the church and the school, the department without which you never can have an Adult Department, nor a sanctified church, nor an efficient church.
Methods are entirely new to us. In our conference of this morning we found that we must find new ways to hold these boys and girls. The methods which avail in the Elementary and Adult Divisions will not suf- fice; the work is different for those in their teens. We must discover new methods.
Two or three points were adopted this morning. First, it was decided to make an appeal to the whole church at large, to awaken an interest in these boys and girls, the ones we are losing, the ones who are getting
Survey of Conferences 395
away from us because of a lack of interest. We believe that two things are necessary to hold them, — an increased efficiency on the part of the teachers, the acquiring of a knowledge which they do not now possess; and, second, service. The church must provide ways and means for these boys and girls to serve.
You cannot retain the Christian life unless you serve. You must do something. And, above all, the boys and girls must do something. So we must provide ways and means for these boys and girls to do something for the Master they love. The jobs of ushering must be taken out of the hands of the old men and given to these young men. Ways and plans must be made for these young people to do things.
You would never send a boy out to play a game of baseball and give him no place on the field. They want to do something. So it is in the Sunday-school. We do not know the ways and means yet; they must be found; and we want your cooperation and help and advice. We appoint everybody an advisory committee. We want any suggestions which you may have. Service is the one secret. It seems to us that this is the most important division of the Sunday-school.
Adult Bible Glass Department
Mr. W. C. Pearce, Chicago, Illinois, International Adult Department Superintendent
We had a conference at which perhaps one thousand people were pres- ent. It was made very clear that our purpose was to reach and to win to Bible study and to the Sunday-school all the men and all the women, all the fathers and all the mothers, the big brothers and the big sisters, of our continent- wide field and of the world.
Our plan is to seek continent-wide unity, not uniformity. Therefore, we have a standard of organization that requires divided leadership and varied activities, but we do not have uniformity of either class name, motto, or constitution.
Our emblem is the red button with the white center, signifying that there is no purity of life except through the blood of Jesus Christ. No word, no name, no monogram on the button, so that any class organiza- tion may put on it its own name, this emblem being the great flag that floats over the Bible class movement of the entire country and the world.
The characteristics of the conference might perhaps be placed under three or four words. First, there was the word Bihle study. This is a Bible-study movement, and every speaker and every answer to every
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question was full of the statement that this whole movement is gathering about an evangelistic study of God's blessed Word. As an emphasis of this great statement that is in the very heart of this movement, I ask you to take out your handkerchiefs and give to this Bible which I hold in my hand a Chautauqua salute. You have saluted men and flags and great leaders. I beg you now to give a salute to the Word of God. [The convention complied.]
The next great word was evangelistic. Every speaker's message was replete with the sentiment that the world must be reached for Jesus Christ; that brotherly love must characterize our movement; and that by it we would win men and women, the fallen as well as the respectable, to Jesus Christ. Twice the conference broke out in singing, — once, " Rescue the perishing, care for the dying," and the other time, " Throw out the life- line across the dark wave," — emphasizing as no other thing could have done that this great movement is out to win men and women to accept Jesus Christ.
Another note was sounded, and this is all I wish to report. The last note was civic righteousness, purity of life, national and international temperance. In other words, we declared it to be our purpose that, if God wills, the Bible-class movement intends to see to it that America and Canada and the world shall go dry. The first speech I ever made was a temperance speech, and, God willing, I expect to live to preach the funeral sermon of the last saloon in America, and the Bible-class folks are with me in that proposition, and they will be there to shout " Hallelujah."
Home Visitation Department
Mr. J. Shreve Durham, Chicago, Illinois, International Visitation Superintendent
Mr. William Hamilton, Toronto, Canada, chairman of the International Visitation Committee, presided. Rev. F. B. Meyer opened the conference and made a brief address on " Visitation Preparation." He said in part: " We are commanded to go and teach all nations." This plan is to ful- fill this command. I have given it special study since I have been in America this time, and in touch with its leaders; and it is one of the most important movements I have ever known. I hope to have you come to my country to help organize the work."
" The Visitation Proposition " was presented by Mr. Hugh Cork, Chicago, Assistant General Secretary of the International Sunday-school Association. He stated that the Visitation Proposition is to bring every
Survey of Conferences 397
man, woman, and child in touch with the Sunday-school and church of his or her choice. It was not intended to do evangelistic work on the day of the general visitation, but to extend a printed invitation, signed in behalf of all the churches and Sunday-schools in the community, and secure a record of the church preference of each individual, and these records are turned over to the pastor, priest, or rabbi preferred, and they follow up the work with the help of their permanent Visitation Committees in their own church, along their own denominational lines.
" Visitation Organization " was explained by the International Visi- tation Superintendent, Mr. J. Shreve Durham, Chicago. He told how the largest city or most inaccessible country district can be visited in a single half day by having a leader who understands every detail of the organi- zation divide the territory into small districts, place a supervisor over each district, and instruct the visitors for the work. The plans for the general visitation are given in detail in our Home Visitation Leaflet No. i , and plans for the follow-up work in our Home Visitation Leaflet No. 2. These leaflets can be had by writing to our International Sunday-School Association, 805 Hartford Building, Chicago, III.
Mr. Paul Warren, of Michigan, made a strong address. His thought, emphasized in a splendid manner, " What would be the result, if every one would reach his neighbor?" impressed the conference deeply, and its spirit was manifest throughout the session. It was also emphasized that the Visitation Movement is our quickest and best plan to educate the people regarding the Organized Sunday-School Work. " Home Visitation is not only the greatest missionary movement ever devised, but is a means of awakening an interest in the entire Sunday-school enter- prise. The information and education necessarily connected with a thorough visitation acquaints the people with all of the important work being done by the International Association." It is educational. It reaches many communities where colleges and universities are unknown, creating a desire for better advantages and bringing the people and institutions together.
Mr. Fred A. Wells, of Chicago, Treasurer of the International Sunday- School Association, spoke clearly on " Visitation and Capitalization." He said, the Visitation Movement, by informing the people concerning the work being done by our Association, causes them to contribute liber- ally for its extension. A state that had never given more than one hun- dred and fifty dollars, after a Home Visitation work last year has given this year $2,600 to the extension of the work through the International Association.
" The Visitation and Evangelization " was the subject of an address by Very Rev. William T. Capers, dean of the diocese of Lexington, Ky. He
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said: " Home Visitation is the best sort of evangelization. It is the kind that will count. It unites the church and the home, and above all em- phasizes the individual need and meets that need as we go out bearing His message of salvation."
The conference closed with questions seeking Visitation information.
The Missionary Department
Mr. William A. Brown, Chicago, III., International Missionary Superintendent
The conclusions reached at this conference may be summed up as follows:
The Sunday-school needs an adequate objective. The greatest possible objective is the winning of the world. Your Sunday-school is not your field; the world is your field and your school is the force with which you are to work your field. Your Sunday-school is then to be brought into such spiritual relation to the program of Christ as to make it realize its part in bringing in the Kingdom of God.
There should be in every Sunday-school:
First, a missionary organization representative of all grades and every department.
Second, the promotion of definite prayer for missions; prayer not merely as a personal privilege, but prayer as a primary activity in bringing in the day of God.
Third, the creation of a missionary atmosphere, in which missionary life will be sustained and life's highest purposes will come to glorious fruition.
Fourth, the development of missionary reading that will acquaint the people at large with the outstanding facts of the expanding Kingdom.
Fifth, a " Kingdom Day," when the school shall be brought face to face with Christ's clear call for the world.
Sixth, graded missionary instruction for all, and special missionary training for teachers.
Seventh, the development of proportionate giving.
Eighth, weekly offering for missions, with a pledge from every member of the school.
Ninth, definite home and foreign missionary enterprises on the part of every school which will keep the missionary motive from being dulled or obscured.
Tenth, the securing of recruits for the ministry and for missionary service, through prayerful cultivation of the spirit of consecration for personal service.
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The Temperance Department
Prof. Frederic S. Goodrich, Albion, Michigan
The Temperance Department conference was one of the most enthusi- astic of all the meetings held. The meeting stopped, but it did not close. It would take a week or more even to begin to settle the questions which agitated the people in that great conference.
It was emphasized in the conference that temperance teaching in the Sunday-school must be reasonable. The time for mud slinging in temper- ance discussion has passed by. It is true that in a convention of liquor people held in Hartford, Conn., a while ago, one of the speakers said that all this temperance agitation was caused by a lot of dried-up old maids calling themselves the W. C. T. U., who ought to be home taking care of their half-starved husbands and their hungry-looking children. But that is not argument.
We have reached the time when we recommend that temperance teach- ing be based upon medical, scientific, and physiological facts, for the facts are bad enough and strong enough without there being any necessity of appealing to any emotional imagination.
Then we discovered that temperance teaching is necessary. Many teachers think that, however necessary it may be in other towns and in other classes, it is not necessary in their class. We find that there are towns in which brandy drops, brandy chocolates, and doped candy of various kinds are being sold to the children; and in one case, at least, the candy was to be given away if it could not be sold and the bill sent to a certain brewer, who authorized that free distribution, — the purpose of it all, of course, being to stimulate appetite, on the principle that " nickels and dimes spent in treats now would come back in dollars by and by." Chicago reports thirty thousand juvenile tipplers, of whom twelve thousand have been in some Sunday-school.
We recommend that pledge signing should take place in every Sunday- school at least once a year.
Temperance teaching must be varied; temperance teaching must be educational.
Finally, since this is the greatest movement before the American people today, we feel the need of bringing before our teachers as well as the scholars every possible encouragement in the way of up-to-date temper- ance scientific teaching.
The saloon is the greatest foe which the Church of God and the Sunday- school have to face today. It opposes our missionary effort; it blocks our evangelization of this country. It debauches our boys. It seduces our girls. It depletes our pocketbooks. It opposes our various efforts in the
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way of home visitation and so on. It burns our petitions; it despises our resolutions; it mocks at our prayers. And yet there are people still who take the blood-stained Judas bribe of a license fee, and as they take it they say, " Thank you, gentlemen; that is ample satisfaction for what you have done." Ample satisfaction for widows' tears, and orphans' groans, and wrecked homes! We who are here know well enough that there are some things money never can pay for.
The conference presents the following resolution:
" Whereas, there is no more important movement among the Christian people today than the temperance movement:
" Therefore he it resolved, that the World's Sunday-School Convention recommend to the International Committee to appoint, at the earliest possible moment, an International Superintendent of the Temperance Department, to give his full time and effort to this great work."
THE ELEMENTARY DEPARTMENT
THE ELEMENTARY DEPARTMENT
Its Place and Power
The Elementary Division is important because it includes nearly one half of the Sunday-school membership. All pupils under their teens, during the changing periods of childhood, are claimed for its depart- ments, known as the Cradle Roll, Beginners, Primary, and Jimior.
The Cradle Roll reaches parents and children, establishing coopera- tion with the home. During childhood early and lifelong impressions are given of the Heavenly Father's goodness and care, and the Saviour's special interest and love for the children.
Elementary work deals with childhood in the story, memory, and habit-forming periods. Elementary teachers were the first to arrange a special course of training, including child study, as well as Bible study methods and principles. Child study emphasizes the need of closer grading, so that the Elementary Division is usually more definitely graded than the remainder of the school.
Child study and closer grading created an ever-increasing demand for lessons so graded as to " meet the spiritual needs of the pupil in each stage of his development." Diu-ing the past year Graded Lessons have been provided by the International Lesson Committee covering the two years Beginners, three years Primary, and four years Junior work.
" We must save the children to save America.'*
MRS. MARY FOSTER BRYNER, International Elementary Superintendent.
THE ELEMENTARY CONFERENCE
Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, International Elementary Superin- tendent, Chicago, Illinois
The first decade of the twentieth century marks rapid and varied prog- ress in elementary Sunday-school work.
The Elementary Division includes all scholars under the teens and their teachers, — almost one half the total Sunday-school membership. Its strength and importance are apparent.
Never before has so much study been concentrated upon the " unfolding life " of the child and his needs, during the changing periods of develop- ment from birth through early and later childhood, boyhood and girlhood, to the very portals of adolescent youth. As these changes and needs have been better understood, the elementary workers who desired the richest development of the child's religious life during these formative years have planned and prayed that our Sunday-school work might be adapted to meet the children's spiritual needs.
As a definite and worthy aim toward securing these results, the following Standard of Excellence has been recommended to all Sunday-schools, and was the first topic presented during the Elementary Division Con- ference arranged by Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner for Monday, May 23, 19 10, Mrs. J. A. Walker, Colorado, presiding:
Praise and Prayer. Miss Martha Graham, West Virginia.
The Standard of Excellence for Elementary Grades.
Why a Standard is Needed, Mrs W. J. Semelroth, Wisconsin.
1. A Cradle Roll (birth to three), Miss Maggie Wilson, Delaware.
2. Beginners' Department (or class), children 3-4-5, Mrs. O. D. Wether- ell, Florida.
3. Primary Department (or class), children 6-7-8, Mrs. F. E. Perry, Vermont.
4. Junior Department (or class), children 9-10-11-12, Miss Nannie Lee Frayser, Kentucky.
5. A separate room or separation by curtains or screens for each of the three departments, Mrs. W. A. Snow, North Dakota.
6. Blackboard or substitute, used in all three departments. Miss Wil- helmina Stooker, Connecticut.
7. Beginners' Lessons for children under six, Mrs. G. W. Hendrick, New Hampshire.
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8. Graded Lessons (or Supplemental with the Uniform Lessons) for the Primary, Mrs. W. H. Bell, Oklahoma.
9. Graded Lessons (or Supplemental with the Uniform Lessons) for the Junior, Miss Grace W. Vandiver, South Carolina.
10. Each teacher a graduate or student of a training course, or a mem- ber of a reading circle, or graded union:
Training Course, Miss Clara Mendenhall, Delaware.
Specialization, Mrs. J. W. Wilkins, Oregon.
Reading Circle, Miss Edith M. Nichols, Iowa.
Summer Schools, Mrs. C. E. Blake, Rhode Island.
Graded Unions, Miss Mabel Bailey, Missouri.
Open conference on the Standard.
Each speaker, in three minutes, outlined the most important features of her topic. That people were interested was evidenced by the large attendance which filled the auditorium, gallery, and choir loft of the Mc- Kendree Methodist Episcopal Church, and some were standing. Long before the room was filled the five hundred samples of the new Elementary button had been given out at the door. This button with the white center and green rim suggests " First the Blade." Within the few months since their introduction these Elementary colors have been used by the Elementary superintendents in many original and unique ways to promote the work.
To close the morning session it was fitting that our thoughts should be centered upon " The Child," for whose sake standards and plans had been suggested. Miss Minnie E. Kennedy, of Alabama, voiced the sentiments of all in her able address on " How and Why Study the Child." (See index.)
A two-hours' session was all too short to consider the many important phases of Elementary work, so the opportunity was welcomed of holding an additional conference of three full sessions the day following the close of the World's Convention.
The large attendance was sufficient proof of the interest. The variety of subjects considered may best be understood from the program:
Morning Session
Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Presiding
Opening Service for Beginners, Miss Minnie Allen, Arkansas. Work of Elementary Superintendents in the Associations, Mrs. Phebe Curtiss, Ohio.
Elementary News in Association Papers, Mrs. E. C. Knapp, Illinois. Temperance Teaching for Children, Mrs. H. M. Hamill, Tennessee.
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Mother's Meetings, followed by discussion, Mrs. W. ¥. Heath, New York.
Maintaining Interest in Graded Unions, Miss Meme Brockway, Cali- fornia (S).
Future Plans for Graded Unions, Miss Alice B. Hamlin, New Jersey.
Discussion — Graded Union Problems, Presidents of Graded Unions.
Afternoon Session Mrs. H. M. Hamill, Presiding
Primary Opening Service, Mrs. H. M. Leyda, Illinois.
Possibilities of Graded Lessons in the Smallest School, Miss Margaret E. Brown, Nebraska.
Conference upon Lessons: Graded — Uniform — Supplemental, Mrs. J. W. Barnes and All Lesson Writers.
" Stories and Story Telling," Prof. E. P. St. John, Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy, Connecticut.
Section Work and Conferences. Beginners: Leader, Miss Susie Juden, Louisiana. Primary: Leader, Mrs. L. E. Ware, Massachusetts. Junior: Leader, Mrs. Maud J. Baldwin, Indiana.
(Music, Hand Work, Missions, etc., will be presented in each section.)
Evening Session
Mr. a. H. Mills, Chairman International Elementary Committee,
Presiding
Junior Opening Service, Mrs. Herbert Hill, New York.
Greetings from Our Leaders, Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Mr. Marion Lawrance.
Graded Lessons, Mrs. J. W. Barnes, New Jersey.
The Art of Story Telling and a Story Told, Mr. Richard T. Wyche, New York, President National Story Tellers' League.
Those who conducted the opening services prepared their programs in printed form to be distributed as souvenirs.
Sunday-School Association work was most aptly compared, by Mrs. Curtiss, of Ohio, to one of her childhood playthings, — a nest of wooden boxes each a trifle smaller toward the center, yet each carved with the same beautiful pattern. So our associations (World's, International, State or Provincial, County, Township, District, and individual Sunday- school) exist to impress the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the heart and life of every scholar. As elementary workers we are responsible
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for the framework, the real outline of the pattern. All the rest of the work is an elaboration of that pattern.
While every topic was important and helpfully presented, and every speaker was on hand for the part assigned, the greatest interest centered around the New International Graded Lessons and plans for the Graded Unions.
It should be remembered that at the Denver Convention in 1902 the request for graded lessons was refused except a two-years' course for Beginners; at Toronto in 1905, the votes were about evenly divided; at Louisville the request for a complete graded course was granted, and October i, 1909, the first year's work for Beginners, Primary, and Junior departments was ready for the individual schools. As the first year's test was limited to the Elementary Division, and the Washington Con- ference afforded the first opportunity for a general discussion by workers from all parts of the country, it was natural that after seven months' trial this topic should bristle with interest.
It was generally known that a larger proportion of schools than was anticipated by some had adopted the lessons at the start; also that the transition to the Graded Lessons had been made much more smoothly than many had expected. Some problems had arisen through misunderstanding of the plan or beginning the course in the middle of the year or not follow- ing the directions. (Judging from the testimony of the publishers, prob- ably one tenth of the schools have in these few months introduced the Graded Lessons.)
As the course was new to teachers and scholars, and had been introduced into all kinds of schools in city and country, it was to be expected that some problems would be presented. No one was better fitted to conduct these conferences than Mrs. J. W. Barnes (who has done more than any other one person towards the preparation and introduction of International Graded Lessons). A number of Graded and Uniform lesson writers assisted in the discussions.
It was interesting that but few of the questions related to actual prob- lems now existing, but rather to problems anticipated when more than one year's work should be ready for each department.
It was emphasized that, wherever possible, it would result better to grade the departments and to use in each grade the work specially out- lined for that year. Because the course is incomplete, the schools which are using the first year's work now for an entire department shall begin the second year's work next October for all who have had the first year, and shall form a new class for first year's work for children received from the next lower department. In this way the full course will gradually be adopted as planned.
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If this plan for the present seems impracticable or impossible in some schools for lack of proper rooms, teachers, or limited numbers, it was decided that to teach the course in rotation would be much better than not to teach it at all.
Schools that expect to introduce Graded Lessons for the first time next October were requested to grade and take up first year's work with the youngest grade, and second year's work for the others. The discussion showed that the Graded Lessons have already introduced a new and important epoch into Sunday-school work in the elementary grades.
The discussion upon graded unions followed similar lines, and repre- sentatives were present from all parts of the country. The majority of the teachers connected with the unions introduced Graded Lessons at the start. As the Graded Lessons have increased, the Uniform have decreased in like proportion, and in some unions are no longer used. The unions aim to help the greatest number. It has been found easier to secure teachers for the small groups in each section than for the larger section. It will be no more difficult to present first and second year's Graded Lessons for each department than it has been this year to present Graded and Uniform lessons. If this plan is likely to discourage any small union, or cause it to disband, and if first year's graded work has been considered this year, it may be better in some cases for teachers in each department to become acquainted with second year's work in the union. The marvel is that the plans have worked out so well in such a short time.
Specialization in training for elementary teachers includes a knowledge of story work and hand work. A glance at the program shows its richness in securing the author of the recent book, " Stories and Story Telling," also the president of the National Story Teller's League, to address the workers. A pleasant surprise closed the evening session with the story of Samuel (adapted for Juniors) impressively told by our favorite story teller. Miss Nannie Lee Frayser, elementary superintendent of Kentucky.
Hand Work, Music, Missions, etc., for each department were discussed in the sectional conferences by competent workers. Like the lessons, music and missionary instruction should be graded. The hand work should be self-expression by the pupil, embodying the truth of the lesson rather than busy work just to employ the fingers. No special text-book on hand work for the Elementary Grades has yet appeared, but definite instructions suited to each department are given in the teacher's text- books with the Graded Lessons.
A special exhibit of hand work of the different grades from many parts of the country was available for examination during the days of the con- ferences, and gave a fair idea of work done by the children.
To promote mutual acquaintance and fellowship, a special supper for
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elementary workers was arranged by members of the Washington Graded Union. A pouring rain did not prevent two hundred and fifty people from enjoying this social opportunity, during which they were presented in groups, former officers of the International Primary Department; present members of the International Elementary Committee; our visitors from other lands; well-known and pioneer Elementary workers; Graded and Uniform lesson writers; Elementary superintendents from thirty different states, and officers of graded unions.
Though necessarily brief, the responses by a word of greeting, song, or story were bright, appropriate, and entertaining, and this social hour proved a pleasing relaxation from the strenuous sessions of the conferences.
Looking back over the progress of the past decade, grateful for the pres- ent opportunities, and anticipating even richer blessings in the future, we separated at the close of the conferences with the song on our lips and in our hearts, " The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad."
WHY A STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE IS NEEDED FOR ELEMENTARY GRADES
Mrs. W. J. Semelroth, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
We put up a standard as something that is definite for us to aim at, so that we can take true aim and hit something. We hear so much of the word " vision." Men say, " Oh, it is too bad he has not gotten the vision yet "; or, " Some woman is just getting the vision." I think the stand- ard is the vision in black and white, so that those of us who really cannot get up to just what the vision means may see plainly before our eyes the object at which we are aiming in our work. We have a standard because we want to have a definite aim.
Another reason is the unifying of the work. Wisconsin's motto is, " Working together to win," — and we want to win in this great work. We want to win our children for Christ, and we want to do it in God's way, each one and all of us; so we have a standard, that we may work together, and win.
THE CRADLE ROLL
Mrs. Maggie Wilson, Seaford, Delaware
The Cradle Roll makes Sunday-school membership possible for all wee babies, thereby linking them with the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and throwing around them the holy influence of the church.
The Elementary Conference 409
It makes friends for the church and the school. Every visit made by the Cradle Roll superintendent, every birthday card, every letter, every flower that is sent, every bit of interest that is manifested, binds the home to the school more firmly. It extends the influence of the church to homes that might be reached in no other way, even winning to the church parents that have never been connected with any church, and awakening in all who come in touch with the Cradle-Roll baby an interest in the school and the church.
It brings children into the school at an earlier age than they would otherwise come. Before they are three years old they know that the Sunday-school loves them. They have been there several times, perhaps, with father and mother, — on Children's Day, Rally Day, or at the happy Christmas time, — and they are looking forward to the day when they shall be old enough to join the Beginners' Department, and go to Sunday-school every Sunday.
BEGINNERS' DEPARTMENT
Mrs. O. D. Wetherell, Tampa, Florida
The Beginners' Department is the department for the next group of little ones, and has the second place in our standard of excellence.
It means those who are just beginning to come to Sunday-school, the three-, four-, and five-year-old children. We are glad to welcome the little ones from the Cradle Roll. It has been said that these are the years of the greatest hunger, both physical and mental, of the greatest capacity to receive, and the greatest activity, and how very true it is that in these early years the child needs nourishment, to enlarge and develop his life. They are absorbing and taking in the thought and actions of those around them, and are unconsciously influenced by their surroundings. So it is so important that we have very simple and informal exercises in the Be- ginners' Department, so simple that the average child can easily under- stand, and will not tire of them.
Come with me into our Beginners' Department this morning and see for yourselves the rows of little chairs, the table with the flowers upon it, the blackboard, and the pictures on the walls, — the walls, tinted green, making an artistic setting for the pictures, and restful to the eyes. The windows are open, this beautiful May day; the sunshine and fresh air are coming in, so essential to a child.
As the hour for opening arrives, the organ plays softly, while the chil- dren take their seats quietly. Then we sing our little songs of greeting,
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and then with bowed heads and clasped hands we pray our little prayer of thanksgiving, " Father, we thank thee for the night." Then we sing again. One of the children has had a birthday, and we light the little candles while she puts her pennies in the box, and then we say together, " A happy year, a happy year, we wish you, little friend." Then we re- member the Cradle-Roll children in prayer and put their names on the blackboard. One of the little boys comes forward and holds a basket for the offering, while the children pass before him and put their offering in, and then we sing our little offering song.
The time has come for the lesson, the classes march to their respective places, and the teachers teach the Graded Lesson for Beginners, taking about fifteen minutes. This is a service of song, story, and prayer. The child unconsciously absorbs the truths we seek to teach. Then the papers are distributed, and we sing our good-by song:
" Our Sunday-school is over, And we are going home. Good-by, good-by."
THE PRIMARY DEPARTMENT
Mrs. F. E. Perry, Brattleboro, Vermont
Again we meet the imaginative, imitative little child, but he has made another grade. He has stepped out from mother, and the little circle in the school, and it is necessary to prepare him for the next department. If he is going to school, he can learn in this department to read, to write, and to sing, and he can be classed in a little class all by himself.
THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT
Miss Nannie Lee Frayser, Louisville, Kentucky
The Junior Department is the youngest department in the Elementary section.
If there were no other reason for a Junior Department than that the period of life with which it deals is the habit-forming period, that were reason enough that these children might be separated, and especially prepared along the line of habit forming for their future religious life, for their Christian life. If there were no other reason than that it is the golden memory period, that were reason enough that these children should
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have their minds stored with the truths that are in this Book, that shall remain with them forever.
There is a deeper reason. There is a spiritual and moral development at this age that we cannot close our eyes to, that calls to us for special training, that we may make these children, so far as it is possible, become what they ought to become in God's kingdom on earth. A child in the Beginners' Department learns that God is his Father; a child in the Primary Department begins to learn that he is God's child, and the re- lationship is strengthened; but a boy or girl in the Junior Department begins to understand what it is to have an Older Brother, and to go one step further in understanding what he must understand to decide defi- nitely for the Older Brother.
That call is too loud and strong for any of us to ignore, and we cannot hope to go up before our heavenly Father scot free, if the lad be not with us, if we have the material in our Sunday-school and do not have a Junior Department.
SEPARATE ROOMS
Mrs. W. a. Snow, Fargo, North Dakota
We have had beautifully put before us the fact that we must have in in all our Sunday-school work Beginners', Primary, and Junior depart- ments. How shall we house them?
In North Dakota we raise a great deal of grain, and the farmer finds it very necessary to have a separate bin for each sort of grain, because the grain has a better value if it is kept separate. If there is a value to grain, is there not a greater value to a human soul? We know in our own home work that the little child of three requires very different education from the child of six and eight. We realize in our Sunday-school work that the boy eight years old does not love to sing, " Little hands and little feet," etc.; he wants to go out and sing, " Onward, Christian Soldiers," or something that has a swinging movement to it. Therefore, we find we must have separate rooms for our department, because we are working for the future, we are building soul values and not money values.
Each little child must be cared for in his own way. Every principle we seek to teach must be suited to the need of the child. Separate rooms may be made by stretching curtains and putting up screens. You know, a child is not annoyed by noise; all we need for the child is to keep other sights away from him. By this means, even in the smallest school where you have only one room, you can furnish separate rooms for the little people of the three grades.
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THE BLACKBOARD
Miss Wilhelmina Stooker, Hartford, Connecticut
If we place upon the walls of our Sunday-school rooms beautiful pic- tures, or if we take our blackboard and draw upon it the various things that come in the lesson, we find it a great help, because there are things in the lesson we want to bring before the children. Perhaps they do not know that an Oriental house has a flat roof, so if we can draw such a house on the blackboard, the children will not think the man had to climb up and sit on the peak of the house when they were breaking through the roof in order to let the man down before Jesus.
It is helpful when you come to the presentation of the lesson. We should find in every lesson some little grain of truth that should be im- pressed upon the children's minds, and then we should select the kind of eye teaching that will help to make that truth clear. It may be a picture that fits in just at the climax of a lesson, or a picture of something that is involved in the action of the story. With a blackboard or sand-table, our characters will move right along with our story, and thus make an impression.
Again, we can use it in the application, with a view to setting forth clearly and distinctly the truth of the lesson. Then we can use the maps to connect the various places in the lesson. What we desire to do is to make our truths clear, and vivid, and that is the true test of our black- board work. Keep the blackboard work subordinate to the truth you are trying to teach, then apply the test, " Have I made the truth I am trying to teach clear? " Then we will know we have succeeded in our teaching.
GRADED LESSONS FOR BEGINNERS
Mrs. G. W. Hendrick, Nashua, New Hampshire
In 1908 the Lesson Committee were instructed to prepare a thoroughly graded course for all departments. This first Beginners' course is super- seded by another more simple, in order that there may be perfect progress in the grades. The aim of this course is to lead the little child to know God the heavenly Father, who loves him, provides for him, and protects him; and to know Jesus, the Son of God, his friend, and the Saviour of all little children.
The lessons are arranged in groups which are related in thought, and so follow one another that they meet the natural developing need of the child. We need lessons with Bible stories as well as Bible verses to teach
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God's love and protecting care. Bible verses are not given for mere mem- ory work, but are to be used often by the teacher, so that they shall sink into the children's minds, and unconsciously take possession.
It is a two years* course, but there is not much progress in the second year over that of the first, and the lessons for the four- or five-year-old children can be used in rotation. Illustrated lessons and sets of pic- tures have been provided for the teacher's use, and songs related in thought are suggested for each lesson.
The aim of the first lessons is to teach God's loving care, and to thor- oughly instill it into the Ijttle child's mind. The first group is on God's care of the birds and animals, and the verse and song accompanying this appropriately carry out the thought that God cares for the children, too. A folder is given the child after the lesson has been taught, containing a small introduction of the picture used in teaching the lesson, and the memory verse and story, and a note asking the mother's cooperation through the week in keeping the truth before the child's mind.
We have so many courses of help at hand that no one who has the least interest in or love for children can fail to make a success of the work.
PRIMARY LESSONS, GRADED OR SUPPLEMENTAL
Mrs. W. H. Bell, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
This is a three years' course, and, having had the first year's course since last October, I can state that we have been able to accomplish more in that short period of time than any time previous to that, on account of the beauty and simplicity of these lessons.
The Uniform Lessons, while spiritual food for adults, are often too strong food for Primary children. As the memory verse in the Uniform Lesson is chosen to fit the lesson of the day, and is very often beyond the comprehension of a little child, that lesson is practically lost on the child. The other lessons are chosen to fit the need, and are spiritual nourishment for the child, and will be of especial benefit to him.
The Graded or Supplemental Lessons fit the child's spiritual body, and if he is given the proper spiritual food from the age of six to eight he will be so nourished spiritually during this period that he will be willing and anxious to be of great value to his Master, God.
If the Primary teachers will be very careful of the food of their precious little flock, the Junior teachers will be better able to help the children feel that they are the temples of God, and they will want to let the Saviour in, to make the temple fair and clean, instead of being defiled by serving Satan.
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This is a Primary teacher's great responsibility. Your work is formation, not reformation. You are helping to build God's temples. Build slowly and surely, with the best material, so that the temples will always stand cis loving monuments of your faithful work, that God may be glorified in each life.
JUNIOR LESSONS, GRADED OR SUPPLEMENTAL
Miss Grace W. Vandiver, Spartanburg, South Carolina
In the Christ-conceived idea of childhood which child study has brought to us in this age, which has been called by some one, " The rediscovered age of rediscovered childhood," Graded Lessons follow as the night follows the day.
Junior work is the continuation of the course of graded work laid out by the Lesson Committee. The lessons are wonderfully plain, and have been wonderfully planned and skillfully carried out by the lesson writers of all denominations. When we have come to realize what the delicate and far-reaching task of the Junior Department is, then — and not until then — are we going to realize, as Junior teachers, what this graded work is to mean in the spiritual development of childhood.
Up to the beginning of the Junior age we have had no chronological study of the Bible, no systematic study of the Biblfe; but to the Junior, with his knowledge of books gained in the public school, and his ability to connect events, the Bible, as a book, begins to appeal.
So begins that wonderful plan that must give him a connected knowl- edge of God's Word. When habits for life are being formed, we give him lessons that have for their central truth the responsibility of right and wrong choices. Then, taking note of his wonderful power of imita- tion, we bring before him the beautiful, gentle, and perfect character of Christ. Then, remembering the wonderful fund of energy of the Junior, and his love of service, we bring to him his responsibility for service to others. Lastly, as the crowning glory of the course, we lead him to Christ his Saviour, that he may see a vision of what it means to be a Christian. That is, briefly, the aim of this wonderfully planned course.
We talk a great deal, these days, about a seventy-five per cent leakage, and we have laid it at the door of the Intermediate Department, until it has been called, "The department with a hole in it"; but the more I study the Junior work, the more I see that the seeds of discontent that are sown in the Intermediate Department germinate in the Junior De- partment, and this double loss the graded lessons will to a large extent cure.
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We all know that the Junior age is the doing age, when the child wants to be doing things; he wants to get at something and get through with it. Just as quickly as we learn to give the Junior something tangible to work at, in which there is something to be lost or gained, and combine with that instruction for which they have a mental appetite, we Junior teachers have gone a long way towards solving the perplexing Junior problems.
IS A TRAINING COURSE NECESSARY FOR AN ELEMENTARY
TEACHER?
Miss Clara Mendenhall, Wilmington, Delaware
Training is not merely imparting knowledge, but it is the inspiring to right action which results in the formation of habit. Happy is the child who is born in a Christian home, under the influence of a Christian mother. God pity the poor little ones who have not this training.
To the teacher, who always supplements the home, and sometimes takes the place of home and mother, has been given the most delicate work God has ever given to mortals, — the training of immortal souls for a destiny worthy of their Creator. The thought has been beautifully expressed in these words, " The woman who takes into her heart her own children may be a very ordinary woman, but the woman who takes into her heart the children of others, she is one of God's mothers."
It is the function of the teacher to inspire, to suggest, to please, and the realization of such a Sunday-school teacher lies within the school of today. To teach Christ, we must know him in the fullness of his beauty; we must sit at his feet and learn of him day by day.
To teach any subject intelligently it is necessary to have a pretty gen- eral knowledge of the principles of teaching, and, last but not least, it is necessary to know much of child life and child development. No one is allowed to teach in our public schools without at least a year's training in both theory and practice, and if it is so necessary that we have trained teachers in our public schools, is it not necessary that we have training before we come into a class of little children who are to be coworkers with Him here, and heirs of His glory?
Our training courses, our reading circles, our graded unions, all have but one purpose, and that is the training of the teacher in a course of instruction in the Word of God, combined with instructions regarding child development and growth.
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SPECIALIZATION FOR THE ELEMENTARY TEACHER
Mrs. J. W. WiLKiNs, Arleta, Oregon
We have just heard about these different departments of our elementary work, from the Cradle Roll up. How, as elementary teachers, are we to qualify ourselves to teach those departments that are not within our specialization? To be an elementary teacher we should know how to organize, equip, and conduct a Cradle Roll, Beginners' Department, and Junior Department; we should know about the Supplemental Lesson, about hand work and story work.
We all know how important the story is in giving the lesson to the child. We are extremely fortunate today in having so many valuable books to assist us in our work, books covering all phases. So, in our specialization work we sum up all of those departments, from the Cradle Roll clear through to teacher training, and then we find out how to apply our knowledge to our elementary departments, and that is all our specialization consists of.
READING CIRCLE
Mrs. W. E. Williams, Baltimore, Maryland
The Reading Circle offers us books that every one in Sunday-school, from those who are working as superintendents and teachers to those who are scholars, will be greatly benefited by reading.
Every one should read the history of the Bible, and we have books that give us splendid information along this line about our Bible, — where it came from, and so forth. We have books on how to conduct the Sunday- school which are exceedingly helpful to all. We have books that concern the teachers. All teachers should understand their pupils, and we have some splendid books dealing with the religious element in the child, that bring us in close contact with a child's feelings.
We also have books touching the study of the child that give us an idea how to throw ourselves into the work. Our reading will reveal to us those things which we as teachers should know in order to touch the children and bring them to God.
SUMMER SCHOOLS
Mrs. C. E. Blake, Barrington, Rhode Island
Consciously or unconsciously, we all raise standards, from the little child playing about the floor, who wants to be a motorman when he grows up, to this country of ours, whose beautiful standard we have seen flying so
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much since we came to this fair city. Just so in our summer-school work, we have tried to raise a standard, and keep it high.
There came to our city, a short time ago, a professor from the Uni- versity of Chicago, the man who has been writing the new Intermediate Graded lessons, and I asked him what impressed him the most in our summer school when he first came to our city. His answer was, " Two things, — the large number who attended in proportion to the size of the state," — the smallest in the Union, — " and the work that was being done which was worth while."
I think that struck the keynote of all of our summer-school work. We are trying to do work that is worth while, with the very best facilities which are obtainable. Besides this work, the enthusiasm that is created by our summer schools is intense. Those schools with which I am familiar usually last about one week, beginning at nine o'clock in the morning and covering a good long day. Oftentimes the deans of these schools are obliged to caution the students not to attempt to do too much, they are so anxious to learn all they can.
Our summer schools are valuable for the enthusiasm they create, and because they are the very best developers of our Sunday-school teachers. Two of the elementary superintendents here this morning received their first impulse and their greatest incentive toward further training from the summer school. Our summer schools are multiplying rapidly, and in all parts of our country are schools where some of us may attend. These schools have splendid curriculums, and they send the students home filled with enthusiasm, and the individual schools are developed and strengthened.
We always know when we come to a town where they have sent students to our summer schools because of the reception we get, and it is the uni- versal testimony of pastors and superintendents that there has been much progress in their Bible schools and Sunday-schools because they sent some of their pupils to the summer school.
GRADED UNIONS
Miss Mabel Bailey, Rich Hill, Missouri
The Graded Union is an organization born of God for the expressed purpose of training Sunday-school workers.
Some one has said it is an institution that teaches teachers to teach. It does that, but it does much more; it not only teaches the teacher how to teach, but it takes up the raw material and out of that makes teachers
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The tie that binds in all of this work is the spiritual growth and develop- ment of the child. That being true, you will readily understand that there will be other members of these unions beside the teachers and the pros- pective teachers.
Mothers will find help there, day-school teachers will also come, and some others will come from pure love of the work. Some people attend these graded unions that they may know more about our great text-book, the Bible; others come that they may learn more about the child; and others come to know more about methods. There is always a welcome for all.
There is nothing in our country that has developed so many elementary specialists as these graded unions. The officers of such an organization are president, secretary, treasurer, librarian, and a vice-president for each of the grades represented. I have learned that if you want your meetings well attended, you must make them worth while, and that has always been my policy. You must give every one who comes some definite help, something they can take home with them, and make use of in their work.
These meetings should be held the year round, because the work we have to do is of such vital importance in the Sunday-school that we need the help of such meetings as these. The program should consist of a de- votional service, and then the expansion of some subject that has been assigned beforehand, such as the telling of a story, or blackboard work, or sc^mething of that kind that will be interesting; then develop it into different sections.
If you have asked teachers in the Beginners' Department to come, you want something for them, so let them go into a section by themselves for the presentation of the lesson and for the help they need. Try to do something to help every one who comes. A graded union always stands for growth and progress. If you have never had the advantage and privi- lege of belonging to a graded union, you do not know how much you have missed, and you can render your community no greater service than to go home and organize and maintain a first-class graded union.
Your union is not doing its best work until you are touching every Sunday-school in the city or town or community in which your union has its existence.
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HOW AND WHY STUDY THE CHILD
Miss Minnie E. Kennedy, Birmingham, Alabama
In my comparatively limited time, I would not for one moment under- take to deal with so broad a subject in minute analysis or small detail. Rather, I choose to select certain principles that are very simple and practical, and present them in a simple and practical fashion, so that the merest beginner in child study may take heart of grace and go on to higher things.
How study the child? By reading books? Yes. In every science there are principles that are formulated and reformulated, tested and retested, until they are sufficiently approved to be incorporated into a book that serves as a kind of text-book for that science. So in child study there are principles that may be formulated and reformulated, tested and retested, and though about them the final word has not yet been spoken, perhaps, they are still sufficiently approved to be incorporated into a book that serves in some measure, at least, as a text-book.
There are those who have had a message, sometimes a very simple one, sometimes more complex, who have given this message clearly, forcefully and well, and child students ought to read books that contain such messages. But let me give you just a word of caution. You know, perhaps, that sometimes the student of geometry may amass all the theorems, not only learning them by heart, but, as we term it, showing the relation of either to other, and yet, confronted by an original problem that takes a principle here and there, and combines it with other principles and restates it, the student simply fails. Or it may be that the student may have mastered the theorem, may have solved the original problems, but has not yet learned to bring the science into contact with everyday life.
When I was a girl — a very young girl, comparatively speaking — and had passed safely the pons asinorum, I remember one day going somewhere in hot haste, and I came to two ways. As I hesitated just a moment which to take, the one that went around two sides of a square or the one that went across the corner, there flashed into my mind, " The hypote- nuse of a right angle triangle is less than the sum of the other two sides," and, as I sped across diagonally, with shocked surprise I realized that geometry was not only in books, but in the world all about me. On one side were the principles, on the other side everyday life, and in a certain measure I had brought the two together.
You know in the study of grammar, a person may know the parts of speech, and be on intimate terms with them, and know their relation, one to each other; he may, in old-fashioned parlance, be able to parse or diagram with great success, yet every day in the week, every hour of the
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day, he may murder the king's English. On one side is the realm of the- ory and principle; on the other, the realm of everyday speech.
When I was a young Primary teacher, burning with zeal, I went to a small training school and heard a lecturer who stood high in the then Sunday-school world. She gave a series of lectures on child study, and they were clear, helpful, and very suggestive.
My brain throbbed with the rush of new ideas. Then she taught a Primary class before a great audience, and, to my utter surprise, she vio- lated law after law and principle after principle that she had* previously stated. On one side was the realm of theory and principle, and on the other, the great world of children. She had not learned to bring the two together.
Still carrying out the thought, sometimes people who are on the outside jeer at the child student, and say, " You cannot train a child by studying books. You have to have practice." They forget that there can be no intelligent practice unless there is a theory back of it. They forget that their own attitude toward childhood, however expert they may be, is just their theory of child training. We want to study books, but we want to work out every principle in he book by actual experience.
In addition to studying books, we want to recall our own experiences. We have all been children; we know what helped us and what hurt us when we were children. How we forget ! A little boy was once in a serious difficulty, and to the father, who could not or would not understand, he said, " O, papa, papa, weren't you ever a little boy? "
Sometimes it happens that a woman has never received into her arms — and will never receive into her arms — a little life to bless her own, and the pent-up tenderness of motherhood goes forth to bless all children; and sometimes when she speaks of children, somebody says, " How can you know about children? You have none." Ah, she can say, " I have been one"; and to have been a child enables one to speak with some authority along certain lines.
Now, they say, " A child must be dealt with this way, because he has done this or that " — what kind of a child? A child six years old? A child eight years old? What type of child? An impulsive child? A timid child? A stubborn child? Does a child not of your temperament, under similar conditions, act the way you act, and feel the way you feel? Therefore, our own experience is not an infallible guide; it is merely a clew.
Study books? Yes. Recall your own experience? Yes. But more than anything else, study the children themselves. Study all children, everywhere, as you have opportunity, for there are certain general laws that are true of all childhood. Study children one by one, because as a grain of sand on the seashore differs from other grains of sand, and a leaf
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upon the tree differs from other leaves, so child differs from child, because as a child is now, so has there never been, is not now, nor shall there ever be, another such child.
Study children generally, study them in particular; but study them with eyes that see. Some great man — was it not Ruskin? — said, " Out of every thousand men who know the written language, only one can read; out of the thousand who can read, only one can think; and out of the thou- sand who can think, only one can see. " Eyes that see! Sometimes we fail to mark the lines of pain and weariness upon the faces of those we love the best, because we see them so continuously we really do not see them at all. We have not eyes that see. See the external? Yes, but look down within and see the motive that produces conduct.
A little child came into her home with a beautiful flower, every part of her sensitive being thrilling with anticipation and pleasure at the thought of preparing a surprise for her absent mother. She reached for a beautiful vase, and it fell from her unsteady hands, and lay broken in fragments upon the floor. The mother returned, saw the broken vase, saw a child's carelessness — and there was the punishment, and the sharp rebuke. Ah, if she had had eyes to see, and a heart to understand, she would not that day have hurt the soul of her child.
In order to have eyes that see, and see aright, we need to learn to take the child's point of view. St. Paul said that to the Jews he was as a Jew, to the Greeks he was as a Greek, to those who were without the law he was as one without the law, to those who were under the law he was as one under the law. What did he mean? He taught a wonderful lesson, — the story of how God looked down upon this world of ours, with all its sin; how he sent his son down to lift the people; how he came, and how glad he was to come; how he lay in his mother's arms there in Bethlehem; how he grew to manhood; how he went about helping people; how he taught them of God's love and his love; how he suffered and died upon the cross; how he rose again; and how he lives forevermore.
That was the lesson Paul taught, and he tried to take the viewpoint of the various peoples to whom he taught it. He tried to " become all things to all men, that by some means he might save some." So, in dealing with a child, we want to learn to take the child's point of view.
In order to do this aright, we need to have love shown through sympathy. Love does not always mean sympathy, though sympathy nearly always means love. Sympathy means a feeling together with; a feeling together with in hope, in regard, in pain, in pleasure, in knowledge; and when our Lord God would feel together with his children, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ.
There were other reasons, doubtless, why Christ came, but he came that
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God might feel together with his children. He was tempted in all points like as they were; he endured their griefs and shared their sorrows. The Lord God, feeling together with his children, sent his Son, Jesus Christ; and that is the power that wins today, — love shown through sympathy. The children respond so readily, they unfold so naturally, under a touch like that.
A little child went one day to a social function of older people. She stood by the table where the refreshments were served, feeling in her child- ish heart that she was all alone. As she turned to leave the table a beautiful young woman, seated a little distance away, smiled upon her. The childish heart responded at once, and all these years has been lit by the glory and radiance of that loving smile.
A little girl in the Primary Department at home, about eight years of age; a hard problem, they called her, who could not be controlled. One morning, as I went toward the Primary room, she came and walked by my side. We came to a little declivity, and I, knowing how a child likes to help, said, " Do you not want to help me? " She took my hand and really helped me, and when we reached the bottom I was about to turn her hand loose; then I remembered about the touch of love, and tightened my hand on hers, simply that and nothing more. Instantly, with all the intensity of a child's pent-up emotion, she flung herself face down upon my hand, and kissed it, and the beginning of the conquest was made.
It sometimes happens that a little crimson rosebud shuts tight about it the hard, green calyx, but the balmy air breathes upon it, and the sun shines warmly; and slowly at first, and then more rapidly, every petal unfolds, until the flower is revealed in all its beauty, exhaling sweetest fragrance, and there is laid bare the miracle of the heart of gold. So a little heart will sometimes shut so close, but surrounded by love and sympathy it begins to unfold, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until at last, in all its beauty, exhaling fragrance, is laid bare the miracle of the child's heart of gold.
Study children with eyes that see from their viewpoint, and with love and sympathy? Yes. But why? What is the end of it all? What do we do it for? That we may know their limitations of body, and mind, and some- times of spirit. We learn very easily their limitations of body, — such little hands, such tiny bodies, such small, unsteady feet; but we forget very frequently their limitations of mind.
We forget how little a small child knows, how little a beginner knows, how little a small Primary child knows. He does not know anything about the history of this or any other country, and you cannot make him know. He has not lived long enough; he has not the historical conscious- ness. He does not know anything about geography, except the geography of the house, of the yard and garden; and if he has traveled a little, he
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knows something about geography of the town. That is all he knows, and you cannot make him know more.
Sometimes in life there come to us experiences and providences we cannot understand. We cry to God for knowledge, and he cannot make us understand. We cannot see where these come from, or why they come. It is not because God does not know, for he does know; it is not because he is not willing to tell us, for he is willing; it is not because we do not want to know, for our hearts are breaking to have the knowledge; yet he cannot make us understand. And the children know so little.
My little nephew used to come to me sometimes with a question, and I would try to explain it, but I could not make him understand. Then I realized that my knowledge of the subject was as the whole sweep of a circle, and his knowledge was just a segment. I could see the whole thing, and he just saw his little part of it, so I could not make him under- stand.
So it is with our own experiences that we cannot understand, and that God cannot make us understand. His knowledge is as the whole sweep of the circle, and ours is just the segment. He said, " What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." When we grow to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ we know we shall be satisfied, and God calls to us to have faith in him, and wait, and be content.
We want to learn the possibilities of childhood. Just as in a grain of wheat there lies the root, the stalk, and the leaf, just as in the lily bulb there lies the perfect bloom, so in the heart and life of a little child there lies in potential power the fully developed life of the man or woman, with its possibilities of good and evil. Down there in the childish life are righteousness, and truth, and integrity, and power; down there in the childish life are sin, and shame, and darkness, and disgrace. Therefore, we study the child that we may learn his possibilities.
Sometimes people say to us we ought to study children that we might mold and fashion them. I am glad that term has gone out of use. You can mold and fashion clay and plaster, if you please, but who can mold a life? — and we are dealing with life. What is the aim? There are some machines, intricately and curiously fashioned, that lay hold of the material that is provided, whether it be large or small, good or bad, and, weaving and weaving incessantly, make from it warp and woof of fabric.
Just so that vital spark that we call a child lays hold of that which is about it, whether it be large or little, good or bad, and, weaving and weaving incessantly, makes from it warp and woof of character. Therefore, the aim of all this study is to see to it that into that building and weaving shall go the knowledge of the love of God, which passeth understanding. That is not as hard as one might think, for the children grasp the thought that
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they must love Hira who first loved them, — the summing up of the law and the prophets in the heart and mind of a little child.
Lastly, we should study children that we ourselves, perhaps, may escape condemnation. " But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
In the last book of the Old Testament, in the last chapter, are these words,
" Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
O, God, give us power, that we may surround this little human plant with such an atmosphere of love, and sympathy, and truth, that the heart will be kept open for the life-giving and cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, that that little plant may grow up and develop after the thought and fashion and plan that God had when he made it.
(The Elementary Conference, May 25, 1910)
WORK OF ELEMENTARY SUPERINTENDENTS IN THE ASSOCIATIONS
Mrs. Phebe Curtiss, Columbus, Ohio Many years ago, I went one afternoon to the home of some friends of my father and mother. There was brought out for my entertainment all sorts of toys and curiosities. One thing stands out as clearly as if it were but yesterday. It was just a little wooden box, with a beautiful pattern carved upon it on top and bottom and sides.
As I turned the box over in my hands, studying the pattern, my thumb happened to touch a spring, and the cover of the box flew up. To my sur- prise, I found inside another box, just enough smaller to set inside, and when I took it out and turned it over in my hand, I found that it, too, had the same beautiful pattern carved upon it. I found inside of it another box, just a little smaller, and so I went on and on and on, finding box after box, and every single time I found traced upon each box the same beautiful pattern.
At last I came to the very heart of the whole matter, and there I found the tiniest box you could imagine, and upon it was the same beautiful carving. Many times in the past years, as I have been studying our great organized work, have I thought of the nest of boxes that amused me so that afternoon, long ago when I was a little girl. Do you not see exactly
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how our work is like the nest of boxes? We have on the outside the great big box, the World's Association; inside that is the one a little bit smaller, our International Association; then comes the state organization, and the county and the township organizations, and all of these organizations exist for just one thing, and that is that the beautiful pattern that is carved on the great big box on the outside may be carried down through the others, and carved at last upon the tiny box away at the center, the heart of the whole matter, — the individual scholar.
There were many parts to this pattern as I studied it out that day, and if anyone of those parts had been omitted or obliterated, the pattern would have been imperfect; and it is to us, as elementary workers, that a very important part of the pattern falls. We have really the frame- work, the outline of the pattern; all the rest of the work is but an elabo- ration of that pattern.
We have set up for us a standard of work, and it seems to me that the first great duty of the elementary superintendent is to get before the workers in the individual school the great standard we have given to us, and make plans to have it carried out and perfected just as far as we pos- sibly can. The elementary superintendent of the state starts the work. She herself must first understand this great pattern that we are trying to outline upon the individual schools, and then in every possible way pass it down to the other elementary superintendents of the county and town- ship, until at last it reaches the worker in the individual school.
She must have ready some plan of work for these superintendents, outlining their duties to them^ and making them understand the responsi- bilities of their position. Never should a county elementary superintend- ent be allowed to pass any longer time than it takes a letter to reach her in ignorance of the responsibility of her work and how to go at it and do it.
The state elementary superintendent must keep in touch with these county superintendents. She must encourage the ones who are weak in their work; she must try to get literature, and help of every possible kind, into their hands, and never must they be out of her mind and her prayer. She must remember them, and strengthen them, and help them over the hard places in every possible way.
As we go out from this survey of the state elementary superintendents down to the county superintendents, the lines diverge, and as they di- verge we find that the difficulties become a little greater. The county superintendent has often greater difficulties to face than has the state superintendent, because she must have in every township or district of her county some one upon whom she can depend to carry the work down to the individual school.
The county superintendent should be just as faithful in notifying her
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township superintendents of their appointment to the work, and in out- lining their work for them, as the state superintendent is to the county superintendents. It takes a great deal of time and a great deal of patience, for the difficulties are hard to meet, but we can meet them, and we will find a blessing in it. There is only one way to do it, and that is to know our work, to understand the pattern we are trying to impress upon the school, and then give ourselves unstintingly, body, mind, and spirit, to the work, never letting discouragements come, never stopping to think of the hard things, but giving ourselves wholly to the work.
ELEMENTARY NEWS IN ASSOCIATION PAPERS
Mrs. E. C. Knapp, Chicago, Illinois
Through the pages of the state paper the state superintendent reaches people whom she may never know, whom she may never see, and with whom she may never come into personal contact; but these people may be helped through the written work, and I have known of this being done very many times.
As we take up our daily newspapers, many of us turn very quickly to the editorial page, because we want to get at the heart of the whole thing; we want to find the comments there upon the issues of the day. Our page in the state paper is really an editorial page, in which the elementary superintendent has an opportunity to give the gist and heart of matters to some of the elementary workers. We have just heard about organized work, and of the need of reaching out and carrying the plans to many people, and this page in the state paper is one of the very best opportuni- ties for doing that.
Through this page the state superintendent can reach not only the county workers, but she can give her message to the township and district workers as well, and keep them in touch with the general plan; so that if one county worker should, perchance, fail, the township workers may still be in touch with the general plan of the work.
There is also a great opportunity to plan for conventions through this page, and arrange for institutes, and give the dates to the people, so that not only the elementary workers, but some of the other officers of the association, may know of these plans, and may be made aware of any changes in the program. Suggestions may be made for these programs, and I find that in some of our state papers are printed suggestive pro- grams and topics.
There was a day when nearly all of our convention programs were made up of subjects dealing with the importance of Primary work, but we have
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other things today that we need to talk about, aside from the importance of the work. People are hungry for suggestions for their programs, and the superintendent of the state work has a great opportunity.
Aside from that, there can be suggestions made along the line of methods. In these days when so many new things are coming up, — our graded work, and our handwork, and our other new plans along various lines, — little suggestions are gladly received by the workers all over the country, and the superintendent who travels about from one part of the state to another has an opportunity to visit the schools that are really doing things. It is a very hopeful thing to report these doings to the other workers.
Oftentimes our page can contain little personal items, saying that such and such things are being done in such and such schools with great profit. Then, if some one wants to find out more about it, they can apply to the schools or to the superintendents of those schools.
Another way in which our state paper can be of help is to be the mouth- piece of the graded unions. The programs of the unions can be printed, and reports of the work that is being done in different places can be given. Much can be done along these lines that would be of real value to the workers in every corner of the state.
Another opportunity our state paper has is to recommend books. Never was it truer than at the present time that " of the making of many books there is no end," and the books for our Sunday-school work are coming up before us constantly, — books on methods, and books on the many other lines of Sunday-school work.
What about the worker in the little country Sunday-school, and what about the worker in the village, who is not in touch with the new things that are coming? They want help, they want suggestions, and so the elementary superintendent has an opportunity to give a brief review of some of these books, or call attention to them, and these suggestions will be very gladly received by the workers.
You all have a part in this work. You can give suggestions to your state superintendent as to what you would like to have upon this page. You can speak the word of appreciation, and tell your superintendents how something has helped you. You can talk about this paper to your friends, and if the state superintendent will put things of real vital inter- est upon the page, and if the county and district superintendents will help, we can read it, and recommend it to others.
This written page is only one of the ways in which our workers are being brought together; it is a splendid means of communication between the state superintendents and the county superintendents, and the dis- trict superintendents, and the schools, and it is a very important link in our organized work.
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TEMPERANCE TEACHING FOR CHILDREN
Mrs. H. M. Hamill, Nashville, Tennessee
Few of us are especially happy when we come to Temperance Sunday.
I presume there have been more shrugs and sighs over the temperance lesson than any other one that has come to us. It is not because we are not interested in temperance; but there are two or three difficulties.
First of all, perhaps it has been half-hearted interest. Personally, I know nothing at all of the evils of intemperance. Is it possible that because in our own lives and homes we have not been touched by it, we have not reached out and been as full-hearted in the matter as we should have been? Is it barely possible that we have not acquainted ourselves with the enor- mity of the evil? We are all quoting, " Thou must be true thyself if thou the truth would teach," and we may just as well say, " Thou must KNOW " — and put that " know " all in capital letters — " the truth if thou the truth would teach." I have not always known the truth about the evil of intemperance.
Let us not hold ourselves back from the work because this great wave of temperance has swept over the country, and because some of our states and cities are presumably free from the evil. They are not entirely free. I live in a prohibition state and a prohibition city, but I know that saloons are open, and brandy, wine, and whiskey are sold and bought, and there are drunken people. It is better far, but we are not free from the evil.
Suppose you go to a penitentiary. Go from criminal to criminal, from one inmate to another, and ask them what brought them there. You will find that almost ninety per cent of the inmates in that penitentiary were brought there directly or indirectly through drink. You will find that out of every three or four inmates of that penitentiary, one had been, some time in his life, in a Sunday-school class as a boy. You will find that one out of every nine had been a Sunday-school teacher. There is something wrong when one man out of every three or four has been, some time in his life, in a Sunday-school class, is there not?
Our temperance lessons have been skimmed through, hurried over, as I am sure they have been in my own class, in my own department, sometimes. Teachers, do you realize another thing? In order to keep up the present ratio of drunkneness, one out of every five boys has to become a drunkard. As you face your boys next Sunday morning, look into the bright little faces upturned to you, and say to yourself, " Shall it be this one, or that? I dare not let it be." Are you not responsible? Are you not put there as a shepherd to care for that little flock? Some day is not the Great Shepherd going to say to you, " Where is that beautiful flock I gave to you? "
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Remember one thing that must go side by side with that: Nearly all the spiritual instruction — Bible teaching, temperance teaching, mission- ary teaching — those boys get is going to come from you. Is it not worth while for us to inform ourselves? We speak sometimes of cold facts. Facts are not cold; they are tremendously warm, and if we could get hold of some so-called " cold facts " we would get so warmed up that we would teach these temperance lessons as we have never taught them before in our lives.
Remember that it is the root of the lesson we want to get into the hearts of our pupils. Use something pleasing, — some blackboard exercise, some object, something like that, that will drive deep into the hearts of the pupils the point we want to emphasize; then let it burn there. Do that, and you will have no trouble teaching the temperance lessons. Touch on the study of alcohol; play you are going to school together.
There are two things in this connection that you may readily and easily impress upon your boys and girls. The first is that the first effect of al- cohol is to stimulate, and make a person feel good; and, second, that when that feeling has worn away, there comes a feeling of depression. Polar ex- plorers will tell you that when they are away up in the region of ice and snow, they never dare touch a drop of brandy or whiskey. It is all folly to say that, when the country doctor is called out of his bed at midnight, he must take a little drop of something before he goes. I know of two doctors who were made drunkards by doing that very thing. It is not right, for after the feeling of stimulation has passed away comes the feeling of depression, and they feel more tired than when they started.
Impress upon your pupils the fact that alcohol kills the soul. It is easy to present these facts to your boys. You may present these things to your boys on the physical plane. Boys like athletics; every boy wants to be- come an athlete. Tell them that if they want to be strong physically, they must not touch liquor. That is a rather low plane, but it is a point of contact with your boys. Bring it to them from that angle.
Let us not always be thinking about making the thing so spiritual and goody-goody that we do not reach the boys and girls at all. Come right down to the plane of everyday life. Tell them that whiskey is not even good for snake-bite. I think that is the last thing that has been given up, that even that belief has been done away with. I thought that that was one use for whiskey, but I heard, the other day, it is not even good for that. Some one in a little verse — I do not know all of it — has called the saloon bar " a bar to heaven and a door to hell," and every time I see a bar- room I think of that.
The second reason why we have been a little chary of our teaching these lessons is because of the material that has been given us, although
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it is not so much the fault of the material as it is our fault, to be sure.
I think that is one reason why we have dreaded the temperance lessons; we have tried to stick to the text when it is almost impossible to do it. If my topic was, " How not to teach temperance," I would say, " Teach the temperance lesson as given, and try to get through it some way." But that is not the way to do it. Put it all aside. When reading through your magazines and daily papers you find pictures, or anything else that might help in the teaching of the lesson, cut them out and put them in a big envelope marked " Temperance." Go to the lower grades of the public schools, where they teach temperance, and you will get most valuable help from the teachers, and from the books they use. Draw from every possible source the matter which will aid you in teaching the temperance lessons in the way they should be taught.
If we are going to teach anything to little people, the first way is to do it by example, because of the spirit of imitation in the little child. I wish every teacher, as she stands before her little people, might wear upon her dress the bow of white ribbon. It is just a silent messenger to them, and the children know what it means. In one Sunday-school the teacher al- ways wore the little white bow of ribbon, and one day she was astonished to see a poor little waif — one of the children who believed that what teacher did was right, and wanted to do just as she did in everything — come in wearing a little piece of white cotton goods tied in a bow. She was too poor to buy ribbon, so she had taken this little piece of goods and cut it into a narrow strip, and tied it in a queer little bow.
That is a good way to teach temperance, — through the influence of imitation. Your white bow says, " I stand for temperance," and your little people will see it, and think about it. These little people believe in us, and it is for them I am speaking just now.
I believe it is absolutely necessary to grade our temperance teaching as it is to grade any of our teaching. I would never think of teaching temperance to Juniors as I would teach it to Beginners and Primary chil- dren, and vice versa. With these little people, I would let the whole room suggest temperance. I would have the place redolent with temperance atmosphere.
Temperance Sunday the room should look a little bit different than at any other time. Let it be decorated with white flowers. Make the day a special day, just as you would Washington's birthday, or Lincoln's birth- day. The very moment the little people enter the room, let them know from the looks and atmosphere of the place that it is Temperance Sunday. As to the teaching, I would not talk much about the evils of intemperance, because my experience is that little people know very little about it.
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Perhaps my experience is not yours, but I had a class of seventy-five scholars for years, all under six, and I do not remember one Sunday-school pupil who knew what wine, brandy, or whiskey was, and not one who had seen a drunkard. That may be unusual, but it is true. I had been wasting a good deal of time trying to tell those little children about things they had not the faintest idea of, so I changed my tactics.
I emphasized the other side; I emphasized purity in all things. I tell my little people to watch the birdies, as they go out on the street and walk home, and see how the tiny little bird dips his beak into the water, and then tips his head up just as if he were saying, " Thank you, God." Have your little people notice that, and when you talk to them about clear, cold water, this will help drive your point home. I like to show my pupils a wilted flower, and let them see how it revives in water, and tell them how good the water is for the thirsty flowers.
You can enlarge upon all this, but be sure to emphasize that side of it. I would teach the children a little cold-water song. I believe our empha- sizing this phase will do the children more good, and teach them more temperance, than will our bringing to them the harrowing and woeful results of intemperance.
I would teach the children what the word " temperance " means. Little people can become very intemperate along some lines, such as eating candy, or eating at the table. I would teach them to be temperate along these lines, in eating, in playing, and in controlling themselves. That is really what temperance means.
I would teach them that they are temples of the Holy Ghost. Of course, you cannot explain to little children about the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but you can make them understand that they are the temples of the Holy Spirit. I would teach them that little Bible verse, and I would teach them these two little verses:
" God gave me this good body,
To grow both strong and tall — Tobacco helps to spoil it
And so does alcohol; Into my mouth they shall not go; When tempted I will answer, ' No.' "
And
" From drink, with its wrong, and sorrow, and sin, I surely am safe if I never begin."
That is just for the Beginners and Primary children. Tell the children
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stories. You are in the story age in the Primary department. Have the stories emphasize again the positive side. I like to tell the boys stories about the great men of the world who never touched alcohol, if I have to sit up until midnight to get a list of them. Tell them of our presidents, and the kings, and men in high official life who have never touched it, men like William Jennings Bryan, who went all over the Philippines and Japan, and did what no man ever did before, turned his glass upside down every time he dined, when there was liquor served.
He left a clean trail in Japan, cleaner than many missionaries have, for he never touched tobacco or liquor, and would not even look at the geisha girls. Whenever we mentioned Mr. Bryan's name over in that part of the world, we found it was a name that every one honored. Even when Mr. Bryan was a guest of his Imperial Majesty, he turned his glass upside down. Tell the little folks about such things, and they will want to imitate them.
When you have these little people in the habit-forming period, teach them about habits. We often write on the board the word " habit." Take a letter off, and you have " a bit"; take another letter off, and you have "bit"; take another letter off, and it is not teetotally gone yet. There is simply the word " habit," but it is very easy for you to make an impression upon the children in this way. Tell them how a habit gets hold of them, and how hard it is to get rid of it. This is a simple thing, but if you enlarge upon it when they are forming habits, they well think about it.
Take a thread and wind it once or twice around the hand of one of your little boys, and ask him if he can break loose. Of course he says he can, and he does, easily. The next time wind it more tightly, and wind around more of it. He still thinks he can break loose, and he does, but not without a considerable struggle. Then wind it around, and around, and around, just as a habit winds itself around, and around, and around, and then see if he can break loose. He thinks he can, and he tries and tries, and his little face gets red, and finally he has to give it up. Then unwind it, and when you have come down to the heart of it, there is just the single thread you started with.
Little simple things of this kind make strong impressions upon the minds of the children, and there are so many of them that may be used. Take a letter, the letter " H," for instance, and write it upon the board; and at the side write
Tome j^ J onor 1 appines I eaven
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and tell the children that alcohol takes away each of these, and in their place brings
fin c J hame
I orrow
t uffering
You may take the children through the different stages to which alcohol brings a man. First of all, it makes him feel silly, and then to illustrate that you draw a goose on the board. You may illustrate the different stages as you please, but finally you draw a pig, and the children all think that they will never want to be like that. That is perhaps a little extreme, but with a class of good big boys, I think it would make a fine temperance lesson.
In closing, I want to say, with all my heart, that I believe in boys and girls signing the pledge. I believe it means a great deal more to a little boy or girl to put their names down with their own hands, with their own little pencils, than signing our names does to you and me, who dash our names off a dozen times a day.
I suggest that when dealing with little people you send pledge cards into the home. Have them ask mother and father if they have any objection to their signing the pledge. Have a large roll of honor with the children's names upon it. Let the little people be glad and proud they signed.
MOTHERS* MEETINGS
Mrs. W. F. Heath, New York
The first Mothers' Meeting was when Mary and Elizabeth, prospective mothers, met to talk over the coming of their children, — one the Christ, and the other his forerunner.
Another Mothers' Meeting was when Christ blessed the children. Who brought the children to Christ? Not the fathers, or some relative. No, it was the mothers. The cry in each mother's heart was, " Bless my child," and the Master sent those mothers away with counsel and advice summed up in those beautiful words, " Suffer little children to come unto me."
So it has been ever since. Mothers have wanted the best for their chil- dren — and educated motherhood is the demand of today, not only in our own land, but across the gea. It is a demand that will not be ignored; it is a Macedonian cry that refuses to be silenced. Mothers are every- where pleading for assistance.
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Every Bible-school worker desires to advance the spiritual welfare of the children under her care, and the religious training of children in the home, and in no better way can this be accomplished than by forming a Mothers' Association in connection with the school, in order that the mothers and teachers — the home and the school — may be brought into partnership, and an allied force secured that will be of immense value.
In the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, New York, we have 403 kindergartens in the public schools. From September, 1908, to June, 1909, there were 1,030 Mothers' Meetings held in connection with those kindergartens, with a total attendance of 32,547 mothers. Our Free Kindergarten Society has 22 kindergartens, in connection with which 203 Mothers' Meetings were held during the same time, with a good at- tendance at each. Several churches support kindergartens as a part of their work, and, in connection with those, Mothers' Meetings are held regularly. The Women's Branch of City Missions insists upon its mission- aries holding Mothers' Meetings.
What does it all mean? Simply this, — that the mothers who attend these meetings feel their need, and by their presence show that they con- sider it worth while to be members of a Mothers* Association. These Mothers' Associations are doing splendid work, and I say, all honor and praise to the Mothers' Associations of the public schools!
If, then, the public schools need Mothers' Meetings in connection with their kindergartens, do not our Sunday-school kindergartens or Beginners' classes need Mothers' Associations infinitely more? In our churches and Bible-schools in Brooklyn we have formed a large number of these asso- ciations, and hundreds of mothers can testify to the good that has been accomplished.
In the elementary grades of our Bible-schools we find a very large per cent of the children come from homes where religious instruction is an unknown quantity. These young children represent young mothers, many of whom feel that they have done all that is necessary when they have sent their children to the Bible-school, forgetting that the Bible- school should only supplement the home, and that children need religious instruction each day, as well as on Sunday.
Mothers must be taught to take a deep interest in the spiritual wel- fare of their children, and to realize, as Froebel said, that " to those who have the care of children in the home has been given the high privilege of sowing the first seeds of love and respect for that which is high and holy." To show mothers that God has placed upon them the great re- sponsibility of connecting the home and the school is the great object of Mothers' Associations in Bible-schools.
These associations will uplift the home, help mothers to realize how
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much the influence of the home will mean to the child in after years, and to realize that the religious training of the children will cause them to develop into Christian men and women. If there is anything which Christendom appears to be in danger of losing today, it is the possibility that our homes may be like that in which Jesus grew up.
Such are the homes we need, and such are the homes we will see if mothers are educated to know and feel the value of home training. It is to aid the building up of such homes that we are seeking to establish in every Bible-school a Mothers' Association. What do the mothers learn in these associations? They learn the art of telling stories, and especially Bible stories, and by this means they may cultivate a love for the Bible in their children.
Children love stories, and no stories in the world are more attractive and fascinating than Bible stories. The discussion by a group of mothers of a certain book, such as " The Unfolding Life," by Mrs. Lamoreaux, is of immense value, for no mother can listen to a synopsis and discussion of such a book without being convinced that the spiritual development of her child is most vital and important.
Mothers' Meetings should be attended by Sunday-school teachers as well as mothers, for the teacher can thus come in close contact with the mothers, and learn more of the needs of her scholars than she possibly can in her visits to the home; for in the meeting the problems each mother has met will be brought out, and the teacher and mother can work and plan together to help the child over the rough places. This is cooperation.
Interest the parents, and bring them into touch with the school. We have too long ignored the parents, and allowed them to feel that the Bible-school was a juvenile institution. Now we are endeavoring to make the school so attractive and helpful that parents will desire to attend. Therefore, from the Cradle Roll up, draw the mothers to the school. From one Mothers' Association started for mothers of the very smallest scholars, four mothers' classes have been formed, and the mothers are promoted with the children.
Mothers' Meetings are valuable because mothers learn the importance of studying the lesson with their children, asking questions about the lesson, and emphasizing through the week the truth taught on Sunday. Mothers' Meetings have been the means of leading mothers to Christ, and into the church, where they have become valuable workers. We have gone out and gathered a group of mothers, and instructed them, that they may pass on the instruction and inspiration they have received.
Here are some plans for organizing these associations. The organization should be very simple, and the meetings informal. It is not necessary to have a constitution, but if you do have one, let it be simple. The first
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step is to gather the mothers together. Go for them ! Have a mass meet- ing; call personally upon them; enthuse your pastor and superintendent; put notices of the meeting in the church bulletin; have the pastor speak a few words from the pulpit endorsing the movement; send a notice or card of invitation home by the children, and you may be sure it will not be the child's fault if his mother does not attend. One teacher pins invi- tations to the dresses and coats of her scholars, that the invitations may not be lost.
Having secured your mothers, and found a room which you have made attractive, you only lack one thing, and that is a leader. Some of you may be saying you could never find a leader. Yes, you can. There is probably in your church some earnest and consecrated mother, who re- members the problems she had to meet when she was a young mother, and she will be glad to help other mothers. Find her, and ask her to help. Remember this: if you cannot secure a leader, do it yourself. There is no woman, married or single, who has not the mother-heart.
Having found your leader, you are ready to begin. Let the meeting be opened with a few Scripture verses, and a short prayer. Appoint a secre- tary pro tern. Ask the mothers how many of them will join, and secure their names. Then comes the name of the association. It may be, for instance, " The Mothers' Association of the First Presbyterian Church." Then cames your object, which will be to help mothers come nearer to Christ, to instruct the children in religious truths, and to raise the stand- ard of the home. You may have for your officers a president, vice-presi- dent, secretary and treasurer, and librarian. The matter of dues may be left to the judgment of the members.
In selecting a topic, do not romance; choose some practical topic. You can arrange a program for the season, taking some book for study, or such topics as prayer, punishment, Bible-school and home, mother and teacher, etc. Have a speaker, if you wish, but never fail to throw the meeting open for discussion.
Be practical. Discuss the problems the mothers have met. Will the mothers talk? Yes. There is not a mother living who does not want the best for her child, and if she cannot get it by listening, she will ask for it. Be sure to have good music. Form a mothers' chorus. The hymns children sing in Bible school should be as familiar to the mothers as they are to the children. Start a library for the mothers. Try to have some one who will take care of the children who cannot be left at home.
Do not be discouraged if the meetings are small. They will grow. Hold a Mothers' Rally once a year, and invite all the other associations of your city or town to meet with you. Do not let the meetings run too long. Hold them once a month, and do not let them run over an hour or an hour
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and a quarter. If you decide not to have dues, then an offering may be taken, and help may be obtained from the Bible-school. Let there be a little social time at the close of the meeting, with light refreshments. Tea and wafers are enough.
In closing, let me say while it is true that the destiny of nations lies in the hands of women, of mothers, and while it is also true that " the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," do not forget that the fathers have a responsibility which they cannot shirk. The child in the home belongs to the father as well as the mother. Therefore, hold a Parents' Meeting, now and then, that will be helpful to the fathers as well as to the mothers.
MAINTAINING INTEREST IN GRADED UNIONS
Miss Meme Brockway, Los Angeles, California (S.)
To maintain interest in your union, serve fresh food, and you will have no trouble. First, we all need drawing power in the teaching of the next Sunday's lesson. In our Union League, this year, we actually have seven different sections, and a different vice-president chosen for each section. They were chosen because they were the best teachers of their particular grades. We want to use the other teachers just as much as possible, that these may be developed, so we took these seven vice-presidents into secret session after the election, and we told them they had been elected not simply to an honorary position, but because they were expected to come each week prepared to teach the next Sunday's lesson, if a vacancy should occur, that there might be food each week. The other teachers did not know this, so their feeling of responsibility was not lessened.
We offer a teacher-training course. We have been very successful. Our teachers seemed to insist upon and secure more home study than the others. The class meets at the conclusion of the teaching of the other lesson, and at the end of our Summer Course in June we plan to do as does the Minneapolis Union, and have a large recognition service, giving public honors to those who have completed the course. We also offer a lesson construction course. I know that the Birmingham Union is doing splendid work with that. Perhaps our plan is more simple. We study for several weeks, and at the close we take several weeks to bring down the practice to the lesson of the day. We bring theory out of the clouds, and put it into practice.
Do you remember, when you began cooking, the joy with which you found that certain recipes were reliable; that if you took so much of this and that, and put it in the oven at a certain heat, and baked it a certain
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time, you got certain delicious results? How much greater is the joy of the Sunday-school teacher who has been teaching in a haphazard way when she learns new recipes for successful lessons and attentive pupils. She fairly feasts upon them. We also offer more or less special instruction, including something of hand work and music, given at different times dur- ing the year, and one teacher reports, " I tried this plan for hand work two weeks ago, and the mother of my worst boy has told me he could hardly wait until the Sunday dinner was over to begin his hand work."
A ver>' important point is a carefuly prepared program, which must be the basis of all these different lessons. Then there is not only the food to be served, but the president, the one who serves the food, must be considered.
There must be a call, as well as the food and the one who serves it. In smaller towns I suppose you use newspapers very largely for announce- ments and reports of meetings. Often, when announcing a new union, we have a paper print our program for a month, and then cut it out, but in the larger towns, like Los Angeles, with its three hundred thousand, we cannot find such generous space as that in our newspapers. The Min- neapolis Union pays for advertising. We try to have in every union a press correspondent, somebody who is tactful; if possible, some one who has social standing, so that she, perhaps, can obtain the space we desire for our announcements.
Advertise as much as possible. Our Los Angeles Union planned to give a Workers' Supper, and we sent out attractive announce- ments to the different superintendents of the city. We sent out programs in envelopes, on the outside of which were bells. Men are curious creatures, and when a superintendent received an envelope with a tinkling bell on it, he surely opened it, and when he opened it he read, " We are ringing you up. Will you combine with us?"
I cannot stop to dwell upon this, but simply tell you that three hundred and fifty people sat down at our tables the night of the supper. After the toasts and the music, we had a simple session of our union. We had the lesson taught in all the sections, and we had our teacher- training lesson and we sent the superintendents and pastors away eager that their teachers might have this special help. Then we have large cards nicely printed, and we ask the superintendents to put them in prominent places in their Sunday-school rooms, and that gives us a prominent advertisement for our union.
In addition to the Workers' Supper, we use the sub-union meeting. We take some of our strongest teachers out to some part of the city, and hold a little meeting of the union in the evening. Our unions are all in close touch with the organized work. Let me emphasize that 1
We must have enthusiasm. What interest would there be in a race if
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the contestants just went on and on indefinitely? It is the goal that gives the zest. We have a program for the summer, different things of interest, travel talks on the Holy land, story telling, and missionary lectures. We do not take a vacation. We ask even our little unions in the interior towns to hold porch meetings at least once each month. Do not think this is all. We must have enthusiasm, but it must be enthusiasm with a deep underlying source of power. In our union we make much of prayer; not just the formal reading of the lesson prayer, but sometimes a message of power brought by some speaker outside of the union. Very often we have just sentence prayers from all over the room, and we ask God to bless our union, and prosper all of the work. We open and close our Executive Committee meeting each month with prayer, and whenever we come to some point of discussion upon which we are not certain, we stop for a moment and go to God for guidance, and he has wonderfully helped us. We have asked all the unions of Southern California to set aside a few minutes at nine o'clock each day in the week for prayer, and they do it. At that time, just for a moment, is prayed our prayer; we pray for our unions, for their members, and for the work we are trying to do together. We believe that by this joining of prayer and petition there shall be a bond of fellowship created that shall draw our unions close to the source of power, close to the source of the Almighty.
FUTURE PLANS FOR GRADED UNIONS
Miss Alice B. Hamlin, Newark, New Jersey
A NEW question is coming, "How to teach the new International Graded Lessons." You have just at hand an organization which stands ready to answer that question. The Graded Union has been one of the important factors in educating our teachers to see the need of better material, and to make a demand for that material; and the organization which has stood for that, of course, is ready to answer this deeper question of how to use this material, and how to get the best results from it.
The thing we have longed to do for years we may do now. We have wanted to know how to tell stories; we have wanted to get more knowl- edge along Biblical lines; we have wanted to know more of the setting of the lesson, and the foundation, and the background; we have wanted to get side lights; we have wanted to do more studying, that we may be better prepared to teach, and not just to be filled up. The opportunity has come now.
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While these lessons are much easier to teach, still we feel the need of ability in using them. Though the lessons are simpler, and may be used by an untrained teacher with success, yet we have realized during these last months that to get the best there is in the lessons, we must be trained. We want the underlying principles, the background work, and related reading. We must understand the construction of the course, to see what it aims to do, to have the aim fully in mind, and then be equipped to accom- plish the aim.
The first work for us in our graded unions is to continue with our department work, and in each department to take up first the study of the course. We must understand something of the principles upon which the course is constructed; we must know the purpose of the whole course; we must see how each lesson is a part of the entire whole.
We need this in our teaching, whether we be superintendents or class teachers, because we must check up at the end of the Sunday's work, or at the end of the month, at least, to see if the lessons are meeting the needs, if they have worked out as they were intended to work out, and if the aim has been accomplished. We must have drill work. We must be able to see and have a goal toward which we are working; and we must come down to the special subjects, and the themes, and the individual lessons.
We have a wonderful opportunity, as Junior teachers, to become more familiar with Biblical material, in a way we have not had before, because of the great stress that was upon us, because of our eagerness to get out of a lesson that was too hard for the children. We are relieved of that great stress now, and we may do some of these other things. If, as Junior teachers, we follow the outlines and carry out the suggestions that are given us in the lesson helps, going to the commentaries and the books that are suggested there, and reading along the lines suggested, getting side lights, looking up historical and geographical matter, etc., we will come out better trained at the end of a year than we were when we went in. We will have a fund of knowledge that shall tide us over many of the years to come.
As we come to know more of the work through the teaching of the lessons, our training becomes richer and broader, and we see, as we could not see without this background of knowledge, where these lessons are bringing us. This we will be interested to see, but we will be more interested in watching their effect upon the lives of our boys and girls. Let us see what we may do in the work with the Beginners and Primar>' children.
We dare not say there is enough for our unions to do when we can get a list of perhaps fifty books on psychology, pedagogy, child study, and teacher-training methods, a list of books that will cover the entire course. Our position is about as it was before, but we are seeing the opportunities
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more plainly. Do you not see what is coming to us and to our work? Is not this a better stage of development than when the union was all centralized around one lesson, and the teaching of the lesson given by one person, and we were all sitting like sponges to absorb it. Now the teacher is able to catch the point behind the lesson, and is able in the teaching of it to give the right interpretation, because of the background of knowledge that has been obtained in this way. That is what lies before our unions. We are only beginning to see it.
I wish we could see our opportunities more plainly, but I do not think the time is yet ripe. It seems to me that in the Beginners and Primary departments we have a chance to study child nurture as we have never been able to study it before. We have books on psychology and pedagogy. We can read the related books on any theme. We can let one teacher take the theme work, and then let other teachers take the work for the individ- ual lessons. We must find the point of contact in our teaching. We can drive home the point we wish to emphasize by some simple yet forceful illustration.
Let some member of the union be appointed superintendent or chair- man of the picture work. Have pictures brought to the union day by day, — different pictures, pictures that are solely for the teacher's use, that will help her get this background of knowledge, that will help her to see the truth of the lesson. Some of those can be borrowed from the library, or the union can set aside a little sum and have its own collection. These pictures can be mounted upon cardboard, and numbered, and you can lend them to the teachers. Have pictures first for the teacher's use, then pictures for the use of the teacher and pupils, then pictures for the use of the pupils alone. The different sets of pictures may be each put into a large envelope, with the name of the lesson and the titles of the pictures written upon it, and they will be there constantly ready for use.
Go on with this first year's work. You will train leaders who can take this year's work at no other time. We have now come to the place where the union may come into its own; where it may do the work it has always stood for, but has never had a chance to do before.
POSSIBILITIES OF GRADED LESSONS IN THE SMALLEST
SCHOOLS
Miss Margaret E. Brown, Grand Island, Nebraska
In a county convention in one of the western counties of Nebraska, held in the courthouse, for the one little church would not hold all the people who greeted us there, the question was asked, " Miss Brown,
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what would you do with graded lessons in a little country school if you were the only teacher for all of the children from three to twelve years of age? All of our schools are in country schoolhouses. What would you do? " I was not ready then to answer the question.
At the noon hour I thought and my thoughts brought to mind three pictures. One was a picture of the time when I, a little barefoot girl, walked a mile and a half to the country school. The second was a picture of the little country schoolhouse in a neighboring county, where at fifteen I was the teacher of the school. The third picture contained many of the scenes that transpired in that little country school.
Prominent in the picture was what the teacher called " the primary reading class," consisting of three parts, those using the First Reader, those using the Second, and those using the Third. Perhaps there were one or two scholars in the First, one in the Second, and two or three in the Third.
Owing to the crowded condition of her program, that teacher had so to plan her work as to hear all three of those classes, and at the same time. So she said to the third-grade boys and girls, " Pass to the blackboard, and write there the sentences you have prepared for this lesson." She said to the little fellow just learning, perhaps, to spell his own name, and to count at the same time, " Go to the blackboard, and write your name as many times as you can count." Then she heard the Second Reader class.
When that class had finished reading, the pupils were sent to the black- board to write the hard words they found in their lessons. By this time the little fellow had finished his writing, for he had covered all his part of the blackboard. Then he went to the recitation bench and read his lesson. By that time the Third Reader class was through, and the pupils were ready to go to their seats and read their lesson. Thus the teacher has heard the three classes at one time, and not a very long time, either.
That was the suggestion that I gave the teacher who had asked the question. She believed it could be done, and I believed it could be done. That was last September.
A few days later it was my privilege to confer with Mrs. Lamoreaux at Omaha, and I tremblingly suggested the plan to her. She smiled and said, " It sounds well. Prove it. Miss Brown, and you will help country schools wonderfully." With that encouragement, I awaited my first opportunity to test it.
My first opportunity was in a children's meeting. About thirty-five were present. I said, " How many of you are nine years old? " Two girls were nine. " How many are six? " Two little boys were six. " How many are five? " One little girl was five. " You five children
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come upon the platform, and we will play country Sunday-school." They came, and we had our elementary program. We arranged the beginners in one place, the primary in another, and the juniors in another.
We did not know how many there might be, so we had only two junior handbooks. We did not follow the suggestions in the teacher's text. I had written out the first lesson, and I gave those two girls my Bible, and I asked " Can you read? " They said they could. I gave them the scis- sors and the paste, and said, " You read what this says, and do what it says. Have that lesson prepared for us."
Then the beginners were given the text, and the words were, " Suffer little children to come unto me." I said, " There is a beautiful story about that. You make those words beautiful, and we will tell you the story in just a few minutes." The little girl commenced making the words of the text beautiful.
Then I turned to the two boys, and told them the story about God creating the heavens and the earth. After the story had been told to them I placed before them this picture showing the picture without any explanation, gave each a crayon and said, '' You make a picture like that, and write what it says." They told me what it said, and then drew two pictures.
When we turned our attention to the juniors we found they had prepared the first lesson very nicely and we had that story.
When I talked to superintendents about the scheme at various conven- tions, some said, " Miss Brown, you have had experience as a school teacher, and you can do this, but our teachers out in the country have not had the same opportunity you have, and they perhaps could not manage it very well,"
I wrote to Mrs. Alexander, the lady to whom I had first suggested it, and she replied that, on account of the severe winter weather, she would not be able to try the scheme until spring. When April came she had a chance to make a fair test. She tried it, and it went splendidly. I received a letter from her telling all about the success she is having.
This shows the possibilities of the graded lessons in the smallest schools, and under the most trying difficulties. Let us convince our country teachers that it is worth while to do the best for even one or for two pupils, and that what others can do, they can do. The country boys and girls are needed in this world, and you and I are responsible for the very best teaching being brought to them.
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STORIES AND STORY TELLING
Prof. E. P. St. John, Hartford, Connecticut
When I speak to a group of teachers who teach because they love their work, it seems to me it is perhaps not out of place to say a word to emphasize the value of the story as a device in teaching definite lessons and making definite impressions upon the heart of a child. All simple teachers and all great teachers, through all the ages, have realized the story's power, and have used it.
I might point you first to that group around the camp fire, those men who had not begun to be civilized, concerning whom we are just beginning to realize the lessons we may learn from them. Their lives were simple. They did the few things they had to do so easily and so naturally that the way in which they did them is full of lessons for us. We get tangled up in our emotional and complex lives. The boys of that old life were inspired to heroic deeds by the stories of those who had done those things before.
I might point you to that greatest of Greek philosophers, — or at least one of the greatest, — whose treatise on education is today a classic, studied in every normal school, and remind you how he warned the people of his day that from their mythology all those stories of the gods that gave unworthy suggestion should be eliminated, because of their influence upon the thought and character of the children, and how he suggested the better tale, which should shape their thought and influence their lives aright.
I might point you to the Romans, those people who, perhaps better than any others who ever lived, learned to shape character according to their own ideals ; that people who knew how to make men of the kind they admired. I might remind you how they made the chief item in their curriculum the stories of their own great men. I might remind you of those old monks of the middle ages: how they lived those barren lives, shut away from men, neglecting so many of the beautiful things of Christian service, and yet really keeping religion alive by the stories they told, — those quaint old stories, full of miracle, and so different in much of their teaching from our ideals of today.
I might remind you of those minstrels of the days of chivalry : how they went from castle to castle, and how the people gathered around them to hear them sing of the knights of old, and how these songs spurred them to chivalrous and noble deeds. I might point you to one after another of the great teachers of all the ages, who used the story in their work, but if I could paint you one picture in words, I should not need to do all this.
I wish to paint you just one scene from the life of Jesus, one that is not recorded in the gospel. We read how Jesus once took little children in
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his arms^ and blessed them, but you know very well that is not the only time Jesus gathered the children about him. You know he never lived to be thirty years of age in Nazareth without again and again gathering a group of children about him, and telling them little stories from the Old Testament. You know we are told Jesus said there were many things he had to show his disciples, but they were not able yet to learn them, and I think one of those things was the way to teach a little child. We have begun to grasp that since that time. This is not related in the gos- pels,— perhaps the writers were not sufficiently impressed, — but we may be sure that Jesus taught the children, and we may be sure he taught them by the story method, which you have found so successful.
Those who teach the older ones use stories, and they should use them perhaps oftener than they do, but there are other methods they may use. We should teach the children more through the story method, perhaps, than any other way, — almost entirely in this way. We are beginning to realize this more and more, we have felt the opportunity, we have told the stories ever since we tried to teach, and yet there are fresh oppor- tunities before us in just that line.
I want to present just two or three hints, and, first of all, this one: We can learn to tell stories better than any of us can tell them today. There are simple rules, there are familiar devices, there is the opportunity to learn by practice, that will give us each skill greater than we have today. I have seen students who had never tried to tell a story charming those who listened not many weeks after they first began to try. I have seen those who thought they could not tell a tale, after a year or so of practice charming great audiences, going out as entertainers, simply through the use of simple methods and devices that any of us can learn. We are study- ing these methods in our classes and unions here and there.
I want to urge this fact upon you: We can learn to tell stories, and we can learn to tell them well. There are many kinds of stories we may use, and not only the Bible stories. You all use them, and you know how to use them, but there are others which can be used very effectively in our teaching work in the Sunday-school. Some, perhaps, we hesitate to use. I have tried to point out, as some of you know, that some of the idealistic stories, fairy tales and myths, those stories that are not true in the literal sense, bear some of the richest and sweetest lessons, those that go home so clearly to the child. These stories have their place, as well as the beauti- ful stories written in the Bible itself, but I want to urge upon you to use very largely those tales that come from a fresh source.
I want to suggest to you, first of all, the use of the little story which grows out of your own experience, the story that is made to order, because of the need you have. You will gain more skill in telling tales with each
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new one. Of course, the stories of the type we call fairy stories, in which there is an element of unreality or a spirit of fiction that runs through the story, are often very helpful, and drive home the point clearly and strongly. Humorous little stories are also very effective.
Let me tell you just one story, not only for the children, but for you yourselves. Some of you have children in the home who are beginning to reach that period when they get out of the elementary grades. You know that time that comes at the beginning of adolescence, when the child wants to begin to go his own way. That is a very trying time for the mother,
I want to tell you Laura Richards's beautiful little story of " The Apron String."
" There was once a little boy who had just learned to walk. He was not very steady upon his feet, so his mother tied her apron string around his waist, and said, * There, little man, when you stumble you can pull your- self up by that, and you will not fall.' And the child did as she said, and all went well, and the mother sang as she went about her work.
" Day by day the child grew taller, until his head came above the window sill, and often he stood there looking out at the green grass, and the yellow flowers, and the trees with their waving branches, and the meadow beyond, and the river singing and shining in the sun, and, far in the distance, the purple mountains piled against the sky. When he saw them he said,' Mother, untie your apron string, and let me go.' But the mother said, ' Not yet, little man. Only yesterday you stumbled and would have fallen but for this. Wait until you are stronger.' And the child did as she said, and all went well, and the mother sang as she went about her work.
" Day by day the child grew stronger and taller, and more and more he left his playthings at the hearth, and stood at the window. One morning in the springtime the door stood open, and as he stood at the threshold and looked out again, he saw the green grass, and the yellow flowers, and now the trees seemed to beckon with their branches, and he heard the voice of the river as it called, ' Come, come, come,' and he started so quickly that the apron string snapped, and he ran down the steps with the end dangling behind him. ' Ho, ho,' he said, ' I never knew my mother's apron string was so weak.'
" The mother gathered up her end of the broken apron string, and hid it in her bosom; and she turned again to her work, but sang no longer. The boy ran on, under the trees, over the grass and the meadow, to the river's bank, and then on along the bank toward the purple mountains that were piled against the sky. Sometimes the path was smooth, and he would run. Sometimes it was steep and rocky, and he had to climb on hands and
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knees. Once it turned suddenly, and came out again upon the river's bank, just where it dashed over a great precipice. The way was full of mist, and the rocks were wet and slippery. He made a misstep, but just as he slipped over the brink of the abyss, something caught upon the point of a rock and held him dangling over the precipice. He put up his hand to see what it was, and found it was the broken apron string still tied to his waist. ' Ho, ho,' he said; ' I never knew how strong my mother's apron string was.' And he pulled himself up by it, and set his feet firmly upon the rock, and went on toward the purpled mountains that were piled against the sky."
THE STORY AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS OF THE CHILD
Mr. Richard T. Wyche, New York, President National Story Teller's League
Literature exists for man, and not man for literature. The literature that ministers most to the child and to his development into manhood and womanhood is the best literature for him. Therefore some knowledge of child life is absolutely essential in order to strike a balance between literary requirements on one hand and the fundamental needs of the child on the other.
The primary interests that a child may have in a story is a guide to the story teller. For primary interest is nature's way of leading the child to the things that he needs. When interest is shown, it means that there is something in the story that is vital to the child, that his imagination assimilates in some way, the truth which becomes a part of his soul life. Sometimes a story intended for adults may catch the interest of the child on some mere fringe of the story while the main content is beyond him and lies clear outside of the child's world. A superficial observer might there- fore be misled by such interest. When we tell a story to the child we wish to meet most perfectly the requirements of literature and the biological, sociological, ethnological, and spiritual needs of the child.
When the child first shows interest in the story, we find him in the Poetic Period, and he is interested in the Mother Goose jingles and rhymes of
" Hi! diddle, diddle! The cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon."
To him the sky rests on the treetops; he reaches up to take the moon in his hands. Santa Claus and fairies are of supreme importance to him;
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dolls and toys walk and talk and visit one another. The poet Wordsworth describes this period in his Ode:
" There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light."
The child is in that period of life parallel to the time when man and woman lived in a garden and knew not good from evil; when Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day; when the gods played on the green, walked and talked with men.
As the child grows he discovers that the sky did not rest on the treetops, and he has found out who Santa Claus is. He has outgrown his little world, and has been driven from his Eden. When you tell him a story, he asks if it is true. He is skeptical. He is an iconoclast and smashes his toys. He is interested in real horses, hunting, fishing, adventure, and exploration. Nature is pushing him out of childhood into a larger world. As its wonder bursts upon him, he is restless to explore those untried regions, climb its mountains, sail its seas, and clear its forests.
Dr. G. Stanley Hall says that in this period the child revels in savagery, is reckless, dislikes books; reason, morality, and religion are slightly developed, but his bodily vigor is highest and he craves to revive the ancestral experiences. These being denied him, he vicariously repeats them through stories of high daring. Heroic tales, the slaying of monsters and giants and history stories are his choice at this period. The account of Beowulf slaying Grendel, Ulysses putting out the eye of Polyphemus, or David killing Goliath fills him with delight. This period ranges from eight to twelve, and might be termed the Heroic Period.
But before the child is scarcely conscious of it, he is approaching another period. A strange new world is looming up; great changes are taking place both in his body and mind. Roughness gives way to romance and sentiment. Sex differentiation appears; love awakens. There are yet higher heights for him to climb. He is interested in stories of romance and chivalry, but as he continues in this adolescent period the great interest in stories is on a decline. The yearning for companionship and love that the young people have as they pass through this period is the voice of nature calling them to go forward and realize their manhood and woman- hood, and like a goad driving them on to take their place in society.
George Albert Coe, in his " Education in Religion and Morals," divides the adolescent period, which ranges from about twelve to twenty-four, into sub-periods, and points out the characteristics of each period. The middle period, from sixteen to eighteen, because of mental and bodily
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conditions and the increased emotional capacity, is, more than any other period, associated with a religious awakening, or what is frequently termed conversion.
Bullock calls attention to the fact that girls in the high school prefer stories of great women rather than of great men. It is true there are many more stories of heroes than of heroines written for our young people, and it would seem that we discriminate in favor of the men. However, in the classic stories so universally used in our schools, we find associated with the heroes the lives of heroines like Penelope, Kriemhild, Brunhild, Enid, and Minnehaha, but still there might be more stories of great women, especially for the girls in the adolescent period.
The Poetic and Heroic periods might likewise be subdivided and con- tinued till we reach the characteristics of the individual. However, no exact limit can be fixed for the beginning and ending of each period; they shade into one another. Geographical and racial conditions make wide divergences, and even under like circumstances one period overlaps another. Something of each period remains and is recapitulated, appearing each time in a higher form. Dr. Hall says that we find in the soul and body of man fragments and echoes of all the ages gone before.
He who would make a correct diagnosis and come near to the heart of the boy and girl must take all of these facts into consideration. It would enable him to touch the fundamental thing in the child's life and make his story telling both a science and an art, and himself an evangel of good to the world.
GRADED LESSONS
Mrs. J. WooDBRiDGE Barnes, New York, Supervisor of Graded In- struction, Sunday-School Department of the M. E. Church.
There is just one word that is missing in the topic; it is the word " In- ternational."
Our Elementary Conference of today bristled with questions; and upon consultation with the presiding officer, it seems wise, instead of my taking the time tonight for an address, to give you an opportunity to ask questions, and preferably questions from state secretaries, or those in official positions.
A delegate: What about the teachers' meeting and these lessons?
Mrs. Barnes: The teachers' meetings in the different schools are very quickly accommodating themselves to the new conditions. In the large schools, where there are departments and a number of teachers in each department, I find the teachers are meeting together in groups; all
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the department teachers and all the officers of the school meet together, and during the first part of their meeting they take up the problems of the school in general, then divide and have their individual department teachers' meetings. Where the schools are smaller, the teachers* meetings are resolving themselves into study classes, and the departmental work cared for in other ways.
A delegate: What about the opening and the closing exercises of the school?
Mrs. Barnes: That is a problem of the little school, but it need not be a problem of the big school. In all of these things we are facing, of course, new difficulties. As to the closing exercises, I think most of us have found that the more quickly we can be dismissed after the lesson has been given, the better are the results for the classes and the pupils. But the opening service should be one which is worshipful in character, and with such departments as should meet together this season of worship can be just as helpful with the graded as with any other course of study. The lesson passage is not used now in up-to-date schools, but a passage of scripture devotional in its character; the hymns and songs to be chosen for worship, not necessarily related to the lesson.
A delegate: What about the problem of home study?
Mrs. Barnes: The testimony of all the teachers who have been taking the graded lessons in the Junior, the Primary, and the Beginners' depart- ments is this, — that they never had in the past so strong a home coopera- tion as they have had during the last few months, since the graded lessons have come to us.
A delegate: Can supplemental work be presented?
Mrs. Barnes: In our graded course of study it is not necessary, or should not be necessary, to continue the International graded supplemental courses that we had; but if you are using the uniform course of lessons, then by all means continue the graded supplemental courses of instruction.
A DELEGATE: Is it well to press these lessons before the need for them is felt?
Mrs. Barnes: I do not believe that there is anybody in this audience who is more enthusiastic over graded lessons that I am, and yet I should never try to force anything. If the graded courses meet the need, the school will find it out as soon as they try them. Do not set up for the schools things that are so ideal in connection with the lessons that, because they cannot do the ideal thing, they do not try them. Therefore, do not press it unduly, but always give it a fair chance. Do not force it, but present it.
A delegate: The average school in North America is ninety-four in size; that means not more than nine classes. When the scheme of the Lesson Committee is worked out, it means eighteen separate lessons,
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which is twice as many as the average school has classes. What shall we say to this?
Mrs, Barnes: There is no average school. The average school does not exist. We talk about " the child "; " the child " does not exist, but a child exists and children exist.
We do, however, have small schools and large schools, country schools and city schools. We have average schools only in statistics. If we had to plan for an average school in that sense,we would have no Adult Department and many other helpful things which we now have. The graded courses of study, if they are planned to meet the needs of the different pupils in the different stages of their lives, will meet the needs of pupils in a little school as well as in a big school, for just as little schools of thirty, fifty, or ninety cannot with the Uniform lessons do all the things that another schools does, yet they can take the lessons, and they must adapt them to their needs.
Mr. Musselman: The best organized Baptist school I know of uses graded lessons, and was using them before the International came out, and it is going to adopt the International in the fall. It is a school of ninety- eight members.
Mrs Barnes: The first order that came to the Presbyterian Board was from a little school. I know of the first five hundred orders that came to six denominations, and they were all from little schools from one hun- dred to two hundred in number. Of course they cannot take eighteen courses, nor sixteen courses, for they have not enough classes. They use them as far as they can.
A delegate: In the Advanced work, at the age of sixteen, we are pro- posing to promote from the Intermediate to the Senior grade. We are sifting our classes continually, and ultimately will have as many classes as grades, if we promote according to grades, and if we adopt this, we get away from the standard the committee has set.
Mrs. Barnes: I do not know that this will help any. I would not want to say anything that might lead to confusion, or that might in any way seem to lower what seems to be the ideal of a graded course of study or of the ideal graded school. But I feel quite sure that in the upper grades, when we get the courses which are now under consideration, the courses, instead of being used in the closely graded plan, that is, one after another, will more or less be used as elective courses.
As workers and leaders we have had a great responsibility upon us, because we are in a new place where every move we make is a strategic one. There are many things for us to think about. When we are in a transitional place we are always in a dangerous place, and we need to be watchful. Let us be very careful that we do not discourage the other schools
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that want it a different way. Our graded courses of study have already in one year gained a large place. They are making it possible for the first time for superintendents to be superintendents; and they are bringing to us for the first time a new vision of what it means to worship the Lord in the Sunday-school service. In a few years you will see that the graded courses of study have prepared your pupils to become teachers. Is it too much to expect that we shall bring up a class of people who shall be a new kind of teacher, and that we shall bring into our church life stronger and more vigorous Christian people?
I
THE HOME DEPARTMENT
The Home Department is the University Extension of the church, and offers, through membership, the open Bible and Home Class Visitation to every home, man, woman and Cradle-Roll child in the world, not already connected with some other department, unable or imwilHng to attend.
W. A. DUNCAN, Ph.D., SYRACUSE, N. Y.,
Founder and Chairman International
Home Department Committee.
THE HOME DEPARTMENT
ITS HISTORY, MISSIONARY WORK AND PROGRESS
W. A. Duncan, Ph.D., Syracuse, New York, Founder and Chairman OF THE International Home Department Committee
It was the direct influence of two homes, that of my childhood and that of my manhood, that made me a Christian, — then a missionary eager to offer good homes to every man, woman, and child through the means of an open Bible in the hands of a living Home Class visitor.
In my work as chairman of the executive committee of the New York State Sunday-School Association I found not more than 25 per cent of the Protestant population connected with any church or Sunday- school.
Before 1881 I began to formulate plans for a state Sunday-school organi- zation that would reach the homes and lives of those who could not or would not attend the Sunday-school so that every soul should have an opportunity to study God's Word. My thought was to utilize the homes of the people, or any available place, for those who would not or could not attend the church school, and give them recognition and school member- ship and privileges.
In 1881, I wrote Home Class Leaflet No. 6, offering recognition and all the privileges of membership in the Sunday-school to those who studied the Bible lessons at home and reported the same regularly to the main school. This revolutionized the old-fashioned school in that it gave mem- bership to Home Department and Cradle Roll members for work done in the home, thus recognizing Bible study as a basis of membership, instead of attendance only, as heretofore.
The New York State Sunday-School Association, in June, 1881, adopted my plan, and, under the name of " Woman's Mission Aid Association," set out to appoint visitors and canvass every locality, organizing Sunday- school and Home classes. The subject was presented at the Third Inter- national Sunday-School Convention in Toronto, the same month, and received the approval of Dr. Vincent, Hon. S. H. Blake, and the other leaders. The Chautauqua Missionary Institute adopted the plan in August, 188 1, and the movement was given a decided impetus. The movement
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was given the cordial approval of B. F. Jacobs and other International Sunday-school leaders, and became later a department of its work. The first conferences, out of which grew the World's Sunday- School Association, were held in my private office in Chautauqua.
The earliest home class organization was in my own Good Will Con- gregational Mission Sunday-School, Syracuse, N. Y., a branch of the Plymouth Congregational Church, and it had the only organized Cradle Roll in the world in 1881.
In the fall of 188 1, the mission work of a " visitor" was discussed at the Onondaga County, New York, Sunday-School Convention in Syracuse. The work was undertaken, and in October, 1882, the missionary reported that four hundred visitors were at work, and that there were whole town- ships in the county where every family was under the complete supervision, visitation, and care of the Home Class visitors and were connected with some local Sunday-school or home class.
In April, 1883, the " Home Class canvass and its visitors " was fully outlined. This was the beginning, and the speaker was the author, of the present Sunday-school " Home Visitation Department," and also of the " Home Class Visitor." In 1907, the International Executive Committee adopted the plan and appointed a subcommittee on " Home Visitation." This is a different proposition from the one-day religious canvass or census of a community, because it proposes a continuous oversight, and not a single effort, and it unites the home class with the main school.
Some facts as to the growth and development of the work will be of interest: In 1881, there were ten Home Departments and 100 members. At the Boston convention of the International Sunday-School Association in 1896 there were reported 3,261 departments and 130,232 members. At Toronto, 1905, the departments had increased to 10,600, and the membership to 403,905; in 1908, at Louisville, 15,650 departments, 551,538 members. Twenty-five denominational and 2 independent publishing houses issued 3,055,800 Home Department quarterlies in 1909. Pennsyl- vania leads in the number of Home Department members, with 104,718; New York second, with 82,211; Ohio third, with 62,725.
The Cradle Roll, with its half million members, is, and has always been, part of the Home Department work until divided into a department of its own some five or six years ago. It has been adopted by all Protestant denominations in America, and nearly all European countries, — in Great Britian, Bohemia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and is used by the students of Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Egypt, India, Africa, Mexico, Panama and Porto Rico and Canada.
In the great northwest the Church of England has a very beautiful work called " The Home Department " of the Children of the " Log Hut
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League." No Sunday-school in the world can have a " star " record either denominationally or through state or interstate organizations unless it has a Home Department.
Institutional work in sanitariums, hospitals, homes for the aged, reforma- tories, prisons, county houses, and similar institutions is carried on very successfully in an attractive and helpful way in many of the states, especially in New York, Ohio, Vermont, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Massa- chusetts, and Missouri.
New York and Vermont are especially remarkable for their Home De- partment city, town, and county unions with house-to-house visitation and supervision along interdenominational lines. New York has about one half of its large cities thus organized; some of them are doing remark- able house-to-house visitation and supervision, benevolent and missionary work throughout the year.
I reported at Rome, 1907, a half-million department membership, 50,000 Home Class visitors making 2,000,000 visits a year and distrib- uting annually 2,000,000 quarterlies.
I report today nearly 813,000 members, with 500,000 extra in the Cradle Roll, or 1,300,000 members in this movement in the world, about one twenty-fifth of the entire Sunday-school membership enrollment, and 100,000 visitors making 3,250,000 visits every year, distributing 3,055,800 quarterlies into 800,000 homes and reporting 10,000 conver- sions and re-conversions annually. There are 25,000 departments, with an increase of 60 per cent, or 100,000 new members annually.
In twenty-nine years it has had more than 1,500,000 department members and visitors, and 100,000 persons are now serving as visitors. It is esti- mated that 500,000 have probably either united with the main school or have died. A portion have drifted away entirely.
The Home Departments are today contributing to missions or benevo- lent work at least $100,000 annually, and have within twenty-nine years probably distributed more than $1,000,000 in missions and local church work, besides paying all their own running expenses. In addition to this, the profits (of the denominations and the independent publishers) on the pub- lication of the denominational quarterlies and requisites amount annually to at least $100,000, and is carried in the denominational houses to their ministerial aid or sustentation funds. This is possible because the founder has never copyrighted anything in connection with the work, nor has he in twenty-nine years received any compensation for his travel, office, postage, or secretarial work.
TEACHER. TRAINING DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING
Its Place and Power
The greatest need of the church is a true school of religion as a well- developed institution in the chinch itself. The greatest need of the church is a double number of trained, consecrated teachers in the Sunday- school. The organized effort to supply this deep want is the Teacher- Training Department. It aims to give to both the teachers of today and the teachers of tomorrow four things: a grasp of the Bible as a whole; a view of the child in the light of modern education ; an outline of the tried methods of religious pedagogy; and an insight into the manage- ment and organization of the school. Holding aloft new standards for service in teaching in the schools of the chinch promises a noble temper and the conquering power of a clear faith in the generation who will rule tomorrow.
REV. FRANKLIN McELFRESH, D.D., International Teacher-Training Superintendent.
TEACHER-TRAINING CONFERENCE
Rev. Franklin McElfresh, D.D., Chicago, Illinois, Teacher-Train- ing Superintendent of the International Sunday-School Associ- ation, Presiding
After prayer by Rev. H. T. Musselman, D.D., of Philadelphia, the chairman made a brief statement regarding the prosperous condition of the department. He said:
Since the International Convention at Louisville in June, 1908, one hundred and fifteen thousand have been enrolled as students in these courses. The teacher-training work is now organized in all the states and provinces. Some have only made a beginning, with slightly awakened interest, and the methods not well understood; in others, the work moves with steady progress. The states most thoroughly organized and leading in numbers are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Some of the states of the Pacific coast have shown remarkable interest, and are enrolling students rapidly and doing this work with fine enthusiasm. The churches of Canada have united in a course of study just issued, and are pushing it with vigor and thoroughness.
The four studies of the teacher-training course are: The Bible; the study of the pupil; methods of teaching; and organization and manage- ment of the Sunday-school. Fifty lessons in approved text-books, with written examinations, entitle the students to a First Standard diploma. Adding studies on missions and in church history, with a hundred lessons as a minimum, entitles the student to an Advanced Standard diploma. Much of the work has been, of necessity, elementary as yet, but higher standards are rapidly coming in view. The Sunday-school boards of many of the denominations are giving increased attention to this important work, and are maintaining the International standards and working in cooperation with its officers.
Three kinds of classes are found successfully organized: (i) the class of senior students meeting at the Sunday-school hour; (2) the class of teachers and senior students now in the school, meeting at an hour separate from the Sunday-school; (3) a group of teachers from different schools meeting together. The highest development of this idea is the City
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Teacher-Training Institute, which is proving successful in some of our larger cities. The work is also offered by correspondence to many earnest students who cannot enter a class, and some thousands have enrolled under this method.
The time has come when the Sunday-school should take its place among modern educational forces. The school of religion in the church must be a real school, and the training class in connection with the Sunday-school itself, however carefully conducted, is not enough. The Sunday-school is the widest field open for the average young man or woman for Christian service. Our schools, colleges, and seminaries should offer special training for this work. Many large churches seek trained superintendents who devote themselves to this field alone. Wide fields call for strong men and cultured women who shall be secretaries and field workers.
HISTORY OF THE TEACHER-TRAINING MOVEMENT
Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Nashville, Tennessee, Chairman International Committee on Education
I AM to give you some statistics in regard to the development of teacher training.
William H. Groser, of London, might be called the father of the teacher- training class in the Old World, and, in fact, laid the foundation for OHr present teacher-training work. He wrote one of the earliest books, illus- trating the excellency of teacher-training plans. We ought to give credit in x^merica to our motherland, and I always take pains to bestow tribute upon the pioneer of Great Britain and of Europe, Dr. Groser.
As far back as 1827, the New York Sunday-School Union commended teacher training, not calling it by that name, not giving it any definite name, but suggesting at least that the time had come when the teacher might need some training for his work. The only curriculum of the Sunday- schools at that time was the mere memorization of the Scriptures, started in England under the Raikes system. In America there was the memorization of the Bible and of the catechism. So the recommendation of the New York Sunday-School Union fell flat.
Twenty years later, in 1847, Dr. Daniel P. Kidder, of the Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday-School Union (that church was the oldest to organize a Sunday-school union in America; it was organized in 1824), put forth the pnoposition that the time had come when there might be something done in the way of teacher-training. While this failed, it aroused a young man living nearer the setting sun than Kidder lived. It is a sort
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of a line of apostolic succession. But Kidder picked up an old paper of the New York Sunday-School Union and sent the suggestion forth a second time.
John H. Vincent, of Chicago, got hold of Kidder's recommendation, and it burned in his bones as fire until it was accomplished. In 1857, John H. Vincent, then a young pastor at Joliet, Illinois, a member of the Rock River Methodist Conference, organized the first distinctively teacher-training class in the history of the world, before the London Sunday-School Union. It called the attention of the pastors of Chicago to the possibilities of the trained teacher, even as early as that. In i860 the Sunday-School Committee of the Rock River Conference, of which he was the inspiration and dominant spirit, recommended as a further step the organization of the Sunday-School Institute. They signified that the day of the convention had simply diminished in its power, and there was needed something distinctively along lines of instruction. The recommendation of that committee was passed unanimously at the annual session of the Rock River Conference.
There was a diminution of interest on account of the war just at that time, as there was in all matters affecting the church and Sunday-school. But in 1861, at Freeport, Illinois, April 16 and 17, as a part of the Galena District of the Annual Conference, there was held the first institute in the world of Sunday-school teachers, — John H. Vincent, chairman. I have been in that church and held an institute, and have had the privilege and honor of holding an institute in the same church in which John H. Vincent conducted his first institute, and I had present four persons who were members of that first institute.
In June, 1861, a Sunday-school institute was held in Detroit. The West gave light to the East on that proposition — that is very clear. In 1864, near the close of the war, Dr. Vincent appeared before the Cook County Sunday-School Association and urged the formation of a permanent Sunday-school institute for the Northwest, to be called the Northwest Sunday-School Institute. His suggestion was adopted, and in the winter following, in Chicago, a winter course of lectures and exercises was given.
In 1864 R. G. Pardee, one of the great Sunday-school pioneers, and Ralph Wells, another of the same type, held a Sunday-school institute in New York. This was suggested to them by Rev. W. A. Niles, at the New York state convention.
In 1874 the committee of the Methodist Sunday- School Union was con- stituted as a Normal Committee, and they began the issuance of some little leaflets, and the adoption of a plan looking towards the future. But Dr. John H. Vincent was later elected bishop, and when he was elevated to the episcopacy the Sunday-school world lost its modern genius. It was
464 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
a unique change when he left his place as bishop of the modern Sunday- school to become one of a number of bishops. I doubt if there was ever a more signal loss than in the so-called promotion of John H. Vincent to the episcopacy. As the old man eloquent and forceful, he still lectures in Sunday-school work. He is to be at the West Virginia Institute this year, as one of the lecturers.
In 1876 a committee composed of representatives of ten denominations formed the Chautauqua Sunday-School Normal Lesson course, the New York Chautauqua having begun its first session in August, 1874. Louis Miller, of Akron, Ohio, and Vincent got together at a Sunday-school picnic in Ohio, and it occurred to them that there ought to be some meeting place for the entire country. They went to the camp meeting at Lake Chautauqua, and thought it was an ideal place. They entered into nego- tiations with the executive committee of the camp meeting, and it was agreed that they should establish a teacher-training assembly. It was not called Chautauqua at first, but the " Sunday-School Teachers' Assembly," and with that name it entered into existence on Tuesday evening, August 4, 1874. For three years it was maintained simply for two weeks, with a course of forty lessons. There were forty lecture periods at the first meeting, with everything that was necessary to make a most excellent course.
But there came a demand from the people who gathered there for an enlargement and broadening of the course, and Chautauqua ceased to be a Sunday-school teachers' assembly, became a great center for summer-time recreation along all lines, and lost its distinctiveness as a Sunday-school institute. Other assemblies began to imitate the Sunday-school features and the other features of the mother Chautauqua. There was a time when the mother Chautauqua was distinctively a Sunday-school assembly; now the Sunday-school feature is only one of many. Because the Chau- tauquas began to be places of public entertainment of the highest order, there came to be a demand for something distinctively instructive in the way of teacher-training, confined exclusively to that object, and, in the order of providence, that demand came to be satisfied, not through the Chautauquas, but through other agencies.
In 1880, in London, at the centennial, John H. Vincent said, " Let us have one idea, a uniform series of lessons among all nations." A committee was appointed, books were issued, and a definite attempt made to standard- ize and unify the work of teacher-training, and in 1884 what was called the " Assembly Normal Union " was organized. In 1886 the Chautauqua Normal Union was evolved from the proposed Assembly Normal Union for the world. The Chautauqua Assembly, having grown strong, took it up, and the Chautauqua Normal Union course was issued in two books.
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comprising a four years' course. Diplomas were issued, and everything needed was done to extend the work throughout the United States and Canada. That great movement has been greatly honored, and in a sense is the real mother of the teacher-training movement of the United States.
In 1872, in certain colleges of the United States, there began to be teacher-training. The first college that took it up as a part of the curriculum was the Northwestern Female College, at Evanston, Illinois. Dickinson Col- lege, Pennsylvania, followed, and Baldwin University, Ohio, adopted it soon after. Later the Moody Institute took it up in the West and the Spring- field Bible College took it up in the East, as distinctive colleges. Now there are five hundred colleges in the United States in which there are teacher-training curriculums.
In 1888, at Rockford, Illinois, by action of the executive committee of the Illinois Sunday-School Association, a normal department was organized, and I had the honor of being put in charge of it. It was the first Sunday- school association in the world to establish and maintain a distinctively normal class. I remember as well as anything that when we began we had nothing but a card. Captain Hayden, of Springfield, Illinois, said to me, " Why don't you put out a card? " " Well," I said, " Let us wait until we have something that the card stands for." Except that at Chau- tauqua, there was no other teacher-training course anywhere. As far as I remember, Ohio followed first after, and Col. Robert Cowden was its first chief. It passed on to the East, and I think New Brunswick, Canada, was the first association in that section to organize; now all the associations have such a department.
In 1903 the Committee on Education was organized at Winona, Indiana, at the annual session of the International Committee. I have in my pos- session some of the most sacred records left by Mr. Jacobs. I have the last letter he penned with his own hand. The day before he died he wrote me. Mr. Jacobs opposed the organization of the International Sunday- School Normal Teacher-Training Department.
If you know the history of the adoption of the International lessons you will know how very pathetic is the story, and how Mr. Jacobs had to wrestle with not a few difficulties that grew up inevitably out of the sit- uation. There was great rivalry among publishers to secure the adoption of their lessons by the convention at Indianapolis. And Mr. Jacobs carried the marks of that struggle all through the last generation of his life, — thirty-three years or more. I think he never quite forgot the troubles he had in trying to introduce the lessons.
He opposed, strongly, the organization of the Teacher-Training Depart- ment. He said, " We cannot harmonize the publishers and authors of normal literature, and we had better let it alone." But when the Inter-
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national Committee met at Lake Winona, in 1903, it organized a Committee on Education. I had no part in that, except that I was asked to take the chairmanship of the Committee on Education, which I have since held. It was given to us, as a committee, to standardize courses. At that time there was no standard, but in 1908 a convention of International leaders and denominational leaders was called to meet in Philadelphia, the home of Dr. Brumbaugh, and there they agreed upon standards which now obtain throughout all this continent and the bounds of the International work.
Certain things are required before one can receive the International teacher-training certificate. At the meeting in 1903 Mr. Pearce was ap- pointed as the superintendent of teacher-training. He changed the term so as not to confuse it with secular education.
After the standards were adopted by the meeting held in February, 1908, in Philadelphia, they were approved first by the Committee on Education, then by the International Executive Committee, and then by the Louisville Convention in 1908, and thereby became the standards. At the Louisville Convention Mr. Pearce was called into that other great work which he conducts, — the organization and maintenance of the daily Bible-class department, and the most worthy gentleman who sits behind me [Dr. McElfresh] became his successor in the field.
I have given you briefly, and as accurately as possible, the history of teacher-training. I beg now to say just one or two words more. If you want to compose a picture in which the teacher-training leaders of the American continent — and that means of the world — should be assembled, I can give you the names. In the very center, by all rights, human and divine, as a great providential leader, would stand John H. Vincent, — God bless him, — a man who has given more Sunday-school ideas to the world than any other man, living or dead. Along with Vincent, in the background, as a pioneer man, and for that reason only in the background, R. G. Pardee, and Ralph Wells, and then Stephen Paxson, whose son is here. While he organized the first county convention in the world, he also organized teacher-training. Then you would turn towards our brother in the East, William H. Giroser, not by courtesy only, but by right in any picture of the teacher-training leaders. And then you would have, following Bishop Vincent, Dr. James A. Worden and Henry Clay Trumbull, and that man who has done so much for the teacher-training work of the world, and who is here today, Dr. Jesse L. Hurlburt.
A DELEGATE: Mr. Chairman, may I complete the picture? I want to add the present speaker, Dr. Hamill, to that picture.
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THE NEED OF TRAINED TEACHERS
Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, Superintendent of Public Schools, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
It is a pleasure and a privilege to be identified in any way with a move- ment that has to do with the improvement of the training of children in the churches of this land, because the most precious asset that God has given to his people is life, and the patriots in our civilization are those who, in one way or another, endeavor to conserve that life.
And this can be done in two ways. We can conserve life by throwing around it such safeguards and remedial agencies as will add to its length; or, one may place upon it and inspire within it such constructive agencies as to improve its quality. And there are two types of teachers, — those who give longer life to the race, and those who give better life to the race. The great teacher, Jesus Christ, declares that he came to this world that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. And this is the business of the Church of God, — to give that abundancy of life to the childhood of the race, to enrich the quality of the life lived here by children here in this world. And the teachers are not those who destroy, but those who conserve life. No man today can engage in any destructive campaign against life without being a traitor to his kind and unworthy of his place in society. For that reason, the Church of God is a Peace Church; it must always be so because through the principles of peace we conserve life, — the life that God has given us.
The church and all other agencies that work upon the life of the race is to be, — it seems to me that goes almost without the saying, — ought to be, trained to do that work. Those who specifically commit to themselves the task that requires lengthening life in the republic and in the world are all trained agencies. You have your doctors, your nurses, your boards of health, your legislative bureaus and agencies, all of which, in one way or another, represent the trained treatment of life. We should not allow, even for a single day, any other type of touch upon life for the purpose of lengthening it. The ministers of the church are trained; the teachers in the public schools are trained; and, in general, those who work upon the human mind to give it a richer and better organization are trained people, with this wonderfully interesting and single exception, that in the great majority of cases the teachers who undertake to touch the life of the child on the religious side are, for the most part, untrained people. And there, to my mind, is our weakness today in the organization of our churches to gather into themselves a rich and abundant harvest of ripened life which God visioned for his people, and which Jesus constructively prepared them to receive.
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Now, I happen to be connected with public school work in part. I want to just take a moment of your time to indicate with what care the state safeguards the interests of the child during the hours of instruction. This morning, at nine o'clock, forty-four hundred teachers were supposed to report with their pupils in the schools of my native city. If, perchance, one teacher should not be on time, for whatever reason, what do we do with the children who fail at that moment to have their teacher ready to take up the work of the day? In ten centers in the city there is a corps of from ten to twenty substitutes, just as well trained as the regular teachers, sitting waiting, and the moment a teacher is late there is a call on the tele- phone to the nearest center, " We want a teacher," and immediately the teacher moves, and in ten minutes the class is met, the substitute teacher is at work, and the business of the day goes on. It would be culpable in the highest degree if we were to gather a body of fifty children anywhere, in any great city of America, for a day's instruction and not provide for them an adequately trained teacher.
Now, we might do several other things. We might say to the children, " Your teacher is not here; go home." That would be a lost opportunity. We might do another thing. We might go out on the sidewalk and, seeing some one approach, say, " Here, I want a teacher; won't you come in and take the work up today?" and we might call in the accidents of the occasion and so undertake to carry on the work. You laugh about it; it would be silly. Yet, in your Sunday-schools you are doing almost that thing.
Your teacher is not there. It is not my province to say why. You say to the children, " Come over with Miss Jones' class today. Bunch up; lose your identity; we have no teacher for you." Or the superintendent of the Sunday-school goes down through the audience. " Won't you take them? " "Won't you take them? " And the first one asked says, " No, I am not prepared; ask Miss Jones." And so the superintendent goes beg- ging, and the children starving, because there is not back of the superinten- dent, and back of the needs of the children, a trained, organized body of people who are not only teachers today, but pray God for the chance to teach in the days to come.
I can see no place where we can do a larger service for the church than to have not only a thoroughly trained corps of regular teachers, but to have also a trained corps of substitutes ready to take up the work. Just there I am frequently met with this statement, that it is not a fair propo- sition to draw a parallel between the public-school work and the Sunday- school work, because, forsooth, they say, in the public-school work you have the law of the state and the resources of the taxpayers to make possible such effective machinery. My friends, if the law of God and the
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resources of his kingdom are not rich enough to bring you to his work, you are hardly fit to be a worker for him.
It has been said again, It is no use to talk like that; public-school teachers are trained, — of course they are, — because they are assured an occupation for life if they take the training. May I remind you that the finest soldiery that ever marched was the volunteer soldiery of this great country only a generation ago, and that today perhaps the finest service done for God is the volunteer service of consecrated men and women who believe that they ought, in his name, do something for his children. And so I want you to feel, this morning, that here is a field, an opportunity, a call, a duty, resting upon every one of us to do, in some way, some one thing that will bring to the children a richer experience in the things of the Spirit.
Now, it is also a fact, which I think you cannot well gainsay, that these early touches upon the life of a child are the most enduring ones; that the child who, in the Sunday-school and in the home, receives some form of help in the attempt to find himself in his relation to God, carries into his future life, by reason of the training received in these early institutions, the very strongest possible restraints from vice and the finest foundation for a worthy life.
Two or three days ago I entered a business shop in Philadelphia. The proprietor, a man turning gray, seventy years of age, now busy every day with the work there in his shop, came to me and said, " The trouble about our modern civilization is that nobody seems to be getting hold of the children early enough." He said, " I remember now, and I remember particularly when I was a soldier in the Civil War and was tempted to do wrong things, I remembered most of all the admonitions that I received from my mother, and the teachings that I received in the Sunday-school "; and he said, " Those things would always come to me, and I would have to settle them before I would do anything." There was the testimony — clear, modest, definite — of a man who fought his way seventy years cleanly through this world, because a pious mother and a Godly teacher had set certain standards in his soul, which he has tried to honor all these years.
Now, I do not know what you are living for in this world. I should make a mess of it if I undertook to guess. You probably do not know what I live for; you would make a mess of it if you undertook to guess my motive. Sometimes I wonder whether we ourselves know just what the thing is that impels us to keep everlastingly at it, that holds us from throwing up our hands in despair and saying, " What is the use? " But think of it for a moment, — whatever may be your conscious or your unconscious motive in your life, — is not this a fair proposition that a man has hardly lived who has not given help to some other life; that if we are rightly to vision the
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call of Christ and the duty of his Church, we are not to look upon it as an organization in which we come to escape vengeance and punishment and wrath, but look upon it as an organization in which we shall come to do, in his name, the best things possible for his children?
And so it seems to me that no man or woman rightly lives who does not consciously, deliberately, earnestly, plan to help others in some way to live the better life, to walk a little nearer towards the Cross of the Master.
The minister of the church is a busy man; he has many cares and duties upon his hands; gives little time — too little for his own good and the church's — to his Sunday-school; yet if he gives all that he can, — and few of them do it (I wish their number could be multiplied), — still this fact remains that if the children who legitimately and properly belong to the church are to get the training the church should give them, that training will come from the lay members of the church working with them, and that work will be done best only when this great army of God shall turn itself consciously and deliberately, not only to a study of the Book, but to a study of all that splendid machinery of educational power and opportunity, an outline of which Dr. Hamill has sketched for you, which, in general terms, we know as the training of the teacher for the Sunday-school.
I want you, individually, to take that upon yourself as an obligation, and to carry it back to your community as a duty, and see whether we cannot, in some way, fit the classes in the Sunday-schools with trained teachers. If that were to come to pass, — if we could, in any way, univer- salize that dream and make it real, — what a great uplift would come to the church!
Now, this also is true. We go to school, all kinds of schools; we go to meetings, all kinds of meetings; sometimes I think that one of the vices of modern civilization is that we are continually attending something all the while, and we never have time to sit down and think out one single line of intelligence and define in our souls one positive conviction, and we never know our mind twenty-four hours in advance. Oh, for men and women who will sit down with the Word and with the law of teaching before them and prepare themselves definitely for some constructive, potential work! This business of the Master is too much a matter of caprice today; it ought to be more a matter of regulation, of law, of order, of system.
Furthermore, the great questions of the soul are not answered in these multiform conferences which we attend, and these multiplied types of schools which draw us forth through our growing years. The great ques- tions of the soul that are above reason, that defy human analysis, are questions like these: How did I get into this world? How am I going to get out of it? What had I best do under the circumstances? Great ques- tions of the origin and the destiny and the duty of the human soul, — these
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are answered best in the quiet of the classroom by a skillful teacher who fastens into the conscience of the child the fact that God brought us here, that he alone can take us from here, and that our duty here is to obey and serve him in order that when we leave here we may enjoy him forever.
The Sunday-school has that supreme task and opportunity to settle the ever-rising questions of the soul, to put the troubled spirit at rest, and make calm where otherwise there would be confusion and disorder and spiritual narrowness and loss. And the men and the women who undertake to do that unschooled and untrained may do it, or may not do it, but, under the providence of God, those who are trained best will most likely do that thing well.
May I take just a minute for another phase of this matter? If you go back to the time of Christ you will find three great systems of teaching at work upon the human mind, — all different, all interesting. There was, first of all, that great system of teaching that sprang up in the reign of Augustus, borrowed in part from the Greeks, and perfected in the Roman Forum, in which the Roman teacher invariably sought to win the assent of his hearer to the proposition which he maintained by an appeal to the feelings of the hearer, so that at the end of a Roman lesson or a Roman dis- course there was always that marvelous peroration which found its way through the highest institutions of learning into our American life and gave us some of those admirable things which we have all received with such delight on the Fourth of July and other state occasions. It was essentially an attempt to stir the people, to lift them into response to the orator's statement.
Then there was the great Greek system, — wholly different, — in which the Greek orator, step by step unfolding his logical analysis, concluded his teaching and address alike by an appeal to the reason of his auditors, concluding not with a sky-rocket of rhetorical analysis, but with a sum- mation in categorical order of the propositions demonstrated in the discussion.
And then, there was, last of all, — and best of all, — over in Judea and in Galilee a modest Teacher who never took advantage of his hearers by appealing to their sympathy, and who never took advantage of his hearers by trying to persuade them against their will, but who appealed directly and deliberately to the will of his hearers. That was new teaching in the Orient; it was new teaching in the world; it is new teaching today. You cannot reach your children by an appeal simply to their feelings; you cannot reason them into the Kingdom, but you can lay the propositions of God so clearly before them, and with such attractive interest on your part, that the child's will will be constrained, and he will do the things of the Kingdom.
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You remember what Christ said, "He that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken unto a wise man; and he that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, I will liken unto a foolish man." No teaching touches character and transforms life that does not appeal as Jesus appealed to the will of the learner.
Remember, finally, this thing, — that the test of all great teaching, as the law of all great teaching, was best exemplified by Him in that memorable last interview with His disciples, when, after a night of fruitless quest, they gathered on the shore of the lake, and the Master took old, burly Peter in hand and questioned him: " Simon, lovest thou me more than these?" You know the question and the answer three times over. It was such a simple lesson that I have sometimes thought its very simplicity has caused us to overlook its majestic power. If you love, feed. That is the law in God's kingdom. He that loveth best the Master, teacheth best his children, and in the spirit and in the power to love, men should be trained to teach the children of the Kingdom, and to love them into the Kingdom.
COLLEGE LEADERSHIP IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
Rev. Henry F. Cope, Ph.D., Chicago, Illinois, Secretary Religious Education Association
My dominant concern is not with technical or professional training in the college. That is a work greatly needing attention, but it belongs to graduate and professional schools. The plea is for such a comprehensive recognition of the undergraduate student's social and religious future on the part of the college as will insure, first, that ideals of culture shall be religious; second, that the leadership for which the college prepares a man shall include leadership in religious service; third, that in seeking to bring men to the full heritage of their lives the college shall recognize the religious heritage, and in training men for social living in the future it shall have regard to the fact that the life of the church, its activities and services, is an essential part of every normal man's social existence.
The question as to what place particular studies, especially those which relate directly to Sunday-school service, shall occupy is a minor one compared to this: whether our cultural ideals shall develop from those of an age in which the highest values of life were found in art and literature, not essentially Christian, and in which the highest aim in life was individual satisfaction and development, to those of this age in which the spirit of Christianity stands for the best and highest aim, that is, the social aim
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and ideal under which a man learns to live and serve as a member of that great community which embraces God and man in one.
If the work of the college is that of general broad preparation for the whole of life, the college is bound to consider the Sunday-school. Religion, religious service, and aspiration are essential parts of life. No college pre- pares for the whole of life that does not recognize the spirit of religion running all through life. But religion is more than a spirit. It has forms of expression and modes of activity. In itself it is a social force and through these it becomes a tremendous social factor. We are saying today that the single comprehensive aim of education is social efficiency. No man can possibly be efficient as a social being if his training has neglected the great- est single social and socializing dynamic in history, — the religious life and religious work.
Now the one particular agency which gives popular, specific, and system- atic training for righteous, religious living is the Sunday-school. It is the one school of religion. The decline of the home, and, under full Chris- tian ideals, the necessary separation of church and state, has left to this single institution practically all popular instruction in religion, whether conceived of as history, philosophy, or principles of living. The Sunday- school, on this account, has a definite function in respect to human culture. It is the institution upon which we are laying the heaviest loads and to which we are committing the most delicate and important tasks, especially for those who are in the highly impressionistic, the determinative period of life. It is the one institution, governed by the churches, which may be properly called the school of character.
Every time we are confronted by any of our modern complex problems of living, — political corruption, social evils, labor troubles, crime, un- necessary disease and suffering, — we recognize that all these are personal at root. We know that if we would remedy them we must redeem and transform individuals. Every problem is a problem in character. The one solution which lies in our hands is that of education. The one agency we have for the direct education of righteous character, the only one designed and maintained exclusively for this, is the Sunday-school. We have faith to believe that if we might have all the children of our day, and were our- selves adequate to the task of teaching them the right life, and ourselves sufficiently versed in the laws of the higher life, we could be sure that for our nation the good would come in the next generation. How can any one think that the college, the school of leadership, has no responsibility toward this institution of such extent, so supremely important work, and upon which so many increasing demands are made ?
We talk of the college as existing for the broad, general culture of men. But culture to what end? That its graduates may be able to wear evening
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clothes with ease, to make graceful speeches, to refer intelligently to the classics peacefully reposing on their shelves, to be graceful admirers of ancient art and scoffers at modern beauty? Culture to what end, if not to the end of service? I know a man who for years taught Latin in the Latin School in Boston, who is now teaching Sunday-school teachers. I would ask him whether he does not think he is contributing just as much toward human culture when he is training a teacher for Sunday-school work as when he is leading his boys through Virgil. We are ^till in danger of learning so many dead leaguages that we cannot think in any of them or any others. Culture for any other end than that of service becomes damaging to character.
The ideal of education is the development of the life of each for the sake of a rich, efficient life to give to all, — the social efficiency of each for the sake of service to all. It is idle folly, a blindness, to present large opportunity to talk about social efficiency as the aim of the college while we neglect so large a chance for service as the Sunday-school offers. I have reference particularly to the church and denominational colleges.
The college has a responsibility for the Sunday-school because the Sunday-school demands, needs, the best trained leadership. The school of leadership, the college, must provide leaders here. We have a right to expect that the social investment which has been made in the college man, an investment not made by parents alone, nor by himself alone, nor by the faculty alone, but made by society which through its sacrifices makes the college possible, — that such an investment shall receive an adequate return; that men shall come back to their churches and homes and com- munities ready not simply to forge ahead in business, but to go in the lead of every good and worthy movement.
The higher standards we are setting for our Sunday-school, its fast- growing tasks, its increasing opportunity, are revealing to the cultured men and women of our day what a splendid chance for leadership it offers. College men and women are coming into the Sunday-school, not simply because there are more of their kind in our communities, but because the Sunday-school means more than ever before to them, and especially be- cause the school gives to these young people just that chance for ideal serv- ice for which they hunger, a chance to do big things and to do them under great discouragements.
But when these men and women come into our Sunday-schools, while they have the advantage of broad general culture, as necessary for them for technical purposes as the maul is to the wedge, they are as ignorant as any one else as to the real significance of this institution, as to its educa- tional function, and as to the general principles under which its work must be done. They have studied Athenian constitutions; they could
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probably reorganize a " Field of Cloth of Gold " or tell just how a June bug came to be, but they do not know how their churches came to be, still less how to organize life, under religious auspices, for character ends.
The time has come when we must turn to the colleges and demand that they justify their existence. I have reference particularly to church and denominational colleges. To what purposes are the denominations making investments in their colleges? The president of the Carnegie Foundation has called attention to some of the aims and purposes, such as denomi- national rivalry, sectarianism, jobbism, and so forth, which cannot satisfy honorable people. The colleges as schools of leadership must make a re- turn to those institutions which have made them possible. Practically all are of religious origin. They would have been impossible but for religious institutions. I am speaking of our sectarian colleges, our denominational colleges. They are as much a part of our institutional religious life as are the churches themselves.
Now, especially in view of the efficiency of the state universities, what possible excuse for existence can a denominational college have if it does not exist to make ideals of culture religious, and to spiritualize the ideals of the community, the state, the nation, and to train men for efficient service in the nation? In other words, whatever forms of leadership we may have a right to look for from college men and women, this we have always a right to expect, and without this we must count the service of the college incomplete, namely, that its men and women shall be those who are religious leaders, who help men to interpret life in terms of highest spirit- ual values, who can be counted upon for service in every endeavor to make real righteousness regnant.
I am aware that on the other side we may say that the church is not quite ready to use trained men, that is, trained laymen. It is urged that the church is not yet ready to give the college man a trained man's job. But what of those churches that are so ready? Specifically and practically, what are the colleges doing to turn over to the churches efficient laymen? I have now in my desk half a dozen letters from churches asking us to recommend college men trained for leadership to organize their educational work in the church and to become what we call directors of religious edu- cation. Today I cannot find one man to fit in these places because the colleges are not training them. It is time that, so far as the increment to the churches is concerned, the denominations were demanding a return for the money they put into the colleges.
Now, this is not an argument which would turn our colleges into tech- nical schools on church work and Sunday-school management. It is simply a demand in line with the modern recognition of the social place of the college and of man's social necessity for religion. No college could
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count itself responsive to the life of today if it did not have courses in social studies. It is on this ground, and on that of the function of religion in the life of today, and of the great service which the Sunday-school has to render, that we must turn to the college and demand that in the course of that training, that developing of life which it seeks to give to our sons and daughters, it shall consider them not simply as linguists, mathema- ticians, philosophers, but as the children of God who have a service to render to their brothers, and upon whom rests the responsibilities pecu- liarly of the development of the religious life by educational means and through the educational agency of the church.
That we are not blazing a solitary trail becomes evident when we turn to the colleges to ask whether they have accepted the responsibility for training youth to religious social efficiency. I quote, first, some answers from college officers written in response to a letter of inquiry sent them only this month.
I wrote to representative colleges in various parts of the country, asking them these questions:
In view of the responsibility of the college to prepare men for social efficiency, do you regard the man's relationship to the church and the Sunday-school in the church as part of that field for social efficiency for which he must be prepared?
Do you regard the college as, therefore, having any responsibility for a man's life in his church and Sunday-school?
If you do so regard it responsible, are you offering any definite courses for that purpose, and do you regard psychology, or the study of the child nature, as being not only one of the elements of culture, but as being a preparation for a man's service in the Sunday-school?
From Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, President A. B. Church writes: " In regard to college preparation for church work, would say that I think your ground well taken as to the importance of college young men and women being prepared for and taking an active part in church work for their efficient preparation in social life, for I firmly believe that the main busi- ness of the college is to prepare young men and women to be more useful members of society."
From Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, I have this from President Sharpless: " I quite agree with your idea that college work should train for church activity in the broadest sense."
President Walter G. Clippinger, of Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio, writes as follows: " I am throughly convinced that there is, more and more, a turning of educators everywhere to a recognition of the fact that religious control must be a part of all educational processes, and feel that no organization in the world has done more to bring this to pass than
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has the Religious Education Association. The following courses have been given by myself this year at Otterbein: Educational psychology, in which I take a full account of the principles stated in your letter; religious edu- cation, which covers the entire field of this subject; child psychology, into which I inject, as a very prominent factor of training, the religious side. I am planning within a year or two, as soon as we have the means to employ a professor, to have a distinct series of courses upon applied Christianity, which must be based upon pedagogical and psychological principles."
From President Kelly, of the Biblical Department of Earlham College, Earlham, Indiana, I have the following:
" Both of us approve your proposition that a college course ought to have regard to a man's needs and responsibilities as a church member and worker. We have a course in the history of the Society of Friends, one on church history, one in methods of religious work (partly homiletics), and are offering next year one on Sunday-school methods."
President Joseph W. Mauck, of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, writes: " Referring to yours of May 7, among our electives is a semester of four hours a week upon Sunday-school methods, organization, adminis- tration, and so forth. Those who take this subject receive the same credit on our bachelor's degree as would be given for histor3^ literature, or any other subject. On special application, we have allowed two years of such study.
" We also have a semester on missions, four hours a week. I unquali- fiedly believe the college should attempt to give the training recited in your circular letter. Furthermore, I have been long strongly of the opin- ion that church colleges have been diverted to a considerable extent from their original mission. The higher education of the state, with large re- sources from taxes, has set definitions as to what a college is or should be, and since they are viewed as excluded from distinctly religious instruction, their definition is almost wholly in terms of so-called secular subjects, their aim being primarily to fit young people for civic pursuits. The church colleges undertake to live up to the definition set by the state institutions, and then propose to add instruction in general suited to religious training.
" There being competition only in the so-called secular subjects, it is easy for the religious to be neglected. In short, there is an almost hopeless * competition in kind ' with institutions which have all the taxing power of the state behind them. It is my conviction that the non-state colleges must give greater emphasis to the spiritual side, make that strong, and so justify their existence. In other words, they should offer in a strong way what the state avowedly does not offer, and not bend their energies
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to competition in kind. I do not say that Hillsdale College has done this, but it is my ardent hope that a chair or two devoted to distinctly spiritual demands will in due time be provided here."
President Herbert W. Welch, of Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, writes: " While I am thoroughly in sympathy with the general con- ception indicated, it would seem to me that the only courses appropriate to the college would be such as the study of the English Bible, or the Bible in the original tongues, ethics, philosophy, economics, Christian evidences, and the like. In a word, courses of a general character rather than those on specific questions of Sunday-school organization and work."
From Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas, President Frank K. Sanders writes: " I am in thorough sympathy with this proposition. I believe that the time has come when our colleges should study this problem and advise specific ways of meeting it. Washburn at the present time offers a very thorough series of courses in the English Bible, in sociology, comparative religion, and mission study, which afford a general preparation for re- ligious service. We are contemplating courses which will specifically offer training along the lines of social and Sunday-school service, but have not yet organized them."
President John H. T. Main, of Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, writes: " For several years I have been thinking of the possibility of introducing a course looking to efficiency along the various lines suggested in your letter, namely, church work, Sunday-school leadership, and all forms of social service."
President Slocum, of Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan, writes: " The college ought to give more attention to the training that will fit young men and women for church relations and activity, and I fear that only a limited amount of that kind of work is being done. Trained laymen are certainly greatly needed in our churches, and the colleges ought to supply them."
From President Leavitt, of Ewing College, Ewing, Illinois: " Ewing College requires two years of Bible study for graduation. We usually have two classes daily, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. The requirements will probably be greatly increased the year to come. Ewing College also has a class in Sunday-school pedagogy. This course consists of outline studies of the books of the Bible and some standard works in Sunday-school pedagogy."
President Loran D. Osborn, of Des Moines College, Des Moines, Iowa, writes: " I am a thorough believer in such education, and that it is one of the functions of the college which justifies its existence."
The president of the University of Denver, Dr. Henry A. Buchtel, recently governor of the state of Colorado, writes from University Park,
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Colorado: " I think you are quite right in insisting that the college ought to inspire the life of youth for social efficiency in religious and Sunday-school leadership."
President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, California, one of the foremost educators in this country, has this to say: " It is desirable, however, that courses comparable to those given in engineering should be given in lines looking toward religious leader- ship."
That is precisely what we demand, that the college shall just as much train a man for religious leadership as it gives him his thorough preparation for medicine or engineering.
Dr. J. H. George, president of Drury College, Springfield, Missouri, says: " We have courses in Drury designing to train college students for church and Sunday-school service. This is a new department. Our plans are not at all perfect."
I have not attempted a complete tabulation of all the work in teacher- training offered by colleges; such a tabulation ought to be made, but the answers above are more important as showing the interest of educators in this matter.
Before leaving these important expressions of opinion and statements of actual work now being done in colleges looking to Sunday-school leader- ship, justice compels me to say that I have also a number of letters from college presidents expressing the opinion that the college has nothing to do with specific lines of future usefulness, and emphasizing its mission as that of general, broad culture.
Turning to the opinions quoted, read again that of President David Starr Jordan, one of the keenest and most progressive and far-sighted of American educators. He says: "It is desirable, however, that courses comparable to those given in engineering should be given in lines looking towards religious leadership."
His words remind one of the resolutions passed by the Religious Education Association at its Washington meeting in 1908:
" In view of the pressing need of leaders who can properly instruct Sunday-school teachers and others in the principles and methods of re- ligious education, we urge the universities to provide in their departments of education for specific training with reference to such leadership."
This resolution was preceded by papers by the president of the West Virginia State University and President Frank Knight Sanders, showing just what was being done in the colleges in the way of preparing leaders for Sunday-school work.
Later the resolution was sent to all colleges and universities having de- partments of education; it was accompanied by the following explanatory
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passages: " First: There is a great and rapidly growing demand not only for skillful teachers in Sunday-schools, but also for teachers of teachers. Even if no changes were occurring or about to occur in the curriculum, the demand would be large. But the rapid spread of the principle of graded curriculum creates a peculiar emergency. Apparently the people will be ready to adopt improved curricula before there is a supply of com- petent leaders. Immeasurable good would come to the country if we could quickly provide the needed leaders for the local churches.
" Second: This is a work that requires specific training from the point of view of the university and college departments of education. There is needed not only a broad philosophy of education, but also specific knowl- edge as to the formation of a curriculum, the method of the recitation, and likewise special method. As public school teachers study the best methods of teaching arithmetic, so the Sunday-school teacher needs to be taught special methods in the presentation of Bible stories, biography, history, and so forth.
" Third: Not only is there large need for such lay service, but a demand is arising also for experts who will make religious education their life work. There is an entirely inadequate supply of men who are prepared to accept influential and reasonably paid positions now open as educational director of the local church. We foresee also a decided increase in the demand for trained men in secretarial, editorial, supervisory, and similar offices of wide scope.
" Fourth: Is not the service suggested in the resolution of the conven- tion one that the people may reasonably expect from the universities? In the present movement for a close relation between university studies and real life, the religious training of the young, because of its significance for our civilization, surely deserves the attention of university educators. We recognize the fact that in this particular the responsibility of universities that are upon a religious foundation is more obvious than that of universities that are upon a civil foundation. We would not have any strain put upon the limitations of state and city universities as regards either the letter or the spirit of such limitations. We believe, however, that institutions of this latter type can furnish much of the desired instruction without doing violence to their non-sectarian character. For example, a purely objective study of methods and curricula is not only non-sectarian, it does not even involve religious instruction at all. Further, we believe that such recog- nition of the importance of religion as would be implied in the suggested courses is in harmony with existing usage in our state universities as well as our legislative and judicial bodies."
The real question is not one alone of the Sunday-school; it is not a matter whether we shall persuade the college to aid the Sunday-school; it is rather
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a larger question of whether, in the life of today, the college shall really discharge its social function and, especially as to the denominational col- leges, whether they shall see in this particular work the chance to find for themselves a distinctive function which will justify their existence and give to the churches returns on the investments made in them.
The universities are doing that, and I have not been speaking of the universities. Our immediate point of attack must be, I believe, our own colleges under our own churches, and we must demand that they justify their existence by sending back our boys and girls, not with the idea that they have been trained for a work in which the church has no vital part, but for a work in which religious leadership is to become supreme leader- ship, and in which they may give the best of their trained powers to the service of their brothers.
TEACHER-TRAINING WORK IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Herbert H. Moninger, Bible School Editor, Standard International Series, Cincinnati, Ohio
(A Post- Convention Report)
Five years ago we made a careful investigation in our church, which numbers 1,500,000, and found that less than three hundred people held teacher-training diplomas from the state Sunday-school associations.
I gave simple examinations in thousands of communities and found that, while we had been talking a great deal about the Bible, people were densely ignorant. We revealed our find along this line to our ministers, and they with common consent began to lay plans to remedy it. In the various state conventions we took pledges from the representatives of the different schools present as to how many they would promise in the training class for the year.
We insisted that these three classes of people should be in the class:
(i) All of the teachers and officers; (2) all of the young people over fifteen years of age (those who receive diplomas are to be sixteen and, as the course is a year, this of necessity must be the mimimum age) ; and (3) all of the parents. We held then, and still hold, that it is just as vital to train parents to teach the Bible in the home as it is to train teachers to teach the Bible in the school.
With this vision of a large constituency, we began a strenuous campaign. From six to eight pages were given each week in our largest church paper to the pushing of this work.
Some of the special features of the teacher-training work as it developed were:
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1. Nine out of ten of the classes are taught by ministers.
2. We started in, not only to train the teachers, but the whole member- ship, and will not give up until that is accomplished.
3. Definite goals were almost invaribly set toward which the classes worked for a number of weeks previous to the beginning of the class, and for four weeks after the class started.
4. Teacher-training rallies were held in all communities, at which time a " sample " teacher- training lesson was given.
5. A great deal of drill work was done in the class. This has been one of the distinct features of our work. We believe that most of the 205,000 people that we know definitely have enlisted in the work can close their eyes and see with a mind vision the whole sweep of Old and New Testament history. In the life of Christ they can locate all the main events without reference to any book or Bible.
6. We have made a great deal of the graduation services and of the fact that the first course is only a beginning. The advanced course covers three years. Thus, those who complete it will have taken a four years' course.
7. We have encouraged Bible knowledge contests within the various classes, and between different classes. Two years ago, Cincinnati chal- lenged Creveland for a Bible knowledge contest. We picked out ten of the best and then met in Toledo.
As to results, here are a few:
1. New life and enthusiasm both in old teachers and officers.
2. Many new teachers enlisted.
3. Many parents now have Bible school enthusiasm and introduced it into their home life.
4. Hundreds and hundreds of young people have been trained for Chris- tian service.
5. Deacons and elders and other church officers have been trained.
6. A large number of young men and young women have been encouraged through the training class to go to college and enter the ministry.
7. Books on Bible study and Bible school work are now being read by nearly a quarter of a million more people in our church than were read five years ago.
8. The teacher-training work has made possible the tremendous work along the line of adult Bible classes.
9. Teacher-training lays the foundation for all progress in the Sunday- school. It has, therefore, prepared our schools to take up the new graded work, to introduce new methods, and to go into the front rank in all lines.
[A picture of Mr. Moninger's large training class in Cincinnati will be found in the department of illustrations.]
THE ADVANCED DIVISION
THE ADVANCED DIVISION
Its Place and Power
In many cases the Sunday-school is failing to meet the needs of the boy in his teens, and it is the purpose of this new department of our International Work to help the Sunday- school come to the point where such failure will cease.
The division will be the recruiting agency and a training school for the church.
EUGENE C. FOSTER,
Detroit, Mich.
THE ADVANCED DIVISION CONFERENCE
Edgar H. Nichols, Chicago, Illinois, Chairman International Advanced Division Committee
The story of the Advanced Division is so new that possibly a large num- ber of our Sunday-school workers may not as yet know of it.
About one year ago, the Intermediate Department Committee of the International Sunday-School Association met at Conference Point, on Lake Geneva, at which time the great question, " How best to handle and more thoroughly interest the boys and girls in their ' teens ' in the Sunday- School work and in the study of God's Word, and thereby save to the Church and Sunday-school the great loss that has so long existed," was studied with an interest never before seen in the committee.
It was felt that the work for not only the Intermediate Department, but also that of the Senior Department, as it was being done in connection with the Adult Department, was not getting results, and that the pupils of seventeen to nineteen years of age were in reality only the other half of the adolescent period, and not adults, and could be best handled by group- ing the two departments together in one general division.
The Committee adopted the following resolution:
" Resolved: i. That it is the sense of this Committee that the work of the Intermediate Department (which includes pupils of the Sunday-school from thirteen to sixteen years of age inclusive) and the Senior Department (which includes pupils from seventeen to nineteen years of age inclusive) can be best developed by the formation of a new general division, to be known as the " Advanced Division, covering the work of both departments, exactly as is done in the departments composing the Elementary Grades each department, however, to retain its respective name and identity.''
This resolution was presented to the International Adult Committee then in session at the same place, and after the conference it was decided to lay the whole matter before a joint committee made up of five members from each committee, including Chairman Hartshorn and Secretary Lawrance. The result of the meeting of the joint committee was the adop- tion of the following resolution:
" Resolved, That in order to determine beyond question what plan would best solve this problem, a committee should be appointed consisting
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of two members each of the Adult and of the Intermediate Department committees and the General Secretary of the Association. This committee was instructed to prepare a questionnaire to be sent to experts in Sunday- school and high school work, denominational Sunday-school secretaries, editors, and publishers, seeking to discover how the present Senior Grade (ages seventeen to nineteen inclusive) could best be grouped for the most effective work."
This resolution was presented to the Executive Committee of the In- ternational Sunday-School Association on August 20, 1909, and the plan was approved and referred to the Central Committee with power to act on the result of the questionnaire.
In accordance with the instructions given to the Central Committee, a questionnaire was sent out, with the result that three fourths favored the new division. The plan was adopted and the first Committee of the " Advanced Division " was appointed.
Edgar H. Nichols, Chairman, Chicago, 111.; Eugene C. Foster, Secretary, Detroit, Mich.; Frank L. Brown, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Dr. Frank Woodbury, Halifax, N. S.; S. H. Williams, Glastonbury, Conn.; Wm. C. Johnston, Colorado Springs, Colo.; John R. Pepper, Memphis, Tenn.; S. F. Shattuck, Neenah, Wis.; David R. Porter, New York City. Leaflets were prepared and the beginning of a new and great division of the Sunday-school work was begun.
The first act of the committee was the adoption of standards of organi- zation for the local school, county, state, and International associations. A beautiful lithograph certificate has been prepared for classes in the local schools complying with the required standards. The blue and white button (white center with blue rim) was adopted for both the Intermediate and Senior departments, indicating royal or true blue members with pure hearts.
During the great convention described in this volume the "Advanced Division " held its first conference in the First Presbyterian Church. This conference was largely attended, and intense interest was shown on the part of state secretaries and Sunday-school workers in the questions con- cerning the new work. There seemed to be a general agreement that the time had come when a definite and more earnest effort should be made in behalf of the two departments from which we have suffered the great- est loss. The splendid results and victories attained in the Elementary Division on the one side, and the great Adult Department work on the other, was looked upon with the feeling that truly the work for the boys and girls in their " teens " had been neglected. It was clearly demon- strated that different and more specific lines of work were needed for these grades because of the difficulties connected with the adolescent period.
The Advanced Division 487
Such topics as " Graded Lessons for the Intermediate and Senior De- partments," " Specialization in Teacher Training," " The Boy in His Teens," and " The Girl in Her Teens " were assigned to Dr. E. I. Rexford, Rev. E. W. Thornton, Eugene C. Foster, and Miss Minnie E. Kennedy respectively. Dr. Rexford explained the purpose of the Lesson Committee in preparing the graded lessons for pupils in their " teens," describing very clearly the necessity of special lessons for the adolescent period. He stated that the first-year lessons for the Intermediate Department would be ready for use by October i of this year, and that the second year for the Inter- mediate Department and the first year for the Senior Department would be ready in about one year from this date. The report was received with enthusiasm, the workers all realizing from actual experience the great need of a series of lessons better adapted to these grades.
Other addresses were delivered by Mr. F. L. Brown, Mr. W. C. Johnston, Mr. W. C. Pearce, and Mr. Wm. A. Brown.
During the session of the open conference some of the following vital questions were discussed with unusual interest:
" What definite service may the church provide to interest and strengthen young Christians?"
" What provision should be made by the church for the physical energies of these pupils?"
" To what extent should the church attempt to regulate and control the play instinct?"
" How can this division be made a social and intellectual center during the week, to which the pupils in both Intermediate and Senior departments will be attracted?"
" What should be the special qualifications of teachers for scholars in the adolescent period?"
" What objectives should be aimed for in class teaching at this period?" The subscription of four life memberships, amounting to $4,000, in be- half of the Advanced Division was announced, making possible the em- ployment of one or more paid superintendents who shall give full time to the development and study of this important department of our work.
Resolutions were adopted appealing to the denominations and Christian workers everywhere for a greater interest and a deeper study into the work for the boys and girls in their " teens." Committees were appointed to make this appeal through the denominational papers, to gather statistics concerning the losses, and to solicit further funds for the development of the work.
Books were recommended for the use of teachers and others for the study of this work, especially " The Boy and the Church," by Foster; " The Girl
488 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
in Her Teens," by Miss Slattery, and " Educational Evangelism,*' by McKinley.
Tile time was all too short for the many who attended this splendid con- ference, and the workers left it with a larger and clearer vision of the respon- sibility resting upon those who realize the importance of the work in behalf of the boys and girls in their " teens."
GRADED LESSONS FOR THE INTERMEDIATE AND SENIOR DEPARTMENTS
Rev. Dr. E. I. Rexford, Montreal, Quebec, Member International Uniform Lesson Committee
The graded lessons, as you speak of them today, are a recent arrival in connection with our Sunday-school work, and they have a history, they have an origin, and they have very many interesting features connected with their development, and it is very important, particularly from the point of view of those who are interested in the success of these graded lessons, that there should be a clear and distinct understanding in reference to the methods that have been followed and to the present position which has been reached, and in reference to the difficulties which lie out before us at the present time.
It was quite natural that, after the uniform lessons had been used for a time, the difficulties in connection with those uniform lessons should be felt at two points, namely, with the beginners on the one side and with the adult workers on the other; and at those two points we first heard grum- blings and thunders and ^complaints. The result of that was that we first were set by the International Convention to adjust the work for the begin- ners, and then, a year later, a session later, we were set to adjust work for the adults; and while we were experimenting on those two ends of the con- stituency of the Sunday-schools, the movement had grown and developed until there came down upon us the order that we were to undertake not only the beginnings and the closings, but that we were, to cover the whole field, and we' had that enormous problem thrust upon us, and the constit- uency that was interested in it demanded that the answer should be given in^the shortest possible'mode.
It was utterly impossible for a Lesson Committee whose hands were already filled^to^undertake that work and to carry it out by itself. And those who are interested in the work volunteered to give us assistance, and to make suggestions, and as is intimated in the published series of the graded lessons up to the present time, the graded lesson conference, con-
The Advanced Division 489
sisting of a large number, not only of interested persons, but of those who by their experience and attainment were capable of attacking this question with the best possible view, prepared outlines for the several grades and submitted them to a sub-Lesson Committee. This sub-committee went to work upon these outlines that were given them, criticised, suggested, and the committee sometimes sent back to the conference for further consider- ation; then it was corrected and printed.
And here is a point that I would like every member of this gathering to take note of: It sent out, before final adoption, a copy to over seventy-five representatives of Sunday-school workers throughout the length and breadth of this continent, to lesson publishers, the members of the Edi- torial Association, to elementary workers, those who had made a name for themselves in connection with this work, wherever they might be found, and this scheme was submitted to their criticism. Suggestions were asked, and, in due course, the scheme came back with this criticism, with the annotation. Then again this sub-committee of the Lesson Committee took up in detail lesson by lesson each year, noted these criticisms, adopted such portions of them as seemed expedient, and then printed and sent out the lesson for the year or for the grade.
Now this year I have just come from thirteen sessions of the Lesson Committee, from two to three hours each. We started in Monday morning and we closed Saturday at noon. This year, for the first time, it was agreed, not only that this sub-committee, consisting of six members, should revise finally every lesson that was to go forth, but it was agreed that the whole committee, after that, should itself go over it lesson by lesson from the 1st of January to the end of December, every item, in order that there might be every possible care taken in connection with the issue of these important lessons for the Sunday-school.
I think it is important that we should note this point, because ample opportunity has been given in connection with every year's graded lessons issued up to the present time to the whole community on this continent to express their criticism, their dissent, and their objections; and those criticisms and that dissent wherever they have been sent in have been given the fullest and most careful consideration before the lessons have been issued.
The responsibility, therefore, of the lessons rests today upon the Sunday- school constituency and not merely upon the Lesson Committee which has issued them.
What are the results? We have issued, as some of you know, two years* lessons of the Beginners' course; three years' lessons of the Primary course; three years' lessons will now be issued of the Junior course. The three years' have been approved during this past week and will now go
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forward in a short time to the publishers, so that, by the beginning of No- vember next, the third-year Primary and third-year Junior will be in the hands of the lesson writers for the present time. We have, in addition to this, issued one year of the Intermediate course, which refers to the specific work which you have before you this year.
I would like to direct your attention to another point, which some lose sight of in considering the situation in which we are placed, and that is that the Lesson Committee has not to do with an assembly of people such as are gathered here this morning; if we had, our task would be comparatively simple. There is a unanimity in this gathering in reference to this work that only requires leadership, and any wise leadership would have enthusiastic support; but the Lesson Committee stands before not only a gathering of this kind, but the whole Christian community of this conti- nent, that is, of Protestantism, and that is an entirely different constituency from the one that is before us here at the present time.
If you would allow us to pick from that constituency, and make up our own community to whom we should appeal, then our work would be very greatly simplified, but while you have a right to ask of the Lesson Com- mittee leadership, you must not ask from the Lesson Committee such leadership as will in a short time, at least, lead to their walking alone in large measure. They must have such leadership and adhere to such leadership as will carry along with them that great constituency for which we stand at the present time, and our leadership must in some respects perhaps take a lower line or lower platform than some of us might think the wisest if we only had our full liberty before us.
The next point that I want you to note is that the function of the Lesson Committee has been, up to the present time, to provide a series of Bible lessons for the Sunday-school. We have reached the stage where in this Advanced Department, or Adolescent Department, you have intro- duced in your discussions all kinds of things as desirable and expedient in dealing with these young people in reference to their religious develop- ment and education. So, shall the Lesson Committee prescribe gymnasium exercises in its scheme of lessons as a part of the recommendation which the Lesson Committee is to set forth? Shall the Lesson Committee indi- cate manual work as a very desirable feature for this adolescent depart- ment? Shall the Lesson Committee undertake to lay out a series of mission studies that shall engage a certain section of this department? Shall the Lesson Committee provide material along the lines that have been indicated to meet the very important factor of this period, namely, the social element?
Our work up to the present time, up to the end of the Junior Depart- ment, we have found sufficiently difficult even with the admirable — I
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hardly like to say " aid," because it is more important than that — aid that has been given us by the Graded Conference. We have found our work exceedingly difficult, but now, when we come into this period of ado- lescence, we are in a period of a new field altogether, and the great question that is before the Lesson Committee is the wise adjustment of the functions of the committee, and of the principles which it has followed up to the present time, with these new demands that are so clearly desirable, so admirable, which mean for the adolescent department the solution of the questions that have been troubling the churches for a long time, — how to adjust them so as to meet the views of our constituency, and stand within the limits which are laid upon us by the International Society, whose servants we are, and meet, at the same time, these problems with which you are face to face.
That is the question that is before the Lesson Committee at the present moment. It has issued one series for the Intermediate Department. In the last quarter of that series it has allowed to go out, as a matter of experiment, a departure from the course which it has followed up to that time, and the Graded Lesson Committee has recorded in its minutes that it is an experiment and that it has gone out as such. We are waiting just to see some of the results of that experiment, to see what view is taken of such a proposition as that, which is a marked departure from the course that the Lesson Committee has observed during the past.
How far will the constituency which is represented by the International Association — for that is the constituency which the Lesson Committee stands for — justify the Lesson Committee in recognizing such elements as have been put forth here this morning so admirably? How far will they justify the Lesson Committee in recognizing these in the courses which they outline for this adolescent period? Or, must the Lesson Com- mittee content itself by a mere suggestion in reference to these matters which you have taken up here this morning, and adhere to the principle which has guided them up to the present time of making a specific Bible lesson the foundation of all the courses which they have issued?
I want this Advanced Division, representing the adolescent period, to recognize that while, on the one hand, you have the full sympathy of the Lesson Committee in reference to the difficulties which you are to face, and you have the full sympathy of the Lesson Committee in reference to the appreciation of this department as the department which requires the most attention at the present time in the Sunday-school, we want you to recognize, at the same time, that the Lesson Committee, as well as your- selves, are face to face with a new field, face to face with new problems, and that they are under certain limitations working in this field and endeavoring to solve this problem.
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SPECIALIZATION IN TEACHER-TRAINING
Mr. E. W. Thornton, Cincinnati, Ohio
The necessity for specializing in the Bible school is apparent when we study our public education and when we study the plans of our universities and colleges, the plans which underlie all the education which we term secular education.
To illustrate, I will give you a conversation between my own boy and myself not very long ago, a boy of sixteen in the Polytechnic High School of Los Angeles, Cal. We are chums, and his chum name for me is " Dad." He came to me and said, " Dad, if the Bible is so important as all your preachers say it is, and if it is so necessary to know and understand the Bible as we hear in the churches, how does it happen that the teachers up here in our polytechnic school, and the teachers in all the public schools, are so well prepared to do their work, and the teachers in the Sunday- school are not?" I give you that to show the impression that is being made on the minds of the boys and girls growing up, — that the Bible must be less important than arithmetic and grammar, or a commensurate effort would be made to teach it with equal scientific accuracy and enthusiasm. It is the inevitable impression.
What does that mean to us? It means that a long course or process is absolutely necessary in order that our teaching force in our Bible schools shall be brought to that degree of efficiency that will enable them to teach the Word of the Living God as it ought to be taught, with that luminous understanding, with that clarifying explanation, with that tenacious grasp that indicates that it not only has hold upon the heart of the teacher, but that the teacher has hold upon it with his mind as well; and when that kind of a thing is brought to pass, then the whole matter of Bible-school instruction will have a dignity and a majesty that it has never had before.
We cannot expect our boys and girls in their teens, at the time when they are placing a high estimate upon mental prowess, at the time when they are emphasizing the importance in their own minds of a wider knowl- edge, at the time when their minds are growing so rapidly they are intoxi- cated with their ability, at the time when their horizon is growing so rapidly they have to get their bearing every day, and at the time when there is a continuous stress put upon intellectual advance and upon wider knowledge, to stay; it is not surprising that we lose these boys and girls.
I had a young woman in my school in Kansas City. She was in the high school of Kansas City. There was one professor who was an infidel, and she came under the sway of his brilliancy, she idealized him, she placed him upon a plane which he could not possibly occupy. She found out he was an infidel, he did not believe in the existence of God, and she began
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to reason this way: " If that man with all his educational ddvantages, and with wide vision, if he has deliberately come to the conclusion that there is no God, it seems to me that it would be silly for a schoolgirl like me to put her intelligence over against his." She concluded, therefore, that the professor was right and she was wrong.
I met an acquaintance not long ago who told me that that girl is outside the pale of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to say here that this land was cradled in Christianity, and while it may not be wise to teach religion in the public schools, it ought to be made absolutely necessary that nobody but a Christian can teach in our public schools.
The teacher must not only be grounded in the faith and thoroughly enthusiastic and all that, but he must learn how to present the Word of God intelligently, sanely, wisely, convincingly, in order that the boys and girls who are studying these things, filling their minds six days a week with secular information, may have their interest quickened by reason of the dignity and power and majesty which characterize the presentation of religious truth on the Lord's day.
Many a teacher makes the mistake of beginning where he thinks the pupil ought to be, instead of where the pupil is. No matter who your pupil may be, it is necessary to begin where your pupil is, to meet the pupil on his own plane of thinking, and then lead him where he ought to be. You cannot begin where they ought to be and accomplish anything with them, because it is not where they are.
The only practical point in specializing in your schools is to find out the bent of your teachers and develop the young men and women who have possibilities, developing their special inclinations, so that after a while our churches will have men and women who understand and are adapted to their work. It is peculiarly the case when we are in the age of the teens. That is an important consideration to keep in your mind in specializing, to select young men from your midst and inspire them with a sense of the dignity and honor and power that belong to training boys, and train these young men to be boy leaders and teachers and inspirers; and select young women from your midst who have in them the possibilities of leadership, and train them to be leaders of girls and inspirers of young girls.
This whole teacher-training business is in its infancy, and we are com- pelled to lay foundations and be content to see somebody else build the superstructure. We shall not live to see this thing completed, but we can see a magnificent beginning, and we can have a part in doing the things that will bring splendid results eventually.
If you have adaptability, and a vision of the possibilities of the Bible school, by all means lay stress upon making out of yourself everything of which you are capable in order that the Lord may have that which is his.
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THE BOY IN HIS TEENS
Mr. Eugene C. Foster, Detroit, Michigan
The Sunday-school should aim to meet the needs of the growing boy if it expects the boy to remain with it.
One of his greatest needs is sympathy, and this many a boy lacks, as he enters these new and difficult experiences in his life. From thirteen to nineteen he passes through two great crises. One is around fifteen years of age and has to do with the readjustment of affairs in his physical life. The other is about at the age of eighteen, when the thinking boy gets into a sea of doubt, especially about his spiritual life.
I have evidence practically every day in my dealing with boys that a large number of them are deprived of the sympathy they need at these critical times. At about the age of fifteen the boy is absolutely lost in a maze of uncertainty about himself. He is subject to all kinds of moods and all kinds of emotions. A great readjustment is going on in his life, and while he may try some of his elders severely, we must learn not to be tre- mendously impatient with him. The best help he will get will frequently come through the ability of some man to remember back into his own boy- hood life, and by remembering to know for a certainty what this other boy is going through. Happy the boy whose father has this ability; and if the father fails, I know of no one else who is so likely to prove the real friend of the boy as a wise man Sunday-school teacher.
I am thinking just now of a boy whose life for several years has been a battle. First, with the home, where there has been no mother to help him. Second, with the educational system of a city, and then naturally a battle with the police department. These three agencies combined in pronouncing him a hopeless case, but he was turned over to my care, and that divine wisdom was granted to me which enabled me to be in real sympathy with the boy, so that he understands that we both have about the same fights on hand to be good, and we have made a compact with each other to be mutually helpful.
When the fellow at eighteen proclaims his religious doubts, we are likely to meet the issue by laughing at him and assuring him that he really hasn't sense enough to doubt. I have heard such talk, but I have never known it to be of any value in reaching the boy. I would rather sit down with that fellow and say: " It is all right; I have been all through it myself, but remember that you do not have to understand everything just now. There are two things to tie to. One is the fact of sin, and the other is the fact of Christ as a personal Saviour. Do not bother about anything else. After a while it will come out all right." That kind of sympathy will help many a fellow get past the rocks in safety.
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A boy needs instruction. He needs instruction in the Bible. You and I who have come to love the Bible should remember how much he really needs it, but it will be well to recall that the boy doesn't yet know this need. He needs the Bible school and all it stands for at this period a good deal more than he needs anything in the shape of an emotional religious meeting.
He needs in this intermediate period thorough instruction in the essen- tial things of his physical life. Normally, he ought to get such instruction at home; actually, he doesn't. We have had occasion to take this question up here and there throughout the United States with thousands of boys, and find that in many communities less than one per cent have been prop- erly instructed in sex matters. Of course, almost every boy has been instructed, but the pity of it is that he has received his instruction from incorrect or vicious sources.
Sunday-school teachers face this situation: First, he ought to get his instruction from home, and does not; second, he may get it in part from public school physiology or he may not, and even then he may not get all he needs. Unless a Sunday-school teacher takes a hand to help him here, I fail to see where the boy will really get help.
The boy needs ideals. What a wonderful thing it is for a boy in this period to have his vision focused upon the great ideal, Jesus Christ. But his Christ-ideal will come very largely through the interpretation of Christ by some man whom he knows. If it can be his father, that is the best good fortune a boy can have, and next, perhaps, would be his Sunday-school teacher. He certainly needs the ideal of a Christ-controlled manhood.
The boy needs occupation. In the early part of his teen age the occu- pation will take one form, and in the latter part a different form. Before sixteen he will want to mingle with other boys in a small group such as a gang or crowd. After sixteen he will break away somewhat from the gang instinct and begin to think out his life in the terms of some other individual if he is rightly guided. Along in the middle of the teen age comes the dawn of self-consciousness, and then he may either become supremely selfish or supremely interested in the other fellow. How to secure an expression of the interest in the other fellow, I will discuss briefly in the second part of the address.
We may now face a perfectly fair question: " Is our Sunday-school work meeting the needs of the boy in his teens? " In some cases. Yes, and where it is he is staying in the Sunday-school, for he surely knows his own needs. He may not be able to analyze them and to put them down in order, but I believe he knows when his needs are being met, and will go to the place that meets them. In many cases the Sunday-school is failing, and it is the purpose of this new department of our International work to help Sunday-schools come to the point where such failure will cease.
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What is the relation the new Advanced Division will have to the church? First, I believe that the division will be the recruiting agency for the church. We cannot emphasize that thought too strongly. There will be many boys and girls nurtured in fine Christian homes who will never be consciously out of relation with the church, but the fact still remains that the largest number of open decisions for Christ will be found around the ages of fifteen or sixteen. It is clear, therefore, that the Advanced Division must be the great recruiting station for the church, and that boys and girls who fail to come into church relationship while in this period are in the most serious danger of not coming into its relationship at all.
This division of the Sunday-school should be more than a recruiting agency for the church. It should be a training school. Our Sunday-schools have been too largely sending into the church people who are not trained, and who give practically no service to the church through years of their Christian life. In this Advanced Division we have the power to determine the character of the church members of the next generation. We may either continue to have a large number of church members who are simply getters and not givers, or we may change that condition within a compara- tively short time and give to the church a large number of members whose lives emphasize the thought of giving. In other words, we must make this Advanced Division a training-school by giving to boys and girls a vision of service, so that when they enter the church membership they will not say, What can I get out of this, but will say eagerly, What can I put into this.
Let me emphasize very briefly my conviction that the service we ask our young people to do should be high grade and not childish. I do not con- sider that a good-sized boy who has been asked to distribute hymn books every Sunday has been given a dignified service. I should rather give him something to do which is hard and which appeals to his ideas of man- liness. Here is a little Sunday-school struggling with the question of holding its older boys and girls. A training-class for teachers started. Ten of the older young folks, who are beginning to show signs of great restlessness, are invited to become members of the class, and in eighteen months they go through a definite dignified course and offer themselves as teachers of the Sunday-school. In the meantime, a fifteen-year-old boy who was get- ting pretty tired of Sunday-school goes to the teacher of the class and says, " How soon can I get into the training-class? " In other words, his own thought is not to get out of Sunday-school, but to be promoted into a place which he recognizes as worth while. It is clear that there is more than teacher-training in this.
In this Advanced Division we can train our future church members to become intelligent givers. We can train them in committee service, and
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yet I find that there are very few Sunday-schools using older scholars upon the active committees of their work. These are some of the things which I have in mind when I speak of intelligent and dignified service.
But in the study of relationships, we must remember that the church owes the Advanced Division of the Sunday-school something, too. It owes the very best that can be provided in the way of trained teachers, and these teachers must be secured at any price. It needs the revelation of the fact that there is no finer opportunity for the service of men than in the Advanced Division of the school.
The other day I met a man who has made a great success of his business life, and who has been an active and earnest Christian worker for years. He said to me, " I am just about to move to another city, and I am no longer going to be a teacher of an adult class. I have known all along that teachers were needed in the intermediate grade for boys, but I never knew it so keenly until my own boy came to be sixteen years of age, and I dis- covered that the fact of his having been under incompetent teachers was going to prove a mighty costly element in his life. I have learned that I can be a successful Sunday-school teacher, and for the rest of my life I will give that talent to the boys of this period."
The church should see that the Advanced Division has the means and equipment necessary for thorough work. The kind of training for service which I have mentioned cannot be accomplished without an investment as large as possible. I know of churches that spend thousands of dollars on their music to please the ears of their adult worshipers and at the same time compel their Sunday-schools to be self-supporting and urge them to give to missionary causes besides. The church with a vision of what this inter- mediate and senior age means in the development of an intelligent and helpful membership in the next generation will make its investment in this division an unstinted one.
THE GIRL IN HER TEENS
Miss Minnie E. Kennedy, Birmingham, Alabama
The girl in her teens may be the big-girl problem. In algebra, we have two unknown quantities; by following the process of finding the value of one and then substituting we get the value of the other. You must needs find, in a measure, the solution of the big-girl problem before you can solve the big-boy problem.
Why? Somebody has said that to train a boy right you must begin with his mother or with his grandmother; and this is not extreme, when we
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remember how the child is given over to the mother for years, and that she creates the centers of thought and feeling to which all future thought and feeling are to be related. We ought to go back to the grandmother, and to the grandmother in her teens. We must needs strive to solve both problems together.
The girl in her teens, innocent, joyous, and gay, with the freshness of the morning upon her. You women that sit before me, answer me truly: Have you ever seen life lay hold upon the body of a child near to your heart, and begin to fashion it into the form of a woman, with all its possibilities, with its hints of prophecy, without a wave of yearning tender- ness, without a stab of exquisite pain?
Because of this instinct of protection, it has happened in years gone by that they built around the girl's life a Chinese wall of convention. They fixed it by rule and line. A girl must do this, and a girl must not do that; a girl can do this and a girl cannot do that. Sometimes these restrictions were wise. Every woman of us is grateful for some kind of convention that shut us in. But sometimes they have been most unwise. I can remember being seriously punished for climbing on the front fence. It was not be- cause I could not climb, for I could climb like a cat; it was because a girl ought not to climb on the front fence! The idea was that a girl ought to be sheltered from the stress of life with all its hardening power, and shielded from temptation; that upon a girl's life there ought not to break the fierce struggle that breaks upon the life of boy and man.
What is it that makes a girl in her teens a problem? (i) It sometimes happens that the father and the mother discover that the daughter who has been so sweet and docile and teachable becomes now restless under control, irritable, and they who have held loving sway over a willing subject find a rebel in full revolt.
Sometimes the father and the mother say, " Our daughter is so head- strong and willful we do not know what to do!" What has happened? Why, just as with a chrysalis, under the cover of the outer shell processes are developing to bring to maturity the little insect, and there comes a time when that life begins to struggle to break its bonds. Just so with the human will implanted in the very centers of being; it has in a sense been lying dormant, and yet the soul processes are fitting it for self-assertion and it begins to struggle against the bonds that hold it down. It must needs be free. How are you going to deal with that? When will we ever learn to discern between struggles that go towards growth and development and those that make for disintegration?
If there is a clash between wills, sometimes it happens that the strong will of the girl will overbear the weak will of the parent, and the girl goes out to license and lawlessness. Or the parent's will is stronger and bears
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down so that it becomes a struggle not only for freedom, but also for very existence. It is a dreadful thing for a girl to come to the consciousness or conception of power of will in defiance to lawful authority. If the fiber be more yielding and the pressure be too hard, the girl will give up the fight apparently; but just as some insects build walls Jof clay under which they carry on their development, so she will build around herself barriers and underneath live her own life, and work her own will, and we find father and mother saying, " My daughter who was so frank, and talked so freely, has become so secretive." Only the other day a sister said to me, " I do not know what to do with my sister. She makes mysteries of the most commonplace things." Secretiveness ! Are they secretive with their girl friends? Do you remember how freely you poured out all you ever had known and all you hoped to know into the ears of a girlish chum? Are they always secretive towards adults? It sometimes happens that some wise woman has won the confidence of a girl in her teens, and she will pour out her heart to her. With whom are they secretive? With those that hold authority over them.
How will you deal with this condition of things? You should have kept that girl's confidence. If you have lost it, seek it with fasting, on your knees. You cannot compel confidence. Respect and obedience come from duty, but love and confidence never. They have to be won. And in every possible way make that girl feel that you understand. Give that girl your confidence, because confidence begets confidence. Take her into your counsel and respect her opinion. Respect that girl's privacy. Give her a key to the door; let her use it, if she wills. We must win their confidence, it is the only way.
To the girl, as to the boy, there come day-dreams. To what shall we compare a girl's day-dreams? To broken bits of rainbow wrapped in rosy morning mists? What are day-dreams? They are standards and ideals in process of making. That is the way we build standards. Where do they get the material out of which to build their day-dreams? From all of life about them. Yes, and from hooks. I was in my fourteenth year when the reading craze struck me with full violence. There were a great many books in my home. Books of my grandfather and great-grandfather. There were volumes of the Spectator bound in calf.
Do you know the books your girls are reading? Have you, fathers and mothers, taken the trouble to learn? What books would be most harm- ful to a girl? A boy is most harmed by those that deal with deeds of vio- lence and of crime and that treat of the emotions from a low viewpoint. For a girl, those that slur at home life, that deal flippantly with the marriage relation, and that count the marriage tie of small import, that count per- sonal purity a thing that may be debased. In much of this modern fiction.
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the trail of the serpent is over it all. Do you know the books your girls are reading, upon which their hungry minds are seizing, and from which they are gathering material for the building of life ideals?
Oh, I would that the words were of flame and that I might burn them upon your minds, Look to the hooks your girls are reading. Provide the right kind of books in great abundance; it does not matter what so much, but be sure the books deal with evil as evil and with good as good, and that they do not blur the two, and be sure that good is triumphant; these are the only points that need to be questioned. The mind will find the thing it needs and grow and be strong.
Now, with regard to doubts. Boys go through periods of doubt, and, of course, girls have doubts. I remember, when I first began to think about religious things, I thought about them after this fashion; I thought there is a Go<f, because all thingsthat are made could not have just happened. Then I thought, " I do not see anything that makes me know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Bible says so, but I do not see anything any- where that makes me know that, and if I had been born in Africa I would have believed what they do over there; and if I had been born in China, I would believe as the Chinese do, and would think everybody else wrong; but I was born in America and believe what they taught me here; how do I know which is right? / don't know."
That sounded reasonable. I said, " I will not believe in Christ; people believe in him because they were taught to believe." I think this period came in my sixteenth year. I would talk about it sometimes, and almost jhvariably people said, " That is wrong; you must not think that way; that is wrong." That did not help. I had to think, I was born to think, and I would say, " Do you know these things are true, or do you just be- lieve them because people told you so?" I happened to find people who did not know. I put them to silence. I said, " I knew it was that way; people do not think and they say sometimes things that are not true."
I cannot tell now how I came at last, apparently without human inter- vention, to know the Lord Christ as a personal Saviour, and as the Saviour of the whole world. In the time of my testing, what would have helped me? If some one had said, " Yes, I know how you feel about that, I felt that way myself once. Every one who thinks feels somewhat that way when they are about your age. Your mind is just learning to work for itself, that is all. Long ago I knew for myself, and not at another's saying, that God is true, that the Bible is true, that Christ is true. I know that now, and you can know it, too. Go ahead and think. The truth can stand it. Only he fair about it. Read the Bible, talk to people that know, and you, too, will come to know for yourself." That would have helped.
To say that others, many others, had thought the same thoughts as
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mine would have pricked the little bubble of intellectual conceit. I had thought that they were brand-new thoughts. A definite assurance of faith in Christ from one in whom I had confidence would have given something to which I might hold.
How may we deal with these things that so perplex us? How solve the problems? As the little child is won by love shown through sympathy, so the girl is won by love and sympathy shown by comradeship. Recog- nizing the changing development, the dawning maturity, we are to admit her to fellowship and let her feel the touch of shoulder against shoulder or heart against heart. Ah, that we might continually bear with us the thought of comradeship.
I have had the knowledge that boys need men burned into my very soul. There was a boy in a strange city. He had been converted, had studied the Bible. Now he was away from home, life's temptations were thick about him. He said that he had lost his hold on almost everything, on the Bible, on God, and was just holding to the thought of home. I tried to help him. He looked at me with an indescribable expression and said, " I know that you believe that these things are true, but you are a womatiy and if you stood where I stand, and were tempted as I am tempted, how do I know what you would do? What I need is a man, — and I thought of the cry of the Lord God in the Book of Ezekiel: " And I sought for a man . . . that he should stand in the gap . . . that I should not destroy [the city], — but I found none."
Boys need men, and girls need women, too, — women that stand close to them and that know all the tenderness, the hopes, and the fears of the girlish heart.
God help us to do our part when he lays fashioning hands upon the body, the mind, and the spirit of a girl in her teens.
THE ADVANCED DIVISION IN RELATION TO THE SCHOOL
Mr. Frank L. Brown, Brooklyn, New York
In the battle of Waterloo the issues of the day hung upon the sunken road. It was the further side of the hill up which the French troops swept in their attack. Napoleon did not know of that sunken road. In- formation had not reached him. As soon as the troops went over that hill they fell into that sunken road, horses and riders, until the road was filled with the dead bodies of the horsemen and the horses, and it was not until that great gap was filled that the French army was able, over the bodies
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of the dead, to sweep to the attack, but they had lost the day because of his failure to know concerning that obstruction.
The Intermediate and Senior departments have been the sunken road in our work as a Sunday-school. We may have known of it, and in that sense we are the more responsible, but we have not reckoned with it as we should. We have let the straying boys and girls of our department fall until the cry has gone to heaven, and the church has been derelict in its attention to it, and it is now only at this late day that we are beginning to realize the crime of the past, for it is nothing less than a church crime against these boys and girls.
Can we organize to meet the issue? Is an organization possible that will stem the loss? We believe it is. In one of the schools of our city I was told by the superintendent of the Junior Department that she lost out of her department, when they were promoted into the Intermediate, 90 per cent of the boys and girls. That is supposed to be one of the well-organized schools. She said, " I want to hold my Junior boys and girls as long as I dare because I do not want to lose them, and I keep them here, giving them a little work to do, so they shall never be lost to me, and my work shall not perish."
I called up the superintendent of our Intermediate Department when I went home and said, " W^hat proportion do you think we lose of our school at Intermediate age?" He said, " Not 10 per cent." As a matter of fact, we gather in from the outside enough to make good that loss, so that in our Intermediate Department we actually grow beyond the promotions, and we are very crowded there all the time. The difference lies somewhat in the fact that we organize to hold the boys and girls of that age, and we put heart into the work. We endeavor to understand the problem of these years. We need not lose the boys and girls of that age if we organize for it.
I made inquiry of superintendents of schools all over the country that had schools of a good type as to the proportion of loss and as to the results in that division of our work, and they said not only was there practically no loss in their departments where they were properly organized for these young people, but that 47 per cent of the scholars while members of the Intermediate Department gave their hearts to Christ and became members of the church. That is the difference between organization and the lack of organization, between having some objective towards which we move and the lack of any objective. Some drift on in the same old way through which we had allowed these boys and girls to slip out from our grasp.
What organization is possible for them? The Advanced Division num- bers scholars from twelve to twenty. Under the present Adult Class organization very many of these that may be eighteen years of age may be in the Adult Department, and there is no department to interfere with the
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membership where it now exists, but under the present plan we shall seek to bring the Intermediate scholars into classes of their own, and the Seniors into classes of their own, under organization, so that it will not be necessary to call those between twelve and twenty at any point, adults.
In the local school there should be a separation of departments; we should have an Intermediate Department and a Senior Department, known as such, and with a superintendent over each, and with a secretary for each or statistics reported from each so we shall know how many were in the Intermediate Department and how many in the Senior Department. I believe we ought to recognize them as department scholars rather than main school. I am not so sure whether we ought to appoint an Advanced Division superintendent in every school over these grades.
I believe we should aim, in the Senior end of the school, to have separate rooms wherever possible. In the Intermediate it is not always possible, but for the Senior Department, separate rooms, and separate department superintendent, and separate lesson helps. We should avoid designating the scholars in that department as children. That is one reason why so many of these boys and girls are out of the Sunday-school. Let us avoid that by all means in these two departments.
I think it will wonderfully help in the organization of the department if we can have department committees. These are very effective in our school. We have the following: Social department committee, which in- cludes socials as related to the parents as well as for the scholars; and a committee that shall look after the sick scholars; on spiritual ways and means; on special days; on missionary work; on temperance work; and then in our Senior Department an employment committee, which looks after the week-day life of the young people; and the athletic committee, which cares for the athletic side of their work.
We should have an Advanced Division in the school because it saves these young people for service. We should begin to train the young people while they are members of the Intermediate, as teachers; or, starting in with the Intermediate Department, I should say we should begin at about fifteen or sixteen years of age. From sixteen to eighteen we should do our training for teachers. We cannot hope to get teachers from scholars to any extent after they have passed twenty. We must train them in those years. We took a class of girls about fifteen years of age and for two years put them on a Hurlbut course, and we got eight teachers from that class last fall for our Junior Department, and almost all those girls asked for boys' classes.
If we give these young people some foundation for their work, so they shall feel the ground beneath them, they will be ready for service, and we should by all means between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years do the
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training of our young people for service. By all means put the pressure in these years upon our young people in the line of decision, for the church must get its workers from those ranks as well as our future membership, and we cannot get either unless we understand rightly how to bring them to Jesus Christ.
Last Easter Day, as a result of our efforts, there were over one hundred people of our Sunday-school that were at the League, and almost all of them between the ages of twelve and eighteen, just at the time when God appeals most winsomely to their lives, and we found they were ready to respond to that call.
THE ADULT DEPARTMENT
THE ADULT DEPARTMENT
Its Place and Power
Its place is to win to the Sunday-school, and enlist in Bible study, the men and women of the world. It is a movement of power
1. Because its chief mission is to teach the scripture, it is a Bible study movement, opening anew the Word of God to multitudes of men and women.
2. Because it is evangelistic, emphasizing the teaching of the gospel, and developing a corps of personal workers that promise much for the saving of men.
3. Because it is missionary. Seventy-one representative classes contributed $9,119.90 to missions in one year. The biblical vision is world-wide; the biblical voice says, **Go"; the biblical conscience says '' Obey."
4. Because it is cooperative. Its continent-wide sweep is ushering in a true Christian brotherhood and imparting new zeal in every kind of Christian endeavor.
5. Because it is connected with the Sunday-school, enlisting in its ranks those who can supply its material needs and provide efficient leadership. It is also building a wall around the big boy and the big girl.
6. Because it is a force for civic righteousness, hastening the doom of the liquor traflSc and kindred evils, encouraging every movement of righteousness, and promising a day when the streets shall be safe for the children.
W. C. PEARCE, International Adult Superintendent.
THE ADULT BIBLE GLASS MOVEMENT
W. C. Pearce, International Adult Department Superintendent, Chicago, Illinois
1. Its History
The Adult Bible class in the Sunday-school is not new. For many years there have been a few organized classes. It is only within the last few years, however, that there has been a general movement in the interest of the organized class. The steps in its development may be traced as follows:
The organization of an Adult Department as a part of the Cook County and Illinois Sunday-School Associations in 1903.
The organization of the Bible Class Union as a department of the New York Sunday- School Association later in the same year, 1903.
The appointment of an Adult Department Committee of the Inter- national Sunday-School Association in 1905.
The erection of an Adult Department and the appointment of an Inter- national Superintendent in 1907.
The organization of adult departments in connection with all auxiliary associations. Sixty-three state and provincial associations reported such departments at Washington. The organization is being rapidly introduced wherever practicable in connection with all county and township associ- ations.
In many towns, cities, and counties the classes are forming federations. Their plan of organization usually observes three fundamental essentials.
1. It is simple providing for the future growth and needs of the work.
2. It includes only organized classes.
3. It is a definite part or department of the general Sunday-school associ- ation. These departments and federations have done much to promote the work.
The following leaflets have been issued. No. i. Adult Department Organization for Associations. No. 2. Adult Bible Class Organization. No. 3. The Organized Adult Bible Class at Work. No. 4. One Hundred Things One Hundred Classes Have Done. Their titles define both their scope and purpose.
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The church and Sunday-school publishing houses were quick to respond to the demand for new literature. In less than five years some of the finest journals in the Sunday-school world have been developed and are regularly issued in the interest of men's and women's classes. To these publications the movement owes much.
2. Its Characteristics
Class organization is the chief characteristic of the larger interest in the adult Bible class work. That all classes might be guided to a practical organization; that the continent- wide unity might be preserved without requiring absolute uniformity, a standard rather than a plan of organization was adopted. Each class is permitted to adopt its own constitution, and choose its own name, motto, etc.
The standard of organization requires,
(a) The election of at least five officers: Teacher, president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer; and the appointment of at least three committees, social, membership, and devotional. It is not required that these three committees shall be known by these particular names, but that the class have three committees which shall be responsible for these three kinds of work.
(6) The class shall be definitely connected with the Sunday-school.
(c) The class shall consist of members who are twenty years of age or over. At first all senior classes were admitted, but when the Advanced Division was erected, the Senior Department was associated with the Inter- mediate Department. It is now permitted that the age requirement be interpreted liberally according to the needs of the local Sunday-school.
The International Emblem. The little red button with the white center is the International Adult Bible Class emblem. The white center represents the pure life. The red circle represents the blood of Jesus. "All things are purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9 : 22.) Thus the emblem not only serves as a means of in- troducing fellow class members and advertising the movement, but it is constantly reminding both the class leaders and members that the move- ment is primarily and chiefly evangelistic. What profiteth it, an adult Bible class, if it gain every one in the community or city as its members and they are not saved. The emblem is being used more and more. It is always prominent on banners, badges, and transparencies in parades. It is manufactured and used as cuff buttons, stick pins, watch charms, and in many other forms.
The International Certificate. To all classes organizing according to the International standard, a beautiful lithographed certificate is issued. It
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is printed in gold, red, and black and is suitable for framing for the class room. On the bottom is provided space for the signatures of charter mem- bers. The only requirement for securing the certificate, beside class organization, is that the class fill out an application blank giving the neces- sary information and send the same with a small fee of twenty-five cents to either association or denominational headquarters. There are no member- ship dues. All money contributed by the classes are in the nature of freewill offerings.
The certificate has been helpful in stimulating the organization of classes, in unifying the classes, and bringing to the International and denominational offices information that has given to all leaders a vision of the continent- wide sweep of the movement. The first certificate was issued to a United Presbyterian class in Chicago in 1908. On June 25, 1910, 15,240 certifi- cates had been issued to classes from thirty-two denominations and sixty-three associations. The Washington Convention Adult Bible Class Conference unanimously recommended that a call be issued for 25,000 classes by the time of the San Francisco Convention in 191 1.
Adult Bible Class Slogan. While not officially adopted, the following has become a sort of slogan of the movement. " Our Purpose, The World For Christ. Our Means, The Word Of God. Our Motto, Others."
3. Its Power
The Adult Bible Class movement has power because,
1. Its chief mission is to teach the Scriptures. It is opening anew the Word of God to multitudes of men and women.
2. It is evangelistic. It abounds in personal workers who are bringing home in convincing way to the hearts of men and women the gospel mes- sage of salvation.
3. It is missionary. Seventy-one representative classes contributed $9,119.90 to missions in one year. The biblical vision is world-wide, the biblical voice says " Go "; the biblical conscience obeys.
4. It is cooperative. Its continent-wide sweep is ushering in a true brotherhood, and imparting new zeal in every kind of Christian endeavor.
5. It is a part of the Sunday-school, including in its ranks those who may become efficient leaders and provide all its material needs, thus providing for the class field of service and for the Sunday-school competent support.
6. It is a force for civic righteousness, hastening the doom of the liquor traffic and kindred evils, encouraging every movement of righteousness, and promising a day when the highways shall be safe for children.
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THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD OF CLASS ORGANIZATION
Clarence L. DePew, Jacksonville, Illinois
I WAS in the northern part of my state talking class organization. A teacher of an adult class said: " I do not take any stock in the new-fangled things of class organization; I have been teaching a class of adults for about fifteen years; I have eighteen or twenty, and I can't see that a class organization would do any good."
I said, " How many members have you in the church who are not in the Bible class? If you had them all, how many would you have?" She replied: " About one hundred and fifty."
I asked, " All the organization is for is to set your twenty after them." She said, " If that is what you mean by organization, I would like you to talk to my class." I did so, and in six weeks that class had forty-three members, and they were determined to have a hundred before the end of the year.
Organization is for the purpose of making every member of a class feel that it is my class and not the teacher's; it is my business to build it up; and so he goes to work and the work goes on. If we can get every member feeling that way, we can do something. In another town there is a class of one hundred and thirty-five young men. I was in the home of the teacher on a Saturday. The telephone was out of order and a young man came to fix it. The teacher said, " I don't believe that young man has been in town long; I will ask him to come to the class." The fellow looked at him with a smile and said, " I just got in town last Thursday, and this is the seventh invitation to go to that class."
There is a definite work to do, and five officers at least are required, — teacher, president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. Unless we have these five officers we cannot get our class work done as it should be. The organized class is organized to say to the teacher, " You attend to that, and we will do the rest of the work." So that gives an excuse for a presi- dent. It takes the teacher to hold the class after it is organized. It needs a vice-president to look after the work in case the president is absent. The secretary has to keep the records and keep track of the members. The treasurer can help in financial lines. The organized class must have these committees: Membership committee, social committee, and devo- tional committee.
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THE INTERNATIONAL ADULT BIBLE CLASS EMBLEM
Herbert L. Hill, New York City, New York
Every movement has something to represent it. In this movement we have the little red button. You do not have to say, " I am in the Sunday-school and am an Adult Bible Class member." Put that red button on your coat and people will know what it means.
It came about in Illinois. A train carrying one hundred men was on its way to the state Sunday-school convention, and the men wanted something to wear that meant something. The result was the design of the little red button, a circle of red around a spot of white. The white stands for a pure life, and the red for the blood of Jesus. In order to get to the white you must go through the red. You can translate that button into any language you wish; it will go with the Bible into every language there is. I hope you will wear it wherever you go; use it, and live up to it.
THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS TEACHER
W. D. Stem, Abilene, Kansas
Permit me to suggest three words for the Adult Bible Class teacher, which you may put in italics, teaching, winning, training.
The young man was wrong who went to his superintendent and said, " I want to resign; I have all my members converted and have nothing more to do." His work had just begun. I suspect that gives rise to the objection sometimes that we are overorganized. We are only organized up to the teaching point; that is about as far as we have gone. I give you teachers a motto from Moody, " It is God's own words and not our com- ments that saves souls."
There are three things the teacher must know: First, he must know the Book; second, he must know the learner; third, he must know how to get the Book and the learner together. My own pastor once said in the class when asked for an expression, " Men, it is your business to get the men and the Word together, and the Holy Spirit will do his office work." He has not failed in that, so I recommend it to you.
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THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS SECRETARY
E. W. Halpenny, Toronto, Ontario
The power of the Adult Bible Class secretary lies in the fact that it is the open field for personal work, and the secret of the success of the Adult Bible Class movement lies in the fact that it is putting individuals at work for individuals.
The secretary's duties are important. First of all, to inspire; to inspire vision. Dr. Hamill tells a story of a colored " aunty " who was asked how she managed to put in the time now her eyesight was failing, and she said, " Well, sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets." It seems to me that an unorganized class is best described by that last expression; it just " sets " and nothing more.
In the next place, to inspire action by showing the advantage and value of organization. In the third place, to inspire persistence. I question if there is an organized class in existence that does not require from time to time to have a renewed inspiration, to have something new introduced, that it may keep its pace and not lose ground.
THE MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE
Mr. W. H. Ridgway, Coatesville, Pennsylvania
I know that you would rather that I would tell you a very good story, one that you can take home, than to tell you what you already know. You all know how to get members into your Bible classes; the only trouble is that most of you are too lazy to do it.
Robert Watchorn is the man that Uncle Sam used to have at Ellis Island, a Christian man that all the politicians could not graft. He stood there and reached out his sheltering arms to those men whose children shall be the big men of this country. Then Teddy went to Africa to hunt lions, a new king came who knew not Joseph, and Robert Watchorn lost his head.
In almost the same mail which brought the official axe came a letter from Lyman Stewart, of California, and the purport of it was this: " I understand that you are about to sever your connection with the govern- ment. You are just the man that I have been looking for. I wish to offer you the position of treasurer of the Union Oil Company," and the salary was about three times as great as that which Uncle Sam had been paying him.
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Now who is Lyman Stewart? He is the one man in the United States that the Standard Oil Company cannot down; he is the great oil king of the Pacific slope. Mr. Whitford, of Buffalo, one of the greatest Y.M.C.A. secretaries anywhere, told me the story, and he said that the profits of the Union Oil Company go into the spreading of the Gospel throughout the Orient. They were boring for oil out there, and they struck the greatest oil well in all the world, and it is spouting 43,000 barrels of oil a day, and it is spouting it to spread the Gospel through the Orient. We can trust this God of ours to take care of us if we stand by him.
THE SOCIAL COMMITTEE
Miss Elizabeth Kilpatrick, Corinth, Mississippi
The social life that counts is that which leads ultimately into the high- est and best Christian life. You cannot achieve the results you seek by just a social gathering. Every day in the week you must have a winning smile and a loving hand clasp. At our elbows are people who are picture- less and bookless and joyless, and we go along and do not care for their heartaches. But the great altruistic workers of modern times are beginning to catch step with the great throbbing heart of the world and to realize that these people must be helped into a better social life.
You don't know the fellows about you who have not met a girl they cared for, and have not seen a book they wanted to read, and life has not been the joy to them it has been to you. The only thing to do is to strike hands with them and give them the thrill that comes to you. This Social Com- mittee work is the grandest work along this line. The Greeks of old, when they built places of worship, built places of recreation, and God himself gave us the most beautiful playground in the world when he made the Garden of Eden. Oh, you can win a heart so much easier to Christ when it is full of joy! We are standing in the days of promise. The vision of this work almost blinds us. Oh, the glory of it!
But what will be the glory of the coming day when you and I catch step and win this world to a high, clean, splendid social life, leading it up the stairway of joy into God's perfect heaven of bliss, by and by.
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THE DEVOTIONAL COMMITTEE
Mrs. George Geyer, Xenia, Ohio
The work of the Devotional Committee is threefold: It is work in the committee itself in the committee meeting; it is work in the classroom, in the class session; it is hand-to-hand work outside.
In my class we had a meeting once a month; by and by it became so interesting that they insisted on having a meeting once a week. We dis- cuss devotional books such as Torrey's little books on the " Fulness of the Holy Spirit," " How to Obtain Fulness of Power," " The Gift of the Holy Spirit," " How to Study the Bible." We talk about the religious state of the class.
The work of the Devotional Committee is the most important I know. The only way to get members is to go after them and ask them to come, and the only way to lead people to the Lord Jesus Christ is to go after them. You will never make a success of it until you go out and try it.
THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS PRESIDENT
Mr. J. H. Hunter, Chicago, Illinois
Mr. Pearce asked me to say what I liked to have my president do. The president of my men's Bible class does everything; he runs the class; I only run the president. He takes charge of the monthly business meeting of the class. He takes charge of the class on Sunday. He announces the hymn. He calls on whoever he wishes to lead in prayer and to read the Scripture lesson. He usually makes the announcements, or he calls on some one else in the class to make them. He keeps his eye on the secretary and the treasurer and the committees. The officers of the class form the executive committee of the class, and the president is the governing power of that. The president is the father of the class, and I am simply the grand- father, seeing that the father does his business properly.
The Adult Department 515
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE CLASS MOTTO
Mr. W. C. Pearce: I think this little poem might become the Bible class poem. It is by Mr. C. D. Meigs, Indianapolis, Indiana:
OTHERS
C. D. Meigs, Indianapolis, Indiana
Lord, help me live from day to day In such a self-forgetful way That even when I kneel to pray My prayer shall be for others.
Help me in all the work I do To ever be sincere and true, And know that all I'd do for you Must needs be done for others.
Let self be crucified and slain And buried deep; and all in vain May efforts be to rise again Unless to live for others.
And when my work on earth is done, And my new work in heaven's begun, May I forget the crown I've won While thinking still of others.
Others, L6rd, yes, others. Let this my motto be; Help me to live for others That I may live like thee.
[A story told by General Booth inspired the above lines. He desired to send a New Year's greeting by telegram or cablegram to all Salvation Army posts in the world, Cablegrams are expensive and have to be short. General Booth boiled his message down to a single word, " Others," so that was his message, and all of it. This poem is copy- righted by the Meigs Publishing Co., Indianapolis, Ind. Printed on white cardboard for distribution by Bible classes, at $i.oo per hundred.]
Printed by permission of G. D. Meigs
5i6 The World' 5 Sixth Sunday-School Convention
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Question: " Which is better, one large class or several small ones? " . Prof. Mitchell W. Carroll, Washington, D. C. That depends. If you have a large class, and everybody at work in it, one large class is better. If you have several small classes and everybody at work, they do a great deal, too; but they do not effect as much as one large class with everybody at work in it. The advantage comes from having everybody at work, and that comes through organization. If you have a half dozen men at work, and another half dozen, and another half dozen, and then get the eighteen men together, they can accomplish as much as thirty-six men divided into groups of six. In other words, the more units you gather together in cooperation, the greater will be the effectiveness in the class work.
Question: " What are some of the best methods of promoting a strong class spirit? "
R. H. Webster, San Antonio, Tex.: I think one of the answers would be love, and about this we have heard this morning. Let the members of the class cultivate a Christian affection for each other and for the unreached.
Question: " What is the best plan of promoting members of the Senior Department into the Adult Class? "
E. V. Anderson, Chicago, 111.: I should say when they get beyond the high school graduation. It is very difficult to get scholars who have had a faithful teacher to leave their class, but whenever the scholar feels he is too old for the Senior Department, and yet does not like to go into the Adult Department, we persuade him to move up.
Question: " What are some of the best methods of conducting the lesson in an adult class?"
Miss Lucy Irby, Atlanta, Ga.: In my class I have found that it is very difficult to get the young men to study the lesson. To ask one of them a question may run him away. It is a problem to know what to do. I always try to know my fellow before I ask him a question; I want to be sure that I won't run him away. I send a postal card or a note to a young man and ask him to prepare on a certain topic, or to look up a cer- tain question and to be prepared the following Sunday to give a few words on it. I ask another one to give the best verse in the lesson the following Sunday and why he thinks it is the best verse; and another to give the Golden Text and just one thought perhaps on it. It is not always best to ask questions, and so I lecture, asking general questions. I think we should try to get them to take part in the lesson, and if we give them something special to do they are sure to study the lesson before they go to the class and then they just feel sure of themselves when they get there.
The A dull Department 517
Mrs, George H. Geyer, Xenia, O. : We do something in our class that may be helpful. At the beginning of the first quarter of this year we got out a folder to announce our annual sermon, and on this folder we pre- sented a dozen different ways of teaching the lesson, so for every lesson of that quarter I had a different way of teaching it. I will read them: (i) The sermon way. Take one verse and use that as a text. (2) The doctrinal method. That lesson was on " Christ's temptation," so we took the doc- trine of temptation and they liked that best of all. (3) The manual work method. I tried the kindergarten methods with my big class and they liked it. (4) The blackboard method. I used the blackboard that day and had a real blackboard lesson. (5) The question method. I asked them questions. (6) The old way, verse by verse. (7) Teaching by parables. I told three up- to-date stories. (8) The unusual or spectacular way. That was the temper- ance lesson; I had a good many things that morning. (9) The class teaching itself. I had the president of the class in charge that morning, and topics given out, and the questions went back and forth to the president. (10) The topical method. Arranged topics a week beforehand on the lesson. (11) The story with its moral. This is the evangelistic method; the evangelist always tells us a fine story if he has one. (12) The lecture method. I don't think they liked it.
Question: " Should the adult class meet with the Sunday-school during the opening and closing services?"
Mr. W. C. Pearce: Be careful! When you begin to divorce the men and women from the school, you are building a fire you cannot put out. It ought to mean more than meeting with the school, too; it ought to mean the supporting of the school in each of its activities. As a general principle, keep the adult class close to the school, for the school needs the class. Keep the fathers close to the children, for the children need the fathers. God pity the boy who cannot take his father as a chum ! I want Mr. Vaughn to tell you about his class motto, " The other fellow."
Mr. F. W. Vaughn, Washington, D. C. The 21st of last February the Vaughn Class was twenty-one years of age, and old enough to vote, so that is why I am here I suppose.
About the time I started that class here in the capital city of the nation, I read this little incident; it greatly impressed me, and out of it I got our motto, " The other fellow." It was something about the vessel that was stranded just outside the breakers. It was a very dark and stormy night. They had gone out for those they could rescue and had brought them in, and they were asked, " Are there any left?" " Yes, there is one man left out there in the rigging." " You are going after him?" " No, not in that storm; we run the risk of all our lives." A young strong man stepped out and he said, " I will go if I can get five to go with me," and that was the
5i8 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
number I started with twenty-one years ago, the first Sunday, out of twelve men who had promised. The young man says, " I will go." The mother steps up and says, " No, son, you can't go; you must not go." He answered, " I must." " Why," she said, " you know your father died a short time ago, and your brother went out two years ago and I have not heard a word from him since." Soon the five fellows volunteered and they went out into that dark night, over the breakers, and then to the vessel, and the fellow in the rigging got into the boat, and they started for the shore, and when the boat neared the shore the watchers cried, " Have you got him? " and this son that went out against the protest of his mother answered, ** Yes; tell mother that he's my brother! "
HOME VISITATION
HOME VISITATION
Its Place and Power
The greatest department of the organized Sunday-school work:
" The Home Visitation Department." Through it Americans can know
one another and one another's conditions. Through it we can reach
everybody everywhere. Through it every department of Sunday-school
and church work can be best served: Locating the babies for the
Cradle-Roll, and the " Shut-in " for the Home Department, and all
others for the main sessions of the Sunday-school and church, —
reaching, teaching, and saving all the people of America and the entire
world.
J. SHREVE DURHAM,
International Visitation Superintendent.
HOME VISITATION DEPARTMENT
J. Shreve Durham, Chicago, Illinois, International Superintendent
HOME VISITATION WORK
Mr. J. Shreve Durham
Home visitation is a systematically oi^anized interdenominational movement in which Christians of all denominations should take part and bring all the people into touch with some Sunday-school and church. The most carefully gathered statistics show that while great work has been done in the past, only one in six in Christian America is yet in the Sunday- school, and only one in sixty throughout the world. Therefore the greatest peril to the cause of Christ is not the weakness of any department within the Sunday-school and church, but the numbers and strength of the forces without; and the greatest blessing we can bring to those within as well as to those without will be to bring all into the Sunday-schools and churches of their choice.
All of those millions without are dear to the heart of the Saviour. If you were told only one of your children had been rescued from a danger threatening all, would not the cry of your heart be, What of my others? The Saviour said he would go out from the ninety and nine to seek the one that was lost. Our forces are small when compared to the large numbers we would and should reach, but the whole world will welcome and needs the whole gospel as speedily as possible, and if the followers of our common Lord of all denominations will put aside denominational prejudice, and without any sacrifice of denominational principle cooperate in a systematic plan like Home Visitation, we can reach the whole world in this generation. This plan makes it possible to visit every home in the largest city or country district in a single half day; and where it is well-organized it is so system- atic and thorough in its work not a single person is overlooked.
The plan is to have a One-Day General Visitation of all the homes, with all faiths cooperating, and follow this up with what permanent work there may be needed in each denomination along its own denominational lines. To organize for the work, there must be some one who understands well every detail of the organization, and who knows the results of the work, to explain its work and benefits to every pastor, priest, and rabbi,
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personally, if they cannot all be had in conferences for that purpose; and they should have the direction of the work, indirectly, if not directly, because all work in religious lines should be under the direction of our religious leaders. It is greatly desired that all faiths, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, cooperate in the One- Day General Visitation, that all homes may be open to the visitors, so that every person will receive an invitation, and a record of the church preference of every individual will be secured to be given to the pastor, priest, and rabbi, as preferred. A cordial wel- come and the information desired will be given the visitors if the work has the endorsement of all religious leaders, and they give it the proper em- phasis from the pulpit, and well-arranged publicity through the press.
It does not take much time and work to organize and observe the One- Day General Visitation, but it is necessary that the short time it demands be given at the right time, and it takes the best work. Pastors and their people must give the movement " right-of-way " if it is to be the success it has been where it has been well observed. For the work in cities and towns, those acquainted with the territory should divide and subdivide it until it can be well handled. A supervisor must be placed in charge of each section, and given enough visitors to send two and two, and of dif- ferent denominations, where possible, to visit the homes in the time desired Usually two visitors can visit fifteen homes in an hour.
The supervisors and visitors should be carefully selected by the pastors and superintendents of the churches and Sunday-schools, and those who know well every detail of the organization must instruct all supervisors and visitors most carefully and thoroughly before the work is undertaken, impressing upon each one the fact that upon his or her work in that one block rests not only the responsibility of the success or failure of the move- ment as a whole, but also the future of immortal souls.
For the work in country districts the plan is to use the public school districts as division sections. Where there is a township or magisterial district Sunday-school association, the work is done through it, but where there is no organization, it can be done in the most inaccessible sections by taking the material to the public school teachers' institutes, which are held for each county each year, and asking the teachers to act as supervisors of their school districts, and appoint a few representatives of the various denominations to visit the homes on the day appointed. It is beneficial to the teacher, pupils, and patrons, the school and entire community, uniting the home, the school, and Sunday-school in training the youth to grow more perfect in soul, mind, and body. It does not con- flict with the official duty of the teacher, and all teachers, state boards of public instruction, and educational associations to whom it has been explained, endorse'it.
Home Visitation 523
This movement is one of the greatest powers for the cause of education, reaching the last one in those inaccessible sections where the college and university cannot exist, teaching and inspiring for the better life and prep- aration in those large districts where such a large part of our population live, and whence come so many to rule the world of men.
The material used is an envelope upon which is printed a diagram for the visitor's territory, and instructions; a card upon which is printed an invitation inviting the people to attend the Sunday-school and church of their choice, one of which is left in every home; another card upon which is printed the names of all faiths, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, with a place in which to write the name of the particular church or pastor preferred. The name of the family, address, and language used is recorded; also this additional information is secured: Number in Family under Three Years of Age; Three to Twelve: Boys, Girls; Thirteen to Nineteen: Young Men, Young Women; Over Nineteen: Men, Women; Number Church Members; Church Letters Unplaced; No Church Preference; Number Attending Sunday-school; Promised to Attend.
As soon as the visitation is completed, the visitors return the record cards to the supervisors, who give them to a committee made up from representatives of all faiths, to be transcribed on a block sheet for each block for permanent record; and then the original records are classified by this committee and given to the pastor, priest, and rabbi, as preferred. Where no church preference is given, a duplicate record is made for each organization in the community. Samples of all material, and leaflets giving plans for the work, can be had by writing your state or provincial secretary, or to the International office, 805 Hartford Building, Chicago.
The One- Day General Visitation makes a profound impression upon the non-church people to see all denominations united in an invitation and effort to have them attend Sunday-school and church, but the greatest opportunities are just approaching when it is completed and the records are in hand. Those visited will expect a visit from the representatives of the particular Sunday-school and church for which they expressed a pref- erence, and it is a great opportunity and a fearful responsibility to be neglected. If a sensible, systematic, steady effort is made, nearly every one can be won to the Sunday-school and church.
Millions have been visited through this plan, and hundreds of thousands have been brought into the Sunday-school and the church. Louisville, Denver, Toronto, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and other cities have been visited each in a single half day. Chicago and all of Cook County will be visited on October 8, 1910. This will reach three million people. In Kentucky there are many districts where every man, woman, and child is enrolled in the work of the Sunday-school, or in the Home
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Department, or Cradle Roll; and every county in the state is organized, one hundred and nineteen, — one hundred and two having Visitation organization. That is true also of many counties in Oklahoma, where some of the finest work has been done. In Colorado, ten years ago, only one in twelve of their population was in the Sunday-school, and as a result of this, and other organized Sunday-school work, one in five of the entire population is now in the Sunday-school.
The local Sunday-school association is the best organization through which this great work can be organized. The organized Sunday-school work with its splendid system of permanent organizations, the world's, international, state, provincial, county, district, and township, is the strong arm of the church, reaching all people of all conditions in all sections, and it begins at the beginning; works during the only formative age life gives childhood; it is " Right-form " instead of " Re-form"; it has the greatest volunteer service in the world, which always has been the most earnest and most active, and is fast becoming the best trained; it is the only organization of the church in which every member of the family can be cared for and trained; it has a specially adapted and well-developed department for everybody — and Home Visitation is the plan to get every- body in a department. It locates the baby for the Cradle Roll and the " shut-in " for the Home Department, and all others for the regular departments of the Sunday-school and church.
We cannot save the people unless we teach them, and we cannot teach them unless we reach them.
INTERDENOMINATIONAL VISITATION REVELATIONS
Mr. Hugh Cork, Chicago, Illinois, Assistant Secretary, Inter- national Sunday-School Association
It is a fact that interdenominational house-to-house visitations do create a profound impression on the entire community visited; they do give a practical demonstration of church unity; they do find for the al- ready overworked pastor a number of his people who assist and thereby get good training for future work; they do get the names of many people who prefer a church of whom the pastor of that church has known nothing about; they do increase attendance on church and Sunday-school services immediately, but they produce many other revelations among which are the following:
Home Visitation 5^5
Friendly Feelings between Catholics and Protestants
A visitation of a large city was contemplated, and the Catholic bishop was asked for his cooperation. While he believed his people were better visited than the Protestant congregations, he gladly endorsed the move- ment and furnished more than fifty visitors for work on the " visitation- day." At the meeting for " Instruction for Visitors" at the Baptist church, these Catholic helpers, by their intelligent questions, indicated their in- tense interest and great desire to do the work in the most thorough way to secure the best results for all concerned. The bishop, in conversation over the telephone, said he knew it would take money, and when told that a fair share for the Catholic churches would be about forty dollars, he cheer- fully said, " You will find our check in the next mail," which was duly received.
In one section of another city a Catholic lady saw two visitors, late in the afternoon, on the other side of her block. Thinking they must be weary, she immediately put on the coffee-pot, and when in the course of a half- hour they knocked at her door, she invited them in for refreshments. When she found that one of her guests was a Baptist and the other a Presby- terian, she said, " Surely this is so nice, that you two will sit down and break bread with a Catholic."
In another city two young men of the Catholic church had been assigned a portion of the city where it was thought that not one Protestant person would be found. When their reports were carefully looked over, nearly forty were indicated as preferring various Protestant churches, and on the back of one card was this notation, " This family claims to be infidels, but we believe that if a Lutheran minister would call he could probably do them good."
In neither of the above instances did Catholic or Protestant love their their own churches less, but in this cooperative enterprise, in which nothing was compromised, they learned to love their neighbor's church more.
What there really is in the Red-Light Underworld
The " red-light " district in every city is never passed around, but is carefully planned for by sending workers, usually mothers, who are skilled in dealing with such conditions as are found.
In one city when the ring at the door was answered by an occupant of a questionable resort, and the visitors reported their errand, the person who answered the call said, " You must be mistaken. You don't want us. We do have church preferences. We have not forgotten our early training. We would like to go to church. This kind of a life is not what we enjoy, but as outcasts there is nothing left for us to do. Should we accept
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your invitation and go to the denomination of our choice, the people of the church we should select, as soon as they knew from whence we came, would shun us as they would a viper. Our last condition would then be worse than our first."
In another city, when the " Madam " of the house found what the visitors were after, she called the nine girls she had and asked the ladies to talk frankly to them. One of the girls, yet in her teens, who had been sinned against more than she had sinned, asked for a private interview, in which she begged the ladies to write to her parents and persuade them to let her come home. When a favorable answer came that they would rejoice to have her back, the " Madam " willingly released her, and not only this, but bought her some new clothes and a railroad ticket, besides some money, telling the visitors who had brought about the reconciliation that such a good girl as this one was ought to be helped to a better life.
In another city two visitors found a poor girl in the garret of a low tene- ment house lying on a pile of straw waiting for death to end her miseries. She was sick at heart, broken in spirit, and diseased in body, and had de- cided rather than end her life suddenly to wait a day or so and the weary spirit would leave its desolate abode. The ladies soon had a church visit- ing-nurse there and she summoned a hospital wagon, and everything that medical science knew was done to bring her back to health, with the re- sult that she told her sad life story of wanting to see the world and taste its pleasures. Loving too well one whose depravity far exceeded her own, she lost all that is dearest to her sex and was thrown adrift on the world, to be found just in the nick of time by these angels of mercy. She was a minister's daughter whose parents had waited long, had hoped thus far in vain, and prayed daily for some knowledge of the loved daughter whose place of abode and of whose manner of life they knew absolutely nothing. Gladly did they welcome her back even with a full knowledge of what she had been, and today she is helping her father guide the footsteps of other young girls from the dark paths she trod so sorrowfully.
Many Unknowns brought to Light
In a city of about 150,000 population two visitors entered a home situa- ted in a locality where there were several churches. The lady of the house, with tears in her eyes, said, " I drifted away from church many years ago, and evidently the church has drifted away from me, for you are the first persons representing a church who has called upon me in the twelve years I have lived here."
In another city a pastor said, " I know all the people in my parish, for, a year since, we made a canvass of this community and found all that prefer
Home Visitation 527
our church." After the visitation 375 new cards, most of them representing families, were handed him, and not one of these names did he have on his list.
Additions to Church and Sunday-School
In a city of less than fifteen thousand, one pastor found fifteen people with church letters which placed them in his church at the next com- munion after the visitation. In a Western city there were 8,000 people holding membership in the various churches. A thorough house-to-house visitation was undertaken and nearly 8,000 others were found with either church letters unplaced or still in Eastern cities in which these same people had not lived for years. One pastor in this same city took 135 of these into his church the communion following the visitation.
In one county in a Western state the enrollment of scholars in the Sunday- schools of the county last year was 1,449; after a year's work of thorough house visitation the enrollment stands 3,203, a gain of 1,754.
One school in an Eastern city received 113 new scholars as a direct result of a thorough house-to-house visitation. Two years afterwards, by check- ing up their roll, they found that 102 were still with them.
All of the above incidents I can vouch for. These, with many others which could be related, simply indicate the marvelous possibility of home visitation.
MISSIONARY DEPARTMENT
THE MISSIONARY DEPARTMENT
Its Place and Power
The work of missionary education in the Sunday-school ought to find expression both in better living and in increased gifts. When the Sunday-school is once aroused to its missionary opportimity, the conquest of the world for Jesus Christ will soon be an accomplished fact. The International Sunday-School Association encourages the formation of missionary departments in state provincial, county, town- ship, and kindred organizations throughout its entire field, and urges the adoption of a policy for local schools which shall include : The creation of a missionary atmosphere; a missionary committee; weekly missionary offerings; monthly missionary program; missionary instruction; a missionary section of the library; a prayerful cultivation of the spirit of consecration for personal service; a course on missions for adult classes for eight weeks a year; giving; teacher -training and graded lessons.
Missionary interest and activity in any Sunday-school instu-es its own success and life. The lack of it is an indication of approaching apathy and death.
W. A. BROWN, International Missionary Superintendent.
THE MISSIONARY DEPARTMENT
Mr. William A. Brown, Chicago, Illinois, International Missionary Superintendent
THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL
Mr. William A. Brown
The missionary obligation is the supreme obligation upon the Christian, for the Great Commission is still in force, and the last words of Jesus (Acts 1 : 8) set the ideals of living for obedient souls. And for us, the mis- sionary obligation is twofold: The Christianization of America and the Evangelization of the World. God has set America in the very heart of the world. Its timely discovery, its early settlers, its type of civilization, its wonderful preservation, its unique diplomacy, its wars for the world, are major providences of our God in behalf of all mankind. More largely than we know, our gospel-developed America is the hope of the nations.
In the foreign missionary work of the church we are fast passing the period of the pioneers. We now reap vast harvests from fields whereon we bestowed slight labor, for the early missionaries prepared the way be- fore us. These kingly souls with flaming hearts opened up the world to the preaching of the Gospel and brought the people of the planet within reach of the Cross. They reduced many languages to writing, and made the words of Jesus intelligible in the speech of savage men. An open world, mastered languages, translated scriptures, accessible peoples, growing Christian communities mark this age, in hope and promise, as the greatest missionary age since the morning of the Resurrection.
The modern missionary movement, that makes for the Christianization of America and the Evangelization of the World, is the greatest movement in the world. And the modern Sunday-school, gathered about the Book, — intent to learn the will of its Master and eager to do his bidding, — holding in its membership all ages, with its many millions of scholars, and more than a million teachers, is the greatest force in the world. And the special task before Christian leaders is to bring this greatest force in the world to bear upon the greatest movement in the world, and to lead it on to ulti- mate victory, for in the Bible we see God at work in his Word, and in missions we see God at work in his world.
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The first purpose of the missionary department is to make the Sunday- school realize its missionary opportunity. Through graded missionary instruction the youth of the church is to learn the large opportunities for personal service and to hear again the call of Christ, and to go in his name. The value of missionary education is seen very largely in what it does for the individual student. It broadens the intellectual horizon, deepens the spiritual life, makes prayer a greater reality and its practice a growing delight, removes racial prejudice by giving an adequate appreci- ation of the peoples of the world, leads to a greater liking for the Book because through its missionary message there is a better understanding of the Book, gives perspective to Christian activities, enables us to see strategic centers for missionary enterprises, and leads inevitably to the investment of life and to increased giving. The Sunday-school will only see its supreme missionary opportunity through the study of the field and a knowledge of the need. And the Sunday-school can only reach its place of largest service when it fully realizes that " the field is the world."
A second purpose of the missionary department is to help the Sunday- school find the secret of power. This is to teach the people to pray. To discover to the members of the Sunday-school the lai^e place for prayer in their lives, and to lead them into right uses of spiritual privileges, is the greatest possible contribution that can be made to the growing generation. To find — through the study of God's Word and the interpretation of the providences of God in modern missionary life — the place of prayer in the activities of the Kingdom will be to bring to the Church of Jesus the spiritual experiences of the apostles, and even their triumphs of faith. Through prayer are the forces adequate for the winning of the world to be directed and sustained. Through prayer are the workers to be secured, and the means for their support. Through prayer are the successes of the missionaries to be achieved. And when the church " advances upon its knees," the coronation of the King of Kings will be near.
A third purpose of the missionary department is to train the members of the Sunday-school to right habits of giving. We are not our own, — for we all have been purchased at awful cost. And we pay the price of spiritual destitution for withholding more than is meet. Lack of adequate training in Christian giving makes beggars of many of the spiritual leaders in the church. We shall never prove the Lord and receive his largest blessing until we reach the standard of giving set up in his Word. For the full measure of Christian giving is the measure of sacrifice. How much longer shall it be said that the love of Christ is the only love that fails to inspire sacrifice and to kindle heroism? And who is to blame if the wealth of the world in Christian hands becomes a curse instead of a blessing? The right use of money is a test of Christian character. The rust of our
Missionary Department 533
gold witnesses against our profession of love for those for whom Christ died. That we are partners with God is a truth requiring increased em- phasis in these days of great fortunes. And a campaign for systematic and proportionate giving on the part of all members in the Sunday-school with weekly pledged offerings will greatly hasten the dawning of the day of the Lord.
The missionary department emphasizes in the fourth place the impor- tance of specific missionary enterprises. We should long ago have come to a knowledge of this truth that the only way to keep a missionary motive bright is to do actual missionary service. One of the paradoxes of Christi- anity is this: We can only keep our Christian religion by giving it away! We, as Christians, only grow as we give, and live as we love. And to lead the Sunday-schools of America into practical forms of missionary service will release into the field of home missions the greatest evangelizing force on the continent. To save America calls for personal service. There is not wealth enough in all the world, if we could command it, to save America. We have riches in abundance. " We are increased in goods and have need of nothing." That very abundance oftentimes hinders most the winning of America for Christ. Yet America is to be redeemed. And America can only be redeemed by personal service.
With intelligent, prayerful, personal interest in missionary activities there will develop in many hearts the desire to devote their lives to special forms of Christian service. And thus the high day of God's power will come when his youths, " numerous and fresh as the morning dew,'^ shall make free-will offerings of themselves to fight his battles." Few young men in Christian surroundings leave the teen age without facing the question of the ministry of missionary service. The supreme decision for Christ is often made in early adolescence and the supreme devotion to Christ and his service is as often made in later adolescence. In the Sunday-schools of America are now the host of young leaders for all Christian enterprises, waiting to be enlisted in the great work of winning the world for their Christ, whose they are and whom they are eager to serve. To withhold from them the knowledge of special forms of missionary activities is equiva- lent to restraining them from giving themselves to this work of grace. For they cannot really know of the work of Christ without desiring to do a work like that themselves.
The Sunday-school will find its supreme missionary purpose in the Chris- tianization of America and the Evangelization of the World. That it may realizexthis ideal the missionary department sets before every school this standard for attainment;
1. Graded missionary instruction.
2. Daily missionary prayer.
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3. Systematic missionary giving.
4. Practical missionary activities.
5. Securing missionary recruits.
The Christianization of America and the Evangelization of the World! That is a task large enough to capture the imagination of the youth and to enlist all the energies of the mature men of the Kingdom. It is a task 90 great that it cannot be accomplished by human strength alone, which ought to bring us all to realize that our only hope is in Him, who is " the light of the world " and the " desire of all nations."
1
TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT
THE TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT
Its Place and Power
A Temperance Department in the Sunday-school strives for the following:
1. Temperance Education educates every Sunday-school member for: (a) Total Abstinence; (b) the Destruction of the Liquor Traffic; (c) the Extinction of the Cigarette Habit; (d) the Surrender of every Self-indulgence which impairs or destroys the power to give service to God and service to man.
2. Regular Time for Temperance Teaching, (a) Observe all ap- pointed Quarterly Temperance Sundays; (b) (special) Anti-Cigarette Day, — Temperance Sunday of the Second Quarter; (c) (special) World's Temperance Sunday, — the fourth Sunday in November, — to be empha- sized as Christian Citizenship Day.
3. Organization. A Temperance Department in every Sunday- school conducted by a Temperance Superintendent.
4. Pledge Signing. Enroll every Sunday-school member of proper age as a pledge-signer.
MRS. ZILLAH FOSTER STEVENS, ALTON, ILL.,
Secretary International Temperance Committee.
THE TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT
Resolutions adopted at the Temperance Department Conference, May 25, 1910. Presented by Prof. F. S. Goodrich, Michigan; Mrs L. H. Wright, Maine; Miss Lucy P. Gaston, Illinois; J. L. EwiN, Washington, D. C, and Dr. D. H. Kress, Washington.
Resolved, i. That we give thanks to God and to his servants for the wonderful growth of interest in the temperance reform, as reported at our temperance conferences, and for the impressive charts and other new publications which are now available for Bible teachers.
2. That we urge that a superintendent of the Temperance Department be put in the field immediately by the International Sunday-School Com- mittee, to act in harmony with the temperance committees or boards of the various denominations.
3. That we express to Mrs. Zillah Foster Stevens our great appreciation of her splendid work as secretary of the Temperance Committee, and our deep regret that she cannot be with us at these conferences.
4. That we urge all state superintendents of temperance to promote in their own states the celebration of July 4, with Good Citizenship Rallies, thus showing what a safe, sane, and inspiring Independence Day should be, and that provincial superintendents hold similar rallies on appropriate occasions.
5. That we urge the International Lesson Committee to continue to provide for at least four temperance lessons annually in all grades.
6. That the International Committee be requested and urged to en- courage the publication of an interdenominational quarterly for use by scholars in connection with the quarterly temperance lessons, containing reliable information as to latest facts, up-to-date illustrations, and the like.
7. That we urge every state and province to appoint a superintendent of temperance.
8. That there is a warning to the Sunday-school workers of the world in the growing use of cigarettes by people of all ages and both sexes as the result of the activity of those profiting largely by their manufacture. Un- told harm has already been done to the growing youth in every community, and Sunday-school workers are urged to immediate and vigorous action in combating the cigarette evil.
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SPECIAL ADDRESSES
Delivered at the General Conference Sessions
COMPLETING OUR DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION
Rev. E. M. Fergusson, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Educational
Superintendent of Sunday-School Missions, Presbyterian
Church, U. S. A.
1. The state or provincial Sunday-school association should organize a department of work for every actual body of specialized workers within its field. The controlling reason for the existence of a new department is not an international recommendation, or the wide advertising of a new idea, but an actual call from a reasonably large body of constituents who have come to take a deep interest in some one line of Sunday-school work, and who feel the need of leadership by and under the state association. It is reckless folly to organize a department on paper.
The worst possible reason for organizing a new department is in order that we may thereby secure consistency in our departmental scheme. It is only dead things that are perfectly consistent and logical. If there is a body of workers who want to be organized, and who are alive enough to say so, the fact that this organization gives us a symmetrical scheme is no special disadvantage, but it is never in itself a reason for action.
2. Each department should be central, local, and standard. In other words, the three essentials of a good state department are that it shall be well-organized in the center, with a strong plan of work for the field as a whole; that it shall be represented in all or at least a large part of the county and other local organizations of the field, so that these lesser centers will work and be capable of maintaining an existence independent of head- quarters; and that it shall be related to the International system of de- partments, using standard names, ages, methods, and systems of coopera- tive effort. No state is strong enough to do good work apart from its international relation, and no state with the right spirit would try to.
3. The general state organization should work clear of all departments, and should have the right of way. In other words, the original plan of a state or provincial association, the vertebral column of state, county, and township officers and organizations, reports and collections, committees and conventions, should stand out in clear relief and should be recognized by all as the main stem, of which these departments are the relatively
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less important branches. The state secretary should watch with care any scheme by which the work of any department is to be saddled on his county and township secretaries, or their labors complicated in any way through the influence of these specialized forms of work. Keep the tasks of these men simple, direct, and old-fashioned, if you want full statistics, good collections, and a healthy organization.
At numerous points, of course, the departmental and the general work will come together. The county department superintendent will and should have a seat on the county executive committee, and a place on the program of the annual county convention. The county secretary can often do the department officer a good turn, and the two services will sometimes be combined in one person. But if ever a question of priority should arise, let the department enthusiasts remember that the work of these county and township secretaries constitutes the life-blood of the body to which they belong, and that International history furnishes several sad instances of general debility and final disaster caused by an over-development of some form of department work, resulting in neglect and decay of the regular fundamental organic structure.
4, Departments should be developed from circumference to center, rather than from center to circumference. If the International Association wants us to start a particular new department, and we have nothing in our field to begin on, the way to begin is not by appointing a state superin- tendent with nothing to superintend, and a committee with nothing to commit to them, but to get a clear and workable program of local Sunday- school endeavor along that line, carry it into the county conventions and the institutes, and begin to build up a local constituency in as many fields as possible, including all the strategic points. A year or two hence the seed thus sown may be reaped by means of an address and conference on that subject at the state convention, to which local workers may be drawn, and at which they may be brought together, enrolled, instructed, and partially organized. In another year or so the way may be opened for a full- fledged department. To work in the opposite direction, launching a skeleton state body and then trying to get a constituency for it is expensive, artificial, embarrassing to the executive committee and the real depart- ments, and usually disappointing. But in a large and sparsely settled field, where a good department superintendent can be had, it may be best to appoint him in order thus to reach the field. This, however, is not organizing a department.
5. Each department should have representation in the executive com- mittee, and be subject thereto. The executive committee, as ordinarily constituted, is supposed to represent all parts of the field. It is also sup- posed to represent in general the denominations. Now if, in addition,
540 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
these same people must be so chosen as to represent all departments, the task of picking the men will inevitably degenerate into a series of petty political schemes on the part of the state secretary or other active workers. There is far less danger to the organization by frankly recognizing the fact that modern Sunday-school conditions demand representation not only for counties, but for lines of work, and that you cannot take a man who is a financial factor and a good county delegate and turn him into an adequate representative of elementary work or home department work merely by making him chairman of the committee on that subject. Neither is it fair to treat these representatives of great lines of service as advisory members, excluding them from voting responsibility in the body that governs the work as a whole. The elementary teachers, through their chosen representatives, should help to run the association, and should be looked to for their share of the work and influence necessary to make it go, and so should the workers of every other organized department. The moment such representation is fairly accorded, the task of keeping that department and all its work subject to the executive committee's actual and thorough supervision and control becomes easy.
6. Each department should have an annual rally time, with facilities for finding its own leaders. In most fields all the departments will naturally find this in connection with the state convention. We have found in New Jersey, however, that our annual summer school offers a far better chance for rallying the department of elementary work, while a banquet at the state convention has so far proved the only means of bringing together the constituency formed by our superintendents and also our adult class work- ers. Somewhere, once a year, the department should come into conscious- ness of itself, and at such times the appointed state leaders should do all in their power to bring out the natural leadership that is latent in the rank and file. At such times, also, the way is opened for the appointment of those who are to represent the department in the executive committee.
7. The general association should organize new departments only to the extent of its ability to give them adequate leadership and supervision. A department cannot run itself; it must be handled; and the handling is a burden which the state association must be prepared to carry. There must be a committee of the state executive committee in general charge, and this committee, of course, will include the elected members from the department concerned, in order that it may act with expert knowledge of its work. There must also be a state superintendent to supply the element of personal leadership and initiative. The state secre- tary or the elementary superintendent may serve as acting superintendent of a new department for a year or two, but as soon as practical the right man or woman should be found and given scope for individual action,
special Addresses 541
while being kept in touch with headquarters all the time. The existence of a band of county department superintendents means new correspondence, new responsibilities at headquarters, new printed matter, and an appropri- ation. It is a strong state organization that can stand the launching of more than one such new department a year. Rather than over-organize, it is far better to nurse the work in an informal way, encouraging the counties to develop this particular line, securing the appointment of county leaders when the work needs leadership, holding institutes with special reference to this work, accumulating experience and ideas for the state printed matter that will soon have to be put out, and gathering an address- list of the local friends of the work.
A state organization can well afford to be voted slow and unresponsive if its executive committee can show a clear balance sheet at every conven- tion, with a general secretary who has the whole state well in hand, and with a few departments, each one of them pulling its weight, tangibly helping the Sunday-schools all over the field and raising up for the work new friends from year to year.
COMPLETING OUR DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION
Prof. B. H. DeMent, Louisville, Kentucky, Professor of Re- ligious Pedagogy and Sunday-School Work, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
" Completing departmental organization "; here we have three words that I like, — " organization," " departmental," " completing." Com- pleting signifies that we have done something, that we are still doing some- thing, and, by the grace of God, we expect to do still more. There is a great deal said against organization. Sometimes I think that is a proof that the people who say so much against organization need, themselves, to be reorganized; and, yet, unquestionably, there are two extremes.
We find that nature is organization. God is the infinite organizer. The highest forms of life have the highest forms of organization. I do not know how far we have to go in order to get back to protoplasm, but it is very simple in its organization, and mind is very complex. The mind of a five-year-old child is so complex that all the primary teachers of the In- ternational and the World's Sunday-School associations do not understand one child. You cannot measure the mind by the yardstick. Yet as simple a thing as the human intellect is the most complex in its organization. But it is a vital organization. Some oppose organization as being too mechanical. The Bible uses a great many illustrations of the mechanical
543 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
type. Paul, who frequently uses it, is always careful to inject the vital idea. For instance, when he speaks of Christians as the great temple of God, fearful that we shall get the architectural idea and carry it too far, he at once speaks of God who occupies the temple. And Peter, who used the same figure, speaks not simply of stones, but living stones, a seeming contradiction. Do stones live? yes, in the Word of God. So we want an organization that is vitalized.
I am asked to speak with reference to some things that prevail in Ken- tucky. We have 119 counties in the Blue-Grass State. Each of the 119 counties has a president and a vice-president; seventeen have only the president and vice-president; one has one departmental superintendent; three have two departmental superintendents out of the six; five have three departmental superintendents; four have four departmental superin- tendents; ten have five departmental superintendents; and seventy- nine have the whole six departmental superintendents. That looks well on paper, and it is quite as well in its operation; but it is not as good as our excellent secretary, Mr. Joplin, with his assistants, expects to make it.
Professor Fox, whom you knew and admired, and who was a very dear friend of mine, was in my study the day before he was taken sick, with a manuscript that he had ready for publication on child study, which claimed our attention for several hours. He was a great organizer. But we must never forget this, that an organization does network itself; an organizer may work, but not an organization. We make a great mistake when we simply organize and leave the organization as if it was endowed with per- petual motion. We are called upon not simply to occupy a position, but to fulfill a ministry; to do a work, not to be honored by the position, but to work in the position, to fill it, to fill it full; and positions are elastic; if we fill them full now they will soon expand. In our state organization, we have the six departments. I will go over them very briefly :
The Elementary Grades Department. I rejoice in the fact that so much study has been devoted to the elementary grades, for that is the funda- mental work, and one reason why it has been more nearly perfected than any other is because more minds and hearts have been enlisted in the work which deals with the period of life which is so vital and ultimately funda- mental. Surely we want to continue to emphasize the elementary work. But that is not all.
We have now the Advanced Grades Department. There is the leak in the Sunday-school. Pupils are graduated oftentimes from the elementary department into the outside world. I rejoice in the fact that we are study- ing adolescence as never before, that wonderful period of human life, the second birth of life. All of us are interested in the cradle. He would be a hard-hearted man indeed who could look into the two bright eyes of an
special Addresses 543
infant as it lies in its mother's arms or in the cradle and not smile. Well, in that wonderful second birth, along in the early teens, there is a renewed interest. There is one thing which the young people will not forgive us, and that is our failure to understand them. We are studying more and more that very difficult period where the brook and the river meet.
The Adult Class Department. The Sunday-school is no longer merely a school for children. Thank God, it is for children; but, thank God, it is for men and for women. I have sometimes heard it said, " When you reach the age of forty or fifty you lose interest in religion." I have a class of seventy-five or eighty in regular attendance, ranging from twenty-one to seventy-five years of age. People want the Word of God. The Bible has not lost its power over the human mind and heart, and I repudiate the idea, in the name of manhood, that men cannot be largely enlisted and enlightened by the study of the Word of God.
The Teacher-Training Department. The great problem everywhere is that of securing trained teachers. It is largely the problem of the trained personality. A friend of mine had one of those little puzzle maps, which he gave to his boy who practiced on it. The father tested him, and the boy said, " It is very easy." He took the various pieces and began, and he knew just where to begin. By and by there was the picture of a man in connection with the map. " How did you manage that?" asked the father. The boy, said " I began with the man's head, and I solved the problem easily." If you want to solve all problems, begin with a man's head and reach his heart, and then his hands and feet, and thus you reach and vitalize the entire personality. All of life's puzzles are solved when we reach the head and heart with the Word of God.
The Missionary Department. We must guard against the idea that we teach missions only when we teach a special course of missionary lessons. You teach missions when you teach the Book. The heart of the Book is the heart of God, and the heart of God is essentially missionary. There- fore, all through our Bible studies the missionary stream flows from the heart of God through our warm hearts to the cold hearts of the dying world.
The Temperance Department. We need temperance agitation, temper- ance education, temperance legislation, and temperance execution. I believe that thousands of the votes which lately have been registered in favor of temperance were the ballots of persons who, as boys, fifteen or twenty years ago, were impressed with the truth of God relative to the temperance as that truth was emphasized in our sabbath-school instruc- tion. Hence, when the quarterly optional lessons occur, I always feel like emphasizing them, thereby letting the people know that the constitution of the kingdom of God is vitalized with the principles of temperance.
544 ^^^ World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
There is another word in my topic " completing." How much organic zation shall we have? It depends on growth. Complexity of life is really an index to the degree of civilization. Organization is not intended to oppress, but to express. Have you thought of the Bible rule of cooperation, ** One shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight "? Two people are much more than twice as strong as one. Hence it is in this organized work, by unitedly standing together and cooperating in the name of the Master, we shall go on conquering and to conquer.
MEN'S BIBLE CLASS PARADE
W. C. Pearce, Chicago, Illinois, International Adult Depart- ment Superintendent
One of the most inspiring features of the convention was the Men's Bible Class parade.
Thousands of men, representing every part of North America, marching under the banner of the Sunday-school, was a testimony that will be heard around the world. The heavy rainfall could not prevent their forming ranks, and the most unfavorable weather and disagreeable streets could not turn them back when once their ranks were formed.
This evidence of courage and determined purpose is easily explained. They were of the highest type of American manhood, including representa- tives from every walk and vocation of life. Their ranks were formed at the close of a series of prayer meetings, where the burden of petition was for the Christian conquest of the world. Their hope and vision were indi- cated by the slogan on the badges they wore: " Our Purpose: The World for Christ"; " Our Means: The Word of God"; " Our Motto: Others."
The parade formed on Tenth Street, Northwest. Each division was under the leadership of a marshal assisted by a company of ten mounted motor-cycle men. All were escorted by a company of Washington's lead- ing citizens, led by the chief marshal, Mr. W. K. Cooper. Marching to the strains of conquest tunes, again and again breaking out into the sing- ing of the martial hymns of the Church, this matchless army of men came swinging into Pennsylvania Avenue, turning their faces toward the nation's Capitol. On they marched, greeted on either side by the cheers of tens of thousands.
Upon reaching the street at the west Capitol front, this army turned to the right, passing around the Capitol until they reached the south entrance to the grounds. Then they turned, marching directly across the Capitol grounds, past the east front of the Capitol, from which position hundreds of thousands of American citizens have witnessed the inauguration of every President of the United States.
Here was the center of interest. On their right was the official reviewing party, at whose head was the convention president, Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London. At their left, on the steps of the Capitol, were the delegations from outside North America and a band of American women who had come to the place of review, and who stood under umbrellas that they
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546 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
might bear witness to their love for God's Word and encourage and join their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, and sweethearts in this movement for world-wide conquest.
No pen can describe the impressive incidents that occurred in connection with this demonstration. The mottoes on the banners carried were some- thing of a photograph of the spirit of the day and of the movement. The motto, " The saloon MUST go," was the one receiving the most hearty cheers everywhere, indicating that the Adult Bible Class Movement pro- poses to see to it that the nations of the world shall be freed from the merciless grip of the saloon. Such mottoes as " British Columbia for Christ through the A. B.C.," " The Men of America for the Man of Galilee," '* By this Sign Conquer," " Working Together to Win," " Ontario for Christ," and " Studying the Word and the Work," were evidences that the movement is primarily and chiefly one of Bible Study and Soul-winning.
Among other significant mottoes were these: " Every Man a Brother "; " Young Men for Young Men"; " The Father is Companion to the Boy"; " Train up a Child in the way he should go, and go that way yourself"; " Where Men go, the Boys will follow."
As this mighty host moved past the reviewing stand, delegation after delegation greeted the ofHcial party with yells. I quote two of these:
" Hold up the Bible, hold up the Bible, Hold up the Bible today; God's Book of salvation to every nation, God's Word we'll honor today."
" Colorado is big, Colorado is great. We are the only Centennial State; We have gold in our mines, we have silver galore, We have money in banks, and goods in our store. But the biggest assets in our glorious state Are the workers for God that our Sunday-schools make."
Again and again delegations would break forth singing songs specially adapted to and written for the occasion; we quote two of these:
" Along the western plain.
There comes a signal strain, Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska for Christ.
The hills take up the song.
And roll it swiftly on, Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska for Christ.
" On to Victory! On to Victory! Cries the great Commander, On!
We'll move at His command.
We'll soon possess the land, Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska for Christ."
Bible Class Parade 547
" By thy rivers gently flowing,
Illinois, Illinois, O'er the prairies verdant growing
Illinois, Illinois, Comes an echo on the breeze, Rustling through the leafy trees, And its mellow tones are these:
Illinois, Illinois.
" Not without thy wondrous story,
Illinois, Illinois, Can be writ the nation's glory,
Illinois, Illinois, On the record of thy years Dwight L. Moody's name appears, Jacobs', Reynolds', and our tears,
Illinois, Illinois."
Passing the reviewing stand, the procession moved directly to the con- vention hall, filling it to its utmost capacity, with a cheering, enthu- siastic, mighty host of men.
Under the direction of President Meyer, the eighty or more standard bearers, each carrying a flag or banner, formed in line down the outer aisle of the hall, the American and Canadian flags in the lead. By uplifting his right hand, which held the American and conquest flags, he would halt the marching as he desired. By the sharp military command, " March !" given in true English style, he would start them. Thus the banners were carried around and around the hall, while thousands cheered again and again.
Finally, at the command of President Meyer, flags and banners were stacked at the platform and the parade was over. No, it was not over, but just begun. Thousands had been given a new conception of the Sunday-school's place and power in national life. A new courage had been imparted to those participating. Eternity alone will reveal the amount of good accomplished by this testimony of devotion to God's Word and determination to fulfill the Master's great commission.
[It is a significant fact in connection with this demonstration that the United States House of Representatives (Congress) adopted a reso- lution, presented by Congressman C. W. Hamlin, of Missouri, a Bible class teacher, to adjourn at 4 p.m., Friday, May 20, on account of the Bible class parade. A portrait and sketch of Congressman Hamlin, and a group portrait of six Missouri Congressmen who participated in the parade, will be found in the section devoted to illustrations. • — Editor.]
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND MISSIONARY EXPOSITION
Director, Mr. R. E. Diffendorfer Consulting Director, Rev. C. R. Blackall, D.D.
The first general exposition of Sunday-school material on any other than the commercial basis was held in Pittsburg, Penn., in connection with the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Sabbath-School Association in 1904. It was complete in detail, and included a fine-art department of oil paintings and similar material, loaned for the occasion.
The second and yet more extensive exposition was held in Toronto, Canada, in connection with the Eleventh International Association meeting, held in 1905. The art feature was more limited than at the Pitts- burg Exposition, but an historical display was made by the American Sunday-School Union and others, that won universal praise.
The third general Sunday-school exposition was held in connection with the World's Fifth Convention in Rome, Italy, May, 1907. It was the most extensive in character, and differed materially from either of the others above named. It consisted of over seven thousand separate pieces, illustrating every phase of Sunday-school organization and work. These were for the most part mounted on about four hundred large cards, and classified by departments, states, provinces, and individual schools, but not by countries. The unique feature of this exposition was that the entire collection was unreservedly distributed to individuals and Sunday-school organizations, throughout the world, the freight to dis- tant points being prepaid from funds provided in advance by " patrons " in America and England.
All of these expositions were regarded as eminently successful and promotive of great advance in Sunday-school organization and manage- ment.
At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the World's Sunday- School Association, held in Washington, December, 1910, the Committee through its chairman, Dr. George W. Bailey, made an official request of the Young People's Missionary Movement for the appointment of R. E. Diffendorfer, their Sunday-school secretary, as the director of the Washington exposition. They also requested C. R. Blackall, D.D., to serve as the consulting director, thus giving to the exposition the experi- ence and advice of the one who has directed the former expositions of the associations. At the same meeting an Exposition Committee was formed, by which the policies and plans of the exposition were determined.
The purpose of creating and maintaining the Sunday-school and mission- ary exposition, in connection with the Sixth World's Sunday-School
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Convention, was " to give a Sunday-school vision to the missionary world and a missionary vision to the Sunday-school world." By an adequate display of the organization, equipment, work, and results of the Sunday- school throughout the world, it was believed two things would be shown: The comparative strength of the Sunday-school in the home church, and the need, paucity of equipment and workers, and the possibilities of the Sunday-school in mission fields.
The exposition was held in the National Rifles' Armory, Washington. Both floors of the armory were used. It was open to the public each week day from Wednesday, May 18, until Wednesday, May 25. Except on the opening and closing days the hours were 9.00 a.m. to 8.00 P.M. On Saturday it closed at 10.00 p.m. The exposition was not ojDen on Sunday. The armory had two floors which determined the two general divisions of the exposition. On the first floor were found the exhibits from the United States and Canada. The second floor contained the exhibits from the foreign countries.
The great mass of material on the first floor was made possible through the cooperation of the general publishing houses, the denominational publishing houses, the music publishers, the various Sunday-school associations, denominational and interdenominational, and a number of specially selected local schools. The material contributed by the publishers and others was classified, mounted, and displayed in the following divisions: International Sunday-School Association, State and Provincial Associations, County and Township Associations, Denominational Associations and Boards, Systems of Graded Lessons, Uniform Lessons, the various depart- ments of the local school, the Superintendent, the Secretary, the Treasurer, the Librarian, the Temperance and Missionary Committee, Music Supplies and Maps and Charts.
The exhibits of Sunday-school work from the following countries were classified and exhibited on the second floor:
Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Finland, Russia, Turkey, Africa (in its various divisions), Persia, India (including Farther India), Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Japan, Philippine Islands, South America (in its various divisions), Mexico, West Indies.
Through the courtesy of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Method- ist Episcopal Church, their extensive exhibit of curios, banners, idols, etc., from foreign countries were secured and placed in the different country booths on the second floor.
The organization of the exposition was as follows:
Director, Ralph E. Diflendorfer; assistant director, Miss Bessie H. Brooks; consulting director, C. R. Blackall, D.D.
550 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
The exposition committee was composed of tiie following representatives: World's Sunday-School Association, Mr. Frank L. Brown; Sunday- School Union (London), Mr. Arthur Black; Washington Local Committee, Rev. Charles E. Guthrie; Young People's Missionary Movement, Mr. George F. Sutherland; Editorial Association, Mr. Allan Sutherland; Pub- lishers' Association, Mr. Philip E. Howard.
The officials in charge of the subcommittees and work were: Con- struction, Miss Bessie H. Brooks; Stewards, Rev. Chas. E. Guthrie, Miss Anna H. Tilton; Decorations, Mr. Bruce Cleveland; First Floor, Mr. Morris W. Ehnes, general manager; Second Floor, Mr. George F. Sutherland, general manager; Around-the- World Moving Pictures, Mr. Elwood G. Tewskbury, Mr. J. Edward Fowler; Cashier, Mrs. R. E. Diflfen- dorfer; Secretary, Miss Charlotte E. Schoening; Auditors, Dr. George W. Bailey, Mr. Fred A. Wells, Mr. Harry Wade Hicks.
In order to give the largest possible effectiveness to the display it was found necessary to secure the cooperation of a large number of persons who were either already fitted or who would be willing to be trained for the purpose of taking charge of the different booths and of explaining the exhibits.
These stewards were secured from two different sources. An appeal was first made to the Sunday-schools of Washington and vicinity for the appointment of one of its teachers or officers as a steward in the exposition, and also an alternate steward. The schools responded by sending to the first meeting of the stewards the Sunday-school workers of the city. An appeal was also made to some of the delegates to the convention from the United States and Canada. These persons were asked to give a few hours of service in the exposition during their stay in Washington. In many instances, sacrifices were made in order to give the exposition the desired attention. An endeavor was made to provide attendants for all the various sections of the exposition during the entire time that it was open to the public.
It is difficult to estimate the value of such an exposition. The hundreds who studied it with note-book and pencil, and the thousands who were impressed with its magnitude, can better testify to this. The delegates from America and Europe were astonished, not so much by what had been accomplished for the training of the young in foreign mission fields, but by the relation of the vast possibilities of such training and the need of better equipment. The foreign delegates received an inspiration from the develop- ment of the Sunday-school in this land that will help them to the solution of their difficult problems. The whole exposition was a study in progress. There has been progress, but the end is not yet.
THE INSPIRATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL TOUR
Mr. Marion Lawrance
When it was ascertained that Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, president of the World's Sunday-School Association, and Bishop J. C. Hartzell, of Africa, first vice-president, were to spend some time in this country prior to the World's Convention, it was decided to inaugurate a tour for the purpose of visiting a number of our principal cities.
The tour was designed to be inspirational and educational, with a view to creating interest not only in the Washington convention to follow, but in the organized Sunday-school work generally.
The following persons constituted the Tour Party, all of whom, except Bishop Hartzell, were with the party from the beginning to the end of the tour. Rev. and Mrs. F. B. Meyer, London; Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Africa; Prof. E. O. Excell, Chicago; Alvin W. Roper, pianist; Marion Lawrance, Chicago; Bert Cashman, secretary to Mr. Lawrance. Bishop Hartzell was present a part of the time, as was also Mr. W. C. Pearce and Mr. Wm. A. Brown. The following members of our International Executive Committee attended one or more of the meetings: Messrs. W. N. Hartshorn, E. K. Warren, F. A. Wells, Hon. John Stites, Dr. H. M. Hamlll, Dr. Geo. W. Bailey, H. J. Heinz, Frank L. Brown, W. C. Hall, Geo. G. Wallace, A. B. McCrillis, E. H. Nichols, and others. The tour party traveled about eight thousand miles.
The tour opened March 15, 1910, and closed May 17, 19 10. The follow- ing places were visited: New Orleans; Dallas; Mobile; Memphis; Louis- ville; St. Louis; Kansas City, Kan.; Omaha; Minneapolis; Detroit; Chicago; Toledo; Cleveland; Indianapolis; Pittsburg; Altoona; New- ark; Brooklyn; Boston; Providence; Philadelphia.
The meetings in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Kansas, Minnesota, and Indiana were state conventions; the one in Chicago was a county con- vention.
At every place visited, the attendance was very large. The conventions were said to be the largest ever held in the states. There were 215 different sessions held, with an average attendance of between 800 and 1,000 at each session, counting morning, afternoon, and night meetings. In the matter of attendance, the tour surpassed any previous Sunday-school tour of which we have any knowledge. This is largely because of the wide-
551
552 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
spread knowledge of, and interest in, Dr. F. B. Meyer, through his many books. At nearly every point visited, Dr. Meyer met the ministers by themselves, and these meetings were among the best of the series, some- times numbering several hundred ministers, and one meeting reached nearly seven hundred. Many of the ministers came long distances to attend the meetings. There were also quite a number of meetings for men only, and these were largely attended and full of interest.
Nineteen banquets were held, in as many different localities, and quite a number of parades, the smallest of which numbered 1,200 men, and the largest, over 7,000 Sunday-school members, including men, women, and children. Everywhere the music, led by Prof. E. O. Excell, with his " wiz- ard at the piano," Mr. Roper, was received with enthusiasm and delight. Eighteen hundred copies of the Louisville and Rome convention reports were sold during the tour. The entire expenses of the tour aggregated about $3,000, which was provided for by the various localities visited, so that the tour was made without expense to the World's Association.
At Louisville, an incident occurred which was repeated at Indianapolis, and which had never happened before. We had upon the platform, side by side, the presidents of the World's Association, of the International Association, of the State Association, and of the County Association in which we were located. These were introduced to the audience in order, and each was asked to state in one minute why he thought this particular field was the most important of all. The county president said his field was the most important because he dealt with the twigs of the tree which bore the fruit. The state president said his was the most important be- cause he represented the great branches of the tree which bore the twigs. The international president said he had the best of it, for he represented the trunk of the tree and the roots that gave life to all of the rest, and Dr. Meyer, as world's president, said his was the most important because he furnished the soil in which the tree grew. Very much the same outline was followed in the Indianapolis meeting. As each speaker concluded, the audience, with keen anticipation, was set to wondering how the next speaker could surpass him in interest, but each speaker " measured up " and the interest grew until, when Dr. Meyer's statement was made, the audience burst into hearty applause.
The largest meeting of the series was in Brooklyn, in the Armory, when 7,500 people were present. There was a trained choir of 2,000 voices, and an orchestra of 100 pieces. The singing was magnificent, and the enthusiasm well sustained. At the Philadelphia meeting, which was presided over by Hon. John Wanamaker, our British delegates were with us. A large chorus choir of 400 voices was arranged in such a way on the platform of the Academy of Music that the men formed a cross in black,
The World's Tour 553
surrounded by the ladies who were dressed in white. One of the British representatives, Rev. Carey Bonner, appropriately called attention to the fact that we were indeed brought to the foot of the cross in that great meeting, and so we were.
The spirit of consecration and earnestness was manifest everywhere. In one of the meetings, a young lady who had been presented with a thou- sand-dollar gift, as a graduation present, with which to go abroad, gave the entire sum for the organized Sunday-school work of Texas, forfeiting her trip in order to do it. At every point visited, the meetings struck a high key in their spiritual tone and power, and many a service closed with tender hearts and wet eyes, because of the vision of service and consistent living that had been held up before them.
It would be impossible to measure the value of this tour from any stand- point, whether that of the organized Sunday-school work purely, or the quickening of church life, or the deepening the purpose of Sunday-school teachers, reconsecration of pastors to more spiritual preaching, or a gen- eral reconsecration to better living. There is but one way to account for the great numbers who attended the meetings, and the unabated interest in the meetings from start to finish, and that is that the blessing of the Heavenly Father was upon it all.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT
MONEY SUBSCRIBED FOR THE WORK
Sixty-Eight Thousand Dollars subscribed at Washington, for the Triennium 1910-1913
The following pledges were made at the World's Sixth Suiiday-School Convention for the work during the triennium 1910-1913. The sums named are the totals for three years.
It was announced during the convention (see pages 46-51), that practi- cally $75,000 had been raised for the three years, 1910-1913, but when the pledge cards were received at the office of the treasurer, Mr. F. A. Wells, of Chicago, and considered separately, it was found that the amount was $68,169.
The discrepancy in these amounts is due to the number of changes made on account of misunderstanding, and other reasons. The treasurer said (August 4, 1910): " In all probability the list is not yet correct, but is as nearly so as we can make it now."
The amounts pledged are as follows:
ALABAMA
Alabama Association Iiso.oo
Armstead Brown iS-oo
W. E. Barnes 30.00
M . Lee Bonner 30.00
Jno. W. Batson 3-oo
Geo. W. Beach i5-oo
W. G. Bevill 15.00
Colored Baptist Sunday-School Convention 15.00
Kirby Cartwright 30.00
Jerome T. Fuller 15.00
Wm. A. Davis 30.00
Mrs. B. L Dahlberg, for Philathea Class, Montgomery 3.00
Eleventh Ave. M. E. Church 15.00
First Baptist Sunday-School, Mobile 30.00
Mrs. L. O. C. Kelly 3.00
O. B. Newton 3.00
Primary Dept. Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Huntsville 15.00
Primary Dept. Southside Baptist Sunday-School, Birmingham 10.00
W. E. Pettus iS.oo
Mrs. S. H. Boathe 3-00
J. L. Rhoades i7S.oo
Sumter County by Wade H . Coleman iS-oo
W. E. Tinker 300
$638.00 ALBERTA
Alberta Association Iioo.oo
H. F. Kenny 30.00
1 1 30. 00
554
Financial Statement 555
ARKANSAS
Minnie Allen $15.00
Bono Sunday-School, Presbyterian Church 15.00
Ben Cox 30.00
J. W. Crawford 30.00
G. Carey 9.00
H. A. Dowling 105.00
A. J. Fawcett 6.00
First Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Pine Bluff 75.00
Jas. W. Eichelberger, Jr 3,00
W. S. Ellis 15.00
Mrs. W. B. Fergusson 15.00
C. O. Huber 78.00
Mrs. T. B. Johnson 30.00
J. F. Lawson 30.00
W. S. McClamroch 30.00
J. A. Presson and wife 30.00
A. Trieschmann 75.00
Mrs. A. S. Tugg 15.00
W. D. Young 90.00
$696.00 BRITISH COLUMBIA
J. Laing Stocks $300.00
Mrs. Geo. McCandless 30.00
Geo. McCandless 7S.oo
$405.00 CALIFORNIA. NORTH
H. H. Bell $30.00
Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Bawden 30.00
C. M. Campbell 100.00
Alice C. Cornwall 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Fisher 45.00
J. W. George 3.00
Mrs. R. G. Hart 37.50
Ernest W. Mottram 15.00
J. B. Orr 30.00
Howard H. Stocking 15.00
$320.50 CALIFORNIA, SOUTH
C. H. Ainley $100.00
Miss Meme Brockway 3.00
Myrtle Hedgpeth 15.00
Chrissy R. Haldaman 15.00
N. F. W. Pond 30.00
C. C. Kesinger in memory of Mrs. Kesinger 300.00
A. Underwood 15.00
Harry D. Rutan 30.00
S. J. Shaw 15.00
$523.00 COLORADO
L. A. Cross $6.00
First Baptist Sunday-School, Trinidad 6.00
Mrs. Josephine K. Getshell 15.00
W. C. Johnston, Jr 300.00
Helen Hunt Jackson 15.00
W. C. Johnston 1,000.00
Mrs. John Kyle 9.00
Guy W. Wadsworth 30.00
Mrs. J. A. Walker, in memoriam 15.00
W. W. Wolf 103.00
$1,499.00
556 The World's Sixth Sunday-School ConvenUon
CONNECTICUT
J. H. Bartholomew $15.00
Mrs. Lucy Stock Chapin 60.00
James W. Eadie iS.oo
P. Engberg 1.00
P. Engberg iS-oo
W. F. Rowlands iS-oo
Wilhelmina Stooker 3.00
Adolf Sherman 30.00
Elliott F. Talmadge 9.00
I163.00 DELAWARE
Mrs. Lila W. Aron $30.00
Geo. J. Chandler 30.00
Ignatius T. Cooper 30.00
Mrs. Louis I. Denton 15.00
Mrs. Ella C. Emery jiOO
H. B. Hitch 6.00
Walter O. Hofifecker IS-OO
John P. Kelley 10.00
Mr. James P. Pern 3.00
Lewis G. £pence 9.0O
Aubrey Vandever 15.00
B. F. B. Woodall iS-oo
Maggie S. Wilson 15.00
$196.00 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Mrs. T. B. Adams $3.00
Lucius D. Alden 15.00
I, Brabham 15.00
August Bodemann 30.00
James D. Bush 15.00
E. R. Beauchamp i.oo
Class IS, Calvary Baptist Sunday-School 30.00
F. D. Dudley loo.oo
Mrs. B. M. Clinedinst 15.00
Kate Montgomery Dabney 150.00
F. P. Dudley 6.00
F. J. Day 3-00
Chas. S. Davis 3.00
F. J. Day 30.00
Miss Florence P. Dickman 7S.oo
E. B. Grandin 300.00
Otto P. F. Hauschild 30.00
C. H. HaU 15.00
Miss Emily S. Hinton 30.00
Rev. and Mrs. W. D, Keller 6.00
F. M. Koons 3-00
John Scott Johnson 60.00
Mrs. Robert Jenkins 30.00
Mrs. deB. Randolph Keim 5-00
Lulu M. Nichol 6.00
Mrs. W. A. Olmsted 25.00
E. F. Pierce 15.00
Miss C. Robertson 30.00
C. L. Roach 3.00
Mrs. Jennie W. Robinson for W. C. T. U 7S.OO
C. W. Ricketts 15.00
Mrs. S. B. D. Rollins 6.00
Mr. A. Rodemann 6.00
Mrs. Emma S. Spelton 3.00
Mrs. G. O. Smith 7S.oo
S. R. Swift 30.00
Rev. James H. Taylor 6.00
Ellen Thompson 30.00
Miss B. E.Taylor 15.00
Financial Statement
557
Miss Nina Urner liS.oo
Mr. D. R. Whitcomb iS.oo
I. G. Workman 30.00
Isabelle Withers 6.00
Kate L. White 15.00
|i,39i.oo FLORIDA
T. Bernard Bishop $6.00
Carson family 15.00
Rev. W. H. Dodge 15.00
Miss Mary Freeman 3,00
Mrs. W. C. B. Rawson 600.00
Mrs. R. R. Ray 6.00
Tampa, Florida 5.00
Tampa, Florida, Party 2.00
$652.00 GEORGIA
Mrs. W, T. Bryan $15.00
Joseph Broughton 30.00
Miss May Clements 9.00
Miss Ella Clements 6.00
A. H. Dalton 15.00
W. P. Homady 6.00
Miss Jessie Hanson 7S.oo
Miss Lucy Irby 3.00
Charles C. Jarrell 3.00
Junior Dept., Ponce de Leon Baptist Sunday-School, Atlanta 30.00
Miss Maude Jones 15.00
Leonard St, Orphanage Sunday-School, Atlanta 30.00
Lucille Lee 30.00
M. P. Little 3.00
Mr. and Mrs. M. Moore 30.00
Henry B. Mays 3.00
John M. Nowell 15.00
James Piatt 30.00
F. P. Raiford 3.00
W. E. Stover 3.00
Nath. Thompson 300.00
Young Men's Baraca Class, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Atlanta 10.00
A. C. Wellborn i.oo
I680.00 IDAHO
Dr. and Mrs. S. R. Rightenom I66.00
ILLINOIS
Robert William Brown $30.00
Wm. A. Brown 30.00
Dora Taggart Brown 30.00
Bethel African Methodist Sunday -School, Quincy 5.00
Mary Foster Bryner 60.00
Mrs. Wm. R. Bond 3.00
Mr. and Mrs. Adrienne Boyd 3.00
Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Cork 93.00
Alf . L. Clark 30.00
Mrs. C. E. Clark 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. Scott R. Coppins 33-00
Edward Chilson 30.00
Anna Chilson 15.00
Ella Chilson 15.00
Nellie M. Curtis 15.00
Central Christian Church 50.00
Mrs. Jessie B. Dodds 7S-00
Robert Dodds 150.00
558 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Mr. And Mrs. Wm. H. Dietz I30.00
J. Shreve Durham 3.00
Wilhelmina K. Diefenthaler 3.00
Francis D. Everett 30.00
E. O. Excell 1,000.00
Louise Fackt 30.00
Amy M. Fackt 30.00
Amy Fackt 3.00
C. A. Frier 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Frisbie 1,100.00
Mrs. J. C. Giles 9.00
C. Humble 30.00
H. P. Hart 30.00
George F. Hubbard 30.00
Mrs. Amanda C. H. Hanback IS-OO
L. B. Hayman, M.D 30.00
H. Ishler iS.oo
Ingleside Avenue Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Chicago 15.00
Illinois by F. A. Wells and E. H. Nichols 100.00
Minnie Ittershager iS-oo
H. W. Jameson 30.00
John N. Jacobsen 15.00
Peter McKissock 15.00
Earl E. Leffler 15.00
I. L. Long 15.00
Marion Lawrance for Lois Lawrance 300.00
Mrs. George M . Ludlow 15.00
The Moody Sunday-School 300.00
George W. Miller 30.00
Esther C. Mohr 30.00
Mrs. Nellie E. May 15.00
Franklin McElfresh 15.00
A. H. Mills 75.00
E. H. Nichols 330.00
T. N. Pitkin 30.00
W. C. Pearce 180.00
Karl D. Pope 3.00
A. B. Puterbaugh 30.00
Otto Reich 15.00
B. J. Stick 15.00
Thomas S. Smith 600.00
Sheridan Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School 30.00
T. B. Stephenson 3.00
T. J. Story 5.00
C. R. Tombaugh 15.00
Woodford Company, Association 30.00
E. Y. WooUey 30.00
R. C. Willis 60.00
Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Wells i ,800.00
W. H. Washburn 15.00
George W. Wright 30.00
H. E. Warren 100.00
R. C. Willis 15.00
Association 300.00
17,746.00 INDIANA
P. J. Alberthus $3.00
Mrs. P. J. Alberthus 3.00
Mrs. E. C. Bebb 105.00
Louise Bebb 30.00
Mrs. Pine Bates 30.00
Mrs. M. J. Baldwin 3.00
Cosmopolitan Adult Bible Class 15.00
Mrs. S. A. Cooper 3.00
E. S. Carter 3.00
C. Huber 15.00
C. C. Hainlen 30.00
J. T. Keesey " 15.00
Financial Statement 559
Mrs. Nannie Hunter Lloyd $3-00
T. J. Mayer 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Meigs 78.00
Mrs. Robert Ridgway 3.00
St. Paul's Lutheran Sunday-School 30.00
$399.00 IOWA
J. A. Bliss I63.00
Mrs. D. W. Bovee 3-oo
C. C. Cady, M.D 30.00
W. J. Crawford 30.00
Mrs. Eva M. Craig iS-oo
L. N. Day 15.00
Ida M . Evans 9.00
Miss Mary E. Ferguson 30.00
B. S. Gilson 253.00
Mabel Gilson 10.00
A. F. N. Hambleton 100.00
Mary F. Kissick 15.00
C. S. McCracken 15.00
C. S. McCracken for Jefferson Company Association 10.00
W. S. Mills 30.00
Rev. J. S. Sopher 30.00
W. T. Smith 30.00
Margaret Sommer 15.00
Carrie Warburton 30.00
$733.00
KANSAS
H. M. Ambrose $300
Frank M. Alexander 15.00
Mrs. E. E. Ames 15.00
Mrs, S. S. Estey 15.00
J. H. Engle 460.00
C. T. Franks 30.00
First Presbyterian Sunday-School, Topeka 75.oo
E. W. Grimes 15.00
W. E. Hazen 15.00
W. T. B. Herriott 18.00
Mr. and Mrs. Don Kinney 178.00
L. H. Smith 15.00
W. D. Stem and wife 30.00
Mrs. P. P. Schower 75.oo
A. R. Wharton 1500
Eva N. Welch 30.00
$1,004.00 KENTUCKY
Kentucky Association $100.00
A. F. Bennett 1500
Rev. W, T. Capers 30.00
M. F. Campbell 3.00
Kentucky by J. Shreve Durham 200.00
Nannie Lee Frayser 75.00
First Presbyterian Church, Harlan 15.00
T. C. Gebauer 9.00
Mrs. Jennie K. Hill 3.00
George A. Joplin 39.00
George A. Joplin for Kentucky 100.00
Amelia S. Minary 30.00
Philathea Class of Christ Evangelist Church 30.00
James F. Price 6.00
Mrs. J. R. Paine 30,00
J. C. Pritchett 3.00
James T. Smith 3.00
Miss Sue B. Scott 150.00
John Stites 100.00
560 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
I. N. Williams I15.00
Mary L. Wilson 3.00
Lida D. Woods 1.00
Edw. F. Wettstein 30.00
I990.00 LOUISIANA
Louisiana Association I300.00
Mr. and Mrs. H, L. Baker 550.00
Mary E. Binder 9.00
Olive Baker 3.00
Mrs. R. Baker 100.00
H. L. Baker 100.00
Rev. Thomas M. Buley 30.00
A. H. Becker 30.00
Robert E. Brumby 30.00
Violette M. Bell 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas V. Ellzey 110.00
Frank H. Field 3.00
Miss Flossie O. Foley 30.00
Marguerite Hugo 15.00
Susie M. Juden 15.00
C. E. Jenkins 7S.oo
Mrs. T. D. Lipscomb 15.00
Eleanor Marshall 9.00
Ada Parker 30.00
Eva Parker 15.00
Rev. A. Imnan Townsley 15.00
F. D. Van Valkenburgh 15.00
>i, 414.00 MANITOBA
Manitoba Association $75.oo
W. B. Anderson 30.00
Mrs. W. H. Cross 30.00
Rev. W. S. A. Crux 9.00
Elsmith Union Sunday-School 30.00
W. H. Irwin 100.00
Jack Irwin 15.00
G. S. Munro 15.00
Thomas J. McGill 30.00
W. H. Thomson 90.00
$424.00 MAINE
C. A. Cleveland $6.00
Mrs. Maurice Dunbar 15.00
Mrs. L. C. Goddard 15.00
Mrs. H. E. Lufkin 3.00
Miss S. L. Moore 9.00
H. Wallace Noyes 30.00
H. W. Norton 3.00
Baptist Sunday-School, Fairfield 30.00
Eugenia Shapleigh 15.00
$126.00 MARYLAND
Janet R. Barrick $3.00
Mrs. W. C. Butte 15.00
Wm. C. Ballard 15.00
Christian Guild Bible Class 15.00
W. J. Cheek 6.00
Charles W. Dorsey 100.00
Wm. W. Daub 3.00
Margaret A. Glover 5.00
Frederick Company Sunday-School Association 30.00
Mrs. J. W. Gaver 9.00
Financial Statement 561
E. C. Hasson Ii.oo
E. C. Hasson lo oo
W. E. Heam 30.00
W. I. T. Hoover 9.00
Emma Hartig 3.00
W. Browne Hammond 15.00
Junior Dept., First Lutheran Church, Baltimore 6.00
B. W. Kindley 30.00
R. Ella Levering 10.50
Sara E. Miller 300.00
Mary E. Matthews 3.00
W. A. Maxwell 3.00
J. W. McCutcheon 15.00
Robert J. Nicholson 15.00
Mrs. L. A. Pullett 3.00
Laura Wade Rice 3.00
Miss Georgie Redway 3.00
Laura Wade Rice 15.00
Miss Margaret Swain, in memory of crippled Korean child 15.00
Miss Margaret Swain 75.00
N. S. Watts 15.00
Miss Emily W. Waterhouse 3.00
I783.50 MASSACHUSETTS
Dr. W. F. Andrews $15.00
Edith Louise Blanchard 15.00
Dr. Royal H. Bussler 3.00
Charles S. Brewer 15.00
Calvary Baptist Sunday-School, Salem 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Cornish 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. Asa Reed Dilts 6.00
Samuel M. Forsyth 30.00
Mrs. Aimie L. Hayward 3.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. N. Hartshorn 400.00
A. C. Stone and Annie P. James loo.oo
Annie P. James 175.00
Miss E. C. Lincoln i.oo
Isabel C. Montgomery 6.00
A. D. Montague , 3.00
Charles E. Peakes i.oo
E. B. Pickering •. 3.00
Doris Palmer 30.00
Miss E. B. Pickering 15.00
Wm. R.Stocking 6.00
A. C. Stone 400.00
Oline C. Smith 15.00
Mrs. Sue Smiley Underbill 45.00
George G. Williams 9.00
EUwood W. Ward 3.00
li, 359.00 MICHIGAN
Michigan Association $100.00
A. R. Arford 30.00
D. B. Allen 30.00
Mrs. J. E. Bolles 15.00
Mrs. William Butler by E. K. Warren 300.00
J. E. Bolles 15.00
Mrs. Emma A. Campbell 30.00
Mrs. A. W. Collins 6.00
F. L. Currey 15.00
Rev. Walter P. Cooley 3.00
S. A. Dean 30.00
Rosa L. Foster 30.00
F. S. Goodrich 230.00
F. S. Goodrich for Michigan 100.00
A. C. Graham 30.00
562
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Mrs. John Hicks I300.00
Byron F. Field i.oo
Hillsdale Free Baptist Sunday'School 30.00
Edward Hutchins 30.00
Miss Ethelyeen Le Clear 30.00
E. K. Mohr 90.00
Miss Mary Moore 30.00
Mrs. Maria Molloy 3.00
T. W. Muilenburg 15.00
J. Arthur Pino 99.00
Ruby Randall i.oo
Ruby M. Randall 6.00
S. C. Smith 30.00
J. N. Thompson 60.00
D. L. Vanderslice 30.00
Frank H. West 30.00
E. K. Warren 6,300.00
Paul C. Warren 100.00
$8,149.00 MINNESOTA
Adult Bible Classes of Minnesota J200.00
Leonora F. Bauer iS-oo
Mrs. O. G. Dale 15.00
W. H. Gold 100.00
Mrs. H. G. Harrison 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Locker 63.00
Mrs. J. H. Palmer 15.00
Mrs. R. H. Passmore 15.00
Fred Allen Weeks 6.00
I45900 MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Association Iioo.oo
J. C. Cavett 100.00
Mrs. S. Fannie Clark 15.00
L. A. Duncan 30.00
First Baptist Sunday-School, Greenwood 30.00
Mrs. Ida Lee Hyatt 3.00
W. Fred Long 15.00
Mrs. A. J. McKinney i.oo
Pilgrims on Ship Island, Camp Grounds, Biloxi 75.oo
Mrs. J. B. Randolph 6.00
Miss Minnie Spight 6.00
W. S. F. Tatum 60.00
Mrs. W. S. F. Tatum 30.00
Young Men's Bible Class, First Methodist Episcopal Church, Corinth 30.00
R. M. Weaver for Mississippi 100.00
$601.00 MISSOURI
Mrs. T. R. Ayers $30.00
C. B. Binnington 15.00
Mrs. George C. Campbell 3.00
Rev. J. M. Daniel 15.00
Paul H. Gibson 15.00
Charles E. Gunn 1500
Hope Congregational Sunday-School 7S.oo
R. W. Hart 15.00
Miss Anna Koeft 30.00
Missouri Sunday-School Association 300.00
Walter C. Nollan 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Ransom 15.00
Scruggs Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church 10.00
R. P. Shepherd 100.00
Thomas Stanion 3.00
Rev. L. Suedmeyer 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. H. M. ThonuiB 303.00
Financial Statement 563
Mi«8 Mary J. Wilson Iijo.oo
H. Wurdack 75.00
Mrs. H. Wurdack 30.00
S. L. Williams 6.00
Sl,2I5.00
MONTANA
Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Alford I60.00
Walter G. Alford 6.00
L. G. Clark 6.00
Eklwin M. Ellis 3.00
D. M. Maclnnes \\\ ijioo
I90.00 NEBRASKA
Margaret Ellen Brown $15 00
S. C. Caldwell 75.00
Paul S. Dietrick and wife 30.00
Mrs. Annis Kinner 100.00
Nebraska Association \ 100.00
James W. Ridgway 15.00
Hulda R. Swanson 30.00
E. J. Wightman 30.00
1395-00 NEW HAMPSHIRE
Women of New Hampshire by Julia A. Towle Iioo.oo
Mr. and Mrs. Howard G. Lane 60.00
W. A. Paige 3.00
Harriet M. Sanders 3.00
Roger E. Thompson 15.00
Julia A. Towle 3.00
I184.00 NEW JERSEY
L. H. Brumbaugh I15.00
Edw, W. Barnes 75.00
E. P. Coard 30.00
Mrs. Emily P. Coard 30.00
Central Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Bridgeton 30.00
Calvary Presbyterian Sunday-School 75.00
Richard H. Davis 15,00
Mrs. William S. Eastlack 6.00
R. M. Early '. 30.00
David Falconer 30.00
First German Presbyterian Sunday-School, Paterson ^0.00
Mrs. Wilfred W. Fey 75.00
Mrs. Goslin 3.00
James L. Griggs 30,00
C. R. Hench 3.00
Mrs. M. E. Hemstreet 3.00
S, C, Hemstreet i<;,oo
Mrs, W. E. Hall 3S.00
Nellie S. Hagen 15.00
Mrs. Louisa L. Hartman 75.00
Independent Methodist Company -lo 00
J. C. Killian 6.00
O. C. Kebels 30.00
Rev. D. H. King 30,00
Charles S. Morris 15.00
E. R. Murhatroyd 6!oo
William C. Mulford 30.00
Mrs. James Mathison 30.00
Ella H. Nolan 15.00
Miss Flora L. Northrup 15.00
William D. Porter 6.00
564 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Jonathan B. Parker I30.00
Mrs. Z. Patterson iS-oo
Samuel D. Price ....... 15.00
Philathea Class, First Baptist Sunday-School, Newark 30.00
Primary Class. First Baptist Sunday-School, Newark
A. R. Russell 3.00
C. Eva Rude 3.oo
Mrs. H. T. Rice 3.00
Rev. H. W. J. Schulz 3.00
Rev. Louis D. Stultz 30.00
Edward S. V. Stultz 30.00
Mrs. H. S. Stratton 3.00
Mrs. DeWitt C. Snyder 3.00
Thomas W. Synnott i.SOO.OO
Rev. J. S. Thomas iS-OO
Mrs. George W. Thomas 15.00
S. D. Turton 30.00
Miss Martha Tarbell 30.00
Miss Theresa H. Wolcott 30.00
Joseph H. Wright 7S.oo
Rev. Henry B. Warner 15.00
$2,706.00 NEW MEXICO
Miss Alice Hyson • I15.00
W. F. Schwartz 30.00
$45.00 NEW YORK
Miss Agnes P. Alder $3.oo
Annie I. Austin 3-oo
Mrs. James Brownlow i .00
Briarcliff Congregational Sunday-School 90.00
Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Brown 30.00
Abbie J. BeU 3-00
M. R. Bice 3.00
Arthur Clifton 100.00
James L. Coulter 0.00
D. E. Conine iS.oo
Chafee Baptist Sunday-School. Chafee 30.00
Lewis E. Carter IS.00
Roswell Davis IS.OO
Mrs. E. L. Decker i.oo
Mrs. Emmy Davis 45.00
Roswell Davis i5-oo
Rev. W. A. Dumont 3.00
Martha Hay Dumont 33.oo
Roswell Davis 30.00
Rev. William A. Dumont 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. John A. Edwards 30.00
Fred L. Edwards 9.00
Miss Lotta Fridholm 6.00
Miss Mary Griswold 6.00
Fred S. Goodman i5-oo
Miss Emma H. Jacobus 3.00
Mrs. and Mr. Frank Hamilton 393-00
Mrs. John N. Hall 30.00
George E. Hogue iS-oo
Mrs. Charles Halter 3-oo
Edwin C. Halter 15.00
S. M. Johnson 3.oo
Rev. S. M. Johnson 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Kebler 12.00
Herman J. Knickel 30.00
Dorothea M. Keller 30.00
C. H. Morgan i.oo
Col. W. A. Mclntire 30.00
Mizpah Chapel Children's Home 6.00
Financial Statement 565
Mrs. Cornelia F. Matthewa |6.oo
J. J. Macintosh 15.00
Rev. and Mrs. C. H. Morgan 15.00
Mrs. S. A. Nielson 7S.0O
Linda E. Osborne 3.00
W. H. Phillips 30.00
Poland W. C. T. U 15,00
Presbyterian Sunday-School, Freeport 45.00
Julia B. Phillips 15.00
Presbyterian Sunday-School, Freeport 15.00
Mrs. George G. Prince 75.00
Miss D. Panaytova 15.00
Mrs. James Renfrew 6.00
Mrs. Esther H. Rogers 30.00
Fleming H. Revell 75.00
Philathea Bible Class, Elmira 15.00
A. J. Rumsey 75.00
Lucie E. Rising 1.50
Edgar S. Ryder 300.00
W. L. Robinson 15.00
Mrs. L Newton Steelman 30.00
D. E. Strotko 15.00
Mrs. A. H. Stetson 6.00
Miss Helen M. Seely 6.00
Second Baptist Bible School 30.00
Miss May Townsend 15.00
Rev. F. E. Van Wie 3.00
Edna Van Vallcenburgh 15.00
Miss Catherine Weicker 15.00
Fremont F. Williams 15.00
Mrs. Frances Howard Wilford 3.00
Mrs. J. Weber 3.00
R. W. WUlard 15.00
Rev. A. J. Waugh 30.00
Lucius Woodruff 30.00
Rev. and Mrs. Jacob Weber 300.00
A Friend 30.00
Bedford Park Presbyterian Sunday-School, New York City 30.00
Bernard W. Healy 15.00
$2,567.50 NEWFOUNDLAND
T. B. Darby $15.00
Ada M. Howard 30.00
Methodist Sunday-School 100.00
$145.00 NEW BRUNSWICK
Carleton County $30.00
M. H. Famham 15.00
R. P. McKim 15.00
C. W. Manzer 15.00
S. J. Parsons 30.00
John F. Whear 30.00
$13500 NORTH CAROLINA
Miss Julia Alexander $30.00
Baptist Tabernacle Sunday-School 30.00
Rev. and Mrs. Lewis Collins 130.00
First Presbyterian Sunday-School, Winston-Salem 30.00
Mrs. John S. Hill 7S.oo
Charles B. King 15.00
J. D. Martin 3.00
North Carolina Association, by J. Van Carter 100.00
Rev. Milton N. Noacker 15.00
Mrs. M. N. Noacker 15.00
Mrs. S. C. Vann 30.00
Miss Eleanor Vann 15.00
566 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
R. J. Vaughn J30.00
Mr. and Mrs. George W. Watts 300.00
George W. Watta 300.00
|i, 1x8.00 NORTH DAKOTA
North Dakota Association Iioo.oo
A. S. Burrows 100.00
A. G. Covell ". 30.00
Class 7, Velva Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School 30.00
Charlotte Covell 30.00
R. B, Griffith 150.00
Mina I. Gjelhaug 30.00
W. J. Lane 30.00
N. M. Muns 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. Walter A. Snow 190.00
C. H. Wunn 3.00
J. W. Widdifield 30.00
J7S3.00 NOVA SCOTIA
Charles N. Butcher JiS-oo
Miss M. Came 30.00
Rev. John Calder 15.00
Forest Glen School 30.00
S. O. Hogg 30.00
Rev. A. J. Macdonald iS-oo
Neil MacLean 6.00
William MacDonald 30.00
Walter Stewart 6.00
I177.00 OHIO
Ohio Association I99.00
Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Barrett 4S-oo
Harry J. Bixler 6.00
F. C. Berger 30.00
Ora M. Blon 3.00
Mrs. F. C. Berger iS-oo
J. A. Boughton iS-oo
Col. and Mrs. Robert Cowden 105.00
Joseph Clark 30.00
Jay M. Coogan S3.oo
Foster Copeland 300.00
G. A. Cassell 30.00
Rev. and Mrs. A. E. Davis 3300
Jacob R. Enfield i5-oo
W. A. Eudaly 30.00
J. L. Free 30.00
Mrs. Emma E. Free 30.00
First Baptist Church Sunday-School 30.00
L. L. Faris 1,000.00
S. P. Fenn 300.00
Mrs. J. J. Fauser 300
W. J. Frank 30.00
S. P. Fenn 30.00
First Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Barberton 75-00
Mrs, G. A. Funkhouser, Sr i5-oo
E. D. Goller 3-00
Rev. C. Golder 15.00
Greene St. Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School iS-oo
George J. Henderson 15.00
S. Q. Helfenstein 15.00
Julia E. Hyer 15.00
Martin A. Jameson 15.00
Mrs. W. H. Johnson 3.00
Armilda Mallow Johnson 7S.oo
King Ave. Methodist Episcopal Church 50.00
E. M. McKemran 30.00
Financial Statement
567
F. M. Lash I30.00
Mrs. Reed Metzler 30.00
Rev. E. G. Miller 3.00
Theo. Merten 3.00
A. McLean 15.00
T. S. Moherma 15.00
Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Painesville 7S.oo
Ethel G. Peterson 6.00
J. M. Shafer 6.00
Timothy Standby 110.00
C. R. Strecker lo.oo
Miss Adelaide F. Stacy 3.00
A. A. Simpson 3.00
J. Daniel Smith 3.00
C. F. Strecker 150.00
A. A. Simpson and wife 30.00
Howard Spangler 3,00
Rachel C. Shiveley 15.00
J. F. Stewart 15.00
E. H. Tussing 9.00
H. A. Truesdale 75.00
Universalist Sunday-School, Columbus 15.00
Rev. D. Carl Yoder 15.00
G. C. Williams 30.00
George Washington 15.00
$3,287.00 OKLAHOMA
E. M. Byerley I15.00
A. E. Bonnell 30.00
T. S. DeArman 15.00
Mrs. F. M. Lamar 9.00
Ivin Richardson 15.00
George Sanders 15.00
I99.00 ONTARIO
Ontario Association Iioo.oo
Adult Bible Class, Tweed 10.00
H. O. Boorse 30.00
Bonar Sabbath-School, Toronto 60.00
Rev. E. H. Bean and Wife 15.00
H. Cooke for Onillia Presbyterian Sunday-School 60.00
R. W. Dillon 30.00
F. L. Farwell 15.00
Arthur J. Gay 30.00
R. J. M. Glass 15.00
E. W. Halpenny 100.00
W. Hamilton 30.00
H. L. Levering 30.00
Ladies Bible Class, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Orangeville 30.00
J. W. Lamson 30.00
Phemia B. Laniont 30.00
W. N. Manning 30.00
Mrs. J. A. McDonald 3.00
Rev. B. J. Merrill 30.00
W. S. Mann 10.00
John A. McDonald 6.00
R. E. Osborne 30.00
Mrs. G. C. Robinson 100.00
Mrs. G. C. Robinson 9.00
Ida M. Rose 45.00
Toronto Federated Classes 100.00
Toronto Presbyterian Sunday-School 100.00
Rev. and Mrs. A. I. Terryberry 7S.oo
Rev. and Mrs. D. H. Wing 15.00
Young Men's Adult Bible Class, Aurora 30.00
11,198.00
568 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
OREGON
W. J. Lewellen and Wife liS-oo
Mrs. J. M. McDonald 300
Mrs. John McDonald 3.00
Dr. and Mrs. A. F. Foley 36.00
J. G. Van Orsdel 30.00
$87.00
PENNSYLVANIA
W. F. Arnold I6.00
AII-4-AII Class.l Scranton So.oo
William M.Allen andWife 30.00
Dr. and Mrs. George W. Bailey 465.00
Mrs. SalUe J. Brice 60.00
Charles B. Bates 9.00
Mrs. W. H. Bricker 3.00
Mary G. Beck iS-oo
Mrs. V. L. Basford 3.00
Millie G. Bentley 3.00
Rev. William H. Beachler IS-OO
Charles E. Berkey iS-oo
Harriet F. Blanchard 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Boyd 30.00
Grace and Anna Bailey 30.00
R. Boyd i-oo
A. D. Bloom 6.00
Beaver County Sunday-School Association 30.00
Layyah A. Barakat iS-oo
E. G. Beacham 36.00
Charles W. Brewbaker 6.00
A. B. Camer 3.00
Colored Sunday-School of Chester 15.00
Lillian Carlisle 3.00
Albert B. Camer 6.00
Mrs. C. H. Cool 30.00
Rev. R. L. Clark 3-00
Rev. H. S. Cook 3.00
John H. Cole iS-oo
Miss B. E. ChappeUe iS-oo
E. E. Campbell iS-oo
Cora N. Coates iS.oo
Robert A. Caughey 15.00
Mrs. John A. Crawford 15.00
C. H. Cool 75.00
Cora B. Dickey i.oo
Mrs. George G. Downey 6.00
I. M. Dreisbach for Union County Sunday-School Association 30.00
John A. Dehofif 3.oo
Robert Dewar 3.00
J. W. Dawson 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Dickie 60.00
Mrs. Joshua Davis 45-00
W. H. Davis 60.00
Elenora Demmler 30.00
John M. Doran 3.oo
J. C. Deming iS-oo
Mrs. B. F. Richardson 7S-oo
Mrs. Alfred F. Edgell iS-oo
Leila M. Eastman 6.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Easton 4SS-oo
Leila M. Eastman 3-00
Martha Eldridge 3.00
David B. Floyd 3.00
Friendship Class, Lynchburgh So.oo
Fletcher Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Philadelphia 30.00
Rev. E. Morris Fergusson 60.00
Mrs. Ella S. Fricke 30.00
First Baptist Sunday-School, Waynesburg 30.00
Financial Statement 569
First Presbyterian Sunday-School, Franklin J30.00
First Presbyterian Sunday-School, Tamaqua 30.00
Rev. James M. Fergusson 9.00
G. H. Faust 1.50
W. H. Fouke 15.00
John Greenwell 7S.oo
Samuel Young 200.00
W. H. Carman 3.00
A. D. Gramley 3.00
Sarah and Nettie Guthrie 15.00
Mrs. H. S. Gilman 15.00
Sarah N. Guthrie (for mother) 15.00
Rev. W. S. Gerhard and Elder E. P. Pender 15.00
Miss George 15.00
I. F. Gifford 15.00
Albert J. Greene 15.00
Col. Richard E. Holz 30.00
Calvin N. Hayes 30.00
Theresa G. Haas 15.00
Mrs. John M. Heagy 30.00
A. B. Harnish 5.00
C. R. Hanna 6.00
Mrs. F. G. Harrison 3.00
John W. Hoffman 30.00
Rev. I. P. Hawkins 30.00
0. C. Heffner 15.00
Philip E. Howard 75.00
Mrs. G. S. Henry i .00
John W. Hanna 15.00
1. Lincoln Jones 45.00
Mrs. T. C. Jones 30.00
Mallie F. Jack 30.00
Miss Frances Kinsler 3.00
Mr. and Mrs. James W. Kinnear 500.00
Mary V. Kemp 15.00
E. M. Knovf 6.00
Frank X. Kreitler 30.00
Horace Kolb 15.00
Mary V. Kemp 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Keller 3.00
Pennsylvania Association 100.00
Joseph F. Land. M. D IS.00
Mary Swank 3.00
T. H. Lippiatt 15.00
Rev. Edw. W. Leech i.oo
Maude F. Swank 3.00
Elizabeth Lyle 30.00
T. H. Lippiatt 30.00
Helen Gil Lovett 30.00
Loyalville Sunday-School, Alderson 30.00
Sarah Lyle 30.00
Lutheran Class, Oberlin 3.00
Henry S. Leitzel 3.00
W. G. Landes 15.00
William D. Laumaster 15.00
G. E. Letchworth 15.00
Charles L. Houston 3,000.00
Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Pottsville 30.00
R. H. Martin 3.00
George McKay 30.00
McClure Avenue Presbyterian Sunday-School 30.00
D. H. Miller 30.00
H. S. Nicholson 15.00
E. E. McDonald 15.00
Etta McClung 15.00
Elizabeth Myer 15.00
Levi Martin 15.00
Miss Mary B. McMullin 30.00
William Nease 45.00
L. W. NuttaU 30.00
570 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Mrs. William Nease
Lillie A. Odgers
Charles A. Oliver
William G. Owens
Mrs. H. W. Palmer
Pennsylvania
John L. Pandel
Edwin J. Rooksby
George H. Rupp
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Ridgway
Mrs. Richardson
Frank H. Richard
Rev. John N. Reseigh
Mrs. J. Everton Ramsey
W. H. Robinson
Samuel Irwin Reber
W. H. Robinson
Martha E. Robison
Men's Bible Class, Centenary United Brethren, Stutters.
J. M. Schrope
Mabel Supplee
Blanche T. Search
W. B. Smiley
Mrs. J .C. Shalton
Sarah C. Stewart
William H. Shaw
F. E. Striewig
Mary L. Sargent
St. John's Reformed Sunday-School, Belief onte
Charles F. Schumacher
Mrs. H. G. Supplee
Margaret M. Sloane
Stephen Soars
Amanda J. Smith
Snyder County Sunday-School Association
Lila Stahl
Mrs. Sarah D. Siddell
T. B. Shaffer
W. L. Leith
A. F. Toy
Naylor Bible Class, Wesleyville
Mrs. Charlotte Tweedale
Miss Adda May Trout
H. J. Heinz
R. L. Mersenhelder
Bertha Tate
Annie B . Thompson
Mrs. S. G. Thomas
Albert E. Townsend
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lloyd Thurgood
Union City Baptist Sunday-School
Susan M. Vail
Samuel S. Watts
Pennsylvania Association
William L. Woodcock
L. F. Wentz
Westminister Sunday-School
A. W. Martin
O. M. WUlard
M. J. Weaver
Miss Vera M. Wagner
O. H. WiUard
E. D. Warner
Mrs. M . E. Wiggins
C. A. West
J. C. Weaver
Ellis R. Whitaker
Maurice S. White
Theo. B. Williams
Mina E. Waldron
I30.00
3.00
30.00
6.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
6.00
3SO.OO
100.00
30.00
3.00
15.00
10.00
3.00
3.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
IS-OO
30.00
60.00
1. 00
9.00
6.00
6.00
6.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
IS-OO
3.00
3.00
3.00
IS-OO
IS-OO
9.00 9.00 3,000.00 30.00 9.00 3.00 3.00
IS-OO
10.00
30.00
30.00
3.00
100.00
1. 00
9.00
6.00
3.00
100.00
3.00
3.00
30.00
30.00
30.00
3.00
IS-OO
IS-OO
15-00
15-00
IS-OO
Financial Statement 571
Jolin Walton tlS-oo
George C. Zeigler ^ i.oo
Zion Reformed Sunday-School, York 30.00
112,132.50
QUEBEC
Adult Bible Class, Douglas Methodist Church, Montreal I30.00
Dr. E. Albert Cook 10.00
A. H. Kearney 30.00
J. W. Knox 30.00
Seth P. Leet iS.oo
Mrs. L. L. Marceau 3.00
Miss Eleanor M. G. Stuart 6.00
$124.00
RHODE ISLAND
Isaac B. Burgess Iq-oo
Rev. George F. Beecher 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Church 30.00
Herbert M. Clarke 30.00
Chrissie Davis 30.00
Rev. Robert D. Frost i.oo
Myron S. Genter iS.oo
A. B. McCrillis 300.00
Carrie Hancock 15.00
Lillias Harley 1S.00
Miss N. D. Kenyon 15.00
M. T. Kenyon iS-oo
The Ladies of the First Baptist Church, Woonsocket 100.00
G. W. Lothrop 30.00
Arthur M. McCrillis 300.00
CAnnieMacKay 15.00
Ellsworth Sisson 150.00
Rev. Whitman L. Wood 15.00
T. W. Waterman 30.00
Rev. L. S. Woodworth 6.00
11,151.00
SOUTH CAROLINA
Mrs. R. B. Bell I6.00
W. W. Boyce 6.00
Association 100.00
Horace L. Bomor 30.00
Miss Mary E. Craig 15.00
R. T. Caston 15.00
Mrs. M. M. Corbett 15.00
G. T. Dillard 2.00
W. J. Duncan 15.00
Mrs. C. E. Exum 15.00
Miss Ida M. Fishbume 15.00
Rev. J. B. Green 15.00
W. S. Gray 15.00
D. D. Jones 15.00
Joseph H . Holloway 3.00
Rev. Walter I. Herbert 30.00
Mrs. E. W. Hall 30.00
Mrs. R. L. Kirkwood 30.00
R. L. Keaton 6.00
Mrs. L. A. J. Moorer i.oo
Rev. and Mrs. W. S. Myers 30.00
R. McHardy Mauldin 30.00
R. Cosby Newton 30.00
Miss Imogene Newton 15.00
James E. Pennifox 15.00
Miss M. G. Quattlebaum 6.00
Paul Quattlebaum 30.00
572 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
Colored Association I30.00
P. P. Watson 3.00
J. R. Walker 6.00
1574-00 SASKATCHEWAN
Yorkton County $7S-oo
W. R. Sutherland 30,00
Rev. L. H. Wagner 3.00
I108.00 SOUTH DAKOTA
S. W. Harris I33.00
Baraca Class, Sioux Falls 30.00
Mrs. T. L. Torgeson 30.00
I93.00
TENNESSEE
W. S. Buchanan I6.00
H. D. Huffaker 30.00
H. M, Hamill 405.00
Katherine Hostetler 15.00
Mrs. T. B. King 30.00
W. J. Lyman 15.00
R. W. McGranahan 30.00
Charles B. McClelland 3.00
Alfred D. Mason 10.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Pardue 15.00
Mrs. William Thome 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. D. W. Washington 150.00
I724.00 TEXAS
Texas Association {450.00
George S. Adams 30.00
P. E. Burroughs lo.oo
O. J. Carter 15.00
W. L. Downing 3.00
W. E. Foster 3.00
Mrs. W. C. HaU 100.00
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lile 30.00
Miss Dorothy Lange 15.00
C. A. Ridley 3.00
Richland United Presbyterian Sunday-School, Eureka 30.00
Association 100.00
E. L. White 30.00
H. E, White 30.00
R. H. Wester 30.00
William A. Wilson 1,000.00
W. N. Wiggins 30.00
William A. Wilson in honor of W. N. Wiggins 1,000.00
F. R. Young 15.00
$2,924.00 VERMONT
J. W. Banering $3.00
H. A. Durfee 30.00
D. M. Camp 30.00
Louis Dexter i.oo
Fraser Metzger 6.00
H. P. Munson 15.00
Mrs. M. P. Perley 75.00
J. S. Pomeroy 3.00
H. A. Slayton 30.00
Union Church Sunday-School, Proctor 30.00
Mrs. H. O. Ward 5.00
I228.00
Financial Statement 573
VIRGINIA
Miss Mae Albright I18.00
N. M. Albright 30.00
Ollie Anderson 1 c 00
W. G. Burch S'oo
Mrs. T. A. Cook 6 00
Rev. W. C. Campbell 1,00
F. E. Clark ^joo
Court St. Methodist Sunday-School, Lynchburg 7S-oo
J. E. Cooper 30.00
Miss Bessie Catlire 15.00
Mrs. John M. Carroll isioo
L. C. Crosby isioo
F. L. Dunn i.co
N. S. Donnan 30.00
Miss Ella Davis is'oo
J. R. Edwards i[oo
John S. Floy 3I00
Freemason St. Baptist Church Baraca Class, Norfolk 7? 00
Rev. W. H. Groves 300
J. G. Holladay ^q'.oo
L. J. Hyship 15.00
John L. Hagan 15.00
G. S. Hanleiten 7S.oo
Rev. and Mrs. E. Pendleton Jones g'oo
Mr. and Mrs. N. Lee Knowles ' . , 3o!oo
T. H. Lacy lO.'eo
Rev. W. W. Lear 6.00
Rev. Charles Lynch 3 00
Rev. Marian F. Lydes is!oo
Mrs. Alonzo Moody [ 4*00
Mrs. Alice McCollin 6*00
B. F. Moomaw 3oioo
A. R. Morris 7I50
Mrs. Stanley W. Martin ^00
T. M. MilhoUand 15.00
Sarah A. McGeorge 12 so
Mrs. Sarah E. Neville 3oioo
Miss Pearle Price iS.oo
Mrs. P. L. Palmore 5.00
Mrs. John Inge Pritchett isoo
WUliam H. Pursell y^o
Emily C. Round 3.00
Arthur Rogers 2.50
Rev. E. L. Ritchie :» 00
Rev. W. H. Riddick 15.00
Martha P. Spencer 30.00
N. Courtice Scott,
3.00
P. S. Thomas 6.00
Mrs. A. W. Terrell 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Winner 10 so
O. P. Wheot 30.00
Rev. James Arthur Winn 30.00
Rev. George Emmett Wood 15.00
Miss Lulu S. Wallace 3*00
O. P. Wheot 30.00
William J. Yeaman 30.00
^969.50
EAST WASHINGTON
East Washington Association $100 00
C. J. Boppell 45.00
Mrs. H. S. Quin 3 00
1148-00
574 ^^^ World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
WEST WASHINGTON
Mrs. E. F. Bliss I3.00
Mrs. M. W. Miller 15.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Merritt 90.00
I108.00 WEST VIRGINIA
Mrs. A. T. Arnold liS.oo
C. A. Buchanan 30.00
J. C. Bardall 30.00
Harper Barney 3.00
Mrs. John Cowper Granbery 3.00
Thomas J. Davis 30.00
Pearl Dorsey iS.oo
James W. Engle 6.00
Ulysses S. Fleming 3.00
Martha V. Graham 10.00
Mrs. A. R. Heltzel 3.00
Miss C. E. Heminger 10.00
Mr. and Mrs. Wm. E. Hudson 22.50
Toney Harrison 15.00
A. R. Heltzel 15.00
Thomas C. Miller 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Mcintosh 30.00
Mrs. Amanda Shafer 9-oo
Rev. J. J. Turner 30.00
J. S, Thomburg 3.00
F. M. Thomburg i5-oo
Rev. Henry Wise 15.00
Ema Wells 300
I34S.00 WISCONSIN
Mr. and Mrs. Pear Benson I30.00
J. Harry Bullock 6.00
Mrs. D. B. Bennett 15.00
J. E. Cristy 30.00
William G. Church 3.00
Alfred Heiden 6.00
O. O. Hosmer 15.00
Alice L. Kurte 3.00
Miss K. Maynard 3.00
Miss Nellie Maxwell 30.00
F. R. Proctor 15.00
Louisa A. Sutherland 30.00
S. F. Shattuck 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Semelroth 4S.00
Mrs. Grace J. Webb 3.00
E. F. Wescott 30.00
Mrs. Jennie Jamieson for W. C. T. U., Neenah 3.00
I297.00 CASH
Cash $19.00
E^ston, Pa i.oo
Flossie Foley i.oo
Mrs. E. C. Cronk i.oo
Mrs. Alys Moody i.oo
$23.00 SCOTLAND
A. Crawford $6.00
Miss Eva Ross 15.00
$21.00
Financial Statement 575
IRELAND
James Dickson f loo.oo
ENGLAND
Carey Bonner fioo.oo
C. G. Fluck 15.00
William Codling 15.00
Charles T. Stokes 15.00
G. W. Russell 15.00
J. L Myatt 15.00
Henry Hurrell 60.00
Walter Gillett 75.00
Mrs. M. B. Miner 7S.oo
Agnes Coxeter 30.00
Carey Bonner 30.00
F, B. Meyer 100.00
Clara R. Britton 15.00
Annie Jamieson 15.00
Miss L. A. Smith 15.00
Miss Esther Shrimpton 15,00
F. B. Meyer 100.00
Frederick N. Major 30.00
J. Harvey 30.00
Miss V. L. Heyworth 15.00
$780.00
GERMANY
Rev. and Mrs. Julius Rohrbach ¥30.00
Rev. and Mrs. T. Holway 30.00
$60.00
SPAIN
Alice H. Bushee f 3.00
BULGARIA
Rev. and Mrs. Theo. T. Holway $30.00
MEXICO
R. A. Carhart $30.00
BRAZIL
Ella Granbery Tucker ^ $3.00
Alvaro Reis 60.00
Miss Mary T. Pescud 30.00
Maria Reis 30.00
Sunday-School People's Central Institute, Rio Janeiro 30.00
H. C. Tucker for Brazil 300.00
$453.00 BUENOS AIRES R. D. Christian $1500
576 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
WEST INDIES
Lawrance Class, Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School, Santiago, Cuba 1 15.00
A. C. Tossa 15.00
J. E. Caldwell 30.00
Mr. and Mrs. Luis Berenguer 15.00
175-00
AFRICA
J. C. HartzeU J300.00
Rev. J. R. Alexander 15.00
la IS -00 ASIA — PALESTINE
Frances M. Parsons I6.00
JAPAN
Susan A. Searle J6.00
Rev. T. M. MacNair 105.00
Mrs. William E. Lampe 30.00
Rev. William Edmund Lamp 30.00
Dr. A. Altmans 30.00
Rev. Harper H. Coates 15.00
I2 16.00 TURKEY
J. P. McNaughton Iio.oo
PERSIA
J. A. Funk $6.00
CHINA
Rev. R. M. Mateer Iio.oo
BURMA
N. Madwe Yaba I6.00
INDIA
J. R. Chitambar I15.00
W. H. Stanes 30.00
I4S.00 NEW ZEALAND
Pitt St. Methodist Sunday-School, Auckland I300.00
SOUTH WALES
J. H. PhiUipB I7S.OO
Total amount pledged 168,169.00
A SURVEY OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROGRESS IN JAPAN, AND
THE URGENCY FOR THE EVANGELIZATION OF
THE EMPIRE
By Bishop Yoitsu Honda, Japan
Note. — The manuscript of this address, by Bishop Honda, was received too late for use in its appropriate place in the body of this book.
The Christian churches of Japan have not overlooked those two most important features of the church work, the evangelization of the masses of the people and the education of those who are already in the church. The Sunday-school is one of the most important agencies of church edu- cation, and this has never been forgotten by your missionaries in Japan, and our native workers. Their mutual cooperation in this particular work during the past forty years has hastened the coming of the kingdom of God in our island empire.
There are thirty-three Protestant denominations at work in Japan, representing several nationalities, and there is none that is without Sunday- school work. The United Methodist Church in Japan has 23,220 scholars and officers, the largest number of any church in Japan. In all denomi- nations there are 104,947 scholars and officers. I am sure Sunday-school work is near the heart of Jesus. Jesus blessed the little children. I have always thought of him as a friend of little children as well as of their teachers.
The Sunday-school has been one of our church institutions since the days of John Wesley. In our Japanese Methodism Sunday-school work is conducted under the jurisdiction of the general Sunday-School Board. The board has the supervision of all the Sunday-schools belonging to the Methodist Church; it seeks to give impulse and direction, in general, to the study of the Bible; to promote the training of teachers and to estab- lish new Sunday-schools wherever possible. All of this work is done according to certain principles which the general Board has adopted. In our Sunday-school work there are several departments such as chil- dren's classes, adults' classes, the home departments, and the cradle roll. The latter was introduced by Mr. Brown in 1904. Dr. and Mrs, H. M. Hamill visited our country in 1908 for special work in connection with the
577
578 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Sunday-schools. They did much to expand and improve the work of the Sunday-schools of all denominations, aided by their long experience and wise judgment.
The Lord has greatly blessed our work and has given us an enlarged vision for the future. We have over ten millions of children in our country ; one out of every hundred is attending Sunday-school somewhere; but ninety-nine are wandering lambs. Who will be the good shepherds of these ninety-nine to gather them into the fold? We need your prayers, your men and women, and your sympathy in the name of our common Master.
I now turn to the discussion of the urgency for the evangelization of Japan.
To describe some important features of Japan, in surveying the country as a mission field, it seems convenient to repeat here two questions fre- quently asked by outsiders.
(i) What are the chief causes of rapid progress of Japan? (2) How could the heathen Japanese be so patriotic and disinterested for the public affairs?
The first question, relating to the rapid progress of Japan, sometimes has a sarcastic sense like this; — the progress of Japan is like a mushroom, it must be superficial, a mere garb of civilization over the body of bar- barism.
I should not blame one with such a notion, because he doesn't know how long Japan was preparing for new civilization, and how much she paid for the progress she achieved. It is a remarkable progress indeed; it needed the great Providential Hand to lead Japan, but it is not alto- gether mystery, so called. If you glance over the history of Japan for the last three centuries it will be very easy for you to see how Japan was pre- pared to adopt the Western civilization, if she wanted to do so. For two centuries, at least, until the first treaty with the United States of America was signed, fifty-six years ago, Japan enjoyed perfect peace without any disturbances, either foreign or internal. She was not sleeping. Her children tried very hard to cultivate themselves in morals, literature, arts, military skill, and other ways. This qualified them to adopt any superior attainments of civilized people, if necessary.
Now, in considering the price which Japan paid for her progress, there are hundreds of topics. Among others, one of the greatest sacrifices was abolishing the feudal system which had existed for over eight centuries. By this, the social condition was entirely changed at once. About three hundred feudal lords gave up to the emperor their territories and vassals with their political prerogatives. Two million Samurai population con- sequently lost their pensions and privileges enjoyed for centuries from their ancestors. The common people, who were not accustomed to bother with
Asia 579
the public affairs, now became obliged to bear their burdens upon their own shoulders. With this reformation, the higher class was dissatisfied and the lower class was disquieted with new burdens, so both were dissatis- fied. Civil wars of not a very extensive character took place twice or thrice before people became patient and generous for the general good of the nation. Money was used very liberally in employing foreign teachers and advisers, and in sending out numerous offcials and students to the occi- dental countries to study different institutions, sciences, arts, and to buy all sorts of arms, vessels, machines, and so forth.
Japanese civilization is not mushroom-like, it is a tree having deep and extended roots. It will last and grow as an oak, if properly cultivated and protected.
The next question, " How could the heathen Japanese, without Christian principles, be so patriotic and disinterested in public affairs? " The ques- tion is right. Without Christian principles, at all, one cannot be so patriotic and disinterested. Japanese people are not Christians in their profession of faith, but they have the principles which correspond to the principles taught by Christ. The goal of Bushido, military ethics, is self-sacrifice for one's superiors and others. Confucianism teaches to " kill oneself for other's good." " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I cited frequently this sacred verse before our soldiers, and they readily grasped the idea. So all our people know and appreciate this sacred principle. However bigoted and prejudiced against Christianity they might be, they would not oppose us when we presented this principle. I should not dare to say that the principle is fully developed and applied in the whole sphere of Japanese morality. Of course, it is partial and has many defects, and this proves that Japan needs Christianity.
Now, glancing over the general evangelistic work in Japan, we find that freedom of religion and worship is guaranteed by the unmistakable terms of the twenty-eighth article of the imperial constitution, and actually observed by the government and the people.
There are in the empire about two hundred thousand professed Chris- tians, including Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Greek Catholics. The Christians are found among the officers of the army and navy, among the members of the parliament, among the professors of universities, judges, lawyers, editors, etc.
Looking upon the bright side, one might think that it would not be ne- necessary to send out missionaries to Japan, but leave the work in the hands of the native churches. But you must not forget to look on the other side, the dark side. The population of Japan is increasing very rapidly. The latest report gives the empire a population of fifty-two
58o The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
millions, and the following is a summary of the statistics of the non- Christian religions:
Shintoistic temples, 117,818
Buddhistic temples, 109. 739
Total, 227,557
Shinto priests, 78,787
Buddhist priests, 120,964
Total, 199.751
These religions are our rivals, if not our enemies. They are not alto- gether ignorant and idle. There are among them many strong men, intellectually and morally. They are working very hard in holding their people. The fact that they sustain and support so many temples and priests shows their strength in this spiritual race.
There is another feature we should not pass over, without paying close attention to it. That is the educational work in Japan. There are sixty-nine universities and colleges. There are 7,133 secondary schools. There are 32,403 common schools. The number of boys and girls studying in those schools is 7,555,085. Among them there are only 202 Christian colleges and schools. So you see the vast number of schools and scholars are under non-Christian influences. It is delightful to see the advance of education in one sense, but it is also dreadful to see so many intelligent young people under the influence of ungodliness.
Sometimes w-e hear that it would be better to use the whole power of missions to evangelize China first, then come to Japan, when the work would be easier by the general influence of the surroundings. This view is ex- treme and such a policy would be a great mistake. No doubt the time has come to push hard in the evangelistic work in China, but Japan cannot wait until the continent of Asia is largely evangelized.
She will without doubt exercise a great influence for good, or for evil unless she is thoroughly evangelized. Even today, through the Chinese students who are in Japan, all sorts of bad isms and evil influences new and old are being introduced into China. Such things are very injurious to Japan, but much more so to China. Indeed, Japan is the turning point of the battle in the Far East. She is Port Arthur to Mukden, or 203 Meter Hill to Port Arthur.
The evangelization of Japan is very urgent. You cannot finish your great work in the East without taking this strategic point. Remember us, and send reinforcements at this right time.
FIVE WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTIONS
First — London, England, July, 1889
The World's First Sunday-School Convention brought together Sunday- school workers from lands near and far. The suggestion had been made in a meeting of the International Sunday-School Executive Com- mittee at Chautauqua, N. Y., in 1 886.1 At the International Sunday- School Convention in Chicago, in 1887, the suggestion that the convention should meet in London, England, was adopted, and, through Mr. Edward Towers, one of the honorary secretaries of the London Sunday-School Union, who was present in the convention, the cooperation of that repre- sentative body of British Sunday-school workers was offered. British and American and continental workers joined heartily in the enterprise. The steamship Bothnia was secured for American delegates by W. N. Hartshorn, and 243 took passage; a party of fifty went from Canada.
The president of the World's First Sunday-School Convention was Mr. F. F. Belsey, J. P., of London, now knighted for his noble work in the Sunday-school cause. Mr. Charles Waters, father of the International Bible Reading Association, who has gone to his reward, was a member of the Executive Committee. The enrollment secretary was the Rev. S. W. Clark, of New Jersey, whose son, Joseph Clark, is secretary of the Ohio Sunday-School Association.
In this first of a notable series of conventions the spirit of world-obli- gation led to the outlining of a program that brought under examination actual Sunday-school conditions in many lands. This was, and has been, a central purpose of these gatherings, — to know the facts in order to know how best to extend and establish effective Sunday-school work in all lands, through existing agencies acting with interdenominational co-workers. The program gave a place to The Work Reported, The Work Examined, The Work Improved, The Work Extended, with a closing Review of the Convention, and an account of Organized Sunday-School Work in Great Britain, on the Continent, in Canada, in the United States, in India, China, and Mexico.
The delegates heard addresses on the International Lesson plan; on published lesson helps; on daily Bible reading, and methods of Bible study.
In the direction of improvements, normal classes were discussed; ex- aminations for teachers and scholars; paid and voluntary Sunday-school
581
582 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
missionaries, and many phases of Sunday-school management, including such topics as recreative evening classes, the Christian Endeavor Society in the Sunday-school; primary and adult classes; pleasant Sunday after- noons, boys' brigade, music and worship, home classes, the teacher and the class.
Only a hint can here be given of the wide-open doors disclosed at this convention to Sunday-school workers with a vision and a will to do. Keen interest in the needs of the world at large was crystallized in a recommen- dation from the Executive Committee, which was adopted by the conven- tion, " That an Organizing Secretary be appointed for Sunday-School Extension and Work in India, and that the payment of this secretary be left with the executive convention committee."
Second — St. Louis, Missouri, September, 1893
Its sessions were held in conjunction with the sessions of the Seventh International Convention. The International is not the World's convention or association. The International includes the countries of the North American continent, with the adjacent islands. The World's Sunday- School Association includes all lands. Among the most notable evidences of progress since the First Convention was the work in India under the direction of Dr. J. L. Phillips. At the request of the London Committee, the American Committee yielded the privilege of sharing in Dr. Phillips' support, which was undertaken by British Sunday-school workers.
The delegates were given close-at-hand views of Continental Sunday- school work by Thomas Edwards; by A. Bjurman, concerning Sweden, and by Prof. J. G. Fetzer, concerning the work in Germany.
Useful literature was on the increase under regular subsidies of the London Sunday-School Union, granted until any magazine gave sign of becoming more or less self-supporting. Mr. Edwards acknowledged appre- ciatively the generous assistance of the Foreign Sunday-School Association of Brooklyn under Mr. Albert Woodruff's direction, and that of the New York State Sunday- School Association, through Dr. W. A. Duncan, in providing illustrated leaflets for scholars to the amount of $200 a year.
Mr. F. F. Belsey stated that the First Convention had led people in England to see, as never before, the value of these large conventions so clearly that they were even then arranging in England for holding trienni- ally an international convention of their own, and for district conventions annually. He accredited the First Convention with the organizing of ladies' committees to assist the London Sunday-School Union, and he also stated that the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor took a distinct step in advance from that gathering.
Story of Five Conventions 583
The convention gave much of its time to the study of conditions in European countries, but not less to an elaborate setting forth of many Sunday-school methods, such as house-to-house visitation, systematic visitation of Sunday-schools, examinations of teachers, normal classes. International Bible Reading Association, primary class work, kindergarten principles, relation of the home to the primary class, Pleasant Sunday Afternoon plan in England, etc.
Third — London, England, July, 1898
Mr. Edward Towers, of London, was president. The British and Foreign Bible Society gave the delegates a reception at the Bible House in the after- noon of July II, and in the evening the Lord Mayor of London gave a reception in the Mansion House to the delegates. On Tuesday morning the Marquis of Northampton, president of the London Sunday- School Union, welcomed the delegates, and there were addresses from Mr. Towers, Rev. John Clifford, M.A., Rev. Dr. C. H. Spaulding, of the United States, the Hon. S. H. Blake, of Canada, and Mr. Stocks, of Australia; Pro- fessor Fetzer, Count Bernstorff, of Germany; Pastor Truve, of Sweden; Bishop Thoburn, of India; and the Rev. W. H. Richards, of Kimberley, South Africa.
The steamship Catalonia, chartered under the direction of Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, of Boston, carried the American delegates on a memorable voyage to Liverpool, during which, when a thousand miles from land, a fire broke out on the ship and raged furiously in the hold until extinguished by the heroic work of the crew.
Mr. J. T. Holmes, the honorary secretary of the Sunday-School Union Continental Mission, reported the forming of a Sunday-school union in Sweden; activity was reported on the part of the Italian Sunday-School Committee in Rome; and an increase in circulation of Sunday-school litera- ture both for teachers and scholars on the continent. Mr. T. C. Ikehara, of Tokyo, international field worker for Japan, addressed the convention and called attention to the fact that this was the first time the work in Japan had had any representative at a world's convention.
Rev. Richard Burges, the successor to Dr. J. L. Phillips, who had died in 1895, prepared a paper on the India Sunday- School Union, founded in Allahabad in 1876, and now covering the whole of India, Ceylon, Burma, and the Straits Settlements. Many of the India schools are outdoor schools, some of which are held as early as 6.30 a.m. The union secures statistics, establishes libraries in connection with the schools, and arranges for the observance of special days.
The convention entered into a discussion, in conferences and otherwise,
584 The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
of the newer and some of the older phases of Sunday-school work. Pri- mary union and summer schools, class or departmental management, teaching questions and answers, blackboard demonstrations, etc., were discussed. Grading, management, the superintendent, the Home Depart- ment, Bible study at home, Bible study in a preparation class, and such topics were also discussed. The plan of the convention was interesting in its scope and thoroughness under these heads: The Work Reported; The Work Examined; The Sunday-School; The Book, the Teacher, the Child, and The Work Extended.
Fourth — Jerusalem, Palestine, April, 1904
The convention tent was pitched just north of Gordon's Calvary; the speakers' platform was backed by a series of flags, extending around the sides of the tent, of some twenty-two leading nations of the world. E. K. Warren, of Three Oaks, Mich., was the president of the convention. The opening words of the convention were spoken by W. N. Hartshorn, chairman of the International Executive Committee, and the convention sermon was preached by the Archdeacon of London, the Venerable Dr. William Macdonald Sinclair. There were many responses, on Sunday evening, from representatives of Christian work throughout the world, including Rev. Richard Burges, of India; Rev. Dr. Marcellus Bowen, of Constantinople; Rev. Chauncey Murch, of Luxor; Rev. J. F. Clark, of Bulgaria; Rev. Dr. W. Scott Whittier, of Trinidad; Miss Frances Phelps, of Sendai, Japan; Dr. John Bancroft Devins, speaking for Korea, after a world tour; and so from other nations, — America, England, Canada, Mexico, Persia, — and from colored work and Indian work in the United States.
The address of the Samaritan High Priest, Jacob, son of Aaron, on that Sunday evening, was a most striking incident. At the close of his address a fine-looking man seated near him arose. " I have the honor," he said, " as a Christian Jew, to hold out the hand of fellowship to the Samaritan High Priest, and I gladly translate his words."
In view of the location of the convention, there was much in the sessions about the locality in its illumination of the Bible.
Dr. George W. Bailey, of Philadelphia, was at this convention elected chairman of the World's Sunday-School Executive Committee.
On the last evening of the convention Bishop Brooks's " O Little Town of Bethlehem " was sung. The press censor for Palestine, his Excellency Ismael Bey, was presented to the convention by President Warren, and he brought to the convention greetings of the governor of Jerusalem, his Excellency Asman Kasen Bey. His closing words, in good English, were:
Story of Five Conventions 585
" May the presence of Almighty God be with you as you go." Another interesting character on the platform was a distinguished soldier of Abys- sinia, a general of his Majesty King Menelik. He spoke to the convention expressing his pleasure at being present, and in translating the close of his address, his interpreter said, " He holds that Christianity is to be the light of the world and is to endure forever and ever."
In the closing consecration hour. Rev. Dr. W. L. Watkinson, of London, gave his message on " The Permanence of the Kingdom." A venerable Mohammedan, his Excellency Joseph Pasha, former mayor of Jerusalem and a member of the famous Peace Conference of Berlin when Disraeli and Salisbury represented England, closed the consecration service by reading in his own tongue the Nineteenth Psalm. " Blest be the tie that binds " and " God be with us till we meet again " were sung while the great company in the tent joined hands. On the president's right were Ethiopia, Abyssinia; on his left, America, England, Syria, Canada.
Twenty-six countries were represented in the convention by a total enrollment of 1,526 persons. Fifty-five different denominations or religious bodies joined in the meetings. Three htindred and seventy-seven residents of Jerusalem attended the convention, and 72 persons from other parts of Palestine. Great Britain sent more than 300 delegates; North America, about 800, by the steamship Grosser Kurfurst, chartered for the pilgrimage by a Central Committee composed of E. K. Warren, W. N. Hartshorn, and A. B. McCrillis.
Fifth — Rome, Italy, May, 1907
The convention met in the Methodist Building. The convention had 1,118 delegates, from thirty-seven countries and great divisions, repre- senting forty-six denominations.
The convention was kaleidoscopic. Around the gallery of the auditorium were flags of many nations; in the crowded seats were Egyptian preach- ers, with their red fezes; white-bearded, keen-eyed American business men from the States; here the blue-eyed Teuton close beside the olive- skinned, black-eyed Italian or the alert, clean-cut Frenchman; here a sturdy Briton, and close beside him a slender Portuguese; there a missionary from Palestine or Turkey or Bulgaria or the Congo, and here a quick- witted, bright-eyed Canadian or an earnest, closely-listening Greek. South Africa and Saskatchewan, Greece and Georgia, France and Fin- land, Turkey and the Transvaal, Palestine, Mexico, Norway, Scotland, Argentine Republic, and the Isle of Man — and all singing the same hymns, worshiping one God and one Saviour, and one in their determi- nation to make the most of the Sunday-school as the great evangelizing
586 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
agency of our day, of all days. The principal meetings of the convention were held in the Methodist Building. There were greetings from Rev. Henry Piggott, B.A., president of the Italian National Sunday- School Committee; Dr. Hail, Japan; Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, Great Britain; Mr. D. Ballantyne, Scotland; Principal Cotelingam, India; Pastor Basche, Germany, and President E. K. Warren. An enthusiastic reception was given to the Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom, American ambassador to Italy. That which had been a committee in its beginnings, as reported at the World's Second Convention, was at the time of the Fifth Convention a strong national organization, and the Italian General Secretary, Professor Ernesto Filippini, was heartily commended as having done especially fine work. Rev. Arturo Muston, president of the Waldensian Church, told of the love of Bible study among his people, and of their sixteenth-century Bible training for groups of children.
A letter was read from President Roosevelt. The most striking incident of the evening was when Miss Italia Garibaldi was introduced. She is the granddaughter of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the liberator, and was a Sunday- school teacher in the Methodist Sunday-school in Rome. There was a fresh outburst of enthusiasm when Miss Garibaldi's father rose in the audi- ence and briefly addressed the convention, — Ricciotti, son of the liberator, and himself a hero of many wars.
Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, of England, preached the convention sermon, Sunday was World's Sunday- School Day, when schools in many lands shared in the responsive service prepared, at the suggestion of Dr. George W. Bailey, of Philadelphia, by Rev. Dr. James A. Worden.
Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, was chosen president of the convention, to succeed Mr. Warren. A most impressive series of addresses was de- livered by Rev. Dr. J. Gordon Gray on " The Footsteps of Paul in Rome." In response to the earnest plea of Rev. Dr. Thomas D. Christie, of Tarsus, it was voted to locate at Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, a secretary for the Sunday- School Association of Asia Minor, enrolling now 40,000 scholars. At the same time, $1,000 was pledged to place a secretary on the field in Korea. Mr. Frank L. Brown, of New York, homeward bound from his tour of Sunday-school organization work in Japan, gave the story of the new Japan Sunday-School Association, which he had been sent out to organize by the American Committee, largely through the generosity of Mr. H. J. Heinz, of Pittsburg.
Dr. W. A. Duncan traveled from America to make a ten-minute address on the Home Department work and then took the next steamer home. The International Bible Reading Association was described in the convention by its founder, Mr. Charles Waters, of London.
One very notable feature of the convention was the fine exhibit of pub-
Story of Five Conventions 587
Hcations and appliances arranged by Dr. and Mrs. C. R. Blackall, of Phila- delphia, assisted by Allan Sutherland, of the same city. The periodicals represented a total output of nearly five hundred million pieces of printed matter in a year.
It was determined, by vote, that the World's Sunday-School Association was to be the name of the organization henceforth.
A notable service was held in the Coliseum on the afternoon of Thursday, May 23. The Roman authorities gave hearty permission for the service, unusual as it was. The closing meeting on Thursday evening was given largely to testimony. Bishop Hartzell announced with great feeling the gift of nearly $50,000 for missions in North Africa, an interdenominational gift from the delegates who had visited Algiers on the two ships from America, the Romanic, from Boston, and the Neckar, from New York. " The last evening hours of the convention drew on and lengthened as we sat together in fellowship, while many bore testimony to the impress of the convention, and Rev. Dr. B. B. Tyler, of Denver, Colo., lifted us to the heights in his closing address, ' Arise, let us go hence.' "
[Greatly abridged from a pamphlet written by Mr. Philip E. Howard, Philadelphia, Pa., " The Story of Five World's Conventions." — Editor.]
Mr. W. N. Hartshorn again served as chairman of the transportation committee, the same as in 1889, 1898, and 1904, and has been chosen by the World's Executive Committee to serve in the same position for the Geneva Convention, 1913
THE WORLD'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL STATISTICS
Compiled for the World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention, 19 id, BY Mr. George Shipway, Birmingham, England, and Mr. Hugh Cork, Chicago, Illinois, Statistical Secretaries
For more than a year your statistical secretaries have been busy gather- ing the following figures.
We first appealed to the 275 Foreign Missionary Societies for the Sunday- school statistics for each country in which they operated, and also asked for the name and address of the " best informed missionary " in each country.
Reports were received from each of these societies, and after being tabu- lated, the figures for all the societies working in a country were sent to the " best informed missionary " of each society having stations in that country with the request that these missionaries verify their own society's figures, and give us their judgment as to whether we had correctly reported the schools of all the other societies working in that country.
These results were again submitted to prominent well-informed Sunday- school workers, and after all corrections have been made, we present this report feeling that while we may have missed some schools, we are reason- ably sure of those reported.
In the columns of figures, " The average enrollment per school " is the average size of each Sunday-school in the country named. The " aver- age population per school " is the average size a school would be were every person in the country enrolled in the number of Sunday-schools reported. The population of each country has been taken from the latest census figures of the world.
Although we have made an earnest effort to report for each of the 192 countries and groups of islands into which the world is divided, we find 66 of these, including various divisions of Africa, in which we have not been able to find a single Sunday-school.
We gratefully acknowledge the cordial assistance we have received from the consuls and ministers of the British Government in the various colonies and dependencies.
588
Statistics
589
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The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
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59^ The World's Sixth Sunday- School Convention
THE SONG OF THE TEACHERS
Tune, Diademata Walter J. Mathams
Glory to thee, O Christ!
Who this high grace hath given, That we should follow thee, and lead
Thy children nearer heaven: Oh, for the Light Divine,
The clear and constant fire! Oh, for the all-consuming love
That lives for Thy Desire !
Glory to thee, O Christ!
For brave hearts gone before, Who gave thee all that life could give
And longed to give thee more : Who with their fainting hands
Passed on the torch sublime — Oh, grant us strength to bear it still
Through our own task and time.
Glory to thee, O Christ!
For what thy will hath wrought To us, and through us in the past
Petitioned or unsought. Oh, may our larger prayer
Thy larger purpose please. And may we all at last attain
Far greater things than these.
Glory to thee, O Christ!
Thou art the Children's King. Thy very name in countless tones
Makes countless children sing: Oh, for that golden day,
When each and every child, Shall walk with thee through life and death,
In raiment undefiled. May, 1910.
[Note. This poem was written by Rev. Walter J. Mathams, of Mallaig, Inverness- shire, for the Washington convention. Mr. Mathams wrote the poem, " The Architect of the Arapitheatre." read in the CoHseum, Rome, on the occasion of the World's Fifth Con- vention, May, 1907.]
LIST OF RECORDED DELEGATES
TO THE
WORLD'S SIXTH SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION
AT WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 19-24, 1910 ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED BY DENOMINATIONS
BAPTIST
Allan, Georgie, Quebec. Teacher. Allen, Miss Pyrena. Texas. Allton, Rev. Wibur F., N. B. Pastor. Anderson, Rev. J. T. B., Georgia. Pastor. Andrews, George W., Georgia. Secretary. Atwood, Rev. E. B., Texas. Pastor. Austin, Rev. Charles B., N. C Pastor. Bacon, R. J., Georgia. Superintendent. Bacon, Mrs. R. J., Georgia. Teacher. Bailey, Rev. A., West Virginia. Bailey, Rev. A. M., Ohio. Pastor. Bair, E. K.. Georgia. Teacher. Baker, Mrs. Margaret E., Indiana. Supt. Ball, Rev. W. L., Virginia. Pastor. Barbour, R. S., Virginia. Superintendent. Bardsley, Rev. G. Milton, Conn. Pastor. Earned, A. S., Alabama. Officer. Barrett, Edwin D., New York. Supt. Barrett, Mrs. Edwin D., New York. Officer. Bartle, W. N., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Barton, Rev. H. A., New York. Pastor. Barton, A. J ., Texas.
Beardsley, Mrs. Egbert, New York. Supt. Beauchamp, H., Texas.
Beckwith, Franklin H., New York. Teacher. Beecher, Rev. George F., Rhode Island . Pastor. Beeson, Rev. I. R. M., Missouri. Pastor. Bernard, J. J., North Carolina. Teacher. Binford, J. N., West Virginia. Assistant pastor. Bigelow, Mrs. H., Illinois. Superintendent. Bishop, Mrs. Ernest, Nova Scotia. Teacher. Bishop, T. B., Florida. Scholar. Blount, Mrs. W., Florida. Teacher. Blythe, Rev. John R., Georgia. Pastor. Bolles, J. E., Michigan. Officer. Bomar, Horace L., South Carolina. Supt. Bonner, M. Lee, Alabama. Superintendent. Boyd, Rev. A. E., New Mexico. Pastor. Boyd, Charles A., New York. Asst. Pastor. Bozeman, A. S., Mississippi. Superintendent. Braker, Rev. James S., Mass. Pastor. Brengle, Rev. Wm. H.. Louisiana. Pastor. Brewer, Charles S., Massachusetts. Teacher. Brininstool, Rev. F. E., Ohio. Pastor. Briscoe, A. C, Georgia. Superintendent. Britt, Rev. W. L., North Carolina. Pastor.
Briscow, C. B., Georgia. Teacher. Brooks. Rev. W. H., D. C. Pastor. Brothen, George W., N. C. Teacher. Broughton, Dr. Joseph, Ga. State sec'y acting. Broughton, Miss Carrie, N. C. Teacher. Brumbough, L. H., New Jersey. Officer. Brumbough, Mrs. L. H., New Jersey. Supt. Brown, Ralph W., Massachusetts. Supt. Brown, Rev. J . W., Nova Scotia. State sec'y. Brown, Mrs. J. W., Nova Scotia. Brown,|Rev. Guy L., New Jersey. Pastor. Brown, Charles A., New Jersey. Supt. Broughton, Rosa C, N. C. Officer. Broughton, N. B., North Carolina. Supt. Bushnell, Elizabeth, Arkansas. Officer. Buflfum , Rev. J . B ., Michigan. Pastor. Burgess, Isaac B., Rhode Island. Supt. Burroughs. Rev. P. E., Texas. Pastor. Burrows, H. C, Virginia. Superintendent. Burtan, James D., Tennessee. Supt. Butcher, Charles N., Nova Scotia. Teacher. Butcher, Mrs. C. N., Nova Scotia. Teacher. Byrd, J. E., Mississippi. Cantwell, Charles H., Delaware. Supt. Ca Id we 11 , A . B . , Georgia , Superintendent . Cairns, May, Kansas. Scholar. Caverly, Herbert D., Rhode Island. Supt. Cathro, Mrs. Mary, North Dakota. Scholar. Carpenter, Mrs. M. C, Indiana. Supt. Cederholm, Mrs. Rose, New York. Supt. Chipman, Rev. O. N., Nova Scotia. Pastor. Chilson, Exiward, Illinois. Cheney, Rev. D. B., Wisconsin. Pastor. Chappell, Rev. George C, Conn. Pastor. Chappell, Mrs. G. C, Conn. Teacher. Chapman, Rev. Adelbert, New Jersey. Pastor. Chandler, Ray, Mississippi. Teacher. Champlin, B., Louisiana. Chambliss, Mrs. E. L., Missouri. Supt. Church, William G., Wisconsin. Scholar. Clark, Dr. A. B., West Virginia. Officer. Clark, Mrs. Brenda, Maine. Teacher. Clark, Rev. L. G., Montana. Missionary. Cleaves, Florena, Kansas. Teacher. Cleveland, Charles A., Maine. Superintendent. Clough, Charles H., N. H. Superintendent.
597
598
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Cobb, Miss Emily M., Mass. Officer.
Coleman, W. H., Alabama.
CoUyer, B. B., Wisconsin. Superintendent.
CoUyer, Mrs. B. B., Wisconsin. Supt.
Cope, H. H.. Illinois. (R. E. A.)
Cook, L. R., Maine. Superintendent.
Copley, Rev. L. M., Kentucky. Missionary.
Cornish, Ellis G., Massachusetts. Supt.
Cowan, Rev. George N., S. C. Pastor.
Cox, Rev. Ben., Arkansas. Pastor.
Crampton, Adaline C, Vermont. Teacher.
Crump, Frank T., Virginia. Superintendent.
Currey, Rev. F. L. C, Michigan. Pastor.
Daniel, Rev J. M., Missouri. Pastor.
Daniel, Mrs. J. M., Missouri. Teacher.
Davis, Chrissie, Rhode Island. Supt.
Davis, Mrs. Mary A., Maine.
Davis, Rev. Roswell, Tennessee. Pastor.
Davis, Thomas J., West Virginia. Supt.
Davis, W. A., Alabama. Officer.
Dawson, Rev. L. O., Alabama. Pastor.
Dedinger, J. E., North Carolina. Supt.
DeMent, Byron H., Kentucky.
Demeritt, James U., New Hampshire. Supt.
Demeritt, Mrs. James U., N. H. Teacher.
Dexter, Rev. Lewis, Vermont. Pastor.
Dickens, Rev. J. Wesley, Mississippi. Pastor.
Dillard, A. C, Alabama. Superintendent.
Dudley, Rev. E. E., Arkansas. Pastor.
Duke, Frank W., Virginia. Superintendent.
Dunbar, Rev. Maurice, Maine. Pastor.
Dunbar, Mrs. Maurice, Maine.
Duncan, L. A., Mississippi. Superintendent.
Dunn, William D., Alabama. Superintendent.
Durham, J. Shreve, Illinois.
Eddy, Mary E., Rhode Island. Teacher.
Edgell, Alfred F., Pennsylvania. Supt.
Edgell, Mrs. Alfred F., Pennsylvania. Scholar.
Edmunds, E. B., Wisconsin.
Edwards, Rev. C. V., Mississippi. Pastor.
Ellett, T. H., Virginia. Teacher.
Ellett, Mrs. T. H., Virginia. Scholar.
Ellenberger, F. H., Ohio. Superintendent.
Ellenberger, Mrs. F. H., Ohio.
Embree, Mrs. A. J., Texas.
Engberg, T. E., Connecticut. Missionary.
Evans, Miss Helen J., Iowa. Teacher.
Evans, Ida M., Iowa. Teacher.
Fal 1 , E . B . , Connecticu t . Superintenden t .
Faucett, Rev, A. J., Kansas. Pastor.
Famham, W. H., New Brunswick.
Finch , Rev . A . , Louisiana . Pastor .
Ford, L. W., New York.
Ford, Rev. W. J., N. Y. Pastor and teacher.
Fort, William H., Illinois. Superintendent.
Foster, Rev. W. E., Texas. Pastor.
Foote, Rev. W. E., New Jersey. Pastor.
Foley, Mrs. J. B., Louisiana. Teacher.
Frost, Miss Margaret A., Tennessee.
Fry, Mrs. Wilfred W., New Jersey. Supt.
Fuller, Rev. Willard, Wisconsin. Pastor.
Gates, Arthur E., Massachusetts. Supt.
Gans, A. J., Pennsylvania. Superintendent.
Gentry, J. J., South Carolina.
Gifford, Ida Frances, Pennsylvania.
Goslln, Mrs. Emma V., New Jersey. Teacher.
Groth, Charles F., Ohio. Superintendent.
Guy, C. R., Virginia. Officer.
Griffith, R. B., North Dakota. Supt.
Griffith, Mrs. R. B., North Dakota. Teacher.
Griffin, Rev. George W., Illinois. Pastor.
Gregson, John R., Arkansas. Supt.
Gregg, Mrs. Merritt L., N. H. Superintendent.
Greenmans, Russell S., New York. Supt.
Gray, W. L., South Carolina. Supt.
Graham, A. C, Michigan. Superintendent.
Gurley, Edith B., New York.
Hagan, Miss Nellie S., New Jersey.
Hainer, Rev. L. W., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Hainer, Mrs. L. W., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Hale. P. T., Kentucky.
Hall, Edgar H., Massachusetts. Teacher.
Hall, Esther M., New York.
Hall, George E., New Jersey. Superintendent
Hamilton, Rev. W. W., Virginia. Pastor.
Hammond, Miss Elizabeth, Mass. Teacher.
Hand, Mrs. Mattie, Alabama.
Hanson, H. C, Minnesota.
Hanson, Mrs. H. C, Minnesota.
Harling, Rev. J. D., Texas. Pastor.
Harmon, Rev., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Harris, E. L., New York.
Harrison, Taney, West Virginia.
Hartsell, Miss Lena, North Carolina.
Hartshorn, Wm.N., Massachusetts. Chairman
Executive Committee, Int. S. S. Asso. Hartshorn, Mrs. Wm. N., Massachusetts. Hartshorn, Miss Ida U., Massachusetts. Hartshorn, Miss Bertha, Massachusetts. Hartwell, Frederick W., Rhode Island. Supt. Hatcher, Rev. C. C, Missouri. Pastor. Haugh, F. E., Minnesota. Hawley, L. W., Vermont. Superintendent. Hayworth, D. S., North Carolina. Supt. Hench, Rev. C R., New Jersey. Pastor. Heath, Fred S., New Hampshire. Supt. Heath, Mrs. Fred S., New Hampshire. Herron, C. L., Michigan. Superintendent. Henry, Mrs. R. L., Texas. Hill, Herbert L., New York. Supt. Hill, Mrs. H. L., New York. Hines, Emma C, Indiana. Superintendent. Howatt, William M., Maine. Superintendent. Howard, Rev. G. B., Virginia. Pastor. Hough, Mrs. Stella M., Minnesota. Teacher. Hosmer, C C, Wisconsin. Superintendent. Horter, Rev. George C, Pennsylvania. Pastor. Homer, Rev. William Wallace, Texas. Pastor. Holmes, W. A., Ohio. Holmes, Mrs. W. A., Ohio. Hoener, Mrs. M. R., Illinois. Hy man. Rev. George, Florida. Pastor. Hutchins, Exiward, Michigan. Teacher. Hurt, Rev. John J., Arkansas. Pastor. Hull, Rev. J. J., Maine. Hudson, Ray L., Pennsylvania. Supt. Hudson, Mrs. Ray L ., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Hubley, Minnie M., Nova Scotia. Teacher. Hodgins , W . D . , Tennessee . Officer . Hufifoker, H. D., Tennessee. Superintendent. Irby, Miss Lucy, Georgia. Teadier. Ingram , Rev . Job , Oklahoma . Jenkins, James D., Termessee. Officer. Jenkins, Ned Walter, Louisiana. Jenkins, C. E., Louisiana. Teacher. Jenkins, Mrs. C. E., Louisiana. Teacher. Jelks, Leonora, Georgia. Johnson, Rev. W. T., Virginia. Pastor. Johnson, Rev. Tillman B ., Arkansas. Pastor. Jones , Jesse P . , Texas . Teacher .
Registration of Delegates
599
Jones, Theo. I-, North Carolina. Teacher.
Jordan, Rev. L .G., Kentucky.
JoseljTi, Calvin C, Missouri.
Juden, Susie M., Louisiana. Teacher.
Keith, Mrs. M. F., New Brunswick. Officer.
Kennedy, Mrs. M. G., Pennsylvania.
King, T. H., New York.
King, W. C, Massachusetts. Superintendent.
Kinney, Don, Kansas. Superintendent.
Kinney, Mrs. Don, Kansas. Teacher.
Knight, Rev. Ryland, Virginia. Pastor.
Kugly, Rev. E. L., South CaroHna. Pastor.
Kyle, Mrs. John, Colorado. Teacher.
Laubman, Chris A., New Brunswick. Officer.
Lawson, Rev. G. A., Nova Scotia. Pastor.
Lawrance, S. H., Missouri. Officer.
Lea veil, Rev. James B., Mississippi. Pastor.
Leslie , J . A . , Virginia . Superintenden t .
Lethwich, G. E., North Carolina. Supt.
Litzenberg, W. Roy., Oregon. Superintendent.
Litzenberg, Mrs. W. R., Oregon.
Lile, Arthur, Texas.
Lile, Mrs. Arthur, Texas.
Little, Rev. M. R., Georgia. Pastor.
Lightner, Lura B., West Virginia. Missionary.
Lloyd, Mrs. Nannie H., California. Teacher.
Loomis, B. J., Ohio.
Loomis, Almeda E., Ohio.
Long, Rev. J. M., Georgia. Pastor.
Lumley, Mrs. C. G., Illinois. Supt.
Lyman, Rev. Homer C, South Carolina, Pastor
and missionary. Lyman, Mrs. Homer C, South Carolina. May, Mrs. Nellie B., Illinois. Officer. Mauldin, Rev. McHardy, S. C. Officer. Matthews, Miss Minnie A., Missouri. Teacher. Matthews, Alice B., Missouri. Supt. Matteson, Rev. Wm. B., New Jersey. Pastor. Masters, Rev. F. M., Texas. Pastor. Marbury, D. H., Alabama. Martin, W. W., Missouri. Teacher. Martin, Rev. Harry L., Mississippi. Pastor. Marston, L. K., Massachusetts. Supt. Marsh, R. T., South Carolina. Teacher. Marchman, J. F., Georgia. Teacher. Manzer, Charles W., N. B. Teacher. Manning, Rev. J. K., New Jersey. Pastor. Mallory, Miss Kathleen, Alabama. Major, Miss Ola, South Carolina. Main, W. W., Massachusetts. Missionary. Maguire, Rev. Gabriel R., N. J. Pastor. McKay, Rev. O. R., Indiana. Pastor. McCurdy, Rev. W. D., West Virginia. Pastor. McCrillis, A. B., Rhode Island. Officer. McCrillis, Mrs. A. B., Rhode Island. Officer. McCracken, J. B., Canada. Superintendent. McColley, Rev. Chas. E., Massachusetts. Pastor
and teacher. McCall, Rev. G. W., Tex. Pastor and teacher. McRaven, Kate, Mississippi. Scholar. McRaven, Miss Mabel, Mississippi. Teacher. McRae, Webster, Alabama. Teacher. McPherson, Mrs. Mabel, Maine. Supt. McNintch, Rev. A. M., N. S. Pastor. McMillan, J. E., Georgia. Superintendent. McLemore, J. H., Mississippi. Teacher. McLemore, Mrs. J. H., Mississippi. Officer. Meyers, Miss A. Edith, Pennsylvania. Merrill, Rev. B. W., Ontario. Mead, Miss Emma L., South Dakota.
Milbury, Miss Inda J., New York. Teacher. Miller, M. W., Washington. State Sec'y. Miller, D. H., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Milliken, James I., Massachusetts. Milliken, Almon A., New Hampshire. Supt. Millet, Gertrude H., Massachusetts. Supt. Milliken, Mrs. Minnie A., Massachusetts. Miller, Miss Nellie L., Maryland. Miles, W. M., Ontario. Superintendent. Mirrary, George B., Kentucky. Supt. Moore, Rev. William H., Tennessee. Pastor. Monroe, Mrs. Lulu E., Maine. Superintendent. Moore, Mrs. E. S., Georgia. Miolan, Miss Ella H., New Jersey. Moore, Rev. A. L., Permsylvania. Pastor. Moore, Mrs. A. L., Pennsylvania. Moomaw, B. F., Virginia. Superintendent. Moore, Miss Joe, Texas. Morris, W. W., Texas. Morrissett, I. A., Ohio. Superintendent. Myers, Walter E., Pennsylvania. Supt. Musselman H. T., Pennsylvania. Murray, Rev. Roscoe, Kentucky. Pastor. Muir, Rev. J. J., District of Columbia. Pastor. Neil, Samuel G., Pennsylvania. Missionary. Neuhauser, U. G., Louisiana. Superintendent. Neuhauser, K. G., Louisiana. Officer. Nichols, Rev. Holmes, Texas. Pastor. Noyes, H. Wallace, Maine. Superintendent. Oakley, E. F., Alabama. Owens, William G., Pennsylvania. Supt. Overlock, Williard E., Maine. Missionary. Otto, T., New York.
Odell, H. A., New York. Superintendent. Olney, Mary E., Rhode Island. Supt. Pattison, Minnie, Michigan. Page, Rev. Charles L., Massachusetts. Pastor
and teacher. Payne, A. W., Missouri. Editor. Payne, Mrs. A. W., Missouri. Parker, A. S., Georgia. Officer. Parks, George W., New York. Teacher. Parry, Miss Jane W., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Parry, Mrs. Mary S., Pennsylvania. Officer. Pardue, W. W., Tennessee. Superintendent. Parish, S. C, Arkansas. Paige, Rev. Wesley A., New Hampshire. Pastor
and teacher. Peacock, Benj., Wisconsin. Superintendent. Peacock, Mrs. Benj., Wisconsin. Officer. Peacock, B. N., Wisconsin. Peck, Ethel, Maine.
Perkins, D. Webster, Tennessee. Supt. Perly, J. Marshall, New York. Superintendent Persons, F. B., Connecticut. Superintendent. Persons, Mrs. F. B., Connecticut. Teacher. Peters, L. E., West Virginia. Missionary. Pettus, W. E., Alabama. Phillips, Chas. M., Pennsylvania. Editor. Phillips. Rev. Vernon S., Wisconsin. Pastor
and officer . Pray, Frances, Tennessee. Teacher. Platner, L. W., New York. Superintendent. Powell, Rev. L. J., West Virginia. Pope, Horace J., Georgia. Price, Prof. Ira M ., Illinois. Lesson committee. Prince, Arthur D., Massachusetts. Supt. Pugh, H. G., Arkansas. Superintendent. Pugh, Mrs. H. G., Arkansas. Teacher. Purinton, Miss Alice M., Maine. Teacher.
6oo
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Pursell, Mrs. Wm. H., Virginia. Teacher. Quick, Rev. George W., Rhode Island. Pastor
and teacher. Read, J. Clarence, Massachusetts. Supt. Reed, Mrs. Julia A., Michigan. Supt. Reed, Rev. P. Clinton, N. S. Pastor. Rees, Evan S., Kentucky. Supt. Reid, Miss Maud, North Carolina. Reid, W. L. C, Michigan. Superintendent. Rightenour, Dr. S. R., Idaho. Supt. Rightenour, Mrs. S. R., Idaho. Teacher. Rice, H. A., Nova Scotia. Superintendent. Rice, Mrs. H. T., New Jersey. Supt. Robinson, Rev. U. G., Missouri. Robertson, W. F., Virginia. Superintendent. Rogers, Miss Anna L., Ohio. Rogers, Mrs. Esther H., New York. Rogers, Miss Ida, Maine.
Rogers, James C, Tennessee. Superintendent. Rowe, O. R., Maine. Rowe, Mrs. O. R., Maine. Rumsey, A. J., New York. Rundell, Rev. E. D., Michigan. Pastor. Rupard, J. L., New Mexico. Rutledge, B., South Carolina. Superintendent. Ryland, R. S.. Virginia. Sally, Rev. George H., Maine. Pastor. Sampey, Prof. John R., Ky. Lesson committee. Saunders, Ada M., Texas. Shand, Nora E., Nova Scotia. Shafer, Mrs. Amanda, West Virginia. Shepard, James E., North Carolina. Officer. Simmons, Mrs. J. R., New York. Missionary. Sisson, Ellsworth, Rhode Island. Sims, D. W., Alabama. State Secretary. Slipp, Miss Augusta, New Brunswick. Smith, Mrs. M. V., Texas. Smith, Forrest, Texas.
Smith, Rev. Frank A., New Jersey. Pastor. Smith, Mrs. Frank A., New Jersey. Smith, Rev. Hugh C, Virginia. Pastor. Smith, O. T., Alabama. Superintendent. Southerton, Rev. W. J., New York. Pastor. Snow, Rev. J. H., Texas. Snow, Mrs. J. H., Texas. Spalding, Miss J. L., Florida. Missionary. Spalding, Mrs. S. J., Florida. Sprague, Mrs. Kate V., New York. Shipley, Samuel S., Oklahoma. Shipman, Miss Cornelia, Illinois- Shrelve, Mrs. Walter J., Pennsylvania. Supt. Sherwood, George W., Wisconsin. Supt. Sherwood, Mrs. G. W., Wisconsin. Sherman, Adolf, Connecticut. Sherman, Mrs. Adolf, Connecticut. Shearman, J. F., Kansas. Superintendent. Stockley, Paul, Florida. Officer. Stone, Mrs. Harriet P., Michigan. Start, W. Henry, New York. Stephens, Rev. A. L., Alabama. Missionary. Stevens, Rev. George E., D. C. Pastor. Stiles, Rev. Edwin B., New Hampshire. Stiles, Mrs. J. P., Alabama, Stonnell, Rev. V. L., Alabama. Pastor. Stocks, Mrs. Rosalind E.. British Columbia. Stocking, Howard H., Wisconsin.
Storey, Miss Sarah M., Maine. Stringfield, Preston, North Carolina. Stumpf, Rev. J. H., New York. Sutherland, Mrs. L. A., Wisconsin. Sutherland, Alex K., Nova Scotia. Supt. ^ Thompson, Mrs. A. G., Florida. Officer. Thorn, Henry E., New York. Officer. Thorn, Mrs. Henry E., New York. Tinnin, Rev. J. W.. Louisiana. Pastor. Tinker, W. E., Alabama. Superintendent. Tilton, Rev. Burton H., N. H. Pastor. Tilton, Mrs. Burton H., New Hampshire. Twort, William J., Massachusetts. Turton, Simeon D., New Jersey. Turner. A. R., Alabama. Officer. Turner, J. J., West Virginia. Missionary. Turner, Rev. J, W., North Carolina. Pastor. Tufts, Lena B., Maine. Upchurch, Miss Gertrude, North Carolina. Vaughan, W. J., Kentucky. Vass, Rev. S. N., North Carolina. Van Reiper, Miss Maud, Indiana. Vye, Rev. Henry K., New York. Pastor. Van Valkenburgh, Edna, New York. Teacher. VanDerVeer, Mrs. K. P., Kentucky. Van Buskirk, E. B., New York. Supt. Van Allen, C. L.. New York. Superintendent. Vines, Rev. John F.. South Carolina. Pastor. Vickery, W. H., Georgia. Superintendent. Watts, Mrs. J. T., Virginia. Waterman, T. W., Rhode Island. Supt. Waldron, Rev. J. Milton, District of Columbia Walker, W. L., Georgia. Watson, Rev. P. P., South Carolina. Weaver, Miss Pearl T., Indiana. Wells, Miss Ema, West Virginia. Wells, F. A., Illinois. Treas. Int. S. S. Asso." Wells, Mrs. F. A., Illinois. West, Rev. E. P., Texas. Pastor. Wilson, Rev. W. F., Massachusetts. Pastor. Wilson, Willard B.. R. I. State Secretary. Wilson, Mrs. W, B., Rhode Island. Wilson, Mrs. Norman B., Rhode Island. Wharton, Archie R., Kansas. Wharton, Rev. J. U. H., Louisiana. Pastor. Wharton, J. M., Louisiana. White, E. L., Texas. White, Stark A., West Virginia. Supt. Whitney, Mrs. F. H., New York. Whittington, W. M., Mississippi. Supt. Wilbur, Mrs. W. A., District of Columbia. Wilkins, Mrs. J. W., Oregon. Williams, Miss A. L., Alabama. Williams, Rev. S. L., Missouri. Pastor. Winn, Miss Jessie, Tennessee. Williamson, Rev. I. W., B. C. State Sec'y. Winston, Miss Arabelle, Virginia. Supt. Witherington, J. H., Georgia. Supt. Wright, Rev. A. K., North Carolina. Pastor. Wright, L. T., Kentucky. Woods, Ella A., Maine. Woodall, B. F. B., Delaware. Wood, Rev. Whitman L., R. I. Pastor. Worthington, Miss Mary, Tennessee. Young, Miss Annie E., Nova Scotia. Young, William J., Alabama. Superintendent.
Registration of Delegates
6oi
CONGREGATIONAL
Alder, Miss Agnes P., New York. Supt. Allen, D. B., Michigan. Superintendent. Allen, Rev. E. Bourne, Ohio. Pastor. Allen, Mary E., Ontario. Superintendent. Allingham, Rev. Robert, Illinois. Pastor. Alvord, George W., Ohio. Teacher. Alvord, Mrs, Mary M., Ohio. Teacher. Andrews, Rev. George W., Mass. Pastor. Angelo, Martha Hawley, Nebraska. Scholar. Arford, A. R., Michigan. Superintendent. Baker, A. S., Wisconsin. Teacher. Baker, Mrs. A. S., Wisconsin. Teacher. Barrows, F. L., Connecticut. Bauer, Miss L. F., Minnesota. Supt. Beale, Rev. Arthur S., Massachusetts. Bennett, Mrs. D. B., Wisconsin. Teacher. Bingham, George W., New Hampshire. Supt. Binnington, C. B., Missouri. Superintendent. Blake, Mrs. C. E., Rhode Island. Supt. Boody, George A., Iowa. Bristol, Rev. Frank Louis, R. I. Pastor. Brock, W. H., Massachusetts. Teacher. Brockway, Meme, California. Superintendent. Bryner, Mrs. Mary Foster, Illinois. Teacher. Brown, Margaret Ellen, Nebraska. Supt. Brown, Edw. W., Massachusetts. Supt. Burk, Mrs. Martha, Kansas. Superintendent. Burnham, Miss Edna W., Mass. Teacher. Benhuell, Mary, New York. Butler, Miss Mary S., Illinois. Supt. Byington, Anna, Vermont. Superintendent. Camp, D. M., Vermont. Teacher. Cone, Miner C., Massachusetts. Supt. Chapin, Lucy Stock, Connecticut. Supt. Clarke, Herbert M., Rhode Island. Supt. Church, Frederick P., Rhode Island. Supt. Collins, Mrs. A. W., Michigan. Supt. Conant, F. N., Massachusetts. Supt. Conant, Hamilton S., Mass. State Secretary. Cook, Rev. E. Albert, Quebec. Pastor. Cook, Mrs. Hugh, Illinois. Scholar. Coppins, Scott R., Illinois. Superintendent. Coppins, Mrs. Scott R., Illinois. Teacher. Covell, A. G., North Dakota. Scholar. Covell, Mrs. A. G., North Dakota. Scholar. Crossfield, F. J., Illinois. Superintendent. Curtiss, Mrs. Phebe A., Ohio. Supt. Cutler, George H., Massachusetts. Supt. Danforth, Wm. H., Missouri. Supt. Danforth, Mrs. Wm. H., Missouri. Teacher. Daniels. Mrs. F. B., Coimecticut. Scholar. Davis, Eliazbeth B., Massachusetts. Teacher. De Riemer, Rev. W. E., D. C. Missionary. De Riemer, Mrs. W. E., D. C. Missionary. Dickinson, Everett M., Massachusetts. Supt. Dillon, Sidney J., Iowa. Superintendent. Dimick, A. D., Massachusetts. Supt. Dingwell, Rev. James O., Mass. Pastor. Dixon, Rev. Wm. Reese, Illinois. Pastor and
teacher. Dodge, Rev. Anna P., Florida. Pastor. Dorman, Miss E. A., Georgia. Duncan, Dr. W. A., New York. Officer. Eadie, James W., Connecticut. Teacher. Ensign, Charles S., Massachusetts. Teacher. Evans, Miss Estella, Iowa. Teacher. Evans, Emelye D., Colorado. Teacher. Fisher, C. R., California. State Secretary.
Fisher, Mrs. Chas. R., California. Officer. Frost, Rev. Robert D., Rhode Island. Pastor. Gamed, Rev. A. C, D. C. Pastor and officer. Gay, Miss Henrietta L., Connecticut. Officer. George, J. W., California. Superintendent. George, Mrs. J. W., California. Teacher. Hall, William C, Texas. Superintendent. Hall, Mrs. William C, Texas. Teacher. Hatch, Mrs. Sarah W., Massachusetts. Supt. Hazen, W. E., Kansas. Scholar. Hendrick, Mrs. G. W., New Hampshire. Supt. Heath, Mrs. E. S., New Jersey. Asst. Supt. Hicks, Harry Wade, New York. Secretary. Higgins, Rev. R. M., Wisconsin. Pastor. Hills, J. Coolidge, Connecticut. Officer. Hills, Mrs. J. Coolidge, Connecticut. Teacher. Hines, Alfred H., Massachusetts. Supt. Howard, Frederick, New York. Officer. Howard, Albert X., Massachusetts. Supt. House, Edith L., Massachusetts. Scholar. Holiday, Mrs. J. T., Iowa. Officer. James, Miss Harriet F.. Missouri. Teacher. Jameson, Mrs. W. D., Iowa. Teacher. Johnson, Rev. S. M., New York. Supt. Jones, Rev. W. E., Ohio. Pastor. Kiimey, E. C, Vermont. Missionary. Knowles, Mrs. L. A., Massachusetts. Officer. Knapp, Mrs. E. C, Illinois. Officer. Lawrance, Marion, Illinois. Sec'y Int. S. S.
Asso. Larson, Constant, Minnesota. Supt. Larson, Mrs. M. M., Minnesota. Teacher. Lansing, F. P., New York. Landis, W. C, New Hampshire. Missionary. Landis, Mrs. W. C, N. H. Missionary'. Leonard, Carrie B., Illinois. Superintendent. Leland, Mrs. Carrie G., Missouri. Asst. Supt. Leet, Seth P., Quebec. Teacher. Lee, Mrs. E. C, Georgia. Scholar. Lyman, H. G., Iowa. Superintendent. Martin, John B., Massachusetts. Scholar. Martin, Mrs. John B., Mass. Scholar. Marsh, Rev. L. Edward, R. I. Pastor. Mansfield, J. H., Coimecticut. Asst. Supt. Machett, Dr. R. J., South Carolina. Supt. McKee, Miss Anna H., Iowa, McCreery, Miss Sarah, Iowa. Officer. McCreery, Miss Fanny, Iowa. Officer. McArthur, George, Connecticut. Supt. Metzger, Rev. Eraser, Vermont. Pastor. Meserve, Rev. H. C, Connecticut. Pastor. Merritt, Rev. Robert F., Wisconsin. Pastor. Merritt, Rev. W. C, Wash. Field secretary. Merritt, Mrs. W. C, Washington. Mills, W. S., Iowa. Scholar. Miller, H. C, Minnesota. Scholar. Miller, Lee, Minnesota. Scholar. Miller, Mrs. A. C, Minnesota. Supt. Miner, George A., Massachusetts. Mohr, Esther C, Illinois. Teacher. Mott, Arthur E., Coimecticut. Supt. Munson, H. P., Vermont. Scholar. Osgood, C. W., Vermont. Teacher. O'Brien, James P., Missouri. Secretary. Orr, Rev. James B., California. Pastor. Patterson, Miss E. M., Minnesota. Scholar. Palmer, J. H., Minnesota. Scholar. Palmer, Mrs. J. H., Minnesota. Teacher.
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The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Pettibone, Rev. C. H., Colorado. Pastor. PhUUps, Rev. C. H., No. Dak. Pastor. Plant, Rev. George E., Wisconsin. Pastor. Proctor, F. R., Wisconsin. Teacher. Raymond, Rev. Frederick W., Vt. Pastor. Redford, Miss Alice M., Wisconsin. Officer. Ripley, Charles M., Massachusetts. Supt. Rice, Edwin W., Pennsylvania. Officer. Richardson, Myron E., Massachusetts. Supt. Roper, Mrs. C. Fremont, R. I. Teacher. Rowlands, W. F., Connecticut. Asst. Pastor. Sabin, Lucy C, Vermont. Officer. Sammis, Donald Stuart, Conn. Teacher. Sanders, George E., Oklahoma. Supt. Schauffler, Rev. Henry P., New York. Pastor. Scribner, Mrs. John W., Wisconsin. Scholar. Seward, Miss Laura E., California. Teacher. Slayton, Henry A., Vermont. Superintendent. Slattery, Miss Margaret, Massachusetts. Supt. Smith, Mrs. George, New Hampshire. Supt. Smith, Mrs. John P., New Hampshire. Supt. Smith, John Parker, New Hampshire. Supt. Snow, Rev. Walter A., No. Dak. State sec'y- Snow, Mrs. Ella Morris, North Dakota. Supt. Sorell, Miss Ella M., Minnesota. Teacher. Sheath, E. Hershey, Connecticut. Sherman, Agnes L., Massachusetts. Supt. Shaw, Rev. W. H., New York. Pastor. Stanlev, Isabelle, Connecticut. Supt. Steensona, Rev. W. S., Michigan. Pastor. Steelman, Mrs. I. N., New York. Teacher. Stanion, Thomas, Missouri. Superintendent. Stith, Charles E., Minnesota. Teacher. vStodeer, Louis, New York. Teacher. Stocking, Rev. William R., Acting Pastor. Stone. A. C. Massachusetts. Teacher.
Stoughton, Mrs. G. H., Connecticut. Supt. Stoughton, George H., Connecticut. Scholar. Straut, Mazie L, Connecticut. Teacher. Swift, S. R., District of Columbia. Asst . Pastor. Talmadge, Rev. Elliot F., Conn. Pastor. Thayer, Mrs. L. D., Minnesota. Supt. Thomas, John R., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Thomas, Mrs. James, Iowa. Teacher. Thornton, Wm. J., Iowa. Officer. Thornton, Mrs. Wm. J., Iowa. Tice, Mrs. H. A., Kansas. Teacher. Tracy, Mrs. H. D., Connecticut. Officer. Thyer, Miss Annie M., Illinois. Teacher. Underwood, A., California. Scholar. Underwood, Mrs. A., California. Teacher. Vallentyne, Rev. James W., Illinois. Pastor. Vallentyne, Mrs. J. W., Illinois. Teacher. Volstead, Miss, Minnesota. Scholar. Volstead, Mrs., Minnesota. Scholar. Ward, Mrs. C. D., Iowa. Teacher. Walters, Mrs. Mary T., Massachusetts. Supt. Walker, Mrs. Joseph A., Colorado. Officer. Warren, Paul C, Michigan. Teacher. Warren, E. K., Michigan, Superintendent. Welles, Jessie O., Wisconsin. Teacher. Weyranch, Miss Matilda, Iowa. Officer. Wilson, Mrs. H. J., Iowa. Superintendent. Wheaton, Mary L., Minnesota. Teacher. White, Mrs. A. Gates, Illinois. Scholar. White, Lelia B., Illinois. Teacher. White, J. W., Vermont. Wright, Alvin L., Massachusetts. Teacher. Woodworth, Rev. L. S., Rhode Island, Pastor Woodruff, Rev. Henry C, Conn. Pastor. Wooley E. Y., Illinois. Assistant Pastor.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL
Ackerly, Mrs. H. W., New York. Supt.
Anderson, Rev. E. R., South Carolina. Pastor and teacher.
Ainley, C. H., California. Superintendent.
Addleman, T. J., Indiana. Scholar.
Albury, Mrs. R. G., Florida. Superintendent.
Allison, James, Kansas. Superintendent.
Allison, Mrs. James, Kansas. Teacher.
Amison, George W., Rhode Island. Supt.
Andrews, R. A., California. Scholar.
Andrews, Rev. R. M., North Carolina. Pas- tor and officer.
Andrews. W. F., Massachusetts. Officer.
Apple, Avery A., North Carolina. Teacher.
Arbuthnot, Rev. S. K., West Virginia. Pastor.
Archery, Mrs. R. H., Indiana. Teacher.
Amett, Rev. C. S., Maryland.
Arnold, Arthur T., West Virginia. State sec'y.
Arnold, Mrs. A. T., West Virginia. Teacher.
Ashton, Elizabeth A., New York. Teacher.
Atwood, W. A., Maryland. Teacher.
Bailes, S. E., South Carolina. Supt.
Bailey ,^Miss Bertha, Missouri. Teacher.
Bailey, Miss Drusilla, Vermont.
Bailey, Miss Mabel L., Missouri. Supt.
Baker, H. L., Louisiana. Superintendent.
Baker, Mrs. H. L., Louisiana. Teacher.
Baker, 'J. E., New Hampshire. Supt.
Baker, Mrs. J. E., New Hampshire. Scholar.
Baker, Olive, Louisiana. Scholar.
Balch, Miss Edith M., Vermont.
Baldwin, Miss Clara, Indiana. Teacher.
Baldwin, Josephine L., New Jersey. Officer
Baldwin, Mrs. V. E., Michigan. Scholar.
Ballard, William C, Maryland. Supt.
Bardell, J. C, West Virginia. Officer.
Barham, Warner C, Arkansas.
Barnes, G. W., Kentucky.
Barnes, Mrs. J. W., New Jersey. Teacher.
Barnes, J. L., Canada. Teacher.
Barnes, S. T. L., Massachusetts. Teacher.
Barrett, C. A., Oklahoma. Superintendent.
Barton, F. M., Ohio. Teacher.
Bartlett, Rev. Leonard, Ontario. Pastor and
teacher. Bartley, Rev. Jesse B., la. Pastor and teacher. Batson, John W., Alabama. Teacher. Basford, Mrs. V. L., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Bates, H. D., New York. Officer. Battle, Rev. Chas. A., La. Pastor and teacher. Bauden, J. E., California. Scholar. Bauden, Mrs. J. E., California. Teacher. Beam, Mrs. P. M., New York. Officer. Bennett, A. F., Kentucky. Superintendent. Bennett. Rev. Fred E., Illinois. Pastor. Benson, Rev. Frank T., D. C. Pastor. Bentley, Miss Millie G., Pennsylvania. Supt. Berger, Mrs. H. Raymond, N. Y. Teacher. Bice, Rev. Brant L., New York. State secretary. Bice, Minard R., New York.
Registration of Delegates
603
Birchmore, Charles W., S. C. Teacher. Bird, Rev. J. E., West Virginia. Pastor. Black, Ulay W., Alabama. Teacliei". Blair, F. S., North Carolina. Officer. Blakely, Fred., Ontario. Superintendent. Blan, S. H.. New York. Officer. Bliss, John A., Iowa. Superintendent. Bondurant, E. J., Georgia. Superintendent. Boone, H. O., Ontario.
Bowerman, E. A., Michigan. Superintendent. Bowman, Rev. J. Hall, Texas. Pastor. Boune, Mrs. A. N., New York. Officer. Boxwell, Alex., Ohio. Teacher. Boyd, Mrs. Adrienne, Illinois. Superintendent . Bradley, G. F., Arkansas. Superintendent. Branscount, Rev. L. C, Alabama. Pastor. Branson, J. O., Indiana. Officer. Branson, Mrs. J. O., Indiana. Teacher. Breed, Charles Orrin, Massachusetts. Officer. Bricker, Mrs. W. H., Pennsylvania. Supt. Bridge, William A., Connecticut. Supt. Brock, Rev. James A. J., Alabama. Pastor and
teacher. Bronson, C. E., Pennsylvania. Supt. Brooker, Mrs. G., Iowa. Teacher. Bryan, Mrs. W. I., Georgia. Officer. Brunk, Rev. W. W., Vt. Pastor and teacher. Brundrett, George, Texas. Officer. Brundrett, Mrs. George, Texas. Officer. Brunley, Robert E., Louisiana. Supt. Brownlow, Mrs. M. E. W., N. Y. Teacher. Brown, Rev. R. A., Illinois. Pastor. Brown, Frank L., New York. Superintendent. Brown, Mrs. F. L., New York. Teacher. Brown, Armstead, Alabama. Officer. Brown, Rev. A. A., New York. Pastor. Brown, Wm. A., Illinois. Int. missionary sec. Brouse, O. R., Illinois. Teacher. Bunton, Rev. Geo. W., Kentucky. Pastor and
teacher. Burbank, J. A., Massachusetts. Supt. Burn, H. W., Illinois. Teacher. Buell, H. L., District of Columbia. State sec. Bergquist, Miss Medora, Nebraska. Supt. Buley, Rev. T. M., Louisiana. Pastor. Burhans, J. A., Illinois. Bums, Miss Hilda, Ontario. Teacher. Bums, Rev. R. N., Ontario. Pastor. Burrell, W. G., Quebec. Superintendent. Burrows, A. S., North Dakota. Teacher. Burrows, Mrs. A. S., North Dakota. Scholar. Buxton, Mrs. S. W., Indiana. Teacher. Butler, Rev. J. H., Ohio. Pastor. Campbell, Rev. C. A., Va. Pastor and teacher. Campbell, Reuben S., Michigan. Supt. Cann, E. Mabel, Nova Scotia. Teacher. Calhoun, Mrs. G. M., N. B. Teacher. Cain, Rev. W. J., Mich. Pastor and teacher. Cady, C. C, Iowa. Teacher. Canther, Rev. A. J., South Carolina. Pastor. Cavett, J. C, Mississippi. Superintendent. Caton, Pauline S., Nova Scotia. Teacher. Cathey, W. W., Washington. Missionary. Carter, Rev. Lewis E., New York. Pastor. Carter, E. S., Indiana. Superintendent. Carhart, E. R., New York. Superintendent. Carey, G., Arkansas. Superintendent. Carruthers, Albert, Illinois. Superintendent. Chrisman, Mrs. N. B., Iowa. Superintendent. Cheek, Rev. S. M., Arizona. Missionary.
Church, M. E., Virginia. Superintendent. Clark, Rev. H. D.. W. Va. Pastor and supt. Clarke. Alf. L.. Illinois. Officer. Clark. J. T.. Alabama. Officer. Clark, Rev. Joseph, Ohio. State secretary. Clark, Mrs. Fannie S., Mississippi. Supt. Clark, Rev. W. H., Georgia. Pastor. Clarke, Mrs. Ella, Illinois. Teacher. Clinton, A., New York. Teacher. Clovis, Mrs. Lee, Pennsylvania. Officer. Cochrane, Jean E., New York. Officer. Coffin, Charles F., Indiana. Superintendent. Coleman, Robert H., Texas. Superintendent. Coleman, Mrs. R. H., Texas. Scholar. Coleman, Rev. William H., Louisiana. Pastor
and officer. Conine, D. E., New York. Superintendent. Convis, F. L., Michigan. Teacher. Cook, E. J., Georgia.
Cook, Marguerita, Illinois. Superintendent. Cool, C. F., Kansas.
Cooper, E. W., New Jersey. Superintendent. CorneHus, A. B., Indiana. Cornelius, Mrs. A. B., Indiana. Corning, Maud L., New York. Crary, Mrs. M. J., New Jersey. Officer. Crate, Charles E., New Jersey. Teacher. Crawford, William J., Iowa. Teacher. Crews, A. C, Ontario. Editor. Cristy, J. E., Wisconsin. Superintendent. Cristy, Mrs. J. E., Wisconsin. Scholar. Crittenden, O. E., Michigan. Superintendent. Crowhurst, Rev. William, Wash. Pastor. Crux, Rev. W. S. A., Pastor and teacher. Cummins, G. Wyckofif, New Jersey. Cummins, Mrs. G. W., New Jersey. Cummings, Rev. J. H ., Arkansas. Pastor. Cundiflf, W. M., North Carolina. Supt. Curliss, William, Connecticut. Supt. Dantzler, Mrs. M. J., S. C. Teacher. Darby, Rev. T. B., Newfoundland. Pastor and
teacher. Davis, Anna Jane, Delaware. Davis, T. S., Alabama. Teacher, Dawson, B. G., Nebraska. Superintendent. Dean, Rev. Salem A., Michigan. Pastor. Dendy, Rev. F. Y., South Carolina. Pastor. Denman, Mrs. Clint., Missouri. Officer. Denman, Clint. H., Missouri. Superintendent Diffendorfer, R. E., New York. Officer. Dick, Rev. S. M., Minn. Pastor and teacher. Dick, Mrs. S. M., Minnesota. Officer. Dibble, Andrew C., South Carolina. Supt. Diercks, Rev. H. J., Missouri. Pastor. Dietz, Wm. H., Illinois. Officer. Dietz, Mrs. Wm. H., Illinois. Officer. Dillard, W. D., Alabama. Superintendent. Dillon, Robert W., Ontario. Superintendent. Dixon, Rev. A. G., N. C. Pastor and teacher. Dodds, Robert, M.D., Illinois. Teacher. Dodds, Mrs. Jessie B., Illinois. Supt. Dougherty, Rev. W. E., New York. Field sec Downer, S. W., New Jersey. Superintendent. Dunn, F. L., Virginia. Superintendent. Durfee, Rev. H. A., Vermont. State secretary. Durgon, Mrs. J. R., New York. Teacher. Edwards, John A., New York. Supt. Edsall, Benjamin F., New Jersey. Teacher. Eichelberger, Jas. W., Jr., S. C. Supt. Ehres, Morris W., New York. Teacher.
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The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Eiaelen, Prof. F. C, 111. Lesson committee. Ellzey, Thomas V., Louisiana. State sec'y- Ellison. Miss Berta, North Carolina. Supt. Erst, Mrs. A. L., Pennsylvania. Supt. English, Rev. Nathan. Pastor and teacher. Engle, Rev. James W., West Virginia. Pastor. Engleman, Ida, New Jersey. Teacher. Estes, Rev. W. P., New York. Pastor. Estes, Rev. Fred M., Mass. Pastor and teacher. Ervin, Mrs. F. J., Illinois. Teacher. Evans, Dr. Edward T., Illinois. Supt. Evans, Mrs. Edw. T., Illinois. Teacher. Faull, Houghton K., Mississippi. Farwell. Rev. F. L., Ontario. Fackt, Miss Amy M., Illinois. Officer. Felton, Rev. Mrs. Rebecca, Georgia. Pastor. Ferguson, P. R., Washington. Superintendent. Ferguson, Mrs. W. B., Arkansas. Supt. Fitch, Frank F., Iowa. State secretary. Fitch, Mrs. Bertha, Iowa.
Fisher, Laura E., Wisconsin. Superintendent. Fisher, F. C, Maryland. Superintendent. Fishbume, Miss Ida M., S. C. Teacher. Finn, O. B., New York. Teacher. Fink, L. B., Indiana. Superintendent. Finch, Mrs. R. L., Missouri. Teacher. Field, James B., Michigan. Officer. Forsdick, Lancelot R., Tennessee. Teacher. Forsythe, B. S., Pennsylvania. Supt. Foster, Eugene C, Michigan. Teacher. Fountain, Wm. A., New Jersey. Officer. Fowler, J. A., District of Columbia. Supt. Fox, Dr. H. H., New York. Officer. Fryhofer, Mrs. Wm. E., Colorado. Supt. Frier, Clarence A., Illinois. Superintendent. French, E. E., Tennessee. Superintendent. Free, J. L., Ohio. Free, Emma E., Ohio. Teacher. Franks, C. T.. Kansas. Superintendent. Franks, Mrs. C. T., Kansas. Superintendent. France, Jason, New York. Frayser, Miss Nannie Lee, Ky. Teacher. Garrett, Minnie H., Ontario. Teacher. Garrison, Rev. T. L., Texas. Pastor. Gallaspy, Mrs. W. L., Mississippi. Scholar. Gay, A. J., Ontario.
Getchill, Mrs. J. K., Colorado. Scholar. Geyer, Mrs. George H., Ohio. Teacher. Glossbrenner, H. M., Indiana. Officer. Glossbrenner, Mary T., Indiana. Teacher. Gilson, B. S., Iowa. Gilson, Miss Mabel, Iowa. Teacher. Gilroy, C. J., Ontario. Superintendent. Gill, Miss Helen, Alabama. Gilbert, Noah W.. Arkansas. Supt . and teacher. Giddens, L. P., Alabama. Superintendent. Gibson, Hugh C, California. State sec. Gibson, Miss Mary C, Alabama. Officer. Gorham, Elmira, Vermont. Superintendent. Gordon, Wilberforce, Ontario. Superintendent. Goller, Edward D.. Ohio. Officer. Goodrich, Frederic S., Michigan. State sec'y- Goodsell, Annie G., New York. Missionary. Goddard, Mrs. L. C., Maine. Superintendent. Gold, W. H., Minnesota. Superintendent. Gold, Mrs. W. H., Minnesota. Superintendent. Goldfinch, A. E., South Carolina. Supt. Goucher, John F., Maryland. Grimes, E. W., Kansas. Officer. Griswold, Mrs. F. A., Michigan. Supt.
Groves, I. M., Virginia. Superinteiideat.
Gunn, A. A., Nova Scotia.
Gunn, H. J., Nova Scotia.
Guthrie, Rev. Chas. E., D. C. Pastor.
Green, Fanny L., Indiana. Teacher.
Gray, W. S., South Carolina. Teacher.
Graham, Martha V., West Virginia. Supt.
Haflfen, Florence E., California. Teacher.
Haffen, George, California. Pastor.
Hagans, Mrs. Eli, Indiana. Superintendent.
Hainlen, C. C, Indiana.
Hall, Rev. S. Ada, Iowa. Pastor and teacher.
Hallagan, Simon E., New York. Officer.
Hallenbach, J. W., Michigan. Pastor.
Halpenny, Rev. E. W., Ontario. State sec'y-
Hamilton, W., Ontario. Teacher.
Hamill, H. M., Tennessee. Superintendent.
Hamill, Mrs. H. M., Tennessee.
Hammer, Mrs. Wm. C, N. C. Teacher.
Hanson, Miss Jessie, Georgia. Teacher.
Harder, Jennie, New York.
Harpster, J. W., Iowa. Superintendent.
Harris, Hattie, North Carolina.
Harris, S. Wesley, South Dakota. Officer.
Harrison, Mrs. E. A., Illinois. Teacher.
Harrison, Mrs. H. G., Minnesota. Teacher.
Hart, H. P.. Illinois. Officer.
Hart, R. W., Missouri.
Hartman, Louis, Indiana.
Harwood, Miss Ada M., Newfoundland.
Teacher. Haskins, George A., New York. Supt. Hatten, Elizabeth. Kentucky. Teacher. Hawkins, W. D., Mississippi. Superintendent. Hawkins, Mrs. W. D., Mississippi. Hawthorne, Miss A. E., Georgia. Hayman, L. B., Illinois, Teacher. Henderson, Rev. J. A., Arkansas. Pastor. Hendrick, Charles T., Massachusetts. Supt. Hinnigan, James E., Nova Scotia. Supt. Heam, W. E., Maryland. Teacher. Heffley, Mrs. W. G., Tennessee. Hedgepeth, Mrytle, California. Teacher. Heckert, U. E., Kansas. Teacher. Herind, George C, Delaware. Officer. Hicks, Mrs. G. L., Michigan. Superintendent. Hiatt, Rev. A. J., W. Va. Pastor and teacher. Hick, Mrs. John, Michigan. Hord, Isaac C, Ontario. Officer. Hord, Mrs. Isaac C, Ontario. Hoyle, Mrs. Burton F., New York. Teacher. Hoyt, Katherine L., Wisconsin. Teacher. Howard, T. H., West Virginia. Teacher. Hotaline, R. E., New York. Superintendent. Hotaline, Mrs. R. E., New York. Teacher. Hooper, Lulie P., Maryland. Teacher. Hollar, Rev. Elmer E., Kansas. Pastor and
teacher. Holloway, James H., South Carolina. Supt. Holder, Rev. J. H., Mississippi. Pastor. Hoffman, Rev. JohnW., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Huber, C. O., Arkansas. Superintendent. Hubbard, George F., Illinois. Superintendent. Hutchins, Rev. W. L., N. C. Pastor. Hutchins, Mrs. W. L., N. C. Teacher. Heyship, L. J., Virginia. Superintendent. Hull, Vernon, Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Hughes, W. P., Wisconsin. Superintendent. Hughes, Mrs. W. P., Wisconsin. Teacher. Huffmeyer, Stella L., Texas. Superintendent.
Registration of Delegates
605
Hubbell. Charles H., Michigan.
Isner, Rev. C. A., West Virginia. Pastor and
officer. Isreal, F. T., District of Columbia. Supt. Ingram, G. W., Arkansas. Teacher. Idol, A. M., North Carolina. Superintendent. Ide, Edgar L., Michigan. Officer. Jackson, Mrs. Thomas, Pennsylvania. Supt. Jennings, Rev. M. C, N. J. Missionary. Jennings, Miss F. Altka, Conn. Teacher. Jameson, Rev, Henry W., 111. Pastor and supt. Janifer, Sarah J., District of Columbia. Supt. Jarrell, Rev. Chas. C, Georgia. Pastor. Jarrell, Mrs. Chas. C, Georgia. Teacher. Jeffries, Rev. P. W., D. C. Pastor and supt. Johnson, Sara N., New Jersey. Johnson, S. F., California. Superintendent. Johnson, R. T., New Jersey. Superintendent. Johnson, Mrs. Mary E., Iowa. Teacher. Johnson, J. T., Missouri. Superintendent. Johnson, George W., Wisconsin. Officer. Johnson, Rev. Crates S., Ohio. Pastor. Johnston, William C, Colorado. Teacher. Johnston, Mrs. W. C, Colorado. Teacher. Johnston, Master Wm. C, Colorado. Scholar. Jonas, May V., New York. Officer. Jones, Rev. D. D., South Carolina. Pastor. Jones, Miss Sallie Maud. Georgia. Teacher. Jones, Wm. M., South Carolina. Teacher. Jones, Mrs. Wm. M., South Carolina. Teacher. Josh, Rev. Roland M., N. S. Pastor and
teacher. Joyce, Rev. W. H. H., Virginia. Pastor. Johnston, G. F., Quebec. Officer. Johnston, Mrs. G. F., Quebec. Officer. Keller, T. H., Virginia. Superintendent. Kelley, John P., Delaware. Teacher. Kinnear, James W., Pennsylvania. Supt. Kinnear, Mrs. J. W., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Kennedy, Miss Marion E., Alabama. Ketron, Rev. A. C, Tennessee. Pastor. Ketron, Mrs. A. C, Tennessee. Teacher. Kenny, H. F., Canada. State secretary. Kindley, Rev. B. W., Maryland. State sec'y. Kindley. Mrs. B. W., Maryland. Teacher. King, Mrs. C. M., Minnesota. Scholar. King, George B., Indiana. Superintendent. King, Mrs. T. B., Tennessee. Kinney, Mrs. C. W., New York. Kirkbride, Mrs. L. M., Texas. Teacher. Kitchen, Eliza Martha, Ontario. Teacher. Kirkpatrick, Miss L. E., Nebraska. Teacher. Kilpatrick, Miss Eliz., Mississippi. Teacher. Knowlton, E. A., Minnesota. Superintendent. Knott, H. J.. British Columbia. Knott, Mrs. H. J.. British Columbia. Knorr, Mrs. E. M., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Knox, J. W., Quebec. Superintendent. Knox, Mrs. J. W., Quebec. Teacher. Laird, Miss Kate A., New York. Supt. Lacy, Rev. T. H., Va. Pastor and teacher. Lambert, Miss Tillie, Indiana. Teacher. Lathern, Lillie B., Nova Scotia. Teacher. Laws, Miss Katherine J., D. C. Teacher. Langley, Rev. H. G., Nebraska. Pastor. Langley, Mrs. H. G., Nebraska. Supt. Lansing, Mrs. D. W., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Larkee, Mrs. Jay C, Minnesota. Teacher. Landes, W. G., Pennsylvania. State sec'y- Landes, Mrs. W. G., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Lainson, John Wm., Ontario. Officer. Lipscomb, Rev. T. D., Louisiana. Pastor.
Lipscomb, Mrs. T. D., Louisiana. Missionary.
Leverett, Mrs. Genie, Mississippi. Teacher. Leatherman, Mrs. G. S., Indiana. Teacher.
Lincoln. Mrs. G. L., South Dakota.
Lincoln, Miss Ermina Chester, Mass. Teacher.
Lindsey, Rev. W. A., Arkansas. Pastor.
Lineweaver, Rev. N. A., Mass. Pastor and teacher.
Lippiatt, T. H., Pennsylvania. Officer.
Lippiatt, Mrs. T. H., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Litchfield, Rev. A. D., Kentucky. Pastor.
Litsinger, Rev. J. Ernest, Del. Pastor and teacher.
Lightner, J. E., Ohio. Teacher.
Locker, A. M., Prof., Minn. State secretary.
Locker, Mrs. A. M., Minnesota. Scholar.
Long, I. L., lUinois. Superintendent.
Long, Rev. W. Fred. Miss. State secretary.
Long, Mrs. W. Fred, Mississippi. Teacher.
Lothrop, G. W., Rhode Island.
Lovett, Helen Gill, Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Lovering, Henry L., Ontario. Superintendent.
Low, Wynne I., Pennsylvania. Officer.
Lydes, Rev. M. F., Virginia. Pastor.
Lysinger, Wm. S., Pennsylvania. Supt.
Lyon, William E., New York. Superintendent.
Lyon, Mrs. Wm. E., New York. Supt.
Lyon, Miss Minnie E., New York. Teacher.
Mays, Rev. Henry B., Georgia. Pastor.
Mays, Mrs. Henry B., Georgia. Teacher.
Maxwell, Mark. Kansas. Superintendent.
Mathis, A. S., Texas. Superintendent.
Matthews, H. A., Georgia. Superintendent.
Mather, A. H., Alabama. Teacher.
Matchett, Mrs. Amelia, Minnesota. Supt.
Masters, George, Michigan. Teacher.
Martin, Rev. A. M., Tex. Pastor and teacher.
Marshall, Mrs. M. M., Ohio. Teacher.
Marsh, J. D.. Washington. Teacher.
Manning. Wilber N., Ontario. Supt.
Manning, Rev. L. K., New York. Pastor and teacher.
Mann, N. S., Ontario. Superintendent.
McGinness, Edw., Indiana. Officer.
McGeari\ Mrs. Ella L., Penn. Teacher.
McFarland, J. T., New York.
McElfresh, Franklin, Illinois. Supt. Teacher- training.
McDonald, Mrs. Emma. So. Dak. Supt.
MacCulloch. Rev. Charles, New York. Pastor.
McClure, W. F., California. Teacher.
McClure, Rev. A. S., South Dakota. Teacher.
McBratnie, Elizabeth, Michigan. Supt.
Maclaren. Justice J. J., Ontario. Lesson com.
McNeal, Mrs. Charles L., Ohio. Officer.
McMuUen, Miss Frances, Florida. Officer.
McMullen, Rev. Wallace. New York. Pastor.
McMahon, Ella. Illinois. Officer.
Meyers, Jas. R.. Louisiana. Officer.
Meyers. Mrs. Jas. R.. Louisiana. Teacher.
Meyers. John B.. Louisiana.
Metzler, Mrs. Reed, Ohio. Superintendent.
Metcalf, CD.. Arkansas. Officer.
Melden, Rev. Charles M., Mass. Pastor.
Miles, Adelia G., Ohio. Superintendent.
Miller, J. W., Pennsylvania. Superintendent.
Miller, A. O., Louisiana. Teacher.
Miller, Geo. W., Illinois. Superintendent.
6o6
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Miller, Mrs. Geo. W., Illinois. Teacher. Michael, Orion C., Maryland . Superintendent. Mitchell, J. M., North Carolina. Supt. Moall, Miss Mary, New York. Teacher. Mogg, Rev. Curtis E., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Mohr, E. K., Michigan. MoUenhauer, E. A., Illinois. Ofi&cer. Moulton, Mrs. H. B., D. C. Superintendent. Mottram, Ernest W., California. Teacher. Mott, N. A., Mississippi. Teacher. Mott, Mrs. N. A., Mississippi. Teacher, Moss, Miss Lily B., Georgia. Superintendent. Morris, A. R., Virginia. Superintendent. Morrison, Rev. U. W., West Virginia. Pastor
and teacher. Morgan, Rev. C. H., New York. Morgan, Emma W., New York. Teacher. Moore, W. J., Oklahoma. Moore, John E., Louisiana. Teacher. Moore, Rev. C. P., Cal. Pastor and teacher. Moore, Mr. and Mrs. T., Georgia. Moore, Mrs. Ed., California. Teacher. Moorer, Mrs. L. A. J., South CaroHna. Officer. Morgan, Ezra J., Arkansas. Officer. Myers, Rev. W. S., S. C. Pastor. Myers, Mrs. W. S., South Carolina. Teacher. Myer, Rev. A. W., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Muus, N. M., North Dakota. Officer. Mullinneaux, Rev. F. H., Maryland. Pastor. Newton, R. Crosby, South Carolina. Supt. Nash, J. Wright, South Carolina. Teacher. Newell, Joseph W., New Jersey. Officer. Neill, Rev. John A., Ont. Pastor and teacher. Nelles, Samuel B., Ontario. Teacher. Nelles, Mrs. Samuel B., Ontario. Teacher. Nichols, E. H., Illinois. Superintendent. Nichols, Mrs. E. H., Illinois. Officer. Nichols, Edith M., Iowa. Teacher. Nichols, M. Bell, Missouri. Teacher. Nicholson, Rev. R. J., Maryland. Pastor. Ninde, Rev. Edw. S., Rhode Island. Pastor. Norman, Rev. Isaac, Canada. Pastor. Norris, Mabel, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Norris, Mary K., Pennsylvania. Teacher. O'Hair, Mrs. J. Ogden, Illinois. Supt. Odell, J. W.. New York. Trustee. Odell, Mrs. J. W., New York. Oldham, Mrs. Chas. H., Kentucky. Teacher. Olmstead, Rev. W. B., Illinois. Oliver, Rev. W. L., Arkansas. Pastor. Oliver, Mrs. W. L., Arkansas. Teacher. Osgood, Rev. A. M., Mass. Pastor. Outcalt, W. E., West Virginia. Officer. Owen, Leslie J., Illinois. Superintendent. Owen, Clara E., Illinois. Teacher. Parker, Jonathan B., New Jersey, Supt. Parkinson, Harry L., Pennsylvania. Officer. Parkinson, Mrs. H. L., Pennsylvania. Officer. Parks, Hugh, Jr., North Carolina. Supt. Parsons, W. H., B. C. Teacher. Patterson, Charles E., N. Y. Teacher. Patterson, Z., N. J. Teacher. Parker, Eva, La. Scholar. Pardee, Mrs. W. W., Tennessee. Payne, Mrs. Ed. G., Mississippi. Teacher. Penniman, George W., Mass. Teacher. Penfield, R. S., Pennsylvania Officer. Perry, I. Elmer, Delaware. Officer. Perry, John, Jr., Massachusetts. Supt. Peters, Rev. T. V., La. Pastor and teacher.
Penrifay, James E., South Carolina. Supt. Phillips, Rev. J. L., Nebraska. Pastor. Phillips, W. H., New York. Superintendent. Pierce, Elizabeth P., D. C. Teacher. Pleasants, Rev. C. E., Va. Pastor and teacher. Platts, Natt. T., New Hampshire. Supt. Platts, Mrs. Natt. T., New Hampshire. Officer. Place, Mrs. I. L., New York. Teacher. Poulson, Rev. O. B., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Porterfield, Mrs. I. A., Indiana. Teacher. Pomeroy, Mrs. Dora R., Michigan. Officer. Pond, Mrs. N. F. W., California. Teacher. Pressan, Mrs. J. A., Arkansas. Supt. Preston, J. C, Missouri. Superintendent. Preston, Mrs. J. C, Missouri. Scholar. Presson, J. A., Arkansas. Superintendent. Prettyman, C. W., Maryland. Supt. Pritchett, J. C, Kentucky. Superintendent. Prince, R. E., North Carolina. Supt. Puterbaugh, A. B., Illinois. Superintendent. Quam, J. A., Illinois. Teacher. Quarrington, G. K., Ontario. Superintendent. Radebaugh, William H., Ohio. Supt. Radcliffe, F. H., Manitoba. Radoslavofif, Rev. Theo. C, New Hampshire.
Pastor and teacher. Ragsdale, Rev. F. A., Georgia. Pastor. Ramsey, Mrs. Ada, Kentucky. Teacher. Ramsey, Rev. T. Y., Arkansas. Pastor. Randall, Rev. Louis, Md. Pastor and teacher. Randall, Rev. O. J., Penn. Pastor and supt. Randall, Miss Ruby, Michigan. Teacher. Randolph, Rev. J. B., Mississippi. Pastor. Rawson, Mrs. W. C, Florida. Teacher. Read, Rev. E^gar T., Maryland. Pastor and
teacher. Rector, A. E., Texas. Superintendent. Redding, Miss Dora, North Carolina. Teacher. Redditt, Rev. John J., Ont. Pastor and teacher. Reel, WilUam D., Pennsylvania. Supt. Reisner, Mrs. Mary M., Pennsylvania. Supt. Reseigh, Rev. John N., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
and teacher. Reynolds, F. H., New York. Supt. Rittzers, J. R., Iowa. Teacher. Rich, Frank A., Massachusetts. Supt. Rigg, Rev. M. A., Penn. Pastor and teacher. Roberts, W. D., South Carolina. Teacher. Robinson, Mrs. G. C, Ontario. Officer. Robinson. H. H., Maryland. Superintendent. Robinson, Rev. W. H., Penn. Pastor. Robinson, W. L., New York. Superintendent. Robinson, W. M., Ohio. Superintendent. Rogers, Arthur, Virginia. Teacher. Rose, Ida M., Ontario. Officer. Rose, W. B., Illinois. Teacher. Ross, Dr. I. N., District of Columbia. Pastor. Ross, Justus, Oklahoma. Ross, L. F., North Carolina. Scholar. Royar, Fred J., New York. Rush, Mrs. J. H., Ontario. Rush, J. H., Ontario. Superintendent. Russell, Rev. Ira H., Arkansas. Pastor. Russell, Mrs. Isaac F.. New York. Officer. Russell, Rev. W. C, Missouri. Pastor. Rutan, Harry D., California. Teacher. Rutherford, Mrs. W. A., British Columbia. Ryder, E. S., New York. Superintendent. Sauls, Mrs. J. L., South Carolina. Scholar. Scott. James B., Maryland. Superintendent.
I
Registration of Delegates
607
Scarrett, Mrs. W. E.', New Jersey. Supt.
Schappi, James, Ohio. Superintendent.
Schuessler, Rev. E. F., Louisiana. Pastor and teacher.
Schult, F. S.. Manitoba.
Schuyler, Philip D., New York. Supt.
Scott, N. Coutrice, Virginia. Teacher.
Search, Blanche T., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Shaw, H. G., New Jersey. Superintendent.
Shafer, Rev. J. M., Ohio. Pastor.
Shafer, Mrs. J. M., Ohio.
Shermer, W. H., New York. Superintendent.
Shay, Clark W., California. Officer.
Simpson, Harry G., New York. Officer.
Simpson, Mrs. Thomas, Michigan.
Smith, Mrs. E. M., New Hampshire. Supt.
Smith, L. H., Kansas. Teacher.
Smith, Mrs. Robert, New York. Scholar.
Smith, Susie, Ilhnois. Teacher.
Smith, Mrs. W. E., Indiana. Superintendent.
Smith, Rev. W. J., Ontario. Pastor.
Soper, Edmund D., New York.
Snyder, Rev. A. H., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Spencer, John O., New Jersey. Superintendent.
Sparks, J. W., Pennsylvania, Superintendent.
Sparks, Miss Edna B., New Jersey. Teacher.
Spencer, Rev. Isaac F., Kentucky. Pastor.
Spooner, Rev. George H., Virginia. Pastor.
Springer, H. S., New Jersey.
Shoch, Harry B., New Jersey.
Shuter, J. W., Ohio. Officer.
Sheffey, Edw. F., Virginia. Superintendent.
Shaw, Rev. William, Vt. Pastor and teacher.
St. Clair, George W., Indiana. Teacher.
Stacks, E. S., Michigan. Superintendent.
Stair, Rev. Peter F., Wisconsin. Pastor.
Standifer, Walter S., Alabama. Teacher.
Stanley, Mrs. Frank, Ontario. Scholar.
Stanley, Frank, Ontario. Officer.
Stanton, Rev. Charles S., W. Va. Pastor.
Steele, J. D., District of Columbia. Supt.
Strecker, C. F., Ohio. Officer,
Strecker, Mrs. C. F., Ohio. Scholar.
Stevens, Lucy M., Connecticut, Teacher.
Stevenson, Rev. Ezra R., Minnesota. Pastor.
Stem, W. D., Kansas. Teacher.
Stem, Mrs. W. D., Kansas. Teacher.
Stewart, J. Finley, Ohio. Superintendent.
Stewart, Mrs. Mary L., Pennsylvania. Officer.
Stover, E. S,, Missouri, Teacher,
Stowe, W, E,, Louisiana. Officer.
Stokes, Mrs. Ludie, Mississippi. Officer.
Stoneman, Mrs. O. P., Nova Scotia.
Stone, Edwin E., New York. Superintendent.
Stone, Rev. Edward D,, District of Columbia. Pastor and officer.
Storey, T, J„ Illinois, Officer.
Storey, Mrs. T. J., Illinois. Scholar.
Stone, Rev, Seward W,, Michigan, Pastor,
Stratton, Mrs, J, L,, Pennsylvania, Supt.
Stultz, E. S, V„ New Jersey. Superintendent.
Stultz, Rev. W. D., New Jersey. Pastor and teadber.
Studley, Rev. Elliott F., Massachusetts, Pas- tor and teacher,
Sutherland, Rev. R. K., Virginia. Pastor.
Tarbell, Miss Martha, New Jersey.
Tatum, W. S. F., Mississippi. Teacher.
Tatum, Mrs. W. S. F,, Mississippi. Teacher.
Taylor, Rev. LeRoy N., New York. Pastor
and teacher. Taylor, P. T., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Taylor, J. J., Mississippi. Superintendent. Taake, Miss Alice P., Missouri. Teacher. Tabor, Mrs. John S., New York. Supt. Tally, Rev. Charles T., Texas. Pastor. Terry berry. Rev. A. I., Ontario. Pastor. Terryberry, Mrs. A. I., Ontario. Teacher. Thompson, J. W., North Carolina. Thompson, Miss M. C, Louisiana. Thompson, Rev. Nath., Georgia. Pastor and
teacher. Thompson, Mrs. Nath., Georgia. Teacher. Thompson, Samuel H., New Jersey. Supt. Thuston, Mrs. Elmer C., Alabama. Teacher. Thomburg, F. M,, West Virginia, Supt, Thomburg, Rev. J. S., W. Va. Pastor and supt, Throop, Eva, Michigan, Scholar, Thompson, Rev, Roger E,, N. H. State sec. Tombaugh, C. R., Illinois. Officer. Tombaugh, Mrs. C. R., Illinois. Scholar. Tolbert, J. F., South Carolina. Teacher. Townsley, Rev. A. I., Louisiana, Pastor. Truesdale, H. A., Ohio, Officer, Tuthill, George E,. New York, Trieschmann, A,, Arkansas, Superintendent. Trieschmann, Mrs. A., Arkansas. Teacher, Tudor, Rev, W, V„ D. C, Pastor, Ukai, Rev, K., New York. Pastor and supt. Underbill, Mrs, S. S„ California, Teacher. Varm, Mrs. Samuel C,, N. C. Teacher. Van Varter, J., N. C. State secretary. VanVolkenberg, Mrs. F. D,, La. Teacher. Vandiver, Grace W., South Carolina, Van Voris, Irving, New York. Vincent, W. H., and wife, Virginia. Supt. Wayne, Rev, T. R., Pennsylvania. Pastor, Way, Prof, J. M., S. C, Acting state sec'y. Ware, Mrs, Florence S., Massachusetts. Supt. Ward, W, P., Georgia. Superintendent. Ward, Mrs. W. P., Georgia. Teacher. Ward, Luedith, Indiana. Officer, Walton, Mrs, A, L., Ohio. Teacher. Walton, John, Pennsylvania. Superintendent Wallace, F, T., Kentucky. Scholar. Walker, Rev, C, W,, New York. Pastor. Winn, Rev. J. Arthur, Virginia. Pastor. Watkins, Clarence, Kentucky. Superintendent. Washburn, Fred, Michigan. Officer. Warriner, B. R,, Mississippi, Superintendent Warner, James, Illinois. Superintendent. Warner, David S., Illinois. Wame, Dr. F. C, Illinois. Superintendent. Weaver, R. M., Mississippi. Teacher. Weaver, Mrs. R. M., Mississippi. Teacher. Webb, Rev, Mrs. Grace J,, Wisconsin. Pastor
and teacher. Weeks, Rev. Ernest S., P. E. Island. Pastor. Webster, Waldo D., Ohio. Superintendent. Weeb, Rev. Lynn B., Wisconsm. Pastor. Welch, Rev. G. W., 111. Pastor and teacher. Wellman, T. E., Nebraska. Officer. Wells, J. Howard, D. C. Superintendent. Wells, Rev. P. B., S. C. Pastor and teacher. Webster, R. H., Texas. Teacher. Westfall, W. M., Oklahoma. Wetherell, Mrs. O, D.. Florida, Supt, Wetherell, Miss Sybil, Florida, Teacher.
6o8
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Wetstein, Edw. F.. Kentucky. Superintendent. Wingate, Mrs. Lida. Indiana. Officer. Wilson, Maggie S., Delaware. Teacher. Wills, Wurt J., Tennessee. Wheeler, Rev. J. H., N. Y. Pastor and teacher. Whear, John F., P. E. Island. Superintendent. Whiteside, J. W.. South Dakota. White, Mrs. Martha, Michigan. Teacher. Whyte, Geo. Sumner, Maryland. Supt. Wightman, E. J., Nebraska. Superintendent. Wightman, Mrs. E. J., Nebraska. Scholar. Wikoff, W. M., Ohio. Wilbur, Charles E., Pennsylvania. Williams, Miss Alma, Colorado. Teacher. Williams, C. B., Michigan. Superintendent. Williams, Rev. Felton, Georgia. Pastor.
Williams, Fremont F., New York. Teacher. Wingfield, L. E., Virginia. Teacher. Wray, Rev. G. W., Virginia. Wunn, C. H., North Dakota. Superintendent. Woods. Mrs. Ruth A., Indiana. Supt. Wolcott, Miss T. H., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Wright, Mrs. W. C, Georgia. Teacher. Wylie, Rev. W. H., Indiana. Pastor. Wynn, Mrs. Robert H.. Louisiana. Teacher. Yeakle, I. H., Nebraska. Superintendent. Young, Ed. L., Ohio. Superintendent. Yoder, Rev. D. Carl, Ohio. Pastor. York, Frank E., Ontario. Superintendent. Young, Rev. Geo. M., Nova Scotia. Pastor. Young, W. D., Arkansas. Superintendent. Young, Mrs. W. D., Arkansas. Scholar.
PRESBYTERIAN
Alexander, Rev. Frank M., Kansas. Pastor. Alford, James J., Missouri. Superintendent. Allen, Miss Mirmie F., Arkansas. Teacher. Anderson, E. V., Illinois. Superintendent. Anderson, Mrs. Isaac S., Virginia. Teacher. Andrews, C. R., North Carolina. Scholar. Arnold, Wm. F., Permsylvania. Scholar. Archibald, Rev. A. D., N. B. Pastor and supt. Arnold, Rev. G. W., Ont. Pastor and teacher. Awcock, Agnes A., Louisiana. Teacher. Bailey, Dr. Geo. W., Pennsylvania. Chairman
World's Sunday -School Association. Bailey. Mrs. Geo. W., Pennsylvania. Bailey, Miss Grace L., Permsylvania. Bailey, Miss Anna M., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Bailey, James W., Illinois. Teacher. Bailey, Mrs. J. W., Illinois. Teacher. Baity, Mrs. G. P., Missouri. Superintendent. Baker, Charles A., D. C. Superintendent. Band, Helen, Illinois. Teacher. Barnes, Edward W., New Jersey. Supt. Barnes, Mrs. Ellen L., New York. Officer. Barr, J. Rufus, Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Barrett, E. L.. Ohio. Teacher. Barrett. Mrs. E. L., Ohio. Scholar. Bartholomew, Elam, Kansas. Officer. Bebb, Mrs. E. C, Indiana. Teacher. Beck, W. C, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Behm, Nellie, Tennessee. Teacher. Bell, Elizabeth A., Ontario. Teacher. Bell, Rev. H. H., California. Pastor. Bell, Walter H.. Oklahoma. Officer. Bell, Mrs. Walter H., Oklahoma. Supt. Benham, Rev. DeW. M., Maryland. Pastor
and teacher. Benson, Pear, Wisconsin. Superintendent. Benson, Mrs. Pear, Wisconsin. Supt. Bird, Miss Nellie, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Black, M. Percy, Missouri. Superintendent. Bateman, Fred H., New Jersey. Supt. Boyce, W. W., South Carolina. Supt. Boyce, Mrs. W. W., South Carolina. Scholar. Bond, Mrs. Wm. R., Illinois. Superintendent. Boppell, C. J., Wash. State secretary. Boppell. Mrs. C. J., Washington. Officer. Boreim, J. W., Virginia. Scholar. Bower, Charles N., Delaware. Supt. Bowers, John W., Alabama. Officer. Bowman, Ella, Indiana. Scholar. Boyd, J. Andrew, Pennsylvania. Supt.
Boyd, Mrs. J. Andrew, Pennsylvania. Supt.
Bozeman, W. N., Alabama.
Brady, Mrs. Sarah B., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Braskamp, Rev. Otto, New Jersey. Pastor and missionary.
Brecht, Mrs. H. L., Oklahoma. Teacher.
Brecht, Miss Mae, Oklahoma. Scholar.
Brice, Mrs. Sallie J., Pennsylvania. Scholar.
Brown. Rev. Walter S.. New York. Pastor.
Brown. Frank DeWitt. New York.
Brown, Miss Delia, Indiana. Missionary.
Brown, Rev. David, Washington. Pastor.
Burks, C. W., Arkansas.
Bumie, George N., Indiana. State sec'y-
Byerly, Mrs. E. M., Oklahoma. Teacher.
Cameron, Rev. A. G., Ont. Pastor and teacher.
Campbell, Charles M., California. Superin- tendent and officer.
Caughey, Robert A., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Campbell, Rev. W. C, Virginia. Pastor.
Calder, Rev. John. N. S. Pastor and teacher.
Cartwright. K., Alabama. Superintendent.
Cartwright, Mrs. K., Alabama. Teacher.
Carter. Estelle V., New Jersey. Teacher.
Carson, Charles M.. Michigan. Officer.
Carmack. H. E.. Pennsylvania. Supt.
Chrisman. N. B., Iowa. Teacher.
Chandler, George J., Maryland. Teacher.
Clazett, Mrs. C. W., Kentucky. Teacher.
Clark, Mrs. C. E., Illinois. Superintendent.
Clark, Rev. R. L., Penn. Pastor and teacher.
Clymer, H. M., Pennsylvania. Superintendent.
Coates, Cora N., Permsylvania. Teacher.
Cole, John H.. Pennsylvania. Supt.
Collins, Rev. Lewis, North Carolina. Pastor.
Cooke, H., Canada. Superintendent.
Cooley, Rev.LeRoy C, la. Pastor and teacher.
Cooley, Rev. Walter P., Michigan. Pastor and teacher.
Copeland, Foster, Ohio. Teacher.
Cornwall, Alice H., California. Teacher.
Cosnett, Mrs. M. C, Oregon. Teacher.
Coulter, Curtis C, Illinois. Superintendent.
Coulter, James L., New York. Officer.
Cowles, E. E., Missouri. Superintendent.
Craig, Mrs. P. V., Iowa. Teacher.
Cramp, Mary R., Permsylvania.
Crawford, J. W., Arkansas. Superintendent.
Crawford, Mrs. J. W., Arkansas. Supt.
Crawford, Mrs. John A., Penn. Teacher.
Registration of Delegates
609
Crock, Walter J., Pennsylvania- Supt.
Cronin, Rev. Henry C, New Jersey. Pastor and teacher.
Cross, L. A., Colorado. Teacher.
Crumbine, S. J., M.D., Kansas. Teacher.
Cummings, John W., New York. Supt.
Cunningham, R. B., South Carolina. Supt.
Cusey, Mrs. Rufus, Nova Scotia. Officer.
Custas Charles L., Pennsylvania.
Custas, Mrs. Charles L., Pennsylvania.
Donaldson, D. R., Massachusetts. Supt.
Davis, Mrs. E. A. R., New York. Teacher.
Davis, Miss Ella, Virginia. Teacher.
Davis, G. Franklin, New Jersey. Teacher.
Davis, Mrs. G. Franklin, New Jersey. Scholar.
Davis, Kenneth G., Kentucky. Supt.
Davis, Robert W., Kentucky. Superintendent.
Davis, Roswell, New York. Superintendent.
Davis, Mrs. Roswell, New York. Supt.
Davise, Rev. Lariraore C, Penn. Pastor.
Deibler, Agnes, Wisconsin. Teacher.
Decker, Mrs. Emma A., Michigan. Supt.
Dempsey, Josiah, Illinois. Teacher.
Dewar, James M., New Jersey,
Dickie, Mrs. A., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Dickie, Cora B., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Dickie, S. A., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Dillard, G. T., South Carolina. Missionary.
Dodge, Richard D., New York.
Dodge, Rev. W. H., Fla. Pastor and supt.
Downing, Rev. W. L., Texas. Pastor.
Dorsey, Charles W., Maryland. Supt.
Dorsey, Mrs. C. W., Maryland.
Dramfield, Thomas, New York. Officer.
Dreisbach, I. M., Pennsylvania. Scholar.
Dunaway, Miss Eleanor, Missouri. Officer.
Dunaway, Miss Elizabeth, Missouri. Scholar.
Dunham, Edw. W., New Jersey. Supt.
Easton, W. Burnet, Pennsylvania. Supt.
Easton, Mrs. W. Burnet, Pennsylvania. Supt.
Edwards, C. T., Wisconsin. Officer.
Ellis, Edwin M., Mont. Pastor and missionary.
Ellis, E. D., Florida. Teacher.
Erwin, H. C, West Virginia. Officer.
Estey, Mrs. S. S., Kansas. Superintendent.
Eudaly, W. A., Ohio. Teacher.
Eudaly, Fannie J., Ohio. Teacher.
Everett, Mrs. Francis D., Illinois. Officer.
Everett, Francis D., Illinois. Officer.
Evans, Miss Leila B., South Carolina. Teacher.
Evans, Rev. Albert, N. Y. Pastor and teacher.
Famham, Miss Edna, Mississippi.
Faris, Rev. John T., Pennsylvania. Editor.
Fender, Mrs. George W., Texas.
Ferguson, Rev. E. N., Pennsylvania. Supt.
Ferry, Rev. Asa J., Penn. Pastor and teacher.
Ferry, Mrs. Asa J., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Fisher, W. A., Ohio.
Fishbaugh, Mrs. Paul W., D. C. Teacher.
Forbes, Mrs. G. Ernest, Nova Scotia. Teacher.
Foreman, Mrs. G. S., New York. Supt.
Forsyth, Rev. Sam'l M., Massachusetts. Pas- tor and officer.
Fuller, Jerome T., Alabama. Superintendent.
Fean, S. P., Ohio. Superintendent.
French, V. E., New York. Superintendent.
Fraser, Rev. Thurlow, Manitoba. Pastor and teacher.
Fraser, Rev. R. D., Ontario. Editor.
Fraser, Mrs. R. D., Ontario.
Francis, Charles E., New York. Supt. FuUerborn, Rev. F. F., Canada. Pastor. Field, Frank H., Louisiana. Superintendent. Galliard, Charles R., South Carolina. Supt. Gamble, Miss Maggie, N. C. Officer. Gates, M. C, New York. Gates, Miss Hattie M., Indiana. Supt. Gee, C. E., West Virginia. Superintendent. Glassford, Rev. R. J. M., Ontario. Glassford, Mrs. R. J. M., Ontario. Gillespie, Rev. W. B., California. Pastor. Gibson, Theron, Ontario. Superintendent. Gibbons, Mrs. Nannie C, Missouri. Teacher. Gordon, Thomas F., Kentucky. Supt. Goodman, F. S., New York. Officer. Goldsmith, O. B., New York. Teacher. Graff, Hon. Joseph V., Illinois. Grooves, Rev. W. H., Virginia. Pastor. Gigsby, Frances L., Kentucky. Grindley, Sarah, Michigan. Teacher. Gunn, Charles E., Missouri. Officer. Gunn, Mrs. C. S., New York. Officer. Guille, Rev. B. F., Ga. Pastor and teacher. Green, Rev. J. B., South Carolina. Pastor. Green, B. W., Arkansas. Officer. Guy, George F., California. Superintendent. Hall, W. W., New York. Superintendent. Hallock, Rev. R. C, N. Y. Pastor and supt. Hamilton, Frank, New York. Teacher. Hamilton, Mrs. Frank, New York. Teacher. Hamlin, Alice B., New Jersey. Teacher. Hamner, Miss L. N., Virginia. Supt. Hanbert, Myrtle, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Hayes, Calvin M., Pennsylvania. Supt. Hempstead, E. B., Arkansas. Superintendent. Herriott, W. T. B., Kansas. Superintendent. Henthom, Miss Oril, Indiana. Officer. Hill, Mrs. Jennie K., Kentucky. Teacher. Hill, Rev. J. J., Mississippi. Pastor. Hill, Mrs. John S., North Carolina. Scholar. Houser, I. M., Indiana. Hoska, Mrs. C. L., Washington. Teacher. Hostetler, Katherine, Tennessee. Teacher. Howard, Phillip E., Pennsylvania. Supt. Huton, Mrs. E. S., New York. Holden, William D., New York. Supt. Hogg, S. O., Nova Scotia. Superintendent. Hubbell, M. E., New York. Scholar. Hutton, Mrs. Rob't J., Michigan. Supt. Huntting, Rev. J. M., New Jersey. Pastor
and teacher. Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman, New Jersey. Hughes, George W., New Jersey. Teacher. Hyson, Alice, New Mexico. Missionary. Irwin, Rev. Charles F., Ohio. Pastor and
teacher. Irwin, Mrs. Belle, Washington. Teacher. Jameson, Martin A., Ohio. Teacher. Jameson, W. D., Iowa. Teacher. Jardine, J. C, P. E. Island, Teacher. Jack, Rev. T. C, Nova Scotia. Pastor. Jackson, Dr. C. D., Colorado. Jackson, Miss May, Minnesota. Teacher. Jackson, Rev. Moses H., Illinois. Johnson, Rev. S. Boyd, New York. Pastor. Joel, Edith, Colorado. Teacher. Johnston, Thomas P., N. C. Teacher. Joplin, George A., Kentucky. Kaye, Mrs. A. S., Ohio. Kerr, Rev. G. G., Pennsylvania. Pastor,
6io
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Keyser, Mrs. George, Colorado. Teacher.
Kennedy, E. B., South Carolina.
King, Rev. D. H., New Jersey. Pastor.
King, Mrs. Ellen A., New Jersey. Supt.
Kinner, Mrs. Annis, Nebraska. Scholar.
Kuhns, Miss Isabel, Pennsylvania. Officer.
Kurtz, Alice L., Wisconsin. Teacher.
Lacey, Elmer E., Missouri. State secretary.
Lacy, Rev. J. McD. A., Va. Pastor and teacher.
Lamar, Mrs. F. M., Oklahoma.
Lamont, Pheme B., Ontario. Teacher.
Lange, Frank W., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Lamson, Rev. J. F., Arkansas. Pastor.
Lane, W. J., North Dakota. Superintendent.
Lange, Miss Dorothea, Texas. Teacher.
Lansing, James A., Pennsylvainia. Supt.
Lansing, Mrs. James A., Penn. Teacher,
Leyda, H. M., Illinois. Officer.
Leyda, Mrs. H. M., Illinois. Officer.
Lewis, C. J., Iowa. Scholar.
Lewellen Mrs. M. J., Oregon. Teacher.
Lewellen, W. J., Oregon. Superintendent.
Lee, Mrs. L. J., Minnesota. Superintendent.
Lee, Mrs. George J., North Dakota. Teacher.
Leyenberger, Rev. J. P., West Virginia. Pas- tor and teacher.
Lile, Rev. W. B., Illinois. Missionary.
Lindquist, Emma, Nebraska. Superintendent.
Little, Mrs. C. W., Nebraska. Teacher.
Lytle, Mrs. George S., Minnesota. Teacher.
Ludwig, DeB. K. Superintendent.
Lufkin, H. E., Maine. State secretary.
Lufkin, Mrs. H. E., Maine. Teacher.
Luther, Martin A., Georgia. Superintendent.
Maynard, Miss K., Wisconsin.
Maxwell, Miss Nellie., Wisconsin. Officer.
Maxwell, Rev. M. B., Pennsylvania. Pastor and teacher.
Mason, Alfred D., Tennessee. Superintendent.
Martin, Rev. R. H., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Martin, Prof. J. D., N. C. Missionary.
Martin, Mrs. J. D., North Carolina. Officer.
Markley, Cliff, Kansas Officer.
Markley, Mrs. Cliff, Kansas. Teacher.
Maclean, Rev. W. A., Manitoba. Pastor and officer.
McLaughlan, S. S., Missouri. Superintendent.
McKissock, Peter, Illinois. Officer,
McKinney, Rev. A. H., New York. Pastor.
McKinney, Mrs. A. H., New York, Teacher.
McKercher, Ethel C, Oregon. Teacher.
McKay, George M., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
McKamy, Rev. John A., Massachusetts.
Maclnnes, D. M., Montana. Officer.
McGranahan, Rev. R. W., Tennessee. Pastor.
McGranahan, Mrs. R. W., Tennessee. Teacher.
McGillwrap, Rev. Alex, Ontario. Pastor.
McDonedd , Rev . William , Nova Scotia . Pastor and superintendent.
MacDonald, Walter, Nova Scotia. Supt.
MacDonald, Miss L, E., Ontario.
McDonald, Rev. John A., B.A., Ontario. Pastor and teacher.
McDonald, John, Oregon. Scholar.
McDonald, Mrs. John, Oregon. Supt.
MacDonald, A. J., Nova Scotia.
McCuUock, Eugenia S., Kentucky. Officer.
McClure, J. B., Colorado. Teacher.
McClure, Mrs. J. B., Colorado. Supt.
McClelland, Charles B., Tennessee. Supt.
McCandless, Geo., British Columbia. Teacher.
McCandless, Mrs. Geo., British Columbia. Scholar.
McCallum, Exiw. P., Tennessee. Officer.
McCallum, Mrs. Edw. P., Tennessee. Supt.
McAfee, Ralph C, Ohio. Superintendent.
McWhorter, Mrs. Walter, New Jersey. Officer.
MacQueen, Rev. Norman, N. S. Pastor.
MacMullin, Miss M. B., Penn. Teacher.
McLeod, Mrs. J. C, Alabama. Teacher.
Maclean, Neil, Nova Scotia. Teacher.
Marshall, D, W., Connecticut, Supt.
Meyer, Edwin A., New Jersey. Teacher.
Menninger. Mrs. C. F., Kansas. Supt.
Melchior, Wm. H., Virginia. Superintendent.
Meigs, C. D., Indiana. Superintendent.
Meigs, Mrs. CD., Indiana, Officer.
Mendenhall, Miss Clara, Delaware, Supt.
MiUs, A. H., Illinois, Teacher,
Miller, Rev, R. J., Pennsylvania. Supt.
Michel, Rev. C. T., Kentucky. Pastor.
Miller, Mrs. F. W., New Jersey.
Mitchell, Luther, Ohio. Superintendent.
Moon, Mrs. E. M., New Jersey. Supt.
Montgomery, Rev. D. W., Nebraska. Pastor and teacher.
Morton, James, Georgia. Teacher.
Morgan, Rev. J. F., N. J. Pastor and teacher.
Moore, J. J., Indiana. Scholar.
Moore, Rev. Samuel W., West Virginia. Pastor and superintendent.
Moorehead, Prof. W. G., Ohio. Lesson com. Murgatroyd, Rev. E. R., New Jersey. Pastor.
Murphy, Miss Ella, Iowa. Scholar.
Murray, James B., New York. Officer. Nehs, Fred A., Wisconsin. Officer. Nease, Wm., Pennsylvania. Scholar. Nease, Mrs. Wm., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Nicholson, Rev. J. W. A., Nova Scotia. Pastor
and teacher. Nicholson, Mrs. J. W. A., N. S, Teacher, Norris, Miss Ada L., New Jersey. Teacher. Northrup, Flora L., New York, Press. Noutman, S, W,, Missouri. Officer. Nuttall, L. W., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Nuttall, Mrs, L, W., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Orchard, W. R., Iowa, Superintendent, Paxton, Miss E. D., New Jersey. Teacher, Palmer, Bertha S., Pennsylvania. Patterson, Mrs. H. B., Pennsylvania. Teacher, Patrick, Rev. Wm., Manitoba, Lesson com. Patterson, Miss M. E., Texas. Scholar. Pelton, William L., New York. Supt. Perkins, P. R., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. ' Peterson, Miss Emily L., N. Y., Missionary. Peterson, Miss Ethel G., Kansas, Teacher, Peterson, William A., Illinois. Teacher. Pettus, Mrs. W. E., Alabama. Scholar. Phillips, Rev. A. L., Virginia. Phipps, Rev. Charles A., Oregon. State secre- tary. Phipps, Mrs. Charles A., Oregon. Scholar. Pickup, Rev. H. R., Ont. Pastor and teacher. Piercy, A. Grace, New York. Superintendent. Pitkm, T. N., Illinois. Teacher. Porter, Mrs. Robert, Missouri. Teacher. Pollitt, L. I., Maryland. Teacher. Pollock, Rev. William A., Vermont. Pastor
and teacher. Pollock, Rev. J. S., Colorado. Pastor.
Registration of Delegates
6ii
Porter, William D., New Jersey. Supt. Presho, Mrs. A. A., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Price, James F., Kentucky. Officer. Price, Rev. Sam'l, New Jersey. Pastor. Pyle, John C, Delaware. Quattlebaum, Paul, South Carolina. Supt. Quattlebaum, Miss M., S. C. Teacher. Ramsey, J. E., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Ramsey, Mrs. J. E., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Randolph, James A. T., Pennsylvania. Supt. Rankin, S. M., North Carolina. Ray, Miss Ruth, New Jersey. Rea, Bessie, Mississippi. Teacher. Rae, Rev. J. W., Conn. State secretary. Reager, Madeline E., Kentucky. Officer. Redmond, Rev. Daniel, New York. Pastor
and teacher. Reed, George E., New York. Teacher. Reid, Miss Sarah J., Ohio. Teacher. Reisner, J. W., District of Columbia. Officer. Rhoades, J. L., Alabama. Superintendent. Richardson, Mrs. B. F., Pennsylvania. Richardson, Mrs. D. P., Oklahoma. Teacher. Richardson, Mrs. E. A., Montana. Teacher. Richardson, Ivan, Oklahoma. Scholar. Richman, D. T., Pennsylvania. Supt. Ridgway, William H., Pennsylvania. Supt. Ridgway, Mrs. Wm. H., Penn. Teacher. Roberts, James D., Pennsylvania. Supt. Robertson, Norma, Ontario. Superintendent. Rogers, Nina S., Pennsylvania. Scholar. Rossell, A. R., New Jersey. Superintendent. Rundle, Mrs. W. B., Illinois. Teacher. Rundle, W. B., Illinois. Superintendent. Rusler, Mrs. Geo. J., Oklahoma. Officer. Russell, Mrs. E. L., Alabama. Teacher. Russell, Rev. Wm. T., Washington. Pastor. Rutherford, Mrs. W. A., British Columbia. Schenck, Charles E., Illinois. Officer. Scherer, Tilden, Virginia. Superintendent. Scherer, Mrs. Tilden, Virginia. Schriver, Mrs. P. P., Kansas. Supt. Scott, Miss L. B., Kentucky. Officer. Scott, William H., Pennsylvania. Supt. Sealey, Helen M., New York. Teacher. Sechler, J. A., Pennsylvania. Officer. Semelroth, W. J., Wisconsin. State secretary. Semelroth, Mrs. W. J., Wisconsin. Teacher. Shaw, Rev. S. J., Cal. Pastor and teacher. Sharpe, Rev. D. S., Wash. Pastor and teacher. Skell, Mrs. Florence E., Louisiana. Officer. Simpson, F. H., Illinois. Teacher. Smiley, Rev. W. B., Pennsylvania. Secretary. Smith, Rev. D. Everett, Kansas. Pastor. Smith, Horton S., Maryland. Officer. Smith, Mrs. W. S., Nebraska. Missionary. Smith, W. T., Iowa. Superintendent. Smith, Mrs. W. T., Iowa. Sox, Mrs. H. E., North Dakota. Officer. Snyder, Mrs. DeWitt C, New Jersey. Supt. Snell, Eloise, Iowa. Teacher. SmuU, Thomas J., Ohio. Superintendent. Shelden, E. H., Massachusetts. Supt. Shattuck, S. F., Wisconsin. Officer. Shattuck, Mrs. S. F., Wisconsin. Teacher. Shreeve, C. A., D.D.S., Maryland. Supt. Stafford, Miss Beulah, Minnesota. Teacher. Steele, Rev. I. D., Alabama. Pastor. Stevenson, Andrew, Illinois. Teacher. Stevenson, Rev. J. Ross, Maryland. Pastor.
Stewart, Walter, Nova Scotia. Teacher. Stites, John, Kentucky. Pres. Int. S. S. Asso. Stroker, Wilheimina, Connecticut. Supt. Strong, Rev. E. E., Arkansas. Pastor and
teacher. Sutherland, Allan, Pennsylvania. Supt. Sutherland , W . R . , Saskatchewan . M issionary . Summay, George, Louisiana. Missionary. Sullivan, J. J., Texas. Teacher. Sangeman, H. H., Colorado. Superintendent. Taylor, Fanny M., Indiana. Superintendent. Taylor, Rev. James H., D. C. Pastor. Taylor, Florence, Louisiana. Scholar. Thomas, Rev. H. M., Missouri. Pastor. Thomas, Mrs. H. M., Missouri. Scholar. Thompson, Frank M., Michigan. Supt. Thomson, W. H., Manitoba. Teacher. Thome, Mrs. William, Tennessee. Teacher. Trumbull , Charles G . , Pennsylvania . Teacher . Trull, Rev. George H., New York. Tregoe, J. H., Maryland. Superintendent. Vaughan, Rev. J. M., Missouri. Pastor. Vaughan, Mrs. J. M., Missouri. Teacher. Vaughan, R. G., North Carolina. Supt. Van Wie, Rev. F. E., New York. Pastor and
teacher. Van Wie, Mrs. F. E., New York. Scholar. Vernor, Dan Z., Illinois. Superintendent. VanWagener, Miss M., Ohio. Superintendent. Van Oesdel, Mrs. J. G., Oregon. Van Oesdel, J. G., Oregon. Teacher. Van Cleef, Mrs. F. L., New York. Teacher. Wachob, Miss Blanche, Pennsylvania. Supt. Wadsworth, Rev. George W., Colo. Pastor. Waugh, Rev. Arthur J., New York. Pastor
and teacher. Wallin, Clarence M., Tennessee. Missionary. Walker, Mrs. William, Kentucky. Officer. Walker, Mary E., Kansas. Teacher. Waldron, Mina E., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Watson, Rev. Charles R., Pennsylvania. Sec'y.- Watts, George W., North Carolina. Supt. Watts, Mrs. George W., N. C. Scholar. Waterman, J. H., Kansas. Teacher. Weaver, J. C, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Wellborn, A. D., Georgia. Superintendent. Welsh, Miss Eva N., Kansas. Officer. Wescott, E. F., Wisconsin. Officer. West, Frank H., Michigan. Superintendent. Weylie, John, Ontario. Superintendent. Whitaker, W. H., Mississippi. Teacher. Whitaker, Mrs. W. H., Mississippi. Teacher. White, G. A., Indiana. Officer. Wiggins, Wm. Nehemiah, Texas. State sec'y. Wiggins, Mrs. W. N., Texas. Officer. Wilford, Mrs. Joseph E., New York. Scholar. Willard, Oliver Henry, Peimsylvania. Officer. WilUamson, Rev. C. H., Tennessee. Pastor. Williams, Judge E. P., Illinois. Scholar. Williams, Theodore B., Pennsylvania. Supt. Willis, R. C, Illinois. Supt. Willis, Mrs. R. C, lUinois. Officer. Wilson, Dr. W. J., Jr., Michigan. Teacher. Wilson, Miss Violet, Texas. Teacher. Wilson, Miss May, Texas. Scholar. Wilson, Mary L., Kentucky. Superintendent. Wilson, Miss Mary J., Missouri. Supt. Wilson, H. J.,':Iowa. Superintendent. Wilson, Rev.SE.jL., Kentucky. Pastor, and
superintendent .
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The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
White, Maurice S., Pennsylvania. Supt. Wright, Joseph H., New Jersey. Supt. Wright, George W., Illinois. Superintendent. Wolf. W. W., Colorado. Wolf. Mrs. W. W., Colorado. Scholar. Worden. Rev. James A.. Pennsylvania.
Woods. Miss Fannie. Ohio. Superintendent Wood ring, Rev. E. S., Pennsylvania. Pastor
and teacher. Young, Ethel, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Young, Samuel. Pennsylvania. Teacher.
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Blizard. Miss Agnes, N. B. Scholar. Capel, Rev. Edgar T., Quebec. State sec'y. Fairweather. Mrs. Frank. N. B. Scholar. Hamilton, Marv A., N. S. Superintendent. Hiltz, Rev. R. A., Ontario. Officer. McAvity, Mrs. John A., N. B. Teacher.
Marceau, Mrs. A. F.. Quebec. Teacher. McKim, Rev. P. A., N. B. Pastor. Rexford, Rev. E. I.. Quebec. Lessson com. Rexford. Mrs. Elton I., Quebec. Teacher. Stuart, Miss Eleanor, Quebec. Scholar. Trent, E. W., Ontario. Superintendent.
UNIVERSALIST
Arras, Edmund F.. Ohio. Superintendent. Arras, Mrs. Edmund F., Ohio. Supt.
Callaghan, C. E., Minnesota. Henry, Rev. Carl F., Maine.
Teacher. Pastor.
SALVATION ARMY
Anderson. G., Staflf Capt., New York. Crawford, W. C, Adjt., Pennsylvania. Holtz, Richard E., Pennsylvania. Margetts, J. W\ E.. Col., New York.
Mclntyre, Wm. A., Col., New York. McGill, Thomas J., Manitoba. White, Edwy, Major, Georgia.
MORAVIAN
Schuseinitz, Paul de, Penn. Ass't supt. Haas, Theresa G., Penn. Teacher. Thaller, Rev. Arthur D., Penn. Pastor.
LUTHERAN
Alberthus, Rev. P. J., Indiana. Pastor. Alden, Lucius D., District of Columbia. Supt. Baldwin, Mrs. M. J., Indiana. Teacher. Bastian, Rev. C. P., West Virginia. Pastor. Byers, Rev. J. Edw., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Byers, Mrs. J. Edward, Penn. Teacher. Campbell, E. E., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Coover, Prof. M. Penn. Lesson committee. Cronk, E. C, South Carolina. Officer. Cronk. Mrs. E. C. South Carolina. Officer. Dale, Mrs. O. G., Minnesota. Superintendent. Doub, William W., Maryland. Supt. Dunbar, Rev. W. H., Maryland. Pastor. Franz, C. J.. M.D., Pennsylvania. Officer. Haldaman, Miss C. R., Illinois. Officer. Hill, Rev. John Jay, Pennsylvania. Pastor. HoUman, Katharine, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Hubler, Rev. C, Indiana. Pastor. Hubler. Miss Nettie. Indiana. Teacher. Hummer, Rev. J. I., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Laumaster, Wm. D., Pennsylvania. Leeds. Rev. Amy J., New York. Pastor. Lewis, Rev. Charles H., Neb. State sec'y- Lewis, Mrs. Halla R., Nebraska. Officer.
Martin, C. C, Illinois. Superintendent. McCreary, Harry, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Myers, Rev. U., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Newman, Will E., Ohio. Superintendent. Newman, Mrs. Will E., Ohio. Teacher. Paxson, A. A., Missouri. Superintendent. Reber, Fred W., Pennsylvania. Supt. Rice, Laura Wade, Maryland. Supt. Robinson, Martha E.. Pennsylvania. Teacher. Romig, H. I., Pennsylvania. Officer. Schaus, W. H., Ohio. Superintendent. Schaus, Mrs. W. H., Ohio. Teacher. Schrope, J. M., Pennsylvania. Officer. Shaflfer, Mrs. K. B., Ohio. Teacher. Shannon, Mrs. Gertrude, Penn. Officer. Shriver, Rev. P. J., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Sittloh, A. F., Colorado. Superintendent. Striewig, F. E., Peimsylvania. Officer. Torgeson, Mrs. T. L., South Dakota. Supt. Voege, Mrs. Anna, New York. Superintendent . Waller, Ekiward C, Minnesota. Supt. Waltz, S. S., Kentucky. Wiles, Rev. Charles P., D. C. Pastor. Yeiser, G. W., Maryland. Officer.
EVANGELICAL
Becker, Rev. A. H., Louisiana. Pastor. Diehl, Frederick, Ohio. Officer. Dresel, Rev. Wm. N., Indiana. Pastor. Faust, Christine, Missouri. Teacher.
Gebauer, Rev. T. C, Kentucky. Pastor. Heiden, Alfred, Wisconsin. Superintendent. Hugo, Marguerite, Louisiana. Officer, Knight, Mrs. Henry, Kentucky. Teacher.
Registration of Delegates
613
Kreft, Miss Anna, Missouri. Teacher. Lehmann, Rev, Timothy. Maryland. Pastor. Mayer, Rev. Theo. J., Indiana. Pastor. Mindling, Anna C, Ohio. Officer. NoUan, Rev. L. G., Mo. Pastor and supt. NoUan, Walter C, Missouri. Teacher. Obermayer, George W., Ohio. Superintendent. Pfeiffer, Rev. Paul, Indiana. Pastor. Potter, Dr. E. J., Michigan. Teacher.
Rau, Adam L., Louisiana. Rau, Mrs. Adam L., Louisiana. Scharfschwerdt, Elsa, Louisiana. Teacher. Slick, B. J., Illinois. Assistant superintendent. Skoog, A, L., Minnesota. Superintendent. Snedmeyer, Rev. Louis, Missouri. Pastor. Shoop, Rev. James M., Peimsylvania. Swanson, Hulda R., Nebraska. Teacher. Van Valkenberg, Rev. F. D., La. Teacher.
BRETHREN
Beachler, Rev. Wm. H., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Cassel, G. S., Ohio. Officer.
Cline, Joseph W., California. Officer.
Culver, Rev. C, Maryland. Pastor.
Engle, J. H., Kansas. State secretary.
Gnagey, Rev. A. D., Ohio. Pastor.
Helser, Eli, Indiana. Superintendent.
Helser, Mrs. EH, Indiana. Teacher.
Kolb, Horace, Peimsylvania. Superintendent.
Lantz, Mrs. Alice B., Indiana. Supt.
Thomas, Rev. P. S., Virginia. Pastor.
Thomas, Walter S., V^irginia. Teacher.
Trout, Rev. I. B., Illinois. Pastor.
Zigler, Rev. D. H., Virginia. Pastor,
REFORMED
Aethouse, Calvin O., Pennsylvania. Supt. Bareis, George F., Ohio. Superintendent. Deitz, H. W., Pennsylvania. Superintendent. Dumont, Rev. Wm. A., New York. Pastor. Dumont, Mrs. Wm. A., New York. Supt. Duttera, Rev. W. B., North Carolina. Pastor. Farrer, J. M., New York. Fauser, J. J., Ohio, Officer. Frank, W. J., Ohio. Superintendent. Gerhard, Rev. Wm. S., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Gerhard, J. Howard, Peimsylvania. Supt. Griggs , J ames L . , New Jersey . Superintendent . Griggs, Mrs. James L., New Jersey. Scholar. Hassler, Rev. E. S., Pennsylvania. Officer. Hosford, J. Spencer, New York. Teacher. Hosford, Laura A., New York. Officer. Hoover, Rev. P. H., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Huizinga, J. G., Michigan. Officer. Kinckel, H. J., New York. Superintendent. Kissick, Miss Mary F., Iowa. Superintendent. Klahr, Mrs. George A., Ohio. Superintendent. Knorr, E. M., Pennsylvania. Scholar. Kohler, Rev. S. Sidney, Pennsylvania. Pastor. Kuntz, Wm. J,, Pennsylvania. Supt. LaHuis, Rev. Albert, Michigan. Pastor, Leinbach, C, H., Pennsylvania. Supt. Little, I. K., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Little, L. Emma., Pennsylvania. Supt. Loucks, Rev. Edgar V., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Longaker, Rev. George, Michigan. Pastor.
McKenzie, Hugh R., Michigan. Teacher MacPherson, J. D., New York. MacPherson, Mrs. J. D., New York. Mel, Rev. C. Vander, Michigan. Pastor. Metger, Rev. George E., Maryland. Pastor. Minlinburg, Rev. T. W., Michigan. Pastor. Nicholson, Rev. Harvey S., Penn. Pastor. Paris, Robert S.. New York. Teacher. Paris, Mrs. Robert S., New York. Teacher. Peeler, Rev. Lee A., North Carolina. Pastor. Peeler, Rev. Shuford, North Carolina. Pastor. Reogle, Rev. J. O., Ohio, Pastor, Schaeffer, Wm. C, Pennsylvania. Officer. Schmidt, Rev. A. M., Pennsylvania. Pastor. Schmidt, Mrs. A. M., Pennsylvania. Teacher. Smith, Rev. Henry, New York. Missionary. Smith, Mary M., New York. Teacher. Sommerlatte, Rev. John, Maryland. Pastor. Shuey, Rev. D. B., Ohio. Pastor. Shuey, Mrs. D. B,, Ohio. Superintendent. Shield, Rev, F, K., New Jersey. Pastor, Swartz, John B,, Pennsylvania, vSupt, Thomas, Miss Helen, New Jersey, Teacher, Thomas, Miss Marion, New Jersey. Teacher. Townsend, Miss May, New York. Supt, Verseput, Herman W., Michigan. Teacher. Werrington, Rev. Geo. C, New York, Pastor, Wittach, Rev. E. D., Ohio. Pastor. Zabriskie, Louise G., New York. Officer. Zieber, Blanche A., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION
Bean, Rev. E. H., Ontario. Pastor. Bechtel, Rev. E. J., Manitoba, Day, Rev. L, N., Iowa. Pastor. Egger, John F,, Ohio. Teacher, Etjen, John, Ohio. Superintendent, Halmhuber, Rev. J. A., Michigan, Pastor.
Johnson, Rev, E, G., Texas. Pastor. Seager, Lawrence H., Ohio. Superintendent. Wagner, Rev.L. H,, Saskatchewan. Missionary. Wing, Rev. D. H,, Ontario. Pastor, Wing, Mrs. D. H,. Ontario. Teacher,
UNITED BRETHREN
Ambrose, H. M., Kansas. Superintendent, Barrett, George W., Nebraska. Supt, Bell, Bishop W. M., Cal. Lesson Committee, Bovee, Mrs. D, W., Iowa. Teacher,
Brewbaker, Rev, Charles W,, Penn. Pastor, Bricker, Dr. J. N„ Missouri. Teacher. Burdette, Rev. Geo. W,, W, Va. Pastor, Callison, Christyne, Iowa. Scholar.
6i4
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Caldwell, S. C, Nebraska. Superintendent.
Carsel, W. H., Ohio. Officer.
Carter, T. C. Bishop, Tennessee.
Childress, Rev. W. L., Louisiana. Pastor.
Cogan, Jay M., Ohio. Superintendent.
Cowden, Robert, Ohio. Scholar.
Cowden, Joanna, Ohio. Scholar.
Cuppett, J. A., Pennsylvania, Superintendent.
Dietrick, Paul S., Nebraska. Missionary.
Dietrick, Mrs. Daisy S., Neb. Missionary.
Dowling, Rev. H. W., Ark. State secretary.
Erick, S. C, Pennsylvania.
Fout, Henry, Ohio. Teacher.
Fodge, Martha, Nebraska. Teacher.
Foster, Rev. J. T., West Virginia.
Fries, W. O., Ohio. Teacher.
Fries, Mrs. W. O., Ohio. Officer.
Fry, De Witt A., Pennsylvania. Officer.
Funk, Nellis R., Ohio.
Funk, W. R.. Ohio.
Gallaher, Rev. M. R., Washington. Pastor.
Hanleiter, Rev. George S., Virginia. Pastor.
Heeter, Harry C, Pennsylvania. Officer.
Heagy, Mrs. John M ., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Honline, M. A., Ohio. Teacher.
Huber. J. G., Ohio.
Kersey, Rev. John T., Indiana. Pastor.
Kettering, Alvin K., Pennsylvania. Officer.
Knipp, J. Edgar, Ohio. Teacher.
Knipp, Mrs. J. Edgar, Ohio. Superintendent.
Luckhart, Cyrus F., Ohio. Superintendent.
McCurdy, Mrs. E. E., Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Nelson, Miss Ida M., Illinois. Officer.
Nefif, Rev. E, E., West Virginia. Pastor.
Parker, George W., Pennsylvania. Supt.
Petry, Rev. E. C, Missouri.
Quinter, Mary N., Pennsylvania. Missionary.
Roop, Hervin U., Virginia. Superintendent.
Rose, C. C, Illinois. Superintendent.
Shupe, H. F., Ohio. Officer.
Sheak, Henry, Oregon. Superintendent.
Turner, Rev. James, Michigan. Pastor.
Weekly, W. M., Missouri. Officer.
Williams. G. C. Ohio. Teacher.
ADVENT CHRISTIAN
Barrett, Le Roy, Minnesota. Scholar. Corliss, Rev. Benjamin W., Maine. Pastor. Kearney, C. J., Quebec. Officer. Kearney, Rev. A. H., Quebec. Pastor. Kearney, Mrs. A. H., Quebec. Teacher.
King, Rev. Charles F., Maine. Pastor. Parsons, S. J., New Brunswick. Teacher. Parsons, Mrs. S. J., New Brunswick. Supt. Salyards, Mrs. R. S., Iowa. Superintendent. Thompson, Rev. H. E., Mass. Pastor.
EPISCOPAL
Baker, L. T., South Carolina. Superintendent. Bell, Violette M., Louisiana. Missionary. Capers, Very Rev. Wm. T., Ky. Bishop. Dowey, George G., Pennsylvania. Howard, Josiah, Pennsylvania. Supt. Ireland, Mrs. A. C, Pennsylvania. Teacher. Ireland, Miss C. L., Pennsylvania. Supt. litis, Mrs. Alice, Minnesota. Teacher. Low, Mrs. Myron, Pennsylvania. Teacher.
Marshall, Eleanor, Louisiana. Passman, Mrs. R. H.. Minnesota. Teacher. Palmer, Leon C, Alabama. Officer. Pressey, Rev. Wm., Rhode Island. Pastor. Pursell, Wm. H., Virginia. Superintendent. Snead, Rev. Wm. T., New Jersey. Officer. Steele, Mrs. Florence H., Illinois. Supt. Weld, Lydia G., Virginia. Teacher. Woodroofe, Rev. R. W., Penn. Pastor.
UNDENOMINATIONAL
Broadbent, Mrs. L., Illinois. Teacher. Carson, Mrs. M. B., Florida. Scholar. Chadwick, Miss Amy, Georgia. Missionary. Dobson, E., Manitoba. Superintendent. Fox, Sylvia L., New York. Ass't supt. Gjelhaug, Mina I., North Dakota. Supt. Greene, Miss S. H., Pennsylvania. Ass't supt. Homan, Dr. E. W., Massachusetts. Supt. Hunter, John H., Illinois. Teacher. Huggins, Edgar J., Penn. Ass't supt. Ishler, Henry, Illinois. Superintendent.
Munro, G. S., Manitoba. Superintendent. Munro, Mrs. G. S., Manitoba. Teacher. Pike, H. L. M., Massachusetts. Supt. Raine, James Watt, Kentucky. Supt. Stump, H. Wayland, New York. Scholar. Sovett, Miss Florence S., Georgia. Supt. Smith, Flora E., New York. Missionary. Smith, Thomas S., Illinois. Ass't supt. Waterhouse, Miss E. W., Maryland. Officer. Warner, Mary B., Pennsylvania. Scholar. Woodruff, Lucius, New York.
CHRISTIAN
Adams, George S., Texas.
Aron, Mrs. Lila W., Delaware.
Ayars, Mrs. T. R., Missouri.
Baugh, Rev. A. H., Ky. Pastor and supt.
Boll, M. B., Iowa.
Buchanan, W. S., Tennessee.
Bullock, Rev. J. Harry, Wisconsin. Pastor
and teacher. Bullock, Mrs. J. Harry, Wisconsin. Buxton, Mrs. A. A., Missouri. Calhoun, Rev. H. L., Kentucky. Lesson com. Carpenter, Rev. J. W., Penn. Pastor.
Registration of Delegates
615
Carter, Rev. R. H., Kentucky. Pastor.
Clements, Miss May, Georgia.
Cory, Mrs, L. M., Pennsylvania.
Creighton, S. H., Indiana.
DePew, Clarence L., Jacksonville. Illinois.
Dunning Mark L., Rhode Island.
Eldredge, Hermon, Pennsylvania.
Engelhardt, A. E., California.
Engelhardt, Mrs. A. E., California.
Paris, Lille, Ohio.
Paris, L. L., Ohio.
Ferguson, Miss Mary, Iowa.
Givens, Walter, Kansas. Superintendent.
GUI, J. W., Kansas.
Gibson, Paul H., Missouri.
Gribben, D. P., Missouri. Superintendent.
Gribben, Mrs. D. P., Missouri.
Hall, H. M., Connecticut.
Halladay, J. G., Virginia. Superintendent.
Harris, J. S., Indiana. Officer.
Helfenstein, Samuel Q., Ohio.
Howsafe, Rev. McD., Va. Pastor and teacher.
Hopkins, Robert M., Kentucky.
Heetsore, Mrs. H. L., Indiana. Supt.
Johnson, Rev. Ben. S., Penn. Pastor and supt.
Kendell, Rev. A. B., Iowa. Pastor.
Knipp, Rev. L. O., Penn. Pastor and officer.
Laird, Allan M., Wisconsin.
McCloud, Mrs. W. E.. Nebraska. Officer.
McMillan, Ruth L., Missouri.
McLucas, J. C, Nebraska. Superintendent.
McLucas, Mrs. J. C, Nebraska. Officer.
McLean, A., Ohio.
Meacham, Rev. E. J., Ohio. Pastor and supt.
Miller, Mrs. Frances, Oklahoma. Supt.
Miller, Rev. George A., D. C. Pastor.
Mitchell, Alex. D., Arkansas. Superintendent.
Mingry, Mrs. T. J., Kentucky.
Moffitt, Elijah, North Carolina. Officer.
Morgan, Mrs. Carey E., Kentucky.
Morgan, Rev. J. J., Pennsylvania. Pastor.
Moore, Mrs. S. P., Alabama. Superintendent. Nelson, Miss Nellie, Oregon. Officer. Nichols, C. H., Oklahoma. State sec'y. Nichols, Mrs. C. H., Oklahoma. Supt. Oeschger, Dema V., Indiana. Teacher. Painter, C. C, Colorado. Scholar. Pearce, W. C, Illinois. Adult dept. supt. Pearce, Mrs. W. C, Illinois. Teacher. Pearce, Miss Lille, Virginia. Teacher. Pierce, Rev. W. E., W. Va. Pastor and teacher. Poley, Mrs. A. F., Oregon. Officer. Pope, Karl D., Illinois. Superintendent. Priest, Rev. Walter Scott, Kansas. Pastor
and teacher. Ramsey, Adda L., Missouri. Teacher. Ransom, C. W., Missouri. Officer. Ransom, Mrs. C. W., Missouri. Supt. Rountre, Rev, H. E., Virginia. Pastor. Robertson, Mrs. O. C., Texas. Teacher. Root, F. M., Ohio, Superintendent. Schwartz, W, F., Mexico. Superintendent. Slayton, H. H., Illinois. Superintendent. Spangler, Howard, Ohio. Superintendent. Shepherd, R, P,, California. Steed, R. E., Virginia. Teacher. Thurgood, Rev, Charles Lloyd, Penn. Pastor
and teacher. Thurgood, Mrs. Chas, L,, Penn. Teacher. Thornton, E. W., Ohio. Lesson writer, Townsend, Rev. George B., Md. Pastor and
teacher. Turner, Miss M. L., Oklahoma. Scholar. Van Eman, Mrs. G., Oklahoma. Teacher, Watt, J. R., Illinois. Teacher. Warren, Belle, Illinois. Scholar. Wells, T. R., Oklahoma. Scholar. Wilson, Wm. A., Texas. Teacher. Wilson, Mrs. Wm. A., Texas. White, Oeilas G., West Virginia. Supt. Williams, I. N., Kentucky, Teacher. Willis , Rev . Walter S . , Ky . Pastor and teacher ,
CHURCH OF CHRIST
EMwards, Moodey, West Virginia, Fisher, W, T., Iowa. Superintendent. Fields, Rev. W. H., W, Va, Pastor and supt.
SEVENTH DAY ADVENT
Chase, Fannie D., District of Columbia. Officer, Kern, M, E., District of Columbia. Teacher. Plummer, Mrs. L, F., Dist. Columbia. Teacher.
FRIENDS
Bailey, Miss C. J., Maine. Teacher. Bailey, Mrs. E. A„ Maine. Teacher. Brown, Nettie E., Missouri. Scholar. Chace, C, A,, Massachusetts. Supt, Comfort, Oliver F,, Iowa, Superintendent. Farquhar, Ruth, Ohio, Superintendent, Frazies, J, G., North Carolina. Supt. Hall, Mrs. John N„ New York. Supt. Hambleton, A. F. N., Iowa. Officer, Hambleton, Mrs. A. F. N., Iowa. Officer. Hill, Elbert N., Indiana. Officer. Hubbard, Rev. Wm. G., N. C. Pastor. Hubbard, Mrs. Wm. G., N, C. Teacher, Jones, Lucy A,, Maine. Superintendent. Kesinger, C. C, Kansas, Officer, McCracken, C, Sumner, Iowa, Superintendent. Mindenhall, J. R.. North Carolina, Supt, Newly, Rev, R, R., Ohio, Pastor and teacher.
Newly, Mrs, Richard R., Ohio, Teacher. Pickard, C. E., Iowa. Teacher. Reese, Miss Ella F., Indiana. Officer. Renfrew, Mrs. James, New York. Supt. Ridgway, Mrs. A, J., Indiana. Teacher, Rogers, Albert S., Ontario. Teacher, Ryan, Miss Sarah J,, Iowa, Teacher, Sein, E, M,, Mexico. Gen, secretary. Skinner, H, Emma, Massachusetts, Officer. Sopher, Mary T., Iowa, Teacher, Sopher, Rev, Joseph, Iowa, Pastor and teacher, Tomlinson, Miss Alice, Indiana, Teacher, Widdifield, J, W„ North Dakota, Supt, Widdifield, Mrs, J, W„ No, Dak, Teacher, Williams, Rev, George G„ Mass. Pastor. Williams, Georgia L,, Maine, Scholar. Wood, William, Massachusetts, Supt.
6i6
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
DENOMINATION NOT GIVEN
Alford, J. A., Montana.
Andrews, A. D., Iowa. Officer.
Andrews, Mrs. R. A., California. Scholar.
Baines, C. W., Virginia. State secretarj'.
Chamberlin, Georgie L., Illinois. Supt.
Clark, Mrs. H. W., Massachusetts.
Cronk, Miss E. C, South Carolina.
Gray, G. W., California. Officer.
Greene, S. O., Minnesota. Scholar.
Hart. Mrs. R. G., California.
Hemming, Mrs. D. W., New York.
Holmes, Mrs. R., Massachusetts.
Irwm, W. H., Manitoba. State secretary.
Killam, C. D., Iowa.
Morgan, Mrs. Evan, Texas. Missionary.
Nason, Mrs. C. O., New Hampshire. Teacher.
Nowell, John M., Georgia. Teacher.
Nowell, Mrs. J. M., Georgia. Scholar.
Osgood, W. H., Michigan. Teacher.
Ostrander, Mrs. J. S., New York. Supt.
Peeller, Stanton J. Delegate at large.
Perry, Mrs. B. F., Kentucky.
Piatt, James, Georgia. Superintendent.
Reed, Miss Kate K., Kentucky.
Rossell, Mrs. A. R., New Jersey. Teacher.
Stocks, J. Laing, British Columbia. Teacher.
Stultz, Rev. Louis D., New York. Pastor
and teacher. Stutzman, G. W., Pennsylvania. Sutherland, Mrs. R. K., Virginia. Watts, Joseph, Virginia. Welsh, Miss Eva N., Kansas. Wendell, Harry W., New Hampshire. Supt. Wikofif, Mrs. W. M., Ohio.
MISSIONARY DELEGATES
Alexander, Rev. J. R., D.D., Egypt. U. Presb. Anderson, W. H. P., India. German Evan. Bain, Geo. N., British West Indies. Wesleyan. Baker, Rev. H. Whitfield. Cuba. M. E. Barakat, Mrs. L. A., Syria. Presb. Berenguer, Rev. Luis, Cuba. M. E. Berenguer, Mrs. Luis, Cuba. M. E. Bieler, Rev. Prof. Charles, France. Presb. Bogar, Rev. Louis, Hungary. Presb. Boone, Rev. Clinton C, Congo. Baptist. Bushee, Alice H., Spain. Congregational. Butler, Miss Clementina, India. M. E. Butler, John W., Mexico. M. E. Butler, Mrs. William, India. M. E. Caldwell, Rev. I. E., Porto Rico. U. Breth. Campbell, Rev. Buel O. M. E. Campbell, Mrs. Esther L. M. E. Cantwell, Eulalia F., Uruguay. M. E. Cantwell, Mary McFarland, Uruguay. M. E. Carhartj Raymond A., Mexico. M. E. Carter, Mrs. Bertha Wilson, Turkey. M. E. Chen, George S. O., China. Presbyterian. Chiba, Y., Japan. Baptist. Chitambar, Rev. Jashwaut Rao. India. M. E. Christian, R. D., Argentina. Episcopal. Chuchian, Armenag E., Turkey. M. E. Cole, Rev. Royal M., D.D.. Turkey. Cong. Cole, Miss Nellie A., Turkey. Congregational. Collins, Mrs. D. G., Siam. Presbyterian. Comeling, John J., India. Congregational. Cove, L. A.. India. Methodist Episcopal. Cook, Jean Paul, Algeria. French Wesleyan. Cox, Jackson B., Mexico. Methodist Episcopal. Cynn, Paul P., Korea. Methodist Episcopal. Dart, Rev. William Thomas, Australia. Bapt. Davies, Rev. Llewellyn James, China. Presb. Davis, Joan, India. Methodist Episcopal. Doke, J. J., Transvaal. Baptist. Dube, Rev. John L., So. Africa. Congregational. EM wards. Rev. John R., Mexico. Ref.
PresbyteriEin. Eldred.lRev. R. Ray., Congo. Christian. Elliott,5R. C, Mexico. Methodist Episcopal. Elmore, W. T., India. Baptist. Elmore, Mrs. W. T., India. Baptist. Emmert, Jesse B., India. Brethren.
Ewing, Rev. A. H., D.D.. India. Presb. Farmer, Harry. Philippines. M. E. Farmer, Mrs. Olive Esther, Philippines. M. E . Fisher, A. J., China. Presbyterian. Fisher, Mrs. A. J., China. Presbyterian. Ford, Edward A., W. Africa. Presbyterian. Ford, Mrs. Edward A., W. Africa. Presb. Forrest, Annie L., Japan. M. E. Funk, J. Arthur, M.D., Persia. Presb. Funk, Mrs. J. Arthur, Persia. Presbyterian. Gerhard, Paul Lambert, Japan. Reformed. Gerhard Mrs. Paul Lambert, Japan. Reformed . Gilmsin, Rev. Frank P.. China. Presbyterian. Gordians. Rev. S. F.. Mexico. Baptist. Green. Rev. George, M.D., W. Africa. Bapt. Green, Mrs. George, W. Africa. Baptist. Hanback, Mrs. Amanda C. H., Cuba. Meth. Hancock, Rev. C. Fred.. China. Presb. Hancock, Mrs. C. Fred., China. Presb. Hancock, Miss Ida E., So Australia. Disciples. Hartzell, Bishop Joseph C, Africa. Methodist. Hayling, Maxson, British W. Indies. M. E. Headland, Isaac Taylor, China. M. E. Heard, Mrs. Josie D., W. Africa. A. M. E. Higginbottom, Sam. Presb. Higginbottom, Mrs. Sam. Presb. Hirose, Rev. Y., Japan. Baptist. Holmes, Rev. Gerry W., Cuba. M. E. Holway, Rev. Theo. T., Bulgaria. Holway, Mrs. Theo. T., Bulgaria. Honda, Yoitsu. Japan. Methodist Epicopal. Hopkins, N. S., China. Methodist Episcopal. Hopkins, Mrs. N. S., China. M. E. Hori, Rev. M., Japan. Methodist Episcopal. Johnson, Bertha G., India. Presbyterian. Johnson. Rev. T. S., India. M. E. Jones, E. E., China. Baptist. Jones, George Heber, Korea. Presbyterian. Jones, Miss R., China. Methodist Episcopal. Jones, Rev. Wm. Yates, Japan. Presbyterian. Kanokogi, Kazunof, Japan. Nihon ChristoCh. Katsunoff, Nix:holas G., Bulgaria. Cong. Kelsey, Rev. A. Edward, Palestine. Friends. Ketring, Mary, M.D., China, M. E. Khan, Rev. John A. D., India. Ch. of God. Knapp, George P., Turkey. Congregational.
Registration of Delegates
617
Kupfer, C. F., China. Methodist Episcopal.
Kupfer, Mrs. L. K.. China. M. E.
Lampe, William E., Japan. Ref. Church.
Lampe, Mrs. William E.. Japan. Ref. Church.
Lowe, J. W., China. Baptist.
Lucas, Rev. Aquila, W. Indies and Central
America. Int. S. S. Ass'n Sec'y- McCall, M. N., Cuba. Baptist. McCord, Edw. K., Japan. Christian. McDowell, Leonora J., Egypt. Presbyterian. McKenzie, Rev. J. A., New Zealand. Presb. McNair, T. M., Japan. Presbyterian. McNair, Mrs. T. M., Japan. Presbyterian. McNaughton, James P., Turkey. Cong. McNaughton Mrs. James P., Turkey. Cong. Marek, Rev. L. B., Bohemia. Ref. Church. Marquez, Hilario, Philippines. M. E. Mateer, R. M., China. Presbyterian. Mateer, Mrs. A. H., China. Presbyterian. Mattison, Rev. Chas. H., India. Presbyterian. Mattison, Mrs. Chas. H., India. Presbyterian. Meimarides, Stachys, Turkey. Congregational. Minor, Emily F., India. Presbyterian. Moore, Rev. J. P., Japan. Reformed. Moseley, H. R., Cuba. Baptist. NicoU, W. E., India. U. Presb. Nishio, Rev. Kotaro, Japan. Cong. Ohan, Rev. Wm. J., Palestine. Presb. Oltmans, A., Japan. Reformed Church. Ono, Rev. Zentaro, Japan. Nippon Meth. Orvis, Susan M., Turkey. Congregational. Panayotova, Donna, Bulgaria. Cong. Papazian, Rev. M. G., Turkey. Cong. Parker, Ada, Brazil, South M. E. Parker, A. P., China. South M. E. Parker, Mrs. A. P., China. South M. E. Parsons, Frances M., Palestine. Presb. Pescud, Mary T., Brazil. South M. E. Peters, Miss Mary, China. M. E. Pettee, James H., Japan. Congregational. Piam, Joseph F., Brazil. Baptist. Pifer, B. Catherine, Japan. Reformed Ch. Pittman, Chas. R., Persia. Presbyterian. Pittman Mrs. Chas. R., Persia. Presb. Pitts, Melvin P., Panama. Baptist. Phillips, Rev. Alex St. Clair, Barbadoes. Bapt. Post, R. W., Siam. Presbyterian. Prawd, Hilda D., British Guiana. Baptist. Pressly, Miss Jennie, Mexico. Presbyterian. Pressly, Neill E., Mexico. Presbyterian. Pressly, Mrs. Neill E., Mexico. Presbyterian. Quinter, Mary N., India. Brethren.
Rath. Chas E.. Pliilippine Islands. Presb.
Reis, Mrs. Maria. Brazil. Presbyterian.
Reno, Rev. Loren M., Brazil. Baptist.
Reno, Mrs. Loren M., Brazil. Baptist.
Rhee, Syngman, Korea. M. E.
Resigh, D. C, Japan. Reformed Church.
Richards, E. H., Africa. M. E.
Rohrbach, Rev. Julius, Germany.
Rohrbach, Mrs. Julius, Germany.
Rordam, Rev. H. C.. Denmark. Danish
Meth. Church. Schilling, Mrs. Gerhard J., Bolivia. M. E. Scott, Rev. T. J., D.D., India. M. E. Scudder. Rev. W. T., India. Reformed Dutch. Scudder, Mrs. W. T., India. Reformed Dutch. Searle, Susan A., Japan. Congregational. Sein, E. M., Mexico. Friends. Shaffer, Ida, Brazil. Methodist Episcopal. Sherman, Rev. Arthur M., China. Epis. Shimizu, Rev. Kynjiro, Japan. Japanese Pres. Sites, CM. Lacey, China. M. E. Smith, J. Daniel, Bermuda. A. M. E. Soper, E. Maud, Japan. M. E. Sorem, Rev. F. F., Brazil. Baptist. Stanes, Wm. Henry, India. Baptist. Stephens, Peyton, China. Baptist. Stephenson, F. C, No. America. M. E. Stewart, Rev. G. E., West Indies. Baptist. Suzuki, Yoshimitsu, Japan. Congregational. Sykes, Anna, China. Presbyterian. Tamura, Rev. Naomi, Japan. Presbyterian. Tanaka, Shiro, Japan. Ref. Ch. in Christ. Tanaka, Rev. Y., Japan. M. E. Tewksbury, Elwood G., China. Tossos, Rev. A. C, Cuba. M. E. Tossos, Mrs. A. C, Cuba. M. E. Totah, K. A., Palestine. Friends. Trent. Richard H., Hawaii. M. E. Tucker, Ella Granbury, Brazil. M. E. Tucker, Elvira G., Brazil. M. E. Wallace, Rev. A. F., West Indies. M. V . Whilden, Lula F., China. Baptist. Whiting, Mrs. Lucy J., China. Presb. Wight, Mrs. Calvin, China. Presbyterian, Wight, Miss Fannie E., China. Presb. Wilson, EUamae, Japan. M. E. Yaba, N. Mahwe, India. Baptist. Yano, Rev. I., Japan. Ch. of Christ. Yokoyama, Hobun T. M. E, Yun, T. H., Korea. M. E. Zwemer, S. M., Arabia. Dutch Reformed. Zwemer, Mrs. S. M., Arabia. Dutch Ref.
FOREIGN DELEGATES
Aitchison, Miss I. C. V., Wales. Aitchison, Miss Katherine Reid, England. Anderson, A. Henry, Ireland. Baxter, Thomas, Scotland. Bell. Margaret H., Scotland. Bennett, Rev. George, Great Britain. Bonner, Rev. Carey, England. Britton, Clara B., England. Brown, Thomas, England. Caine, Elizabeth A., Isle of Man. Campbell, Rev. John, Scotland. Cant, Miss Julia, Scotland. Carman, Miss L. E., Great Britain. Carman, Russell J., Great Britain.
Codling, William, England. Collins, H. M., England. Collins, J. N., England. Connell, Francis, England. Connell, John W.. England. Coxeter, Miss Agnes C, England. Crawford, Andrew, Scotland. Deas, Edmund P., England. Dickson, James, Ireland. Dickson, Mrs. James, Ireland. Dickson, Harold, Ireland. Dowsett, Rev. Ernest, England. Dye, Charles, England. Dye, Miss Edith, England.
6i8
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Edwards, J, P.. England. Edwards, Miss Edith S., England. Edwards, Miss Gertrude, England. Edwards, Edw. E., England. Edwards, Mrs. Ella, England. Evans, J. R., Wales. Evans, Mrs. J. R., Wales. Evans, Rev. Joseph, England. Evans, Miss Mary J., South Wales. Fielden, Mrs. Alice, England. Fleming, Rev. J. R., England. Fleming, Mrs. J. R., England. Fluck, Chas. G., England. Freeman, W. F., England. Frisby, Tom, England. Gibson, Mrs. Alex, England. Gibson, Rev. J. Monro, England. Gibson, James Hurst, England. Gibson, Miss M. H., England. Gibson, Miss Margaret, England. Gibson, Mrs. Martha, England. Gibson, Robert I., England. Gillette, Walter, England. Gray, John, Scotland. Gray, Thomas, Scotland. Halsall, Miss Evelyn A., Isle of Man. Hancock, John, England. Hardy, Miss Margaret, England. Harney, Josiah, England. Harvey, Miss Ada, England. Harvey, J., England. Hawtin, A. P., England. Hayes, Rev. Dan'l, England. Heyworth, Miss Vera L., England. Hillman, Rev. John, England. Hinton, Miss Emily Sophia, England. Hitchcock, W. R., England, Howarth, Mrs. E. A., England. Hurrell, Henry, England. Jameson, Mrs. Annie, England. Jennens, Albert E., England. Johnson, Arthur, England. Latimer, Geoffrey W., England. Lord, William, England. Lowe, John, England. McCleery, Hamilton, Ireland. McCleery, Mrs. Hamilton, Ireland. Machead, John, Scotland. Mackie, Chas. K. N., New Zealand. MacLeod, Mrs. J., Scotland. Major, Frederick, England.
Marshall. Mrs. J. C.. Scotland. Martin, Rev. Joseph, England. Meyer. Rev. F. B., England. Meyer, Mrs. F. B., England. Miner, Mrs. M. B., England. Mitchell. Miss Ethel, England. Monk, Paul, England. Monk, Mrs. Paul, England. Myatt, J. I., England. Patterson, Wm., England. Perry, Mrs. Georgina K., England. Phillips, J. H., South Wales. Phillips, Mrs. J. H., South Wales. Quirk, Miss Catherine, Isle of Man. Ranger, Henry, England. Richards, Alfred, England. Richards, Mrs. Nellie, England. Roberts, Rev. Richard, England. Roberts, T. P., England. Ross, Miss Eva, Scotland. Russell, G. W., England. Sanders, Alfred, England. Sanders, Mrs. Alfred, England. Sheldrich, J. A., England. Shipway, George, England. Shrimpton, Miss Esther, England, summon, Wm., Scotland. Smith, Miss S. A., Scotland. Smith, Andrew, Scotland. Stephen, A. H., Scotland. Stevens, Douglas, England. Stokes, Chas. T., England. Stone, Edith M., England, Strachan, Peter, Scotland. Strachan, Mrs. Peter, Scotland. Thomas, Rev. Wm., England. Turley, A. G., England. Unwin, Fred D., England. Unwin, R. H., England. Warner, A. W., England. Warner, Mrs. S. E., England. Williams, Mrs. H., England. WilUams, Mrs. Rowland, England. Wilson, R. B., England. Wilson. Mrs. R. B., England. Winton, George, New Zealand. Wittome, John W., England. Woodley, G., England. Wyllie, Miss E. G., Scotland. Waller, Rev. Percy, England. Waller, Mrs. Percy, England.
Delegates and Visitors
619
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ADDENDA AND ERRATA
It is with sincere regret that we announce our inability to secure the portraits of several of the distinguished participants in the convention whose pictures we desired to use. Repeated efforts to secure them were unavailing.
We regret that the report from Italy (see page 51) has not been forwarded to this office for publication.
The manuscript of the address by Bishop Honda, of Japan (see page 61), did not reach us until more than five hundred and fifty pages of this book were printed. This accounts for the Bishop's splendid address ap- pearing out of its place in the book (see page 577).
In a letter dated August 6, 19 10, Mr. H. L. Buell, chairman of the Registration Committee, supplemented his report (see page 68) by saying that further investigation of the enrollment cards revealed the presence in the convention of at least sixty religious denominations.
The name of the youngest delegate (page 48) is William C. Johnston, Jr.
The response for Denmark (see page 252) was made by Rev. H. C. Rordam.
The names of Richard A. Ford and C. C. James should be added to the list of members of the Washington Local Committee (see page 22). E. A. Conger should be E. A. Gongwer.
620
GENEVA = 1913
The World's Seventh Sunday -School Convention
Will be held in Geneva, Switzerland in 191s — if the way be clear
The World*s Executive Committee has appointed the undersigned to have charge of all transportation matters relating to the Convention. Arrangements will be made for a specially chartered *< official " ship for delegates and others. It will be a splendid opportunity to travel with hundreds of Sunday- school leaders.
FOR ALL INFORMATION ADDRESS
W. N. HARTSHORN boIton!' STss.
Gliairman Transportation Committee
INDEX
Light Breaking ' Presentation of
The Rewards of
Convention Addresses
Allen, Rev. E. Bourner, " The Sunday- School and the Nation," 145.
Bailey, Dr. George W., Accepting the Presidency, 73 •
Barakat, Mrs. Layyah, " Like a Green Olive Tree," 367-
Bell, Bishop W. M., " Many Nations but One Church," 128.
Bonner, Rev. Carey, " Strength of the Sunday-School Measured by Its Re- sults," 171.
Brown, Frank L., " The Advanced Di- vision in Relation to the School," 507.
Butler, Miss Clementine, " With the Children of India," 315
Butler, Dr. John W in Mexico," 202; Mexican Flag," 52
Butler, Mrs. William, Service," 313-
Cadman, Rev. S. Parkes, " Transforming Power of the Word of God," 134.
Chapman, Dr. J. Wilbur, " Four Elements in the Conception of the Sunday-School Teacher," 137.
Chitambar, Prof. J. R., " Wiiming the Children of India," 312.
Cole, Miss Nellie A., " Work Among Girls in Turkey," 374'
Collins, Mrs. D. G., " Sunday-Schools in Laos Land," 362.
Connell, Francis, " The Stockport, Eng- land , Sunday-School , " 32.
Dowsett, Rev. E. A., " Jesus and the Children," 161; "Memorial Address," 186.
Dube, J. L., Introduced, 35; Address, " The Zulus," 297.
Duncan, W. A., " The Home Depart- ment," 454-
Fergusson, Rev. E. M., " Strength of the Sunday-School Measured by Its Con- ventions," 167.
Ford, Mrs. E. A., "The Field and the Need in West Africa," 288.
Funk, Mrs. J. A., " Condition of Mo- hammedan Women," 359-
Gibson, Rev. J. Monro, " Response for Europe," 216.
Greene, Rev. S. H., " Welcome to Wash- ington," 429.
Hamill, Prof. H. M., "Strength of the Sunday-School Measured by Its Per- sonnel," 169.
Hartshorn, W. N., " Survey of Sunday- School Work in North America," 194.
Hartzell, Bishop J. C, "A Call to the Christian Church," 269; " Moslem Peril in Africa," 271.
Hayes, Rev. Daniel, " Children of the Congo and London," 220.
Hillman, Rev. John, "The Nobility of Sunday-School Service," 219.
Honda, Bishop Yoitsu, of Japan, Response for Asia, 303; "Sunday-School Progress in Japan," 577-
Johnson, Miss Bertha, " Boys and Girls
The Word
Jones, Rev. George Heber, of God in Korea," 320.
Lawrance, Marion, " Plans for the Next Triennium," 46.
Meyer, Rev. F. B., The Convention Ser- mon, 119; Response to Presentation of Portrait, 43; Response to Presenta- tion of Mexican Flag, 53; Introducing the Resolutions of Congress, 27; In- troducing Dr. George W. Bailey, 73-
Price, Rev. Samuel D., " Utilizing Waste Material," 174-
Speer, Robert E., " The Call of our Nearest Neighbors," 223.
Stuntz, Rev. Homer C, " The Trans- forming Power of the Word of God," 129.
Taft, President W. H., The President's Estimate of the Sunday-School, 125.
Waller, Rev. Percy, Memorial Address, 183. Wanamaker, John, " The Sunday-Schools
of North America," 191. Warren, Edward K., Greetings at Men's
Meeting, 37; Accepting Chairmanship
of Executive Committee, 75- Woodruff, Rev. Henry C, " The Foreign
Sunday-School Association," 242.
Yun, T. H., " The Needs and Opportu- nities of Korea," 333.
623
624 ^^^ World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Zwemer, Rev, S. M.. " The Needs of the Moslem World," 336.
Addenda and Errata, 620.
Adult Department, Survey of Confer- ence, 395; The Conference, 506; Its History, 507; Characteristics, 508; Its Place and Power, 506; The Parade, 545 ; Bible Class Emblem, 511; Bible Class Teacher, 511; Bible Class Secretary, 5 12; Membership Committee, 512; The Social Committee, 513; The De- votional Committee, 514; The Presi- dent, 514; International Bible Class Motto (Poem), 515; Important Questions Answered, 516; International Standard of Class Organization, 510.
Advanced Division, Money raised for, 84; Survey of Conference, 395; Its Place and Power, 484; Graded Lessons, 488; Specialization in Teacher-Train- ing, 492; The Boy in His Teens, 494; The Girl in Her Teens, 497; In Rela- tion to the School, 501; Conference, 485.
Africa, A Call to the Christian Church, 269; Moslem Peril in, 271; Algeria under the French Flag, 280; Algiers Mission Band, 282; Africa Inland Mission, 283; The Congo, 285; In Pagan, 287; West, 288; South, 296; Zulus, 297; Visitation, 290; Egypt, 298.
Alexander, Rev. J. R., " The Sabbath- School in Egypt," 298.
Alexander, Charles M., Introduced, 59; Reference to, 87.
Algeria, " Under the French Flag," 280.
Algiers, Mission Band, 282.
Allen, Rev. Ernest Bourner, Address, " The Sunday-School and the Nation," 145.
Anderson, E. V., Adult Bible Class Con- ference, 516.
Anet, Rev. Henri, Address, " Progress in Belgium," 244.
Argentina, The Needs of, 234.
Asia, Bishop Honda, Response for, 303.
Australia, Sunday - School work in 384.
Bailey, George W., Presented, 26;
Made Life Member, 49; Elected Presi- dent, 56; Resolution of Thanks to, 66;
Address accepting the Presidency, 73;
Reference to, 82; Report of Executive
Committee, 93. Bailey, Miss Mabel. Address, " Graded
Unions," 417. Barakat, Mrs. Layyah, " The Needs
of Syria," 365; Address, " Like a Green
Olive Tree," 367. Barns, Mrs. J. W., Reference to, 406;
Address, " Graded Lessons," 449. Beginners' Department, Conference, 409;
Graded Lessons for, 412. Belgium, Progress in, 244.
Bell, Rev. H. H., To Present Greetings to United Presbyterian Church, 56; Report of Nominating Committee, 56.
Bell, Mrs. W. H., Address, " Primary Lessons, Graded or Supplemental," 413.
Bell, Bishop W. M., of California, Ad- dress, " Many Nations but One Church," 128.
Belsey, Sir Francis, Reference to, 55, 577; Made Life Member, 50.
Bieler, Prof. Charles, Report for France, 254.
Black, Arthur, Report of Visitation to South Africa, 290.
Blackboard, The, 412.
Blake, Mrs. C. E., Address, " Summer Schools," 416.
Bogar, Rev. Louis, Report for Hungary, 261.
Bohemia, Sunday-Schools in, 245.
Bonner, Rev. Carey, Presides at Me- morial Service, 35; Resolution to Con- gress, 44; Prayer, 47; Incident, 47; Made Life Member, 50; Report for Great Britain, 210; Address, " Strength of the Sunday-School Measured by Its Results," 171. Elected General Secre- tary for Europe, 57.
Boone, Clinton C, Address.
Boy, The, in His Teens, 494.
Brazil, Sunday-School Conditions in, 236; Spiritual Progress in, 239.
Bristow, p. H., Introduced, 67.
BROCKV*rAY, Miss Meme, Address, " Main- taining Interest in Graded Unions," 437.
Brown, Frank L„ Address, " The Ad- vanced Division in Relation to the School," 501.
Brown, Rev. Frederick, Address, " Sun- day-School Work in China," 347; De- votional Service, 36; Address at Closing Session, 69.
Brown, Miss Margaret E., Address, " Possibilities of Graded Lessons in the Smallest Schools," 441.
Brown, William A., Address, " Modern Missions in the Philippines," 108; Sur- vey of Conference, 398; " The Mission- ary Department, Its Place and Power," 530; Address, " Missionary Purpose of the Sunday-School," 531.
BRiraJBAUGH, Dr. Martin G., Address, "The Need of Trained Teachers," 467.
Bryan, W. J., Made Life Member, 50.
Bryan, Mrs. W. J., Made Life Member, 50.
Bryce, Hon. James, Letter from, 62.
Bryner, Mrs. Mary Foster, Presiding, 41; Survey of Elementary Conference, 391: The Elementary Department, 402, 403; Presides at Conference, 404.
Buchanan, Rev. C. S., Referred to, 61; Sunday-Schools of Malaysia, 375.
BuELL, H. L., Report of Registration Committee, 68.
Bulgaria and European Turkey, 246.
BuRGES, Rev. Richard, Address, " India Sunday-School Union," 305.
Bushee, Miss Alice H., Address, " Changed Conditions in Spain," 263.
Index
625
Butler, Miss Clementina, Address,
"With the Children of India," 315. Butler, Rev. John W., Address, " Light
Breaking in Mexico," 202; Presents
Mexican Flag, 52. Butler, Mrs. William, Address, " The
Rewards of Service," 313; Prayer, 40;
Introduced, 49.
Cadman, Rev. S. Parkes, Address, " The Transforming Power of the Word of God," 134; Reference to, 90.
Call, The Official, i.
Capers, Very Rev. W. T., Address, "Visitation and Evangelization," 397.
Carroll, Prof. M. W., Adult Bible Class Conference, 516.
Cashman, Bert, Member of Tour Party, 69.
Chapman, J. Wilbur, Address, " Four Elements in the Conception of the Sun- day-School Teacher," 137; Introduced, 59; Reference to, 85, 90.
Child, How and Why Study the, 419.
Child Life, The Possibilities of, 1x9.
Children, Jesus and the, 151; of the Congo and of London, 220.
Chile, Sunday-Schools in, 240.
China, Sunday-School Work in, 347; Sunday-School Work in Pekin, 351.
Chitambar, Prof. J. R., Address, " Win- ning the Children of India," 312; Ad- dress at Closing Session, 69.
Christian, R. D., Argentina, The needs of,
234-
Christian World, A Call to the, 372.
Church, Many Nations but One, 128.
Clot, Rev. Ai-berto, Report for Italy, 51. See also Addenda.
Cole, Miss Nellie A., Address, " Work Among Girls in Turkey," 374-
Collins, Mrs. D. G., Address, " Sunday- Schools in Laos Land," 362.
Conferences, Survey of, 391 •
Congress of the United States, Recep- tion of Resolution, 77; Resolution adopted by the House, 27; Resolution by the Convention, 77-
CoNNELL, Francis, Introduced, 32.
CoNNELL, J. W., Introduced, 32.
Conventions, World's Five Sunday- School, 581.
Cook, Rev. Jean Paul, Address, " Al- geria under the French Flag," 280; Striking Incident, 81.
Cope, Rev. Henry F., D.D., Address, " College Leadership in Sunday-School Efficiency," 472.
Cork, Hugh, Reference to, 46, 86; Made Life Member, 50; Elected Statistical Secretary, 57; Report of Statistical Secretary, 584; Address, " Home Visi- tation Revelations," 524.
Cradle Roll, The, 408.
Cranston, Bishop Earl, of Washington, Prayer, 26.
Cross, The Convention, 87.
Crusaders, Twentieth Century Parade of Children, 68. 86. 88.
Culbertson, Miss Jennie, Introduced,
si- Curtis, Mrs. Phoebe A., Devotional Service, 40; Address, "Work of Ele- mentary Superintendents," 424.
Delegates, List of, by denominations, 597 ; by states, 619.
DeMent, Prof. B. H., Address, " Com- pleting our Departmental Organiza- tion," 541.
Denmark, Mission Sunday-Schools, 252.
Depew, Clarence L., Address, " Inter- national Standard of Class Organiza- tion," 510.
Diaz, Porfirio, President of Mexico, Made Life Member, 50; Message to, S4.
DOKE, Rev. J. J., Introduced, 52; Address, " South Airica," 296.
DowsETT, Rev. E. A., Address at Me- morial Service, 186; Address, " Jesus and the Children," 161.
Dube, Rev. John L., Introduced, 35, 52; Address, " The Zulus," 297.
Duncan, Dr. W. A., Introduced, 52; Address, " The Home Department," 454. 455.
Durham, J. Shreve, Home Visitation, Its Place and Power, 520; Address, " Home Visitation Work," 521; Survey of Home Visitation Conference, 396.
Edinburgh, Missionary Conference, Memorial to, 113.
Edwards, J. P., reads Report of Visita- tion, 51-
Egypt, The Sabbath-School in, 298.
Elementary Department, Survey of Conference, 391; The Conference, 403: Its Place and Power, 402; Work of Elementary Superintendents, 424; Ele- mentary News in Association Papers, 426; Standard of Excellence Needed, 408; Training Course Necessary, 415; Specialization for Teacher, 416.
Ellis, William T., A Graphic Story of the Convention, 88.
Europe, Response for, 216; Foreign Sun- day-School Association, 242.
ExcELL, Prof. E. O., 25; Elected Life Member, 50; Thanks to, 66; Tour Party, 69.
Exposition, The Sunday-School, 105; The Committee, 23; Resolution of Thanks to, 66; The Sunday-School and Missionary, 548.
Fergusson, Rev. E. M., Address, " The Sunday-School Measured by Its Con- ventions, 167; Address, "Completing Our Departmental Organization," 538.
Financial Statement, Money subscribed for the Work, 554-
Fishbaugh, Mrs. Paul, Complimented, 68.
Ford, Mrs. E. A., Address, " The Field and the Need in West Africa," 288.
626
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
Foster, Eugene C, Address, " The Boy in His Teens." 494; Tlie Advanced Division, Its Place and Power, 484.
Foster, Prof. Percy S., Leader of Music, 25; Thanks to, 66.
France, Sxjnday-Schools in, 254-
Frayser, Miss Nannie Lee, Address, " The Junior Department." 410; Refer- ence to, 407; Elementary Conference, 410.
Frisbie, C. O., Made a Life Member, 50.
Funk, Mrs. J. A., Address, " Condition of Mohammedan Women," 359-
Gabriel, Charles H., author of " The Glory Song," introduced, 60.
Geneva, Switzerland, Selected for the Convention of 19 13, 66; Announce- ment of Tour to, 621.
Germany, Sltnday-Schools in, 257-
Geyer. Mrs. George, Address, " The Adult Class Devotional Committee," 514; Adult Bible Class Conference, 517.
Gibson, Rev. J. Monro, Response for Europe, 216; Participated in Memorial Service, 34-
Girl, The, in Her Teens, 497-
God, Transforming Power of the Word of, 129, 134-
Goodrich, Prof. F. S., Survey of Tem- perance Conference, 399.
Graded Lessons, For Begirmers, 412; For Intermediate and Senior Depart- ments, 488; Possibilities of, in the Smallest Schools, 441; Elementary, 449.
Graded Unions, Maintaining Interest in, 437; Future Plans for, 439; Purpose of, 417.
Great Britain, Report for, 210.
Greene, Rev. Samuel H., Address of Welcome, 29.
Greetings, by E. K. Warren at Men's Meeting, 37; to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, 56; to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 56; United Presby- terian Church, s6.
Halpenny, E. W., Address, " Adult Bible Class Secretary," 512.
Hamill Prof. H. M., Devotional Service, si; The Edinburgh Conference, 72; Address, The Strength of the Sunday- School Measured by Its Personnel, 169; Address, " History of the Teacher- Training Movement," 462; Survey of Conference, 393; Representative to the Edinburgh Conference, 113-
Hamill, Mrs. H. M., Address, " Temper- ance Teaching for Children," 428; Presides at Elementary Conference, 405.
Hamlin, Miss Alice B., Future Plans for Graded Unions, 439.
Hamlin, Hon. Courtney W., Presents Resolution in Congress, 27; Portrait and Sketch, Portrait Section.
Hancock, John, Introduced, 32.
Harding, Bishop A. T., of Washington, Devotional Service, 28.
Hartshorn, William N., Report for North America, 194; Report of Com- mittee on Greetings to Denominational Organizations, 56; Report of Committee on Place of Meeting for 1913, 66; Tri- bute to B. F. Jacobs, 45; Telegram to President Diaz of Mexico, 54-
Hartshorn, Mrs. W. N., Made Life Member, so.
Hartzell, Bishop Joseph C, Message to Queen Alexandra, 2s; Response for Africa to Addresses of Welcome, 269; Presiding, 39; Devotional Service, 77; Made Life Member, 49; Address, " The Moslem Peril in Africa," 271; Support- ing Geneva for 1913, 67; Member of the Tour Party, 69; Reference to, 90; Address, " A Call to the Christian Church," 269.
Hawaii, The Sunday-School in, 209.
Haworth, Miss B. G. L., Algiers Mission Band, 282.
Hay, John, The Spiritual Obligations of the Church to the People of South America, 231; Reference to, 36, 85.
Hayes, Rev. Daniel, Children of the Congo and of London, 220.
Headland, Rev. I. T., Address, " Sunday- School Work m Pekin," 351-
Heath, Mrs. W. F., Address, " Mothers' Meetings," 433-
Heinz, H. J., Gives Portrait of B. F. Jacobs, 41; Message to the Convention, 49.
Hendrick, Mrs. G. W., Graded Lessons for Beginners, 412.
Hill, Herbert L., Address, " Bible Class Emblem," sn-
HiLLMAN, Rev. John, Address, " The Nobility of Sunday-School Service," 219.
HOEKE, Mrs. W. H., Complimented, 68.
HOLWAY, Rev. Theodore T., Address, " European Turkey and Bulgaria," 246.
Home Department. The, Its Place and Power, 4S4; Its History, Missionary Work, and Progress, 4ss; Survey of Conference, 392.
Home Visitation Department, Its Place and Power, S2o; Survey of Conference, 396; Home Visitation Work, 521; Home Visitation Revelations, S24.
Honda, Yoitsu, Bishop of Japan, Re- sponse for Asia to Addresses of Wel- come, 303; Address, Sunday-School Prog- ress in Japan, S77; Address at Closing Session, 69.
HuNG.'VRY, No Sunday-School Life in, 261.
Hunter, J. H., Address, "The Adult Bible Class President," 514.
Hurlbltrt, Rev. C. E., Africa Inland Mission, 283.
Huston, Charles L., Made Life Member, so.
India, The Sunday-School Union, 305; Winning the Children of, 312; With the Children of, 315; Boys and Girls in,
318.
Index
627
Interdenominational Leadership. 102.
Irby, Miss Lucy, Adult Bible Class Con- ference, 516.
Italy, Messages from, 54. Reference to, 597.
Jackson, Archibald, Address, " Sunday- School Work in Australia," 384.
Jacobs, B. F., Portrait of. Presented, 41; Reference to, 45.
Japan, National Sunday-School Associa- tion, 342; The Victories of Christianity in, 345.
Java, Malaysia, Response for, 61.
Jarvis, Miss Anna, Address, Mothers' Day, 31.
Jerusalem, The World's Convention, 1904, 95. 586.
Jesus, The Ruler of Nations, 157; and the Children, 161.
Johnson, Miss Bertha, Address, " Boys and Girls in India," 318.
Johnson, Rev. Frank, Reference to, 36.
Johnston, Mrs. William C, Made Life Member, 50.
Johnston, William C, Jr., The Youngest Delegate, 48.
Jones, Rev. George Heber, The Field and the Needs of Korea, 327; Address,
" The Word of God in Korea," 320.
Junior Department, The, 410; Junior Lessons, 414.
Kelsey, Rev. A. E., Address, " Bible School Work in Palestine," 353.
Kennedy, Miss Minnie E., Address, " How and Why Study the Child," 419; Address, " The Girl in Her Teens," 497.
Keynote, The Convention, 89.
KiLPATRiCK, Miss Elizabeth, Address, " The Adult Class Social Committee," 513-
KiNG George V of England Made Life Member, 50.
Knapp, Mrs. E. C, Address, " Elemen- tary News in Association Papers," 426.
Korea, The Field and Needs of, 327; The Word of God in, 320; Needs and Opportunities of, 333-
Lagercrants, H., Greetings from Sweden, 265.
Lawrance, Marion, Reads Executive Committee's Report, 26; Plans for the Next Triennium, 46; 83; An Incident, 47; Made Life Member, 49; Elected General Secretary, for America, 57; Directing Conference Reports, 50; The Tour Party, 69; Tour, 551.
Lesson Committee does Not Interpret Lessons, 45.
Life Members, List of, 50.
Lucas, Rev. Aquila, Report for the West Indies, 205.
Malaysia, Report for, 375. McCoMBS, Rev. V. M., Difficulties in Peru, 242.
McElfresh, Rev. Franklin, D.D., Teacher Training, Its Place and Power, 460; Address, " Teacher-Training Con- ference," 461.
MacGillvray, Rev. A., Introduction of, 34-
McKamy, Rev. John A., To Present Greetings, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 56.
Mackenzie, Rev. J. A., Devotional Ser- vice, 30; Report for New Zealand, 376.
MacLaren, Justice J. J., Presides, 35, 51; Report of Committee on Reso- lutions, 63.
MacNair, Rev. Theo., Address, " Na- tional Sunday-School Association of Japan," 342.
McNaughton, Rev. J. P., Address " Sun- day-School Work in the Northern Levant," 368.
McNaughton, Mrs. J. P., Address, "A Call to the Christian World," 372.
Malaysia, Response from Java, 61; Sunday-Schools of, 375-
Map of the World, Reference to, 46, 81. 84.
Marek, Rev. L. E., Sunday-Schools in Bohemia, 245.
Mathams, Rev. Walter J., The Song of the Teachers, 596.
MEIGS, C. D.. The International Bible Class Motto (Poem), 515.
Memorial Services in Honor of King Edward VII, 177.
Men's Bible Class, See Adult Depart- ment, 507.
Mendenhall, Miss Clara, Address, ' ' Training Course for an Elementary Teacher," 415.
Message, To Queen Alexandra, 25; To Mission Boards, 109; To Theo- logical Seminaries, iii.
Messages Received, 54.
MEXICO, Light Breaking in, 202; Presenta- tion of Flag, 52; Message to President Diaz, 54; Sunday-School Work in, 204.
Meyer, R^v. F. B„ Reference to, 25; 56; Convention Sermon, " The Possibilities of Child Life," 119; A Remarkable Document, 27; Response to Presenta- tion of Portrait of B. F. Jacobs, 43; Made Life Member, 49; Announcing Election of President George W. Bailey, 58; Response to Presentation of Mexi- can Flag, 53; Resolution of Thanks to, 66; Introducing Chairman P. H. Bristow, 67; The Tour Party, 69; Introducing President George W. Bailey, 73; Final Word of the Convention, 78; The President's Tour, 103; Presides at Memorial Service, 179; " Home Visitation " Conference, 396.
Meyer, Mrs. F. B., Made Life Member, 50; Introduced, 68; Conference, 396.
Miller, Rev. George A„ Devotional Service, 67.
Mills, A. H., Presides at Elementary Conference, 405.
Minutes of the Convention, 25.
628 The World's Sixth Sunday-School Conventwn
Missionary Department, Its Place and Power, 530; Survey of Conference, 398; The Missionary Purpose of the Sunday- School, 531.
Missionary Note, The, In the Conven- tion, 90.
Mission Boards, Message to, 109.
MoGG, Rev. Curtis E., Report of the Home Department Conference, 392.
Mohammedan Women, Condition of, 359.
Moninger, H. H., Made Life Member, so; Teacher-Training Work in the Christian Church, 481.
Moslem Peril in Africa, 271.
Moslem World, Needs of, 336.
Mothers' Day, 31; Meetings, 433-
Motto of International Bible Class, SIS.
MoxjLTON, Mrs. H. B., Complimented, 68.
Murray, Thomas H., Address. Present- ing Portrait of B. F. Jacobs, 41.
Nation, Sunday-Schools and the, 145. Nations. Jesus the Ruler of, 157. Newman, Charles G., Sunday-Schools
in Chile, 240. New Zealand, Sunday-School Work in,
376; Among the Chinese in, 381; Work
of the Auckland Sunday -School Union,
382. Nichols, Edgar H., Survey of Advanced
Division Conference, 394; Report of
Advanced Division Conference, 485. North America, The Sunday-Schools of.
191; Survey of Sunday-School Work
in, 194; Reference to, 86. Norway, Sunday-School Union, 262.
Officers, 1907-1910, 20; 1910-1913, S6. Organization, Completing Departmen- tal, Addresses, 538, 54 1-
Palestine, Bible School Work in, 3S3; The Children of, 355-
Palm, August Herr. Sunday-School Work in Sweden. 266.
Parade, Men's Bible Class, 54s; Refer- ence to, 9, 81, 83, 89.
Paraguay. See Hay, John.
Parsons, Miss Frances M., Address, " The Children of Palestine," 3S5-
Pearce, W. C, Made Life Member, 50; Survey of Adult Conference, 39S; The Adult Department, Its Place and Power, S06; The Adult Bible Class Movement, 507; Parade, S4S; Question Answered, S17.
Perry, Mrs. F. E., The Primary Depart- ment, 410.
Persia, The Sunday-School in, 3S7; Con- dition of Mohammedan Women in, 3S9; Report from, 61.
Peru, Difficulties in, 242.
Philippines, The Modern Missions in, 198.
Phillips, Rev. A. L., Address, " The Sunday-School Measured by Its Litera- ture," 165.
Pittman, Rev. C. R., Reads Report from Persia, 6 .
Portraits. See portrait section.
Post, Rev. R. W., Sunday-School Work in Siam, 360.
Presbyterian Church in the United States, Greetings to the General As- sembly, 55 ; S6; Response from, 56.
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Greetings to the General Assembly, 56.
Price, Rev. Samuel D., Address, " Utiliz- ing Waste Material," 17 •
Primary Department, The, 410; Primary Lessons, 43-
Program, World's Sunday-School Day, 3; The World's Convention, 7; Me- m rial Services, 179-
Queen Alexandra, Message to, 25; Message from, 52.
Reading Circle. 416.
Registration, Report of Committee, 68. See also Addenda, 620.
Reis, Senor Alvero, Introduced, 52; Address, " Spiritual Progress in Brazil," 239.
Reports: Executive Committee, 93; Committee on Greetings to Denomi- national Organizations, 56; Committee on Nominations, 56; Committee on Resolutions, 63; Committee on Place of Meeting for 19 13. 66; Registration Committee, 68.
Rexford, Rev. E. I., Address, " Graded Lessons for Intermediate and Senior Departments," 488.
Richards, Rev. Edwin H., D.D., Address, " In Pagan Africa," 285.
RiDGWAY, W. H., Address, " Adult Class Membership Committee," 512.
Roberts, Rev. Richard, Address, " Jesus the Ruler of Nations," 157; Address at Memorial Service, 184.
RoHRBACH, Rev. Julius, Sunday-Schools in Germany, 257.
RORDAM, Rev. H. C, Mission Sunday Schools in Denmark, 252.
Roll-Call of Nations, 189; North America, 191; The Philippines, 198; Mexico, 202; West Indies, 205; Hawaii, 209; Great Britain, 210; Scotland, 214; South America, 223; Argentina, 234; Brazil, 236; Chile, 240; Peru, 242; Europe, 216; 242; Belgium, 244; Bohemia, 24s; Bulgaria, 246; Denmark, 252; France, 254; Germany, 257; Hungary, 261; Italy, no report received; Norway, 262; Russia, 388; Spain, 263; Sweden, 265; Africa, 269; Algeria, 280; Algiers, 282; Africa Inland Mission, 283; The Congo, 28s; East Africa, 287; West Africa, 288; South Africa, 290; Egypt, 298; Asia, 303; India, 30s; Korea, 320; Japan, 342; China, 347; Palestine, 3S3; Persia, 357; Siam, 360; Syria, 36s; Turkey, 368; Malaysia, 375; New Zea- land, 376; Australia, 384.
Index
629
Rome, World's Fifth Convention, 96; Jerusalem to, 96.
Roosevelt, Theodore, Made Life Mem- ber, 50.
Roper, Prof. Alvin S., Pianist, 25; Thanks to, 66; Tour Party, 69.
Rottenburg, Miss Mary, Introduced, 51.
Russia, National Sunday-School Union, Message to the Washington Conven- tion, 388.
Schick, Rev. J. M., Devotional Service, 39-
Scotland, Response for, 214.
Scott, Rev. T. J., Introduced, 61.
Scott, William H., Presiding, 61.
Sein, Rev. E. M., The Sunday-Schools in Mexico, 204; Presentation of Mexi- can Flag, 52.
Sell WOLD, Rev. J. M., Norway Sunday- School Union, 262.
Semelroth, Mrs. W. J., Address, " A Standard of Excellence for Elementary Grades," 408.
Separate Rooms for Elementary De- partment, 411.
Service, The Rewards of, 313-
Shedd, Rev. W. A., The Sunday-School in Persia, 357-
Sherman, Mrs. James S., Presiding, 40.
Shipway, George, Elected Statistical Secretary, 57; Report of Statistical Secretary, 586.
SiAM, Sunday-School Work in, 360; Sun- day-Schools in Laos Land, 362.
Skoog, a. L., Swedish Mission Covenant, 268.
Slattery, Miss Margaret, Address, " As Thyself," 150.
Snow, Mrs. W. A., Separate Rooms for Elementary Department, 411.
Somerset, Lady Henry, Made Life Member, 50; Reference to, 85.
South America, 223.
Spain, Changed Conditions in, 263.
Speer, Robert E., Address, " The Call of Our Nearest Neighbors," 223; Refer- ence to, 83, 90.
Statistics, The World's Sunday-School, 588; Reference to, i95-
Stem, W. D., Address, " The Adult Bible Class Teacher," 511.
Stevens, Mrs. Lillian M. N., Made Life Member, 50.
Stevens, Mrs. Zillah Foster, Temper- ance Department, Its Place and Power, 536.
Stites, John, To Present Greetings to the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church in the United States, 56.
St. John, Prof. E. P., Address, " Stories and Story Telling," 444.
Stockport, England, Sunday-School, Representatives of, introduced, 32-
Stooker, Miss Wilhelmina, Address, " The Blackboard," 412.
Stories and Story Telling, 444; The Fundamental Needs of the Child, 447.
Strachan, Ex-Bailie Peter, Response for Scotland, 214.
Stuntz, Rev. Homer C, Address, " The Transforming Power of the Word of God," 129; Reference to, 82, 90.
Summer Schools, 416.
Sunday-School, Conquest of the World, 79; and the Nation, 145; The NobiUty of Service, 219; Strength Measured by Its Literature, 165; by Its Conventions, 167; by Its Personnel, 169; by Its Results, 171.
Sweden, Greetings from, 265; Sunday- School Work in, 266; Mission Covenant, 268.
Synnott, Thomas W., Made Life Member, so.
Syria, The Needs of, 365.
Taft, President W. H., Reception of, 28, 80, 89; Address of Welcome, 125; Made Life Member, so.
Taft, Mrs. W. H., Introduced to the Convention, 28, 80; Made Life Mem- ber, 50.
Tamura, Rev. Naomi, Address, " The Victories of Christianity in Japan," 345-
Tanaka, Rev. Y., Devotional Service, 26.
Teacher. The Sunday-School, The Song of the. Poem by Rev. Walter J. Mathams, 596; Adult Bible Class, 511; Four Elements in the Conception of, 137; Training Course for the Elemen- tary, 41S; Specialization for the Ele- mentary, 416.
Teacher-Training Department, Teacher- Training, Its Place and Power, 460; Need of Trained Teachers, 467; Report of Conference, 461; College Leadership, 472; History of Movement, 462; Specialization in, 492; In the Christian Church, 481.
Temperance Department, Its Place and Power, 536; Survey of Conference, 399; Temperance Teaching for Children, 428; Resolutions Adopted, 537-
Theological Seminaries, hi.
Thornton, E. W., Specialization in Teacher-Training, 492.
Thyself, As, 150.
Tour, Inspirational, Sunday-School, SSI.
Towers, Edward, Reference to, 56.
Trotter, Miss I. L., Algiers Mission Band, 282.
Trumbull, Charles, G., Reads Report of Paraguay by John Hay, 36; Graphic Story of the Convention, 78; Repre- sentative to the Edinburgh Conference, 113.
Tucker, Rev. H. C, Sunday-School Conditions in Brazil, 236.
Turkey, Sunday-School Work in the Northern Levant, 368; A Call to the Christian World, 372; Work Among Girls in, 374; European Turkey and Bulgaria, 246.
Turner, Rev. E. B., The Sunday-School in Hawaii, 209.
Unions, Graded, Maintaining Interest
630
The World's Sixth Sunday-School Convention
in, 437; Future Plans for, 439; Purpose of. 417. United Presbyterian Church, Greetings to General Assembly, 56.
Vandiver, Miss Grace W., Address, " Junior Lessons, Graded or Supple- mental," 414.
Vaughn, F. W., Adult Bible Class Con- ference, 517-
Vincent, Bishop John H., Made Life Member, 50; Reference to, 463, 464, 466.
Waller, Rev. Percy, Address at Memo- rial Service, 183.
Wanamaker, John, Address, " The Sun- day-Schools of North America," 191; Reference to, 81, 89.
Warren, Edward K., Presides, 32, X79; Reference to, 56; Greetings at Men's Meeting, 37; Introduces Life Member- ship Plan, 49; Made Life Member, 50; Elected Chairman Executive Committee, 57; Address Accepting Chairmanship of Executive Committee, 75 ; Honorary President South American Missionary Union, 232.
Warren, Mrs. Edward K., Made Life Member, 50.
Warren, Paul, Address at Home Visita- tion Department Conference, 397-
Washington, Booker T., Made Life Member, 50; Message relating to, 55-
Washington, City of. Welcome for the District, 29; the Local Committee, 22; Thanks to Local Committee, 66; Appre- ciation of Local Committee, 105.
Waste Material, Utilizing, 174-
Waters, Charles, Tribute to, 93-
Wells, F. A., Elected General Treasurer for America, 57; Address, " Home Visitation and Capitalization," 397.
Wells, Mrs. F. A., Made Life Member, 50.
Webster, R. H., Adult Bible Class Con- ference, 5x6.
West Indies, Report for, 205.
Wetherell, Mrs. O. D., Address, " The Beginner's Depzirtment," 409.
White, Sir. George, Elected General Treasurer for Europe, S7.
Wiggins, W. N., Made Life Member, so.
WiLKiNS, Mrs. J. W., Address, " Speciali- zation for the Elementary Teacher," 416.
WiLLARD, Miss Frances E., Reference to, 84.
Williams, Mrs. W. E., Address, " Read- ing Circle," 416.
Wilson, Miss Maggie S., Address, " The Cradle Roll," 408.
Wilson, W. A., Made Life Member, 50.
WiNSTONE, George, Work of the Auck- land Sunday-School Union, 382.
Women, Meetings for, 40, 41; Condi- tion of Mohammedan, 359.
Wood, Rev. Charles, Devotional Ser- vice, 37.
Woodrow, Rev. S. H., Devotional Ser- vice, 36, 52.
Woodruff, Rev. Henry C, The Foreign Sunday-School Association, 242.
World's Sunday-School Association, What is it, 91; The Officers, 56; Report of Executive Committee, 93; History of, 94; Five Conventions, 94. 577; Jerusa- lem and Rome, 96; A Forward Move- ment, 99; Results, 100; Our Leadership, loi; Interdenominational Leadership, 102; World's Sunday-School Tour, 103, 551; World's Sunday-School Statistics, 102, 588; World's Sunday-School Day, 104; Finances, 106; Pledges for 1910- 1913. 554-
World's Sunday-School Conventions, 581.
World's Sunday-School Day, Official Program, 3; Reference to, 84; The Plan of, 104.
Wyche, Richard T., The Story and the Fundamental Needs of the Child, 447.
YuN, T. H., Address, " The Needs and Opportunities of Korea," 333; Address at the Closing Session, 69.
ZwEMER, Rev. S. M., Address, " The Needs of the Moslem World," 336; Reference to, 83, 90.
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