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THIS BOOK IS THE PROPERTY OF 
 
 THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 
 
 ITHACA, NEW YORK 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV1425 .C59 
 
 Training the church of the future: Aubur 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 337 023 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029337023 
 
Crainttig t^e c&urcl) 
 of ti&e fiutun 
 
WILLISTON CHURCH, PORTLAND, ME. 
 (In this Church the First Christian Endeavor Society Was Formed) 
 
Cramfng tl)e Cljurcl) of 
 tj)e jfxttitre 
 
 Auburn Seminary Lectures on Christian Nurture 
 
 •with Special Reference to the 
 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
 
 as a 
 
 Training-School of the Church 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 
 
 Founder o£ the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. Author of 
 
 " The Children and the Church," " Young People's Prayer-Meetings," 
 
 "The Great Secret," "A New Way Around an Old 
 
 World," Etc., Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 1902 
 
Copyright, 1902 
 By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 Registered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Published in March, 1902 
 
Go 
 
 the Young Pastors of the Country, to the Young 
 
 Men in the Theological Seminaries, and to All who 
 
 are engaged in Practical Christian Work within 
 
 the Church, this volume is inscribed in the 
 
 hope that in it they may find some 
 
 suggestions for Training the 
 
 Church of the Future. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction, 9 
 
 I. The Church of the Future, . 13 
 
 II. Methods op Christian Nurture Past and Pres- 
 ent, 55 
 
 III. The Young People's Society op Christian En- 
 
 deavor as a Training-School op the Church, 83 
 
 IV. Other Training Classes in the Christian En- 
 
 deavor Society, . . 119 
 
 APPENDICES 
 I. "World-Wide Endeavor, . 169 
 
 II. Model Constitution, . 181 
 
 III. Junior Societies op Christian Endeavor, . 194 
 
 IV. Christian Endeavor as a World-Wide Move- 
 
 ment, and its Claim upon the Churches, 201 
 
 V. A Quiet-Hour Catechism, 
 VI. Facts about the Tenth Legion op the United 
 Society op Christian Endeavor, 
 
 205 
 
 208 
 
 VII. The Macedonian Phalanx, . 212 
 
 VIII. The Christian Endeavor Civic Club, 215 
 
 IX. The Christian Endeavor Home Circle, . . 222 
 
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 
 
 The volume which is herewith presented to the public 
 is the result of a suggestion made by the President and 
 faculty of Auburn Theological Seminary, that I should 
 prepare a course of lectures on Christian Nurture with 
 especial reference to the Society of Christian Endeavor 
 as a means of Christian training. 
 
 Much has been written on this subject, but never to 
 my knowledge has there been a systematic effort to set 
 forth the great principles of Christian nurture as they 
 are related to the modern young people's movement. 
 However imperfectly I have succeeded, this volume is 
 an attempt in this direction. Much new light has been 
 thrown upon child nature by recent studies in psychol- 
 ogy that tend to establish the principles which in a prac- 
 tical way have been confirmed by the experience of a 
 multitude of busy pastors during the past twenty years. 
 
 These lectures were delivered first at Auburn, then at 
 Oberlin, and afterward in an abbreviated form at the 
 Congregational Seminary of Chicago, at McCormick 
 Seminary of the latter city, and also in the schools of the 
 prophets at Andover, Bangor, Newton, Rochester, New 
 Brunswick, and in the Union Seminary of New York. 
 
By Way of Introduction 
 
 They have often been received by faculty and students 
 with a favor which I felt was beyond their desert, but 
 which, however undeserved, has encouraged me to accept 
 the further suggestion of the President of Auburn Semi- 
 nary, and prepare them for publication with the hope that 
 in their printed form they may still accomplish something 
 for the advancement of the Kingdom among the young. 
 
 In the Appendix will be found much information con- 
 cerning the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
 and its later developments, which has not before been 
 brought together within the covers of one book. This 
 method of Christian nurture seems to be receiving the re- 
 newed and continual blessing of God. Nearly four mil- 
 lions of young people are being trained in such schools 
 of Applied Christianity, and millions more have gradu- 
 ated therefrom. The Society is constantly growing in 
 numbers, and I believe in spiritual grace, in America and 
 in every other land. It will soon be twenty-one years 
 old, and as this society "comes of age" and enters upon 
 its years of strength and maturity, I would ask the pray- 
 ers of every reader of this book that it may in the years 
 to come modestly, efficiently, and more fully than in the 
 past, prove a training-school for the Church of the 
 Future. Francis E. Clark. 
 
 Boston, Mass., December, 1901 
 
THE CHUKCH OF THE FUTURE 
 
TRAINING 
 
 THE 
 
 CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 
 
 Chapter I 
 THE CHUECH OF THE FUTUEE 
 
 THE PROBLEM BEFORE US — ITS IMPORTANCE AND VALUE THE 
 
 STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR— WHERE IS THE CHURCH OF THE 
 FUTURE? — THE IDEA OF CONQUEST AND THE IDEA OF GROWTH- 
 NO ANTAGONISM BETWEEN THE TWO — CHRISTIAN NURTURE DOES 
 NOT PRECLUDE CHILD CONVERSION — THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 
 STUDY — DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONVERSION — AN APPEAL TO PER- 
 SONAL EXPERIENCE— ADOLESCENCE A MOST CRITICAL PERIOD — 
 " THE APPETITE FOR THE INFINITE " — THE DIFFICULTIES IN 
 THE WAY OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE — "THE TYRANNY OF THE 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL " — THE VIEW OF THE PSYCHOLOGISTS — OBSTACLES, 
 THINGS TO BE OVERCOME — SERMON-STEEPED SAINTS AND SER- 
 MON-HARDENED SINNERS — HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD BE GIVEN 
 TO CHRISTIAN NURTURE — THE LIFE-INSURANCE SYSTEM OF AVER- 
 AGES — TESTIMONIES FROM EMINENT MEN — EARLY CONVERSION OF 
 NOTABLE CHRISTIANS — DO EARLY CHURCHGOING HABITS CREATE 
 A DISTASTE FOR RELIGION? — THE COLLECTED OPINIONS OF MANY 
 REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANS — "THE CHILDREN WHOM THOU 
 HAST GIVEN ME." 
 
 The great problem before us is the upbuilding of the 
 Kingdom of Christ. It is not primarily the advocacy of 
 a society or a method or a plan of work. It is not sim- 
 ply the Christian nurture of the young, but it is the 
 
 13 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Christian nurture of the young with a purpose — for the 
 sake of the Kingdom. 
 
 The subject of our study is as important as the church 
 itself, for upon it the future of the church depends. It 
 is as essential as the study of theology, of church his- 
 tory, of exegesis, for its object and purpose are the very 
 same: to find out how, through these studies, one may 
 be fitted to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and 
 strengthen His church on earth. If the suggestions that 
 I make prove of any value, it will not be that I speak 
 with eloquence, originality, or authority, but because I 
 shall speak from the standpoint of actual practise. I 
 shall look at these matters with a pastor's eye, remem- 
 bering at every point my own pastoral experience. I 
 shall look at them from the standpoint of a. worker who 
 has spent all his years among the young, who believes 
 in young people, who trusts young people, who expects 
 great things from young people, and whose expectations 
 have rarely been disappointed. We are to consider 
 The Training of the Church of the Future. 
 
 First, then, it is important to know what the Church 
 of the Future is and where it is. The answer is obvious. 
 The Church of the Future is in the nurseries and school- 
 houses, in the colleges and the shops and factories, and 
 on the playgrounds of the present. The children and 
 youth of to-day are the Church of the Future. There 
 are two ways of building up the Kingdom of God : first, 
 the method of conquest ; second, the method of growth. 
 
 14 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 Sometimes the church has laid stress on one method, 
 sometimes on the other. Sometimes it has won its 
 victories from without, sometimes from within. Some- 
 times emphasis has been put upon revival methods — the 
 widespread awakening, the winning of men hardened in 
 sin and cased in indifference and worldliness. At other 
 times the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and 
 the sole emphasis has been laid upon the method of 
 growth ; growth among the children of the church, in the 
 households of communicants. But the history of the 
 church proves that neither method is sufficient by itself, 
 and that neither excludes the other. 
 
 During the last century and the early half of this cen- 
 tury in many Protestant churches the emphasis was 
 placed upon the idea of conquest. Wide, sweeping re- 
 vivals marked the history of the church. Wonderful 
 scenes, often attended with extravagant and grotesque 
 manifestations, were of frequent occurrence. Sermons 
 that stirred men to the very foundations of their being 
 were preached by Edwards and his contemporaries. 
 Whitefield, Finney, Nettleton, and men of their stamp 
 added vast numbers to the church — captives taken, as it 
 were, in the stress and storm of war. 
 
 With the advent of Bushnell and his theories, the at- 
 tention of the church was called, as never before, to the 
 supreme importance of Christian nurture, and it was 
 seen that, whatever the conquest might be from without, 
 there must also be growth from within if the church was 
 
 15 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 to hold its own and retain the allegiance and loyalty of 
 those who naturally belonged to it. 
 
 With the development of this idea the church naturally 
 set itself to devise new and more effective methods of 
 winning and training the young for herself. Many 
 Sunday-schools became not simply agents for instructing 
 the children and youth, but more and more evangelistic 
 agencies. Young people's societies were multiplied ; pas- 
 tor's classes were formed. This burden was laid ever 
 more heavily upon the hearts of pastors and people alike : 
 " How shall we win and train our youth before they wan- 
 der into the highways of sin ! " " How shall we make the 
 children of the church, children in the church? " 
 
 Surely if only one method could be used, either that 
 of conquest or growth, the results obtained from growth 
 would be vastly greater than the difficult and uncertain 
 fruits of conquest over the indifferent or vicious. But 
 we are not shut up to one method ; the two are needed, 
 each to supplement the other. There will always be 
 hardened men, men steeped in sin who have passed be- 
 yond the period of Christian nurture and who must be 
 won, if they are won at all, by the more apparently 
 forceful and startling methods of the evangelist. It has 
 been truly said by a modern philosophic writer : " What 
 education and discipline do slowly, painfully, and doubt- 
 fully in fitting the soul for the common life, is often 
 done at a single stride by the fiery enthusiasm of relig- 
 ious passion, and the victims of inverted education and 
 
 16 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 fatal opportunities are wrenched in an instant from the 
 habits of one or even two decades and become most valu- 
 able ministers of the common needs. " * 
 
 At the same time, all history proves that at the best 
 but a small fraction of men are reached with the gospel 
 message after they have passed the period of youth and 
 young manhood. At the most the method of conquest 
 will win but a comparative few. The great majority, 
 if they are saved for the church at all, must be saved by 
 other methods ; by the slow, careful, and often impercep- 
 tible processes of Christian growth and training. " The 
 Lord hath set up churches," quaintly says Cotton Mather, 
 "only that a few old Christians may keep one another 
 warm while they live, and then carry away the church 
 with them when they die 1 No, but that they might with 
 all care nurse still successively another generation of 
 subjects to our Lord, that they may stand up in His 
 Kingdom when they are gone."t 
 
 Yet it is not altogether fair thus to separate these two 
 methods of building up the Kingdom— growth and con- 
 quest. Even in the youngest heart there is conquest, as 
 well as growth ; in the oldest and most hardened there 
 must be growth after the period of conquest. The dif- 
 ference of method seems to be greater than it really is. 
 Because it is comparatively easy for the young heart to 
 yield to the influence of the Spirit, nevertheless yield it 
 
 * Granger, "The Soul of a Christian." p. 60. 
 f Cotton Mather, "Magnalia," Book I. 
 2 17 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 must and does before it enters into the Kingdom. Be- 
 cause it is so much easier to bend the twig than the full- 
 grown tree, this does not prove that it is not necessary to 
 bend the twig. 
 
 Nothing that I may say in regard to Christian nurture 
 or child training precludes in my mind the necessity of 
 child conversion. The process of conversion may be a 
 very gentle and simple one. The child may never know 
 the exact moment of the turn in his pathway. But 
 some time the turn was made, some time he made the 
 choice, and, tho there was no wrench of old habits, 
 no upheaval of the old nature, no earthquake shock or 
 tornado of passion, his whole future life, if he has indeed 
 entered into the Kingdom, proves that there was a choice 
 that placed him among the children of God. "What a 
 fascinating study is this, and what a soul -absorbing task, 
 that a pastor shall seek with all the skill and all the re- 
 sources and all the holy art of which he is master, to lead 
 out the soul of the child and the youth into the large 
 place of spiritual vision and activity which God meant 
 it to occupy ! As President G. Stanley Hall says in his 
 lecture on the religious conquest of the child's mind : 
 
 "Childhood is the very best period of human life. 
 Then all human faculties are at their best. It is the 
 paradise from which growth is always more or less of a 
 fall. ... In all its activities, physiological and psy- 
 chical, the child is nearer the type of the species and has 
 less of the limitations of the individual. The doors of 
 
 18 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 the prison-house have closed upon him far less tightly 
 than they have upon us." 
 
 But not only is this the most interesting period of life 
 to deal with, it is one that requires and repays the most 
 careful study. It demands the finest appreciation of the 
 period we have to work upon and the most careful adap- 
 tation of all our means to the supreme end to be accom- 
 plished — the end of revealing God and the spiritual 
 world to the young soul, and of establishing him in his 
 faith in unseen realities. 
 
 "Why should not the care of souls become an art," 
 says Professor Coe in his valuable book on "The Spiritual 
 Life," "a system of organized and proportioned methods 
 based upon definite knowledge of the material to be 
 wrought upon, the ends to be obtained, and the means 
 and instruments of obtaining them. Such an art would 
 require scientific insight into the general organization of 
 the mind and especially into the particular characteris- 
 tics of the child mind, the youth mind, and the mature 
 mind. . . . The religious artist will study when and how 
 and how far to administer instruction to the intellect, 
 incitement to the feeling, and stimulus to the will. . . . 
 Many a revival worker is equipped with texts and ad- 
 vice and exhortation, all neatly classified and ready for 
 application ; but the investigation of the cases is utterly 
 superficial and no connection is ordinarily established 
 between the remedy and the difficulty. Of course some 
 will say that the method approves itself by its results, 
 but the same may be said of patent medicine. After all, 
 the question is not merely whether we get results, but, 
 
 19 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 rather, do we get the best results and the most of 
 theru ? For this knowledge is as necessary in the cure of 
 souls as in the healing of bodies. " 
 
 Our ideas concerning conversion have been confused 
 sometimes because we have confined ourselves to a single 
 type. The story of the conversion of St. Paul dominated 
 the Church for hundreds of years, but there was only one 
 St. Paul; while there were a multitude in the early 
 Church apparently, who came into the Kingdom as did 
 Peter and Andrew and James and John ; and a multitude 
 more undoubtedly, who, like the young Timothy, could 
 trace the beginning of their Christian lives to a grand- 
 mother Lois or a mother Eunice. 
 
 In these lectures I shall speak largely of the Timothy 
 type of conversion. That there is such a type, well rec- 
 ognized and distinct, is shown not only by the Bible, but 
 by the history of the Church. It is a happy thing, in- 
 deed, and augurs well for the future, that the Church 
 has come to recognize this as a normal, healthy, natural 
 type, and that she is seeking to build herself up in these 
 days quite as much by growth from within as by conquest 
 from without. 
 
 That Christian nurture is a God-given way of building 
 up the Church, and perhaps the chief way that He has 
 ordained, is shown by facts which all religious history 
 must recognize: First, the capacity of the young to re- 
 ceive Christ into their hearts. I confidently appeal to 
 the personal experience of many who read these words to 
 
 20 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 verify this statement. Is it not true that as children, 
 quite as much as in later years, your hearts were opened 
 to divine things'? Did you not hear the still, small 
 voice? Was not the presence of God a very real thing 
 when you were eight or ten or twelve years of age? 
 Could you not appreciate something of the love of Christ 
 and His sacrifice for you 1 Did not your little heart burn 
 with good impulses to serve Him with all a child's might? 
 You may have forgotten these early days, and sometimes 
 the experiences may seem very dim and unreal to you, 
 but I think there are few Christian men who have not 
 some remembrance of these things? Indeed, I venture to 
 say that many of you date your first strivings and resolves 
 to be Christians back to tender years, and you will bear 
 me witness that divine things were real and substantial 
 matters of your every-day life in your earlier childhood. 
 I am not speaking of prodigies and precocious hot- 
 house human plants, but of every-day, rough-and-ready, 
 noisy, natural boys. If you were brought up in a Chris- 
 tian home, if you read your Bible and prayed at your 
 mother's knee, it was as natural to be a member of the 
 family of God as to be a member of your father's house- 
 hold. To be sure, there doubtless came a period later 
 when companion and school, when passion and fashion 
 had their influence, and these early religious aspira- 
 tions and thoughts were dimmed and dulled; but the 
 earliest experiences to which I refer prove the capacity 
 
 of the child to be a disciple. 
 
 21 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 The very fact that so large a proportion of present 
 church-members turned to God in their early years, 
 proves beyond question the capacity of the young heart 
 for divine things, and puts a tremendous importance 
 upon the matter of youthful training for God. I have 
 spoken of the large place of spiritual vision and activity 
 which God has prepared for the soul of man. It is pecul- 
 iarly interesting to note what modern psychologists have 
 demonstrated : that there is an age when God peculiarly 
 opens the doors of the spiritual world to the eager soul, 
 and that is the period of adolescence with which we in 
 these lectures have particularly to do — the period between 
 childhood and maturity, between boyhood and manhood, 
 between girlhood and womanhood ; the " place where the 
 brook and river meet." 
 
 "Adolescence," says Professor Starbuck, "is one of 
 the most critical periods of development, a time when 
 the youth should be treated with the utmost delicacy and 
 discretion. It is the point toward which all the lines of 
 tendency during childhood converge and interplay with 
 racial forces to determine the direction of the later de- 
 velopment. It is the point at which the blunder may 
 prove most fatal, and that likewise in which wisdom and 
 discretion can reap the greatest harvest. " * 
 
 Professor Coe in his studies confirms the same view. 
 
 "During the next three or four years [after the age of 
 twelve]," he says, "there is to come a transformation of 
 the mental as well as of the physical organism, more 
 
 * Starbuck, " Psychology of Religion." 
 22 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 profound than any other between birth and death. New 
 kinds of sensations and emotions, new modes of thought, 
 new attitudes of will, new meanings of life, new problems 
 of duty, new kinds of temptation, new mysteries of relig- 
 ion, all these come in a flood over the young adolescent, 
 ... If there be a heavenly Father who yearns for fel- 
 lowship with His children, what more effective method 
 could there be of satisfying that yearning than to attach 
 to adolescence an appetite for the Infinite, the infinitely 
 true, beautiful, and good. As a matter of fact such an 
 appetite for the Infinite is just the most characteristic 
 part of mental adolescence."* 
 
 With these thoughts in mind of the critical nature of 
 the period of adolescence and its wonderful possibilities 
 for good and ill, we may well emphasize and underscore 
 what Professor Coe says on a later page. 
 
 "He who aspires to be a pastor should doubtless aim 
 to understand and sympathize with the religious difficul- 
 ties of persons of all ages. It would be entirely in place 
 to enter a plea for the unaerstanding of childhood or of 
 mature life or of old age, but all these are being better 
 understood and cared for than the remaining period of 
 life, that of adolescence. . . . Stiff-necked and obsti- 
 nately self-contained toward all attempts to drive or force 
 it, the heart of youth is nevertheless more docile than 
 the heart of a child toward one who understands it and 
 is willing to impart to it the guidance that it so sorely 
 needs."* 
 
 If the importance of the period of adolescence is so 
 
 *Coe, "The Spiritual Life." 
 23 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 vast to the individual himself, it follows that its impor- 
 tance to the church is no less great. "The thoughts of 
 youth are long, long thoughts," and the impressions that 
 are made upon the heart in the period of adolescence are 
 abiding and stedfast. Then the clay cau be molded, 
 to be sure, but it "sets" very rapidly, and often forever. 
 In this is found the reason for the undoubted fact that 
 the stedfastness of young converts is quite as great as 
 of those who have come into the church in later years. 
 In fact, I believe that of those who have been true to 
 their first love the proportion is far larger among the 
 converts whose hearts were mastered by love in early 
 years. 
 
 How many drunkards who give up their cups in mid- 
 dle life remain stedfast to their pledge? Some say, one 
 in a hundred; some say, one in ten; others give more 
 cheering figures; but the proportion of reformed drunk- 
 ards who lose their grip and go back to their cups is 
 startlingly large. So is the proportion of those persons 
 who profess conversion in mature years. Many remain 
 stedfast and are shining examples of the grace of God, 
 and their later activity is all the more marked because 
 of their early indifference ; but among the converts of 
 middle and later life are many others who lapse again 
 into worldliness, carelessness, and indifference, and 
 whose fruit is not the "fruit of the Spirit," but the 
 "apples of Sodom." 
 
 "If it was not true of Paul," says Bushnell, "it is yet 
 
 34 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 too generally true that one born out of due time will be 
 found out of due time more often than he should be 
 afterward — unequal, inconsistent with himself, acting 
 the old man instead of the new. Having the old habit 
 to war with, it is often too strong for him. To make a 
 graceful and complete Christian character it needs itself 
 to be the habit of existence, not a grape grafted on a 
 bramble."* 
 
 What I have already said implies what I believe is ab- 
 solutely true, that those who are most active and earnest 
 in the church to-day are those who were early converted. 
 With many brilliant exceptions to this rule, the rule 
 nevertheless holds true. Again and again the test has 
 been made, and again and again it has been found that 
 the working force of the church to-day received its first 
 impulse to the religious life in very early years. Then 
 all these facts combined: the capacity of the young 
 readily to receive Christ, the fact that the great major- 
 ity of those who become Christians at all become so in 
 early life, the comparative stedfastness of young Chris- 
 tians in mature years, the larger proportion of earnest- 
 ness and activity that they show, and the correlative 
 fact of the comparative hopelessness of middle age and 
 old age, make this problem perhaps the most serious 
 and pressing that can engage the attention of Christian 
 workers. 
 
 I confess I see few matters of such vast importance as 
 
 *Bushnell, "Christian Nurture." 
 25 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 this within all the range of theologic training; few ques- 
 tions so imperative and pressing upon the Church of to- 
 day as the question of Christian nurture. The very life 
 of the Church depends upon it ; the existence of the in- 
 stitutions for which the Church stands. The problem 
 whether or not she is to be the saving salt of the future 
 generations, or whether they shall drop into decay be- 
 cause the salt has lost its savor, depends upon whether 
 we shall bring the children to Christ and train them for 
 His service ; whether our sons shall grow up as tender 
 plants and our daughters be fashioned after the simili- 
 tude of a palace. 
 
 We must not suppose, however, because the child na- 
 ture is accessible and easily molded that therefore there 
 are no obstacles or difficulties in the way, and that 
 persistent and earnest effort is not needed. There are 
 very serious obstacles to the conversion of the young and 
 to their Christian training — difficulties peculiar to youth 
 which often require all a loving pastor's care and inge- 
 nuity to overcome. The young are peculiarly susceptible 
 to the influence of their surroundings. Indifference and 
 coldness chill them more quickly than their elders. 
 More intuitively than older persons do they distinguish 
 between those who are really interested in their welfare 
 and those who simulate such an interest for professional 
 or other reasons. They are sensitive, too, in an unusual 
 degree to the spiritual condition of the home and the 
 church. In a warm, active, evangelistic church, the 
 
 26 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 young people will keep up with their elders, if they do 
 not surpass them in activity. In an indifferent and 
 formal church, whatever the wealth lavished upon archi- 
 tecture and fittings, however eloquent the preaching or 
 tuneful the choir, the young life will not level up to the 
 architecture or the eloquence, but will level down to the 
 indifference of the Christians in the pews. There is no 
 better thermometer to the real spiritual life of a church 
 than its young people's work. From the children of the 
 home you can judge — not infallibly, but with a great 
 degree of certainty — of the character of the home. From 
 the children of the church you can judge still more cer- 
 tainly of the character of the church. It must be con- 
 fessed that the trend of the times- is not altogether favor- 
 able to the Christian nurture of the young. To be 
 "pious" is not "good form" in many communities — in 
 our colleges in particular. Many young people hear the 
 Bible criticized oftener than they hear its teachings com- 
 mended to the conscience. There is a certain kind of 
 preaching all too prevalent that feeds the intellect but 
 not the heart. This is as fatal to Christian nurture as it 
 is to the truest spiritual graces of older people. 
 
 There is also to be reckoned with in the present day an 
 overweening pride of intellect, which makes the Chris- 
 tian Life of young people more difficult than it was fifty 
 years ago or even ten years ago. 
 
 The "tyranny of the public school," as it is called, has 
 gained and is gaining force, and to speak a word against 
 
 27 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 its undue intrusion into the family and church life of the 
 day almost relegates one to the ranks of uncultured ante- 
 diluvians. Many young people are so busy with their 
 arithmetic or their Latin grammar that they have time 
 for but a brief glance at their Bibles, and that often is 
 given only on Sunday. It is an unpardonable sin to be 
 tardy at school. To be absent a whole day is a crime in 
 the minds of many children that ranks with an infraction 
 of the decalog, even if it does not take precedence of 
 at least the fourth or fifth commandment. This is really 
 a question of very serious consideration and worthy of 
 prolonged thought, prayer, and discussion — are we not 
 purchasing at too great a cost the intellectual equipment, 
 such as it is, of the rising generation ? 
 
 Many parents take the ground: "My children are in 
 school. This is their intellectual harvest-time. Noth- 
 ing must be allowed to interfere with their studies — at 
 least no religious meetings must interfere, but of course 
 the party and the social engagement may be excepted. " 
 The young people's meeting has often been moved, some- 
 times to its detriment, from a week evening to Sunday 
 evening, and crowded into a brief and interrupted half- 
 hour before the second service. The midweek prayer- 
 meeting is out of the question for many young people 
 because of their parents' strict prohibition. The second 
 service of Sunday keeps them up too late for their les- 
 sons on Monday morning, so they are not allowed to at- 
 tend it. Or it is thought that the poor little tender blos- 
 
 28 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 u 
 
 soms will wilt and die if they are expected to attend two 
 or three services on Sunday, tho five hours a day for five 
 days in the week, with plenty of home study for the spare 
 hours, is not thought too much for the Moloch of pub- 
 lic opinion to demand from the schools. I am not speak- 
 ing of worldly parents who are utterly indifferent to the 
 religious motive. These things you might expect of such. 
 But many Christian parents take this same view, and 
 practically prevent their children from entering heartily 
 into religious work because of their deference to a false 
 intellectual standard imposed by the public schools. 
 "Wait till they get through school" is often the cry. 
 They can join the young people's society; they can 
 serve on some committee; they can do some church 
 work, then." A terrible procrastination is this— wait 
 till they get through school and the religious sensibility 
 is blunted ; the head has outgrown the heart ; the desire 
 actively to serve God is dead, and a more fatal obstacle 
 than parental indifference has supervened— the disin- 
 clination of the young person himself, which is likely to 
 be strengthened by the cares and complexities of later 
 life! 
 
 I am not looking at this matter from the standpoint 
 alone of the religious teacher who desires more time and 
 opportunity and leisure for his specialty, for this is the 
 ground of the scientific psychologist as well. 
 
 "There is ground," says Professor Coe, "for a suspi- 
 cion that the conditions under which a vast majority of 
 
 29 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 adolescents are placed in our modern light and life tend 
 to produce a state of habitual fatigue. Among these 
 grounds may be named the tendency to overload the 
 common-school and high-school curriculum, the amount 
 of social life involving late hours, excitement, and un- 
 wholesome eating and drinking permitted to young ado- 
 lescents and even expected of them, the multiplicity of 
 interests that crowd out simplicity and repose, and finally 
 the almost feverish intensity with which American youth 
 enter into their too varied occupations. It would scarcely 
 be an exaggeration to assert that sixteen-year-old girls 
 and eighteen-year-old boys are expected to live two 
 lives in one, the life of students and the life of men and 
 women of the world." * 
 
 All this begets indifference or morbidness, and Pro- 
 fessor Coe enumerates the following evils as likely to 
 come in the train of this intellectual and social dissipa- 
 tion: worry, despondency, bad temper, over-sensitive- 
 ness, lack of decision in small matters, increased suscep- 
 tibility to temptations of appetite and of sex. 
 
 But serious as these difficulties are in the way of 
 Christian Nurture, they are not insuperable, or if they 
 present a barrier too high to be overcome in the case of 
 certain individuals, there are others whom every pastor 
 can reach and help, and these will be his joy and pride. 
 Besides, the very obstacles in our way should spur us on 
 to devise means of overcoming them. No wise method 
 of Christian Nurture should be carelessly passed by. No 
 
 *Coe, "The Spiritual Life.'' 
 30 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 plan which God has particularly blessed should be dis- 
 dained. No effort should be too great which may over- 
 come obstacles and accomplish the saving and training 
 of the young, which will mean the saving of the Church 
 of God from stagnation and decay. 
 
 On a wall of the Institution for the Blind in South 
 Boston hangs the favorite motto of Samuel G. Howe, the 
 great pioneer patron of the blind, "Obstacles are Things 
 to be Overcome." The objects which the Christian min- 
 ister has in view in training his young people for Christ 
 and the church are surely vast enough, the rewards of 
 success, even partial success, are surely inspiring enough 
 to lead him to throw himself with whole-hearted enthu- 
 siasm against any difficulties, exclaiming, not only in 
 the words of Samuel G. Howe, " Obstacles are things to be 
 overcome," but also: "Through Christ I can overcome ob- 
 stacles. In His strength I can overcome the indifference 
 of worldly parents. In His strength I can combat the 
 material and coldly intellectual tendencies of the day. 
 In His strength I can kindle and keep alive in many a 
 young heart a spark of love for divine things which will 
 some day, perhaps, be fanned into a mighty flame of 
 devotion. " 
 
 The fruitfulness of this work for the young is beyond 
 all comparison. If as much effort, prayer, and agony 
 were spent upon winning the children and youth as upon 
 winning and edifying the adults, how incomparable 
 would be the results? Think the matter over for a mo- 
 
 31 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 merit! What proportion of the average minister's time 
 and thought is given to the adults of his congregation 
 and how much to the children? Reckon up the hours 
 spent on the two classes. Two services a Sunday, fifty 
 two Sundays in the year, largely for grown people — an 
 occasional five-minute sermon for the children, a Chil- 
 dren's Sunday once a year, and the minister's sermonic 
 duty to them is done. 
 
 But the adults! the sermon-steeped saints who little 
 need them, or the sermon-hardened sinners who will not 
 hear them, or from whose well-fortified consciences the 
 truth will rebound like the cannon balls from the steel 
 skin of a monitor — there must be something like a hun- 
 dred homilies every year prepared for the edification of 
 one class or the unsympathetic criticism of the other ! 
 
 The midweek prayer-meeting is for the adult. To be 
 sure the young people are welcomed, and are often be- 
 rated if they do not attend, but the meeting has the ma- 
 ture Christian in view, and, if the young do participate, 
 it often seems like an intrusion into the special pre- 
 serves of their elders to which only the boldest are equal. 
 
 The Sabbath-school is largely for the young, but many 
 ministers consider it very small concern of theirs. The 
 superintendent and the teachers are responsible, and, 
 as for the young people's meeting, some ministers — not 
 many, I am glad to believe — resent it as an intrusion 
 upon their valuable time if they are ever expected to 
 attend. 
 
 32 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 Here are ten hours of prayer and planning and anxious 
 thought given to the adults by many clergymen to one 
 given to the young people, when the results of working 
 for the young people compared with the results obtained 
 in working for the adults are as ten to one. In other 
 words, ten times the effort is, as a rule, spent on those 
 who are ten times over the least susceptible. 
 
 I do not ask that this schedule be reversed and that ten 
 hours be given to the young and one hour to the rest 
 of the congregation, tho that division would be more 
 reasonable than the proportion now often observed. 
 But is it unreasonable to ask that the time and thought 
 be equally divided! There are quite as many children 
 and youth in our congregations, or there ought to be, as 
 there are adults. There are more of them in our homes. 
 If a liue were drawn at the age of twenty-five in all Prot 
 estant parishes in America, more souls would be found 
 below than above that line. 
 
 Is it unreasonable to ask, then, that the majority, 
 whose needs are as great and whose openness to relig 
 ious impression is much greater, should receive at least 
 as much of the minister's time and thought as the less 
 hopeful minority ? We need to get over the impression 
 so widely prevalent that the soul of a grown person is a 
 little more valuable than the soul of a child, and that it 
 is a greater triumph to win such a soul for the Kingdom. 
 How often have I seen in our religious papers a state- 
 ment like this : " There has been a revival of religion in 
 3 33 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 the parish of So-and-So, in which fifteen of the twenty 
 converts were heads of families." Brother So-and-So 
 often words his announcement of an awakening in such 
 a way that one would think he was almost ashamed of 
 the converts unless they had the distinction of being 
 "heads of families." The note of triumph, it seems to 
 me, belongs, if it belongs anywhere, iu another an- 
 nouncement — not, "Twenty converts, most of them 
 heads of families," but "Twenty converts, all of them 
 children or youth ; all of them to be heads of families ; 
 all of them consecrating the freshness and vigor of their 
 best years to Christ ; all of them giving, not the fag-end 
 of worn-out lives to Christ, but the strength and beauty 
 of their youth, as well as the maturity of their manhood 
 and womanhood and the ripe mellowness of their old 
 age." 
 
 Consider the life-insurance system of averages. A boy 
 of fifteen may expect to have forty-five years yet to live ; 
 the man of fifty may expect less than twenty years of 
 life. Suppose twenty boys and girls of fifteen are led in 
 a time of awakening to decide honestly to live the Chris- 
 tian life. The aggregate expectation of these lives is 
 nine hundred years— nine hundred years of service and 
 influence, nine hundred years of prayer and praise, nine 
 hundred years of pure living and noble striving. Almost 
 a Methuselah's lifetime of work and worship ! Twenty 
 boyhoods and twenty youths and twenty manhoods and 
 twenty old men all for Christ and His cause are won 
 
 34 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 when the twenty boys are won. But when the twenty 
 men in middle life, the much-heralded "heads of fami- 
 lies " are counted, their aggregate expectation of life will 
 be at the most about four hundred years. They will 
 have much less than one-half the time of the boys to 
 live. Their boyhood, youth, and young manhood are 
 behind them. These years can not be used for Christ, 
 and the sere and yellow leaf is not so valuable a gift as 
 the bud and blossom, the flower and the fruit. 
 
 Besides, the possibilities of the youthful company are 
 vastly greater. Of the man in middle life we say "What 
 is he?" Of the old man, "What was he?" Of the 
 youth : " What will he be f " And in that question of 
 the future tense are possibilities that set the pulses 
 bounding. 
 
 Polycarp was converted at nine years of age, we are 
 told; Matthew Henry at eleven; Dr. Isaac Watts at 
 nine, Bishop Hall when eleven, and Robert Hall when 
 twelve. What parent would take the responsibility of 
 keeping out of the visible Kingdom of God a possible 
 Matthew Henry or a Eobert Hall? What minister 
 would not labor years to bring such a saint into the serv- 
 ice of our Lord and feel that he was well repaid for his 
 efforts? The boy in our family, in our Sunday-school, 
 in our Christian Endeavor Society, may be the compeer 
 of any one of these saints. At least he has a soul which 
 in God's sight is precious enough to demand the supreme 
 sacrifice. It is worth our while, our pains, and time to 
 
 35 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 second Christ's effort to win the children and the youth 
 whom He suffered to come unto Him. 
 
 A few years ago I stood in a most fascinating spot, the 
 diamond-fields of Kimberley, South Africa. The dia- 
 mondiferous blue earth had been taken out of the mines 
 in great quantities and spread upon the "floors," so- 
 called — fields of many acres in extent — where it should 
 disintegrate iu the air and sunshine so that the diamonds 
 might be more easily extracted. For several months this 
 blue earth lies on the fields carefully guarded before it is 
 crushed and pulverized and the diamonds taken out. 
 The fascination of the spot lies in the fact that every 
 clod of clay which you may kick with your foot as you 
 walk across the fields may contain a Kohinoor. To be 
 sure, not every clod does contain a diamond, not one in a 
 hundred of the lumps of earth contains a gem, but any 
 lump may be rich in diamonds. 
 
 If it were certain that a brilliant lurked in every piece 
 of earth, a walk across the diamond floors of Kimberley 
 would indeed be a thrilling experience at least for the 
 avaricious man. The children and youth with whom we 
 have to deal contain within their natures a gem of great 
 price. It is not a possibility; it is a certainty. The 
 gem may be dimmed and dulled and lost. It may be 
 saved and set in a king's diadem. The very possibility 
 of winning such treasures may well cause the pastor's 
 heart to glow as he thinks of the young people among 
 whom God has called him to work. 
 
 36 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 Let us establish in our minds once for all these proposi- 
 tions : 
 
 First, very young people are capable of receiving and 
 exercising divine grace. 
 
 Second, they are far, far more accessible to this grace 
 than they will be in after-life. If this is true it would 
 seem that the pastor's supreme duty to care for the 
 young need no longer be argued. 
 
 The concurrent testimony of those who have been able 
 to judge, those who have had large experience in soul- 
 winning, will surely be of weight. Says Dr. Theodore 
 L. Cuyler: 
 
 "It is no uncommon thing for children of seven or 
 eight years of age to have received more mental cultiva- 
 tion than we formerly looked for at twelve or thirteen. 
 What is now common was once thought a prodigy in the 
 development of mind. ... I will only remark that I 
 have known a child at nine years of age better ac- 
 quainted with the doctrines of religion than two-thirds 
 of our church-members, and that I have been well ac- 
 quainted with at least one case of conversion between 
 five and six years of age. " 
 
 Said Eev. Charles H. Spurgeon : 
 
 "I have, during the last year, received forty or fifty 
 children into church-membership. Among those I have 
 had at any time to exclude from the church, out of a 
 church of twenty-seven hundred members, I have never 
 had to exclude a single one who was received whilst 
 yet a child. Teachers and superintendents should not 
 
 37 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 merely believe in the possibility of early conversion, but 
 in the frequency of it. " 
 
 Said Dr. Stephen H. Tyng: 
 
 "I solemnly believe in the conversion of children. I 
 can not say how young they may be brought to make an 
 open profession of their faith and love for Christ, but I 
 have seen as manifest evidences of the new-birth in chil- 
 dren of six and eight years of age as I have ever seen in 
 an adult. Shall I turn back those whom God Himself 
 hath brought? Shall I refuse those whom God Himself 
 has accepted?" 
 
 A few years ago on two separate occasions I made a 
 canvass of some of the best-known Christian men of the 
 country, ministers and laymen, in order to determine 
 how many of them dated their religious experience to 
 their early years, and also to find their opinion iu regard 
 to the expediency of church-membership for the young. 
 The questions asked were : 
 
 First : At what age did you become a Christian 1 
 
 Second : At what age did you make a public confes- 
 sion of Christ? 
 
 Third : Does your personal opinion incline you to the 
 belief that it is well for children about the age of twelve 
 years to make a public confession of Christ by uniting 
 with His church? 
 
 Of course it was understood that such children gave 
 such evidence as a child might be expected to give of 
 
 38 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 being Christ's disciple. Let me quote a few of these re- 
 plies, for they are most illumining : 
 
 Eev. Charles P. Deems, D.D., LL.D., for so many 
 years the popular and beloved pastor of the Church of 
 the Strangers, New York, wrote : 
 
 "In reply to your inquiries, which I think very im- 
 portant, it gives me great pleasure to say that if to be- 
 come a Christian means giving one's heart to Christ, I 
 think I can say that with me that occurred at thirteen 
 years of age. I was not fourteen years of age when I 
 confessed Christ and publicly became a member of the 
 Christian Church. Over this fact I have frequently 
 heartfelt and sometimes enthusiastic rejoicing. It now 
 seems to me so plain that if I had postponed that sur- 
 render a year longer I might never have become a Chris- 
 tian, for just after this my father's home was broken 
 up and I went off to college. 
 
 " My personal experience leads me to believe that it is 
 well for children to make a public confession of Christ 
 by uniting with some church just as early as they feel like 
 it. I mean by that, that if a child is old enough to love 
 the Lord Jesus Christ as his divine Savior, and to ex- 
 press a wish to do something to show that love, he is 
 old enough to become a member of any church. The 
 wretched folly of church discipline of past ages has been 
 to assume that an intellectual comprehension of some 
 creed was necessary for church-membership. A real 
 Christian church is a body of people who love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ with a love that passeth knowledge. 
 
 "Moreover, I have made this observation after a min- 
 istry of over fifty years. A larger proportion of chil- 
 
 39 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 dren who have made a confession of Christ by joining a 
 church before they were fifteen years old have held out 
 faithfully than of all those who have become church- 
 members after they were twenty-five. I am very sure 
 that no earnest child, however young, who applied for 
 membership in the Church of the Strangers would be re- 
 fused on the ground of his age. " 
 
 Eev. Abbott E. Kittredge, D.D., Pastor of the Madi- 
 son Avenue Eef ormed Church, New York : 
 
 "1. It was, I think, when I was eight years old that I 
 gave my heart to the Savior. 
 
 "2. I joined the church when I was seventeen years 
 old. It was not considered wise in those days for chil- 
 dren to unite with the church, but I believe in my case 
 it was a great mistake. I should have been greatly 
 helped and comforted had I been as a child a church- 
 member. 
 
 "3. Your third question has already been partly an- 
 swered. I most certainly think it wise for children who 
 give evidence of faith in Christ and a new heart to unite 
 with the visible church. In fact, I believe it is our duty 
 to receive them, for the Shepherd can surely keep the 
 lambs if He can keep the sheep." 
 
 Eev. John Hall, D.D., LL.D., the late lamented pas- 
 tor of the Fifth -Avenue Presbyterian Church, New 
 York: 
 
 "In reply to your inquiries I have to say, with pro- 
 found gratitude to God, that I was brought up in the 
 closest connection with the church, learned the ' Shorter 
 Catechism ' in my home, attended Sabbath-school, and, 
 
 40 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 I think, believed in the Savior for years before becom- 
 ing a communicant. This step I was permitted to take 
 at the age of fourteen, after passing through the com- 
 municants' class of a faithful pastor. 
 
 " I think where children of intelligence desire to be 
 members, they should be received. At the age of twelve 
 or thirteen years there is the capacity to understand the 
 truth. I receive such, irlicre they arc in Christian homes. 
 I would not encourage the step in those who are not in 
 such homes, at this early age, for this reason: that in 
 unfavorable surroundings some such relapse into care- 
 lessness, and are then less disposed to come under spiri- 
 tual influence. ' Oh, yes, joined the church. I know what 
 that is ; I went through all that, ' To avoid the risk of 
 such results, in certain cases I favor a time of learning 
 and ' probation ' before profession on the part of those 
 not blessed with a godly home. " 
 
 Eev. William P. Warren, D.D., President of Boston 
 
 University : 
 
 "To your first question I know not what answer to 
 give. Blessed with Christian parents, I was so dedicated 
 to God in prayer and Christian nurture from the very 
 beginning that I know not what germs of divine life 
 were unfolding within me from the first. I can not re- 
 member when I began to pray and to take a certain 
 pleasure in acts of devotion. Taught, however, that I 
 was not a Christian, it seemed to me when I was about 
 fifteen years of age an inconsistent thing for me to con- 
 tinue to pray. Accordingly, I abandoned the practise, 
 and made trial of the barren life of the prodigal son. 
 Three years later, I returned with godly sorrow to my 
 
 41 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Father's house, whence I hope to go out no more for- 
 ever. With wiser pastoral care I doubt whether I 
 should ever have gone out at all. 
 
 "I joined the church in my eighteenth year. 
 
 "My personal experience leads me to believe that all 
 Christian children should be treated as such, and that 
 from the beginning they should be taught that they are 
 probationary members of the church, to be received into 
 full membership with public recognition and responsibil- 
 ities so soon as thoroughly instructed and tested in the 
 Christian life. " 
 
 Eev. A. J. Gordon, D.D., then pastor of the Claren- 
 don-Street Baptist Church, Boston: 
 
 " 1. I was converted at sixteen. 
 
 "2. I was baptized and joined the church at sixteen. 
 
 "3. Later experience has taught me the advisability 
 of bringing into the church children of twelve years or 
 younger who give proof of conversion. " 
 
 James B. Angell, LL.D., President of the University 
 of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. : 
 
 "1. At the age of seventeen years, when a sophomore 
 in college. 
 
 "2. At the age of twenty I joined the church, tho my 
 profession of faith was public from the first. 
 
 "3. Decidedly yes, if the child has come to a fixed 
 purpose to lead a Christian life, without forcing or under 
 pressure, and is likely to be under the guidance of dis- 
 creet parents or friends. But if the child has formed 
 the purpose under some strong pressure of excitement 
 and can not rely on the help of wise parents or friends, 
 
 42 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 caution should be used. In other words, one needs to 
 distinguish between a passing gust of emotion and a 
 uatural, thoughtful purpose such as a child of twelve 
 is often capable of cherishing under favoring circum- 
 stances. " 
 
 Eev. S. J. McPherson, D.D., pastor of the Second 
 Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 111. : 
 
 "1. I became a Christian and I joined the church at 
 the age of fourteen years. 
 
 "My personal experience has convinced me that the 
 earlier Christians unite with the church the better it is 
 for them and for that training-school of Christ, the 
 church. They have less to unlearn, they are less ham- 
 pered by consolidated habits, they grow more naturally 
 into Christian character, they save the years from waste, 
 and their special gifts are far more likely to open 
 properly. I regard it as a great misfortune for any 
 man to come into the church late rather than early. I 
 have rarely known a child who became a Christian and 
 a church-member at the age of twelve, who was trained 
 in a wise and devoted Christian household, to 'fall away ' 
 from his covenant. There is much to be said on the 
 matter, and it is, to my mind, wholly on one side." 
 
 Hon. Franklin Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt. : 
 
 " 1. I can not tell when I became a Christian. I think 
 I always was, for I can not remember when I did not love 
 my Savior. This I owe to faithful, godly parents. 
 
 "2. I united with the church when I was fourteen 
 years old. 
 
 "3. Yes, I do believe that it is well for children, if 
 
 43 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Christians, to make a public confession at twelve years 
 of age. For thirty years I have been superintendent of 
 our Sunday-school, and I have carefully watched Chris- 
 tian children who at an early age publicly confessed 
 Christ. I give it as my observation that the percentage 
 of those who hold on, live exemplary lives, and grow 
 strong in Christian character is wry ttuicli greater with 
 children than with those who make confession of faith 
 in later years." 
 
 Eev. Washington Gladden, D.D., pastor of the First 
 Congregational Church, Columbus, O. : 
 
 " 1. I cau not answer. 
 
 "2. I became a member of the church at the age of 
 seventeen. 
 
 "3. Children trained in Christian families ought, in 
 my judgment, to come into the church at the age of 
 twelve years, in some cases earlier. I have received a 
 large number who were under twelve. There are risks 
 attending this early membership, but the risks of permit- 
 ting children to grow away from the church are far 
 greater. " 
 
 Eev. J. L. Withrow, D.D., pastor of the Park Street 
 Church, Boston: 
 
 "1 and 2. I united with the church under thirteen 
 years of age. I think I had accepted Christ as my Sa- 
 vior years before. 
 
 "3. My experience does lead me to encourage such. 
 Of course, if children have no home care, nor special 
 church oversight and encouragement, they are more 
 likely to fall away than if they were more mature in 
 
 44 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 judgment and experience. But taking everything to- 
 gether, I would rather trust them at the beginning at 
 that age than when older. " 
 
 Samuel B. Oapen, President American Board Commis- 
 sioners Foreign Missions, Boston : 
 
 "1. I do not know certainly. There was a period of 
 about two years in my life, when I was between sixteen 
 and eighteen years of age, in which I think I would have 
 taken a decided position as a Christian if it had been the 
 custom of that day, as it is now, for the church to look 
 carefully after the boys and expect them to be com- 
 mitted. 
 
 "2. I was eighteen years of age when I united with 
 the church. 
 
 "3. Yes, most emphatically. I believe those who 
 unite with the church when young and come thereby 
 under some responsibility average better than those who 
 come later in life. One of my children joined our 
 church when nine years of age, and the other at ten. In 
 our late war many men were deserters and proved cow- 
 ards in various ways, but there is no case on record of a 
 'drummer-boy ' who ever ran away." 
 
 President C. F. Thwing, of Adelbert College, once 
 addressed a letter similar to the one I have referred to a 
 picked company of conspicuously useful, Christian men ; 
 they happened to be the corporate members of the Ameri- 
 can Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Of the 
 one hundred and forty-nine who replied, every one of 
 whom was a tower of strength in later life in some 
 
 45 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 church of Christ, nine-tenths believed that they experi- 
 enced conversion before they were twenty, while only 
 fourteen were over twenty. All but thirty had joined 
 the church before they were twenty. Twenty-nine de- 
 clared that they became Christians when "very young," 
 or so young that they did not remember when they were 
 not Christians. Twenty- one others were younger than 
 twelve when they intelligently made the great decision, 
 and one hundred and five of the one hundred and forty- 
 nine made it before they were eighteen years of age. 
 
 These facts surely are significant ; they would be star- 
 tling were they not in a general way so familiar. But so 
 is the law of gravitation familiar. Nevertheless it must 
 be reckoned with by every intelligent being. The law 
 of children in the Kingdom is declared not only by 
 Scriptures, but by experience. It was never put so well 
 as our Lord put it: "Suffer little children to come unto 
 me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 I once made somewhat similar inquiries of the Chris- 
 tian business men of Portland, Me. , where I was then a 
 pastor. This inquiry, to be sure, related to early church- 
 going, but it bears strongly upon the particular point we 
 are considering, for this early churchgoing resulted in 
 the early formation of Christian character. My ques- 
 tions were as follows : 
 
 "Dear Sir: — Desiring to learn if the present decline 
 in church attendance, so often complained of, is a re- 
 
 46 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 action from Puritanical strictness in the past, as is fre- 
 quently alleged, or is due to laxity of parental authority, 
 will you be so kind as to tell me — ■ 
 
 "1. Whether in early life you were required to attend 
 church regularly ! 
 
 "2. If so, did such compulsion render churchgoing 
 irksome or repulsive to you ? 
 
 "Any other facts from personal experience, or from 
 that of others bearing upon this point, will be gratefully 
 received." 
 
 Of the fifty persons to whom I sent these questions, 
 forty-five replied. They represented different denomi- 
 nations and embraced a large proportion of the promi- 
 nent men in the churches. Of these forty-five, three 
 were not required to go to church when young, and 
 forty-two were. Of these three who were not required 
 to go, two went of their own accord. Two others of my 
 correspondents make a distinction between being re- 
 quired to go and being solemnly and earnestly urged to 
 go; that is, between physical and moral compulsion. 
 But that kind of compulsion came within the intent of 
 my inquiry. "Where it is the regularly expected thing 
 for children to attend church, as much as to attend 
 school, that is the best kind of compulsion. 
 
 Of those forty-five, then, from whom I have received 
 answers, forty-two were required to go to church as chil- 
 dren; two were not required to go, but nevertheless 
 went. 
 
 Forty-two did not consider churchgoing irksome or 
 
 47 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 repulsive; one did consider it irksome, but not repul- 
 sive ; one considered it irksome, but not because of the 
 compulsion; and one did not go, and so of course did 
 not find church attendance repulsive. 
 
 So you see the testimony of these forty-five represen- 
 tative Christian men, obtained without collusion or 
 knowledge as to the use to which their testimony would 
 be put, almost with unanimity tells that their early 
 training required church attendance, and that such at- 
 tendance did not drive them away from church even for 
 a time. 
 
 In view of these facts, what becomes of the threadbare 
 and sickly plea, "I am afraid to require any religious 
 duties of my child lest he acquire a distaste for them?" 
 Just exactly as sensible is the plea, "I am afraid to re- 
 quire any ablutions of my child lest he acquire a distaste 
 for a cleau face. " 
 
 Now, what do these statistics show us in regard to the 
 probable effect of clrarchgoing upon the boys and girls 
 of to-day? 
 
 So far as this testimony goes, we learn that the chances 
 of the boys and girls of the present generation becoming- 
 eminent and useful Christians are as forty -four to one in 
 favor of those who attend church, as forty-two to three 
 in favor of those who are required to attend ; aud the 
 chances that they will be repelled and disgusted by such 
 requirement are only as one to forty-five. 
 
 Or, to put the matter in still another way, so far as 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 these testimonies prove anything, they prove that, of 
 those who become particularly eminent and useful in the 
 church in mature life, nearly ninety-eight per cent, went 
 to church regularly as boys, ninety-four per cent, were 
 required to go, and ninety-six per cent were not re- 
 pelled from church, even for a little while, by such 
 requirement. 
 
 In his fascinating book, "The Psychology of Eelig- 
 ion, " from which I have before quoted, Dr. E. D. Star- 
 buck, after exhaustive inquiries and elaborate distinc- 
 tions, comes to these conclusions : 
 
 " Conversion does not occur with the same frequency 
 at all periods in life. It belongs almost exclusively to the 
 years between ten and twenty-five. The number of in- 
 stances outside that range appear few and scattered. That 
 is, conversion is a distinctively adolescent phenomenon. It 
 is a singular fact also that within this period the conver- 
 sions do not distribute themselves equally among the 
 years. In the rough we may say they begin to occur at 
 seven or eight years, and increase in numbers gradually 
 to ten or eleven, and then rapidly to sixteen ; rapidly 
 decline to twenty, and gradually fall away after that and 
 become rare after thirty. One may say that if conver- 
 sion has not occurred before twenty the chances are 
 small that it will ever be experienced. " 
 
 The opinions and research of the psychologist and the 
 
 philosopher confirm the experience of the practical men 
 
 of affairs. The psychologist's words sound almost like 
 
 a knell: "One may say that if conversion has not oc- 
 
 4 49 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 curred before twenty, the chances are small that it will 
 ever be experienced."* 
 
 What, then, is the conclusion of this whole matter? 
 Is it not that the Lord's reiterated command, "Feed 
 my lambs, feed my little sheep, " comes to us with re- 
 doubled power? Here among the children and youth is 
 the choicest garden spot in all the Lord's domain. Why 
 spend all the time in reclaiming the desert when the soil 
 of youth will yield thirty-fold, sixty-fold, a hundred- 
 fold? Is there any excuse which can avail for not enter- 
 ing this field? Is it sufficient for the pastor to say: "I 
 am too busy, too preoccupied ; I can not bother myself 
 with the children"? Is study more important? Is the 
 Greek Testament as imperative as the spotless page of 
 the child's soul? Is the morning sermon the matter 
 of supremest importance? Is the midweek prayer- 
 meeting of the church to be elaborately prepared for 
 and never missed, while the young people's meeting 
 has the go-by? Shall we spend all our time digging in 
 the scorise of the burnt-out emotions of the aged or 
 the middle-aged, and forget the virgin gold-mine of 
 youthful love and enthusiasm which will so richly re- 
 ward our toil? 
 
 Is it sufficient for the pastor to say, "I am not adapted 
 to work among children and youths " ? Said to me one 
 minister of noble proportions — noble physical propor- 
 tions — "I am too big to go to the young people's meeting 
 
 *Starbuck, "The Psychology of Religion." 
 50 
 
The Church of the Future 
 
 — the little fish don't like to have a whale swim into their 
 school ! " 
 
 Perhaps it would have been appropriate to quote to 
 this brother some familiar words about becoming as a 
 little child before one enters the kingdom of heaven. 
 But let us come back once more to the question with 
 which our lecture began: What is the ministry for! 
 What is all preparatory study for? What is the ulti- 
 mate object of the weary delving over Greek and He- 
 brew construction ? What is the object of the morning 
 sermon and the pastoral call and the midweek meeting 
 but to establish and build up Christian character? 
 
 If this can best be done in large part in labor for the 
 young, then labor for the young becomes one of the chief 
 concerns of the true minister, and all other interests, 
 important as they are, will give this labor its rightful 
 and exalted place. The minister who is too busy or too 
 preoccupied to care for the young, is too busy to build 
 up his church. The true servant of God will find the 
 time and make the opportunity. He will adapt himself 
 to this work, however few were his gifts in this direction 
 originally. He will gain for himself the young heart 
 that he may win the young ; so that at the last, when his 
 account is demanded, he may say, " Here am I, Lord, 
 and the children whom thou hast given me." 
 
 51 
 
METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
Chapter II 
 
 METHODS OP CHBISTIAN NUETUBE PAST 
 
 AND PBESENT 
 
 JEWISH METHODS OF RELIGIOUS NURTURE— CHILD LIFE IN THE 
 BIBLE — THE VARIETY AND MINUTENESS OP THE NAME FOR 
 "CHILD" — JEWISH TRAINING EMINENTLY RELIGIOUS— CHILD LIFE 
 IN THE BIBLE A CONSTANT GROWTH — LATER METHODS OP CHRIS- 
 TIAN NURTURE — THE HOME PREEMINENT — THE FAMILY NOT THE 
 ONLY FORCE THAT MOLDS CHARACTER — -GREAT MEN FROM 
 CHRISTIAN HOMES — THE JUKES FAMILY AND THE EDWARDS 
 FAMILY — THE CHRISTLESS HOME — THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL A CHIEF 
 METHOD OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE — UNDESERVED CRITICISM OF 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL — FOCUSING THE TRUTH UPON THE HEART 
 — THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AS A HARVEST FLELD — THE SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL PRAYER - MEETING — THE PASTOR'S CLASS — THE JUNIOR 
 ENDEAVOR SOCIETY — THE USE OF THE CATECHISM — HOW IT CAN 
 BE USED IN JUNIOR ENDEAVOR WORK — STUDYING THE CHURCH 
 COVENANT AND CREED — THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIA- 
 TION — BOYS' BRIGADES AND BOYS' CLUBS — MISSION CIRCLES, 
 KING'S DAUGHTERS, AND KING'S SONS — BANDS OF MERCY AND 
 TEMPERANCE LEGIONS. 
 
 The training of the church of the future has always 
 been a matter of concern to the church of the present. 
 We thank God for this. Otherwise there would be no 
 church of the present. Some generations have been 
 much more solicitous than others respecting this train- 
 ing, and have used wiser means and used them more per- 
 sistently, and of course these generations have reaped the 
 
 55 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 largest results in numbers and in the character of con- 
 verts added to the church. 
 
 ISTo people has been more solicitous on this point of 
 religious nurture and training than the Jews of old; and 
 the early Christian era seems to have taken up in full 
 the interest of the Jews in the training of the youth. 
 The Bible, when read in the light of Jewish history and 
 customs, becomes a treatise on child nurture which we 
 do well to study. I may perhaps be allowed to quote a 
 few pages from studies I have already published con- 
 cerning child life in the Bible, based in part on Dr. 
 Ginsburg's writings on this subject. 
 
 "The Scriptures leave no doubt in the minds of most 
 readers in regard to the supreme importance they attach 
 to the early and careful religious training of the young. 
 The Bible treats child life as it does every other subject, 
 in accordance with the customs in vogue at the time it 
 was written ; and from its general tenor we have every 
 reason to suppose that it approves and supports these 
 existing customs. Thus, in order fitly to appreciate the 
 child life of the Bible, we must inquire how children 
 were regarded, what was their education, and how much 
 attention was paid to them by the Jews. When we turn 
 to this subject we are surprised to find how large is its 
 literature. The very number and variety and minute- 
 ness of the names for ' child ' show the importance of 
 child life and the close scrutiny with which it was 
 watched. There were no less than nine of these names, 
 denoting the different stages of the child's history. Be- 
 sides the general names for son or daughter, there was 
 
 56 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 one that meant ' the newly born ' child ; another that 
 meant ' the suckling ' ; another still that referred to the 
 time just before weaning ; and a fourth that meant the 
 weaned child. "When he becomes a little older and be- 
 gins to go alone with short and tottering steps, he is 
 called taph, or ' the quickly stepping one, ' — ' the little 
 trotter, ' as we might phrase it. When he becomes still 
 older, and is able to help his parents, he is called elem, 
 or ' the strong. ' When able to defend and take care of 
 himself, he is naar, or ' free ' ; and when he has attained 
 his majority and is fit for military service, then he is 
 bachur, or ' matured, ' — ' the ripe one. ' What a watch- 
 ful eye do all these names indicate ! By following them 
 along we can almost see the development and growth of 
 the Jewish youth and maiden. Immediately after the 
 birth of the child, it was washed, rubbed with salt, and 
 wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and the announcement of 
 its birth was hailed with joy, especially if it was a son. 
 When the boy was eight days old, he received his name, 
 and the rite of circumcision was performed. Twenty- 
 two days after this, his father redeemed him by giving 
 to the priest thirty shekels of the sanctuary, thus ac- 
 knowledging in a most forcible way that he belonged to 
 the Lord who gave him. 
 
 "The education of the Jewish children, as we have 
 seen, was eminently a religious training. ' If you ask a 
 Jew, ' says Josephus, ' concerning any matter concerning 
 the law, he can more easily explain it than tell his own 
 name; since we learn it from the first beginning of intel- 
 ligence, it is, as it were, graven on our souls.' 'The 
 Jews,' says Philo, 'look on their laws as revelations 
 from God, and are taught them from their earliest in- 
 
 57 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 fancy ; they bear the image of the law on their souls. ' 
 The children were bound to worship God in His sanc- 
 tuary ' as soon as they were able, ' was the regulation, 
 ' with the help of their fathers' hand, to climb the flight 
 of steps into the temple courts. ' This was the way Sam- 
 uel was trained, and David and John and Timothy ; and 
 because of this training they became Samuel and David 
 and John and Timothy. It depends upon the parents 
 and teachers of to-day what the next generations shall 
 be, and it depends upon what they do and teach to-day. 
 We have the clean, white, smooth tablets in our hands, 
 in the souls of our children ; what shall we write there- 
 on, religion or worldliness? 
 
 "Again, child life in the Bible is always represented 
 as a constant growth. Over and over again we are told 
 the child Samuel grew before the Lord. ' And Samuel 
 grew, and the Lord was with him. ' Of John the Bap- 
 tist as a child it is said, ' He grew and waxed strong 
 in spirit.' And even of our Lord Himself the same 
 words are used. We should shrink from using such an 
 expression if we had no inspired authority for it. The 
 Savior grew, increased in spiritual power ! ' Why, ' we 
 should say, ' it is almost blasphemy to speak thus. ' But 
 the Bible says so. ' And the child grew and waxed 
 strong in spirit, and the grace of God was on him.' 
 This idea is universal throughout the Bible. To become 
 religious does not make a prodigy of a boy or a girl. It 
 does not ripen and mature the character all at once. It 
 is not a hot-bed process. The religious child is still a 
 child, needing training, instruction, warning, and we 
 must not expect or look for anything else. When we 
 see the seed sown in fickle April weather springing up 
 
 58 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 in April and flowering in April and bearing fruit in 
 April, when we see saplings grow visibly before our 
 eyes, expand in girth and throw out far-reaching roots 
 and gigantic limbs in a single season, then may we ex- 
 pect to see a child Christian become an old Christian in 
 a week ; but till then we need not expect to see any such 
 phenomena. Of course a child's ideas of religion are 
 crude, of course his knowledge of duty is imperfect, of 
 course he falls into childish blunders and errors ; there 
 would be no such thing as growth in grace were it other- 
 wise. But the acorn contains the oak, the straight, 
 branchless sapling is the forerunner of the wide-spread- 
 ing shade-tree; in the child Christian's heart lie the 
 germs of the aged Christian's experience. 
 
 "I think there is a lesson of vast importance in these 
 considerations of child life in the Bible. I beg for it 
 careful and prayerful attention, for it is a lesson which 
 the church has often neglected to its own sad hurt. It 
 is this : It is natural, it is possible, it is desirable, for 
 children to grow up into Christian manhood and woman- 
 hood without experiencing any sharp and sudden trans- 
 ition from au evil life to a good life. Nay, it is not only 
 possible and desirable, it is the thing we ought to ex- 
 pect ; it ought to be as common for young children to be 
 born into the kingdom of God as to be born into the 
 world. It is possible and natural for children to be con- 
 verted at their mother's knee, and never know the time 
 when they did not love the Savior. And this should not 
 be something rare, occasional, remarkable; a phenome- 
 non, a thing to excite remark, like a comet or a meteor. 
 It should be the usual, expected thing that children of 
 religious parents should choose to live for the Savior as 
 
 59 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 early as they are able to make any choice, and should be 
 received into the church and receive its nurturing, fos- 
 tering care. 
 
 "Search the child biographies of the Bible through 
 and see if this idea is not borne out. Was Samuel a 
 wise, independent man before he heard God speak his 
 name ? Was John the Baptist allowed to sow any wild 
 oats before he became a preacher of righteousness? 
 Could Timothy better have strengthened the early 
 church if he had been a roue in his youth? Did Jesus 
 Himself pass through no period of boyhood growth? 
 Did even He not require thirty long years of training 
 before He called a single disciple to Him? 
 
 "The doctrines of conversion, conviction of sin, and 
 regeneration have been monstrously perverted when they 
 have been made to teach that in every case, whatever the 
 natural disposition or early training, there must be a 
 sudden, conscious, awful wrench from old ways of liv- 
 ing ; for such a view shuts out all childish conversions, 
 and makes a youth of sin indispensable to an old age of 
 godliness. This explains many of the terrible revela- 
 tions which prayiDg parents have had concerning their 
 sons and daughters. They have looked and longed and 
 prayed for a sudden, thrilling conversion and experience 
 for their children, rather than for a very early, quiet 
 turning to God and growth in grace. This sudden, 
 thrilling experience never came, but ruin and disgrace 
 and heartache have come, because the parents have not 
 practically believed in a religious childhood. We be- 
 lieve that the Bible teaches that it is not necessary for 
 young, innocent children to agonize over their sins, and 
 mourn and weep like gray-haired offenders, and then 
 
 60 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 come out of a terrible darkness into a marvelous light. 
 We need not look for any such experience. The dawn 
 comes gradually, the lightning with a blinding flash ; but 
 the daylight is far more useful than the lightning's glare. 
 It depends very largely upon Christian parents and pas- 
 tors whether the day-dawn from on high shall come into 
 children's lives while they are very young and illuminate 
 all their eternity. Let us plan for this, pray for this, 
 expect this, and to the children will belong the blessed 
 experience of never knowing a time when they were not 
 Christians."* 
 
 We must pass from the child life of the Bible to later 
 times. The methods of Christian nurture employed in 
 the Catholic Church and in the early reformation era we 
 may pass over without comment, as these lectures do not 
 profess to give a history of the Christian training of 
 youth, but to deal largely with some modern methods 
 applicable to-day. 
 
 In the post-Reformation period the catechism and the 
 confirmation class played a large part in the training of 
 children and youth for the service of the King. For the 
 most part these instrumentalities did their work admir- 
 ably and were well fitted for that day and generation, as 
 indeed they are for many churches at the present day. 
 It was a sad day for many a church when it gave up 
 catechetical instruction. 
 
 Let us come to certain methods of Christian nurture 
 which are common at the present time. Foremost and 
 * Clark, "Children and the Church." 
 61 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 preeminent among these is and always will be, the in- 
 struction in the home. Nothing can ever take the place 
 of home training. At the best other methods can only 
 supplement and round out the nurture of the home, or 
 can make up in some little measure for the defects or 
 lack of home training. The mother's knee, the father's 
 kindly care, form the very best possible means for the 
 Christian nurture of children. And yet we find that, 
 even in Christian homes, children sometimes grow up 
 wild and reckless or hard and inapproachable to gospel 
 truth. Why is this so 1 Bushnell gives one reason in a 
 characteristic sentence : 
 
 "Because," he answers, "many persons, remarkable 
 for their piety, are yet very disagreeable persons, and 
 that, too, by reason of some very marked defect in their 
 religious character. They display just that spirit and 
 act in just that manner which is likely to make religion 
 odious — the more odious the more urgently they com- 
 mend it. Sometimes they appear well to the world one 
 remove distant from them, they shine well in their writ- 
 ten biography, but one living in their family will know 
 what others do not, and, if their children turn out badly, 
 will never be at a loss for the reason. " * 
 
 But the defects of cross-grained parents whose theology 
 is better than their practise are not the only cause of the 
 aberrations of the children of such homes. The family, 
 after all, is in our complicated life but one of the forces 
 
 * Bushnell, " Christian Nurture. " 
 62 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 that are at work in molding the character of every boy 
 and girl. The influence of nineteen hours in the best 
 home on earth can be counteracted by five hours at 
 school. The carefully nurtured boy, who for a dozen 
 years has been kept from contamination in the home, 
 may have a foul seed planted in his heart by a half- 
 hour's contact with the rotten life of an unclean boy to 
 whom he looks up as his elder and superior. The care- 
 ful training of years may be undone, in a measure at 
 least, by an evil book or picture, or by a persistent sneer 
 at religious things. So there is need of buttressing the 
 best home on earth with other influences which shall 
 help to mold the character for God. 
 
 Before passing on to speak of these adjuncts of the 
 home in Christian training, I would like to take a mo- 
 ment to deny the impression prevalent in many quarters 
 that an unusual proportion of rakes and ne'er-do-wells 
 come out of Christian homes. If the statistics were at 
 hand, it would surprise every one to see what a vast pro- 
 portion of the world's best and most forceful men and 
 women have come out of Christian homes. I believe 
 that it would be no exaggeration to say, from the partial 
 and incomplete investigations that I have made, that, 
 while the proportion of avowedly Christian homes to 
 non-Christian is only about one to four, of the men who 
 have made their mark in the world, who have won true 
 success in the all-round field of human achievement, 
 three-fourths of them have come out of Christian homes. 
 
 63 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 One-fourth of the homes have produced three-fourths of 
 the world's best men and women. 
 
 Of course these figures can not be absolutely verified. 
 I shall not quarrel with any one who disputes them, but 
 when we go through any modern dictionary of biography, 
 so far as we can judge of the Christian character of the 
 parents, we find that the praying mothers of distin- 
 guished sons have been vastly in the majority. 
 
 The statement has been going the rounds of the papers 
 of late, that fifty per cent of the eminent people em- 
 braced in a certain famous biographical dictionary were 
 the sons or daughters of clergymen. This is probably 
 an exaggeration, but, if it is even approximately true, 
 what becomes of the old saw about " ministers' sons and 
 deacons' daughters " ? It was Dean Swift, I believe, who, 
 in view of the acknowledged preeminence of clergymen's 
 children, advocated an endowment of the British par- 
 sonage for the propagation of a superior race which 
 should bless the world, because bred from choicest stock. 
 
 A study and comparison have recently been made by 
 Dr. A. E. Winship, of the descendants of the famous 
 criminal vagabond, Jukes, and the descendants of Jona- 
 than Edwards. The results are most astonishing, and 
 doubtless if it were possible to make such studies and 
 comparisons in other families, the influence of a godly 
 home would always be seen even down to the third and 
 fourth generation. Let me quote a few paragraphs from 
 Mr. Winship's book: 
 
 64 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 "The descendants of the Jukes family to the number 
 of twelve hundred have been traced, while fourteen hun- 
 dred members of the Edwards family have been studied 
 and tabulated. The Jukes were notorious law-breakers, 
 while the Edwards family has furnished practically no 
 law-breakers and a great array of more than one hun- 
 dred lawyers, thirty judges, and the most eminent law 
 professor in the country. . . . None of the Jukes had 
 the equivalent of a common-school education, while 
 there are few of the Edwards family that have not had 
 more than that. Pew were satisfied with less than an 
 academy or seminary, if they did not go to college. Yale 
 alone has graduated more than one hundred and twenty 
 of the family. ... Of the Jukes four hundred and forty 
 were more or less viciously diseased. The Edwards 
 family were healthy and long-lived. The Jukes neglected 
 all religious privileges, defied and antagonized the 
 church and all that it stands for, while the Edwards 
 family has more than a hundred clergymen, missionaries, 
 and theological professors, many of the most eminent in 
 the country's history. . . . Not one of the Jukes was 
 ever elected to a public office, while more than eighty of 
 the family of Jonathan Edwards have been especially 
 honored. . . . The Jukes lacked the physical and moral 
 courage as well as the patriotic purpose to enlist, but 
 there were seventy-five officers in the army and navy in 
 the family of Mr. Edwards. One spinster of the family 
 residing in Detroit expressed much regret that she had 
 no husband. The reason she gave was highly compli- 
 mentary to the sterner sex, because she had no husband 
 to send to the Civil War. . . . The Jukes were as far 
 removed as possible from literature. They not only 
 
 5 65 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 never created any, but they never read anything that 
 could by any stretch of imagination be styled good read- 
 ing. In the Edwards family some sixty have obtained 
 prominence in authorship or editorial life. "Whatever 
 the Jukes stand for, the Edwards family does not; what- 
 ever weakness the Jukes represent, finds its antidote in 
 the Edwards family, which has cost the country nothing 
 in pauperism, in crime, in hospital or asylum service. 
 On the contrary it represents the highest usefulness in 
 invention, manufacture, commerce, founding of asylums 
 and hospitals, establishing and developing missions, pro- 
 jecting and energizing the best philanthropy." 
 
 But, alas ! all homes are not Christian homes ; not one- 
 half, scarcely one-fourth of all the households where 
 shines the evening lamp, are even nominally Christian, 
 and in many where the name of Christ is professed, and 
 He is nominally honored as the Head of the household, 
 there is but little of that direct, aggressive Christian in- 
 fluence which insures the early acceptance of Christ by 
 every child and constant development in the Christian 
 graces. 
 
 Some writers who exalt the home as the one sole and 
 sufficient means for Christian nurture, apparently leave 
 out of consideration the great multitude of Christless 
 homes. If we should admit that the home is sufficient 
 for one-fourth of the children who crowd our streets, 
 who come from the right sort of homes, what shall be 
 done for the other three-fourths? For them there is 
 no direct Christian influence in the home; they must 
 
 66 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 be trained for Christ elsewhere if they are trained 
 at all. 
 
 Thus is impressed upon us from still another point of 
 view the vast importance of wise, systematic Christian 
 training. 
 
 The Sunday-school naturally presents itself as one of 
 the chief and most important modern methods of Chris- 
 tian nurture. I have no sympathy with those who, as is 
 the fashion in some quarters, depreciate this method or 
 decry it altogether because it has not attained to perfec- 
 tion. It is true that in some Sunday-schools and in some 
 classes in the best Sunday-schools a milk-and-water diet 
 is given to the pupils. It is the Bible-and-water rather 
 than the undiluted truth. Sacred geography and sacred 
 history are often taught instead of the personal applica- 
 tion of personal religion. The pattern of the ram's 
 horns that the Israelites used in blowing down the walls 
 of Jericho, and the particular kind of fish that swallowed 
 Jonah, are often the staple subjects of discussion, while 
 the teacher forgets to reason about temperance, right- 
 eousness, and judgment to come. But with all these de- 
 fects — and a brilliant lecturer might use more than one 
 hour in pointing out the mistakes of Sunday-schools as 
 well as the mistakes of Moses — the incalculable value of 
 the Sunday- school can not be overestimated, or the debt 
 of gratitude diminished that the world owes to Eobert 
 Eaikes. 
 
 Moreover, in this frequent denunciation and criticism 
 
 67 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 indulged in some quarters, the real, downright, con- 
 scientious work that multitudes of teachers put into the 
 preparation and teaching of the lesson is often over- 
 looked. Pew know the hours and hours that are spent 
 each week by tens of thousands of earnest Christians be- 
 fore they meet their Sunday-school classes. Few on 
 earth hear the prayers or count the efforts of the major- 
 ity of these devoted men and women, while the weakness 
 or imbecility of the small minority is held up to ridi- 
 cule. 
 
 The great fault of our Sunday-school teaching, if I 
 may be allowed a single criticism, is that the truth is not 
 often enough focused upon the hearts of the pupils. It 
 is presented, but it is not driven home. Too much time 
 is spent upon the generalities of the lesson, too little 
 upon its application. Some Sunday-schools go on month 
 after month and year after year, and there is no effort 
 put forth to lead the scholar to make the great decision 
 which we call conversion. In a great many schools 
 this defect is remedied, and in all it may be remedied, 
 by occasionally giving an evangelistic turn to the 
 Sunday-school ; by holding a few times each year a Sun- 
 day-school prayer-meeting immediately after the Sun- 
 day-school. Let me repeat the suggestions elsewhere 
 made in regard to this meeting, which has proved such a 
 harvest-time of ingathering in many Sunday-schools : 
 
 "Let the pastor or superintendent, or some judicious 
 teacher, take charge of the meeting, and in a few direct, 
 
 68 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 forcible words tell the children what it is to be a Chris- 
 tian ; that Jesus longs to receive the smallest one ; that 
 it is a matter of choice for the child as well as for the 
 man ; and that Christianity is best shown by consistent, 
 every-day living for Jesus at home, at school, and on the 
 street. 
 
 "At the first meeting it may be well to ask all those 
 children to rise who are willing to think the matter over 
 seriously and to try to decide before next Sunday 
 whether or not they will be Christians. It is my experi- 
 ence that a large number will rise at such an invitation ; 
 some out of sympathy with others, and many because 
 they sincerely desire, iu a childish way, to become the 
 followers of Jesus. In the week that intervenes they 
 will have time to think the matter over, and, if they 
 have Christian parents, they should be urged to talk 
 with their parents, then with their Sunday-school teach- 
 ers, or some experienced friend. 
 
 "The next Sunday all these children, and very likely 
 others, will remain to the Sunday-school prayer-meeting, 
 and it may be well to ask them how many have thought 
 the matter over carefully, and have finally decided to de- 
 vote their lives to the Savior. It would seem best to 
 make the decision appear a very plain and simple matter, 
 but also a very serious matter, aud to warn the boys and 
 girls that they must make no pledges lightly or without 
 full determination to carry them out. The great danger 
 at this stage is that some, influenced by others, and with 
 a feeble, half-formed determination to do better, will 
 pledge themselves without really meaning anything by 
 it ; but this danger can largely be guarded against by a 
 few words of serious explanation of the nature of the 
 
 69 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Christian life, and of its being a matter of eternal im- 
 port, and therefore not to be trifled with. 
 
 " The serious may further be sifted out from the frivo- 
 lous by asking all the children who wish to know more 
 about the Christian life, and who are really in earnest to 
 be followers of the Savior, to come to the pastor's house 
 some week-day, appointing one day for the girls and an- 
 other for the boys. For the most part, only those who 
 are really in earnest will accept such an invitation ; and 
 the opportunity this will give for private, personal talk 
 with each of the children will be invaluable. 
 
 "After four or five such Sunday-school prayer-meet- 
 ings, followed by such supplementary meetings at the 
 pastor's house, it will be easy to sift the merely impul- 
 sive from the deeply serious or truly converted; and 
 then it might be well to present to the boys and girls 
 some simple pledge to which they shall sign their names, 
 and which they can keep in their Bibles, and read over 
 every day until it is ingrained into their minds. Every 
 pastor will choose to make out his own pledge, perhaps, 
 but I would suggest the following, as very simple and 
 yet comprehensive : 
 
 " ' Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I 
 promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would 
 like to have me do ; that I will pray to Him and read the 
 Bible every day, and that, just so far as I know how, 
 throughout my whole life I will try to lead a Christian life. 
 " ' Signed, . ' 
 
 "The children, as we have said, should be encouraged 
 in every way to talk with their parents and other friends 
 about the matter, and perhaps, if they are quite young, 
 
 70 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 should take the pledge home and show it to their parents 
 before they sign it. Very few parents will refuse to allow 
 their children to sign such a pledge, and it will please 
 them to know that everything that is done for their boys 
 and girls is open and above-board. And now the real 
 work of Christian nurture begins. The start has been 
 made, the entering wedge has been driven, the door has 
 been opened for the admission of the Spirit, and now 
 comes the pastoral training and all the many good influ- 
 ences which an active church can throw around its chil- 
 dren. " * 
 
 The pastor's class is another and often a most invalu- 
 able means of training the young people in the distinc- 
 tive things of the Christian life and in the duties and doc- 
 trines of the church. If you will pardon an allusion to a 
 personal experience at this point, I have always found 
 that the formation of a pastor's class for a few weeks 
 early in the year following upon the Sunday-school 
 prayer-meeting which I have just described, was an in- 
 valuable adjunct of those prayer-meetings. It gathered 
 up the results. It gave me a personal acquaintance with 
 the boys and girls. It gave me an opportunity to know 
 something about their difficulties and their doubts. It 
 enabled me to make plain the way of salvation and the 
 path into the Kingdom. It insured every year an in- 
 gathering of young people into the church who knew 
 what the church was, what it stood for, and what it de- 
 manded of them. 
 
 * Clark, "Children and the Church." 
 71 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 I hope it will not be considered boastful when I say 
 that every year of my pastorate there were accessions, 
 numbering usually from thirty to one hundred, most of 
 them from the ranks of the young. I speak of this not 
 because I had or have any peculiar gifts or used any un- 
 usual or startling methods to bring about these results. 
 I was an average pastor in an average community, and 
 what was done in those churches can in like measure be 
 done in every church throughout the land. No evangel- 
 ist was employed, tho I have no prejudice against wise 
 evangelists, but rather rejoice exceedingly in their 
 labors. But the methods adopted were those of the Sun- 
 day-school, the Sunday-school prayer-meeting, the pas- 
 tor's class, and the young people's society, of which I 
 shall speak in a later lecture. 
 
 I am not dealing with theories or fauciful suggestions, 
 but with plans which might be marked, as the old lady 
 marked the promises in her Bible, "T. and P." — Tried 
 and Proved. 
 
 If young people are to be taken into the church at all, 
 it is obviously most important that they should under- 
 stand what they are doing and what the church believes ; 
 at least that they should know the great fundamental 
 doctrines of the church which are level with the child's 
 comprehension. What better place is there than the 
 pastor's class to provide just such instruction and to 
 prepare for intelligent church-membership? 
 
 It will not be necessary for the burdened pastor to 
 
 72 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 continue this class throughout the year, nor will it neces- 
 sarily take a great amount of his time. A few weeks of 
 training and instruction each year will fit the boys and 
 girls who have made the choice of Christ for an intelli- 
 gent confession of His name. The Junior Endeavor So- 
 ciety gives an admirable opportunity for just such in- 
 struction. There could not be a better pastor's class — 
 the pastor taking fifteen or twenty minutes of the Junior 
 hour for a few weeks or months, as he may see fit, for 
 catechetical instruction. 
 
 The catechisms and manuals for such training are in- 
 numerable, ranging from the Westminster Shorter Cate- 
 chism to the simplest and briefest modern statement of 
 the essential truths of salvation. 
 
 This subject of catechetical instruction is of sufficient 
 consequence, to occupy the whole time devoted to a lec- 
 ture. "No church ever grew strong, or, having grown 
 strong, held its strength, without a catechism," is the 
 dictum of an eminent divine. This may be an exagger- 
 ation, but the importance, if not of a catechism, at least 
 of catechetical instruction, can scarcely be exaggerated. 
 I have elsewhere suggested to Junior superintendents very 
 urgently the catechetical methods. Perhaps I may be 
 allowed to repeat here some things that I have already 
 said: 
 
 "My suggestion is simply this, that we should use for 
 ten minutes of each Junior hour manuals of question and 
 answer in which the boys and girls may learn the doc- 
 
 73 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 trines of their own church, its history, and its work, and 
 also lessons in clean, upright living, obedience, rever- 
 ence, humility, and faithfulness. 
 
 "All these virtues, to be sure, are treated in every 
 well-regulated junior society, sooner or later, through 
 the prayer-meeting topics; but it seems to me that 
 through questions that can be asked and ansicers that can 
 be learned these greatest truths which Christ came to 
 teach, and for which our churches stand, should be 
 firmly planted in the little minds with which we have 
 to deal. 
 
 "I do not know how this can be done in any other way 
 so well as by some manual of instruction which used to 
 be called ' the catechism, ' and for which there is still no 
 better name. 
 
 "I hope it will be fully understood, however, that I do 
 not advocate giving all the time, or even most of it, to 
 this instruction. The Junior Society is largely for train- 
 ing, and it would be a sad day when the training was 
 lost or even minimized. 
 
 "Children can be taught to pray only by praying, and 
 to work by working, and to express their love for Christ 
 by expressing it in some simple, natural, childlike way ; 
 and it is still necessary and always will be necessary to 
 devote much of the Junior hour to the prayer-meeting 
 and much of the strength of the Junior Society to the 
 committees — the lookout, and the social, and the flower, 
 and the sunshine committees, and all the others which 
 furnish the indispensable and absolutely necessary 
 means of child -training. 
 
 "But at the same time I think that at least ten min- 
 utes of every hour might with profit be used for instruc- 
 tion by question and answer — where the answers should 
 
 74 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 be carefully learned — concerning the great doctrines of 
 the church, its history and purpose, and the practical 
 concerns of daily life which result from these teachings. 
 
 "Some pastors and superintendents may deem it best 
 to concentrate this catechetical instruction into six or 
 eight weeks of the year instead of using ten minutes 
 each week ; that is, they will give the whole hour to 
 catechetical training for a few weeks, and for the rest of 
 the year to the training idea. In either case this cate- 
 chism of doctrines and duties will furnish a splendid 
 preparation for church membership, and every year an 
 intelligent class of earnest, intelligent junior Christians 
 may be fitted for the church. 
 
 "What a wide and important field does this open! 
 How easily in this way may our children be taught, not 
 only what their church believes, but what it stands for 
 in history; something about the great men who have 
 made its history, and something as well about the church 
 universal and the martyrs and heroes who belong to all 
 branches of it ! How plainly can it be made to appear 
 that right living and pure thinking and honesty and rev- 
 erence and faithfulness and obedience are all connected 
 vitally with the religion of Christ! How much the chil- 
 dren may learn in this way that they will never forget 
 about the cause of missions, and especially about the 
 work which their own denomination is set to maintain in 
 the home land and other lands ! 
 
 "I think the answers to the questions should be learned 
 week by week. This will bring about a revival of the 
 too-much neglected art of memorizing Scripture pas- 
 sages, and important truths framed in other words as 
 well. The Juniors usually stay in the same society three 
 or four or five years ; and during these years, if only one 
 
 75 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 question is taken up and answered and thoroughly learned 
 and explained each hour, a very large amount of gospel 
 truth can he inculcated. 
 
 "One minister to whom I have written wisely advises 
 that this be made a concert exercise, and that at first all 
 the children should be drilled to answer the question to- 
 gether, and that they then may be questioned upon it 
 separately. But all these details will be wisely managed 
 by the versatile and consecrated superintendents and pas- 
 tors. I have consulted many pastors of all denomina- 
 tions concerning this plan of instruction for the Juniors, 
 and all are enthusiastic for it. To all who desire I can 
 furnish a list of over fifty catechisms used by different 
 denominations. Large as it is, this list is doubtless far 
 from complete." 
 
 In my own experience I have often found it peculiarly 
 helpful to take the church covenant and creed, to go 
 through it with the boys and girls sentence by sentence, 
 reducing the theological terms to their every-day equiv- 
 alents, and striving to bring these somewhat formidable 
 compendiums of belief within the reach of the child's 
 mind. 
 
 More than once with the boys and girls I went through 
 Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress, " and found that the al- 
 legories of the immortal dreamer made plain to the child 
 of to-day the pathway from the City of Destruction to 
 Beulah Land. 
 
 In many churches the Junior Endeavor Society is doing 
 very much this work for the boys and girls all the year 
 
 76 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 round. From the ranks of these societies have come 
 hundreds of thousands of youthful church members, 
 trained and equipped as they would not otherwise have 
 been. In many churches it accomplishes the object of 
 the pastor's class and supplements his efforts in a won- 
 derfully effective way. It always welcomes his presence 
 and is his society to use as he chooses for the training 
 and instruction of the boys and girls. For a part or the 
 whole of the year, as he pleases, he can make it "the 
 pastor's class," and in it prepare year by year a fresh 
 company of recruits for the army of the living God. 
 
 The liturgical churches have made far more use of the 
 catechetical method of Christian nurture than many of 
 the free churches of America and Great BritaiD, and 
 have found vast profit therein. The plan of the pastor's 
 class is simply an adaptation of the confirmation class to 
 the needs of all the churches which have not inherited 
 this means of nurture from immemorial times. 
 
 When we come to other forms of work for young peo- 
 ple I can not speak at length, as it is in my heart to do, 
 and in words of highest commendation, of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association; for its work, not being 
 directly connected with the local church, does not come 
 within the scope of this volume. 
 
 Within the Episcopal fold the Brotherhood of St. An- 
 drew does a similar and often most important work for 
 the young men in the local church, while the Brotherhood 
 of Andrew and Philip is an efficient interdenominational 
 
 77 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 organization which in a considerable number of churches 
 has set young men to reach young men in the blessed 
 work of evangelization. 
 
 There are other methods of Christian nurture which 
 will commend themselves to certain pastors. The Boys' 
 Brigade has been used successfully in not a few churches 
 in teaching the boys obedience, reverence, and the sol- 
 dierly qualities of discipline, as well as the distinctive 
 truths of the Bible. An objection urged by many is 
 that it fosters the military spirit and is often a matter of 
 considerable expense for uniforms, toy guns, etc. Some- 
 times, too, there is a danger that the real spiritual pur- 
 pose will be overshadowed by the military trappings, and 
 that the religious instructor will be lost in the drill-mas- 
 ter. Still, these evils are incidental and not inherent, 
 and where the combination of captain and teacher is just 
 right the results are often admirable. Boys' clubs have 
 been useful in some places where the right leader can be 
 found, and other similar methods should receive sym- 
 pathetic attention. 
 
 Another side of the Christian character is cultivated 
 by children's mission circles, in which the boys and girls 
 are taught to know the work of the heroes of the mission 
 fields and the needs of the heathen world, and to pray 
 and give and work for those in distant lands and the 
 home-lands who are less favored than themselves. Such 
 circles have done admirable service in developing this 
 side of the Christian life. As a rule, the missionary 
 
 78 
 
Christian Nurture Past and Present 
 
 spirit can be developed more effectively in an organiza- 
 tion like the Junior Christian Endeavor Society, which 
 appeals to the all-round religious life of the boys and 
 girls. These societies should always have their mission- 
 ary department, which shall do for all what the mission 
 circle has heretofore done for comparatively few. 
 
 The bands of King's Daughters and King's Sons, too, 
 have done, and are doing, a most important work in 
 training the children in habits of gentleness, kindness, 
 and helpfulness to others ; to do kind deeds every day 
 and to do them for Christ's sake, comes very near em- 
 bracing the whole gospel as well as the law and the 
 prophets. 
 
 So, too, the Bands of Mercy, a most helpful effort to 
 teach kindness to dumb animals, the Loyal Temperance 
 Legions, and other similar organizations for children, 
 have worked admirably along certain lines, and deserve 
 no small credit for instilling into the hearts of our chil- 
 dren the virtues of temperance, purity, and kindness to 
 the animal creation. 
 
 Another chapter will attempt to show how all these 
 most important elements in Christian training may be 
 brought together and "domed over," as it were, under 
 the roof of an organization that can give a large, whole- 
 some, symmetrical training to all the moral and spiritual 
 muscles of our growing boys and girls. 
 
 79 
 
THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY OF 
 
 CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR AS A 
 
 TRAINING-SCHOOL OF 
 
 THE CHURCH 
 
Chapter III 
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY OF CHRIS- 
 TIAN ENDEAVOB AS A TBAINING-SCHOOL 
 OF THE CHUECH 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THIS TRAINING-SCHOOL— WHERE THE ORIGINAL 
 SUGGESTION CAME FROM — MANY ORIGINAL ENDEAVORER8 — HOW 
 THE CRYSTALS WERE PRECIPITATED— CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR A UNI- 
 FIER AND 8IMPLIFIER — ONE ELEMENT LARGELY LEFT OUT OF FOR- 
 MER ORGANIZATIONS— PERSONAL EXERCISE AND TRAINING AS IM- 
 PORTANT AS TEACHING — A GOOD DEFINITION OF TRUE CHILDREN 
 OF THE CHURCH — THE ANALOGY BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND SPIR- 
 ITUAL TRAINING — EXERCISE AS NECESSARY FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS 
 AS FOR YOUNG HORSES — AN ANCIENT PROTOTYPE OF THE MODERN 
 ENDEAVOR SOCIETY — COTTON MATHER'S PROPOSAL FOR "THE RE- 
 VIVAL OF DYING RELIGION " — SOME REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCES 
 TO MODERN METHODS — THE CURE FOR HELPLESSNESS— THE IM- 
 PORTANCE OF NORMAL HEALTHY ACTIVITY — THE FIRST CONSTITU- 
 TION OF THE FIRST SOCIETY — THE FIRST SOCIETY BORN IN A 
 REVIVAL — THE OPENING OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
 FLOWER — EXPERIMENTS OF THE PAST — THE SECOND SOCD3TY — 
 CRITICS AND CRITICISMS — THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE SOCIETY — 
 FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES: CONFESSION, SERVICE, FELLOWSHIP, 
 LOYALTY — THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE PRACTICAL WORKER — THE 
 STEPPING-STONE, THE TRAINING-SCHOOL, AND THE WATCH-TOWER. 
 
 In approaching this subject I am embarrassed by the 
 fear that I shall be considered a special pleader for a pet 
 project. I can not claim to regard the history or the 
 principles of the Christian Endeavor movement with 
 indifference, but I have tried to consider them, not in 
 
 83 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 the light of my preconceived opinions, but in the light 
 of the history and experience of twenty years, and I 
 have tried not to read into this history my own preju- 
 dices and predilections. 
 
 No one can realize more fully than I the small part I 
 have had in establishing this society, how largely it has 
 been taken by Providence out of human hands, how 
 spontaneously it has developed ; and no one is more grate- 
 ful that this is not a man-made scheme of Christian nur- 
 ture, but a God-sent movement. 
 
 I have often been asked about the genesis of the 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor; where 
 the original suggestion came from ; with whom the name 
 originated, and so on. Moreover, my memory has often 
 been jogged by those who were very sure that they knew 
 all about it. The idea originated, I am told, with any 
 one of a hundred men who have been named. I have 
 met at least half a hundred of the original Endeavorers 
 from whom, according to themselves, the idea was bor- 
 rowed. In fact, I have read more than one serious 
 biography of myself in which the statement has been 
 made that I was born in some town which as a matter of 
 fact I have never seen, grew up in a church whose name 
 I had never heard, and obtained the idea, afterward 
 modified and enlarged, from some pastor whose identity 
 had not been revealed to me until I read his letter or his 
 article in the public press. 
 
 The fact of the matter seems to be that the Christian 
 
 84 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 Endeavor movement was crystallizing for years and 
 needed but a little event to precipitate the crystals and 
 give them shape. It may be fair to say that it originated 
 with no one in particular, but with many in general. 
 Ten thousand pastors in ten thousand churches twenty 
 years ago felt the need of some systematic and efficient 
 method of Christian nurture. Hundreds were experi- 
 menting along different lines, but all these lines con- 
 • verged at one center, a heartfelt desire to train the chil- 
 dren and youth for God. Moreover, all these methods 
 and experiments (some of which I have described in the 
 last chapter) made almost inevitable some organization 
 which should combine them and use them more effec- 
 tively. There was no unity or cohesion to these plans. 
 One little group of children was being trained in mis- 
 sionary activity and was being taught to think and pray 
 and work for the heathen world. Another was being 
 taught in temperance lore, to hate the wine-cup, and to 
 wear proudly the blue ribbon. A few others were being 
 trained to be kind to animals, and others were learning 
 the Bible in the Sunday-school or the catechism in the 
 pastor's class. 
 
 But the young people who were in one organization 
 could" not well be in another. Those who belonged to 
 the Mission Circle did not have much time for the Band 
 of Hope, and it was evident that some unification, ar- 
 rangement, and systematization of these plans was neces- 
 sary. In tens of thousands of churches this unification 
 
 85 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 has been found very largely in the Christian Endeavor 
 Society or organizations founded upon similar methods. 
 
 I do not mean that there was any set purpose to unify 
 these different organizations. No man surely had any 
 such purpose, but in the Providence of God it has come 
 about that under the roof of one organization, with its 
 different meetings and its different committees, many of 
 these efforts for the youth have found their home. The 
 Christian Endeavor movement unwittingly has become a 
 great simplifier of church machinery. The same young 
 people are taught not only temperance, but foreign mis- 
 sions and home missions, and philanthropic work, and 
 not only the evil of intoxicants, but the fruits of the 
 Spirit — to be kind and gentle, generous and manly, and 
 to use all their powers for Christ. 
 
 It is noticeable that in these former organizations and 
 methods of training the young people, one element was 
 largely left out — the element of training, of personal 
 exercise. If you will examine carefully all these 
 plans, admirable as many of them were, you will notice 
 that, almost without exception, the teaching element 
 predominated. It entirely overshadowed, if it did not 
 absolutely displace, the idea of training. In fact, it is 
 surprising how largely this idea of training the young 
 had been disregarded in the past. It is not unnatural, 
 perhaps, for the past originated and lived up to the 
 adage that "Children should be seen and not heard." 
 The past, as compared with these last days at least, was 
 
 86 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 the period of repression. Young America had not come 
 to the front. The industrial school was unknown. A 
 manual training class had been unheard of. Sloid was 
 never taught in our grammar schools, and the religious 
 instruction of our churches corresponded in its leading 
 ideas to the secular instruction of our schools. 
 
 In the providence of God, as it seems to me, without 
 human design or intention and with very little human 
 wisdom, the Christian Endeavor Society came to remedy 
 this defect and to provide the all-important element of 
 training — to exalt it side by side with the idea of in- 
 struction in all our churches. 
 
 One of the best definitions that I have ever heard of 
 those two modern children of the church, the Sunday- 
 school and the Young People's Society of Christian En- 
 deavor, is as follows: " The Sunday-school is the church 
 instructing the young; the Christian Endeavor Society is 
 the church training the young. " 
 
 The following paragraphs were written in the very 
 earliest days of the Christian Endeavor movement, and 
 the force and importance of the statements have been 
 growing upon me with every passing year. It seems to 
 me that the spiritual training of the child lies at the very 
 foundation of the Christian Endeavor movement as a 
 modern means of Christian nurture. 
 
 "The analogy between the physical and spiritual train- 
 ing of the child is very close. We sometimes say, in the 
 exaggeration of familiar speech, that such and such a 
 
 87 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 child of indulgent parents has had everything done for 
 him, and yet what we really mean is only this: that 
 every facility has been provided that love and wealth 
 can suggest to enable the child to do well for himself. 
 The kind parent can provide good air for his child and 
 perfect ventilation, but after all the child must breathe 
 the air for himself. The most loving parent can not ex- 
 ercise for the child. The young person must do this for 
 himself. Perhaps this is the most important and most 
 neglected element of self-culture in religious matters. 
 For invalids there are many strong advocates of the sys- 
 tem of massage, in which the body of the sick man is 
 pinched and pulled and kneaded and worked over ; this 
 may do very well for the invalid, who has not strength 
 to exercise himself, but none of us would claim that 
 massage is the best exercise for the growing child. In 
 order to grow strong he must run, and jump, and play 
 for himself. 
 
 "The cord that draws the young soul upward toward 
 God is woven of a threefold strand. He must know 
 what Christ's will is through the instruction of parents 
 and Christian teachers; he must publicly acknowledge 
 that Christ's will is his will ; and then he must do that 
 will. Instruction, confession, activity — these three ele- 
 ments entering into the young life, when preceded by a 
 complete heart surrender, can not fail to develop the 
 strong man, ' complete in Him. ' 
 
 "It is just as unreasonable to expect the child to grow 
 strong of muscle and supple of limb while strapped to a 
 bed and never allowed to rise and run about, as to ex- 
 pect the young disciple, to grow ' strong in the Lord ' 
 while never exercising his spiritual faculties. 
 
 88 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 "The instruction of the pulpit and Sunday-school may 
 well be likened to the food provided at the family table. 
 It is, very likely, abundant in quantity and nutritious in 
 quality, but food without exercise in the family circle 
 makes the sickly, dyspeptic child. Pood without exer- 
 cise in the church is apt to produce no better results. 
 
 " Even the horses in our stables can not long live with- 
 out exercise. Pill their cribs never so full of the best 
 feed, they must yet do something to keep healthy. This 
 is a natural law, which is imperative in the spiritual 
 world. There are a great many dyspeptic Christians in 
 all our churches. They are bilious and disappointed and 
 hopeless and useless, except as they become by their con- 
 tinual growling and fault-finding means of grace in the 
 form of chastisement to the pastor and other workers. 
 In fact, they have all the symptoms of spiritual dyspep- 
 sia. Now the only remedy for this disease is spiritual 
 activity. ' Go to work, ' said the famous English doctor 
 to his rich, dyspeptic patient ; ' go to work. Live on 
 sixpence a day, and earn it. ' " * 
 
 It is interesting to notice how young people themselves 
 have felt the need of this training, of this exercise in the 
 Christian graces, and have reached out after it even 
 when it was being withheld by their elders. 
 
 As the baby must kick its feet and wave its ineffectual 
 arms if it is well and strong, as the boy and girl must 
 romp and play and exercise their muscles whether a 
 gymnasium is provided for them or not, so there seems 
 to be something in the nature of the young Christian 
 
 * Clark, "Young People's Prayer-Meetings." 
 89 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 that demands exercise. He must do something for him- 
 self. He will be stifled and dwarfed if everything is 
 done for him. 
 
 The sense of this universal need is shown by the unor- 
 ganized groups of young people of which I have before 
 spoken, who used to gather together especially in times 
 of revival interest to pray for and encourage each other. 
 This sense of the need of exercise accounts for the many 
 young people's meetings which in former days often 
 died a lingering death, and were revived only to die 
 once more. 
 
 A notable instance of such a desire for personal relig- 
 ious exercise and work is shown by a movement which 
 began in the early part of the eighteenth century and 
 survived but a few years, crushed out apparently by the 
 indifference or hostility of the churches. This move- 
 ment bore many remarkable likenesses to the modern 
 Society of Christian Endeavor. These young people of 
 nearly two hundred years ago had their weekly meeting, 
 in which, according to the provision of the ancient con- 
 stitution, it was ordered that "there be two hours at a 
 time set apart, and let there be two prayers made by the 
 members of the society in their turns, between which let 
 a sermon be repeated, and there should be the singing of 
 a psalm annexed." This society was apparently origi- 
 nated by none other than the distinguished Cotton 
 Mather, who told about it in a little book, now very rare 
 and valuable, whose title-page reads: 
 
 90 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 Religious Societies 
 
 PROPOSALS 
 
 For the REVIVAL of 
 
 Dying Religion, 
 
 BY Well-Ordered 
 
 Societies 
 
 For That PURPOSE. 
 
 With a brief Discourse, Offered 
 unto a Religious Society, on 
 the Firft Day or their Meeting. 
 
 t Thefll V. ii. Edify one another 
 
 BOSTON: 
 Printed by S. Kneeland* for John 
 Phillips, and Sold at his Shop 
 over againft the South-fide ofthe- 
 Tow-n Houfe. 1724. I 
 
 This society, which I had not heard of until an anti- 
 quarian brought it to my attention years after the Chris- 
 
 91 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 tian Endeavor movement was well under way, had sev- 
 eral other features analogous to the modern Endeavor 
 Society. For instance, corresponding to the roll-call 
 meeting of the modern Society of Christian Endeavor, 
 Art. V. of Cotton Mather's manual provides: 
 
 V. LET the Lift be once a Quarter caned 
 ever ; and then, If it be obferved, that any of the 
 Society have much abiented thejnfelves, Let there 
 be fome fent unto them, to inquire the Reafon of 
 their Abfetice ; and it no Reafon be given, bue 
 fuch as intimates an Apojlacy from good Begin. 
 rings, Let them upon obftinacy, after loving and 
 faithful Admonitions, be Obliterated. 
 
 Doubtless the names and not the persons were to be 
 "obliterated," but here was the modern consecration 
 meeting in its embryonic form and the very same means 
 of keeping the society free from inactive members. 
 
 "It is very certain, " remarks the distinguished author, 
 "that where such Private Meetings, under a good Con- 
 duct have been kept alive, the Christians which have 
 composed them, have like so many Coals of the Altar 
 kept one another alive, and kept up a lively Christianity 
 in the neighborhood. Such Societies have been tried, 
 and proved to be strong Engines, to uphold the Power 
 of Godliness. The throwing up of such Societies has 
 been accompanied with a Visible Decay of Godliness. 
 The less Love to them, the less Use of them, there has 
 been in a Place, the less has Godliness flourished there ; 
 the less there has been of the Kingdom of God." * 
 
 * Cotton Mather, "Proposals for the Revival of Dying Religion." 
 
 92 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 It is worthy of note that these societies were started in 
 a period of religious declension and dearth as was the 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, for the 
 very same purpose— to bring about decisions for Christ 
 and training in His service. 
 
 For a time these societies multiplied, but, alas ! they 
 were not looked upon with much favor. The ecclesias- 
 tical spirit of the times was against lay activities, and 
 especially against the activities of young and inexperi- 
 enced laymen. The tithing-man was more in evidence 
 than the lookout committee to keep the young people in 
 the right way. The church acted the part of the tradi- 
 tional stepmother rather than of the loving parent to this 
 new organization. It was soon crushed out and after a 
 few years we hear little of it. 
 
 It is chiefly interesting to us of to-day as showing the 
 desire ineradicable in the heart of the young Christian to 
 do as well as to get ; to give as well as to receive ; to ex- 
 ercise as well as to be taught. This desire can not be 
 frozen by ecclesiastical coldness or crushed by churchly 
 indifference. It is implanted in the heart of the young 
 Christian. It demands free scope, and in these later 
 days has received such recognition as never before, for 
 the whole Christian Endeavor movement in every land is 
 based on this thought of exercise, of manifestation of life, 
 of training as distinct from religious teaching and equally 
 necessary with it. 
 
 The vital importance of religious activity to supple- 
 
 93 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 merit and round out religious instruction is recognized 
 by the psychologists as well as by the practical pastor 
 and evangelist. It is taught by philosophy as well as by 
 history. 
 
 "The cure for helplessness that conies with storm and 
 stress in the period of adolescence, " says Professor Star- 
 buck, "is often found in inducing wholesome activity. 
 ' Faith without works is dead. ' Let us call to mind the 
 fact that storm and stress and doubt are experienced 
 some time during youth by something like seventy per 
 cent of all the persons studied. On the other hand, 
 heightened activity, which is characterized not only by 
 interest in religious matters but by engaging in actual 
 religious work, was experienced by only about twenty- 
 two per cent of all these persons. This is doubtless very 
 much out of proportion. Many persons have found the 
 solution of their difficulties by actually setting about 
 doing things."* 
 
 This is exactly what the Christian Endeavor Society 
 seeks to do for every one of its members. It sets them 
 about doing things and thus tides them over the critical 
 periods of adolescence, the years of storm and stress and 
 doubt. Professor Coe confirms Professor Starbuck in 
 prescribing the same treatment for those who are dis- 
 tressed by doubts and fears. We must add to the intel- 
 lectual food something not less needful : 
 
 "The youth should by all means be induced to be ac- 
 tive in those forms of religious living that still appeal to 
 
 * Starbuck, "Psychology of Religion." 
 94 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 him at all. . . . Beligious activity and religious com- 
 forts may abide at the same time that the intellect is un- 
 certain how this fits into any logical structure. Thus it 
 comes to pass that the greatest thing we can do for the 
 doubting youth is to induce him to give free exercise to 
 the religious instinct. Let him not say what he does not 
 actually believe, let him not compromise himself in any 
 way, but it is always certain that he still believes and 
 feels and aspires enough to give him a place among re- 
 ligious people." * 
 
 It is just this normal, healthy, necessary activity, 
 which the scientific psychologist recognizes as so impor- 
 tant in the period of adolescence, that the Society of 
 Christian Endeavor attempts to supply. The philos- 
 ophy of its success, so far as the society has been suc- 
 cessful, is that it fits the needs of the young soul. It is 
 no haphazard experiment. Its roots run down into the 
 nature of youth. In God's good plan the wards of the 
 key fit the lock, and the door of larger service and nobler 
 living is through it opened to young men and women. 
 
 The simple story of the beginning of the Christian En- 
 deavor movement need not be rehearsed at length ; it has 
 been often enough told. The society had its humble 
 origin in a church in the city of Portland, Me. , about 
 twenty years ago. The first society was simply an ex- 
 periment of one pastor in the training of youth for 
 Christ — such an experiment as thousands of others were 
 making with anxious hearts, and which led these thou- 
 
 *Coe, "Spiritual Life." 
 95 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 sands so quickly to unite in one plan when it was pre- 
 sented to them. 
 
 There hangs upon a wall in my house, in a room 
 devoted to Christian Endeavor banners, badges, and 
 mementos from all parts of the world, a faded hecto- 
 graph copy of the original constitution of the first So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor. I remember very well 
 copying the constitution upon this hectograph pad, be- 
 cause it did not seem worth while to waste money and 
 printer's ink upon a document so perishable and ephem- 
 eral. Thus the constitution was printed and distrib- 
 uted among the earliest members. It has since been 
 printed, it is supposed, in at least sixty different lan- 
 guages, and to the extent of not less than ten millions of 
 copies, while the pledge has been printed not less than 
 one hundred millions of times. 
 
 I speak of this to show how little human wisdom or 
 forethought there was in the inception of the Christian 
 Endeavor movement. It was simply a very humble effort 
 of a very humble pastor, but it is such seeds which God 
 often plants and from which He grows a harvest. It is 
 the foolishness of organizations as well as the foolish- 
 ness of preaching (not foolish organizations or foolish 
 preaching) which confounds the wise, for few of the 
 wise men of that day saw any hope or promise in 
 this plan of Christian nurture. In fact, many saw 
 only something to distrust or condemn or perhaps 
 ridicule, and not a few were the articles and the ad- 
 
 96 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 dresses which in those early days were aimed against 
 the new society. 
 
 There are, however, some points often overlooked that 
 are worth noting in this early history. The first Society 
 of Christian Endeavor was born in a period of dearth and 
 sluggishness in the church at large. For many years, as 
 the records prove, additions to the churches were few. 
 It was a period of unrest and inquiry and much so- 
 licitude, especially concerning the young. Every min- 
 isters' meeting was discussing the matter. The first 
 society was the outcome of a local revival. It breathed 
 the warm atmosphere of a religious awakening. It was 
 an honest effort to help the young people to help them- 
 selves. It was an attempt to supply the lack of train- 
 ing ; to balance the teaching of others with the personal 
 work of the young converts. It was an effort to provide 
 exercise as well as food for the soul. It was the effort of 
 a pastor. It was an effort in the church, for the church, 
 of the church. All the later growth of the society shows 
 the marks of these early days. The constitution, tho en- 
 larged and amended, is substantially the same as when 
 drawn up and printed on that hectograph pad. Still the 
 great object of the society is to provide a training-school 
 for the youth. Still its purpose is to teach them to do 
 things by doing them ; not by hearing how they ought to 
 be done. Still it is the pastor's solicitude and the pas- 
 tor's joy if he uses it aright. Still it is in the church 
 and of the church and for the church. Still it flourishes 
 7 97 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 best in a warm, evangelistic atmosphere. Still its great 
 object and purpose is to conserve the fruits of every re- 
 ligious awakening, and, as its constitution says, to make 
 the young people, thus awakened, "more useful in the 
 service of God." 
 
 "With great solicitude I watched the opening of the 
 first Christian Endeavor flower, lest it should be blighted 
 by some untoward wind before it had fairly blossomed. 
 Various other experiments' had been tried in the Willis- 
 ton church to win and hold the young people, but they 
 had largely or wholly failed of their object. The reason 
 of their failure was because I had expected too little of 
 the young people, because I had not appealed to the 
 heroic in their natures, because I had thought that the 
 young soul could be coaxed into the kingdom and satis- 
 fied with entertainments and games and "pink teas" and 
 oyster suppers. It was a wof ul mistake ; but one which 
 a young pastor perhaps may be pardoned for making, 
 since he had never been taught any better, and since a 
 multitude of others were making the same blunders. 
 
 The Christian Endeavor Society, warned by the foolish 
 experiments of tickling the young Christian with the 
 straws of amusement, started out on totally different 
 lines. The young people were not to have everything 
 done for them, but were to do for themselves. They 
 were not to have the way to heaven made smooth and 
 easy ; they were to overcome its obstacles and level its 
 rough places. They were not simply to be preached at 
 
 98 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 and prayed for ; they were to speak in a manner appro- 
 priate to youth, and they wereto pray. They were not to 
 be excused from every duty because of some whim or 
 mood or passing indisposition; they were to overcome 
 their whims and control their moods and make a sacred 
 engagement with their fellows every week to meet them 
 in the prayer-room and do a Christian's tasks. 
 
 As the society was a radical departure from every plan 
 that had been tried in that church, so the results obtained 
 were strikingly different from anything before accom- 
 plished by the young people. The young people's meet- 
 ing, which had been a dead-and-alive affair dependent 
 altogether for life upon the passing waves of spiritual 
 emotion, took on new and permanent power. Every 
 meeting was a good one, because in every meeting the 
 rank and file had part and exercised their spiritual 
 graces. The monthly roll-call meeting showed who the 
 few delinquents were, and enabled the older members 
 and the pastor to deal with them. The committees fur- 
 nished to every one some definite and appropriate work 
 that gave them the exercise they needed to digest the 
 truth they already knew. The monthly reports of the 
 committees kept the members up to their duties and 
 modestly showed their successful efforts or revealed 
 their delinquencies. Others were brought in constantly 
 through the associate door of the society into the active 
 membership and into the church. In short, a constant 
 spirit of religious enthusiasm for work and worship per- 
 
 99 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 vaded the society. The old order of things seemed to 
 have passed away, and many things, at least in the lives 
 of these young people, had become new. As the farm- 
 ers say that in the hot days of August they can see the 
 corn grow on the "Western prairies, so it seemed to me 
 that I could see these young disciples grow in grace. 
 
 The society spread quietly but rapidly from this start- 
 ing-point. Bight months later the second society was 
 formed; this one in Newburyport, Mass. A few days 
 later another and then another was organized. .The 
 gathering snowball grew larger and larger as it rolled 
 on, until in a few years every State and province in 
 North America and almost every country in the world 
 had its Christian Endeavor contingent. 
 
 Of course there were criticisms, some of them vinegar - 
 ish, most of them kindly and helpful. It was said that 
 the prayer-meeting rule would make the young people 
 formal and perfunctory in their participation ; that it 
 would develop prigs and precocious young exhorters; 
 that it would set them up in their own estimation above 
 their elders; that it would separate them into cliques 
 and clans ; and that the church would lose its young life, 
 which would thus be absorbed in a separate organization. 
 
 The answer to most of these objections was " Wait and 
 see. " In the original society the plan has not made prigs 
 or formalists. The prayer-meeting is not a perfunctory 
 routine service, but more vital and instinct with spiritual 
 life than ever before. The young people are not divided 
 
 100 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 into disloyal cliques, but are more eager to serve the 
 church than ever they were before. Theoretical objec- 
 tions do not stand before practical demonstrations. The 
 best answer to the early critics of Christian Endeavor 
 were the Christian Endeavor societies themselves. The 
 best answer to-day to objections is a well -organized, 
 thoroughgoing, genuine Society of Christian Endeavor. 
 
 Other objections were evidently founded on misappre- 
 hensions which were easily removed. At first it was 
 supposed by many that it was expected that every im- 
 mature Christian should preach a little sermon or offer a 
 well-rounded prayer, but it soon became known that a 
 very simple participation satisfied all the requirements 
 of the pledge — a verse of Scripture, an appropriate quo- 
 tation, a word of testimony, a sentence of prayer. This 
 participation, it was seen, was as appropriate for the 
 boy in the young people's meeting, as the long ten-min- 
 ute prayer of his grandfather, in which the Jews were 
 never forgotten, was appropriate to the mid-week meet- 
 ing of the church. Another misapprehension was the 
 relation of the society to the church. In those early 
 days it was not always understood that it was not, strict- 
 ly speaking, a "relation" of the church. It was and is 
 the church, a part of the church, and the church training 
 the young. It is the church meeting in its young peo- 
 ple's service; the church working in its young people's 
 committees; the church praying through the voices of 
 its youth. 
 
 xoi 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Even now it is difficult thoroughly to establish this 
 idea. Some still seem to think that the church is the 
 Sunday-morning service or the Sunday-evening service ; 
 that the church is the minister and the office bearers ; 
 that the church is some particular service or section of 
 its membership; and we sometimes hear wails about 
 disintegrating the church because the young people have 
 their meeting and their special plans for doing a special 
 work which the church needs to have done. 
 
 Away with this medieval idea! The church is the 
 aggregate of its members at work in their different ways 
 and according to their different capacities. The church 
 is found instructing in the preaching services and the 
 Sunday-school. The church is found praying in the 
 prayer-meeting for young and old. The church working 
 is the benevolent and missionary organizations and com- 
 mittees for both sexes and all ages. A clear apprehen- 
 sion of this truth, which I believe can not be gainsaid, 
 cuts the ground from under most of the serious objections 
 which have been made to the young people's movement. 
 
 I recently returned from my third journey around the 
 world in the interests of the Christian Endeavor move- 
 ment, and in view not of my theories and predilections, 
 but of actual experience with societies in these many 
 lands as well as at home, I wish to present the funda- 
 mental principles on which I believe the movement is 
 based. If this presentation has no other merit, it is at 
 least the result of careful observation and experience in 
 
 102 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 many lands. Sometimes, perhaps, this can better be 
 trusted in a matter of practical concern than the theories 
 of the doctrinaire. There is a God-sent element in ex- 
 perience and the practise of hundreds of thousands of 
 earnest hearts that is not always found in the study. If 
 I can restate the principles of the Christian Endeavor 
 movement in the terms of experience, it will be worth 
 more than any theories or reasonings which tempt one 
 by their originality and novelty. 
 
 One test of a truth is that it is universal. Faith is 
 faith in India and Kamchatka. Hope is hope in the 
 New World and the Old. Charity is the "greatest of 
 these " at the equator and the pole. So it is in all lesser 
 matters that have in them the elements of universal truth. 
 Here is the test of the value of an idea, of a movement, 
 of an organization. Is it a temporary expedient that 
 meets some local temporary need, or is it a satisfaction 
 for a universal need? Is it a post to which something 
 may be tied for a little, or is it a tree, with deep-running 
 roots and wide-arching branches, which grows with the 
 years, and whose seed takes root in any fertile soil'? 
 Thus can movements be tested. 
 
 Let us apply this proof to the principles of the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Society, and see if they meet the test. 
 
 In any such movement there must necessarily be many 
 things that are local and temporary. Committees that 
 are necessary in one society are entirely unnecessary in 
 another. Place and hour of service, methods of roll- 
 
 103 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 call, ways of conducting the meetings, frequency and 
 character of business gatherings— all afford room for an 
 infinite variety of details, preventing any dull uniform- 
 ity of method, and affording opportunity for the utmost 
 ingenuity and resourcefulness. In these details societies 
 in different parts of the world will surely differ one from 
 another, and they ought to do so. These matters are not 
 the essential, universal principles of the movement. It 
 would be the height of absurdity to say that, because a 
 society in London has its meeting at seven o'clock Mon- 
 day evening, a society in Labrador should observe the 
 same day and hour; that because a society in Sydney 
 has nineteen committees, a society in Shanghai must 
 have just a score less one. 
 
 A thousand matters are left free and flexible in Chris- 
 tian Endeavor. Personal initiative, invention, re- 
 source, the constant leading of the Spirit of God, are 
 possible and necessary. The Christian Endeavor consti- 
 tution is no hard chrysalis which forever keeps the but- 
 terfly within from trying its wings. There is room even 
 for experiments and failures, since we will always re- 
 member that the worst failure is to make no endeavor. 
 Yet, while this is true, it is equally true that a universal 
 movement must have principles that do not change with 
 the seasons, do not melt at the tropics or congeal at the 
 poles. A tree puts forth new leaves every year; but 
 it does not change its roots. It simply lengthens and 
 
 strengthens them. The roots of the Christian Endeavor 
 
 104 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 tree, wherever it grows, are Confession of Christ, Service 
 for Christ, Fellowship with Christ's People, and Loyalty 
 to Christ's Church. The farther I travel and the more I 
 see of societies in every land, the more I am convinced 
 that these four principles are the essential and the only 
 essential principles of the Christian Endeavor Society. 
 Let me repeat them : 
 
 I. Confession of Christ. 
 
 II. Service for Christ. 
 
 III. Fellowship with Christ's People. 
 
 IV. Loyalty to Christ's Church. 
 
 "With these roots the Christian Endeavor tree will bear 
 fruit in any soil. Cut away any of these roots in any 
 clime, and the tree dies. 
 
 I. Confession of Christ is an essential in the Christian 
 Endeavor Society. To insure this in appropriate and 
 natural ways, the methods of the society are adapted in 
 every particular. Every week comes the prayer-meet- 
 ing, in which every member who fulfils his vows takes 
 some part, unless he can excuse himself to his Master. 
 This participation is simply the confession of Christ. 
 This confession is as acceptably made by the unlearned, 
 stumbling, lisping Christian as by the glib and ready 
 phrase-maker, if the few and halting words of the former 
 have the true ring of sincerity about them. 
 
 The covenant pledge is a tried and proved device to 
 promote frequent confession of Christ, It secures, as 
 nothing else has been known to do, the frequent and 
 
 105 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 regular confession of Christ by the young Christian. It 
 also secures familiarity with the Word of God, by pro- 
 moting Bible reading and study in preparation for every 
 meeting. There is sometimes an outcry against the 
 pledge, as tho we exalted a mere instrument to the place 
 of a universal principle. This is not the case. We 
 exalt the pledge as a builder exalts his plumb-line and 
 spirit-level. They are not his house, but he can not 
 build so good a house without as with them. We exalt 
 the pledge as a painter exalts his brush, as a musician 
 his violin, as a writer his pen. The brush is not the 
 picture, the violin is not the music, the pen is not the 
 poem ; but the brush helps make the picture, the violin 
 the music, the pen the poem ; and the pledge helps make 
 the Christian Endeavor Society because it insures regular 
 and frequent confession of Christ. Let it be understood ; 
 no form of words is insisted on. Any pastor is free to 
 make his own pledge ; only let the Christian Endeavor 
 essentials be set forth in it. 
 
 So also the consecration meeting, with its roll-call, is 
 another instrument that makes confession doubly sure 
 and doubly sacred. The calling of the names at the 
 monthly roll-call declares the faithful confessor of 
 Christ, and also reveals the careless non-confessor and 
 pledge-breaker, and confronts each one, month by 
 month, with the solemn question : 
 
 "Am I on the Lord's side? 
 
 Do I serve the King? " 
 
 106 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 This principle of confession in Christian Endeavor, I 
 have found all the world around, is not dependent on 
 degrees of latitude and longitude. The societies in Foo- 
 chow, China, have flourished and multiplied because 
 from the beginning they have observed this feature of 
 Christian Endeavor. The rude little groups of Chris- 
 tians on the Mngpo, just out of rank, crass heathenism, 
 have caught hold of this great principle in their socie- 
 ties, and, tho they have little else in common with our 
 methods, are worthy the fellowship of any of us. In a 
 post and telegraph station in North Japan, in the Beals 
 of East Bengal, on the ships of the United States navy, 
 in the prisons of Kentucky and Indiana, among the rude 
 Islanders of the South Seas, this covenant is kept, and 
 the Christian Endeavor Society flourishes because the 
 covenant idea insures constant confession of Christ 
 where nothing of the sort flourished before, for it is one 
 of the main trunk-roots through which it draws nourish- 
 ment and life. 
 
 In this virtue of free, outspoken confession of our 
 faith, we Anglo-Saxon Protestants are singularly lack- 
 ing. I know of no race that is so shamefaced about its 
 faith, so unwilling to declare its allegiance. The Turk 
 stands five times a day and prays with his face toward 
 Mecca, caring not who sees him. On the housetop, by 
 the wayside, in the courtyard of the inn, when the hour 
 of prayer comes, he unfailingly declares: "Great is 
 God, and Mahomet is His prophet." I have heard the 
 
 107 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Buddhist mutter half the day long: "I believe in 
 Buddha, I believe in Buddha. " And much of the prop- 
 agating power of these false or defective faiths and the 
 tremendous hold they have on the human race to-day is 
 the result of this unabashed, outspoken proclamation of 
 their doctrines. 
 
 II. The second essential of the Christian Endeavor So- 
 ciety is constant service for Christ. Here, too, can we 
 not see the hand of God in building the society on this 
 corner-stone! For various reasons our churches have 
 come to contain many silent partners, many who do 
 not serve. Social consideration, decline of early zeal, 
 physical incapacity, have filled our church rolls and 
 have not multiplied our church workers. I am not 
 finding fault or indulging in a cheap fling at the lazi- 
 ness of Christians. This is simply a fact. Some coun- 
 teracting forces were needed. Here is one of them — 
 a society whose ideal, like Wesley's, is, "At it, and 
 all at it, and always at it " — a society that finds a task 
 for the least as well as the greatest, for the youngest 
 and most diffident as well as for the few natural-born 
 leaders. 
 
 III. Again, it is plain that fellowship is an essential 
 feature of the Christian Endeavor movement. This, too, 
 is not a matter of zones, or climates, or latitudes, or lan- 
 guages. This fellowship is a universal, God-given, fun- 
 damental feature of Christian Endeavor. In every land 
 I have felt the heart-throbs of my fellow Christians. 
 
 108 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 This fellowship is expressed in different ways, but it is 
 always the same fellowship. 
 
 In Japan, I have prostrated myself on hands and 
 knees with my fellow Endeavorers and touched my fore- 
 head to the floor as they touched theirs. 
 
 In China, over and over again, a thousand Endeavor- 
 ers have stood up as I addressed them, and have shaken 
 their own hands at me while I have shaken mine at 
 them. 
 
 In India they have hung scores of garlands about my 
 neck, until I have blushed for my own unworthiness of 
 such a flowery welcome. 
 
 In Bohemia they have embraced me and kissed me on 
 either cheek (the aged fathers of the church, it should be 
 understood, indulge in this salutation). 
 
 In Mexico, they have hugged me in a bear's embrace, 
 and patted me lovingly on the back. 
 
 Always it has been evident that these greetings were 
 far more than personal matters. They represent the fel- 
 lowship of the cause. Always, whatever the form, the 
 loving greeting of loving hearts is the same. 
 
 In the Fukien province of China, when we approached 
 a Christian village — where, by the way, there is very 
 likely to be a Christian Endeavor Society — we were sure 
 to hear, in the soft accent of the almond-eyed peoples, 
 the greeting, "Ping 'ang, ping 'ang, ping 'ang" ("Peace, 
 peace, peace"). Perhaps a hundred people, old and 
 young, would utter this benediction as we walked 
 
 109 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 through a single village. So it seems to me, as I have 
 gone around the world again and again, I have heard the 
 gentle word of fellowship from a million Endeavorers, 
 "Peace, peace, peace." 
 
 This fellowship is not an accident or a matter of 
 chance. It is an inevitable result of the movement. 
 When the second society was formed, twenty years ago, 
 the fellowship began. Then it became inter-denomina- 
 tional, inter-state, inter-national, inter-racial, inter-con- 
 tinental, and, as some one has suggested, since 
 
 " Part of the hosts have crossed the flood, 
 And part are crossing now," 
 
 it has become inter-mundane. 
 
 IV. Once more, a universal essential of the Society of 
 Christian Endeavor is fidelity to Christ, to its own church, 
 and the work of that church. It is a thoroughly evan- 
 gelical movement, defining evangelical as personal faith 
 in the divine human person and atoning work of our 
 Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the only and sufficient 
 source of salvation. It does not and can not exist for 
 itself. When it does, it ceases to be a Society of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor. It may unworthily bear the name. It 
 may be reckoned in the lists, just as an unworthy man 
 may find his name on the church roll. But a true So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor must live for Christ and the 
 church. Its confession of love is for Christ the head ; its 
 service is for the church, His bride; its fellowship is 
 possible only because its loyalty is unquestioned. This 
 
 110 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 characteristic, too, I have found as universal as the so- 
 ciety. I have found no real exceptions. In city or 
 country, in Christian land or mission field, in Europe, 
 Asia, Africa, or America, it is everywhere the same. 
 
 Because these ideals and principles are held, it is 
 sometimes necessary to urge older Christians, however, 
 not to hold Christian Endeavorers responsible, as some 
 are inclined to do, for every weakness among young 
 Christians, which the society is doing its best to remedy 
 but can not wholly overcome. Because many young 
 people do not go to church, the society is often blamed. 
 Because some forget their vows, the splendid fidelity of 
 the rank and file is forgotten. Because the church pews 
 are not filled, or the Sunday-school enlarged, or the 
 longed-for revival comes not, the society is made the 
 scapegoat by some unthinking Christians for these de- 
 fects, for the very reason that its ideals on these matters 
 are exalted. Each of these principles is natural and 
 basal. Ho one of them is a matter of mechanism. No 
 one is a matter of expediency. Each is a sine qua non. 
 In every continent you will find these features of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor are necessary. You will find, also, I be- 
 lieve, that no other roots are vital to the tree. 
 
 These principles will be found to be as logical and as 
 philosophical as they are practical. They are not only 
 attested by the history of twenty years ; they are thor- 
 oughly in accord with the latest researches of the scien- 
 tific man who has studied the soul of the child. He 
 
 111 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 says: "The period of youth is incomparably the most 
 important of all." The Christian Endeavor Society 
 says : " I will do my best to mold and form and trans- 
 form the youth. " 
 
 The psychologist says: "At adolescence the spirit as 
 well as the mind and body grows with marvelous rapid- 
 ity. Then the soul opens to the eternal ; then, if ever, 
 conversion will occur." 
 
 This young people's movement says: "All my efforts 
 shall be concentrated upon making plain to the adoles- 
 cent the way into the kingdom of God, and fixing in his 
 life habits of rational confession of Christ and faithful 
 service of Christ." 
 
 The modern psychologist says: "The cure for the 
 spiritual diseases of youth, which are as inevitable as 
 measles and chickenpox, and, alas ! far more lasting in 
 their effects and often fatally destructive to a whole- 
 some religious life, is found in inducing wholesome 
 activity. " 
 
 The Young People's Society says: "I will bend all my 
 energies and use all my wits and resources to provide just 
 such natural, wholesome, religious activity." 
 
 A society thus organized and based upon these princi- 
 ples serves the church in three distinct ways: It is a 
 stepping-stone to the church, a training-school in the 
 church, and a watch-tower for the church and pastor. 
 
 As a stepping-stone to the church it often bridges the 
 dangerous gap between conversion and church member - 
 
 112 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training- School of Church 
 
 ship. In some denominations quite an interval here is 
 allowed to elapse. It is thought that children, at least, 
 must be tested to see whether their new-found faith 
 and hope is a passing emotion or an enduring life 
 purpose. One of the most dangerous periods for any 
 young Christian is this period of waiting to declare 
 to the world his purpose. Especially is this true in 
 churches where there is no particular provision made 
 for probationers. 
 
 The young convert before church membership is really 
 a probationer, and everything should be done to establish 
 him in the faith, to develop his Christian character, and 
 to insure the beginning of Christian activity. The mor- 
 tar sets very rapidly in these early days. The whole 
 bent and trend of the Christian life for fifty years are 
 often determined in the first fifty days after conversion. 
 If the young person begins his Christian life as an out- 
 spoken confessor of Christ, as an earnest worker in some 
 branch of the church, if he begins by forming habits 
 of prayer and Bible-reading and church loyalty, these 
 practises will become fixed, the blessed influence of 
 good habit— which, thank God, is as strong as bad 
 habit— will come to the rescue, and throughout all his 
 years his Christian life will show the impress of its 
 earliest days. 
 
 This is exactly what the Society of Christian Endeav- 
 or attempts to do for its members who have just en- 
 tered upon the Christian life. It at once takes them into 
 8 113 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 its warm embrace. It at once gives them a confession to 
 make and a work to do. It at once surrounds them with 
 congenial young friends who are walking the same road 
 Zion-ward. It enables them to take the first step toward 
 full church membership. To be sure, some churches re- 
 quire that none but church members shall be active 
 members of the young people's society. Some do not 
 think that this is invariably a good rule, but it makes 
 little practical difference, for the young convert, tho not 
 an active member, can come very speedily into some rela- 
 tion to the society ; can there make some confession and 
 do some work for his Lord. 
 
 In the second place, such a society is a training-school 
 within the church ; I do not need to dwell further upon 
 this point, since the importance of training as distinct 
 from teaching has already been discussed. I would 
 simply call attention to the many ways of training which 
 are provided in the society — training in public prayer 
 and confession of the very simplest but yet sincerest 
 sort ; training in work for others on the lookout and so- 
 cial committees ; training in preparation for the prayer- 
 meeting on the prayer-meeting committee; training in 
 temperance and missionary zeal and different sorts of 
 Sunday-school work, and such humble ministrations 
 as obtaining flowers for the pulpit and comforts for 
 the sick, and running on errands for the pastor — all of 
 which are embraced in the multifarious committees 
 of many societies. In fact, the possibilities of the so- 
 
 114 
 
Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 
 
 ciety as a training-school are only limited by the in- 
 genuity of the pastor and the time and capacity of the 
 members. 
 
 In the third place, as a watch-tower for the church the 
 society serves a most important purpose. Through this 
 agency the church may know the religious status of each 
 one of its young people. The monthly roll-call meeting, 
 which is almost a universal feature in these societies, is 
 a great help in this direction, for thus, at least once a 
 month, the pastor can hear his young Christians, called 
 by name, renew their allegiance to their Lord in some 
 simple and appropriate way ; or, if they are derelict to 
 this self-imposed duty, he can find out the cause of their 
 unfaithfulness. The lookout committee may be of very 
 great assistance to the pastor in this direction, keeping 
 him posted concerning the members of the society and 
 giving him the clue to the religious life of many of the 
 young people of which he would otherwise know but 
 little. 
 
 As a pastor I felt that none could slip away from the 
 outward performance of duty which usually precedes or 
 accompanies inward unfaithfulness, without my knowl- 
 edge of the fact. I felt in a certain sense as tho I stood 
 with my hands on the shoulders of each of the hundred 
 active members of my young people's society, and that 
 no one of them could escape that friendly grasp without 
 my knowledge. 
 
 Thousands of pastors have assured me that their ex- 
 
 115 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 perience was the same, and I believe it is not too much 
 to say that any society in which a pastor takes a constant 
 and affectionate interest will prove to be his watch-tower, 
 his training-school, as well as pathway for a multitude of 
 youth into all church activities. 
 
 116 
 
OTHER TRAINING CLASSES IN THE 
 CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETY 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 OTHBE TRAINING CLASSES IN THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETY 
 
 THE TWO FOCI — THE OLD IDEA OP THE PRAYER-MEETING — EDIFI- 
 CATION VERSUS PBACTISE — SETTING YOUNG PEOPLE AT WORK— 
 THE ESSENCE OP THE PLEDGE — LATER DEVELOPMENTS OP THE 
 SOCIETY — ITS CONVENTIONS — THE MISSIONARY IDEA — THE JUNIOR 
 SOCIETY — THE QUIET HOUR — BIBLE STUDY — PHILANTHROPIC EF- 
 POBT — FLOATING SOCIETIES — PBISON WORK — VARIOUS FOBMS OF 
 ACTIVITY — ORGANIZED EFFORT: NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL — 
 MOBE ABOUT JUNIOR SOCIETIES' — INTERMEDIATE SOCIETIES — A 
 NATURAL EVOLUTION — CAUSES OF PARTIAL FAILURE — OBJEC- 
 TIONS — CUTTING THE CHURCH TO PIECES— HOW UNITY IS PRO- 
 MOTED THROUGH THE SOCIETY— OBJECTIONS TO THE PRAYER- 
 MEETING AND THE PLEDGE — LARGER COOPERATION — THE 
 NATIONS AND THE DENOMINATIONS — HOW THE SOCIETY PROMOTES 
 DEMOCRACY • — FIVE THINGS A DENOMINATION MUST DO TO BE 
 SAVED — ACTUAL STATISTICS — AN APPEAL TO BROTHER MINISTERS. 
 
 Let us see how these principles are wrought out in 
 practise. It was seen that the distinctive features of the 
 Christian Endeavor movement clustered naturally about 
 two foci, the prayer-meeting and the committees, and 
 yet these two foci are really only one, for they are both 
 different forms of Christian activity. Confession of 
 Christ is one form and a most important form of Christian 
 service. Service along the lines of the different commit- 
 tees is at the same time confession that one is Christ's 
 
 119 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 and is trying to do His will. But for the sake of con- 
 venience it may be well to consider for a few moments 
 these two forms of activity separately. 
 
 It must be admitted at the outset that the young peo- 
 ple's meeting, based on the prayer-meeting pledge which 
 requires some participation from all, is a radical depart- 
 ure from the old prayer-meeting idea. Most of the ob- 
 jections to the modern young people's prayer-meeting 
 and to the covenant pledge which is its backbone and 
 chief support, have come because this is not understood. 
 The old-fashioned idea of the prayer-meeting has been 
 imported into the new-fashioned prayer-meeting, and the 
 old wine does not agree with the new bottles. 
 
 The old prayer-meeting idea is the idea of instruction, 
 of "edification." It is really a continuation by the pas- 
 tor and two or three gifted laymen, of the Sunday 
 preaching service. The one test imposed upon those who 
 take part is, "Can he speak to edification « " — not will he 
 receive benefit from the service, but will he instruct, 
 arouse, and stimulate others? The result of this idea is 
 well known. In some churches the prayer-meeting be- 
 came simply a lecture. The minister prepared another 
 sermon, a little less elaborate, perhaps, and with a little 
 less care than the Sunday sermon, and delivered it usu- 
 ally to a very few of the saints on a Wednesday or a 
 Thursday evening. In most churches he was assisted by 
 two or three or half a dozen of those who, it was thought, 
 could "edify" the brethren. They were often the glib 
 
 120 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 and the ready, but not always the profound or the most 
 earnest. 
 
 The young people's meeting of modern times is based 
 on a wholly different principle. Its primary thought is 
 not instruction of others but confession of Christ by all. 
 The young convert does not say, "I will speak if I have 
 something interesting or eloquent to say, " but, " I will 
 speak, however trembling and hesitating and common- 
 place my word, because it is my confession of love to my 
 Lord ; if I have no word of my own to speak I will use 
 the words of another which express my feelings. I will 
 find in the Scriptures a verse that declares my love. 
 Tho I can not offer a long and eloquent prayer I have a 
 desire for a blessing, and to this I will give voice in a 
 single sentence. No one will be instructed, perhaps, by 
 what I have to say or be any the wiser from a literary 
 or theologic standpoint, but I am at least willing they 
 should know that I am a disciple, and I can at least open 
 my Bible and bring to the meeting a draught from the 
 wells of salvation." 
 
 That is the idea which underlies the modern young peo- 
 ple's meeting and which has made it such a radical de- 
 parture from the prayer-meeting of the past as carried 
 on in most churches. I am not decrying the old prayer- 
 meeting. It had its place and perhaps still has its place, 
 in many churches, but I do say that there is need and 
 urgent need of the new prayer-meeting, the prayer-meet- 
 ing in which all may participate; the prayer-meeting 
 
 121 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 whose chief idea is not to instruct somebody else, but to 
 gain strength to one's own soul and give help to others 
 by the simplest forms of confession of Christ. 
 
 The idea of instruction and edification came very near 
 capturing the young people's prayer-meeting. In fact, 
 the old-fashioned young people's prayer-meeting was 
 simply a weak and limp duplicate of the other prayer- 
 meeting of the church. It has been described, not un- 
 justly, in these words: 
 
 "The notice was given from the pulpit that the young 
 people's meeting would be held at the usual hour. 
 When the usual hour arrived it required a great stretch 
 of courtesy and an extensive winking at gray hairs and 
 wrinkles to consider the majority of those present any 
 longer ' young people ' except by brevet. The one 
 warm spot in the room was often the air-tight stove. 
 One of the more elderly young men usually occupied the 
 chair. By no possibility was it a young woman, and 
 there were many most excruciating pauses which could 
 only be filled up by a frequent resort to the overworked 
 hymn-book." 
 
 I am far from saying that all young people's meetings 
 are accurately described in the foregoing paragraph, but 
 I can call a multitude of witnesses to testify that a great 
 many young people's meetings could thus be described 
 without a particle of exaggeration. Very evidently 
 there was a fault somewhere, and I do not hesitate to say 
 that fault lay at the very basis of the prayer-meeting 
 
 122 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 idea for young people in many churches. For gener- 
 ations the idea of "edification" was the fetish of the 
 young people's prayer-meeting. It came near being its 
 utter ruin. No one was expected to take part who could 
 not "speak to edification," and the remains of this idea, 
 frayed and torn as they are, are still the bane of many 
 a prayer-meeting in all parts of the world. The result 
 has been that the prayer-meeting has fallen often into 
 the hands of the long-winded, who have a gift at ser- 
 monizing, or who fancy they have, or into the hands of 
 the hobby-rider, and with all its efforts after edification 
 it has been neither edifying, instructive, nor stimulating. 
 
 The Society of Christian Endeavor started with another 
 conception of the young people's prayer-meeting. It 
 was a place for practise rather than for preaching ; for 
 inspiration and fellowship rather than for instruction ; a 
 place for the participation of the average two-talent peo- 
 ple rather than of the exceptional ten-talent man and 
 woman. Of course the idea of instruction is not to be 
 ignored in training Christian character, but it was felt 
 that in the preaching service, the Sunday-school, the 
 pastor's class, the mid-week meeting of the church, in- 
 struction had its full share ; and practise, training, and 
 inspiration might claim the young people's meeting. 
 
 Moreover, to young people, at least the latter meeting 
 proved the most truly " edifying," tho there was not a 
 single long speech and not an attempt at eloquence. 
 The fifty or sixty or seventy with their Scripture verses, 
 
 123 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 their simple thought about the subject, arid their sen- 
 tence-long prayers, really seemed to edify more than 
 extended dissertations and elaborate prayers. 
 
 The other distinctive forms of the society, as I have 
 said, is the committees, whose purpose it is to give every 
 member, however young and inexperienced, some defi- 
 nite and appropriate task. This is no easy undertaking. 
 Pew churches have ever been organized minutely or sys- 
 tematically. The principle of natural selection, not to 
 say the survival of the fittest, has had full play in most 
 of our churches. Those were allowed to do the church 
 work who had peculiar adaptabilities for it, who had 
 special consecration, and who were not hampered by 
 bashfulness or diffidence. The work of the church was 
 in as few hands as the prayer-meeting of old. Many 
 strong churches could, and can to-day, count their real 
 workers upon the fingers of two hands — many churches 
 reputed strong, I should say, for I do not believe that 
 any church whose work is done by one-tenth or one- 
 fortieth of its members is really a vigorous church. 
 
 The Sunday-school did much to remedy this state of 
 affairs by affording opportunity for a band of devoted 
 men and women to instruct the children. The ladies' 
 societies for home and foreign work utilized more of the 
 talent of the church, but there was still little given the 
 rank and file of the young people to do. The society of 
 Christian Endeavor set itself seriously to this task, and 
 I think may be said in a measurable degree to have ac- 
 
 124 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 complished it by giving every member something defi- 
 nite, appropriate, and fitted to his years to do for Christ. 
 
 Of course I do not claim for it perfection or that it has 
 fully accomplished this most serious task, but that it 
 has made an honest attempt in this direction, and that it 
 has set millions of young people at some definite 
 Christian work who otherwise would not have found 
 their sphere, is not an empty boast. 
 
 The covenant pledge, which has been such an impor- 
 tant and prominent feature in the history of the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor movement, has this for its purpose : To 
 help every one to serve. The essence of it is really all 
 in its first clause: "Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
 strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever 
 He would like to have me do. " The rest is but an am- 
 plification of this phrase. 
 
 The young Christian believes that his Lord would like 
 to have him spend some time daily in prayer and Bible 
 reading ; that he would like to have him be loyal to his 
 church duties ; that he would like to have him confess 
 his name before men in natural phrase and in appropri- 
 ate places; that he would like to have him do appropri- 
 ate work along the lines of church activity — these things 
 the active member of the society promises to do, at the 
 same time always putting the proviso into his covenant, 
 "Unless prevented by a reason which I can conscien- 
 tiously give to the Master." If at any special time he 
 believes his Lord would not have him do these things, 
 
 125 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 he is absolved from his promise, but he seeks no lesser 
 excuse. When the pledge is thoroughly understood I 
 believe that most of its objections will disappear. It is 
 said -by some to put a premium upon the expression of 
 religious life, but this expression is so simple and nat- 
 ural, it is so well guarded in various ways, that it can be 
 no burden to the earnest, conscientious soul. Besides, 
 this is only one form of Christian activity, and it is so 
 recognized in the pledge ; it is one of the things which 
 Christ would have His followers do, confess Him before 
 men, but the pledge applies to the Christian life and to 
 the duties of the church with equal solemnity. I do not 
 believe, when the pledge is understood and analyzed, 
 and especially when its workings are seen under natural 
 conditions, that it can be objected to by any reasonable 
 Christian worker. But, as I have before said, no form of 
 words is obligatory. Every pastor is at liberty to make 
 his own pledge, if he keeps to the essentials, for the one 
 fundamental idea of the movement is that the society 
 is to be and do what its church wishes. 
 
 The later developments of the Christian Endeavor 
 movement are all the natural outgrowth of the ideas im- 
 planted in the first society. It is interesting to see how 
 entirely natural, almost inevitable, these developments 
 have been. 
 
 I. Its conventions. The society soon made its way 
 into churches of various denominations. Some ecclesi- 
 astics in two or three denominations took alarm and 
 
 126 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 tried to crush the movement out of their own churches. 
 They only partially succeeded, however, and the fellow- 
 ship continued to grow, until twenty, thirty, fifty de- 
 nominations were embraced in the ever-widening circle. 
 
 Then what was more natural than that alliances of 
 friendship and fellowship should spring up between 
 those who were bound together with so many ties of com- 
 mon methods of service? At once there arose a demand 
 for an expression of this fellowship. This has been sat- 
 isfied in large part by the different conventions, national, 
 State, and local, which have been such a conspicuous and 
 remarkable feature of the religious life of the young in 
 these later days. There was no prearranged purpose to 
 establish this fellowship or to promote these overwhelm- 
 ing gatherings of young Christians, where from twenty 
 to sixty thousand every year come together. They came 
 because the movement had come ; unpredicted and un- 
 planned they came, because God's time had come to en- 
 large the fellowship of young Christians and to lead them 
 to know each other better and thus to love each other 
 better. 
 
 But the movement was not confined to American 
 churches ; it soon found its way across the sea and estab- 
 lished itself thoroughly in Great Britain and Australia, 
 in China, India, and Continental Europe, so that there 
 came about naturally and also inevitably an international 
 relationship which promises to have results as blessed 
 and fruitful as the interdenominational fellowship. Not 
 
 127 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 only will the unseemly barriers of denominational jealousy 
 and distrust be broken down ; not only will the barbs be 
 taken off the wire fences of sectarianism ; but through 
 the fellowship and intermingling of the young people of 
 different lands who are bound together by the same 
 methods of work and the same inspirations to service, 
 there will come a new international federation of Chris- 
 tians ; glad hands will be given across the sea, and efforts 
 for peace and arbitration among the nations, and for the 
 spread of the Kingdom of our Lord, will be advanced as 
 they could not be were it not for this new bond of inter- 
 national fellowship. 
 
 II. Another natural outcome of the movement has been 
 the emphasis laid upon the missionary idea. This new 
 sense of brotherhood and comradeship brought with it 
 a new sense of responsibility for those in darker lands 
 than our own. The very fact that there were Endeavor- 
 ers by the thousands in India and China, led the young 
 people in America to think of the millions in these lands 
 who were not Christians, as well as to pray for their 
 comrades there. A wonderful impetus to the missionary 
 thought has thus been given. "We, too, have brothers 
 and sisters in Christian Endeavor," the young people 
 have reasoned, " on the other side of the globe — brothers 
 and sisters with almond eyes and yellow skins or brown 
 skins as the case may be, in strange garb and using a 
 strange language, but brothers and sisters nevertheless." 
 Every convention for years has rung with the missionary 
 
 128 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 motive, and multitudes of young hearts have been fired 
 with the missionary spirit. 
 
 Two particular ways of making concrete and definite 
 the missionary idea, called the Tenth Legion and the 
 Macedonian Phalanx, are now established features of the 
 Christian Endeavor movement. These names may sound 
 fanciful, but the thing for which they stand is by no 
 means fanciful. The "Tenth Legion," a name reminis- 
 cent of Caesar's invincible Tenth Legion, stands for those 
 who feel it their duty to give one-tenth of their income for 
 the advancement of the Lord's Kingdom. The "Mace- 
 donian Phalanx " for those who have heard the Macedo- 
 nian cry and have resolved to go over and help their 
 brothers, and who support, either as societies or individ- 
 uals, some one on the mission field, home or foreign, to 
 which they can not go themselves. In this manner a 
 great many missionaries, native workers, Bible women, 
 students, and orphans are supported by Christian En- 
 deavorers who belong to the Phalanx of Christian givers. 
 
 It is known that in some single years more than 
 $200,000 have been given through the denominational 
 boards by about one-fifth of the Endeavor societies, 
 which have reported this matter, and that this is largely 
 an " extra asset " of missions is proved by the fact that 
 the gifts from young people's sources have increased by 
 just about this amount over what was given a few years 
 ago, while in the same denominations the gifts from other 
 sources for missions have not appreciably increased. It 
 9 129 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 is altogether probable that, if all the returns could be ob- 
 tained, it would be found that more than one million 
 dollars are given every year for mission and parochial 
 purposes by the Christian Endeavor societies of America 
 alone. 
 
 III. But the young people have grown older during 
 these twenty years. Many young men who began as boys 
 in the Junior society have come to years of manhood. 
 They can cast their ballot for the rulers of their choice. 
 They can have a voice in political affairs. Their religion 
 led them to see that they had a duty to the State as well 
 as to the church ; that the caucus had a call upon them 
 as well as the prayer-meeting ; that they could not be 
 good Christians unless they were good citizens. So in- 
 evitably this quickening religious life and consciousness 
 of numbers, which came with the establishment of the 
 societies on a large scale, led to the quickening of the 
 civic conscientiousness as well. These ideas of good 
 citizenship, too, have been greatly promoted and encour- 
 aged in the great conventions. Ten thousand hearts 
 have been set on fire by a single ringing address to win 
 the country for Christ, and the young men have come to 
 see that their Christian Endeavor pledge has something 
 to do with hostility to bossism in politics, to the un- 
 speakable iniquities of the Tammany regime, to the 
 wickedness in lesser cities which is smaller only because 
 the cities are smaller than the metropolis, and the slogan 
 
 of Christian citizenship and civic righteousness has 
 
 130 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 sounded out a note which, I believe, will never call a 
 retreat. The "Christian Endeavor Civic Club" is the 
 latest embodiment of this idea. 
 
 Again we see that this is no strange graft budded on 
 the Christian Endeavor tree ; it is no abnormal idea fast- 
 ened upon it as the French fastened paper cherry blos- 
 soms on their oak-trees to welcome the Czar in Novem- 
 ber, but it is the entirely natural, if not inevitable, 
 outgrowth of the original impulse to a larger, more 
 consecrated, and more active Christian life. 
 
 IV. Another entirely natural development of the so- 
 ciety is called "The Quiet Hour." Millions of Christian 
 Endeavorers, not less than ten millions all told, probably, 
 have promised during these twenty years to pray and 
 read the Bible every day. But it was very soon seen 
 that, valuable, nay, indispensable as it is to Christian 
 growth to form the habit of prayer and Bible reading, 
 tho the habit of devotion tided the soul over from a time 
 of drought to one of blessing, yet the kind and quality 
 of prayer and Bible reading were most important. 
 
 Perfunctory, routine prayers are not sufficient to sat- 
 isfy the ardent young soul, and when the suggestion was 
 made that he should spend some moments every day in 
 quietness and contemplation, that he should have a Quiet 
 Hour with his God, and strive to win back what has been 
 called the "lost art of contemplation," thousands and 
 thousands eagerly seized upon the thought and enrolled 
 themselves as "Comrades of the Quiet Hour." The im- 
 
 131 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 portance of this feature of the Christian Endeavor society 
 can not be measured by the tens of thousands in its 
 enrolment, for the idea has entered into the very life of 
 the movement. No convention is complete without its 
 Still hour of devotion and communion, and the whole or- 
 ganization in every land has been quieted, uplifted, and 
 spiritualized by this thought which has so naturally and 
 inevitably developed itself in these later years. 
 
 This phase of the movement has given birth to much 
 devotional literature. It has introduced young people 
 to such writers as Andrew Murray and F. B. Meyer and 
 Handley Moule and Cuthbert Hall, and many others of 
 like spirit among modern writers, and has brought to the 
 attention of many young readers, who otherwise would 
 not have made their acquaintance, such ancient classics 
 of the Quiet Hour as Thomas a Kempis, John Tauler, 
 Andrew Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor. It has reared some 
 bulwarks at least against the encroaching tide of com- 
 mercialism and materialism, and has led many to train 
 their eyes upon the stars, and to see that there are 
 worlds of spiritual experiences which can only be seen 
 with the compound telescope of faith and meditation. 
 
 I should like to share with my hearers a few of the 
 thousands of letters that haA^e come to my desk within 
 the last three years from young people who have learned 
 the blessed secret of rational contemplation. Many of 
 these letters are full of a rapturous joy that such an un- 
 known continent has been discovered ; that the veil has 
 
 132 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 been lifted between them and the heavenlies, and that it 
 was possible for them as well as the saints of old to 
 "practise the presence of God." 
 
 V. But Bible reading as well as prayer has always been 
 a feature of the Christian Endeavor movement from its 
 earliest day to the present. The habit of daily Bible 
 reading I believe to be invaluable to every young Chris- 
 tian, even tho there may be months or years when the 
 deeper truths of the Word are hidden and its full mean- 
 ing is not revealed to the hasty or preoccupied reader. 
 Familiarity with the mere shell in which the Spirit has 
 hidden the divine truth, is of great worth. But the 
 earnest young soul is not long content with the words of 
 Scripture ; he will soon want to know its hidden mean- 
 ing; he will desire to get at the heart of the gospel. 
 And so Bible reading has led to Bible study, and Bible 
 study often to a search for the deep things of God. 
 Union Bible-study classes have been formed in many 
 places, and many individual societies have added this 
 feature to their work, while a great number have fol- 
 lowed courses of individual Bible study that did not de- 
 mand union work. It is known that one course for 
 leading the Bible through in a year, intelligently and 
 thoughtfully, prepared by a wise and enthusiastic Bible 
 Student,* enlisted more than ten thousand pupils in one 
 year, while every succeeding year it has been followed 
 by many others in different parts of the world. 
 
 *Prof. A. R. Wells. 
 133 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 VI. It can not be supposed that so many tens of thou- 
 sands of eager and devoted young Christians could be 
 banded together for worship and religious service without 
 having their hearts stirred by the miseries and needs of 
 others. One would expect in advance that the philan- 
 thropic spirit would early be developed, and one is not 
 disappointed as he traces the history of the society. 
 Many of these efforts to relieve the distress of mankind 
 have been expended upon the local community; the 
 young people have striven to do "ye nexte thinge." 
 The principle of the society from the beginning has 
 been of such loyalty to the local church that first of all 
 the charities, benevolences, and philanthropic work of 
 the church have engaged the attention of the members. 
 But some organized efforts for less-favored classes out- 
 side of their own church circle have also been undertaken. 
 And this too has all come about in a most natural and 
 simple way. Years ago a so-called "Floating Society of 
 Christian Endeavor " was formed upon one of the ships 
 of the United States Navy ; a few godly young sailors 
 came together and organized themselves into such a so- 
 ciety. The idea was as taking on the sea as on the land. 
 And at the world's convention in London, Secretary 
 Baer was enabled to report one hundred and twenty- 
 three of these societies. 
 
 The thought of their brothers on the sea roused the 
 young people on the shore to pray and labor for the sail- 
 ors, and many have been the libraries and boxes of coni- 
 
 134 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 fort-bags which have been sent to Jack Tar in conse- 
 quence. An interesting illustration of the value of 
 "floating" Christian Endeavor maybe found, in Naga- 
 saki, Japan. Going ashore at the quay one is confronted 
 by a substantial aud commodious building over whose 
 door is the sign, "Christian Endeavor Seamen's Home." 
 
 It seems that, a few years ago, the cruiser Charleston 
 of the United States Navy was lying for several weeks 
 in the harbor of Nagasaki. On the Charleston was a 
 flourishing society of Christian Endeavor. These Chris- 
 tian Jack Tars found that there was no decent place 
 in that great city where a sailor could obtain a meal or 
 a night's lodging. The city was full of brothels, but 
 had no decent cheap lodging-house. They resolved to 
 remedy the evil. They mortgaged their own poor wages 
 for several months, and raised six hundred dollars among 
 themselves. Then they appealed for outside help in 
 Nagasaki, and now they have a property worth ten thou- 
 sand dollars where every year thousands of soldiers and 
 sailors are cared for, and find a decent place of enter- 
 tainment when on shore. 
 
 A somewhat similar work has been done along our 
 stormy coasts for the brave men of the life-saving sta- 
 tions, among whom also a number of societies have been 
 established. 
 
 But the most interesting and extensive work of this 
 sort perhaps is that done in the prisons throughout the 
 country. More than a dozen years ago the first prison 
 
 135 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 society of Christian Endeavor in America was started in 
 the Penitentiary of Wisconsin, and one of the most pa- 
 thetic messages ever received at a convention was sent to 
 the great international meeting in St. Louis, which read : 
 "The boys in the only society in the world who can not 
 be represented at your meeting if they would, send 
 greeting. " 
 
 The chaplain and the warden reported that the society 
 did admirable work in the prison ; that discipline was 
 easier and the standard of conduct among the men was 
 raised ; and that the active members had given genuine 
 evidence of conversion, as their future lives have wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 The experiment was so successful that it was tried in 
 other prisons and reformatories with equally good re- 
 sults, and it is now supposed that there are at least two 
 thousand active members of Christian Endeavor socie- 
 ties in prisons who have given good evidence of conver- 
 sion and reformation since they have entered the barred 
 gate. 
 
 Of course these facts have aroused great interest among 
 Endeavoiers who live near these iirisons. Different 
 State unions have taken up the prison work as part of 
 their organized effort. It is difficult to tell whether the 
 young people outside have done more for the prisoner 
 in giving him heart and hope by their kind remem- 
 brances and frequent meetings, or whether the prisoner 
 has done more for the young people by awakening their 
 
 136 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 interest iu the unfortunate and erring, and unsealing the 
 fountains of human kindness and brotherhood. 
 
 VII. In the following list of things actually done by 
 the societies in different parts of the country, as culled 
 from thousands of letters received in a single year and 
 presented by Secretary Baer at one of the conventions, it 
 will be seen how multifarious are the efforts of the 
 young people and how often their hearts are stirred to 
 philanthropic efforts by the wants and woes of others. 
 It is published in this connection not so much to show 
 what has been done, as to furnish suggestions of what 
 may be done : 
 
 "Our good-literature committee has sent books and 
 Bibles to the sailors and soldiers, to hospitals and pris- 
 ons." 
 
 "Kept three children in school in Oregon who could 
 not otherwise have gone." 
 
 " Held gospel meetings in prisons, almshouses, hospi- 
 tals, old people's homes, car-stations, engine-houses, and 
 wharves. " 
 
 "Furnished dinners to the deserving poor at Christmas 
 and Thanksgiving." 
 
 "Sent a poor family to the country for one week of 
 fresh air." 
 
 "Distributed invitations to church in hotels and board- 
 ing-houses. " 
 
 "Purchased hymn-books, libraries, church organs, and 
 all kinds of furniture for the church. " 
 
 "Assisted in conducting the Sunday-evening service, 
 in many cases taking entire charge. " 
 
 137 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 " We give one night every two weeks for work in a 
 mission in the slum district of our city, and go four 
 miles every Sunday afternoon to assist in the evangelistic 
 service in the jail." 
 
 "Our ' fresh air ' committee arranged eleven picnics, 
 sending seven hundred and seventy-nine persons into 
 the country, oiir society contributing one hundred and 
 fifty-two dollars to carry on the work in addition to 
 supplying all the refreshments." 
 
 "Taken an active part in the local fight against the 
 saloon." 
 
 "Organized, conduct, and support mission Sunday- 
 schools in neglected districts in city and country. " 
 
 " Clothed twenty-eight children, thus securing them as 
 regular members for our Sunday-school. " 
 
 " Conduct meetings at the Seamen's Bethel three nights 
 in the month." 
 
 "Furnish a choir for the mid-week prayer-meeting." 
 
 "Are responsible for a chorus choir for the Sunday- 
 evening service." 
 
 "Our Junior society gave a concert at the old ladies' 
 home. " 
 
 "Publish a church calendar and conduct our church 
 paper." 
 
 " Our entire Junior society has organized itself into a 
 committee for the prevention of cruelty to animals." 
 
 "Conduct a weekly prayer-meeting for ' shut-ins.' " 
 
 "Sent comfort-bags to sailors and soldiers." 
 
 "Conduct evangelistic meetings among the soldiers in 
 camp. " 
 
 "Support a pupil in a mission school." 
 
 "For ten years have had charge of a special service at 
 
 the old ladies' home. " 
 
 138 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 "Bought a new carpet for our church." 
 "Secured volunteer nurses for our relief -committee 
 work. " 
 
 "Paid off our church debt." 
 
 These various forms of activity — and they might be 
 multiplied a thousandfold — show by actual practical ex- 
 amples what the young people can do and are glad to do 
 when their hearts are touched by the Spirit of God and 
 when in their organized capacity they are called upon to 
 put their principles of service into practise. 
 
 Most useful in carrying out these special philanthropic 
 and evangelistic efforts, as well as for binding the socie- 
 ties together in genuine and delightful fellowship, have 
 been the unions, local, district, State, and national. 
 These are no arbitrary divisions, but are the natural and 
 inevitable expressions of the inward fellowship. The 
 development of the local Christian Endeavor Union was 
 natural and spontaneous. The first Union was started 
 in New Haven, Conn. , after a number of societies had 
 been formed in that university city and some expression 
 of their fellowship was needed. 
 
 In many country regions the plans adopted by the city 
 union are not available, and so different plans for Dis- 
 trict unions or County unions came into vogue where 
 they were needed. 
 
 The States form a natural unit of religious effort as 
 well as for political legislation and government, and 
 every State soon had its Christian Endeavor union whose 
 
 139 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 conventions are often superlative in size and interest, 
 like the recent Pennsylvania convention of 1900 which 
 registered more than seventeen thousand delegates. 
 
 The national union is called the United Society of 
 Christian Endeavor. Its executive offices are iu Boston, 
 and its governing body is a board of trustees, numbering 
 about one hundred and consisting of leaders of the dif- 
 ferent denominations, who are chosen in proportion to 
 the number of societies in these different denominations, 
 together with the State and provincial presidents as ex 
 officio members of the board. The United Society is in 
 no sense a legislative body. It does not control any 
 local society in any part of the world. It levies no 
 taxes and demands no allegiance, but simply exists to 
 promote the fellowship and efficiency of the society. Its 
 platform of principles has been affirmed and endorsed 
 by more than one international convention. 
 
 JUNIOR SOCIETIES 
 
 It will be seen that most of the work hitherto outlined 
 is for the young men and maidens rather than for the 
 boys and girls, and yet in the first society we saw that 
 there were boys and girls as well as their older brothers 
 and sisters. It soon became evident that a distinction 
 in age should be made, and that the training of the chil- 
 dren required somewhat different methods from the 
 training of young men and women. The same principles 
 would apply, should be applied, in a different way. 
 
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 Moreover, it has been found that in most cases it was 
 better to have a separate meeting for the boys and girls 
 under fourteen or fifteen, where they would not be over- 
 shadowed by the young men and women, and where they 
 would have more time and opportunity to take their part 
 in the meetings and do their share of the work of the 
 committees. It was also seen that these younger mem- 
 bers needed more instruction and more guidance in the 
 work that was given them to do. 
 
 So again, naturally and inevitably, without previous 
 planning or human foresight, the Junior Christian 
 Endeavor societies arose in response to a definite Provi- 
 dential call. They came because they were needed in a 
 multitude of churches, and for that reason they have 
 grown naturally, healthfully, rapidly. The same under- 
 lying principles apply as in the young people's societies, 
 but they are adapted to the children's needs with all 
 the flexibility which is so characteristic of the Christian 
 Endeavor society. 
 
 These boys and girls, if they are Christians, are ex- 
 pected, as well as their older brothers and sisters, to con- 
 fess Christ and work for Him, but it is a confession and 
 a service which are entirely adapted to their years and 
 powers. The Junior pledge for active members, which 
 is a very simple, yet responsible, one, and the Junior 
 pledge for preparatory members, which is still simpler, 
 and one which any child in the world can take, read as 
 
 follows : 
 
 141 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 iRiSTING IN THE LORDjESUS (HRIST FOR STRENGTH 
 
 fomise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to have 
 i'o; thatl will pray and read the Bible every day; and that justso 
 know howl willlry to lead a Christian life. I will be present at every 
 t of theSociety whenlcan.and will take some part in every meetinjs. 
 
 4&u/fc^7V'dfofoe<t^*m<6aH&</cJa&S'Z<x^&&fo?- ^vfaifi 
 
 The Juniob Pledge for Active Members. 
 
 
 Ci)f tettati Ctrteatair ^letoge 
 
 Jot 'Jjrrpatatory JHtmiet* 
 
 *»><•». 
 
 WILL be present at every meeting 
 of the society when I can, and will 
 be quiet and reverent during the 
 meeting. 
 
 vs'vs^'^'^'V 
 
 The Junior Pledge for Preparatory Members. 
 142 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 Some older person always superintends the Junior so- 
 ciety, and upon his or her tact, winsonieness, cousecration, 
 and persistence largely depends the success of the society. 
 It is a splendid tribute to ten thousand wise and devoted 
 Junior superintendents that the societies of children have 
 for so many years accomplished an increasingly fruitful 
 work. Some Junior societies have, to be sure, died for 
 lack of a superintendent or because his courage or de- 
 votion gave way, but most have lived and gone on from 
 strength to strength. 
 
 Of late years another division has proved necessary 
 in large churches. It is called the Intermediate Society 
 of Christian Endeavor. As the Junior society takes in 
 young persons under fourteen years of age, and as those 
 between fourteen and eighteen or nineteen are not able 
 always to get their full share of training in worship and 
 service where there are many older and more experienced 
 members present, the Intermediate societies have come 
 to fill a real need. They are as natural and as needed as 
 an Intermediate department in a large Sunday-school, 
 and, just as there are Primary, Intermediate, and Senior 
 departments in well-organized Sunday-schools where the 
 numbers are sufficient, so there is room for all these de- 
 partments of the young people's society. There is, in 
 fact, one church in Philadelphia, the celebrated Grace 
 Baptist Temple, that has no less than fifteen societies of 
 Christian Endeavor for all ages, from the gray-haired 
 grandmother to the little flaxen-haired grand-daughter, 
 
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Training the Church of the Future 
 
 and, through this agency applying its flexible principles 
 as may be necessary, all find a chance to express their 
 love for Christ in words and in deeds. 
 
 I desire to have it noticed that these different out- 
 growths and features of the Christian Endeavor move- 
 ment are genuine natural growths and not sporadic flow- 
 ers or fruits. They could not have been prevented unless 
 the movement itself was crushed and throttled as it has 
 been in some cases by denominational zealots. Prom 
 beginning to end it has had a natural, necessary develop- 
 ment. The evolution has been entirely orderly. Chris- 
 tian growth has not been attempted by any patent sleight- 
 of-hand methods. The theories of the doctrinaire have 
 not been foisted upon the society, and I know of no one 
 who has successfully attempted to use it for selfish pur- 
 poses or to advance his own ends. Such attempts have 
 been made, but they have met with speedy and ignomin- 
 ious failure. It seems to have been peculiarly under the 
 guidance of God. His directing finger can be seen in 
 every line of its history. By none can this be seen more 
 clearly and by none is it more humbly acknowledged 
 than by those who with solicitude and anxious care have 
 watched its course from the beginning. 
 
 But I hear some one say, "You have presented the 
 rosy side of the movement ; you have dwelt upon its suc- 
 cesses and advances; is there not another side? Have 
 there not been difficulties and setbacks and failures'? " 
 
 Most assuredly ; no such movement as this, so exten- 
 
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 sive and wide -sweeping, could always expect a plain and 
 easy path. The difficulties that have arisen have largely 
 come from four sources : First, the opposition of denomi- 
 national authorities, which has resulted in the drawing 
 away of some churches in certain sects * from the inter- 
 denominational movement. But it has gone on with 
 little interruption in its growth, and there seem to be in- 
 dications in every denomination, with but one exception, 
 of larger fellowship among the young people than in the 
 past. Even in this exceptional denomination the ideas 
 at least of the Christian Endeavor society have been 
 adopted and there seems to be of late in many quarters a 
 distinct swinging back to the interdenominational society 
 — a tendency that is growing every year. 
 
 The second cause of partial failure has come from the 
 lack of genuine Christian Endeavor principles. The so- 
 ciety has had to suffer for a great many namesakes that 
 were Christian Endeavor societies only in name ; societies 
 that had no pledge, little actual service to do for the 
 Master, that put small emphasis upon the committees 
 even if they had any, and that were not embedded in the 
 heart and life of the church as every true society of 
 Christian Endeavor should be. Every organization of 
 every sort, the Christian Church itself not excepted, has 
 to bear the reproach of its own weak and unworthy or- 
 ganizations and members. 
 
 * The first denominational societies of the same kind were formed 
 some seven years after the Endeavor movement began. 
 10 145 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 The indifference of some pastors and the coldness of 
 some churches have been from the beginning a source of 
 weakness and an almost insuperable obstacle. The 
 young people of a church can not be expected to rise 
 very much above the spiritual level of the older mem- 
 bers. The mercury in their thermometer will stand at 
 about the same degree of temperature as in the ther- 
 mometer of the older church ; or if for a time they have 
 more warmth it is not apt long to withstand the absor- 
 bent influence of the neighboring iceberg. When it is 
 declared that the young people's society is a failure total 
 or partial, it is always in order to ask : "Of what sort of 
 a church is it a part and whom does it have for a pas- 
 tor 1" I do not say that the trouble can always be lifted 
 from off its own shoulders, but I do say that I have 
 known very few young people's societies to fail that 
 were guided by warm, loving, sympathetic pastors. 
 
 In a recent notable article Mr. Robert Speer, of the 
 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, has written as 
 follows : 
 
 "Is there not a risk in our constant emphasis on the 
 truth that the young people should be loyal to the 
 Church, of losing sight of another truth quite as impor- 
 tant in my judgment, even more important, namely, the 
 Church's loyalty to the young people ? A great deal has 
 been said on the one side, and the young people have 
 not been allowed to lose sight of the duty of loyalty 
 which they owe to their church and their pastor. But 
 
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 loyalty is not a quality to be stated in terms of duty. 
 It is the spontaneous expression of the true and natural 
 devotion of the heart, and no amount of injunction or 
 entreaty will ever produce loyalty in hearts in which it 
 does not spring up as an answer to sympathy and friend- 
 liness. No father would think of teaching his little child 
 to love him and be loyal to him by neglecting his child 
 and lecturing it for any lack of a display of affection 
 and fidelity. The father wins the child's love by loving 
 it. He guarantees the child's care for him by caring for 
 the child. It is the father's loyalty to the child that 
 issues in the child's utter loyalty to the father. 
 
 "The churches and pastors who have trouble with the 
 loyalty of their young people are usually those who have 
 never set about winning the confidence and fidelity of 
 their young people. It is the genius of young hearts to 
 seek and follow a leader and to worship their heroes. 
 The church that goes to its young people, that cares for 
 them, that gives them worthy service to do, and recog- 
 nizes their work will never want love and loyalty from 
 its children. There may be exceptions, of course, in 
 local congregations, just as there are in families. A 
 father's loyalty does not inevitably produce a son's 
 loyalty in return. But the only true way of winning 
 the son's loyalty is through the father's love and care." 
 
 One other source of weakness is undoubtedly the 
 worldliness of young people. This is a source of weak- 
 ness common of course to the church and the society of 
 
 147 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 which it is a part. I very much fear that this spirit of 
 worldliness is increasing, and that more difficulties from 
 this source are to be feared in the future than in the 
 past. I scarcely see how it can be otherwise when nomi- 
 nally Christian families, so many more than in years past, 
 patronize and uphold doubtful worldly amusements, train 
 their children by example if not by precept to hold their 
 religion lightly and to seek mammon as well as God. The 
 growing worldliness of a section of the church I think 
 can not be gainsaid, and he who ealls attention to it and 
 mourns over it does not deserve the name of pessimist. 
 
 Worldly parents will have worldly children. The law 
 of spiritual heredity is more certain than that of physi- 
 cal heredity. It is more certain that religiously indiffer- 
 ent parents will preside over religiously indifferent 
 households than that blue-eyed fathers and mothers will 
 have a blue-eyed flock of children. "Where the whole 
 church is indifferent and worldly the young people's so- 
 ciety has a hard field indeed. It either gives up the 
 ghost altogether, or lingers on, helpful to and beloved by 
 a fraction of the younger membership, while the "fash- 
 ionable" people, which is often another name for the 
 worldly, look down with a pitying condescension upon 
 its members as those who are "unco guid" or "righteous 
 overmuch. " Yet it is Burns, the author of the former 
 expression, who also says : 
 
 " An. Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 
 For Deity offended ! " 
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 Objections 
 
 The objections to the society are often urged honestly 
 with a sincere desire that the objections may be removed ; 
 sometimes they seem to be offered in a spirit of captious- 
 ness and petty fault-finding. Whatever may be their 
 motive, it is not out of place to spend a few moments in 
 considering them. 
 
 These objections usually cluster about two points: 
 First, it is said in many different ways and with many 
 changes rung upon the same theme, that the society di- 
 vides the church into sections, "chops the church into 
 bits, " as some one has graphically expressed it ; separ- 
 ates the young from the old, the children from their 
 elders, giving one set of interests to one class and an- 
 other set to another. Two-thirds of the objections which 
 are urged in print and in private may be traced back to 
 this root. But I would ask, if the real tap-root of this 
 objection does not run much further down than the 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor? Is not 
 this matter that is complained of really a distinction in 
 nature and not in any organization 1 ? In fact, when God 
 allowed some people to grow old before others; when He 
 allowed some children to be born in 1850 and others in 
 1880 and others in 1890, did He not plant all the distinc- 
 tions that are now observed in the church life of the 
 young and the old and the middle-aged? The same dis- 
 tinctions run through family life and school life. There 
 
 m 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 must be a nursery as well as a parlor and a study in the 
 complete household. There is a primary department, 
 a grammar school, a high school, and a college for those 
 who would have a thorough education. Ho wise parent 
 insists on living with all the children in one common 
 room for fear that the family will be broken up. No 
 teacher tears down the partitions and merges all the 
 classes into one common schoolroom in order to promote 
 unity of instruction. The great advantage of the modern 
 graded school over the old-fashioned district school where 
 the A-B-C class and the advanced class in algebra all 
 studied in the same room, and where there were often 
 more classes than scholars, is that now the pupils are 
 graded and separated according to their years and abil- 
 ity. Bach one gains vastly more than under the old 
 regime. In fact, there is more real unity in the school 
 when thus divided and graded than in the old days. 
 
 The family is not divided and split up into fragments 
 because the father goes to his office, the mother to her 
 housework, the children to school or to the ball-ground. 
 It would be absurd and irrational to make this claim. 
 The family all come together at the dinner-table and 
 around the evening fire ; they have a thousand oppor- 
 tunities of showing their real unity, and their interest 
 and affection one for another is not weakened but 
 strengthened because sometimes they go their separate 
 ways, only to come together again before the day is over 
 in the common family circle. 
 
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Other Training Classes 
 
 Nor is the church really divided, when the Juniors 
 have a meeting for an hour once a week by themselves, 
 and the young people have their own weekly hour of 
 prayer and praise and their own activities, and the older 
 people sometimes have meetings for missionary or ben- 
 evolent purposes that especially appeal to their inter- 
 ests as well. The church family, like the household, 
 separates only to reunite. It has its common interest, 
 its common meeting-places. The Lord's Supper brings 
 all around one common board. The morning service and 
 the evening service of Sunday are alike for all. And in 
 spirit and purpose, in common aims and aspirations and 
 prayers, there is a cord of union which is a thousand 
 times stronger than any mere physical union, at every 
 service of the Lord's house. 
 
 In fact the lack of activity on the part of the young 
 in the olden days, their comparative deadness and 
 indifference, were due to the mistaken notion that 
 there could not be different meeting-places and differ- 
 ent methods for doing the Lord's work. In many 
 churches the apostle's declaration was forgotten that 
 there were "differences of operations but the same 
 spirit," and as a result young people's societies and 
 meetings were frowned upon, and little Johnny and his 
 older brother and his stalwart father and his wrinkled 
 old grandfather were all treated to the same spiritual 
 pabulum in the weekly meeting— a kind of food which 
 the grandfather relished and usually served, but which 
 
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Training the Church of the Future 
 
 did not foster Johnny's growth in grace to any great 
 extent. 
 
 If it is true, and it certainly is, that what God hath 
 joined together no man should put asunder, it is equally 
 true that what God hath put asunder through age and 
 natural inclination and adaptability to similar service, 
 no man should join together in an arbitrary and mechan- 
 ical way. 
 
 The most common objection on this score of division, 
 or at least the one that lies at the basis of many others, 
 is the fact that young people are sometimes seen leaving 
 the evening preaching service of Sunday after their own 
 meeting when that meeting comes immediately before 
 this service. This objection, while sometimes valid, is 
 often a superficial and a selfish one. The questions to 
 be considered are not, Do some young people go away? 
 but, Are there not probably more present than there 
 would be were there no young people's meeting ? Are the 
 young people as faithful as the older church members? 
 Are there not some reasons which may make absence 
 from the service not only excusable but necessary? 
 Many households have to divide their forces ; some going 
 to one service and some to another. Some of the younger 
 ones ought to be at home and abed rather than at the later 
 service, and no pastor's heart need burn nor his indigna- 
 tion rise until he finds out whether there are not valid 
 and conscientious reasons why all can not hear his second 
 sermon for the day. 
 
 152 
 
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 After all, fellow students and preachers, there is a 
 good deal of human nature and some remnants of the 
 old Adam left, even in us ministers, we must confess it, 
 and the fact that it is our evening sermon which is not 
 heard rather than the worship of God's house that is not 
 enjoyed, often enters into our disappointment when some 
 one is seen leaving the church. The very fact that 
 it is called commonly the "second service" is an indica- 
 tion of the significance it assumes in many minds. The 
 Sunday-school is in most churches the second service; 
 the mission meeting in the outskirts is often the third 
 service; the young people's meeting is not infrequently 
 the fourth service, and the second sermon is the fifth 
 service of the day. 
 
 But I am prepared to claim that the young people's 
 movement has as a rule increased and strengthened this 
 service, whether it he second, third, fourth, or fifth. On 
 two different occasions I have gathered careful statistics 
 on this point which prove that in proportion to their 
 elders who are also church members the active members 
 of the societies of Christian Endeavor attend the evening 
 preaching service in the proportion of nearly two to one. 
 These are not random or hasty figures, but have been ob- 
 tained with care from many denominations and from 
 many parts of the country. 
 
 The same thing is true in a large measure, tho not quite 
 in such a marked degree, of the mid-week meeting of 
 
 the church. 
 
 163 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 In fact, I believe it can be fairly claimed that the 
 young people's movement has promoted the unity of the 
 church. It has shown it its essential oneness. It has led 
 the young people to feel their obligations to the other 
 services of the church as well as to the church services of 
 their own society, for they are all church services. 
 With the gradation has come unity, harmony, and loyalty, 
 for, from the first day of the Christian Endeavor move- 
 ment, this thought of loyalty, loyalty to the local 
 church, to the denomination and all its work, has been 
 one of the cardinal features of the organization. 
 
 The other center of objection to the society of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor has been the character of its meetings, 
 and the prayer-meeting pledge which has largely made 
 them what they are. This is not strange since, as I have 
 before tried to show, the young people's prayer-meeting 
 is a radical departure in many ways from the old prayer- 
 meeting idea. It substituted the thought of practise, 
 training, and the edification that comes from personal 
 participation for the old idea of instruction and edifica- 
 tion from the teachings and experience of others. In 
 other words, it substituted the many for the few — the 
 idea of training for the idea of teaching in this particu- 
 lar service. 
 
 No wonder that such a departure from tradition should 
 provoke objections. The only answer to such objections, 
 and the amply sufficient one as it seems to me, is, " This 
 plan works well in practise. " Is it not an undeniable 
 
 154 
 
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 fact that the young people's meeting of to-day is more 
 largely attended and more influential, more bright and 
 interesting, warmer and more spiritual, than ever before? 
 Has it not introduced into tens of thousands of churches 
 a new and needed element in training and exercising the 
 forces of youth? Whatever theoretical objections or 
 real objections in individual cases there may be, how- 
 ever scrappy or inconsequential, however stumbling or 
 halting, however perfunctory at times, making all dis- 
 counts and allowances for not reaching the ideal which 
 we desire, is it not true that these meetings are, after all, 
 in nine cases out of ten, perhaps in ninety- nine cases out 
 of one hundred, centers of genuine spiritual life and 
 warmth and outreaching activity? "Would not all of 
 these advantages be vastly diminished if these meetings 
 were given up or essentially changed in their character. 
 I think the answer, if the pastors and young people 
 throughout the country alike could be heard from, would 
 be almost a unanimous and even vociferous, Yes! In 
 fact, some such questions as these have recently been 
 asked of the pastors throughout the country; many 
 thousands have replied, and their answers have been 
 overwhelmingly in favor of the society and the meeting 
 which it advocates. 
 
 The pledge, being largely responsible for the new de- 
 parture in the young people's prayer-meeting, has of 
 course come in for its share of objection and sometimes 
 objurgation, but I think that it is its letter rather than its 
 
 15$ 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 spirit that has been criticized. Every pastor is at liberty 
 to write his own pledge for his own young people. The 
 one commonly used is a suggestion of a possible model 
 rather than a form obligatory upon all. In this matter, 
 as in concerns of more serious moment, the letter killeth, 
 the Spirit giveth life, and the spirit of the Christian En- 
 deavor pledge is that of obligation made so definite and 
 simple that the young heart shall feel the bond and real- 
 ize the vow. Obligation to take time for personal relig- 
 ious duties, obligation to confess Christ openly and 
 frequently, obligation to be loyal to His church and 
 His service, obligation to bring every duty and every 
 excuse to the touchstone, "What would Jesus have 
 me do f " — surely no Christian who desires the growth 
 of the young in grace and manhood can do any- 
 thing but rejoice that such obligations are presented, 
 pressed home, and for the most part so willingly ac- 
 cepted and so faithfully performed! These obliga- 
 • tions are all in the church covenant, and he who would 
 object to the Christian Endeavor covenant must, in 
 consistency, object to the church covenants of all 
 denominations, which covenants, as a matter of fact, 
 embrace much more than the Christian Endeavor 
 pledge. 
 
 And now, in closing these lectures, may I be allowed 
 to urge those who have so patiently and kindly given me 
 their attention to support and carry out as they have op- 
 portunity the principles that have been advocated — 
 
 156 
 
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 adopting and adapting them as circumstances indicate is 
 the will of God? 
 
 I am pursued by the fear that I may have seemed to 
 be advocating this Society because of personal pride or 
 glory in an organization. I hope and pray that my 
 purpose is larger and my motive purer. I urge the 
 adoption of these principles and the support of this 
 movement for reasons that I hope will appeal to all of 
 you. At the risk of repetition let me recapitulate them : 
 
 In the first place, the Christian Endeavor movement 
 makes for the fellowship and unity of Christians the 
 country over and the world around. It is undoubtedly 
 another tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The 
 seal of God has been set in a remarkable manner upon 
 this feature of the work. Since He has found a way of 
 promoting loyalty to one's own church and fellowship 
 with those of other folds, can we lightly disregard this 
 road to essential Christian unity which His finger so 
 clearly points out? 
 
 If we heard a voice from heaven commanding larger 
 cooperation and unification through such an organiza- 
 tion ; if we found such a command written in a book 
 which we believed inspired ; we should hesitate long be- 
 fore disregarding it. Has not God written His approval 
 of the fellowship born of the Christian Endeavor move- 
 ment in characters just as unmistakable? Can we disre- 
 gard or oppose such providential leadings lest haply we 
 be found to fight against God? But the movement in 
 
 157 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 God's providence is not simply between the denomina- 
 tions of one country, but one that promotes the fellow- 
 ship of Christians in every land. The unity which God 
 intends has a wider sweep and scope than any of us at 
 first supposed. Young English-speaking Christians have 
 had a link of fellowship forged between them all in 
 America, Great Britain, Australasia, South Africa, such 
 as never has been welded before. 
 
 It was an American boy that flew the kite that carried 
 the first cord across the Niagara Eiver which was the 
 means of uniting the two countries, the United States 
 and Canada, with that marvel of engineering skill, the 
 first suspension bridge. In that bridge, in the wire 
 bands of the ocean cable, in the steamships that unite 
 countries which since the world began were separated, 
 we see God's providence in bringing the nations together. 
 Shall we not also recognize His good hand in uniting at 
 the same time with spiritual ties His people for their 
 future conquests'? This new century, before its history 
 is told, will need to develop to the utmost every force 
 that can work for righteousness against unrighteousness, 
 for God against greed, for law against lawlessness, for 
 Christ against Beelzebub, and will need to unite all the 
 forces that will range themselves on the side of the 
 King. Here in the Christian Endeavor movement is one 
 of the world's unifiers. Here is one of the ties that bind 
 our hearts in Christian love for Christian service. Can 
 any one then afford to be indifferent to a movement which 
 
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 promises to have a part, if only a modest part, in the 
 lining-up of the righteous forces of the world? Can we 
 afford to let sectarian pride or indifference or prejudice, 
 or some unfortunate experience in local work, prevent 
 us from entering heartily and fully into a work which 
 God seems to indicate may mean so much for the new 
 century 1 
 
 Again, the indications of Providence seem to show 
 that this movement will make, not only for the fellow- 
 ship of the churches, but also for democracy in the indi- 
 vidual church. Already it has accomplished not a little 
 in this direction. In an unusual way in the young peo- 
 ple's meetings the rich and the poor meet together. The 
 simple methods of testimony and prayer, the service 
 that is made possible for the youngest and the most illit- 
 erate and backward as well as for the brightest and best 
 educated, tend in a remarkable degree to a democracy 
 which our churches often sorely need to cultivate. 
 
 If there is any hateful spirit in the church it is the 
 caste spirit ; the Devil is not only the father of lies, but 
 the father of caste distinctions. One of the saddest 
 things that I have seen in this young people's movement 
 is the way in which some members of so-called aristocratic 
 churches hold aloof from it, and in which sometimes 
 the college graduate and the rich and cultured young 
 man will look down upon his brothers and sisters with 
 their simple confession and sometimes ungrammatical 
 testimony. 
 
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Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Let us sweep all such tawdry travesties of the religion 
 of the meek and lowly Jesus out of our churches. Let 
 us welcome any organization or any movement that will 
 tend to remove from our churches the ancient "gold 
 ring " scandal which is as old as the time of St. James 
 and as low-bred as the Evil One himself. 
 
 Sometimes I hear even a minister say, with a slightly 
 patronizing air, that his young people's society does 
 very well for the lower stratum, for the lower middle or 
 the upper middle, according to the snobbish class nomen- 
 clature of some people, but that it does not take hold 
 of the educated and the well-to-do — he usually means 
 the fashionable and the worldly ; and this is not to be 
 wondered at. But I have yet to find the first earnest 
 Christian, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, 
 who can not find help in the sincere, heartfelt testimonies 
 of others, and joy in serving with them. The whole ten- 
 dency, as I say, is to level these distinctions, to make 
 the gold ring and the fine apparel of less consequence, 
 and to establish and make sure the democracy of Chris- 
 tian believers without which the church will soon lose 
 its grip on average humanity. To promote and increase 
 this spirit, then, I ask for earnest enlistment in our 
 movement, which is one that God is using to this end. 
 
 As has been finely said by another, the Society 
 furnishes to the young persons "a program of Chris- 
 tianity." Its pledge tells the boy or girl just what it is 
 to be a Christian — trust in Christ, personal devotion, 
 
 160 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 loyalty to His church, confession of love to Him, service 
 for Him. 
 
 Once more, it does not savor of boasting, I believe, to 
 say that the society not only promotes the fellowship and 
 the democracy of young disciples, but also their activity 
 in Christian service. These lectures have been of little 
 value if that has not been demonstrated. But I need 
 not rely upon my own impressions or observations. The 
 overwhelming testimony of pastors and active church 
 workers is to the same effect. The crying need of many 
 of our churches is some appropriate Christian work for 
 each of its members. The Society of Christian En- 
 deavor, when properly organized, furnishes just such 
 appropriate service for every one of its members. Many 
 of our non-liturgical churches are constantly losing mem- 
 bers to the Episcopal Church, which is being built up in 
 many communities at the expense of the others. One 
 secret of its success is that it quickly furnishes some oc- 
 cupation for all its members from the choir boy to the 
 senior warden. So far forth as it accomplishes this task 
 better than other denominations it deserves its success. 
 The Christian Endeavor Society offers a plan, which has 
 been in successful operation for years, of giving every 
 young man and woman some appropriate and suitable 
 task to accomplish for the Master and His church. 
 
 A distinguished author,* in writing of the needs of one 
 
 denomination of Christians, tho in the same article he is 
 
 ■"•President William DeWitt Hyde. 
 11 161 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 critical of the Christian Endeavor Society, prescribes 
 five things that the denomination "must do to be saved," 
 as he expresses it. These five things are exactly the 
 things which the society he criticizes stands for. They 
 are as follows ; 
 
 "1st. It must have a simple and searching covenant." 
 The covenant for active members of the Society of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor is, "Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
 strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever 
 he would like to have me do. " All the duties of the So- 
 ciety are embraced under this head and interpreted by 
 this clause. 
 
 "2d. Systematic instruction in what the church stands 
 for. " Every prayer-meeting may provide such instruc- 
 tion and stimulus to carry it out, and in this instruction 
 the pastor always has part, and a large part if he will. 
 
 "3d. An open door." The door of the Society is wide 
 enough to embrace in some form of membership all the 
 young people of moral earnestness in the community. 
 
 "4th. Broad and reasonable requirements of its mem- 
 bers." Nothing is required of the members of the So- 
 ciety that Christ would not have them do, and each is 
 left to decide for himself what He requires of them. 
 
 "5th. Something definite and practical to do, and per- 
 sonal help in doing it." The exact object of the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Society could not better be expressed. 
 
 That the practical results of this practical training 
 have not been disappointing, is shown by the year-books 
 of those churches that have most cordially adopted 
 the society. In the Presbyterian and Congregational 
 
 162 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 churches and the Disciples of Christ, membership during 
 the past fifteen years has increased far faster than during 
 any preceding fifteen years. More than twice as many 
 have joined these churches on confession of faith each 
 year, on the average, during the last decade and one- 
 half, as in the preceding decade and a half, and the net 
 gain has been twice as great. These figures have re- 
 cently been obtained by careful investigation and are 
 confirmed by Dr. Daniel Dorchester,* so well known as 
 a careful and conservative statistician. 
 
 The auxiliary movements along the line of applied 
 Christianity which have found their way into the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor household and are firmly established there 
 are of much interest as showing the development of 
 Christian life and activity among the young people. 
 None of them has been forced upon the movement, but 
 they have all grown naturally, spontaneously, almost in- 
 evitably, from the Christian Endeavor seed. Nor have 
 they proved to be suckers that have robbed the parent 
 plant of its vitality, but each one has brought fresh in- 
 spiration and vigor to the movement throughout the 
 world. Chief among these auxiliaries, which have been 
 happily called "the beautiful chapels of the Christian 
 Endeavor cathedral," are "The Quiet Hour," the 
 "Tenth Legion," the "Macedonian Phalanx," the 
 "Home Circle," and the "Civic Club." 
 
 Many of these efforts are described by their name 
 
 * See article in Congregationalist, December, 1900. 
 163 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 and on an earlier page have been alluded to. They can 
 not be dwelt upon at length in this connection, tho some- 
 thing more about them will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 Am I not justified in appealing to my brother minis- 
 ters, to those about to enter the ministry, to Sabbath 
 School teachers, and all interested in training the church 
 of the future, to use this method, God-appointed as all 
 its brief history shows, to promote fellowship, democracy, 
 activity, spirituality among the young? He who does 
 not enter into these plans, who holds aloof or withdraws 
 his young people from this brotherhood for sectarian or 
 other reasons, is weakening the fellowship of all, and in 
 a measure detracting from the fellowship, the activity, 
 the inspiration of all. Are there not great and cogent 
 reasons in these days when the common enemy of all 
 righteousness unites his forces against us, for uniting so 
 far as possible our forces against him and for our Lord? 
 Can any one afford to weaken the army of Christian 
 young people because of any small reason, much less 
 a prejudice, which experience might remove? Let me 
 once more repeat that all the plans of the Christian En- 
 deavor movement are flexible, that they may be adapted 
 to any circumstances, that every true society is what its 
 church and pastor desire it to be. 
 
 In closing I would record a sentence from a writer to 
 me unknown, which is written in a fly-leaf of the book 
 that contains the original constitution of the original 
 society. It is pregnant with wisdom, and contains the 
 
 164 
 
Other Training Classes 
 
 best argument for earnest, faithful, unremitting, system- 
 atic effort for Christian nurture : 
 
 "Young Christians may make mistakes in working for 
 Christ, but they make a greater mistake in not working 
 for Him. No failure in making the attempt is so bad 
 as to fail to make it. Anything rather than spiritual 
 death. Only let there be vigorous life, and guidance 
 can readily be supplied." 
 
 165 
 
APPENDICES 
 
Appendix I 
 
 WORLD-WIDE ENDEAVOR 
 
 A Brief History op the Beginning and Progress 
 of the Christian Endeavor Society in Many 
 Lands. 
 
 This brief account of the beginning and spread of the 
 Christian Endeavor Society has been compiled by Mrs. 
 P. E. Clark. The statistics are necessarily incomplete 
 as the numbers are enlarging every year in every land. 
 Yet this chapter will give some idea of the providential 
 spread of the Society. 
 
 I. — The Beginning. 
 
 Christian Endeavor began in Portland, Me., in 1881. 
 The first society was formed by the Eev. Francis E. Clark, 
 on the second day of February, in the Williston Church. 
 There were about fifty members — boys and girls, as well 
 as young men and women. Their first prayer-meeting 
 was held early in February. The object of the society 
 was to help the boys and girls to be Christians, and to 
 train them to work for Christ. Those boys and girls 
 are now grown up ; but most of them are still engaged 
 in Christian work, and we believe that they are doing 
 better service because of their Christian Endeavor 
 training. 
 
 II. — Growth in the United States and Canada. 
 
 In 1882 the first Christian Endeavor Convention was 
 held in Williston Church, Portland. By this time there 
 were about twenty societies in different parts of the 
 country. All of these societies had been formed be- 
 cause these churches had heard of the Christian Endeavor 
 
 169 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Society in "Williston Church and thought it worth trying. 
 The second society was in Newburyport, Mass. , the third 
 in Ehode Island, the fourth in Portland, and the fifth in 
 Vermont, and not long after these were formed, societies 
 were heard of in Iowa, New York, New Hampshire, and 
 Canada. As was natural, our nearest neighbor and sister 
 nation, Canada, was the first country outside of the 
 United States to adopt Christian Endeavor. 
 
 III. — Endeavor in Hawaii. (1884.) 
 
 A pastor in Honolulu placed in his scrap-book an 
 article by Mr. Clark entitled, "How One Church Takes 
 Care of Its Young People." This article told of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor, and it seemed to this pastor that it would 
 be a good thing for his church ; so the first Christian 
 Endeavor Society outside of America was started in 
 Honolulu, and it was a scrap-book article that led to it. 
 These Honolulu Endeavorers often have passing travel- 
 ers of different nationalities visiting in their meetings, 
 and by them seeds of Christian Endeavor have been car- 
 ried to many other places. There are now seventeen 
 societies in the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 IV.— China. (1885.) 
 
 It was a missionary who carried Christian Endeavor 
 to China. Rev. George H. Hubbard, of Puchau, a 
 young missionary, took Christian Endeavor with him 
 when he sailed from America. He could not see why it 
 should not be just as good for China, so he organized a 
 society in a church in Puchau. The first Chinese En- 
 deavorer was Mr. Ling, a very bright young man, who 
 said in an address at a convention in. Shanghai that the 
 object of their Christian Endeavor Society was "to drive 
 the devil out of China." They have not wholly suc- 
 ceeded in doing that yet, but the Christian Endeavor 
 Societies all over China are doing something toward it. 
 There is now a United Society for all China, with about 
 two hundred societies enrolled. The first society in 
 Puchau was called by a Chinese word which means, 
 
 170 
 
World-Wide Endeavoi 
 
 "The Drum and Bouse Up Society" — not a bad trans- 
 lation of Christian Endeavor. The members of com- 
 mittees had for a badge a small picture-frame wherein 
 were written their instructions, and these frames were 
 passed on to the next committee at the end of six 
 months. It would be a good plan for some of us to try 
 this method used by the first Chinese society. 
 
 V. — India, Ceylon, Burma, Si am, the Laos Coun- 
 try. (1885 .) 
 
 Ceylon. — About the time that Christian Endeavor was 
 starting in China, another missionary, Miss Margaret 
 Leitch, well known in America, was organizing the first 
 society in Ceylon, among some Tamil girls. These girls 
 believed that Christian Endeavor meant, among other 
 things, giving to the Lord, and they set an example to 
 American Endeavorers by consecrating some cocoanut- 
 trees, giving all the cocoanuts that grew on these special 
 trees to missionary work. Was this, perhaps, the be- 
 ginning of the Tenth Legion? 
 
 India.— One of the earliest societies in India was or- 
 ganized in Madanapalle, a mission-station of the Be- 
 f ormed Church of the United States. Soon after societies 
 were formed in many stations connected with the Arcot 
 Mission, and at about the same time others in different 
 parts of India. The second All-India Convention has 
 recently been held in Allahabad, at which missionaries 
 and delegates from all parts of India were present. Dr. 
 Clark has twice visited India; and on the occasion of 
 his last visit, a United Society for India, Burma, and 
 Ceylon, with headquarters at Calcutta, was formed. 
 This United Society has largely promoted the work. 
 Other great unions have been formed, like the South 
 India Union, the Union for the Northwest Provinces, 
 etc. Now there are over four hundred societies in the 
 Madras Presidency of India alone; missionaries of al- 
 most all denominations have entered heartily into the 
 work, and Christian Endeavor flourishes in India more 
 than in any other missionary land. 
 
 171 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Burma, Laos, and Sunn. — There are now a few Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Societies in Burma under the care of 
 missionaries, and they are doing what they can to win 
 Burma for Christ. There are twenty-nine societies in 
 the Laos country, and two in Slam, and their influence 
 is felt in many parts of their countries. 
 
 VI.— Africa. (1886.) 
 
 South Africa. — So far as we know, the first society in 
 Africa was formed in 1886, in Amanzimtote, Natal, and 
 there are now several other societies in these colonies. 
 There is in Durban a native church formed on Christian 
 Endeavor principles. The church members promise to 
 read the Bible every day, or at least to hear it read, for 
 some of them can not read. They also promise to en- 
 deavor to give at least one-tenth to the Lord. Tho 
 they have only an occasional visit from a missionary, 
 they are working faithfully. They support twenty-five 
 preaching services every Sunday, some of them going 
 five or six miles to preach. This was in a Zulu church. 
 But the work soon extended to the Dutch and English 
 churches, and soon after was started in Cape Colony and 
 the Boer republics. 
 
 When Dr. Clark visited South Africa in 1896, a South 
 African Union was formed at Cape Town, and the so- 
 cieties are multiplying and flourishing finely. This 
 Union has an efficient corps of officers, of which the be- 
 loved Andrew Murray is the honorary president. A 
 valuable monthly Christian Endeavor paper is published, 
 and in spite of the long and disastrous war the societies 
 have multiplied throughout South Africa. 
 
 Liberia. — The first society in Liberia was organized by 
 Eev. George P. Goll, in the Muhlenberg Mission, in 
 1891, and soon after several others were formed. The 
 missionaries tell us that these societies have taught their 
 members to be more loyal, liberal, and self-sacrificing, 
 and have bettered their lives in many ways. As the 
 only means of conveyance in Liberia is walking or rowing 
 in a canoe, the loyalty of members who have to travel 
 
 172 
 
World-Wide Endeavor 
 
 several miles to attend their meetings can be appreciated. 
 There is now a Liberia Christian Endeavor Union, with 
 seven societies enrolled. 
 
 Egypt. — There are several Christian Endeavor Societies 
 in Egypt, in the city of Cairo, and up the Nile, in the 
 mission-churches of the United Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Madagascar. — There are ninety-three societies in the 
 island of Madagascar. Tho missionary work has been 
 much hindered in these islands by French occupation, 
 yet a better day is dawning for them, and the mis- 
 sionaries testify that Christian Endeavor is a great help 
 to them in their work. 
 
 VII. —Great Britain. (1888.) 
 
 A young Englishman who had been a member of the 
 first society in Williston Church wrote a letter to his old 
 pastor in England telling him about the society. This 
 pastor became interested in the subject, and as a result 
 of that letter the first English society was started in 
 Crewe, in 1888. At about the same time two or three 
 other pastors, who had in some way heard of it, started 
 societies in their churches. At first there were a good 
 many objections to it in England, and some said that it 
 was a "Yankee notion" which might be good for 
 America, but was not what they needed in England. 
 However, the societies increased, slowly at first and then 
 more rapidly, till there are now (January, 1902) about 
 eight thousand in all Great Britain — and it was a young 
 man's letter to his pastor that began it. 
 
 VIII. —Australasia. (1888.) 
 
 A young man who was a member of the second society 
 of Christian Endeavor, in Newburyport, Mass., sailed 
 on his father's ship from that port to Brisbane, Australia, 
 and told to a pastor there the story of Christian En- 
 deavor, and a society was started in that city. 
 
 At about the same time societies were formed in 
 Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, and in one 
 or two other colonies of Australia ; for it is a fact that 
 
 173 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 in many countries Christian Endeavor has seemed to 
 blossom out in two or three different places all at once. 
 Wherever a society was formed the young people found 
 it helpful and told their friends about it, and so it came, 
 to pass that here and there other societies were formed, 
 until there are now nearly three thousand societies in all 
 the Australian colonies. 
 
 In the strength of its Christian Endeavor work, Aus- 
 tralia may be considered third of all the countries of the 
 world, ranking after the United States and Canada, 
 which are one in Christian Endeavor, and Great Britain. 
 
 The great conventions held in Melbourne, Sydney, 
 Adelaide, and Brisbane are as inspiring as any held in 
 any part of the world. In New Zealand, too, the work 
 flourishes, as well as in Australia, and some of the most 
 ardent Endeavorers to be found in any part of the world 
 are New Zealanders. The Endeavorers of this beautiful 
 island form part of the Australasian Union. 
 
 IX. —Turkey. ( 1889. ) 
 
 In 1889 a Christian Endeavor Society was formed in 
 a mission station in Turkey, not far from Cesarea, by an 
 Armenian who had studied in America. The people 
 were at first somewhat prejudiced against it, and called 
 it "one of his American imported ideas." However, he 
 began with his Sunday-school, and presently formed a 
 class of those who were willing to try it. The next year 
 he spoke of it at a conference in Cesare, and the mission- 
 aries requested him to prepare a Christian Endeavor 
 Manual in the Turkish language. He found this, how- 
 ever, a work of peculiar difficulty. He says: "I could 
 not safely translate ; even the name ' Endeavor ' had a 
 military ring in it. ' Society > was forbidden by an im- 
 perial edict. Even ' Christian ' could not be used, while 
 the term ' Young People ' was twice altered. Finally, 
 the title read something like ' Young People's Brother- 
 hood of Moral Activity. ' But even this was suppressed 
 by the Turkish censors. " 
 
 Despite these difficulties, the work has grown and 
 174 
 
World-Wide Endeavor 
 
 spread, till there are now scores of societies in Turkey. 
 A missionary writes: "One of the members said to me 
 one day, ' Pastor, we shall beat America. ' We may 
 never realize the dream of this young Galatian Endeav- 
 orer as to numbers, but in the spirit and degree of con- 
 secration it would be difficult to surpass them. " 
 
 In Bulgaria there are several societies of Christian 
 Endeavor, and their members are doing good work "for 
 Christ and the Church. " 
 
 X.— Japan. (About 1889. ) 
 
 The "Kyoreikwai " is the Japanese name for Christian 
 Endeavor. The first society in Japan was formed by 
 the missionary children of the different stations. Once 
 a year, at the annual meeting of the mission, they hold 
 their meeting all together as a society, and during the 
 rest of the year they meet as branch societies in their 
 separate homes. Sometimes there is a branch society of 
 eight or ten children, as in Kioto, where there are sev- 
 eral missionary families, and sometimes only one or two 
 can meet together, as in Okayama, where two little girls 
 held their meeting every week for many years, with 
 their mother for superintendent. These little branch 
 societies tried to be faithful to the pledge, and finally 
 their example was followed by others, and in many 
 places Japanese societies were formed, till there are now 
 seventy-five societies in the Land of the Eising Sun. 
 
 XL— Spain. (1889.) 
 
 Several years ago, in a mission boarding-school in San 
 Sebastian, a little society was formed among the girls for 
 Christian Endeavor, tho they had not then heard of 
 the societies in America bearing that name. The girls 
 chose the name "Hijas Leales" — Loyal Daughters. 
 They had their meetings, in which all took part, and, as 
 there was very little money in their pockets, they de- 
 cided to give up some of the food they would otherwise 
 have, and use the money for benevolence. When they 
 heard of Christian Endeavor, and that the societies were 
 
 175 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 branching out into foreign lands, they decided to take 
 that name for the sake of forming part of the great body 
 of Endeavorers. Through the influence of the girls who 
 have gone out from this school other societies have been 
 started in different parts of the country, and there are 
 now thirty-six Christian Endeavor Societies in Spain. 
 There are no more earnest and enthusiastic societies in 
 all the world than those of Spain. Even the Spanish- 
 American war did not interrupt their zeal, tho the so- 
 ciety was distinctly identified with America. None of 
 the societies died during that year and several new ones 
 were formed. 
 
 XII.— France. (1889.) 
 
 It is through the door of the McAll Mission that Chris- 
 tian Endeavor has entered Prance. Mr. Greig, who is 
 now at the head of that mission, found that he often 
 came across the words " Christian Endeavor " in religious 
 papers, and he said to a friend, "Something like that is 
 what we need in our work. " Later he learned more of 
 the society, and sent for literature on the subject. From 
 the study of the papers that were sent to him grew a lit- 
 tle book called "Societe d'Activite Chretienne Status." 
 As information spread, through this little book and in 
 other ways, societies sprang up among the Protestant 
 churches, till there are now sixty-nine societies in Prance 
 — ten of them in the city of Paris — and tho they pro- 
 nounce the name a little differently, it means the same 
 thing. 
 
 XIII.— Persia. 
 
 A young lady who was a Christian Endeavorer in 
 America decided at a Christian Endeavor Convention to 
 become a missionary, and not long after went to Hama- 
 dan, Persia. She was so enthusiastic for Christian En- 
 deavor that she persuaded Miss Montgomery, who had 
 never seen such a society, to try it there. It was not 
 long before a Junior Endeavor Society was started, 
 which grew out of a prayer -meeting that four little boys 
 
 176 
 
World-Wide Endeavor 
 
 had asked for. There are now four Christian Endeavor 
 Societies in Persia, and it is pleasant to remember that 
 it was a Christian Endeavor Convention that started that 
 Christian Endeavor missionary to Persia. 
 
 XIV. — Mexico and Central America. (1891.) 
 
 It took just nine years for Christian Endeavor to travel 
 from Maine to Mexico, and the first Christian Endeavor 
 Society in that country was organized in Chihuahua, 
 February 2, 1891. They publish now a Christian En- 
 deavor paper, and there is also a United Society of 
 Christian Endeavor for all Mexico, with three hundred 
 societies enrolled. May the time come when the re- 
 public of the South shall rival the republic of the 
 North in Christian Endeavor. 
 
 In Guatemala, too, Christian Endeavor has made a be- 
 ginning, and, tho there are only two societies now so 
 far as we know, we hope they may open the door for 
 many more in different parts of Central America. 
 
 XV.— South America. (1891.) 
 
 There are a number of Christian Endeavor Societies in 
 the "Neglected Continent," and tho it goes slowly, 
 as in all Catholic countries, yet wherever Protestant 
 missionaries have gone they have carried Christian En- 
 deavor with them. The first society was formed in 
 Chile, in 1891, and it was greatly helped by some copies 
 of The Christian Endeavor World that a New Jersey En- 
 deavor Society sent to them regularly for distribution. 
 These papers have been responsible for much of the 
 Christian Endeavor work done in that country. There 
 are now six societies in Chile, eleven in British Guiana, 
 three in Colombia, and four in Brazil. 
 
 XVI. —Switzerland. (1894. ) 
 
 Three sisters started Christian Endeavor in Switzer- 
 land, and the wonder of it is that none of the three had 
 12 177 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 ever seen a Christian Endeavor Society. A young 
 American girl had gone to Lausanne to study French, 
 and she asked these sisters if there was any Christian 
 Endeavor Society there. Out of that simple question 
 has grown the Christian Endeavor work in that country. 
 Moral: When you are traveling take your Christian 
 Endeavor with you. There are not yet many societies 
 in Switzerland, but the number is increasing, and those 
 who are members are trying in French to keep the same 
 pledge that we are keeping in English. 
 
 XVII.— Germany. (1894.) 
 
 Through the writings of a German pastor in New 
 York State news of Christian Endeavor was carried to 
 Germany. A young theological student became inter- 
 ested in it and tried to interest others, but they had not 
 much sympathy with it. "Quite good, but American," 
 was what they said. It was the story of the Cleveland 
 Convention that interested a few pastors, and as they 
 learned more about it, a few societies were formed. At 
 the first German convention in Berlin one of the speakers 
 was a young man who had been a member of that first 
 society in Williston Church, who was then studying 
 medicine in Berlin. There are now nearly a hundred 
 societies in Germany, and they call it "Christliche Ent- 
 schiedenheit. " They have a secretary and a monthly 
 paper of their own. There are also a great many Ger- 
 man Christian Endeavor Societies in America, and a 
 German Christian Endeavor paper, called Der Mitarbeiter. 
 
 XVIII. —Hungary. ( 1895. ) 
 
 A young Hungarian who was studying theology in 
 Berlin was present at the first German Christian En- 
 deavor Convention, and became interested in Christian 
 Endeavor. Pie carried the news to Hungary, and a 
 pastor in a little country church organized a society of 
 seven members. May this be but the beginning of a 
 great company of Christian Endeavorers who shall do 
 what they can to win Hungary for Christ! 
 
 178 
 
World-Wide Endeavor 
 
 XIX. — Other Countries in Europe. (1894-99.) 
 
 There are in many other countries in Europe small 
 societies here and. there. In Sweden there is a great in- 
 terest in the work, and through the Sunday-School Union 
 thirty-four societies have been formed. The news has 
 lately come of the first society in Eussia. Austria has 
 two societies, Belgium two, and Norway four. There 
 are three societies in Italy and two in Denmark. May 
 these few societies in these countries lead the way for 
 many more ! 
 
 XX.— Syria. 
 
 The "Nedwat el Ijtehad Messeahy" is what they call 
 it in Syria. If you can not pronounce it you may spell 
 it, but it spells the same thing as Christian Endeavor, 
 tho in a different costume and with different surround- 
 ings. There are only a few societies in the Holy Land 
 now, but we hope there will soon be many more of them, 
 and that a Christian Endeavor crusade may some time 
 take even Jerusalem for Christ. 
 
 XXI. — The Island World. 
 
 The first Christian Endeavor Society in the South Seas 
 was established at the Malua Training Institute, Upola, 
 Samoa, in 1890. At their first C. E. meeting, ten mem- 
 bers were enrolled. Since the establishment of that first 
 society in Samoa two hundred and fifty- eight members 
 have been enrolled in that one society alone. Of these, 
 no less than thirteen have gone as missionaries to JSTew 
 Guinea. We can hardly expect to hear of a South Sea 
 Island Convention, since these islands are scattered over 
 an area of a thousand miles of ocean, but there are now 
 thirteen societies in Samoa alone. 
 
 There are also other island societies scattered in dif- 
 ferent seas and oceans the world around. 
 
 The missionaries in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands 
 send most glowing reports of the good the societies are 
 
 179 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 doing in these islands. Probably by this time there are 
 many more societies, as it takes many months to hear 
 reports from them. But according to last advices, there 
 were thirteen societies in the Marshall Islands, two in 
 the Gilbert Islands, six in the Ellice Islands, and three 
 in the Tokelan Islands. 
 
 The little island of Jamaica sets a good example to 
 larger islands, for they have there one hundred flourish- 
 ing Christian Endeavor Societies, and are beginning to 
 talk of a Christian Endeavor Union for all the West 
 Indies. 
 
 In Trinidad there are seven societies, and in Granada 
 one. 
 
 Prom the Philippines news comes to us of a society 
 started in the United States Army, the first in those 
 islands. May it be but the forerunner of many more ! 
 
 And the latest children of Christian Endeavor, so far 
 as we know, are the Cuban societies in Havana, both 
 Young People's and Junior. May those first Endeavor - 
 ers in that fair island have a large share in the work of 
 winning Cuba for Christ ! 
 
 XXII. — Floating Endeavor. 
 
 If any one had predicted when the first society was 
 formed that within less than a dozen years there would 
 be faithful societies sailing the seas, and that they would 
 be found on almost every ocean, he would have been 
 considered a wild prophet, but that is true to-day, and 
 many touching stories have come to us of sailors who 
 are just as faithful to their pledge as any Endeavorers 
 in the home churches. The first Floating Society was 
 formed on the United States Eevenue Marine Steamer 
 Dexter. Twelve of the sailors signed the pledge, organ- 
 ized a society, and held their first consecration meeting. 
 There are now one hundred and twenty-two societies 
 on board ships of war, and merchant ships, and at life- 
 saving stations. Miss Antoinette P. Jones, by her faith- 
 ful work, has done, much to promote these societies. 
 
 180 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 XXIII. — Endeavor in Unexpected Places. 
 
 Christian Endeavor has found its way into many un- 
 expected places. In 1890 a society was formed in a 
 Wisconsin State Prison, and the chaplain found it a real 
 help in his work among the prisoners. Because of the 
 good work done in that society, other societies have been 
 organized in other prisons, notably in Kentucky, where 
 a splendid work has been done. Other nourishing prison 
 societies are found in Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, New 
 York, and several other States. Societies have also been 
 formed in schools, and in hospitals among the nurses, 
 and among policemen, and among traveling men, in the 
 army, and in many other places where no one would 
 have thought of finding them ; but their object is always 
 the same, to help their members to be better Christians. 
 
 XXIV.— To-Day. 
 
 To-day (January, 1902) there are fifty-two thousand 
 Christian Endeavor Societies, with nearly three and 
 three-quarter millions of members, in all sorts of places 
 and in almost every country in the world, all pledged to 
 do whatever Jesus would like to have them do. 
 
 Appendix II 
 
 MODEL CONSTITUTION* 
 
 Article I. — Name. 
 
 This society shall be called the 
 
 Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. 
 
 * This Constitution, which, in its important features, is substan- 
 tially the same as that adopted by the first society in Portland, 
 February 2, 1881, has been prepared with great care, and met with 
 the very hearty indorsement of the Fourth National Convention, to 
 which it was presented. It has been revised and approved by the 
 Trustees of the United Society, at a meeting held October, 1887. It is 
 not necessarily binding upon any local society, but is to be regarded in 
 the light of a recommendation, especially for the guidance of new 
 
 181 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Article II. — Object. 
 
 Its object shall be to promote an earnest Christian life 
 among its members, to increase their mutual acquain- 
 tance, and to make them more useful in the service of 
 God. 
 
 Article III. — Membei v>7( ip. 
 
 1. The members shall consist of three classes: Active, 
 Associate, and Affiliated or Honorary. 
 
 2. Active Members. The active members of this soci- 
 ety shall consist of all young persons who believe them- 
 selves to be Christians, and who sincerely desire to ac- 
 complish the objects above specified. Voting power 
 shall be vested only in the active members. 
 
 3. Associate Members. All young persons of worthy 
 character, who are not at present willing to be considered 
 decided Christians, may become associate members of 
 this society. They shall have the special prayers and 
 sympathy of the active members, but shall be excused 
 from taking part in the prayer-meeting. It is expected 
 that all associate members will habitually attend the 
 prayer-meetings, and that they will in time become ac- 
 tive members, and the society will work to this end. 
 
 4. Affiliated or Honorary Members* All persons who, 
 
 organizations and those unacquainted with the work of the Society 
 of Chrislian Endeavor. It is hoped, however, for the sake of uni- 
 formity, that the Constitution, which deals only with main princi- 
 ples, may be generally adopted, and that such changes as may be 
 needed to adapt the society to local needs will be made in the By- 
 Laws. Even if the language of the Constitution of some local soci- 
 eties should vary from this Model Constitution, it should be borne in 
 mind that only those societies that adhere to the prayer-meeting idcn 
 as embodied in Article VII., and the main features of committee 
 work, can properly claim the name of Christian Endeavor societies. 
 The specimen By-Laws which are here appended embrace sugges- 
 tions for the government of the society which have been found suc- 
 cessful in many places. Each one is approved by experience. 
 
 * This class of membership is provided for Christians of mature 
 years, especially for those who have been active members, and who 
 desire to remain throughout their lives connected with the society. 
 Young persons who can be either active or associate members should 
 in no case be affiliated members. 
 
 182 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 tho no longer young, are still interested in the society, 
 and wish to have some connection with it, tho they can 
 not regularly attend the meetings, may become honorary 
 members. Their names shall be kept upon the list under 
 the appropriate heading, but shall not be called at the 
 roll-call meeting. It is understood that the society may 
 look to the honorary members for financial and moral 
 support in all worthy efforts. (For special class of 
 honorary members, see Article XI. ) 
 
 5. These different persons shall become members, upon 
 being elected by the society, after carefully examining 
 the Constitution and By-Laws and upon signing their 
 names to them, thereby pledging themselves to live up 
 to their requirements. 
 
 Article IV. — Officers. 
 
 1. The officers of this society shall be a President, 
 Vice-President, Eecording Secretary, Corresponding Sec- 
 retary, and Treasurer, who shall be chosen from among 
 the active members of the society. 
 
 2. There shall also be a Lookout Committee, a Prayer- 
 Meeting Committee, a Social Committee, and such other 
 committees as the local needs of each society may require, 
 each consisting of five active members. There shall also 
 be an Executive Committee, as provided iu Article VI. 
 
 Article V. — Duties of Officers. 
 
 1. President. The President of the society shall per- 
 form the duties usually pertaining to that office. He 
 shall have especial watch over the interests of the soci- 
 ety, and it shall be his care to see that the different com- 
 mittees perform the duties devolving upon them. He 
 shall be chairman of the Executive Committee. 
 
 2. Vice-President. The Vice-President shall assist the 
 President, and perform his duties in his absence.* 
 
 3. Corresponding Secretary. It shall be the duty of the 
 Corresponding Secretary to keep the local society in 
 
 *It is suggested that the Vice-President shall also be Secretary of 
 the Executive Committee. 
 
 183 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 communication with the State and local Christian En- 
 deavor unions and with the United Society, and to pre- 
 sent to his own society such matters of interest as may 
 come from the United Society, from other local societies, 
 and from other authorized sources of Christian Endeavor 
 information. This office shall be held permanently by 
 the same person, so long as he is able to perform its du- 
 ties satisfactorily, and his name should be forwarded to 
 the United Society immediately after election. 
 
 4. Recording Secretary. It shall be the duty of the Ee- 
 cording Secretary to keep a record of the members, to 
 correct it from time to time, as may be necessary, and to 
 obtain the signature of each newly elected member to 
 the Constitution ; also to correspond with absent mem- 
 bers, and to inform them of their standing in the society ; 
 also to keep correct minutes of all business meetings of 
 the society ; also to notify all persons elected to office or 
 to committees. 
 
 5. Treasurer. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to 
 keep safely all moneys belonging to the society, and to 
 pay out only such sums as shall be voted by the society. 
 
 Article VI. — Duties of Committees. 
 
 1. Lookout Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to bring new members into the society, to in- 
 troduce them to the work and to the other members, and 
 affectionately to look after and reclaim any that seem in- 
 different to their duties, as outlined in the pledge. This 
 committee shall also, by personal investigation, satisfy 
 itself of the fitness of young persons to become members 
 of this society, and shall propose their names at least one 
 week before their election to membership, having first 
 presented such names to the pastor for approval. 
 
 2. Prayer-Meeting Committee. It shall be the duty of 
 this committee to have in charge the prayer-meeting, and 
 to see that a topic is assigned and a leader appointed for 
 every meeting, and to do what it can to secure faithful- 
 ness to the prayer-meeting pledge. 
 
 3. Social Committee. It shall be the duty of this com- 
 
 184 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 mittee to promote the social interests of the society by 
 welcoming strangers to the meetings, and by providing 
 for the mutual acquaintance of the members by occasional 
 sociables, for which any appropriate entertainment, of 
 which the church approves, may be provided. 
 
 4. Executive Committee.* This committee shall consist 
 of the pastor of the church, the officers of the society, 
 and the chairmen of the various committees. All mat- 
 ters of business requiring debate shall be brought first 
 before this committee, and by it reported to the society 
 either favorably or adversely. All discussions of pro- 
 posed measures shall take place before this committee, and 
 not before the society. Eecommendations concerning 
 the finances of the society shall also originate with this 
 committee. 
 
 5. Each committee, except the Executive, shall make 
 a report in writing to the society, at the monthly busi- 
 ness meetings, concerning the work of the past month. 
 
 Article VII. — The Prayer-Meeting. 
 
 All the active members shall be present at every meeting, 
 unless detained by some absolute necessity, and each active 
 member shall take some part, however slight, in every meet- 
 ing. To the above all the active members shall pledge them- 
 selves, understanding by " absolute necessity" some reason for 
 absence which can conscientiously be given to their Master, 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Article VIIL— The Pledge.^ 
 
 All persons on becoming active members of the Socie- 
 ty shall sign the following pledge : 
 
 Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise 
 Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to have 
 me do ; that I will make it the rule of my life to pray and to 
 *The object of this committee is to prevent waste of time in the 
 regular meetings of the society by useless debate and unnecessary 
 parliamentary practise, which are always harmful to the spirit of a 
 prayer-meeting. , . . ,., x. j 
 
 t If this exact form of words is now adopted, it is earnestly hoped 
 that it will not be essentially weakened, but that a pledge em- 
 
 185 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 read the Bible every day, and to support my own church in 
 every way, especially by attending her regular Sunday and 
 mid-week services, unless prevented by some reason which 
 I can conscientiously give to my Savior; and that, just 
 so far as I know how, throughout my whole life, I will 
 endeavor to lead a, Christian life 
 
 As an active member, I promise to be true to all my 
 duties, to be present at, and to take some part, aside from 
 singing, in every Christian Endeavor prayer -meeting, unless 
 hindered by some reason which I can conscientiously give 
 to my Lord and Master. If obliged to be absent from 
 the monthly consecration meeting of the society, I will, 
 if possible, send at least a verse of Scripture to be read in 
 response to my name at the roll call. 
 
 Signed 
 
 The associate member's pledge is as follows: 
 
 ASSOCIATE MEMBER'S PLEDGE. 
 
 As an associate member, I promise to attend the prayer 
 meetings of the society habitually, and declare my willing • 
 ness to do what I may be called upon to do as an associate 
 member to advance the interests of the society. 
 
 Signed 
 
 Article IX. — The Consecration Meeting. 
 
 1. Once each month a consecration or covenant meet- 
 ing shall be held, at which each active member shall re- 
 new his vows of consecration. If any one chooses, he 
 can express his feelings by an appropriate verse of Scrip- 
 ture or other quotation. 
 
 2. At each consecration meeting the roll shall be called 
 (or some equally thorough method of making the record 
 may be adopted), and the responses of the active mem- 
 bers shall be considered as renewed expressions of alle- 
 giance to Christ. It is expected that if any one is obliged to 
 be absent from this meeting, he loill send a message, or at 
 
 bracing the ideas of private devotion, loyalty to the church, and 
 outspoken confession of Christ in the weekly meeting will be 
 adopted. When the Prayer-Meeting Pledge is carefully studied it 
 will be seen that only the common duties of the Christian life are 
 demanded, private prayer and Bible study, outspoken confession of 
 Christ before men, and loyalty to Christ's church. All this is em- 
 bodied in every church covenant. It is here made specific and 
 definite for immature and inexperienced Christians. 
 
 186 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 least a tvr.se of Scripture, to be read in response to Ms name 
 at the roll-cult. 
 
 3. If any active member of this society is absent from 
 this monthly meeting, and fails to send a message, the 
 Lookout Committee is expected to take the name of such 
 a one, and in a kind and brotherly spirit ascertain the 
 reason for the absence. If any active member of the society 
 is absent and unexcused from three consecutive monthly meet- 
 ings, such a one ceases to be a member of the society, and his 
 name, on vote of the Lookout Committee and the pastor, shall 
 be stricken from the list of members. 
 
 4. Any associate member who, without good reason, 
 is regularly absent from the prayer-meetings, and shows 
 no interest whatever in the work of the society, may, 
 upon vote of the Lookout Committee and pastor, be 
 dropped from the roll of members. 
 
 Article X. — Business Meetings and Elections. 
 
 1. Business meetings may be held in connection with 
 the prayer-meeting, or at any other time in accordance 
 with the call of the President. 
 
 2. An election of the officers and committees shall be 
 held once in six months.* Names may be proposed by 
 a Nominating Committee appointed by the President, of 
 which the pastor shall be a member ex officio. 
 
 Article XL — Belation to the Church. 
 
 This society, being a part of the church, owes allegi- 
 ance only and altogether to the church with which it is 
 connected. The pastors, deacons, elders or stewards, 
 and Sunday-school superintendent, if not active mem- 
 bers, shall be, ex officiis, honorary members. Any diffi- 
 cult question shall be laid before them for advice, and 
 their decision shall be final. It shall be understood that 
 the nomination of officers or other action taken by the 
 society shall be subject to revision or veto by the church ; 
 that in every way the society shall put itself under the 
 
 * Once a year, if preferred. 
 187 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 control of the official board of the church, and shall 
 make a report to the church monthly, quarterly, or an- 
 nually, as the church may direct. 
 
 Article XII. — Relation of the Junior Society. 
 
 The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and 
 the Junior Society being united by ties of closest sympa- 
 thy and common effort, monthly (or at least annual) re- 
 ports should be read to the Young People's Society by 
 the Junior Superintendent. When the boys and girls 
 reach the age of fourteen, they shall be transferred to the 
 older society. Special pains shall be taken to see that 
 a share of the duties and responsibilities of the prayer- 
 meetings and of the general work of the society shall be 
 borne by the younger members. 
 
 Article XIII. — Fellowship. 
 
 This society, while owing allegiance only to its own 
 church, is united by ties of spiritual fellowship with other 
 Christian Endeavor societies the world around. This 
 fellowship is based upon a common love of Christ, is 
 cemented by a common pledge and common methods of 
 work, and is guaranteed by a common name, "Christian 
 Endeavor," used either alone or in connection with some 
 denominational name. 
 
 This fellowship is that of an interdenominational, not 
 an undenominational, organization. It is promoted by 
 local-union meetings, State and national conventions, 
 and still further by the work of the Information Com- 
 mittee, which it is hoped will be adopted by each society. 
 (See By-Laws, Article X. ) 
 
 Article XIV. — Withdrawals. 
 
 Any member who may wish to withdraw from the so- 
 ciety shall state the reasons to the Lookout Committee 
 and pastor, and if these reasons seem sufficient he may 
 be allowed to withdraw. 
 
 188 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 Article XV. — Miscellaneous. 
 
 Any other committees may be added and duties as- 
 sumed by this society which in the future may seem best. 
 
 Article XVI. — Transfer of Members. 
 
 Since it would in the end defeat the very object of our 
 organization if the older active members, who have been 
 trained in the society for usefulness in the church, should 
 remain content with fulfilling their pledge to the society 
 only, therefore it is expected that the older members, 
 when it shall become impossible for them to attend two 
 weekly prayer-meetings, shall be transferred to the hon- 
 orary membership of the society, if previously faithful 
 to their vows as active members. This transfer, how- 
 ever, shall be made with the understanding that the obli- 
 gation to faithful service shall still be binding upon them 
 in the regular church prayer-meeting. It shall be left to 
 the Lookout Committee, in conjunction with the pastor, 
 to see that this transfer of membership is made as occa- 
 sion requires. 
 
 Article XVII. — Amendment. 
 
 This Constitution may be amended at any regular busi- 
 ness meeting, by a two-thirds vote of the entire active 
 membership of the society, provided that a written state- 
 ment of the proposed amendment shall have been read to 
 the society and deposited with the Secretary at the regu- 
 lar business meeting next preceding. 
 
 SPECIMEN BY-LAWS.* 
 
 Article I. 
 
 This society shall hold a prayer-meeting on 
 
 evening of each week. The regular prayer- 
 meeting of the month shall be a consecration meeting, at 
 which the roll shall be called. 
 
 * If it is thought that these rules and regulations are unnecessarily 
 long, it should be borne distinctly in mind that these specimen By- 
 Laws are simply given as suggestions 
 
 189 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Article II.— Method of Conducting the Consecration 
 Meeting. 
 
 At this meeting the roll may be called by the leader 
 during the meeting or at its close. After the opening 
 exercises, the names of five or more may be called, and 
 then a hymn sung or a prayer offered. The committees 
 may be called by themselves, or other variations of the 
 roll-call introduced. Thus varied, with singing and 
 prayer interspersed, the entire roll shall be called. 
 
 Article III. — Business Meetings. 
 
 The society shall hold its regular business * meeting 
 
 in connection with the regular prayer-meeting 
 
 in the month. Special business meetings may be held 
 at the call of the President. 
 
 Article IV. — Elections. 
 
 The election of officers and committees shall be held at 
 the first business meeting in 
 
 A Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the 
 President at least two weeks previous to the time for 
 electing new officers. Of this committee the pastor shall 
 be a member ex officio. It is understood that these offi- 
 cers are chosen subject to the approval of the church. 
 If there is no objection on the part of the church, the 
 election stands. The following causes of the By-Laws 
 may be read at the society before each semi-annual elec- 
 tion of officers : 
 
 While membership on the board of officers or commit- 
 tees of this society should be distributed as evenly as 
 the best good of the society will warrant, among the dif- 
 ferent members, the offices shall not be considered places 
 of honor to be striven for, but simply opportunities for 
 
 * This business meeting will usually be simply for the hearing of 
 reports from the committees, or for such matters as will not detract 
 from the spiritual tone of the meeting. All matters requiring dis- 
 cussion, it will he remembered, are to be brought before the Execu- 
 tive Committee, and not before the society. 
 
 190 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 increased usefulness, and any ill feeling or jealousy 
 springing from this cause shall be deemed unworthy a 
 member of the Society of Christian Endeavor. When, 
 however, a member has been fairly elected, it is expected 
 that he will consider his office a sacred trust, to be con- 
 scientiously accepted, and never to be declined except 
 for most urgent and valid reasons. 
 
 Article V. — New Members* 
 
 Applications for membership may be made on printed 
 forms, which shall be supplied by the Lookout Commit- 
 tee and returned to them for consideration. 
 
 Names may be proposed for membership one week be- 
 fore the business meeting, and shall be voted on by the 
 society at that meeting. The Lookout Committee may, 
 in order to satisfy itself of the Christian character of the 
 candidate, present to all candidates for active or associ- 
 ate membership the appropriate membership pledge to 
 be signed. (The form of these pledges may be found 
 elsewhere. ) 
 
 Article VI. 
 
 Persons who have forfeited their membership may be 
 readmitted on recommendation of the Lookout Commit- 
 tee and pastor and by vote of the members present at 
 any regular business meeting. 
 
 Article VII. 
 
 New members shall sign the Constitution, which shall 
 contain the pledge, within four weeks from their elec- 
 tion, to confirm the vote of the society. 
 
 * Great care should be taken that new members understand their 
 duties and the obligations of the pledge, and it should be explained 
 to them how reasonable, Scriptural, and possible of fulfilment it is. 
 Emphasis should be laid upon the fact that nothing more is de- 
 manded in the Christian Endeavor pledge than in the average church 
 covenant, only the duties are made specific; also that an excuse 
 which one can give to the Master is always accepted, and that no 
 other should be urged for the non -performance of any duty. 
 
 191 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Article VIII. 
 
 Any one who can not accept the office to which he may- 
 be elected shall notify the President before the next busi- 
 ness meeting, at which the vacancy shall be filled. In 
 the mean time, the former officer holds the position. 
 
 Article IX. 
 
 Letters of introduction to other Christian Endeavor 
 societies shall be given to members in good standing who 
 apply to be released from their obligations to the society, 
 this release to take effect when they shall become mem- 
 bers of another society ; until then, their names shall be 
 kept on the Absent List. Members removing to other 
 places, or desiring to join other Christian Endeavor soci- 
 eties in the same city or town, are requested to obtain 
 letters of introduction within six months from the time 
 of their leaving, unless they shall give satisfactory rea- 
 sons to the society for their further delay. 
 
 Article X. 
 
 Other committees may be added, according to the 
 needs of local societies, whose duties may be defined as 
 follows : 
 
 Information Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to gather information concerning Endeavorers 
 or Endeavor work in all parts of the world, and to re- 
 port the same. For this purpose, five minutes shall be 
 set aside at the beginning of each meeting. 
 
 Sunday -School Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to endeavor to bring into the Sunday-school 
 those who do not attend elsewhere, and to cooperate 
 with the Superintendent and officers of the school in any 
 ways which they may suggest for the benefit of the Sun- 
 day-school. 
 
 Calling Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
 tee to have a special care for those among the young peo- 
 ple who do not feel at home in the church, to call on 
 them, and to remind others where calls should be made. 
 
 192 
 
Model Constitution 
 
 Music Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
 tee to provide for the singing at the young people's meet- 
 ing, and also to turn the musical ability of the society to 
 account, when necessary, at public religious meetings. 
 
 Missionary Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to provide for regular missionary meetings, 
 to interest the members of the society in all ways in 
 missionary topics, and to aid, in any manner which 
 may seem practicable, the cause of home and foreign 
 missions. 
 
 Flower Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
 tee to provide flowers for the pulpit, and to distribute 
 them to the sick at the close of the Sabbath services. 
 
 Temperance Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to do what may be deemed best to promote 
 temperance principles and sentiment among the mem- 
 bers of the society. 
 
 Belief Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
 tee to do what it can to cheer and aid, by material com- 
 forts if possible and necessary, the sick and destitute 
 among the young people of the church and Sunday- 
 school. 
 
 Good-Literature Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to do its utmost to promote the reading of 
 good books and papers. To this end it shall do what it 
 can to circulate the religious newspaper representing the 
 society among its members, also to obtain subscribers for 
 the denominational papers or magazines among the fam- 
 ilies of the congregation as the pastor and church may 
 direct. It may, if deemed best, distribute tracts and 
 religious leaflets, and in any other suitable way which 
 may be desired introduce good reading matter wherever 
 practicable. 
 
 Other committees not here found may be added as oc- 
 casion may demand and the church may desire. 
 
 Article XL 
 
 Members who can not meet with this society for a time 
 are requested to obtain leave of absence, which shall be 
 13 193 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 granted by the Lookout Commitee and pastor and with- 
 drawn at any time by the same, and their names shall be 
 placed on the Absent List. 
 
 Article XII. 
 
 members shall constitute a quorum. 
 
 Article XIII. 
 
 These By-Laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote 
 of the members present at any regular meeting, provided 
 that notice of such amendment is given in writing and 
 is recorded by the Secretary at least one week before the 
 amendment is acted upon. 
 
 Appendix III 
 
 JUNIOE SOCIETIES OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
 
 The demand for Junior societies has been as spontane- 
 ous as it is pressing. It is a natural and inevitable out- 
 growth of the Christian Endeavor movement. Many 
 pastors and churches have felt that, while the Young 
 People's Society of Christian Endeavor was admirably 
 answering the needs of the young men and women, and 
 of the older boys and girls, yet the younger boys and 
 girls, who could not attend the regular weekly prayer- 
 meeting held in the evening, were, in some degree, left 
 out of the plan. In thousands of churches this lack has 
 been supplied by the introduction of Junior Societies of 
 Christian Endeavor, into which the children are taken, 
 and from which they are graduated, when old enough, 
 into the Young People's Society. The suggestions here 
 given have come to me very largely from others who 
 have successfully tried these plans. 
 
 Who Should Belong? 
 
 Various answers are given to this question. The prac- 
 tise of wise superintendents differs in regard to the age 
 
 194 
 
Junior Societies 
 
 limit, tho the usual age is, perhaps, from seven to 
 fourteen. A child might attend and be a preparatory 
 member as soon as he is old enough to understand that 
 he must be quiet and reverent during the meeting. Still, 
 it is difficult to draw any age limit on the younger side, 
 and perhaps it is not necessary. The age line is drawn 
 largely by the necessities of the case. 
 
 The call for Junior societies comes from the fact that 
 there are many boys and girls who ought to be brought 
 under direct religious influence whose parents will not, 
 and should not, allow them to go out in the evening, 
 when meetings of the Young People's Society are neces- 
 sarily held. For them meetings should be appointed in 
 the afternoon (and a week day is better than Sunday), 
 or at least in the early evening. It is also true that 
 these younger children, while there are many things in 
 their society which they can do for themselves, are not 
 quite old enough to carry on their organization fully. 
 They particularly need the guidance of some older Chris- 
 tian friends. This brings us to the question : 
 
 Who should Be at the Head of the Junior 
 Society ? 
 
 Some one or two or more of the older and more judi- 
 cious members of the Young People's Society, I should 
 say ; but be sure they have a great love for children in 
 their hearts. They will need tact and "consecrated com- 
 mon sense. " 
 
 What Pledge should the Children Take? 
 
 A pledge as much like the pledge of the older society 
 as their years will allow. I do not think it is too much 
 to ask of even the boys and girls of seven or eight to 
 pray and read the Bible every day, to try and live Chris- 
 tian lives, and to show it by being present at the weekly 
 meeting and taking some part therein. There are some 
 expressions of the Christian life which are just as appro- 
 priate to the boy of eight as to the youth of eighteen or 
 
 195 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 the man of forty-eight, and it is just as important that 
 he should give utterance to these expressions. 
 
 We do not expect a little oration or a vivid experience 
 each week from them. The Christian Endeavor idea is 
 utterly antagonistic to anything of that sort ; but there 
 are simple words of confession which are just as appro- 
 priate for the little child to use as the more elaborate 
 forms are for his father. 
 
 There is no danger of beginning too young. Our older 
 societies will be stronger, and so will our churches, if 
 these little ones begin aright. In churches where there 
 are flourishing Junior as well as Young People's Societies 
 of Christian Endeavor, I predict very few "dumb Chris- 
 tians " in twenty years from now. One of the dangers 
 that will meet the superintendent is that of trying to 
 do all the work and most of the talking. A Junior 
 society is not a primary Sunday-school class. It is a 
 training-school where the children learn by speaking 
 and praying and filling the offices and working on the 
 committees. 
 
 And now for the conclusion of the whole matter : If, 
 in your Sunday-school, there are a number of boys and 
 girls who are too young for the regular society, but not 
 too young to come to Jesus and be trained for Him, con- 
 sider carefully whether the Junior society is not the thing 
 for them. Count the cost ; remember that it will require 
 work for some one to keep it in a flourishing condition. 
 (The difficulty is not in starting, but in sustaining such 
 a society. ) Then if you are convinced that such an aux- 
 iliary is what you need, go forward and start a Junior 
 society "for Christ and the Church." 
 
 MODEL CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS. 
 
 Article I. — Name. 
 
 This society shall be called the Junior Society oe 
 Christian Endeavor of 
 
 ' 196 
 
Junior Societies 
 
 Article II. — Object. 
 
 Its object shall be to promote an earnest Christian life 
 among the boys and girls who shall become members, 
 and prepare them for the active service of Christ. 
 
 Article III. — Membership. 
 
 1. The members shall consist of two classes, active 
 and preparatory.* 
 
 2. Active members. Any boy and girl between the 
 
 ages of and , inclusive, who shall 
 
 be approved by the superintendent and assistant, may 
 become an active member of the society by taking the 
 following pledge : 
 
 JUNIOR MEMBERSHIP PLEDGE. 
 
 Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise 
 Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to 
 have me do, that I will pray and read the Bible every day, 
 and that, just so far as I know how, I will try to lead a 
 Christian life. I will be present at every meeting of the 
 society when I can, and will take some part in every meet- 
 ing. 
 
 Name 
 
 I am willing that should sign this pledge, 
 
 and will do all I can to help keep it. 
 
 Parent's name 
 
 Residence 
 
 3. Preparatory members shall be those who wish to be- 
 long to the society, but whose parents are not quite ready 
 to let them sign the pledge. They will be expected to 
 attend the meetings regularly, and it is hoped that this 
 will be considered simply as a preparation for active 
 membership. 
 
 * Note.— Some societies also provide for Honorary members, con- 
 sisting of the pastor, President of the Young People's Society, and 
 mothers that are especially interested in the society and desire to 
 helr> it bv their prayers and occasional attendance. 
 
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Training the Church of the Future 
 
 The preparatory members shall take the following 
 pledge : 
 
 As a preparatory member I promise to be present at 
 every meeting when I can, and to be quiet and reverent 
 during the meeting. 
 
 Signed 
 
 Article IV. — Officers. 
 
 The officers of the society shall be one or more super- 
 intendents chosen by the Young People's Society, with 
 the approval of the church and pastor ; also a President, 
 Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, who shall be 
 chosen by the boys and girls. There shall also be a 
 Lookout Committee, a Prayer-Meeting Committee, a So- 
 cial Committee, a Missionary Committee, and such other 
 committees as the superintendents may deem best. 
 These committees shall be nominated by the superinten- 
 dents and elected by the society. 
 
 AiiTiCLB V.— Duties of Officers. 
 
 1. The Superintendent shall have full control of the so- 
 ciety. 
 
 2. The Assistant Superintendent shall aid the Superin- 
 tendent in her work. The Assistant shall take care of 
 all funds belonging to the society, the money being 
 turned over to her by the Treasurer at the close of each 
 meeting. 
 
 3. The President shall conduct the business meetings, 
 under the direction of the Superintendent. 
 
 4. The Vice-President shall act in the absence of the 
 President. 
 
 5. The Secretary shall keep a correct list of the mem- 
 bers, take the minutes of the business meetings, aud call 
 the names at the roll-call meetings. 
 
 6. The Treasurer shall take up the collections, enter 
 the amount in the account-book, and turn over the 
 money to the Assistant Superintendent, and also enter 
 all expenditures as directed by the Superintendent. 
 
 198 
 
Junior Societies 
 
 Article VI. — Duties of Committees. 
 
 1. The Lookout Committee shall secure the names of any 
 who may wish to join the society, and report the same to 
 the superintendents for action. They shall also obtain 
 excuses from members absent from the roll-call, and 
 affectionately look after and reclaim any who seem indif- 
 ferent to their pledge. 
 
 2. The Prayer -Meeting Committee shall, in connection 
 with the Superintendent, select topics, assign leaders, 
 and do what it can to secure faithfulness to the prayer- 
 meeting pledge. 
 
 3. The Social Committee shall welcome the children to 
 the meetings, and introduce them to the other members 
 of the society. They may also arrange for occasional 
 sociables. 
 
 Article VII. — Relationship. 
 
 The Junior society is a part of the church, and its rela- 
 tion to the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
 should be close and intimate. It is expected that when 
 the members of the Junior society hare reached their age 
 limit, they will enter the Christian Endeavor Society as 
 active members. 
 
 Article VIII. — Meetings. 
 
 1. A prayer-meeting shall be held once every week. 
 A consecration meeting shall be held once a month, at 
 which the pledge shall be read and the roll called, and 
 the responses of the members shall be considered a re- 
 newal of the pledge of the society. If any member is 
 absent from three consecutive consecration meetings, 
 without excuse, his name shall be dropped from the list 
 of members. 
 
 2. Part of the hour of the weekly meeting may, if 
 deemed best, be used by the pastor or Superintendent of 
 the society for instruction, or for other exercises which 
 they may approve. 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 BY-LAWS.* 
 
 1. The society shall hold a prayer-meeting on 
 
 of each week. The last regular 
 
 meeting of each month shall be a consecration meeting. 
 The business meeting may be held in connection with the 
 first regular meeting of each month. 
 
 2. The officers and committees shall be chosen in 
 and and continue six months, be- 
 ginning on the first of the month following their election. 
 
 3. Special meetings of the society may be held at any 
 time, at the call of the Superintendent. 
 
 4. A collection shall be taken at the consecration meet- 
 ing, and at the other meetings if desired, the money thus 
 obtained to be held available for benevolent objects and 
 to meet the expenses of the society. 
 
 5. All committees should meet at least once a month 
 for consultation with the Superintendent in regard to 
 their work. 
 
 0. All expenditures shall be made under the direction 
 of the Superintendent. 
 
 7. Other committees may be added, whose duties shall 
 be defined as follows: 
 
 The Mwiie Committee shall distribute and collect the 
 singing-books, and cooperate with the leader of the 
 meeting in trying in every way to make the singing a 
 success. 
 
 The Missionary Committee shall arrange for an occasional 
 missionary meeting, and seek to interest the members in 
 home and foreign work. 
 
 The Temperance Committee shall arrange for an occa- 
 sional temperance meeting, and circulate a temperance 
 pledge among the members. 
 
 The Sunday-School Committee shall secure the names of 
 children who do not attend Sunday-school, and invite 
 them to become members of the Sunday-school. 
 
 * It is hoped that so far as possible the societies will adhere to the 
 Model Constitution, making all necessary local changes in the By- 
 laws. 
 
 200 
 
Claim upon the Churches 
 
 The Flower Committee shall provide flowers for the 
 Sunday-school room, and distribute fruit and flowers to 
 the sick and needy. 
 
 The Scrap-Book Committee shall collect pictures and 
 clippings, and make scrap-books for sick and disabled 
 members and for distribution in the hospitals. 
 
 The Relief Committee shall collect clothing for the des- 
 titute children found in the Sunday-school and society, 
 and bring it to the Superintendent for distribution. 
 
 The Birthday Committee shall report all birthdays as 
 they occur among the members, so that special prayer 
 may be offered for each member on his or her birthday. 
 
 8. This Constitution and these By-Laws may be altered 
 or amended any time the superintendents and pastor find 
 it necessary. 
 
 Appendix IV 
 
 CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR AS A WORLD-WIDE 
 
 MOVEMENT. AND ITS CLAIM UPON THE 
 
 CHURCHES 
 
 By FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 
 
 Occasionally I hear of a pastor who gives up his Chris- 
 tian Endeavor society as an old coat would be laid aside, 
 or of a church that disbands its society as jauntily as a 
 housewife discharges her cook. 
 
 Ten times oftener I hear of new societies being formed 
 and of pastors and chinches guarding them as choice 
 treasures. Still, the former cases occur often enough to 
 call for a few words of comment, and to lead me to ask 
 and to attempt to answer the question, What claim has 
 Christian Endeavor as a movement upon the churches'? 
 
 First. 
 
 It has a claim because it stands for the largest and 
 strongest Christian fellowship and federation of Christian 
 young people known to-day. A society that drops out 
 
 201 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 of the ranks of Christian Endeavor drops out of this fel- 
 lowship, and there is nothing to take its place. 
 
 There is absolutely no other interdenominational and 
 international Christian federation in the world for young 
 people, and nothing like it as yet for the older people of 
 our churches. 
 
 While we have been longing for the spiritual federation, 
 and praying for it, and singing about it, it has come 
 without observation, and is an actual fact.* 
 
 Second. 
 
 Christian Endeavor can and does promote an esprit de 
 corps that is possible only because the movement is so 
 widespread in the nations and denominations. 
 
 The Standard Dictionary defines the above French 
 phrase as a "spirit of common devotedness, sympathy, or 
 support among the members of an association or body " ; 
 and this is a most valuable asset of Christian Endeavor. 
 
 It increases the value of every society to its own 
 church. It affects for good every prayer-meeting. It 
 may inspire every committee. It thrills every conven- 
 tion. 
 
 Moreover, this and the other wider aspects and results 
 of Christian Endeavor are so plainly providential that 
 they can not wisely be neglected by any thinking Chris- 
 
 * The impression is sometimes industriously circulated that as a 
 federation of the young people of the churches. Christian Endeavor 
 has failed, and that a new federation is needed. Let us see what 
 denominations are in the Christian Endeavor federation already. 
 Practically all the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Disciples of 
 Christ, Christians, Moravians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed 
 Presbyterians, Reformed Church of America, and the Reformed 
 Church in the United States, the United Evangelical Association, 
 Reformed Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, Primitive Methodist, 
 Free Baptists, Mennonites, Church of God, Friends, African Metho- 
 dist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion, large sections 
 of the Baptist, Lutheran, United Presbyterian, and United Brethren 
 churches, and smaller sections of the Protestant Episcopal and 
 Methodist Episcopal churches. This in the United States alone; 
 while in Canada and other countries our fellowship is even more in- 
 clusive. Surely this is a goodly federation to have grown up virtu- 
 ally in twenty years ! 
 
 202 
 
Claim upon the Churches 
 
 tian. They have not been built up with pains and toil 
 by any man. They have all grown from a seed of God's 
 planting. Is it not fair to say that he who opposes them 
 seems to oppose one of God's methods of training and 
 inspiring the young 1 
 
 Third. 
 
 Christian Endeavor stands peculiarly for Christian citi- 
 zenship. 
 
 As a movement it can do for this great cause, so dear to 
 every patriot, what is utterly impossible for a local soci- 
 ety or a purely denominational organization that has no 
 affiliations with a world-movement. It can propose and 
 project efforts, and bring things to pass, and hold inspir- 
 ing mass-meetings that are impossible except where mil- 
 lions of youth in many communions are banded together. 
 For instance, the memorial in behalf of peace and inter- 
 national arbitration, which received the distinguished 
 approval of The Hague Peace Commissioners, and the 
 "Civic Clubs," recently proposed for the discussion and 
 study of municipal affairs, are two examples from many 
 of what is possible only to a general movement and im- 
 possible to a local society. 
 
 Fourth. 
 
 Christian Endeavor stands for Christian missions, and can 
 do so in the most effective way because it exists in a 
 hundred denominations and in fifty countries. The sense 
 of brotherhood with a multitude of other young Endeav- 
 orers of every nation and kindred and people and tongue 
 beneath the sun, is necessary to the full quickening of 
 missionary zeal of the largest, most catholic, and most 
 Christ-like quality. The local society that withdraws 
 from this fellowship must inevitably lose something of 
 this quickening sense of enthusiasm for the redemption 
 of the world. 
 
 Fifth. 
 
 Christian Endeavor has lately come to stand for the Chris- 
 tian home, and will increasingly be identified with this 
 
 203 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 thought. "Family Worship," "Household Keligion," 
 "Filial Piety," will be written upon its banners. These 
 are great words and greatly needed efforts, which can be 
 projected and promoted only by a national and interna- 
 tional movement. 
 
 It is not likely to be shared in fully except by the soci- 
 eties that are in the movement. 
 
 Sixth. 
 
 Christian Endeavor stanch for the Quiet Hour of medita- 
 tion and communion with God. It advocates it, furnishes 
 helps for it, identifies itself with this thought in all its 
 publications and conventions. Such an effort to embody 
 and vivify in millions of hearts a great truth like this 
 is possible only to a movement that is found in every 
 church and every land. 
 
 Seventh. 
 
 The experiment of independence is not an untried one. 
 First and last, during the last twenty years, the plan has 
 been tried many times of withdrawing from the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor fellowship and setting up an independent 
 society, or a purely denominational society. 
 
 Has there been any corresponding gain to compensate 
 for the heavy losses'? Are the prayer-meetings of the 
 independent societies more helpful ; is their committee 
 work more efficient; is their loyalty more unquestioned! 
 I have never heard that tlrs was the case in a single in- 
 stance. I have often heard of irreparable losses in these 
 respects. 
 
 Eighth. 
 
 Here is a movement that has grown up from a tiny 
 mustard-seed in the providence of God. 
 
 It has not been built with ecclesiastical hammer and 
 nails, or stuck together with the adhesive plaster of 
 churchly authority. It has a natural, spontaneous, nec- 
 essary growth from the seed. 
 
 The seed flourishes in any garden-spot the world 
 around where it is cared for. If it is not growing straight 
 
 204 
 
A Quiet-Hour Catechism 
 
 and comely, it can be pruned and invigorated and 
 trained. It can always be mended; it need never be 
 ended. 
 
 The church that gives up its society of Christian 
 Endeavor is giving up not a name, not a method, not 
 a form of pledge merely. In all these things the So- 
 ciety is flexible, and may be adapted to any church or 
 denomination. 
 
 Ninth. 
 
 It is not simply giving up connection with a United 
 Society or World's Union, but it is giving up a world- 
 wide fellowship and its share in helping and being helped 
 by teus of thousands of other societies and nearly four 
 millions of other young people, to be more useful in oth- 
 er churches, to be better citizens, better missionaries to 
 others, better home-makers, better men and women. 
 
 Are these things to be lightly treated and carelessly 
 put one side! 
 
 Not a few societies that have isolated themselves from 
 the movement, or have been withdrawn from it by pas- 
 tor or church, have come back into it with new apprecia- 
 tion of its value. lu the name of the Christian Endeavor 
 hosts the world around, we cordially and heartily invite 
 all young people's societies of similar aims and methods 
 to join the ever-increasing ranks of Christian Endeavor, 
 that we may have the blessing of their fellowship, and 
 that they may share the inspiration, the fellowship, the 
 zeal, the tried and prove methods of a world-movement. 
 
 Appendix V 
 
 A QUIET-HOUR CATECHISM 
 
 By FRANCIS E CLARK, D.D. 
 
 The following questions and answers will perhaps help 
 some to a better understanding of the Quiet Hour. 
 
 205 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Question. — What is the Quiet Hour? 
 
 Answer. — It is the time set apart each day for personal 
 communion with God. 
 
 Ques. — Why should we keep the Quiet Hour? 
 
 Ans. — Because our souls need it. Because our work 
 demands it, and the larger our work and the busier our 
 lives, the more we need it. Because otherwise God is 
 likely to get crowded out of our busy lives. Because 
 Christ's example commends it. Because every eminent 
 saint has practised such quiet communion. Because we 
 should take time to talk with God, as well as for business, 
 school, or pleasure. Because we must listen to God be- 
 fore we can do His will. Because it will give a new 
 meaning to prayer, and make of the Bible a different 
 book to us. Because all who have practised it faithfully 
 tell us it has brought joy and sweetness into their lives, 
 and power for service. Because they all unite in saying 
 that when faithfully observed it makes life infinitely 
 fuller and richer. 
 
 Ques. — How should the Quiet Hour be kept? 
 
 Ans. — Each one must decide for himself. Part of it 
 will be spent in reading, with meditation, devotional 
 passages of the Bible; part, perhaps, in reading some 
 devotional book; part in petition for special blessing; 
 but some part should also be spent in sitting quietly be- 
 fore God, realizing, " practising " His presence ; opening 
 the soul to Him ; listening to His voice. 
 
 Ques. — Is there not danger that it will cultivate a mor- 
 bid introspectiveness, or separate life into sacred and sec- 
 ular periods? 
 
 Ans. — This is not the experience of those who have 
 practised it. It has made all of life more wholesome and 
 better worth living, and has brought the presence of God 
 into every humble daily task. 
 
 Ques. — Does the "Quiet Hour" mean a literal hour of 
 sixty minutes? 
 
 -4ms. — No, it means "at least fifteen minutes," better 
 still, half an hour ; enough time genuinely to realize the 
 presence of God, and quietly to commune with Him. 
 
 206 
 
A Quiet-Hour Catechism 
 
 We believe that fifteen minutes a day is the least time 
 that should thus be given. 
 
 Ques. — Must the Quiet Hour always be observed in the 
 morning ? 
 
 Ans. — No, the title "Quiet Hour" was deliberately 
 chosen rather than the "Morning Watch " to give liberty 
 in the time of its observance ; but we very strongly ad- 
 vise the first morning hour immediately on rising and 
 before breakfast. Busy men and women will find this 
 almost the only time of which they can be sure. 
 
 Ques. — Can others besides Endeavorers become "Com- 
 rades of the Quiet Hour " ? 
 
 Ans. — Yes. Any one who will, young or old. We 
 hope Endeavorers will get as many other Christians as 
 possible to join them as "Comrades." 
 
 Ques. — Can one ever withdraw from membership? 
 
 Ans. — Yes, at any time, by sending word and ask- 
 ing to have the name taken from the list of the Com- 
 rades. 
 
 Ques. — But supposing I should forget, or over-sleep, or 
 be taken delirious, or for some reason I should fail to 
 keep the Quiet Hour, should I not be perjuring myself if 
 I sign this covenant? 
 
 Ans. — No, because we promise to make it "the rule of 
 our life, " and a " rule " allows reasonable and necessary 
 exceptions. But when we once learn the blessedness of 
 the Quiet Hour, we shall find that there will be very few 
 exceptions to the rule. 
 
 Ques. — Will subjects be given for meditation, and di- 
 rections for making the most of the Quiet Hour? 
 
 Ans.— Yes; suggestions of this sort will be made, 
 which can be followed or not as each one pleases. The 
 Christian Endeavor World will take special pains to give 
 many hints and helps for the Quiet Hour from the most 
 eminent writers, like Murray, Meyer, Cuyler, Miller, 
 Chapman, Moody, and many others. 
 
 Ques.— How can laboring men, who have to be at their 
 work at seven o'clock in the morning, and perhaps walk 
 two miles to get to it, keep the Quiet Hour? How can 
 
 207 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 ** ■ I — ■■ — .■!■■ I. II. ... I III 
 
 busy, tired mothers, who haye little or no privacy, keep 
 it? 
 
 Ans. — I have the fullest sympathy with these classes. 
 My own labors are exhausting, and often keep me up 
 until midnight or later, and the morning nap is sweet ; 
 but I have found the Quiet Hour invaluable, and I be- 
 lieve that there are very few who can not, if they will, 
 get this quiet fifteen minutes, and none who will not find 
 vast profit in it. It will mean fifteen minutes less sleep, 
 but ten times fifteen minutes of refreshment and physical, 
 mental, and spiritual tonic. 
 
 Ques. — What is the covenant of the Comrades of the 
 Quiet Hour? 
 
 Ans. — Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I 
 will male it the rule of my life to set apart at least fifteen 
 minutes every day, if possible in the early morning, for quirt 
 meditation and direct communion with God. 
 
 Ques. — How can I become a Comrade of the Quiet 
 Hour? 
 
 Ans. — Send your name and address and the church to 
 which you belong, with a stamp to cover postage, to 
 Rev. Francis E. Clark, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. , 
 and your name will be enrolled and a covenant card will 
 be duly sent you to sign and keep. 
 
 Will you not interest your friends in this most impor- 
 tant movement, and send to the above address a list of 
 those who desire to become "Comrades" ? 
 
 Appendix VI 
 
 FACTS ABOUT THE TENTH LEGION OF THE 
 UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
 
 Prom a Leaflet by John Willis Baer. 
 
 Question. — "The Tenth Legion" — what is it? 
 
 Answer. — An enrolment of Christians whose practise it 
 is to give to God for His work not less than one-tenth of 
 their income. 
 
 208 
 
The Tenth Legion 
 
 Ques. — Who gave it the name? 
 
 Ans. — The New York City Christian Endeavor Union 
 originated this tithe-givers' league. 
 
 Ques. — Where are the headquarters now? 
 
 Ans. — At the office of the United Society of Christian 
 Endeavor, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Ques. — How did it come to be adopted by the United 
 Society of Christian Endeavor? 
 
 Ans. — At the request of the New York Union. It 
 never aspired to a national enrolment; and when the 
 plan became known outside of New York, the demand for 
 information became so extensive that the United Society, 
 believing heartily in the "proportionate" giving to God, 
 accepted the suggestion of W. L. Amerman, the origina- 
 tor of the plan, and early in the year 1897 commenced to 
 promote the "Tenth Legion." 
 
 Ques. — What is the motto of the Tenth Legion? 
 
 Ans. — "Bender unto God the things that are God's." 
 
 Ques. — Are any members enrolled that do not give as 
 much as one -tenth of their income? 
 
 Ans. — No. 
 
 Ques. — How may we become enrolled as members of 
 the Tenth Legion ? 
 
 Ans. — Send a two-cent stamp and make application to 
 John Willis Baer, Tremont Temple, Boston. A hand- 
 somely engraved certificate will then be mailed you. 
 
 Ques. — Are there any dues or taxes? 
 
 Ans. — None whatever. 
 
 Ques.— Is membership limited to Christian Endeavor- 
 ers? 
 
 Am.—'So. Any one that gives God the tithe may 
 join. 
 
 Ques.— Is not this idea of tithe-giving a narrow, legal, 
 Jewish view of the whole question? Should we not con- 
 secrate the whole of our income rather than a small frac- 
 tion? 
 
 Ans. —Every true tithe-giver does consecrate the whole 
 of his property, but he also specifically gives at least one- 
 tenth for the spread of the kingdom of God, while the 
 14 209 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 average gift of Christians for this purpose is not one- 
 hundredth part of their income. This is a Christian 
 vow, and is not a Jewish law simply because the Jews 
 practised it. The Ten Commandments and the Sabbath 
 belong to the Christian as well as to the Jew. 
 
 Ques. — Are members that have for years given God the 
 tithe eligible to membership, or is the Tenth Legion or- 
 ganized for those that are beginners ? 
 
 Ans. — It is for all that would like to be enrolled. 
 
 Ques. — What is the use of joining the Tenth Legion? 
 
 Ans. — To give this movement for generous giving the 
 inspiration of numbers, and to enable you to push tithe- 
 giving more forcibly yourself. As one tithe-giver of 
 long standing says: "I have never before openly urged 
 the practise for fear of seeming egotistical, but now I 
 can urge the Tenth Legion." 
 
 Ques. — Can one withdraw at any time! 
 
 Ans. — Yes, and at the same time the certificate must 
 be surrendered. 
 
 Ques. — Are the names of the members published? 
 
 Am. — No. The enrolment is considered strictly confi- 
 dential. 
 
 Ques. — Who is to decide what shall constitute the tenth 
 of one's income? 
 
 Ans. — You yourself, with God, conscientiously. 
 
 Ques. — Who decides how to spend the money? 
 
 Ans. — The giver himself, and this becomes one of his 
 greatest joys. 
 
 Ques. — Shall the net or the gross income be tithed ? 
 
 Am. — In the case of a salaried man, the gross income; 
 in the case of a business man, the net income, after busi- 
 ness expenses are deducted. 
 
 Ques. — What if one has no fi.vrd income? 
 
 Ans. — Tithe whatever money comes to you. 
 
 Ques. — What if one is in debt? 
 
 Ans. — Our debt to God takes precedence of our debt to 
 man. The latter must be paid, of course, and a tithe- 
 giver will usually have more wherewith to pay his debts 
 than if he had not given the tithe. 
 
 210 
 
The Tenth Legion 
 
 Ques. — Is any part of the money to be given to the 
 work of the United Society of Christian Endeavor? 
 
 Ans. — Not one penny. The United Society asks noth- 
 ing for itself, and does not even receive voluntary con- 
 tributions. 
 
 Ques. — Is it well to have a definite plan for spending 
 the money! 
 
 Ans. — If you reserve something for the unexpected 
 calls, yes. At the beginning of every year decide on a 
 schedule of gifts to the mission boards of your denomi- 
 nation and to your church. 
 
 Ques. — Briefly, why should I recommend others to 
 join the Tenth Legion? 
 
 Ans. — Because you received ten-tenths of your income 
 from God, and should certainly return not less than one- 
 tenth to His work. 
 
 Because tithe-giving does not prevent your giving 
 more, if you have it to give. 
 
 Ques. — How may the claims of The Tenth Legion be 
 brought before the Young People's society or the 
 church ? 
 
 Ans. — You may use the ballots sold by the United So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor for the purpose of finding 
 out the present status of your members in this matter. 
 Price, postpaid, fifteen cents a hundred. Get some tithe- 
 giver to make an address. Have repeated the illustrated 
 address on the Tenth Legion, by Amos E. Wells, sold by 
 the United Society for $1.50 a hundred. Follow with 
 a testimony meeting. Circulate the application blanks. 
 Urge the matter personally. Appoint a Tenth-Legion 
 committee to push the plan in all these ways. 
 
 Ques.— Where can leaflets be had that advocate the 
 giving of not less than one-tenth to God ? 
 
 A ns. —Address Layman, 310 Ashland Avenue, Chica- 
 go, 111., and Publishing Department, United Society of 
 Christian Endeavor, Boston, Mass. ; also write to the 
 missionary boards of your own denomination. Ask 
 your pastor for the address of the latter. Send five 
 cents with your request, to pay postage. 
 
 211 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Ques. — Where can application blanks be obtained! 
 
 Am.— Slips like the following may be had of Secre- 
 tary Baer, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. Price, ten 
 cents a hundred. 
 
 "unto god the things that are god's" 
 
 ENROLMENT BLANK. 
 
 Please enrol my name in 
 
 THE TENTH LEGION 
 
 of the United Society of Christian Endeavor as a. Christian 
 ■whose practise it is to give Cod the tithe, and send me the certifi- 
 cate of membership. 
 
 Name 
 
 Address 
 
 Y. P. K C. E. of Church 
 
 To John Willis Baku, 
 
 Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 
 
 (Send a two -cent stamp ) 
 
 If local or city union officers desire large quantities of 
 this leaflet, they will be furnished for $1.50 a thousand, 
 postpaid. 
 
 Appendix VII 
 
 THE MACEDONIAN PHALANX 
 
 By AMOS R. WELLS. 
 
 Ques. — What is the Macedonian Phalanx? 
 Am. — It is an enrolment of those that give to the sup- 
 port of individual missionaries and mission workers. 
 Ques. — Can individuals join? 
 212 
 
The Macedonian Phalanx 
 
 Ans.— Yes, if their individual gift is of the required 
 amount. 
 
 Ques. — Who else can join? 
 
 Ans. — Any Christian Endeavor society whose gift ful- 
 fils the conditions. 
 
 Ques. — What kind of missionary worker must be sup- 
 ported, in whole or part? 
 
 Ans. — Any missionary on the home or foreign field, or 
 a native preacher, teacher, Bible woman, or other Chris- 
 tian worker, or a student preparing for Christian work, 
 or some definite and distinct part of mission work, as 
 a hospital, free hospital bed, mission boat-building, 
 church-planting, supporting Sunday-schools, and the 
 like. 
 
 Ques. — How much money must be given ? 
 
 Ans. — At least twenty dollars a year. 
 
 Ques. — Suppose the church is carrying on this work, 
 and the individual or society contributes this amount to 
 the church fund for the purpose? 
 
 Ans. — That meets all requirements for membership. 
 
 Ques. — Suppose the Christian Endeavor Society joins 
 with the other societies of the same denomination for the 
 same purpose, contributing at least twenty dollars? 
 
 Ans. — Each society so doing has a right to membership 
 in the Phalanx. 
 
 Ques. — To whom are the contributions to be made? 
 
 Ans. — They are to be sent through the church to which 
 the society or the individual belongs, and to the regular 
 denominational missionary board. 
 
 Ques. — How often is the gift to be made? 
 
 Ans. — It is understood that the gift will be made once 
 a year, and if for any reason the annual gift can not be 
 made, the name should be withdrawn from membership. 
 
 Ques. — To whom are applications for membership to 
 be sent? 
 
 Ans.— To John Willis Baer, general secretary of the 
 United Society of Christian Endeavor, Tremont Temple, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Ques. — What is sent to the new member? 
 213 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Ans. — A handsome lithographed certificate of mem- 
 bership, suitable for framing. It may be hung up in the 
 society room as an incentive to missionary interest. At 
 the same time the name is recorded on the books of the 
 United Society of Christian Endeavor, and all items of 
 general interest in regard to the new members are re- 
 ported to the Endeavorers at large in the columns of 
 The Christian Endeavor World. 
 
 Ques. — Is there any charge for enrolment! 
 
 Ans. — None ; but ten cents is charged for the certifi- 
 cate, simply to cover the cost and postage. 
 
 Ques. — Are there any expenses connected with mem- 
 bership ! 
 
 Ans. — None whatever, no dues or fees, and no obliga- 
 tions except those already defined, which relate to the 
 annual gift. 
 
 Ques. — What is the purpose of the Macedonian Pha- 
 lanx? 
 
 Ans. — To encourage a close connection between the 
 giver and the missionary fields to which he is giving. It 
 is believed that this is a decided stimulus to missionary 
 zeal and generosity. 
 
 Ques. — How can this connection be promoted and util- 
 ized? 
 
 Ans. — By means of correspondence, by study of the 
 particular field, by frequent reports to the society con- 
 cerning it, by printing upon the society topic cards, 
 calendars, year-books, and the like, the name of the 
 missionary or the work supported, by displaying it 
 prominently in the prayer-meeting room, by often talk- 
 ing over the work in the Christian Endeavor meeting, 
 and praying for it. 
 
 Ques. — Does this support of a single worker diminish 
 interest in other workers, and other fields and mission 
 boards'? 
 
 Ans. — No; it has been proved conclusively by the ex- 
 perience of many societies and churches that it does not. 
 
 Ques. — Has this movement the support of the mission- 
 ary boards! 
 
 214 
 
The Civic Club 
 
 Am. — It has their cordial indorsement. Indeed, sev- 
 eral of them are maintaining workers for the very 
 purpose of furthering some such movement as this. 
 
 Ques. — Who is to assign the worker to be supported? 
 
 Ans. — Enter into correspondence with the mission 
 board whose work you wish to aid, and they will assign 
 you a worker and put you in communication with him or 
 her. 
 
 Ques. — What is hoped for from this movement? 
 
 Ans. — That it will make missions more real and vivid 
 by personal contact with these men and women who are 
 acting so nobly as our proxies, that it will increase our 
 personal devotion to the cause, that it will enlarge our 
 gifts greatly, add to the resources of the missionary 
 boards and make their income more certain, render 
 Christians more intelligent regarding the mission fields, 
 make their prayers more fervent for the success of mis- 
 sions, and in every way help toward the accomplishment 
 of the Great Commission. 
 
 Appendix VIII 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR CIVIC CLUB 
 By AMOS R. WELLS and FRANCIS E. CLARK. 
 
 For a long while Christian Endeavor has stood for 
 Christian citizenship. Much has been done by individ- 
 ual societies and unions, but no general concreted plan has 
 hitherto been proposed for making our abstract views on 
 good citizenship concrete. 
 
 As long ago as 1893, at the Montreal convention, it 
 was proposed and unanimously agreed that Christian 
 citizenship should be one of the departments of Christian 
 Endeavor as a movement, and in thousands of communi- 
 ties the thought has quickened the political conscience 
 of young men, aroused them to a sense of their civic 
 duty, and promoted most important reforms. 
 
 215 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 An Advance Step. 
 
 But the time has come for a new and advance step 
 along this line. 
 
 The murder of a beloved President by the red hand of 
 an anarchist, the big Tammany in New York City and 
 the little Tammanies that are smaller only because the 
 towns are smaller, the colossal corruption in Philadel 
 phia— all these evils call for the timely appeal of Dr. 
 Capen, the vigorous address of the trustees of the United 
 Society, and the practical constitution for "Christian 
 Endeavor Civic Clubs " outlined by Professor "Wells, and 
 printed in another part of this appendix. 
 
 A Campaign of Information. 
 
 The reason why corruption has been rampant in some 
 of our cities is that the people have not been informed, 
 have not taken pains to inform themselves of their own 
 municipal affairs. How many of my readers know how 
 they are governed ; are acquainted with their city char- 
 ter; know about their city's school system, its poor- 
 laws, its streets and sewers, the municipal platforms of 
 the parties and their political machinery f 
 
 The Civic Clubs will give just this information. They 
 afford a chance for study as well as for discussion. They 
 can go to the root of the matter. They may conduct a 
 campaign of information in regard to most important 
 matters that young citizens cau study. 
 
 The Lyceum Idea. 
 
 They will promote facility of public utterance and de- 
 bate on the questions of the day. Dr. Capen says that 
 young Irish-Americans are often better informed about 
 measures of current politics, and better able to debate 
 them, than young American-Americans, too many of 
 whom are interested in everything but their own city or 
 town. 
 
 216 
 
The Civic Club 
 
 The young Irish-Americans ought to have the influ- 
 ence and the offices if they have political information 
 and alertness in discussion. They will get them and 
 keep them. 
 
 The old-fashioned lyceum was a splendid practical 
 school for debate and information for many a country 
 boy. 
 
 The C. E. 0. C. (Christian Endeavor Civic Club) may 
 bring back the palmy days of the old lyceum in country 
 and city, and apply this greatly neglected force to the 
 regeneration of our political life. 
 
 Village Improvement. 
 
 In village improvement the Civic Club may be most 
 useful. There is not a village in the United States or 
 Canada, beautiful as many of them are, that may not be 
 improved by intelligent study of the situation and ener- 
 getic action, consulting, of course, older friends and en- 
 listing them in any proposed plans. 
 
 Many villages already have Improvement Societies, 
 which in every case, I believe, would rejoice in the 
 interest and cooperation of a Civic Club of young 
 people. 
 
 In fact, the vistas of usefulness that open up before 
 such a club are almost endless. A careful study of the 
 proposed constitution printed in this appendix will reveal 
 many of them, and a good manual of practical work is 
 Professor Wells's little book entitled "Citizens in Train- 
 ing. " 
 
 Let me ask every reader to consider whether there is 
 not room for a Civic Club in his local Christian Endeavor 
 union, if not in his society. 
 
 Count well the cost in time and energy, so that it may 
 not be a short-lived failure, and then "go in to win"— 
 to win a better nation, a better city, or a better village 
 through the Christian Endeavor Civic Club, 
 
 217 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 CONSTITUTION 
 
 Proposed for the Christian Endeavor Crvio 
 Clubs. 
 
 Article I.— Name. 
 
 This organization shall be called the Christian Endeav- 
 or Civic Club, Number (The number of the char- 
 ter issued by the United Society of Christian Endeavor. 
 If desired, the club may be called a Christian Endeavor 
 Congress, following the organization and methods of our 
 national Congress or legislatures, the members choosing 
 imaginary constituencies, bringing in bills, presenting 
 resolves, and conducting all the work of the organiza- 
 tion on legislative models. ) 
 
 Article II. — Object. 
 
 The object of the Christian Endeavor Civic Club shall 
 be the promotion of a better citizenship, through the 
 study of civic problems, through training in debate and 
 parliamentary practise, and through such active partici- 
 pation in public affairs as may be practicable and 
 proper. 
 
 Article III.— Motto. 
 
 The motto of the Civic Club shall be Virgil's words, 
 "The noblest motive is the public good." 
 
 Article IV. — Officers. 
 
 Its officers shall be a president, a vice-president, a 
 secretary, and a treasurer, whose duties shall be those 
 usually assigned to such officers. They shall be elected 
 annually, at the first meeting in , one nomi- 
 nation for each office being made through a nominating 
 committee appointed by the club two weeks before the 
 date of election. 
 
 Article V.—The Executive Committee. 
 The general conduct of the club shall be in the hands 
 of its officers, acting in conjunction with an executive 
 
 218 
 
The Civic Club 
 
 committee of five. This executive committee shall con- 
 sist of Christian Endeavorers, and shall be the connect- 
 ing link between the club and the Christian Endeavor 
 union (or society, if the clnb is formed under the aus- 
 pices of a single society). It shall report to the union 
 at its business meetings, and it shall present to the club 
 all candidates for membership, making an earnest en- 
 deavor to obtain for the club all suitable persons. 
 
 Article VI. — Membership. 
 
 Membership in the club shall be open to all young 
 men of good character who may be recommended by the 
 executive committee and elected by the club. They shall 
 become members on signing this constitution. 
 
 Article VII. — Meetings. 
 
 The club shall meet on the first and third Monday 
 evenings of each month. (Of course any week-day eve- 
 ning may be chosen, and the meetings may be held only 
 once a month. The summer meetings may be omitted. ) 
 The following order shall usually be followed : 
 
 1. Opening prayer. 
 
 2. Beading of the minutes. 
 
 3. Unfinished business. 
 
 4. Eeports of committees. 
 
 5. New business. 
 
 6. Eeports on current events, with discussion. 
 
 7. Study of civics, or 
 
 Address, followed by discussion, or 
 Debate, or 
 
 Eeport of committees of inquiry, followed by dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 8. Announcements. 
 
 9. Adjournment. 
 
 Article VIII. — Visitors. 
 
 Members of the club may invite their gentleman 
 friends to visit the club at any time. Occasional meet- 
 ings shall be set apart as ladies' nights, when each mem- 
 
 S 219 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 ber will be at liberty to invite his lady friends. By vote 
 of the club, occasional public meetings may be held. 
 
 Article IX. — Standing Committees. 
 
 The following standing committees shall be elected, at 
 the same time as the officers, in the same manner, and 
 to serve for a year. Each shall consist of three persons, 
 the one named first to serve as chairman. 
 
 1. Program Committee. This committee shall arrange 
 programs for the meetings, obtaining speakers, selecting 
 subjects for debate, outlining courses of study, and plan- 
 ning whatever additional features it can devise. All its 
 proposals must be presented to the club, for suggestions 
 and formal approval. 
 
 2. Publicity Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
 committee to make known, through the press and in 
 other ways, the work of the club, publishing its conclu- 
 sions, and seeking to arouse interest in its meetings 
 through posters and other advertisements. 
 
 3. Village Improvement Committee. This committee 
 shall study the condition of the community, and shall 
 make suggestions for the material and social welfare of 
 the town, first submitting to the club all its proposals. 
 (A large work is before this committee in many places 
 beautifying the streets, establishing drinking-fountains, 
 planting trees, founding town libraries, arranging lecture 
 courses, and the like. Of course, ordinarily, their work 
 can be done only by interesting in their plans the more 
 powerful advocacy of older citizens. ) 
 
 (Other committees may be added. ) 
 
 Article X. — Committees of Inquiry. 
 
 From time to time the club may appoint committees 
 of inquiry, large or small as it chooses, whose duty it 
 will be to make special studies of the phase of civics 
 assigned to them, presenting reports to the club as their 
 work proceeds, and suggesting to the program committee 
 speakers familiar with the subject given them to study, 
 
 220 
 
The Civic Club 
 
 and also topics for debate and discussion along the line 
 of their inquiry. (For example, such committees might 
 be formed to study and report on the public schools, the 
 streets and roads, temperance laws, building laws, fire 
 department, police department, public charities, prisons, 
 courts, elections, party organization, caucuses, city and 
 county organization, State legislature, post-offices, news- 
 papers, railroads, water-supply, Sabbath-observance, 
 asylums, public records, board of health, public library, 
 taxes. Public officials and others most intimately ac- 
 quainted with these themes should be invited to address 
 the club upon them, replying at the close to any ques- 
 tions the club may ask, — such officials, for example, as 
 street commissioners, members of the school board, 
 health officers, public register, selectman, assessor, 
 councilman, postmaster, water commissioner, judge of 
 election, prison warden, building inspector, public libra- 
 rian. ) Conclusions regarding these topics may be formu- 
 lated by the club and published. 
 
 Article XI. — Civic Action. 
 
 The club will not refrain from practical participation 
 in public affairs, provided always it strictly refuses to 
 take partizan action. For example, it may, for the 
 guidance of its members, obtain information concerning 
 the records of candidates, but it will pass no vote indors- 
 ing any candidate. It may petition and work for the 
 enactment of ordinances and statutes, but will not ally 
 itself with any political party. 
 
 Article XII. —Civic Studies. 
 
 The club may engage in the study of civics, either 
 through a text-book, under a leader, or through a course 
 of lectures. The reading and discussion of books and 
 articles on civic and patriotic themes shall form a por- 
 tion of its work. This study may be carried on at home, 
 and the results presented before the club in the form of 
 essays, abstracts, talks, or discussions. 
 
 juJi X 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Article XIII. — Cu rren t Events. 
 
 It will be one purpose of the club to keep its members 
 intelligent regarding the progress of the world's history. 
 To that end, reporters from the leading nations and 
 regions of the earth may be appointed, whose duty it 
 will be to become thoroughly informed concerning cur- 
 rent events in their respective fields, ready to report 
 them at any meeting, and answer questions concerning 
 them. These members may be called "Reporter for 
 Germany," "Reporter for the Southern States," "Re- 
 porter for India, " etc. 
 
 Article XIV. — Amendment. 
 
 This Constitution may be amended by a three-fourths 
 vote of the members present at any meeting, provided 
 notice of the proposed amendment has been given at a 
 meeting of the club two weeks in advance. 
 
 (This Constitution is proposed merely as an outline for 
 the guidance of the clubs, who will form their own con- 
 stitutions to meet the local needs and circumstances. 
 Many of the minor points here included might well be 
 relegated to a set of by-laws. It would be best to start 
 with a constitution as simple as possible, letting its 
 growth be a matter of experience. ) 
 
 Appendix IX 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR HOME CIRCLE 
 
 By FRANCIS E. CLARK, D D. 
 
 The time has come, I believe, to make definite and 
 more emphatic the advance step that was proposed three 
 years ago at Nashville and emphasized again at the Cin- 
 cinnati convention — the matter of Religion in the Home, 
 especially as centering about family worship. 
 
 Family religion is a foundation-stone of all our relig- 
 ious life in church and state, and family worship lies 
 
 222 
 
The Home Circle 
 
 near the foundation of all family religion. In building 
 the family altar, religion builds itself up. 
 
 Tho household prayers are not by any means the sum 
 of family religion, or even its beginning ; still they are 
 an expression of it — definite and genuine expression, 
 which has sadly fallen into disuse, and which Christian 
 Endeavor can most properly do its utmost to revive. 
 
 Natural Effort for Christian Endeavorers. 
 
 It is not a forced and unnatural thing for Christian 
 Endeavor to stand for family religion ; not a trick to add 
 something new, but a natural, legitimate development of 
 the Christian Endeavor movement. 
 
 There are tens of thousands of families now where one 
 or both of the heads of the household are or have been 
 active members of the Society. If Christian Endeavor 
 means anything to them, it means that they will carry 
 their religion into their new-made homes. But there are 
 others besides husbands and wives who control the des- 
 tinies of the home. The children, the brothers and sis- 
 ters, the unmarried aunts, all have responsibilities for 
 establishing and maintaining home religion; and in 
 many homes they can, if they will, have family prayers. 
 It is as natural that Christian Endeavor should stand for 
 Christian family life as for Christian citizenship for 
 Christian missions. 
 
 Who Seconds the Motion? 
 
 Who will second this new effort of Christian Endeavor? 
 I want to hear about ten thousand seconds; and, to 
 make the matter very definite, I propose that those who 
 will form themselves into A Home Circle of Chris- 
 tian Endeavor join an enrolment that requires no offi- 
 cers, meetings, or constitution, but a simple agreement 
 like'the one on the following page. 
 
 This covenant, you will notice, is simple, short, and 
 definite, and yet it leaves much to the individual, and 
 does not tie him down with unnecessary rules. 
 
 223 
 
Training the Church of the Future 
 
 Christian Endeavor Home Circle. 
 
 rpR UST1NG in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, we will 
 endeavor to maintain Family Worship in our home, and 
 will strive to make it, through kindness, courtesy, and mutual 
 helpfulness, a household of Qod. 
 
 A Flexible Proposal. 
 
 The family can maintain morning worship or evening- 
 worship or both. Even those who are so scattered that 
 they can come together for household prayer only once 
 a week can enter this Home Circle, tho it is under- 
 stood that daily family prayer is generally meant. 
 
 The exercise may be longer or shorter. It may take 
 three minutes or fifteen. The father may conduct it 
 alone, or father and mother and all the children may 
 join in it, and this would often be better still. 
 
 The prayers may be extemporaneous or written. In 
 fact, there is the utmost variety possible, but at the same 
 time there is this strong bond of unity that as households 
 we who are enrolled shall bow reverently before our 
 Father in heaven and crave His blessing on our home 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 Few earnest Christian Endeavorers need be left out of 
 this circle. If one is only in a subordinate position in 
 the home, the idea can be carried out. If parents are 
 indifferent, gather the little brothers and sisters for wor- 
 ship. At least once a week in almost every home there 
 could be family Bible-reading and prayer if only one 
 member of the household were inclined to conduct it. 
 
 The Vast Possibilities of this Effort. 
 
 The possibilities for good of this effort are almost un- 
 bounded. It may do not a little toward stemming the 
 
 224 
 
The Home Circle 
 
 tide of irreligion m the family. It may help to sweeten 
 and refine family life for generations to come. It may 
 increase the love of parents and children and brothers 
 and sisters. It may help to establish in many house- 
 holds reverence for divine things, familiarity with the 
 Word of God, and devotion to the highest ideals. 
 
 It may result in raising up ministers of the Gospel, 
 and missionaries, and Christian workers whose lips were 
 first touched with a live coal from off the family altar. 
 
 All these blessed results and many more are more than 
 possible, and are certain to result from a wide revival 
 of interest in and practise of household religion. For 
 those who can not at first trust themselves to extempo- 
 raneous prayer in the family circle, there are various 
 manuals of devotion. 
 
 Set an Example by Enroling Your Own Name. 
 
 Let all who wish to join the Christian Endeavor Home 
 Circle send in their names at once. Even if for many 
 years you have practised family worship, send in your 
 names for the benefit of others who may be led by your 
 example to begin. Let the theme be considered in Chris- 
 tian Endeavor conventions and union meetings, and let 
 all who believe in the plan try to induce others to enrol. 
 No obligations are assumed beyond the very simple ones 
 involved in the covenant printed above. 
 
 Cards containing the covenant, with blank spaces for 
 all members of the family to sign, will be forwarded on 
 receipt of a stamp for postage, and engraved certificates 
 suitable for framing will soon be furnished for ten cents, 
 which will not more than cover the cost. 
 
 Fellow Endeavorers and Christian friends, let us heart- 
 ily enter into this plan, which may bring such untold 
 blessings to our individual life, our home life, our na- 
 tional life; and let us take for our motto, " As for me and 
 my house, ice wiU serve the Lord. " 
 
 225 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Young People's 
 
 Prayer - Meetings : 
 
 HOW TO CONDUCT THEM 
 
 A BOOK FOR SOCIETIES OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
 
 AND FOR ALL OTHER ORGANIZATIONS FOR 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 CHARACTER OF YOUNG CONVERTS 
 
 Valuable manuals concerning the conduct of the general 
 prayer-meeting are numerous, but comparatively little has been 
 written regarding its smaller brother — the " Young People' s Prayer- 
 meeting," The recent rapid growth of religious organizations for 
 Young People make such a work as this very desirable and valuable. 
 .These chapters are the outgrowth of experience and personal effort. 
 The plans suggested have all been successfully tried. The author 
 has given the results of a very wide and long experience, and is, 
 therefore, first of all, practical in his suggestions. The topics 
 given have been selected with care from thousands of lists prepared 
 by or for young people. The book is one of great importance in 
 the conduct of the Young People's Meetings. Pastors would do 
 well to secure the volume, if for no other purpose than to loan or 
 give it to those in whose behalf the meetings are held. 
 
"This is a good book, and contains many valuable suggestions in regard to 
 the best method of conducting prayer-meetings, especially for young people. 
 Methodist Recorder, Pittsburg. 
 
 " It it a capital book. Every pastor who reads it will find in it some hints 
 of decided value. The topics are treated in a sensible and altogether practical 
 manner. We heartily commend the book not to pastors alone, but to all who 
 are interested in this matter." — The Advance, Chicago. 
 
 " It is an unusual combination of Christian common sense, with a broad and 
 also a minute knowledge of the needs, desires, tasts, and feelings of young people. 
 The training of young converts, and the making of them before they are 
 trained, the place and work of the young people's meeting, the best methods of 
 conducting it, and its relation to the development and power of the Church — 
 these, under various heads, are considered fully and wisely. . . We com- 
 
 mend it heartily. It is especially indispensable." — The Congregationalist, 
 Boston. 
 
 " It is full of helpful suggestions in regard to the training and education of 
 young Christians, and the conduct of young people's meetings. The chapters 
 devoted to an account of the Society of Christian Endeavor will repay perusal. 
 We take pleasure in recommending the book to all Christians." — Christian 
 Advocate, Buffalo. 
 
 "This is an excellent manual. , . . The teachings of this volume 
 upon the training of young converts, the importance of an early formed habit of 
 working in social services, and the best modes of awakening their interest in them, 
 are every way excellent, and full of valuable suggestions. The large collection of 
 prayer-meeting topics, also, will be found very serviceable." — Zion's Herald, 
 Boston. 
 
 " The author is an authority upon the question he has undertaken to discuss 
 Few men in this country or elsewhere have given the subject of the religious 
 culture of young people more earnest and solicitous attention. The book is full of 
 hints that can easily be reduced to practise. And this is why the book will prove 
 valuable." — Michigan Christian Advocate, Detroit. 
 
 Cloth, i2mo, 167 pp. Price, 75 cents, post-free. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 30 Lafayette Place, New York 
 
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