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 Centenary Celebration 
 of American Metliidist 
 Missions 
 
 Columbus, Ohio, June 
 twenty to July thirteen 
 Nineteen nineteen 
 
The Missionary Centenary 
 
 Thanksgiving — Confession — Intercession 
 
 For victories—Let us thank God. 
 
 For shortcomings and failures—Let us make 
 confession. 
 
 For the unfinished task—Let us make our 
 plans large. 
 
 For growing world-wide service—Let us gird 
 ourselves with new power. 
 
 For the next hundred years—“Anywhere, 
 provided it be forward. 
 
O NE HUNDRED YEARS of Methodist Missions are 
 behind us. The story of their success is a stimulating 
 one. From its earliest days Methodism has stood for a 
 forward program. Its prophets and preachers have pro¬ 
 claimed the gospel of Jesus Christ to a suffering world — 
 a world torn by conflicts between men and nations. And 
 it has offered this same gospel to the individual who needed 
 its refreshing and re-creative power. 
 
 The Centenary Celebration was planned to commem¬ 
 orate the history and the achievements of the past century. 
 But it not only takes a backward look — it takes in the 
 sweep of the whole horizon of the present and sends out a 
 call to American Methodism to meet the problems of the 
 future. 
 
 This souvenir of the Celebration, therefore, has a two¬ 
 fold purpose: first, to give at least a glimpse into the his¬ 
 tory of American Methodism; and, second, to point out 
 some of the more serious problems which the church 
 must frankly face and adequately meet if it would help 
 win our country and the world for Christ. 
 
 The articles were written by some of the leaders of 
 American Methodism and the photographs were obtained 
 from many sources — the photographic department of the 
 Centenary Celebration, Underwood & Underwood, Brown 
 Brothers and Paul Thompson of New York, the National 
 Child Labor Committee, Baker and Barnes-Callen of Co¬ 
 lumbus, the Christian Advocate of New York, and Dr. John 
 F. Goucher of Baltimore, all made valuable contributions. 
 
 No attempt has been made either to present all the sub¬ 
 jects in which Methodism is or should be interested, nor 
 to exhaust the themes which are discussed — but merely to 
 outline some phases of life and work in order to reveal to 
 the men and women who are responsible for the future of 
 the Church, the great and ever-expanding program by 
 which Methodism may help bring in the Kingdom of God. 
 
John Wesley—Preacher, Statesman, Reformer 
 
 ‘The field is the world”— 
 ‘The world is my parish 
 
 4 "I desire a league, of¬ 
 fensive and defensive, 
 with every soldier of 
 Jesus Christ.” 
 
 —John Wesley. 
 
 2 
 
John Wesley—The Application of His Principles to Modern 
 
 Social and Religious Conditions 
 
 By C. T. Winchester 
 
 I F we measure men by the service they rendered to their 
 contemporaries, we shall not give that rank to Alex¬ 
 ander Pope, nor to Samuel John¬ 
 son, nor to Edmund Burke. We 
 shall name rather that wonderful 
 little man who, for fifty years, 
 rode from one end of England to 
 the other, usually with a book in 
 one hand and the reins in the 
 other, who preached more than 
 forty thousand times to more than 
 three million hearers, and who was 
 probably known and revered by 
 more people than any other re¬ 
 ligious teacher that ever lived. 
 What did John Wesley accom¬ 
 plish by this life of tireless, unselfish activity? The answer 
 to this question is written large all through the history of 
 English-speaking people since his day. But some things are 
 obvious. The student of English society and morals will 
 tell you that in his Journal, written day by day, Wesley has 
 given us our most vivid and truthful picture of the English 
 people of that century. 
 
 And in that Journal we may find the record that Wesley 
 was always interested in education, and begun in many places 
 some form of elementary schools; that he established the first 
 popular magazine in England; that he was a zealous advo¬ 
 cate of all benevolent and philanthropic activities, such as 
 the temperance movement, prison reform, and the suppres¬ 
 sion of the slave-trade; that he did much to correct the coarse 
 manners and discourage the brutal forms of amusement 
 almost universal in England early in that century, and to 
 promote among the lower classes sobriety of life, respect for 
 law, and more intelligent notions of citizenship. 
 
 But he did far more than all this. He checked the tem¬ 
 per of religious scepticism and indifference prevalent among 
 all classes at the beginning of his ministry, and changed the 
 whole tone of English thought. At the close of the first 
 quarter of the eighteenth century, the bitter irony of men 
 like dean Swift, and the despairing protest of men like good 
 Bishop Butler alike attest that the spirit and power of re¬ 
 ligion were well-nigh worn out of the country; but by 1790, 
 under the preaching of John Wesley, plain men and women 
 by the hundred thousand had come to accept a religion that 
 could be experienced, a religion that meant faith in God 
 and love of man. 
 
 The industrial revolution that was already beginning in 
 Wesley’s latest years, with the introduction everywhere of 
 new machinery, would have caused far more widespread 
 economic and social disturbance if the miners of Newcastle 
 and of Cornwall, and the new captains of industry, had not 
 both learned lessons of Christian duty and charity from the 
 teaching of John Wesley. And best of all, every advance in 
 the spiritual life of England and America, every access of 
 missionary zeal that has carried the gospel across the Atlan¬ 
 tic, over continents and around the world, has owed some¬ 
 thing of its impulse and inspiration to the work of the great 
 English apostle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 It is for us to ask what we can find in this man’s character 
 and methods that may serve us as stimulus and example in 
 our endeavors to carry on in our century the work he so 
 nobly did in his. 
 
 1. He was by inclination and training a scholar. He 
 knew the charm of letters and the joy of elevated thought. 
 Few men read more books than he, though his study was 
 
 mostly in the saddle. He was acquainted with the best that 
 was being thought and done in his day. His conversation, 
 said the best talker of the century, “enchants me”; and 
 whenever he preached, whether in his own Oxford college 
 or before the miners on Kingswood common, he always spoke 
 from a full mind. But all his acquirements were at the 
 service of his message, and he deemed no thought or emotion 
 too high for the humblest audience. In his printed sermons 
 are passages that show the power of sheer, absolute sim¬ 
 plicity; but he was always afraid of rhetoric or eloquence, 
 and nothing made him so impatient as hollow declamation 
 or any tricks of manner inconsistent with perfect sincerity. 
 
 2. The type of religious life that Wesley enjoined was, 
 in the best sense of those words, practical and liberal. There 
 was little of the mystic in his nature and still less of the 
 ascetic. He held no religious experience of much value that 
 did not issue in righteous life, and make the man a better 
 neighbor and a better citizen. Nor did he ever attempt to 
 impose upon the members of his societies any detailed state¬ 
 ment of religious belief. It was inevitable that with his clear 
 and logical intellect, he should demand for himself a con¬ 
 sistent set of theological opinions; but for others, he held 
 as essential only those doctrines upon which all Christians 
 could agree. Everybody remembers his statement: “As to 
 all opinions that do not strike at the root of Christianity, 
 we think and let think.” No other great religious reformer 
 has ever been so liberal. It was Dean Stanley, the greatest 
 of English Broad Churchmen, who declared that John 
 Wesley was the real founder of the Broad Church. 
 
 3. But when all is said, the secret of Wesley’s power is 
 to be found in the intensity of his religious life. Religion 
 to him — as to those whom he taught — meant simply love 
 to man and faith in God as revealed in Jesus Christ. He 
 had doubtless a most remarkable gift for organization; but 
 he was never the slave of organization, and he was never 
 hindered by personal pride from making any needed changes 
 in the plans he had himself devised. He certainly had an 
 iron will; but he was never arrogant, and never used his 
 power of will to secure personal or selfish ends. All his 
 practical wisdom and all his immense energy were in the 
 service of his unselfish love for his fellow men; and that love 
 was sustained in all discouragements by an unfaltering faith 
 in God, the Father of Christ, the Elder Brother of us all. 
 
 Certainly the church of today can learn something from 
 such an example. The great work of the preacher in turning 
 men from sin to righteousness e—■ that work changes but little 
 from age to age and will never cease. But the special needs 
 and opportunities of our twentieth century are no less urgent 
 than those of the eighteenth century. There are no more 
 undiscovered countries, and the missionary may now carry, 
 with comparative ease, to the remotest regions the truths and 
 blessings of the gospel. Methodism can now say more truly 
 .than its great founder could, “The world is my parish.” 
 
 And in every civilized country today thoughtful men are 
 confronted with problems, social, industrial, economic, more 
 difficult than the England of Wesley knew. It is the age 
 of democracy; but it is now the great task of the century to 
 make this democracy safe for the world. This, we may be 
 sure, can never be fully done until the relations of men to 
 each other shall no longer be determined by selfish com¬ 
 petition, and men shall come surely to believe and accept 
 those gracious words, “One is your Master, even Christ, and 
 all ye are brethren.” What greater work can the church 
 have than to hasten that day? What nobler hope can ani¬ 
 mate the successors of John Wesley? 
 
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Conception and Development of the Centenary 
 
 By Ehner T. Clark 
 
 ' I ' HE greatest enterprise of its kind ever undertaken by 
 any Christian denomination in human history was an 
 
 attempt on the part of a united 
 church to fifty celebrate the cen¬ 
 tennial of American Methodist 
 missions. When the missionary 
 leaders of the church remembered 
 that the first Methodist missionary 
 society in the United States was 
 organized in 1819, and when they 
 gave thought to the matter of a 
 suitable method of commemora¬ 
 tion, the general plan of the Cen¬ 
 tenary movement began to take 
 form. The response on the part 
 of both branches of Methodism 
 was hearty and enthusiastic, and from its first conception the 
 idea encountered not the slightest note of discouragement 
 from any source. Its appropriateness was beyond question, 
 and its mighty objectives were never challenged. Recog¬ 
 nizing that the centennial occasion was of similar interest 
 to both of the great branches of the church, the desirability 
 of a joint celebration was evident, and United Methodism 
 undertook the great task when the Joint Commission was 
 formed at Baltimore. 
 
 The general lines along which the plan should operate 
 were laid down by the Joint Commission at Cincinnati, 
 when the cultural and educational program were adopted 
 in outline. Here it was determined that the four great 
 elements in the movement to fitly celebrate the one hun¬ 
 dredth birthday of Methodist missions in this country should 
 be Intercession, Stewardship, Life Enlistment, and a Mis¬ 
 sionary Advance. From that day until the Centenary had 
 
 been acclaimed a triumphant success by the Christian world, 
 these remained unchanged. And the wisdom which deter¬ 
 mined upon their adoption has been signally complimented 
 by the fact that this cultural policy has been adopted in toto 
 by the Interchurch World Movement. 
 
 But behind all the ideas of the leaders of the church, there 
 has always been the providence and the leadings of God. In 
 its development, the Centenary movement has gone so far 
 beyond anything that was in the minds of those who first 
 gave thought to the matter that none can now doubt its 
 providential aspects. The time for a mighty advance on the 
 part of the church was clearly set by the mills of God. 
 That the centennial day should fall at the time of the world’s 
 worst need, when a ruined social order was beginning the 
 process of reconstruction, when the world contained more 
 human suffering than at any previous moment, that Method¬ 
 ists should be in possession of great wealth, and that a spirit 
 of sacrifice and liberality should be sweeping the world — 
 that these elements should combine to form the situation 
 which was faced by the church was plainly not according to 
 the manipulation of human instrumentalities. The vision 
 of duty and opportunity which flashed before and was so 
 clearly grasped by Methodism gave evidence that God was 
 calling for a forward movement. And the arrangements of 
 all details connected with the work of outlining the plan and 
 carrying out the enterprise to such a remarkable conclusion 
 also bore abundant witness to the fact that the Spirit gave 
 guidance and oversight. There are few things in the entire 
 history of the church which bear on their face more clear 
 indications of a providential leadership. 
 
 The entire nation has been thrilled by the fact that a 
 religious denomination, through the instrumentality of 
 methods and organization surpassing efficiency those de- 
 
 9 
 
veloped and used by any of the great welfare societies, raised 
 multiplied millions to finance a world program. This ele¬ 
 ment of the Centenary has captured the imaginations of the 
 people until it stands clear-cut in the foreground; so much 
 so, indeed, that we are liable to the error of believing that 
 this was the leading issue of the movement. No man can 
 estimate the advantage to the church of the Centenary fund 
 of millions, and neither can one fully appreciate the values 
 which will come to civilization when this fund shall have 
 erected churches, schools, hospitals, and institutions all over 
 the world and spread the culture of Christianity everywhere. 
 But at the same time, the Centenary was by no means a 
 purely financial movement with business ends. It was con¬ 
 ceived in prayer and carried out as a spiritual enterprise. 
 Intercession and Stewardship were always considered more 
 important than the campaign for funds. 
 
 The supreme objective of the Centenary of Methodist 
 missions was and is a revivified and revitalized church, filled 
 with thoroughly consecrated Christians, going about the 
 business of saving a world in the spirit of Christ. And that 
 this end has been in a large measure achieved seems clearly 
 apparent. 
 
 One of the greatest effects of the movement has been the 
 discovery of utilization of the latent power in the man-force 
 of the church. The ecclesiastical leaders wisely threw the 
 burdens of responsibility upon the strong laymen, and the 
 devotion with which these men responded to the large ap¬ 
 peal has almost startled us. The strongest men of the nation 
 have literally spent themselves in the service of the church 
 through the Centenary, giving of their time, thought, energy, 
 and wealth unstintedly to this cause. They have spoken 
 week after week in multiplied thousands of churches, and 
 the information and vision they thus gave to the people 
 have literally revolutionized the lives of a multitude of 
 congregations. 
 
 Then the Centenary has been responsible for an unparal¬ 
 leled educational work among the rank and file of Method¬ 
 ism. For the first time the people understand the missionary 
 motive. One of the educational secretaries recently remarked 
 that if the movement should then be dropped, without 
 securing one penny of the great fund, it would still remain 
 the greatest performance the church ever undertook because 
 of its educational values. Not only did Minute Men take 
 the missionary gospel everywhere, but it was also carried 
 out through a stream of literature. This tremendous cam¬ 
 paign of education, reinforced as it was by posters, adver¬ 
 tisements, and the constant appeal of the religious press, has 
 created a spirit in the body of the church which will never 
 pass away. It has given us a new church. 
 
 The Centenary has also gathered up, conserved, and inter¬ 
 preted into terms of religious life the spirit of sacrifice which 
 was generated by the great war. The struggle taught men 
 that their lives were not their own, that they owed higher 
 duties than those to self, and that no sacrifices were too 
 hard to make for principle. It was this spirit which won 
 the war, and which set the world a new record of benevo¬ 
 lence during its continuance. Christian men had sighed for 
 a motive which would compel people to serve the church with 
 such devotion as they displayed toward the Red Cross and 
 
 the nation, and which would make them as loyal to their 
 religion as they were to their patriotism. It was found in 
 the Centenary. This mighty movement has transferred the 
 spirit of sacrifice from the realm of secular affairs to the 
 very heart of the church; the truth of this is evidenced 
 from the fact that the Centenary succeeded with greater 
 dispatch and attracted far more attention than the govern¬ 
 ment loan just preceding and the welfare campaign which 
 overlapped it. 
 
 Closely allied to this spirit of sacrifice is the consciousness 
 of the fact and the responsibility of Stewardship which the 
 Centenary has brought forward. Nothing has been so 
 sadly needed as a realization of the doctrine of Christian 
 Stewardship and its implication, and it has been given to us. 
 Multiplied thousands are covenanted members of a tither’s 
 league, and this movement is growing with sweeping regu¬ 
 larity. Here is the fundamental basis of the reconstruction 
 of the world. The struggle which now faces the church is 
 that between Christianity and materialism, and the doctrine 
 of Stewardship strikes at the very foundation of the ma¬ 
 terialistic scheme; more than any of our philosophic argu¬ 
 ments or apologetic systems, Christian Stewardship will over¬ 
 come the paralyzing influence of materialistic dogma and 
 practice. 
 
 All of this represents a distinct spiritual awakening 
 throughout the church, and this awakening seems destined 
 inevitably to issue in a revival which will sweep the nation. 
 The Centenary campaign revivified churches everywhere. 
 Congregations which had practically determined to abandon 
 their organization have taken on new life and launched 
 building enterprises. Laymen going about asking for funds 
 have talked religion and led men to the kingdom and to 
 Christ. Telegrams and reports which flow in breathe the 
 spirit of evangelism. Everywhere revival fires are about 
 to break out, and the church trembles on the verge of a 
 mighty revival. The Centenary proved the Lord; now He 
 is about to pour out the blessing of spirituality which cannot 
 be contained in the church, but which must flood the world. 
 This is all according to plan, and is by no means an adden¬ 
 dum of the Centenary. When this spirit has been coupled to 
 the Centenary organization for purposes of encouragement, 
 cultivation, and conservation we confidently expect to see the 
 revival for which the church has so long been praying and 
 hoping. 
 
 With these new elements in the life of the church as a 
 result of the Centenary, with this new spirit abroad in the 
 land, we face a year of conservation which holds abundant 
 fruitage. With a follow-up plan as definite, as challenging, 
 and as thoroughly organized as the cultural and financial 
 programs, Methodism may go on to achievement yet un¬ 
 conceived. God has thus far led, and the response to His 
 leadership has created a new era for American Methodism. 
 The results of the Centenary as they will be expressed in 
 Africa, the Orient, and the islands of the sea will not by any 
 means tell the full story of Centenary success. It can only 
 be read by one who looks deep into the activities of the 
 church, into the motives moving in human hearts, and into 
 the deeper plans which God makes for the salvation of 
 the world. 
 
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Sketches of Entrances at Celebration 
 
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Hal . le.lu.jah! Hal _ le.lu.jah! Hal_le . 
 
 
 Hal . le.lu.jah! Hal . le_Ju_jah! Hal.le 
 
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 Music at the Celebration 
 
 By W. J. Kraft 
 
 I F we were to turn back to the time of the Reformation 
 and trace the development of the church’s music we 
 
 would find a steady growth cul¬ 
 minating in the climax reached at 
 this Centenary. 
 
 Like every other movement the 
 upward line has not always been 
 a straight one, but occasionally has 
 curved down toward the threshold, 
 but the form has been established 
 and now we have about reached 
 the apex. Unfortunately some 
 congregations still use the so-called 
 secular type tunes instead of using the more dignified and 
 sacred type. Analogy might be made by comparing senti¬ 
 mentalism with sentiment. 
 
 The thought uppermost in our mind while planning the 
 musical numbers at this great missionary centenary was to 
 add splendor and dignity and not lose sight of the religious 
 spirit as a background. 
 
 The pageant called “The Wafarer” consists largely of 
 Oratorio selections from Handel’s “Messiah,” and Gormods 
 “Redemption.” There is also a number from Stainer’s 
 “Crucifixion,” one by Mr. Will C. Macfarlane, and several 
 numbers written especially for it. At the Sunday service 
 the anthems and hymns have been selected because they con¬ 
 tain spiritual uplift. 
 
 The great organ built especially for this occasion is an¬ 
 other example of the high standard reached. Here we have 
 an instrument noble and majestic, capable of contributing 
 its share in the uplift of mankind either at a service or a 
 recital. Let us hope that this king of instruments will so 
 
 stimulate our people that it will not have been a vain in¬ 
 vestment. 
 
 The orchestra of seventy-five men representing the Cin¬ 
 cinnati and Chicago Symphony Orchestra are to be a won¬ 
 derful help in this Celebration. They will not only be used 
 for symphonic concerts, but also in the pageant and Sunday 
 services where, in co-operation with the organ, they will 
 furnish a background for our large chorus. 
 
 The choruses participating in all the events are by all 
 means the crux of the situation. The enthusiasm shown is 
 certainly an expression of consecration to a work so gigantic 
 and demanding so much of their time that we can express 
 our gratitude for the services only by a few kind remarks. 
 We recognize how eager this contribution of praise is in pro¬ 
 portion to the work and worth of this chorus, but we know 
 the assembled multitude will add their many tributes of ap¬ 
 preciation of the Centenary chorus. 
 
 The personnel of the chorus is made of both white and 
 colored singers, each group working by itself toward the per¬ 
 fection of the whole. 
 
 The Spirituals to be sung by a selected group of singers 
 from the Southern Colleges under the Freedman’s Aid So¬ 
 ciety will prove an especially noteworthy feature. 
 
 The children’s chorus of one thousand white and colored 
 boys and girls will sing in the Children’s Crusade, Chil¬ 
 dren’s Day, Sunday School Day, Fourth of July and other 
 events planned for their participation. 
 
 The Trombone Choir consisting of one hundred people, 
 organized about six months, has made wonderful strides to¬ 
 ward perfection and is now considered an established entity. 
 Their playing of the church chorals will certainly endear 
 them to us and be of great value for outdoor gatherings. 
 
 In addition there will be at least four great bands. 
 
 12 
 
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 13 
 
 
The Wayfarer 
 
 A PAGEANT OF THE KINGDOM 
 By J. E. Crowther 
 
 I N these days of world upheaval with much that is au¬ 
 thoritative from the past is being questioned; when the 
 
 industrial and social order is being 
 revolutionized; when the task of 
 reconstructing the world is so stu¬ 
 pendous, many devout people find 
 themselves bewildered and dis¬ 
 couraged. Some look for escape 
 by way of a physical cataclysm 
 that shall usher in the end of all 
 things. Many sit in dumb despair, 
 wondering if the church will 
 prove adequate to meet the prob¬ 
 lems of the new day. The 
 Wayfarer represents this discour¬ 
 aged element. He is guided from 
 despair to faith and service by Understanding, who unfolds 
 to him the living presence of the Christ in every age; tri¬ 
 umphant over all adversity. One word will state the central 
 theme, Emmanuel — “God with us.” 
 
 The pageant opens with the crash of war, depicting the 
 outbreak of the conflict in Europe, which has been the cause 
 of so much despair. Then follows a scene of desolation 
 consequent upon the war, and which forms the background 
 for The Wayfarer, who voices his depression. Understand¬ 
 ing then leads him into Babylon to show to him the condi¬ 
 
 tions of despair of the Hebrews, to whom God had promised 
 that they should be a great people and establish upon the 
 earth an everlasting kingdom. Nothing could be more con¬ 
 tradictory and discouraging than this situation, but there 
 comes the promise of the reign of the Messiah, and their 
 hearts take new courage. 
 
 The second episode, “The Christ” is a portrayal of the 
 life of the Saviour. God has undertaken to conquer the 
 world and establish a kingdom. How does he begin? With 
 
 a Babe in Bethlehem. Then comes the triumphal entry 
 into Jerusalem. All the outward aspects are those of victory, 
 but immediately on that follows the crucifixion of Christ. 
 Here, if ever in the history of the world, it seemed as if a 
 righteous cause were irretrievably lost. But immediately 
 following comes the resurrection and triumph of Christ over 
 death. 
 
 By this time the Wayfarer has come to see that the method 
 of God in his dealings with men is to use insignificant means 
 and circumstances for great ends — that the most discour¬ 
 aging situation is but the prelude to a glorious triumph. 
 Moreover, instead of an impersonal, historic Christ, Way¬ 
 farer now possesses a living, dynamic Saviour, vitalizing and 
 transforming his whole being. 
 
 The third episode represents “The Conquest.” At the 
 beginning of this episode the Wayfarer has committed him¬ 
 self to the program of world conquest. The triumph of the 
 kingdom subsequent to the resurrection of Christ is portrayed 
 in nine scenes of increasing power, until in the grand finale, 
 in which the nations of the earth have assembled to pay 
 their tribute to the Christ. The total cast comprises about 
 two thousand singers and participants, all arrayed in the 
 brilliant costumes of their various nationalities. 
 
 One of the great features of the pageant is the music with 
 which it is accompanied. This represents the best from the 
 great masters, being based chiefly on the music of “The 
 Messiah.” In fact, the pageant was begun as a dramatiza¬ 
 tion of “The Messiah,” but subsequently changed in its 
 scope so as to include other great music not comprised in 
 Handel’s Oratorio. The central figure of the entire pageant 
 is the Christ, although he is in no instance impersonated. 
 
 The author states its mission in the preface, “If it shall in 
 any degree exalt the Christ; foster the love of great music, 
 and further the presentation of truth in dramatic form, its 
 mission will have been fulfilled.” 
 
 14 
 
Life Plays and Demonstrations 
 
 By Alice M. Young 
 
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 T HE customs of the country and the progress of the 
 people from the early primitive stages to the present 
 
 day in the many countries which 
 the church has reached in its mis¬ 
 sion of Christianity are depicted 
 in a series of life plays and demon¬ 
 strations consisting of pageants, 
 short plays and in pantomime. 
 Some feature the religious devel¬ 
 opment and others the historical 
 epochs of the different countries 
 by bringing out some prominent 
 feature of the country and explain¬ 
 ing to us the life of the people in 
 its different religious aspects. 
 
 For example: on passing 
 through the eight large buildings so full of exquisite curios 
 and gorgeous architecture, one is transported as in a twink¬ 
 ling of an eye from the golden sands of Central Africa with 
 its dusky people of the Kraal to the northern part 
 where the handsome Berber chief and his retinue 
 kneel in worship. 
 
 In India one sees the child-wife leaving her home 
 in her dooli chair surrounded by her relatives and 
 friends who walk beside her to the Zenana or 
 home of her husband to be. 
 
 In the ancient walled city of China one sees the 
 worshippers in the Temple, and from a distance 
 down the Peking or Nanking Road comes a gor¬ 
 geous procession of dragon worshippers. 
 
 In Latin America, it is market day and we see 
 the Peons with their high hats, colored serapes and 
 women with their children tied on their backs buy¬ 
 ing and selling pottery, fruits, and interesting 
 trinkets of all kinds. 
 
 On to sunny Japan, the land of exquisite gar¬ 
 dens, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, each 
 one varying to some extent in manners and cus¬ 
 toms but all abounding in beauty, 
 life and color. 
 
 Devastated Europe appalling in 
 all its hopelessness and the suffer¬ 
 ing thru which it has passed is seen 
 thru the crypt which is all that 
 remains of the ruined Cathe¬ 
 dral. Here we see some Bel¬ 
 gian wanderers and 
 groups of Italian, French 
 and English soldiers and 
 we realize the great international prob¬ 
 lems that must be solved and can be 
 solved in no other way than by a dynamic 
 spiritual awakening. 
 
 In our own America one is struck by 
 the many intensive problems to be met 
 in H ome Mission work. 
 
 Here in a metropolitan city. At the 
 wharf a group of Italians, Germans, 
 French, Polish and Russian Jews are met 
 by the Immigration Officer, and after 
 going through his hands we see the prob¬ 
 lem which the city must meet in regard 
 to these people. 
 
 We see the organizing of a fron¬ 
 tier church taking place in a school 
 house where the cow-puncher is the 
 ring-leader in the enterprise. Rural 
 problems, and those in the mining 
 
 town are being met by the 
 church as is shown in a series of 
 short demonstrations. In the 
 rural negro section we see a 
 group of plantation folk gathered 
 around their camp-fire and sing¬ 
 ing their native melodies. 
 
 In the Mex-American, the 
 H awaiian, Porto Rican, and the 
 Orientals in America composed 
 of Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans 
 and the Alaskan and American 
 Indian sections, we see various 
 forms of life and color typical of 
 their different settings and inhab¬ 
 ited by the natives themselves. 
 
 Besides these above named 
 demonstrations there are a num¬ 
 ber of gorgeous Pageants and 
 Processions attended by the 
 glow and color of a chorus 
 of several hundred trained 
 voices. 
 
 In Malaysia, in a life 
 play called, “The Seeker,” 
 who is a symbolical charac 
 ter representing the relig 
 ious spirit of the Malay¬ 
 sian people, the quest of 
 
 the human soul for the spirit of contentment is 
 sought for in vain through spirit worship, Buddhism, 
 Hinduism, Mohammedism and Confucionism in turn, 
 only to be found at last in Christianity. 
 
 “Dinah, Queen of the Barbarians,” shows the beau¬ 
 tiful, just and good queen of a once Christian land 
 in which Christianity is overpowered by Commercial 
 Mohammedism. These, through their overwhelming 
 numbers, defeat her and turn through avarice this 
 magnificent and luxurious land into a hot-bed of Islam. 
 
 The “Hour of Wak¬ 
 ing,” a life play of the old 
 China and the new, rep¬ 
 resents China as the Sleep¬ 
 ing Giant, Feng Shui, 
 
 Spirits of Ances¬ 
 tors, Chinese Woman¬ 
 hood, and Poverty are 
 characters which appear, 
 having been called forth 
 by the sound of a flute played in the 
 old high key of the melodies of the 
 land. The Processions and numer¬ 
 ous street scenes also take place in 
 this pageant. 
 
 “The Cry of the People” is a 
 pageant of the early Mexicans and 
 Aztecs and other peoples of Pan- 
 America in the gorgeous costumes of 
 their early civilization. This beau¬ 
 tiful and highly colored pageant 
 shows the entrance of Christianity 
 into those lands meeting the real 
 needs of the people for the first time 
 in the history of the world and ends 
 with its message of hope to all, 
 
 “Go ye into all the world and preach 
 the Gospel to Every Creature.” 
 
Stewards and Other Helpers 
 
 By Percy Jewett Burrell 
 
 F OUR hundred consecrated men and women, discriminately selected, 
 have had intensive training under expert teachers in missionary 
 education and in turn have imparted their 
 
 education and in turn have imparted their 
 
 or the School of Misisons established throughout 
 Central Ohio. 
 
 Forty-five hundred Stewards will be seen in 
 the exhibit buildings, guarding and explaining 
 the exhibits and seeking in conversation to drive 
 home their missionary values and morals to all 
 visitors. Many of these Stewards will partici¬ 
 pate in demonstrations depicting native cus¬ 
 toms and in life plays, episodes and pageants 
 of international and inspirational character. 
 
 All Trainers and Stewards will be dressed in 
 the costumes of the countries they represent 
 About 1500 men and women have been 
 trained to take part in the pageant “The Way¬ 
 farer,” to be preesnted in the Coliseum. 
 
 Here pageantry is used as a dramatic means toward a spiritual 
 end. Its purpose is to so instruct and inspire every participant 
 and spectator with the world-wide power of the Gospel of 
 Christ that more lives, talents and means will be devoted to the 
 missionary interests of the Christian Church. 
 
 Two thousand singers have been trained to “sing praises unto 
 the Lord.” Five hundred of these have been enlisted from the 
 colored churches of Columbus. These voices will be heard each 
 night in the pageant, on the Sabbath day, and on special days, 
 singing anthems and other appropriate music. 
 
 The 3000 boys and girls enlisted will do their part in several 
 ways — in the Coliseum pageant, “The Wayfarer,” in “The 
 Children’s Crusade” pageant, and in the demonstrations and 
 native games of foreign countries and home lands. Some 700 
 will sing in the Crusade Chorus. 
 
 In addition returned missionaries, native Christian (Nation- 
 als), members of area staffs, and district superintendents will 
 augment materially the number of enlisted workers so that all 
 in all some 12,000 loyal helpers, giving anywhere from 6 to 
 
 24 hours of service each 
 week will, through what 
 will amount to 300,000 as¬ 
 signments to duty, cover¬ 
 ing 20 days of the Cele¬ 
 bration, be found doing 
 their full share in reveal¬ 
 ing to all how the con¬ 
 summation of the great 
 program of the Centenary 
 movement will play a 
 powerful part in helping 
 Christian Democracy to 
 save the World. 
 
 1. Russian Peasants. 
 
 2. Danish Maidens. 
 
 3. Chinese Boys. 
 
 4. Hollanders. 
 
 5. Japanese. 
 
 6 . Filipinos. 
 
 
 16 
 
The Story of American Methodism 
 
 By Wilbur F. Tillett 
 
 T HE story of American Methodism, its early and hearty 
 reception by the settlers in this new world and its rapid 
 
 growth and widespread influence, 
 constitutes one of the most inter¬ 
 esting and glorious chapters in 
 history of modern Christianity. 
 The interpretation which John 
 Wesley gave to the gospel message 
 found a most congenial soil in the 
 new world, and proved to be ex¬ 
 actly suited to the moral and re¬ 
 ligious conditions that met in 
 America in the closing decades of 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 This year, 1919, celebrates not 
 only the one hundredth anniver¬ 
 sary of the organization of the Methodist Foreign Mission¬ 
 ary Society, but the one hundred and fiftieth year of the 
 first sending of Methodist preachers to this country by Mr. 
 Wesley. It was in 1769 that he sent Richard Boardman 
 and Joseph Pilmore to America to preach the gospel of free 
 grace and full salvation that had been committed unto him. 
 But already two of his converts and local preachers, emi¬ 
 grants from Ireland, had begun preaching here, possibly as 
 early as 1764 — Robert Strawbridge at Sam’s Creek in 
 Frederick County, Maryland, not far from Baltimore, and 
 Philip Embury in New York, the latter being strongly re¬ 
 inforced by Barbara Heck, a devout and earnest Methodist 
 woman, also from Ireland. Methodist historians are not 
 agreed as to which of these two places first heard the gospel 
 proclaimed by Methodism. The old John Street Church 
 in New York, located in what was to become the commercial 
 metropolis of the new world, was built on the foundations 
 laid by Philip Embury and Barbara Heck, who were strongly 
 supported in the religious work by Captain Webb, an officer 
 in the British army who was also a useful Methodist local 
 preacher. These had prepared the way for the two men 
 sent by Mr. Wesley in 1769, and for Francis Asbury and 
 Richard Wriglet, who were sent by Mr. Wesley two years 
 later. Little did Mr. Wesley think when he sent Francis 
 Asbury hither that in that preacher boy was the coming 
 leader who was to do more than any other one man in es¬ 
 tablishing Methodism in America and whose name was to 
 become the most historic and honored in the annals of 
 American Methodism. It is indeed fitting that the equestrian 
 statue of this post genuinely American itinerant Methodist 
 Bishop should stand in the capital of our nation typifying 
 what the great itinerant host of Methodist “circuit-riders” 
 have done for this nation. 
 
 In this intervening century and a half the Methodist 
 Churches of America (including Canada, where Methodism 
 has done a truly great work) have grown until their records 
 now show a membership of approximately eight million, 
 besides nearly forty-five thousand preachers. Such growth 
 has few if any parallels in Christian history. What hath 
 God wrought? Only by divine aid could the forces of any 
 church have achieved such results. 
 
 In 1773 Methodism had grown strong enough to hold 
 its first conference in this Country, with ten preachers pres¬ 
 ent, and these reported 1160 members. Ten years later, 
 at the end of the Revolutionary War (1783), in spite of dis¬ 
 organized conditions, the number of ministers had increased 
 to eighty and the number of members to 15,000. Political 
 conditions greatly favored the growth of Methodism at this 
 period in our history. The Episcopal clergymen, identified 
 as they were with the Church of England, had become un¬ 
 acceptable and had largely fled the country and returned to 
 
 England during the war; and this opened a large oppor¬ 
 tunity for Methodism and other religious denominations 
 here. Mr. Wesley was quick to take in the situation and to 
 meet the need for preachers in this country as far as he 
 could. He requested the Bishops of the Church of England 
 (in which church he was himself an ordained presbyter) 
 to ordain some of his preachers that they might come to this 
 country with full authority, not only to preach, but to ad¬ 
 minister the sacraments. Upon their refusal, he proceeded 
 to exercise what he considered his scriptural right as a pres¬ 
 byter or bishop (which terms he regarded as but two 
 different names used in the New Testament for the one 
 ministerial office) and ordained men for ministerial service 
 and sent them at once to this country. 
 
 Notable among those whom he ordained in the year fol¬ 
 lowing the close of the war 1784 was Dr. Thomas Coke, 
 a Presbyterian of the Church of England, whom he set apart 
 by ordination and appointed to serve as general superintend¬ 
 ent of the work of Methodism in this country. He in¬ 
 structed Dr. Coke to ordain Francis Asbury as an associate 
 general superintendent. Immediately following the arrival 
 of Dr. Coke a General Conference of the ministers was 
 called for Dec. 24, 1784, in Lovely Lane Chapel, Balti¬ 
 more (now perpetuated in the First Methodist Church of 
 that city). It was attended by sixty ministers who welcomed 
 Dr. Coke with great joy and proceeded at once to organize 
 the Methodist forces into a church which they designated 
 as the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Asbury fully 
 appreciated Mr. Wesley’s selection of him as a general 
 superintendent but, having become thoroughly Americanized 
 and possessed of democratic ideals he declined to be ordained 
 to this office unless his brethren should ratify and confirm 
 Mr. Wesley’s appointment by their own free votes. This 
 they did promptly and heartily. Coke and Asbury allowed 
 themselves to be designated as “Bishops,” which was quite 
 contrary to Mr. Wesley’s wishes, and called forth from him 
 a severe rebuke. 
 
 American Methodism has had its schisms and divisions 
 like all other branches of the Christian Church — that in 
 1792 by O’Kelly who thought he saw dangerous autocratic 
 tendencies in the newly fledged Episcopacy; that in 1830 of 
 the Methodist Protestants whose demands for the larger 
 recognition and participation of the laity in the conduct of 
 the affairs of the church, resulted in their organization into 
 a separate church; and most notable of all, that in 1844, 
 when the General Conference finding that it was impossible 
 for Methodists North and South to agree as to the proper 
 method of dealing with slave owners in the church, decided 
 to divide the church and leave each section free to manage 
 its own affairs. These and other divisions have served as 
 safety valves and have not checked in any way the growth 
 of the church as a whole. But now that a genuinely demo¬ 
 cratic Episcopacy has become the definite and fixed ideal of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, North and South; now 
 that the laity (including the women) have been admitted 
 to their rights and to a large and full place in the govern¬ 
 ment of the church, and now that slavery is a dead and long- 
 gone issue, why should not all American Methodists find a 
 way to come together again? Surely Methodist statesman¬ 
 ship can find a way to solve the problem of our unification. 
 And what time is better than the present, when our hearts 
 are all filled with a common gratitude for the blessings of 
 the past and with a common passion for the evangelization 
 of the whole world in the years of glorious opportunity that 
 are ahead of us? Now, when our brave boys are coming 
 back from across where they fought and some died, to end 
 strife among nations and usher in the age of peace and 
 brotherly love — now is the time! 
 
 17 
 
Two of Methodism’s Great Early Leaders 
 
 The Ordination of Bishop 
 Asbury 
 
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 Francis Asbury 
 
 Nathan Bangs 
 
 Francis Asbury 
 
 By Ezra S. Tipple 
 
 T HE story of Francis Asbury is the story of a spiritual 
 passion, the record of a missionary career, surpassingly 
 
 great. From the beginning Meth¬ 
 odism was essentially a missionary 
 movement, home and foreign. By 
 the time the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in America was organized, 
 at the Christmas Conference in 
 Baltimore in 1784, missions had 
 become a denominational habit. 
 More than any other, Asbury rep¬ 
 resented in his own person the 
 missionary enterprise, was the in¬ 
 carnation of the missionary spirit. 
 
 H is call was less dramatic 
 than that of St. Francis of Assisi, 
 but quite as compelling. It was while standing at a forge 
 in the beautiful valley of Hempstead, England, that he heard 
 the arresting voice, “Go to the lost sheep of the House of 
 Israel; and as ye go preach, saying the Kingdom of Heaven 
 is at hand; heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, 
 cast out devils. Freely ye have received, freely give.” The 
 opportunity came to him in 1771, when at the Conference in 
 Bristol, John Wesley trumpeted the challenge, “Our breth¬ 
 ren in America call aloud for help, who will go?” On the 
 instant, as if summoned to the judgment bar of God, there 
 sprang to his feet a young man of twenty-six, with a restless 
 nature like David Livingstone and William Taylor, with 
 a capacity for suffering as remarkable as that of Isaac Jogues, 
 with a zeal incandescent as that of Ignatius Loyola, only 
 five feet nine inches tall, but morally a giant, with as ardent 
 spiritual aspirations as Thomas a’Kempis, unimaginative 
 yet not without vision, not brilliant but audacious, untiring, 
 with a will to achieve, and, accepted for missionary service 
 in America, Francis Asbury returned home to bid a final 
 farewell to his parents and then took ship across the Atlantic. 
 
 His purpose in coming to America as written in his 
 Journal on the voyage has become classic: “Whither am I 
 going? To the new world. What to do? To gain honor? 
 No, if I know my own heart. To get money? No, I am 
 going to live to God, and to get others to do so.” Here 
 you have the uncovered secret of Francis Asbury’s life and 
 labors in America. This love of souls which was ever a 
 
 flaming passion alone accounts for his undying devotion and 
 his grim endurance of hardships. To him Methodism was 
 Evangelism. Human beings were the only priceless things, 
 so, like an arrow through the air he sped from place to place 
 crying, “I call heaven and earth to record against you this 
 day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and 
 cursing; therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed 
 may live.” This spiritual passion for souls is the explan¬ 
 ation of his ceaseless wanderings. 
 
 On landing he immediately began his unmatched itinerant 
 career. His home was “on the road.” He had no other. 
 When he came to America he rented no house. He hired no 
 lodgings but simply set out upon the long road and was 
 still traveling 45 years later when Death finally caught up 
 with him. He literally went everywhere. In his annual 
 or semi-annual Episcopal journeys he visited practically every 
 state every year. His journal shows that he went into 
 Pennsylvania 78 times, Maryland 80, North Carolina 63, 
 South Carolina 46, Virginia 84, Tennessee and Georgia 20, 
 New York more than 50 times and New Jersey over 60. 
 The difficulties of travel, the hardships which he had to 
 endure, the perils which everywhere beset his path, his 
 bodily weaknesses and sufferings must all be understood to 
 appreciate the full measure of his devotion to his missionary 
 purpose, and throughout his long life from this one great 
 purpose he never wavered, never deviated, never retreated. 
 The glorious gospel he preached in 1771, the year he landed 
 in America, he preached in 1816 when ennobled by suffering 
 and enriched by many and various experiences, now without 
 strength to walk to church, he is carried in the arms of a 
 friend, like a tired child at the end of a busy day, and placed 
 in a chair on the table in the church and in much pain and 
 great weakness makes his last exhortation. 
 
 This republic would have been a far different country had 
 Francis Asbury, filled with missionary zeal, not come to it 
 in its formative period. Wherever he went he was a 
 prophet of righteousness. He spoke in a thousand homes on 
 the frontiers and wherever he lodged he lifted men’s thoughts 
 to God and instilled ideas of morality. He builded altars 
 in almost every city and town in the United States and 
 kindled fires thereon which are still burning. He preached 
 the doctrine of human democracy when the nation was in 
 the midst of a gigantic struggle with paternalism and aris¬ 
 tocracy. He inculcated respect for the law and order and 
 created ideals of brotherhood and citizenship along the 
 mountain trails and through the trackless forests where 
 civilization walked with slow but conquering step. He chal- 
 
 18 
 
lenged despair with the blessed hope of the gospel and 
 brought to the lonely the companionship of his Christ. He 
 hurled anathemas against sin and vice, personal and national, 
 and started crusades against the iniquitous business of the 
 saloon which, gathering momentum with every passing year, 
 have finally resulted in national prohibition; he comforted 
 myriads in their sorrows and agonies and, like a tender and 
 faithful shepherd, sought for lost sheep from New Hamp¬ 
 shire to the Southern sea, and from the Atlantic to the Blue 
 Grass lands of Kentucky; he prayed in ten thousand house¬ 
 holds, preached seventeen thousand sermons and won multi¬ 
 tudes to Christ, making a contribution second to no other 
 man in the creation and development of high national ideals 
 of patriotism and religion in the new republic. 
 
 Not a college trained man, life to him was a long school- 
 day. He sat at the feet of some of life’s greatest teachers, 
 such as pain, hunger, cold, opportunity, a vast wilderness and 
 a few great books. God, nature and solitude were among 
 his instructors. And he did the tasks they set for him and 
 learned the lessons they taught him and became wise. He 
 sat in the open and listened and there came a day when 
 music dropped like honey from his lips. He knelt and 
 prayed out under the stars and when he spoke, men said it 
 was the voice of God. He looked into the faces of men 
 and they saw he had understanding and obeyed his will. He 
 was an effective preacher, an organizer with genius and 
 vision, a founder of schools, and a wise and successful ad¬ 
 ministrator, but his rank as a missionary in America rests 
 upon something else. The glory of his distinguished career 
 is to be found in the supreme teaching of his long life, 
 “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
 abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” 
 Losing his life he found it, and out of his sacrifice and that 
 of others has come this great Centenary movement which 
 seeks to establish the Kingdom of God in all the earth. 
 
 Nathan Bangs 
 
 By H. F. Rail 
 
 \ J ISCOUNT MORLEY has defined a leader as one who 
 forsees changes and then shapes institutions and 
 
 moulds men’s thoughts and pur¬ 
 poses to meet them. Nathan Bangs 
 was a real leader in this sense. 
 From 1808, when he attended his 
 first General Conference, to 1852, 
 which was his last, there was 
 hardly a notable movement in the 
 church that did not feel his im¬ 
 press. And his influence was due 
 to qualities such as Morley men¬ 
 tions: courage of decision, vigor in 
 action, the vision of possibilities, 
 and sound common sense. 
 
 Methodism was a providential 
 instrument for the new world. On the one hand was its 
 quickening gospel message, on the other its marvelous system 
 of the itinerancy. The foundations of a new nation were 
 being laid. America was no longer a ribbon of colonies 
 along the coast. The pioneer spirit was thrusting out its 
 children through forests, over mountain pass, down the 
 westward flowing rivers, out upon the plains. The tradi¬ 
 tional ministry, educated, settled, well supported, could not 
 meet the need, and the itinerant came in. The typical 
 itinerant was young, unmarried, without special education; 
 but his heart was warm, his courage was high, his devotion 
 was apostolic, and he proclaimed a convincing gospel in words 
 that every man could understand. Free from domestic ties, 
 he traveled his long circuit and lived on the most meager 
 support. 
 
 When Nathan Bangs began his work Methodism was fac¬ 
 ing a new problem, that of effective work in the settled com¬ 
 munities. She had developed her system for different con¬ 
 ditions. What was admirable on the frontier circuit might 
 be inadequate elsewhere. She required no education of her 
 preachers, and provided for none, not even a conference 
 course of study. She gave her ministers meager compen¬ 
 sation. When a preacher married and had a family to sup¬ 
 port it usually meant his “location,” that is, his withdrawal 
 from active service. Up to 1814, for example, 1616 men 
 had been received into the ministry in full connection. 
 Omitting the 608 who were still in active service in that 
 year, the average time in the ministry of the remaining 1008 
 men was not quite seven years. Only twenty-six of these 
 men had served more than twenty years. And of the thou¬ 
 sand and eight men who had dropped out of the ranks over 
 eight hundred had “located.” 
 
 Thus the church, lacking educated ministers, was at the 
 same time losing the men who had gotten a training from 
 practical experience. 
 
 Further, the church was failing to see its larger tasks 
 lying beyond its great evangelistic calling, especially its edu¬ 
 cational mission. Catechetical instruction was infrequent. 
 The Sunday School, just coming in, was primarily for the 
 children of the poor. Methodism had no church papers or 
 journals, and was circulating few books. The full list of 
 books put out by the Book Concern could be bought for 
 thirty dollars. It had no higher institution of learning. 
 
 In the light of these conditions we must judge what 
 Nathan Bangs did. With a broad vision, a deep devotion 
 to the church, and an equal vigor of mind and will, he 
 planned to fit the church for its tasks. To stem the tide of 
 locations, he demanded better pay for the preachers and 
 parsonages for their families. He proposed the conference 
 course of study, to be prepared by the bishops or a com¬ 
 mittee appointed by them. It took three or four days’ debate 
 to win the General Conference of 1816 to these simple pro¬ 
 posals. He won out against similar opposition and com¬ 
 mitted the church to the founding of seminaries and col¬ 
 leges. He began the real history of the Methodist Book 
 Concern as an effective publishing house. Before he took 
 charge it had no premises of its own, no press, no bindery, 
 no journals. He was the real father of our great periodical 
 literature. 
 
 All this prepared him for his last and greatest service to 
 the church, the founding of the missionary society. It doe* 
 not detract from the credit due to others to point out that 
 Dr. Bangs framed its constitution, served as its first presiding 
 officer, and directed its work for many years. Here again 
 it was his insight that made him the leader and showed him 
 the task of the church. Methodism was missionary long 
 before the Missionary Society. The old itinerant was a 
 missionary in the strictest sense of the word. But the time 
 had come for the organization of a distinct society, and this 
 for several reasons. Foremost was the need of the great 
 frontier, and of organized and adequate support for the 
 itinerants on the distant firing line. It would no longer do 
 to depend upon the sums that could be gathered and dis¬ 
 tributed individually as Bishop Asbury had done. Second 
 came the summons of fields of special need. Missions to the 
 Indians were of first interest, though the work among the 
 French in Canada and Louisiana by men who could speak 
 in that language was considered. Third came the thought 
 of work in foreign lands, with the Spanish speaking peoples 
 in South America, in Africa, and elsewhere. And back of 
 all this the final fact that the resources of Methodism in the 
 settled communities formed a growing power that could 
 be used for these great ends. The story of the society be¬ 
 longs elsewhere, but his share in this alone will suffice to 
 keep alive the name of Nathan Bangs. He showed the 
 Methodism of his day its task and rallied its forces. His 
 spirit repeats through the Centenary the challenge of a larger 
 program to our day. 
 
 19 
 
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Historic Buildings of Methodism 
 
 /esley Chape 
 (John Street 
 Church) 
 
 Wesley’s Foundery 
 
 hapel, London 
 (Left) 
 
 1739 
 
 Barratt’s Chapel, 
 near Frederica, Del 
 (Left) 
 
 Home of 
 
 
 21 
 
 itsfe 
 
First Things in Methodism 
 
 By John F. Goucher 
 
 BRITISH WESLEYAN METHODISM 
 
 1728. “The Holy Club” was organized at Oxford by 
 Charles Wesley and two others. 
 
 1729. John Wesley became the 
 leader on his return to Oxford. 
 
 1736. John Wesley was awak¬ 
 ened to the necessity of spiritual 
 regeneration. 
 
 1738, May 26. John Wesley 
 was converted, his “heart being 
 strangely warmed” at Alder’s 
 Gate meeting. 
 
 1739. Commenced to preach 
 the doctrine of personal regenera¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Organized the first “band” for 
 conference and instruction. 
 
 Organized the first Methodist Society. 
 
 Laid the corner-stone of his first chapel. 
 
 1740. Appointed Thomas Maxwell to continue work¬ 
 ing as a local preacher. 
 
 1744, June 25. The first Conference of the British 
 Wesleyan Societies convened. 
 
 1766. Philip Embury began to preach in New York City 
 in the fall, and organized the first British Wesleyan Society 
 in New York City. 
 
 1768. The ground was leased and the first building for 
 British Wesleyan preaching in New York was commenced 
 by the John Street congregation. 
 
 John Wesley was requested to have a missionary sent to 
 Wesley Chapel (John Street) by the Conference of the 
 British Wesleyan Societies in Great Britain, also appealed 
 to for financial assistance to relieve the debt on the British 
 Wesleyan Chapel in John Street. 
 
 1769. John Wesley sent the first British Wesleyan mis¬ 
 sionaries to America — Richard Boardman and Joseph Pil- 
 more, “to act under his authority.” The Conference con¬ 
 tributed fifty pounds on the debt of the John Street Chapel, 
 also twenty pounds for the two missionaries, and America 
 was registered as a regular appointment among the British 
 Wesleyan Societies. 
 
 1770. John Wesley appointed Richard Boardman as the 
 first British Wesleyan superintendent in America. 
 
 1773. Thomas Rankin was sent, and called the first 
 Conference of the British Wesleyan missionaries in America 
 to meet in Philadelphia. 
 
 1777. The British Wesleyan Conference of Great 
 Britain abandoned the supervision of Methodism in America. 
 
 1791. The British Wesleyan Societies of Great Britain 
 organized as a church, providing for self government and 
 the administration of the sacraments. 
 
 AMERICAN METHODISM 
 
 1760. The first itinerating Methodist preacher in 
 America was Robert Strawbridge. 
 
 The first preaching of Methodism in America was by 
 Robert Strawbridge on Sam’s Creek, Maryland, in his home, 
 as soon as it was in order. 
 
 1761. The first circuit for Methodist preaching in 
 America included the home of Robert Strawbridge and John 
 Maynard. 
 
 1762 or 1763. The first recorded Methodist baptism in 
 the world was Henry Maynard. 
 
 1763. The first recorded Methodist convert in America 
 was John Evans. He “was the third person to join the 
 strawbridge Class.” 
 
 Francis Asbury records in his Journal: “Mr. Straw- 
 bridge founded the first society in Maryland — and in 
 J merica.” 
 
 Note —Some of the dates given are in dispute, but Dr. Goucher 
 
 1764. The mother church of American Methodism was 
 the Strawbridge log meeting house on Sam’s Creek. 
 
 From this center American Methodism was extended 
 throughout Maryland into Virginia, Pennsylvania and 
 Delaware. 
 
 The seeds of American Methodism were first borne across 
 the Ohio and Mississippi by the preachers and laymen of 
 Maryland. 
 
 The first native American to become a Methodist 
 preacher was Richard Owings. 
 
 1772. The first native American to become a traveling 
 Methodist preacher was William Watters. 
 
 1773. Within the area of Strawbridge’s itinerating the 
 first circuits, classes, societies and quarterly meeting of Amer¬ 
 ican Methodism were organized; 
 
 The first class leaders, exhorters and preachers were con¬ 
 verted, appointed and supervised; 
 
 The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper were 
 first administered by Methodist preachers; 
 
 All churchly functions were first exercised by Methodist 
 authority; and 
 
 Indigenous, self-supporting, and self-propagating Ameri¬ 
 can Methodism was inaugurated, developed and maintained. 
 
 1779. The first organization of Methodists into an in¬ 
 dependent church, with official ordinations and provision 
 for administering the sacraments, etc., was at the Conference 
 held at Fluvanna, Va. The functioning of these provisions 
 was held in temporary abeyance by mutual agreement for the 
 sake of unity among the Methodists in America. 
 
 1783, Dec. 24. The John Street Society in New York, 
 having been abandoned by the British Wesleyan mission¬ 
 aries, John Dickins was sent to reconstruct the John Street 
 Society. He was the only Methodist preacher from east 
 of the Hudson river in the “Christmas Conference.” 
 
 1784. The first General Conference of American 
 Methodism convened in Baltimore December 25th. 
 
 Of the sixty Methodist preachers present not one had 
 been sent to America by John Wesley or was at the British 
 Wesleyan Conference held in Philadelphia, 1773, except 
 Francis Asbury, and he had become thoroughly Ameri¬ 
 canized. 
 
 This General Conference organized American Method¬ 
 ism into the Methodist Episcopal Church; 
 
 Embodied every principle of doctrine and administration 
 which had been maintained by Robert Strawbridge; 
 
 Unanimously elected and consecrated Francis Asbury 
 General Superintendent of organized American Methodism; 
 
 Provided for the establishment of “Cokesbury,” the first 
 Methodist college in the world; 
 
 Sent Freeborn Garrettson to Nova Scotia — the first 
 foreign missionary of American Methodist. 
 
 1789. The Book Concern was established by John 
 Dickins. 
 
 1792. The General Conference modified the “Form of 
 Discipline,” struck out the “Binding Minute” severing all 
 official connection of American Methodism with Mr. Wes¬ 
 ley and the Methodists of Europe. Substituted the term 
 “Bishop” for the term “Superintendent.” 
 
 1796. The General Conference divided American 
 Methodism into “six Yearly Conferences” with defined 
 boundaries. 
 
 1796. Established “The Chartered Fund.” 
 
 1797. The office and term “Presiding Elder” was offi¬ 
 cially established. 
 
 1817. Organized “The Tract Society.” 
 
 1819. Organized “The Missionary Society.” 
 
 has chosen those which he believes are the best authenticated. 
 
i 
 
 H ow the Facts for the Centenary Program Were 
 
 Secured 
 
 Foreign Mission Survey 
 
 By Ralph A. Ward 
 
 j\/| ETHODISM has a world program. It is going 
 somewhere and knows where it is going. 
 
 The Centenary surveys have 
 shown Methodists the path they 
 have followed during the past 
 hundred years. They have shown 
 them where they may go at the 
 beginning of this wonderful cen¬ 
 tury of new world relationships. 
 The surveys were a statement of 
 program. They told what we 
 have — the problems and oppor¬ 
 tunities we face and what we pur¬ 
 pose to do. 
 
 Because of the definiteness and 
 clearness of the world program 
 surveys the whole Centenary program has never lost its sense 
 of direction. America entered the war after the Centenary 
 had been started. In the uncertain days of the war with 
 its conflicting appeals, the clear-cut world program of 
 Methodism held a steadying hand on the thinking and 
 planning of Americans who had caught the new spirit of 
 America’s world ambitions in commerce and industry and 
 statesmanship. A world program for construction stood in 
 bold and lifting contrast to the war programs of destruc¬ 
 tion and selfish rivalries. 
 
 A common program has bound together the people of 
 Episcopal Methodism. Perplexities of organic union are 
 lost from sight in the presence of a compelling objective for 
 service. People who make up Episcopal Methodism are a 
 unit as never before. As world service in the war has made 
 of one purpose and one fellowship all citizens of America, 
 so the call to world service in Methodism’s program has 
 brought a fellowship with new spiritual dynamic into the 
 life of Methodist Churches the world around. 
 
 The surveys were no mere academic studies. They were 
 the thinking and purposes of missionaries on two score of 
 Christian battle-fronts. They tell the struggle of a century. 
 They show foundations so deeply and broadly laid in the 
 life of many peoples that the structure of a world church 
 can now more quickly go forward with its larger con¬ 
 tribution to the church universal. 
 
 The Centenary survey processes provided check after check 
 on the estimates of the individual missionary nearest the local 
 tasks. The figures were carefully reviewed and modified 
 where necessary by local finance committees. They were 
 edited by bishops and other administrators. They were 
 not a bundle of guesses nor of utopian hopes, but a state¬ 
 ment of godly judgment by trained specialists. 
 
 The estimates were conservative. They were made in 
 that atmosphere of disappointment in which missionaries had 
 lived for many years when their appeals for increased funds 
 were seldom answered by even partial response. 
 
 The survey was no mere call for money. It was a picture 
 of returns on life investment. The most significant feature 
 of the world program was not its financial totals — it was 
 its picture of marvelous progress at a task which most folks 
 had indifferently regarded as all but impossible. It was its 
 picture of the triumphant worth-whileness of life investment 
 in a world program of service whose dimensions are com¬ 
 mensurate with the new world-thinking of our day. The 
 survey was a challenge to the best and strongest for it made 
 a little more clear the world program and the race program 
 of salvation in Jesus Christ. 
 
 H ome Mission Survey 
 
 By Ralph E. Diffendorfer 
 
 H OW may the church projects in America, that is the 
 local churches, missions, parish houses, settlements, 
 homes, and training schools be 
 classified as to need on a missionary 
 basis and how can we discover 
 where these needy projects are lo¬ 
 cated and appraise their need of 
 missionary help—this was the prob¬ 
 lem before those making the Home 
 Mission Surveys of the two great 
 Methodist Churches. 
 
 The principles agreed upon in¬ 
 cluded first of all, the purely mis¬ 
 sionary responsibilities. These 
 were church projects in fields 
 where the Methodist Church was 
 wholly or chiefly responsible and where aid must be given 
 on a purely missionary basis in order that the church might 
 meet adequately the religious needs of the community. Such 
 projects are the foreign missions under our flag in Porto 
 Rico and Hawaii; the established types of home mission work 
 as Indian, negro, Alaskan, the Highlanders, the Mormons, 
 isolated rural communities and newly developed frontier 
 fields, and much of the foreign-speaking work; also special¬ 
 ized forms of missionary work in rural and city fields among 
 recent immigrant peoples, industrial groups and the down¬ 
 town transient polyglot masses. 
 
 The second principle and classification were the oppor¬ 
 tunity situations where aid is necessary now in order to place 
 the church within a five year period on a basis not only self- 
 sustaining but able to give support to missionary causes. 
 Such projects are the rapidly growing frontier fields; 
 adequate equipment and trained leadership for rural 
 churches ; strategic suburban and city fields; and those 
 churches needing a subsidy for pastors and staff workers 
 where the strength of the future work depends on an ade¬ 
 quately trained leadership. 
 
 The third principle included those peculiar responsi¬ 
 bilities which both denominations had to assume to discharge 
 their full missionary obligations. Here were included the 
 care of the religious life of students at non-denominational 
 schools; the presentation of Christian life-work to young 
 people and students; special training schools for Christian 
 service; and the training of ministers to be pastor-evange¬ 
 lists and the lay members in personal evangelism. 
 
 With these principles and this classification clearly in 
 mind, groups of trained men and women went throughout 
 the country and assembled the leaders of the churches both 
 lay and ministerial and endeavored to locate and set down 
 in writing all the situations which might properly be in¬ 
 cluded. The workers needed and the aid in money for new 
 buildings, equipment and staff over a five year period were 
 carefully considered and recorded district by district. 
 
 When the great war came on both the Methodist Episco¬ 
 pal and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were the 
 first to increase their askings in order to provide their share 
 of obligation in the tremendous and unprecedented tasks of 
 reconstruction. These askings were based on careful sur¬ 
 veys and are amounts needed over and above the regular 
 Home Mission funds. 
 
 The churches have already begun to feel the spiritual 
 significance of the self-examination involved in making these 
 surveys and have responded in faith, courage and renewed 
 confidence to the mighty program resulting from these 
 studies. 
 
 23 
 
 
Lights and Shadows in Our Cities 
 
 24 
 
Social Service and the Church 
 
 By Harry F. Ward, 
 
 T HE spirit which gave Methodism birth was a spirit of 
 service. Wesley’s philanthropy at Oxford began with 
 
 his sympathy for prisoners. Under 
 his leadership a reading club be¬ 
 came a center of brotherly services 
 to the unfortunate; releasing pris¬ 
 oners held for debt, helping the 
 poor with money and medicine, 
 maintaining children at school and 
 providing winter clothing for 
 them. These and other demands 
 came with such power and convic¬ 
 tion to the little group that the 
 very walls of their club were 
 stripped of its pictures to meet the 
 needs revealed. 
 
 From the day of the famous club to the end of his life 
 Wesley’s days were filled with practical service to the needy 
 of every description. Furnishing employment, mapping out 
 the city of London into districts with volunteer visitors ap¬ 
 pointed for each to look after the poor and sick, establishing 
 a leading society, creating dispensaries, founding schools and 
 orphanages, even publishing the classics in cheap editions, 
 these were some of the activities in which that restless doer 
 of good works engaged. 
 
 The followers of Wesley never lost altogether the initial 
 impulse toward practical service given by their leader. In 
 these later days the spirit of service to every individual need 
 is once again stirring the church with new life; and from that 
 ideal of service to the individual, the local churches are 
 beginning to reach out into the field of community service, 
 until now the ideal of service to the whole community is 
 fairly well established as the direction in which the church 
 is moving. 
 
 But the past few years have revealed a far larger task 
 
 than had appeared on the horizon of Wesley’s day, or upon 
 the day of any generation until the present one. That task 
 is the regeneration of the social order itself. For its ac¬ 
 complishment, there is no lack of guiding principles, either 
 in the early tradition of the church, or in its later ideals. 
 What remains now to be done, is to make full and complete 
 use of those principles in the construction of a Christian 
 order of society. 
 
 A three-fold challenge comes to the church today as it 
 stands, with immense resources, power and influence, before 
 this call to a new application of its ideals. 
 
 First, is the church to be content merely to carry forward 
 on a larger scale than ever before the services which it has 
 already established ? Or will it seek also the creation of a 
 society in which many of those services will be forever 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Again, will it use its power and influence merely in an 
 attempt to coerce the opposing forces on the industrial field 
 into “right relations” with one another, or will it give itself 
 also to the utmost to build that kind of a social order in 
 which there shall be no opposing camps, but only coopera¬ 
 tion in a common task? 
 
 Finally, will it be content to teach the necessity of good 
 material conditions for all? Or will it challenge as well 
 the righteousness of a system of society which perpetuates 
 power and profits for one group and wages and work for 
 the other, to the spiritual destruction of the wielders of 
 power and the physical and moral degradation of those over 
 whom the power is held ? 
 
 If the church would today meet the challenge of the 
 times, it must bear its full share of the task of breaking new 
 paths to the goal of economic brotherhood. Only so can it 
 fulfill its ministry to a world weary of strife over material 
 possessions, and hungering for the spiritual joy which comes 
 only with the opportunity of working together in fellow¬ 
 ship at a common task for the good of all men. 
 
 Pastoral Letter of the Methodist Episcopal 
 
 Bishops on Social Service 
 
 HE Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal 
 A Church, assembled in regular session, call 
 upon the ministers and laymen of the Church to 
 give most earnest heed to the application of 
 Christian principles to social reconstruction. It 
 is increasingly manifest that there must be pro¬ 
 gress away from selfish competition to unselfish 
 co-operation in that struggle for daily bread 
 which is the largest single fact in the life of the 
 majority of men in any community. If this pro¬ 
 gress is to be orderly and not violent we must 
 leave behind us the evils which lead to deplor¬ 
 able violence or counter violence by either party. 
 
 If Christianity is a driving force, making for 
 democracy, we cannot put a limit upon the ex¬ 
 tension of democracy; we must recognize the 
 inevitability of the application of democracy to 
 industry. While we rejoice in the adoption of 
 all such ameliorative measures as better hous¬ 
 ing and various forms of social insurance, we 
 call for the more thorough-going emphasis on 
 human freedom, which will make democratic 
 
 progress mean the enlargement and enrichment 
 of the life of the masses of mankind through the 
 self-directive activity of men themselves. 
 
 We favor an equitable wage for laborers, 
 which shall have the right of way over rent, in¬ 
 terest and profits. 
 
 We favor collective bargaining, as an instru¬ 
 ment for the attainment of industrial justice and 
 for training in democratic procedure. 
 
 And we also favor advance of the workers 
 themselves through profit sharing and through 
 positions on boards of directorship. 
 
 In the discussion of all such matters we urge 
 all individuals and groups to hold fast the tol¬ 
 erance which comes out of mutual respect and 
 to keep always in mind that the richest 
 sound social idealism is the 
 Christ. 
 
 Adopted by the 
 odist Episco 
 
 I 9 I 9- 
 
Hot Weather Scenes in the City 
 
 28 
 
There’s Need for Sunshine Here 
 
 t 
 
 29 
 
The Benevolent Organizations of Methodism 
 
 By Thomas Nicholson 
 
 T HE first Methodist impulse was philanthropic. John 
 Wesley was a prison visitor and a prison reformer long 
 
 before he experienced the “strange 
 warming of the heart.” Early 
 Methodism was distinctly a social 
 as well as an evangelistic program. 
 And one of the great historians is 
 on record as saying, in substance, 
 that “the work of John Wesley 
 for England was greater in its so¬ 
 cial influence than that of Pitt, the 
 Great Commoner himself.” 
 
 One of the first instincts of 
 American Methodism was for 
 education. The story of the 
 founding of Cokesbury college is 
 The records show that after the 
 first college burned the contributions of the Methodists in 
 that early day for this single benevolence amounted to $2.50 
 for every man, woman and child of their membership — and 
 that in a day when dollars were relatively worth hundreds. 
 
 The organized benevolences of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church have been growing apace for a hundred years. Take 
 for an example the receipts of the Board of Foreign Missions 
 of that branch of Methodism. In 1907 the regular receipts 
 of that board were $1,070,900; in 1909 they were $1,036,- 
 288; then a gradual increase until 1916 when the receipts 
 showed $1,255,809. Two years later the total was $2,- 
 380,346, or more than double the receipts of 1907. Simi¬ 
 larly in 1911, the debt amounted to $171,976. This amount 
 has been reduced gradually until in 1918 it was wiped out. 
 Now comes the great Centenary movement, with its more 
 than $8,000,000 a year for foreign missions. A similar 
 record has characterized the other boards. The Board of 
 Sunday Schools, organized in 1908 on its present modern 
 basis, has grown until it is one of the best organized, best 
 supported and most influential of its kind in the world. 
 And the Board of Education has recently completed its 
 Jubilee Campaign by which it has increased the endowment 
 and funds for equipment of the colleges of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church by more than thirty million dollars. 
 
 The record of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is 
 equally gratifying. In 1850 their offerings for foreign and 
 domestic missions totaled $85,973, and in 1854 the amount 
 rose to $168,031. By the time of the General Conference 
 of 1898 they reported for foreign missions $1,077,388; for 
 their domestic boards $531,255; for Woman’s Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions $307,800, and for Woman’s Home Missions $151,512 
 — a total for that quadrennium of $2,067,955. Their last 
 report, for 1916-17, shows a total from all sources for Home 
 and Foreign Missions, including their woman’s work, of 
 $1,408,638. 
 
 The women of the Methodist Episcopal Church, too, have 
 done a great work. The Woman’s Foreign Missionary 
 Society has a work of world-wide scope and is now regularly 
 expending quite beyond a million dollars a year. The 
 Woman’s Home Missionary Society has a perfect net-work 
 of hospitals, deaconess homes, and other work of the nature 
 of settlement houses. The property valuation of the 
 Woman’s Home Missionary Society alone is more than one 
 
 million dollars. The number of its deaconesses, nurses and 
 similar helpers is considerably beyond five hundred. The 
 number of visits in district nursing alone reported last year 
 was about sixty thousand. They have more than two thousand 
 beds in their hospitals, and last year they treated about 
 32,000 patients. 
 
 In addition to these activities of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church there is a very rapidly increasing list of hospitals, 
 such as Wesley Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which has 
 property and endowment valued at roundly two million dol¬ 
 lars and which treats more than seven thousand patients 
 annually; the Brooklyn Methodist Episcopal Hospital with 
 property worth two and a half million dollars, and which 
 last year treated about six thousand patients; and others of 
 scarcely less importance. The number is increasing every 
 year. Old People’s Homes, Children’s institutions, and 
 Child Welfare Societies are multiplying with each year and 
 form a series of philanthropic endeavors of the first im¬ 
 portance. 
 
 Equally praiseworthy is the philanthropic work of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Barnes Hospital, St. 
 Louis, Mo., began with a single gift of almost one million 
 dollars, from Mr. Robert A. Barnes. Its income from en¬ 
 dowment is now about $45,000 a year. Voluntary con¬ 
 tributions amounting to about $155,000 a year bring the 
 expenditures up to $200,000 annually. It is said that five 
 hundred persons, on an average, come to the clinic every day. 
 Wesley Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, reported last 
 year 1,505 patients treated; and in the list of nationalities 
 are found Russians, Hungarians, Germans, Italians and 
 Turks, in addition to Americans, English and Canadians. 
 This church has other noted hospitals, such as the Galloway 
 at Nashville and the Methodist Hospital at Memphis. 
 
 Its orphanages are equally noteworthy. Thirteen con¬ 
 ferences report such institutions. One of these has a capacity 
 for 240 children; others nearly as many; and some of them 
 have already cared for fully one thousand orphans. 
 
 The educational work of the Church, South, includes two 
 universities, sixteen colleges in Class A, eleven in Class B, 
 two in Class C, twenty-four Junior Colleges, twenty-nine 
 academies, and four missionary training schools exclusive of 
 the schools in foreign mission territory. The total value 
 of grounds and buildings is approximately fifteen million 
 dollars, and the total endowment approaches ten million 
 dollars. 
 
 And what shall we say of the twenty-two schools and 
 colleges for colored people, under the Freedmen’s Aid So¬ 
 ciety of the Methodist Episcopal Church, including what 
 is recognized as the greatest medical school for negroes in 
 the United States; namely, Meharry Medical College at 
 Nashville, Tenn., which has just now received a conditional 
 offer of three hundred thousand dollars, from two of the 
 great educational boards, toward a half million, the balance 
 of which is to be raised in the Centenary movement. This 
 will put it at the head of all medical institutions for colored 
 people. 
 
 The immigrant work, the rescue missions, the settlement 
 work and similar efforts of these two branches of Methodism 
 vastly exceed the much advertised and highly appreciated 
 work of the Salvation Army. The other branches of 
 Methodism each has its catalogue of such institutions. 
 
 The Methodist Year Books are a compendium of infor¬ 
 mation on these great things and are worthy of most careful 
 study. “There remaineth yet very much land to be pos¬ 
 sessed”; but, at home and abroad Methodism has reason to 
 be proud of its chain of benevolent organizations, ably ad¬ 
 ministered by great benevolent boards. The material assist¬ 
 ance and the new impetus of the Centenary will probably 
 double this noble work in the next five years. 
 
 
 of fascinating interest. 
 
 30 
 
The Deaconess Movement 
 
 By Daniel W. Howell 
 
 T HE Deaconess Work of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church had its birth in the heart of women to glorify 
 
 Christ. The suggestion of a move¬ 
 ment came from Bishop James M. 
 Thoburn and his sister, Isabelle. 
 They had seen and were impressed 
 with the work of women in Europe 
 and felt that the women of this 
 country could be persuaded to give 
 just as valuable service. 
 
 Form and shape was given to an 
 organization by the General Con¬ 
 ference of 1888. At that time the 
 movement was fully launched as a 
 work of the denomination. 
 
 The first few years were marked 
 Women flocked to its ranks and 
 freely offered their services. Strong, able and consecrated 
 women gave inspiring leadership. In 1889 the first women 
 were consecrated as Deaconesses of the Methodist Episco¬ 
 pal Church. Homes seemed to spring up in almost a night, 
 and in a brief space of ten years there were few parts of the 
 country that had not felt the helpful influence of these “kind 
 friends of many.” 
 
 The strength of the Women’s Home Missionary Society 
 was given to extending this work. The Methodist Dea¬ 
 coness Association came into existence. The German 
 Central Deaconess Board cared for the work among those 
 of that tongue and nation. 
 
 At the General Conference of 1900 the General Dea¬ 
 coness Board was made a part of the movement, in 1912 
 it was given general oversight of the entire work and in 
 1916 it was made a regular Disciplinary Benevolent Board. 
 
 Very early in the life of this work property came under 
 its care and now it reports over eight millions of assets in 
 this country. Beyond the reported records there is much 
 property in the denomination that must be placed to the 
 influence of this work. 
 
 Over one thousand of these women are serving in this 
 country. The name is known in every village and the dress 
 is recognized in city and town. 
 
 The Deaconess movement of the Methodi t Epi copal 
 Church, South, was inaugurated by the General Conference 
 of 1902 because of the demand for the service of trained, 
 uniformed women in home mission work. The develop¬ 
 ment of the movement was committed to the Woman’s 
 Home Missionary Society. The disciplinary requirements 
 were incorporated by the General Conference in the con¬ 
 stitution of the society. The immediate supervision of the 
 work was vested in a committee of fourteen chosen from the 
 membership of the society with the Executive Secretary in 
 charge. 
 
 The first deaconesses were consecrated in 1903 at Trinity 
 Church, Atlanta, Ga., by Bishop E. R. Hendrix. The 
 number of deaconesses has not been great, the average being 
 ten annually, but the standard is high and the service pro¬ 
 portionally efficient. The demand for the service of the 
 deaconess arrested the attention of many noble, devout 
 women who have given themselves to the work with a holy 
 enthusiasm and unflagging zeal. It was the deaconess who 
 made possible the Wesley Houses, the fore-runner of other 
 larger centers of social evangelism. Out of their social and 
 evangelistic effort churches in foreign communities have had 
 birth and the church has been socialized. 
 
 In 1910 the three missionary organizations of the Method¬ 
 ist Episcopal Church, South, were merged into the Board of 
 Missions and the Deaconess movement was committed to 
 the Home Department. 
 
 Care of the Retired Ministers 
 
 By J. B. Hinge ley 
 
 T HE gracious task of providing for the retired minister, 
 widow and orphan is now common to the Protestant 
 
 Church though the details are mod¬ 
 ified according to the peculiar 
 genius of the various denomina¬ 
 tions. Generally, as in the Metho¬ 
 dist Episcopal Church, a two-fold 
 obligation is recognized. 
 
 1. To provide an annuity or 
 pension based on years of service, 
 not as a gratuity, but as the recog¬ 
 nition of “an inherent claim to a 
 comfortable support.” 
 
 2. To provide for the needs 
 of those ministers and widows for 
 whom the pension provisions are 
 inadequate; such as the very aged and feeble, or those whose 
 ministry was cut short by ill health or other disability. 
 
 The principal differences in the plans for pensions relate 
 to the determination of the amount of the annuity or pension. 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church starts out with the propo¬ 
 sition that thirty-five years represents a completed ministry, 
 which entitles the retired minister to “half pay,” reckoned 
 as one-half the average salaries paid to the pastors within 
 an annual conference. Having thus established the “half 
 pay,” the amount is divided by thirty-five to give the annuitv 
 for one year’s service. By multiplying this annuity rate by 
 the number of years of service the ennuity or pension of 
 each claimant is indicated. Some denominations base the 
 annuity rate on what the individual clergyman has received 
 instead of on the average of the conference or diocese. 
 
 The amount allowed to a necessitous case is determined 
 by a thorough consideration of his needs and also the needs 
 of all other beneficiaries of the group, and the amount avail¬ 
 able for such distribution. In the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church the Board of Conference Claimants is the represen¬ 
 tative and agent of the church in providing for the weaker 
 and more needy conferences and for the necessitous cases; 
 and its appropriations must go to them. To these funds all 
 members, churches and conferences are contributors; but 
 the distribution is made according to need. The Board is 
 therefore connectional or general benevolence; with the 
 added responsibility of increasing funds throughout the 
 church. Since its organization in 1908 the total annual dis¬ 
 tribution to Conference claimants has increased from 
 $606,000 to $1,385,663; and investments have increased 
 from less than two million dollars to more than fourteen 
 million dollars. 
 
 There are 7318 claimants; viz., 3154 retired ministers, 
 3601 widows of preachers and 563 dependent orphans of 
 preachers. Their legal claims fixed by the law of the church 
 are $2,353,482 annually; on which there was paid $1,140,- 
 063 in 1918; leaving a deficient of $1,213,419. Hence 
 while much has been done, the task is not yet half completed. 
 
 A few months ago two million dollars for the Permanent 
 Fund of the Board of Conference Claimants was placed a 
 part of the “super-subscription” of the Centenary movement, 
 and amounts contributed to the Board of Conference Claim¬ 
 ants are thus included in the Centenary offerings. A great 
 layman calls the minister “the one and only indispensable 
 man” in the Christian church, and surely all the great enter¬ 
 prises of the kingdom were established by him. But for 
 him there would be no Centenary and the church cannot 
 forget him in old age. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has put a 
 secretary in the field and begun the raising of ten million 
 dollars for this purpose, and while they have not included 
 this object in their Centenary askings, they are planning to 
 have an intensive compaign for this purpose to follow the 
 Centenary drive. 
 
 by intense enthusiasm. 
 
 3i 
 
Methodism Among Negroes 
 Prior to Civil War 
 
 By Frank M. Thomas 
 
 Work of Methodism Among 
 Negroes of Today 
 
 By Robert E. Jones 
 
 I N 1800 the total negro population was over one million. 
 Over thirteen thousand of them were members of the 
 
 Methodist Church. This was 
 about one-fourth of the total 
 membership. A n unparalleled 
 record, when we recall that 
 Methodism had been laboring on 
 this continent for only 25 years. 
 
 One of the most potential fac¬ 
 tors in evangelizing the negroes 
 was the preaching of negroes who 
 had been converted and called of 
 the Spirit. Among those was 
 “Black Harry,” who traveled in 
 turn with Asbury, Coke, What- 
 coat, Garrettsen, and Jesse Lee, 
 “excelling them all in popularity as a preacher”; Henry 
 Evans, whom Bishop Capers declared “was confessedly the 
 father of the Methodist church,” white and black in Fay¬ 
 etteville, N. C., and the best preacher of his time in that 
 quarter; and “Black Punch,” who was led to Christ by 
 Asbury in 1788 as he found him fishing on the wayside and 
 made him ‘a fisher of men.’ The greatest of these was John 
 Stewart, whose work among the Wyandottes led to the or¬ 
 ganization in 1819 of the Methodist Missionary Society. 
 
 In 1829 the South Carolina Conference of the then un¬ 
 divided Methodist Episcopal Church determined to reach the 
 many negroes who were living on outlying plantations, where 
 white families were few. The work thus organized became so 
 successful that it was undertaken in other Southern Confer¬ 
 ences. By the year 1832 there were eight slave missions in 
 operation in South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. These 
 three Conferences had a colored membership of nearly 
 26,000, one-tenth being in the special missions to the slaves. 
 When the Methodist Episcopal Church was divided in 1844 
 the Southern Conferences had organized missions among the 
 slaves in ten states with 68 missions, 71 missionaries and 
 21,063 members. For these they had expended in 1843, 
 522,379.25. 
 
 After the division of the church these Conferences carried 
 on this work with increasing zeal until at the outbreak of 
 the Civil War the number of slave missions had increased 
 to 290, served by 292 missionaries and covering a field from 
 the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic 
 seaboard to the Mississippi and beyond. The Methodist 
 Episcopal church having been estopped by its attitude toward 
 slavery from undertaking work except in a few places along 
 the border, the whole burden of this work among the negroes 
 fell upon the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. When 
 the Civil War broke out this branch of American Method¬ 
 ism had a total colored membership of 163,296. The num¬ 
 ber of members exclusively in the organized slave missions 
 was 77,802, an increase of almost 400% since 1844. For 
 these the Southern Church expended more than $100,000 
 annually. But these cold figures in no sense represent the 
 heroic labors of the self-sacrificing missionaries, some of 
 whom, like Bishop Capers, the founder of the missions, were 
 men of noble birth and high culture. Some of them like 
 John Honour, the first missionary appointed, died at their 
 posts. When it is recalled that all of the negro Methodist 
 denominations were largely organized by men who had been 
 brought to Christ by the preaching of white Methodist 
 preachers, that several of their notable leaders — Bishops 
 like Turner, Beebe, Lane, and Holsey — were converted 
 under such preaching, the whole record is one of sublime 
 fidelity to the missionary command of the risen Lord. 
 
 T HE negro is inseparably linked with the history ot 
 American Methodism. Not only was the “brother in 
 
 black” found among the early 
 American audiences of John Wes¬ 
 ley, in the first Sunday School 
 organized in New York, sharing 
 the hardships of Asbury, for 
 “Black Harry” actually rivaled 
 the “prophet of the long road” in 
 effective pioneer preaching. 
 
 The earliest foreign mission 
 enterprise of Methodism was in 
 Antigua in the West Indies. A 
 negro slave started work there, 
 and Bishop Coke, in several of his 
 first visits to America, came by 
 Antigua to visit and nourish this small beginning of foreign 
 missions. 
 
 Just as if it were an act of gratitude to John Stewart and 
 his racial kin Methodism’s first foreign missionary enterprise 
 was established on the west coast of Africa. 
 
 As Livingstone’s heart buried on the banks of the Lake 
 Bangueola turned the Christian world to the redemption of 
 Africa, no less also did Melville B. Cox, who, after a few 
 months, gave up his life on the hot sands of West Africa, 
 but not until he had sent forth the message that rings 
 throughout the church today “Let a thousand fall, but let 
 not Africa be given up.” And Methodism will not give up 
 its work in Africa until the prayers of Livingstone and Cox 
 are answered and Ethiopia stretches forth her hand unto 
 God. 
 
 The colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which up to 
 1874 was included in membership of the Methodist Episco¬ 
 pal Church, South, and still bears a close relation to that 
 church, has a membership of 250,000 and has its own Bishops 
 and connectional organizations. The Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, makes an annual assessment upon its mem¬ 
 bers to aid in the work of the colored Methodist Episcopal 
 Church and has put in its Centenary askings one million 
 dollars for the aid of that church. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church alone has spent ten 
 million dollars in its educational program among negroes, 
 and almost a like sum in building churches and parsonages 
 and in caring for men on the field. There has been developed 
 a Methodist constituency whom the lamented Bishop Hoss 
 said constituted in character, intelligence and force of lead¬ 
 ership, the best element in Protestant Christianity in America 
 among negroes. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church has among the colored 
 people 2172 ministers, 3538 local preachers, with a member¬ 
 ship of 348,477, and a property valuation of over $10,000,- 
 000. This membership raised in 1918 for the general boards 
 of the church $141,740. There is a steady growth towards 
 self support. In the recent Centenary drive the largest cash 
 offering up to that time came from the New Orleans area 
 composed entirely of colored conferences which reported 
 $91,000 in actual cash, and over $400,000 in signed sub¬ 
 scriptions. 
 
 Very properly the program of Methodism for the future 
 will provide larger educational, evangelistic and social 
 facilities for the negro. Methodism, North and South, 
 must unite in an approach to this problem, which is of vital 
 concern to all sections of the nation. The negro, by his 
 unmixed loyalty to the flag in every crisis which the nation 
 has faced, has earned the good will and the strong hand of 
 help of all patriotic citizens, especially those who are fol¬ 
 lowers of our common Lord. 
 
 32 
 

 The Negro—He Plays, and Works, and Fights 
 
 33 
 
John Stewart -- Apostle to the Wyandot Indians 
 
 By Jonas J. Hulse 
 
 The Wyandot Indian Mission 
 
 u 
 
 NDER a stately tree near the Wyandot Mission 
 Church in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, stands a large 
 
 boulder, bearing on its face this in¬ 
 scription : 
 
 JOHN STEWART 
 Apostle to the Wyandot Indians 
 Father of Missions of 
 Idle Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 Here we have in epitaph the 
 life of that lonely negro who, bur¬ 
 dened by sin, found his way to 
 God, was converted and later 
 obediently followed the voice 
 which called him to preach the 
 gospel in the wilderness. 
 
 In 1816 John Stewart found 
 his way from Marietta, Ohio, to the Wyandot Indians at 
 Upper Sandusky. There by the melody of his musical voice 
 in Christian song, as well as by the fire of his gospel message 
 through the lips of Pointer, the interpreter, he reached the 
 hearts of the children of the forest. The spirit of God was 
 wonderfully present with him, and in the daily meetings 
 held with the Indians in their cabins and about their camp 
 fires, many times were heard in prayer, in testimony and in 
 exhortation, the earnest and eloquent words of Mononcue, 
 Between-the-Logs, Summundewat, Gray-Eyes, and all the 
 ■convert band. 
 
 To such an extent was the work of Stewart established 
 ithat when in 1821 he gladly relinquished his responsibility to 
 
 Rev. J. B. Finley, sent out by the church to take charge 
 of the mission to the Wyandots, it was soon perceived that 
 this group of Christian Indians was worthy of constant care 
 and continued instruction. 
 
 By request of the brethren of the churches of eastern 
 cities, and in order to convince them of the genuineness and 
 value of this Christian enterprise, Finley planned a visit to 
 several of these centers of population. After a farewell visit 
 to the bedside of the now stricken Stewart, this courageous 
 leader set out bravely on his tedious and tortuous pilgrim¬ 
 age, accompanied by Mononcue and Between-the-Logs 
 Christian Indian Chieftains. Even in the midst of the 
 strange and bewildering scenes of city life, these simple 
 children of God lost none of the spontaneity of their forest 
 religion. Just as when they were about their own camp¬ 
 fires, the spirit of God came might¬ 
 ily upon them as they preached to 
 great congregations in Boston, 
 
 New York City and Baltimore. 
 
 Many said, “Of a truth this work 
 is of God.” 
 
 At the end of a hundred years 
 of missionary service, the hosts of 
 Methodism have gathered from all 
 quarters of the globe in order that 
 before them may be brought in re¬ 
 view a century’s growth of the 
 work founded by this humble 
 preacher of the Word. 
 
 34 
 
Methodism and the Other 
 Churches 
 
 By JV. F. Oldham 
 
 T HE temper of Methodism is remarkedly irenic. “If thy 
 heart be as my heart, give me thine hand,” a favorite 
 
 saying of John Wesley’s, is the 
 working formula of his spiritual 
 descendants. Our doctrinal stand¬ 
 ards are so simple and luminous, 
 our policy so practical and satisfac¬ 
 tory. Methodism is never nervous 
 about the closest affiliation with 
 other church bodies seeking the 
 same ends. Sure of God and deep¬ 
 ly set on serving men, Methodism 
 hails with heartiest welcome who¬ 
 soever will join her in bringing 
 needy men to a pardoning and 
 purifying God. In these later days, 
 when the folly of divided ranks and divisive effort is registered 
 in the comparative futility of all the churches in meeting the 
 intrenched evils of the city and the scattered needs of the 
 country, the Methodist Church is more eager than ever to 
 join forces with all like-minded Christians to meet the total 
 task — needing, as it does, the resources of all Christly men. 
 The sad experiences of the allies under different com¬ 
 manders with no unifying center in the earlier years of the 
 war, has not been without its effect on the church’s thinking. 
 
 Methodism’s native hospitality of spirit has been quickened. 
 Eagerly she welcomes the federation of the churches in 
 America; gladly she gives herself to joint programs of local 
 service. With wistful anxiety she looks for the opportunity 
 to commingle her activities with those of all her sister com¬ 
 munions in an “intei church movement” that thus the re¬ 
 ligious mind of the community may be brought to bear upon 
 the deep needs and distresses, the want and woe and sin of 
 the community. 
 
 For Methodism’s instinctive belief is that the divided 
 ranks of Christendom can never be brought together by 
 being invited to set aside cherished beliefs nor by paring 
 down of doctrinal standards. Nor can much be done by 
 sameness of ritual forms. The better way, she thinks, and 
 perhaps the only way Christians will come together into the 
 “unity of the spirit and the bonds of peace” is by giving 
 themselves to correlated sacrificial effort to serve mankind. 
 It is the very essence of Methodism’s creed that the resources 
 of the gospel of Christ are adequate to the needs of man if 
 only they be released. Her prevailing attitude, therefore, 
 is one of ready comradeship in those great programs of 
 evangelization and human betterment which are increasingly 
 challenging the attention of our day. 
 
 Notably, also, does all this find expression in the foreign 
 mission fields. Here, facing the solid phalanxes of the 
 Moslem and Pagan world, the separate divisions of the 
 Christian army have been compelled to come together and 
 by union of effort to conserve their strength, widen their 
 undertakings, and, above all, to achieve the moral impres¬ 
 siveness of a united front. 
 
 Union universities in China, union hospitals, dispensaries, 
 orphanages, presses, and secondary schools in many fields; 
 allotments of territory to be cultivated by the various de¬ 
 nominations in the Philippines, Mexico, South America and 
 other fields, are all co-operative movements in which 
 Methodism holds a foremost place. 
 
 Her dream is not of “corporate union,” beating life down 
 to sameness of outer form or symbol of ritual or creed, but 
 that vital union of correlated effort whereby the whole 
 strength of the church of Christ shall be applied to the whole 
 task of the world’s redemption. 
 
 Educational Problems and 
 Methodism 
 
 By A. IV. Harris 
 
 T HE Preacher is more potent than the Pulpit. The Mis¬ 
 sionary more vital than the Mission House. The value 
 
 of a trained worker is not only at¬ 
 tested in the field of religious en¬ 
 deavor, but in the record of every 
 enterprise of moment. Education 
 is a necessary equipment for suc¬ 
 cess. Without it men succeed only 
 through dumb luck. The kick of 
 a mule once caused a man to dis¬ 
 cover a gold mine, but where one 
 man is kicked into success fifty 
 must attain the goal by hard work. 
 
 There are many who have 
 made name and fortune with 
 little schooling, but not without 
 education. Many who believe education is unnecessary for 
 business, do not discriminate between education and school¬ 
 ing. The difference is vast. George Washington was not 
 college trained, but he was educated. He was a surveyor. 
 Like other professional men of his day, his training was ac¬ 
 quired by personal experience. His knowledge of strategy 
 and his papers as President are further evidences of education. 
 
 Lincoln never went to college, but he was the intellectual 
 superior of most men who do go. He had little help, few 
 books, but a great deal of grit. His chief sources were the 
 Bible and Blackstone. If all boys were like Lincoln, the 
 loss of all our colleges might not be irreparable. Since they 
 are not, they must be shown the way to education. The 
 school is merely the signpost on the road pointing out the 
 way, which might otherwise be difficult to find. It took 
 centuries to create an alphabet when no one had broken the 
 road. Though a boy in knickers may easily acquire a work¬ 
 ing knowledge of arabic numerals, yet there was a time 
 when what he does so simply, taxed all the ability of able 
 men. 
 
 
 Schools develop leadership. There is no way of making 
 a leader as easily and as surely as by the systematic instruc¬ 
 tion of a great teacher. Is it not significant that Jesus was 
 called the Great Physician Who made men sound and the 
 Great Teacher Who made men understand? 
 
 When the United States entered the war the government 
 turned to the colleges for men to organize resources, to in¬ 
 crease production, and to speed up activity in every line. 
 Professors were mobilized. Those who remained at their 
 schools taught the men of the Student Army Training Corps. 
 Not only the faculties, but one hundred and fifty thousand 
 young lieutenants and ensigns, men who took their com¬ 
 panies “over the top,” who flew aeroplanes and manned 
 submarine chasers, were college men. 
 
 The war is over. We turn our attention from killing 
 men to saving men. We went into the war with no thought 
 
 of gain. Now we go for conquest : 
 the conquest of the world for 
 Christ. The need of a vast, trained 
 army of missionaries, preachers, and 
 laymen with a Christian education, 
 is great. The Centenary reminds 
 one of Kipling’s “far flung battle 
 line.” Men must be recruited for 
 the foreign field. Many are wanted 
 in the needy places at home. The 
 schools will create the leaders, 
 train the workers. The mission 
 fields will give them opportun¬ 
 ity. 
 
 35 
 
WORLD PROGRAM FOR 
 
 The Centenary might have been celebrated as some other an¬ 
 niversaries have been celebrated, by a great meeting under the 
 
 trees, when distinguished representatives of the 
 Church would have delivered strong addresses, re¬ 
 counting the history and achievements of American 
 Methodism in the mission fields of the world. These 
 addresses could have been preserved in a bound vol¬ 
 ume, and would doubtless have been of more or less 
 interest to the research worker who delves into the 
 embalmed literature in our great libraries. 
 
 It seemed fitting, however, to the leaders of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church South and of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 to commemorate the Hundredth Anniversary of the founding of 
 our missionary work by a careful study of the whole missionary 
 problem both at home and abroad, and by an attempt to build a 
 world-program for American Methodism. The result is that the 
 Centenary surveys have been compiled. Back of these compila¬ 
 tions, as represented in the bound volumes, are the detailed facts, 
 carefully classified and cross-referenced, so that it is possible to 
 find out just what is being done, and what in the judgment of 
 the leaders ought to be done, in any district of the world where 
 Methodism is at work. 
 
 Thi s is the most gigantic piece of world-program building 
 ever undertaken in the history of the Christian Church. It in¬ 
 volves the strategy of location, the strategy of occupation, the 
 strategy of movement, expressed in national and continental 
 terms. On the home base side it involves the whole question of 
 munitions and of men, and the development of enormous reser¬ 
 voirs of power which would make world-conquest possible. 
 
 In building this world-program our horizons have been lifted. 
 The Methodists in the North have learned about great mission 
 fields strongly occupied by a sister church concerning which, un¬ 
 til the Centenary came, they had little or no knowledge. The 
 Methodists in the South have had new visions of possibilities 
 of work in Europe, in India and in other lands where, until the 
 Centenary came, few realized that Methodism had any great re¬ 
 sponsibility. Thus world-program building for American Metho¬ 
 dism has resulted in united strategy of leadership and of a pro- 
 
 36 
 
METHODISM -by S. Earl Taylor 
 
 gram which will make possible easy transition when the two 
 churches shall unite. 
 
 American Methodism has been at school. Some of us were 
 assigned to the study of a rural church; some of us were assigned 
 to a study of a down-town parish; some of us gave consideration 
 to the requirements of a pioneer school and church in the heart 
 of the Congo; some of us were assigned to the tasks of collecting 
 the general facts of home missions and foreign missions, and to a 
 few was given the still larger task of mastering the questions in¬ 
 volved in international relationship. 
 
 This combined study has brought a clear conviction that a 
 world-program for the Church of Jesus Christ must be broader 
 than a Methodist program. While the most vigorous conservation 
 and extension program of the Centenary will be carried out under 
 denominational auspices we have come to see that each of the 
 great Churches which bears His name has a part in bringing 
 about the glorious day when the kingdom of Jesus Christ shall 
 be established throughout the earth. All have come to realize 
 that the magnitude of the undertaking---involving problems of 
 human relationship and welfare larger and more difficult than 
 have ever yet been considered by any peace conference---calls for 
 a strategy of combination, co-ordination and readjustment no less 
 than that which made the Allies triumphant in the great war. 
 
 The Centenary, therefore, naturally and necessarily leads the 
 Methodist host to the larger indications of a world-program to be 
 prepared under the auspices of the Inter-Church World Move¬ 
 ment, and it is cause for gratitude that the expert leadership de¬ 
 veloped in making our own surveys is available for co-operation 
 with the leaders of other forces in building a program which 
 will be truly world-wide. 
 
 An interesting thing about world-program building is that 
 the work is not finished when the plans are made and the blue 
 prints drawn. For while we deal with brick and mortar, and 
 with all the elements which make up the physical side of human 
 society, we deal also with the human soul, and with mighty 
 spiritual forces which are unseen but eternal. The world-program 
 of today will be but the beginning of the larger world-program 
 of tomorrow. 
 
 37 
 
Secretaries, Methodist Episcopal Church, South 
 
 4) ESTHER CASE 
 
 3 MABEL K.HOWELL 
 
 1(2) E.H.RAWLINGS 
 
 1 5 W.W.PINSON 
 
 ■tys. R.VJ.njf- 
 
 Varies 
 
 
 n. 
 
 3- 
 
 4 - 
 
 5 - 
 6 . 
 
 7- 
 
 8 . 
 
 General Secretary, Board of Missions. 
 
 Secretary Department of Foreign Missions, Board of 
 Secretary Department of Foreign Missions, Board of 
 Secretary Department of Foreign Missions, Board of 
 Secretary Department of Home Missions, Board of 
 
 Secretary Department of Home Missions, Board of 
 
 Secretary Department of Home Missions, Board of 
 
 Secretary of Education, Board of Missions. 
 
 M issions. 
 
 9- 
 
 IO. 
 
 Missions. 
 
 ii. 
 
 M issions. 
 
 12. 
 
 Missions. 
 
 13- 
 
 Missions. 
 
 14- 
 
 Missions. 
 
 *5- 
 
 General Secretary, Sunday School Board. 
 Secretary of Education, Board of Missions. 
 Corresponding Secretary, Sunday School Board. 
 Secretary Board of Church Extension. 
 
 General Secretary Epworth League. 
 
 Secretary, Board of Finance. 
 
 Secretary, Board of Education. 
 
Secretaries, 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 
 
 GEORGL ^ 
 
 IIIPSI 
 
 'ABRmvXsi 
 
 garla^, 
 
 1. Secretary Candidates and Africa, Hoard of Foreign Missions. 
 
 2. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 3. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 4. Secretary Home Base and Latin America, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 5. Secretary Southern Asia, Board of F'oreign Missions. 
 
 6. Secretary Surveys and China, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 7. Secretary Medical Department, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 8. Secretary Bureau of Research and Surveys, Board of Foreign Mis¬ 
 
 sions. 
 
 9. Secretary Education and Literature in Foreign Fields, Board of 
 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 10. Executive Secretary, Home Missions and Church Extension. 
 
 I \ssociate Executive S'crelarv. llor"» Missions and Church Extension. 
 
 12. Superintendent Department. City Work, Home Missions and Church 
 
 Extension. 
 
 13. Superintendent Department Frontier Work, Home Missions and 
 
 Church Extension. 
 
 14. Superintendent Department Evangelism, Home Missions and Church 
 
 Extension. 
 
 15. Superintendent Department Publicity, Home Missions and Church 
 
 Extension. 
 
 16. Superintendent Department Rural Work, Home Missions and Church 
 
 Extension. 
 
 17. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Sunday Schools. 
 
 IS. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Pub¬ 
 lic Morals. 
 
 19. General Secretary, Epworth League. 
 
 20. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Conference Claimants. 
 
 21. Superintendent Department Church Extension, Home Missions and 
 
 Church Extension. 
 
 22. Corresponding Secretary, Freedmen’s Aid Society. 
 
 23. Corresponding Secretary, Freedmen’s Aid Society. 
 
 24. Corresponding Secretary, Deaconess Board. 
 
 25. Corresponding Secretary, Board of Education. 
 
 26. Associate Secretary, Board of Education. 
 
 
 39 
 
Editors, Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 6) JOHN J. WALLACE 
 
 
 11) R.H.HUGHES 
 
 . 
 
 1. Book Editor, New York City. 
 
 2. Methodist Year Book, New York City. 
 
 3. Sunday School Publications, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 4. Methodist Review, New York City. 
 
 5. The Christian Advocate, New York City. 
 
 6. Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
 
 7. Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 8. Christian Apologist, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 9. Northwestern Christian Advocate, Chicago, Ill. 
 
 10. Central Christian Advocate, Kansas City, Mo. 
 ix. Pacific Christian Advocate, Portland, Oregon. 
 
 12. The Epworth Herald, Chicago, Ill. 
 
 13. California Christian Advocate, San Francisco, Calif. 
 
 14. Methodist Advocate-Journal, Athens, Tenn. 
 
 15. Southwestern Christian Advocate, New Orleans, La 
 
 16. Zions Herald, Boston, Mass. 
 
 40 
 
Editors, Methodist Episcopal Church, South 
 
 1 ip 
 
 jy.C.KlRV^L 
 
 BRANDS 
 
 
 6) H.M.BLAIR. 
 
 &RA E.H^S 
 
 ^•r.B.crt^, 
 
 ^/RED f 
 
 11JTH0MAS N.IVEY 
 
 
 £4/?LT0N 
 
 
 ^ESA.^jS 1 
 
 £& CHA^ 
 
 I. 
 
 Alabama Christian Advocate. 
 
 9 - 
 
 St. Louis Christian Advocate. 
 
 2. 
 
 Wesleyan Christian Advocate. 
 
 10. 
 
 Methodist Quarterly Review. 
 
 3 * 
 
 Southern Christian Advocate. 
 
 11. 
 
 Christian Advocate. 
 
 3 - 
 
 New Orleans Christian Advocate. 
 
 12. 
 
 Baltimore Southern Me.hodist 
 
 5 - 
 
 Missionary Voice. 
 
 13 - 
 
 Midland Methodist. 
 
 6. 
 
 North Carolina Christian Advocate. 
 
 i+. 
 
 Sunday School Editor. 
 
 7 - 
 
 Young Christian Worker. 
 
 1 5 - 
 
 Pacific Advocate. 
 
 8. 
 
 Missionary Voice. 
 
 16. 
 
 Texas Christian Advocate. 
 
 41 
 
The Fire of Foreign Missions 
 
 By Frank Mason North 
 
 T HERE is fire in the heart of the Centenary. It is the 
 missionary passion. “T he eleven” first felt it—that 
 
 group of Christian missionaries 
 who, on the mountain in Galilee 
 “where Jesus had appointed 
 them,” heard Him say, “Go ye, 
 therefore, and make disciples of all 
 the nations.” When, after the 
 wonder of Pentecost, the mem¬ 
 bers of the church at Jerusalem 
 were scattered abroad, as embers 
 blown by some mighty rushing 
 wind, strange fires were lighted 
 “throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” In Paul 
 hte inextinguishable passion became an irresistible purpose, 
 urging him to add journey to journey—to Asia Minor, to 
 Macedonia, to “Rome also,” to Spain, “to the regions be¬ 
 yond.” The early church was a missionary church. 
 
 In the scriptural faith and primitive experience of John 
 Wesley the passion for winning men to Christ was the burn¬ 
 ing center. At one, in this essential fact of experience, with 
 the true disciples of every name through the Christian cen¬ 
 turies, the early Methodists in England and in America were 
 urged as by a divine force into the prisons and the coal-pits, 
 “o’er moor and crag and fen,” through forests, over rivers 
 and oceans, into the wilderness into the dark places of great 
 cities, to find the men to whom by their hand and voice the 
 messages of the Saviour were sent. The validity of the 
 commission of American Methodism is tested by this fire. 
 Its ranking credential is not tradition, discipline, efficiency, 
 method, creed, but flame. When, in the missionary century 
 whose end we celebrate, the hearts of the people have shared 
 in our Lord’s compassion for the multitudes, the church has 
 been vital and victorious. The decades which have been 
 marked by low fires have invariably shown dim faith and 
 slackened speed. 
 
 The passion for winning men to Christ has put new light 
 and power into the familiar term “foreign missions.” Either 
 
 the whole world is at our doors or we are at the open doors? 
 of the whole world. Invention and discovery with the scien¬ 
 tific use of their results have worked mightily toward re¬ 
 ducing the world to a neighborhood, but to this end love 
 has done more. To a conquering church with compassion 
 in its heart latitude and longitude count little. It under¬ 
 stands that maps are not ends in themselves. They are not 
 people; they simply show where people are. It is not to 
 “foreign” nations that our messengers go — it is just to 
 “other” nations. Long since the barriers of time and distance 
 became fairly negligible; it is now the barriers of language 
 and race, of cult and custom, which we are seeking to cross. 
 The fires of love have burned a new meaning into the word 
 “foreign.” 
 
 And they have illumined the word “missions” with a new, 
 radiating light which is penetrating everywhere. Here is 
 not the narrow, pale, technical evangelism, sacrificial but 
 hopeless, which even some forward-looking men have thought 
 missions to be. Rather is this the world enterprise, a pro¬ 
 gram for humanity, the evolution — the unrolling — of the 
 kingdom of God on the earth, the expression of God’s great 
 wish for the race. “Foreign missions,” then, as this Cen¬ 
 tenary defines it, it is simply the movement of the people of 
 God with hearts aflame out toward other peoples who are 
 still waiting to hear that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
 
 At well-nigh every strategic center of the world’s thought, 
 at every crossing of the highways of human life, stands now 
 the missionary. Through the years great-hearted men and 
 women, who have “counted not their lives dear unto them¬ 
 selves,” have turned undaunted faces to the challenge of 
 the world’s need and have broken through its walls of dark¬ 
 ness with the light in their own burning hearts. What 
 the few have seen has now with ever broadening horizons 
 revealed itself to the steadying gaze of the church’s multi¬ 
 tudes. The vision has .not only fired the imagination, it has 
 fired the heart of the people. May Methodism henceforth 
 be ever known as the church of the burning heart! From 
 the heights of this Centennial celebration the church surelv 
 looks out, not upon a province, a nation, a hemisphere, but a 
 world. She has approached this mount of vision through 
 the paths of happy sacrifice, of joyous service. She is hungry 
 for achievement. The sense of world enterprise thrills her. 
 
 Let her be well assured that the passion 
 in her soul is the fire of the Spirit of God, 
 that He who inspires her faith and calls 
 her to a world-conquest, by whose love 
 she is constrained, is none less or 
 other than her crucified, risen, ever-living 
 Lord. 
 
 42 
 
Scenes in Lands Across the Sea 
 
 
 43 
 
Overseas Problems 
 
 By W. W. Pinson 
 
 T HE world war has brought the Christian Church face to 
 face with her world task in a new an dstartling way. 
 
 The nationsand races of the earth 
 have opened their hearts to each 
 other as never before. The fron¬ 
 tiers of indifference and of preju¬ 
 dice have faded from the map of 
 the world and in the white hot 
 forge of war the world has been 
 welded into a neighborhood. This 
 demands the making of the world 
 into a brotherhood. We have 
 learned in the revealings of a 
 great tragedy that to make the 
 world a safe place in which to live 
 we must make every part of it 
 safe. So long as there are plague spots of unrest and ig¬ 
 norance and anarchy anywhere, there will be danger every¬ 
 where. 
 
 This brings to Christianity the challenge of the centuries, 
 and American Christianity in particular. 
 
 The first problem confronting us is one of superior 
 strategy. We cannot think of any country now in relation 
 to its own needs alone. We must think of each in relation 
 to the spread of the kingdom. This is especially true of 
 Europe. The Gospel came to us from Europe. It must go 
 back from us by way of Europe. Let any one take the 
 trouble to study a map of the East and trace those lines of 
 influence that bind the countries east of the Mediterranean 
 to Europe, and he will understand what we mean. He will 
 find that the near East, far East and Africa are so bound 
 up with the politics, the education, the commerce and the 
 religion of Europe that it will be difficult, if not well nigh 
 impossible, to counteract or to control those influences. Our 
 only hope is to so dominate them with the Gospel that they 
 will help and not hinder the kingdom. We have been saying 
 “Save America to save the world”; we must now say “Save 
 Europe to save the world” — not in contradiction but with 
 equal truth. There lie dormant great missionary forces 
 waiting to be harnessed and there originate also forces of 
 evil that must be eradicated. Until this is done the crown¬ 
 ing day must wait. The Macedonian vision has appeared 
 again. This time it faces Westward. To Paul it faced 
 Eastward, pleading for the Gospel to come over from Asia. 
 Now it calls on America to come over and carry the Gospel 
 back Eastward by way of Europe, and thus help them in the 
 delayed fulfillment of the pledge of the Christian centuries. 
 
 The problem of a right approach to the people is not in¬ 
 considerable. The people are not pagan. They have back 
 of them a long line of Christian tradition and of proud civil¬ 
 ization. They must be approached with this in view. The 
 attitude must be that of the helper rather than the teacher. 
 The priest must be lost in the brother, and the ecclesiastic 
 in the man. 
 
 We must go not only as bearers of glad tid ngs but in the 
 capacity of discoverers in search of every nugget of gold amid 
 the dross. We must recognize and utilize every good influ¬ 
 ence and every spiritual force, and supplement and fortify 
 every form of moral uplift. Thus will we be welcomed and 
 what we bring will be multiplied by what we find. 
 
 Our aim must be not simply to interpret Christianity but 
 rather to apply it. Its light should shine because it burns in 
 our lives and flames up in Christly deeds. There is again 
 a situation in which the Master will be seen and welcomed 
 as he goes about doing good. 
 
 Our great overseas problem is that of Cooperation. A 
 divided Protestantism will make a sorry appeal if it cries its 
 confusing shibboleths on the streets and rends the seamless 
 
 robe in its competitions and contentions. It will need the 
 combined resources and the undiluted influence of all Prot¬ 
 estantism to meet and master the situation. We must repeat 
 the history of the allied strategy that won in the war by 
 subordinating individual and national ambitions to military 
 success. 
 
 There is also the problem of adequacy and efficiency. No 
 small half-hearted and hesitating program will succeed. 
 There must be a breadth of policy and plan, a scale of 
 equipment and a strength of leadership that are worthy and 
 commanding. This will mean men and money on a scale 
 we have not been accustomed to, but it will also mean quicker 
 and more satisfying returns. 
 
 Another problem is that of immediacy. The opportunity 
 will not wait. The fresh furrows turned by the plowshare 
 of war should be planted with the good seed of the Kingdom 
 now. The stricken heart of the people is crying for healing 
 and hope. “A civilization that required three thousand years 
 to build is to be rebuilt.” Reconstruction must begin at once. 
 Once it has been begun and once the processes have become 
 fixed, the task of changing it will be hard. Every day’s 
 delay increases the difficulties and multiplies the problems. 
 
 The Centenary leaders have faced this challenge and have 
 determined to join the forces of American Episcopal Method¬ 
 ism in a thorough-going, forward-looking program of social, 
 moral and spiritual reconstruction in the war-torn countries. 
 The two bodies have, through regular appointed deputa¬ 
 tions, made a survey of the conditions and have asked their 
 bodies for some ten millions for this purpose. The provi¬ 
 dence of God timed the Centenary in conjunction with this 
 crucial hour. 
 
 This is an indication that He wills that Methodism should 
 not falter nor hesitate but should take her full share of this 
 great task. We helped win the war that made the world 
 safe for democracy. We should do no less than help win 
 the greater victory which is to make democracy safe for 
 the world. 
 
 44 
 
The Centenary and the War 
 
 By Walter R. Lambuth 
 
 T HE world war has brought tens of thousands of men into 
 a realization of the imminence of God in the individual 
 
 life, in human consciousness and 
 in human affairs. Ours is no absen¬ 
 tee God. Neither will He be 
 pushed out of men’s thinking. In 
 Him we continue to live and move 
 and have our being. 
 
 The Centenary has brought to 
 us a great task. In its acceptance 
 we have realized that we need 
 divine power added to human ef¬ 
 fort. For a world task we need a 
 mighty God. We have a mighty 
 God who has taught us, in these 
 last days, to think in continents 
 to be redeemed. He helped us to 
 win the war for liberty, for righteousness and for world 
 peace, and now, in Christ’s name, we gird ourselves afresh 
 for the world’s evangelization. 
 
 The war and the Centenary have brought us into a new 
 and enlarged sense of brotherhood, wider, deeper and more 
 significant than any we have had in our conception of life 
 and of duty. We were once concerned about our privileges. 
 Such thoughts we have flung far away from us. We now 
 dwell, not upon our privileges, but upon our duties. Oppor¬ 
 tunity still kindles the fires of enthusiasm, but underlying 
 opportunity there is a deepened sense of responsibility which 
 has wrought in us an unshakable purpose. The gospel of 
 vitalized truth and of man’s triumph over nature; of divine 
 grace, full and free, for every unsaved soul, and of God’s 
 glory in redemption through His beloved Son, the Savior of 
 the world, must be, shall be preached to every creature. This 
 is our great commission and our determining purpose. 
 
 Even the nations have come to realize their place in this 
 great brotherhood. The peace conference, in its discussions 
 and findings, has recognized the obligation of a civilized 
 nation to be its brother’s keeper regardless of race, of class 
 or of color. What is this but the spirit of missions trans¬ 
 muted into the spirit of national service? It is a great step 
 toward a Christian internationalism which will cement by 
 maximums rather than by minimums, the bonds of a world 
 brotherhood. 
 
 The Centenary has a time element which must be inter¬ 
 preted in the light of Providence. God’s purpose, in reve¬ 
 lation, and in history, runs through all His dealings with 
 mankind. He leaves man to lay plans, but He times events 
 and as the great Master Builder gives them shape. The 
 coming of the Centenary, at the close of the war, will make 
 it a powerful factor in keeping the soul of the world alive. 
 War puts a strain upon faith, upon judgment, upon the 
 spirit of justice and upon civilization itself. Christianity 
 with its idealism and altruism, its program of service and 
 its spirit of sacrifice arrests attention, raises moral issues and 
 creates a common conscience. When moral issues emerge, 
 men must take sides. When the conscience of the people 
 is stirred, great moral upheavals will follow, and reforms 
 take place. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, in this 
 missionary movement, we may expect a deep and widespread 
 awakening and a mighty work of grace. In the rediscovery 
 of God, man discovers himself, and the church is aroused to 
 her mission. 
 
 Missionary revivals have followed great wars. Mission¬ 
 ary societies have sprung up in their wake, and new missions 
 have been planted at home and abroad. It was not the war 
 — God forbid such a thought — but the heroic sacrifices 
 made, not the strife but the suffering, the silent heroisms and 
 the intercession of broken-hearted men and women who 
 
 have turned to Christ as the only hope of sin-stricken 
 humanity. If the Centenary is to be permanent in its in¬ 
 fluence and fruitage its roots must strike deep in the soil of 
 humility, of repentance, of unconquerable faith, of a sound 
 mind, and of that love which recognizing man’s desperate 
 need, over-leaps all barriers, knows neither distinction of 
 class or creed, and which as a motive is big enough to float 
 a life, to float ten thousand lives, to float a world. 
 
 The church in this movement has launched its greatest 
 crusade, “The Centenary is Methodism’s moral equivalent 
 for war.” The hosts of evil are arrayed against us, but in 
 general Petain’s immortal words, as he stood at the gate of 
 Verdun, “They shall not pass!” 
 
 The church finds its supreme opportunity in the Centen¬ 
 ary. The days we have passed through were critical days 
 for civilization. Militarism like a leopard was at its throat. 
 But the days before us are more critical. There is less of 
 the spectacular but more of the real, as that real concerns 
 the fundamental interests of humanity. In the war, autoc¬ 
 racy and democracy were at death grips. Serious enough, 
 for it meant the slavery or the freedom of mankind; but the 
 greater struggle in which we are engaged involves the un¬ 
 losing and ultimate triumph of those spiritual forces which 
 must overwhelm the powers of darkness, enthrone the truth, 
 build Christian manhood and womanhood, and establish the 
 kingdom of God. In all this mighty conflict the spirit of a 
 Greater Leader is with us. In His name we share, from 
 this great hour, in duty and in danger, in privilege and in 
 obligation, until the task is finished and the war for the 
 redemption of man and of nature is won. 
 
 The Centenary comes in as the old order changes, when 
 new strategic centers like Constantinople and Odessa, 
 Jerusalem and Bagdad are to be occupied, and new areas, 
 such as Russia and Siberia, Messopotamia and Arabia are to 
 be evangelized. How significant the furrow which has been 
 plowed straight through the heart of Europe and of the 
 Mohammedan world! This missionary campaign comes at 
 an hour when the need of humanity is deepest and when its 
 cry has been the bitterest, but it also comes when the tides 
 of sympathy are highest, the spirit of liberality at its fullest, 
 the prayer spirit richest and when opportunity is written in 
 world terms. America was used of God to help save France 
 and to insure the safety of Europe and of civilization. Now 
 for the conquest of the world, not so much for the sake of 
 civilization but for Christ. 
 
 45 
 
Showing the Need for Reconstruction 
 
 46 
 
They won the war—We must win them 
 
 47 
 
If Methodi sin Fails 
 
 By Theodore S. Henderson 
 
 A MERICA has the gift of the souvenir. America has 
 never forgotten.” These were the thrilling words 
 which a French government offi¬ 
 cial said to the deputation of 
 American Methodism in France. 
 Recalling with evident emotion 
 the days when France assisted in 
 nursing the infant Republic of 
 America to a vigorous life, this offi¬ 
 cial proudly recognized that this 
 infant Republic, now grown to vir¬ 
 ile manhood, did not forget her old 
 nurse when she was in dire trouble. 
 H as America “the gift of the 
 souvenir,” does she forget, can 
 she say: “Oh France, fair France, 
 may my right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave 
 to the roof of my mouth if I forget thee?” 
 
 America has been God’s prophet in Europe of interna¬ 
 tional good will. The varied voices have jarred at the 
 Peace Conference and at times seemed like strident screams 
 of unalloyed selfishness. Political and social interests have 
 clashed and have nearly smashed the hope of world federa¬ 
 tion. National groups struggle for economic and military 
 supremacy with territorial expansion as justifiable honor¬ 
 ariums, but above all the din of selfish clamor America’s 
 voice has been heard calling for fraternity and fellowship 
 among all the nations, on a Christian basis. 
 
 America owes Europe whatever God has given America, 
 on the Christian principle that having received any good 
 from anybody anywhere, we owe it to everybody every¬ 
 where. Little wonder that Mr. Wilson said in defending 
 the world demand for a League of Nations led by America, 
 “If America, at this juncture, should fail the world, what 
 would come to the world ? America is the hope of the 
 world.” It is truer now than when he said it. America 
 owes every good thing which God has entrusted to America. 
 America must pay her debt to Europe. God expects it. God 
 requires it if America is to be Christian. If America fails, 
 God will raise up a nation that will not fail. 
 
 If Protestantism fails Europe in this tragic hour of her re¬ 
 ligious need no such chance will come again in a thousand 
 years. American Protestantism is on trial. American 
 Protestantism is the only religious hope for the continent of 
 Europe. England is crippled for men and money. England 
 does not ask help for herself. England fought for democ¬ 
 racy while America talked. England wrought while Amer¬ 
 ica wrote notes. England is impoverished, but with head 
 unbowed. She will meet her world responsibilities in her 
 colonies for Christian expansion, but we dare not ask more 
 from her. She cannot be asked to take the added burden to 
 reconstruct the religious life of the continent of Europe. 
 That is the task of American Protestantism. If American 
 Protestantism fails Europe is doomed. 
 
 American Methodism must lead American Protestantism 
 in Europe. God has providentially placed American Method¬ 
 ism in many of the strongholds of Europe. In nearly every 
 warring nation Methodism is intrenched. Will Methodism 
 dare to look into the face of God with the confidence of her 
 Master and say, “Father, the hour is come.” The world’s 
 hour is here. 
 
 I he Joint Centenary of American Methodism could not 
 have been better timed if its leaders had studied the calendar 
 for five hundred years. Reconstruction is at the heart of the 
 program of the Methodist Centenary. Vigorously and vitally 
 applied in Europe it will rebuild the wasted villages, revive 
 the shattered hopes, re-unite the scattered families and restore 
 the bruised life of battle-ridden and shell-scarred Europe. 
 Not only must houses be rebuilt; lives must be remade. Not 
 
 only must school houses be rebuilt and resumed; education 
 must be transfigured with spiritual ideals. Not only must 
 village life and custom be renewed but dead hopes must be 
 resurrected. Methodism dare not do one without the other. 
 She plans to do both in her reconstruction program, made 
 possible by the gifts of the Methodist Centenary. Methodism 
 has the message for permanent reconstruction. Her interpre¬ 
 tation of the gospel is the practical test of God in the personal 
 life. Methodism depends not on ecclesiastical tradition for 
 its power, nor yet on the millinery of excessive ritualism, nor 
 yet again on the verbal accuracies of a credal statement. All 
 these may exist and the Church be dead. Methodism sings 
 her song of personal deliverance, both as a challenge and a 
 test. 
 
 “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, 
 
 He sets the prisoner free; 
 
 H is blood can make the foulest clean, 
 
 H is blood availed for me.” 
 
 The accent is on the personal problem. The test is in the 
 personal life. Therefore it was not strange for a French 
 statesman to say to our representative, “we know your Chris¬ 
 tianity and are not afraid of it. God, immortality, duty; 
 these were the three big religious ideas which captivated and 
 captured our soldiers in the trenches and in the camp. Meth¬ 
 odism makes these truths live in her message. Methodism 
 sends a man from the University, from the farm, from the 
 store, from the trenches, and from the factory into God’s 
 laboratory and fearlessly says, put these ideas into the test 
 tube of your daily life, try them. You need not argue, you 
 need not analyze, you need not explain. Test them, try 
 them out.” 
 
 Methodism has the method of permanent reconstruction. 
 Her evangelicalism finds expression in social welfare. True 
 to her credentials Methodism affirms that social welfare 
 which does not find its source in personal contact with a liv¬ 
 ing Christ is impotent, and Evangelicalism which does not 
 have fruit in social welfare barren. No church can make 
 any worthy contribution to the permanent reconstruction and 
 the life of Europe which does not face fearlessly the social 
 facts of a broken continent. If ever it were true anywhere 
 that “we are guilty of each other’s sins; and the gospel which 
 is to save us must save us together.” It is true in Europe. 
 Wherever American Methodism goes in Europe it was agreed 
 by the commissioners sent to Europe “that the standard of 
 the church center which we shall seek to establish shall in¬ 
 clude always in one community of work the ideal of spiritual 
 worship and the equipment therefore, and the provision and 
 program for community service with the purpose of bring¬ 
 ing the people to the higher life of the spirit by sharing with 
 them the experience and fellowship of the common life.” 
 
 Methodism has the spirit requisite for permanent recon¬ 
 struction. Said a prominent government leader to our com¬ 
 missioners: “We need an ambitious church.” What he 
 meant by that was that none but a church which loved to 
 dare bold things for God could win in Europe. American 
 Methodism delights to live generously for God. We are a 
 militaristic church. We take holy pride in the truth that we 
 are a militant church. Our founders, John Wesley and 
 Francis Asbury were militant men of God. None other are 
 their worthy successors. We dare to enter the hardest 
 places in Europe. 
 
 American Methodism expects to invest not less than 
 twenty million dollars within five years for the reconstruction 
 piogram in Europe. When that is done Methodism will only 
 meet her share of the task. American Protestantism will fol¬ 
 low with her full share of the reconstruction obligation. But 
 if American Methodism fails, American Protestantism will 
 fail. Then America will fail and God will be broken¬ 
 hearted. Brooding over American Methodism in this crucial 
 hour is the Son of God saying, “I have prayed for thee that 
 thy faith fail not.” Never yet have we failed. The answer 
 must go back to our ascendant and triumphant Lord, “We 
 will not fail Thee, O Victorious Christ.” 
 
 48 
 
Unification of American Meth¬ 
 odism 
 
 By John M. Aloore 
 
 A MERICAN Methodism has no heart to defend any 
 longer the existence of 16 independent Methodist bodies 
 
 in the United States, with no 
 strong religious, political or social 
 reason for the continuation of such 
 divisions. “Why do they not get 
 together?” The answer is, “How?” 
 
 Methodists have always had 
 oneness in the essentials of church 
 life and thought, and that has 
 made it necessary in their rivalries 
 for them to stress instruments of 
 polity, sectional prejudices and 
 racial attitudes. These now rise 
 up to create a perplexing task for 
 those appointed to find a method 
 for doing what practically all would rejoice to haw done. 
 Methodists have had “spreading scriptural holiness” for 
 their main business, but law making and machinery con¬ 
 struction have been a strong side line. How now to make 
 the machinery for a united Methodism that will not scrap 
 all that of the bodies entering the organization, and disre¬ 
 gard the pet prejudices of the long-ago leaders, is not an 
 easy matter. 
 
 Unification went far on the way when it was clearly seen 
 that neither church has a system that is equal to a practical 
 administration of a combined, nation-wide Methodism. 
 Some do not see that yet, and these are they who are now 
 holding down the speed of the negotiations. Just as the 
 recognition of states was the prerequisite to the formation of 
 the American Union, and just as states are essential now 
 to a satisfactory and adequate administration in the nation, 
 so regional areas with administrative functions are essential 
 to such a nation-wide church as united Methodism would 
 be. This was made in the beginning a “basic principle.” 
 This republic is not suffering in its unity because of the state 
 system. In fact, unity prevails because of the state system. 
 The unity of American Methodism will all but necessarily 
 depend upon some such system for its consummation and then 
 for its continuation. Such a system has been indorsed by 
 the General Conferences of the two strongest churches and 
 is the basis of the present negotiations. While some diffi¬ 
 culties have developed in fitting up the Regional Confer¬ 
 ence, defining its powers, scope, and boundaries, and its rela¬ 
 tion to the General Conference, yet these have been gradually 
 dissolved, and there is every reason to believe that all will 
 be fully removed. 
 
 There is a difficulty in the way of unification which no 
 one has yet seen how to remove, and here unification halts. 
 Negro Methodists are 1,850,000 strong, but they are in 
 four groups; three independent bodies with 1,500,000 and 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church with 340,000. One of the 
 independent bodies, the Colored Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, with a membership of 290,000, has close relations 
 with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which neither 
 church would have destroyed. These four Negro groups 
 are in all parts of the South, and the Southern white people 
 know no distinction among them, but help all as occasions 
 arise, although the Church, South, makes special appropria¬ 
 tions to the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. No one 
 would indorse the disruption of these relations nor the less¬ 
 ening of the ties that exist anywhere between white Method¬ 
 ists and Negro Methodists. This is what makes the negotia¬ 
 tions difficult. Constructing a plan for putting the two 
 churches together is the only task committed to the Com¬ 
 missioners, but an agreement that left fifteen churches instead 
 of sixteen, and keen rivalry, altar against altar, and race un¬ 
 pleasantness if not suspicion, would fall short of the goal. 
 
 There are 1,500,000 Negro Methodists in the United 
 States in seven of their own bodies. There are 340,000 
 Negro Methodists in the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 There are 6,000,000 white Methodists in various bodies. 
 What is the unification sought? There might be three plans. 
 First, that all the Methodist Churches, White, Negro and 
 mixed be formed into one organization. Such a plan has 
 not been suggested and is probably not desired by any. The 
 difficulties would seem almost insuperable upon any basis of 
 union which has so far been considered. Second, that of a 
 united white Methodism and another of the united Negro 
 Methodism, with a league of Methodism to connect the two 
 for such cooperation as the work might suggest and require. 
 This plan meets difficulty with the mixed churches. The 
 Negro membership, numbering about 350,000, is there by 
 choice and training, and has constitutional rights which it 
 does not desire to surrender. No one would deny them the 
 right to choose their line of action in working out their 
 Methodist and religious destiny. The third plan is the one 
 that has occupied the thought of the churches up to date. 
 It leaves unification incomplete, so far as its real purpose is 
 concerned. It leaves the seven Negro Methodist bodies to 
 form such a union upon their own initiative and such plans 
 as they may agree upon. The three larger bodies, with a 
 combined membership of 1,500,000, are now in negotiations 
 for union. Then it leaves the white and mixed bodies with a 
 white membership of 6,000,000 and a Negro membership of 
 350,000 to unite. In this organization the Negro member¬ 
 ship would be segregated into churches and conferences of 
 their own, as they are now in the mixed bodies, and would 
 have limited representation in the General Conference. The 
 Joint Commission on Unification has not yet been able to 
 come to full agreement upon the powers of the Negro Re¬ 
 gional Conference, or upon the amount of their representa¬ 
 tion in the General Conference and on the General Boards, 
 and their voice in constitutional maters. 
 
 There are divergencies in polity, forms, ceremonies, usages 
 and terminology which require harmonizing, but adjustment 
 in these is not difficult, except to the man who makes con¬ 
 victions of all his opinions. The two outstanding difficulties 
 are as indicated, in the construction of an acceptable, satis¬ 
 factory and adequate Regional Conference system and in the 
 adjustment of such a general system as will harmonize the 
 relations of Negro and white Methodists to each other, and 
 their relations in their respective groups. Yet it is not un¬ 
 reasonable to expect that unification will be accomplished and 
 in no long period of time. The Regional Conference system 
 is far on in its outlines. When the purpose of the unifica¬ 
 tion is kept constantly in view, the race adjustment will 
 gradually come about. The real issue is the harmonizing of 
 sixteen Methodist bodies, or at least the major six, who are 
 now in each other’s way and making for each other friction, 
 unholy rivalries, and causing for the people indefensible 
 divisions. To accomplish this there must be created such 
 ecclesiastical forms as will not allow the race question to be 
 ever on the horizon, causing embarrassment and often bit¬ 
 terness, but which will secure bona fide cooperation of the 
 races and establish and maintain race relations that will be 
 sympathetic and helpful. 
 
 Unification is a task not to be relinquished until finished. 
 The new temper of all Methodists and all races is the basis 
 for a new expectation of its certain consummation. All the 
 six major Methodists bodies are now thinking in terms of 
 unification. The Centenary was a glorious experiment in 
 unified Methodist action. The spirit of the times is the 
 spirit of cooperation. Men are finding new ways of working 
 together. The church is made up of such men. The world 
 needs a League of Methodism, as it needs a League of 
 Nations. The beginning should be with the re-grouping in 
 this republic, of our Methodist bodies upon a basis that will 
 b^ defensible, worthy, and adequate for the service which 
 our nation and the world claim at our hands. This can be 
 done. This will be done. This I steadfastly believe. 
 
 49 
 
Costumes for Celebration Participants 
 
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in the Pageants and in the Life Plays 
 
 51 
 
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 A Centenary Hymn 
 
 By Frank Alason North 
 
 Touch Thou, O Lord, the century’s crest with light, 
 Kindle with holy flame our sacrifice, 
 
 Unveil Thy glorious purpose to our sight, 
 
 Give clearer vision to our lifted eyes. 
 
 We hear far down the future’s widening way 
 
 The springing tread of multitudes made free. 
 
 The nations stir as those who greet the day, 
 
 Around the world rolls ringing reveille. 
 
 Thou seest their toil, though by the world unseen, 
 Thou hear’st their cry for help, for daily food. 
 
 Challenge thy people, Lord, to make more keen 
 The undefeated quest for brotherhood. 
 
 Up from the shadowed lands the murmur swells 
 Of broken hearts, of discontent, of strife, 
 
 Of faith perverted, quickened hope—it tells 
 The multitudes have felt the surge of life. 
 
 Hear Thou, O Lord, and teach Thy Church to hear! 
 To save the suffering peoples Thou hast died. 
 
 Can we who love Thee fail the cross to bear 
 
 Since Thou for them and us wast crucified? 
 
 Lead on, O Glorious Christ, through lands and years! 
 Our hearts have caught the sounds of victory. 
 
 Before our faith the wondrous day appears 
 
 When all the world shall love and worship Thee. 
 
 Tune—National Hymn 704, Methodist Hymnal. 
 
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 52 
 
The Children and Young People of Methodism 
 
 By Edgar Blake 
 
 i i \H you blind leaders, who seek to convert the world 
 by laboured disputations! Step out of the way or 
 the world must fling you aside. 
 Give us the young. Give us the 
 young and we will create a new 
 mind and a new earth in a single 
 generation.” These words con¬ 
 stitute the challenging conclusion 
 of that remarkable post-humous 
 book, The Science of Power, by 
 Benjamin Kidd. It is a cry that 
 is singularly reinforced and em¬ 
 phasized by present world condi¬ 
 tions. It is the hour of recon¬ 
 struction, and now as never before 
 everything depends upon what we 
 do with youth in the momentous years that are unfolding. 
 The church must lead if the kingdom is to come in this new 
 era and the power of the church lies with the coming 
 generation. 
 
 Think of the unmeasured potency of this constituency in 
 both branches of Methodism! There are nearly 53,000 
 Sunday Schools with 554,000 teachers and officers, and five 
 and a third million pupils and an Epworth League mem¬ 
 bership of nearly a million in these two mighty churches 
 of Wesley. 
 
 The power, however, of this vast army of youth lies not 
 simply in this stupendous numerical showing thus recorded 
 but in the deeper resources latent in every one of these 
 millions of lives. We have scarcely touched the possibilities 
 of youth in all our planning and yet we have had before 
 our very eyes multiplied demonstrations of its hidden power 
 and value to the kingdom of Christ. Consider primarily 
 the glad response on the part of childhood and youth to the 
 call of Christ for the personal surrender of life. For ex¬ 
 ample, in the Methodist Episcopal Church there were re¬ 
 ported approximately two million conversions from the 
 Sunday School in the period from 1907 to 1918, and 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, reported 350,000 
 for the period 1914 to 1918. 
 
 Again in both the Methodist Episcopal and the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, South, the growth in church membership 
 depends almost entirely upon enlistment from the Sunday 
 School until today fully eighty-five per cent of that mem¬ 
 bership is recruited from this source.. In the latter denomi¬ 
 nation the Sunday School percentage of church membership 
 has steadily increased from sixty-five per cent in 1900 to 
 over ninety per cent in 1918. 
 
 So much for the response to the call for enlistment. Per¬ 
 haps, however, the test is a financial one. Here once more 
 we view the whole hearted consecration of youth. More 
 than a million dollars annually has been contributed for a 
 number of years by the various organizations of young people 
 in these two churches toward missionary and benevolent 
 enterprises while under the call and inspiration of the Cen¬ 
 tenary campaign they multiplied that figure by at least four. 
 During the stress and strain of the recent war the Sunday 
 schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church gave in addition 
 to all their regular offerings nearly $150,000 to the Ameri¬ 
 can Red Cross and almost $500,000 for the relief of the 
 stricken people of Armenia, Syria and Western Asia. 
 Similar proportionate contributions were made by the 
 schools oft he Methodist Episcopal Church, South, their Ar- 
 menian-Syria Relief contribution going to nearly $75,000. 
 
 But beyond the personal surrender of life and enlistment 
 in church membership and beyond the sacrifice of material 
 resources comes that highest gift of life itself in practical 
 service for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Here 
 again youth is not found wanting. For the past several 
 
 years at the Epworth League institutes of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church between 500 and 1000 young people have 
 indicated their desire to enlist for life in some form of 
 missionary service. At least ninety-five per cent of the min¬ 
 isters, missionaries and social workers of Methodism are 
 recruited from the Sunday School and the Epworth League. 
 Surely it is amply proven that from the young we can 
 “create a new mind and a new earth in a single generation.” 
 
 We face the future. How are we going to deal with 
 our youth and what may we expect from them? For the 
 sake of the world of tomorrow the Centenary movement 
 must be continued and made permanent in the life of the 
 church. This can only be accomplished as we train our 
 millions of children in the ideals, purposes and methods of 
 world redemption. If we fail here the largest results of the 
 Centenary will be forever lost. We have sadly missed our 
 largest opportunity in this field during the years gone by. 
 In view of the fact that twenty million children and young 
 people in these United States are absolutely outside of all 
 institutions for religious education, Jewish, Roman Catholic 
 and Protestant, something of the proportions of our neglect 
 is apparent. With our Sunday Schools annually losing from 
 fifty to seventy-five per cent of their teen age membership we 
 see another aspect of our partial failure. It is, therefore, 
 of supreme importance at this junction that Methodism shall 
 conserve and increase as never before her most valuable 
 asset. For this many facilities are needed — better Sunday 
 School buildings, better organization, better equipment, 
 better literature. Most of all, however, we need leaders 
 and teachers of deepest consecration and most thorough 
 training for the supreme task of Methodism and the king¬ 
 dom. The call has gone out from the Centenary head¬ 
 quarters of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the 53,000 
 workers that will be needed during the next four years for 
 the home and foreign missionary activities of the church. 
 A summons for life service likewise comes from the Method¬ 
 ist Episcopal Church, South. Thus probably not less than 
 75,000 young people will be needed for the immediate pro¬ 
 gram of these two branches of Methodism. These persons 
 must come, if they come at all, out 
 of the Sunday Schools and Epworth 
 Leagues of the church. Who will 
 train them? Here is the challe-g- 
 ing task for those who would make 
 life’s finest investment. 
 
 S3 
 
Children of the Tenements 
 
 54 
 
Children in Foreign Lands 
 
 55 
 
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 Temperance 
 
 Reform 
 
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 Methodism 
 
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 Bv James Cannon 
 
 
 
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 W HEN in 1739 John Wesley, the founder of Method¬ 
 ism, formulated the general rules for the United So¬ 
 cieties, he embedded in that re¬ 
 markable historic document as one 
 of the conditions of membership: 
 “It is expected of all who continue 
 therein, that they shall continue 
 to evidence their desire of salva¬ 
 tion ; First, by doing no harm, by 
 avoiding evil of every kind such 
 as: (the following being one of 
 the specifications of harm or evil) 
 drunkenness, buying or selling 
 spirituous liquors, or drinking 
 them, unless in cases of extreme 
 necessity.” 
 
 With that wonderful perception of spiritual values, and 
 of the necessity for practical, clear-cut courageous discrim¬ 
 ination between the evil and the good, which made him one 
 of the greatest religious leaders of the world, Mr. Wesley 
 recognized clearly, and then emphasized positively, the in¬ 
 herent antagonism between the aims of Methodism and the 
 evils necessarily accompanying the liquor traffic. He, there¬ 
 fore, not only branded the traffic as “doing harm,” but de¬ 
 clared that if a member of the society did not observe the 
 
 rule “he hath no more place among us” — that is, not being 
 in harmony with the great aims of the United Societies, 
 it is not possible for him to be an efficient worker or member. 
 
 This sweeping declaration, made nearly two hundred years 
 ago, at a time when drinking and drunkenness were ex¬ 
 ceedingly common, not only erected a standard for the in¬ 
 dividual members of the Methodist Societies, but has deter¬ 
 mined the attitude of Methodism as a great religious organi¬ 
 zation toward the liquor traffic from that day to the present 
 hour. The discipline of the church requires that the gen¬ 
 eral rules, among which is the rule in question, shall be read 
 regularly in every Methodist Society, so that while there 
 have been periods of lax enforcement of the rule, there has 
 been a continuous oral as well as printed testimony of 
 Methodism on this subject. 
 
 True to her standard, it was to be expected that Method¬ 
 ism would be active in her efforts to advance genuine tem¬ 
 perance reform, and her record has met those expectations. 
 From the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in the United States in 1784, not only has the church never 
 lowered her standard, but the duty of the individual to con¬ 
 trol his personal appetite and also his covetousness by abstain¬ 
 ing from drinking or selling intoxicants has been proclaimed 
 by pulpit and press with ever-increasing vigor. 
 
 While Methodism has clearly recognized the inherent 
 antagonism of the liquor traffic to her great mission, yet she 
 was slow to recognize her responsibility for the existence of 
 the traffic itself. But the awful results of the traffic — 
 waste, inefficiency, pauperism, insanity, diseases of all kinds, 
 disorders, crime, wrecked homes, cheated and orphaned 
 children, hopeless wives and widows, blighted, ruined man¬ 
 hood — could not only no longer be hidden or ignored, but 
 could not be tolerated as consistent with a Christian civiliza¬ 
 tion. Gradually, surely there came conviction — pungent, 
 overwhelming — that, first, the Christian citizens of the 
 nation are responsible for the legalized position of the traffic, 
 
 <>6 
 
for whenever those Christian citizens so decree, they can 
 prohibit the traffic by their votes; second, that it is therefore 
 the duty of Christian men and women in their capacity as 
 citizens to demand that the liquor traffic be branded by law 
 as criminal, as the enemy of the economic, social and moral 
 life of the nation, regardless of the clamor of those who put 
 appetite and covetousness above the good of their fellow men. 
 This gospel of the duty of Christian citizens to prohibit the 
 traffic by law has found practically unanimous, vigorous 
 effective expression in every pulpit and every paper of 
 Methodism, and has been exceedingly effective in securing 
 the adoption of state and federal prohibition legislation. 
 
 Methodism has naturally furnished many of the leaders 
 of the great temperance organizations of the United States. 
 Her women were prominent in the work of the “Praying 
 Bands,” which were the forerunners of the Woman’s Chris¬ 
 tian Temperance Union, the first president of which, 
 Frances E. Willard, and many of the principal workers have 
 been Methodists. Methodism has also furnished strong men 
 and liberal funds for the work of the Anti-Saloon League of 
 America. These two, the most efficient temperance organi¬ 
 zations in the world, in their labors for the extermination 
 of the beverage liquor traffic, have been given the hearty, 
 enthusiastic support of the Annual and the General Con¬ 
 ferences of both the great Methodisms. 
 
 In the General and Annual Conferences of both the 
 Methodist Episcopal Churches there have been committees 
 on temperance for many years. In 1904 the General Con¬ 
 ference of the M. E. Church constituted the Temperance 
 Society of the M. E. Church with headquarters at Chicago, 
 but with no regular means of support. 4 he General Con¬ 
 ference of 1908 asked all churches for free-will offerings 
 for support of the temperance society, and in 1910 the Board 
 of Managers elected two field secretaries, Dr. Clarence 
 True Wilson and Dr. Alfred Smith; in 1912 the head¬ 
 quarters were moved to Topeka, Kansas; in 1916 the name 
 was changed to Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Pub¬ 
 lic Morals, and the headquarters moved to Washington, 
 with Bishop W. F. McDowell, Chairman, and Dr. Clarence 
 True Wilson as General Secretary. In 1918 the General 
 Conference of the M. E. Church, South, organized a per¬ 
 manent commission on Temperance and Social Service, which 
 commission selected Washington, D. C., as its headquarters 
 and elected Bishop James Cannon, Jr., as Chairman and 
 Dr. Daniel Morton, Secretary. 
 
 Women and Methodism 
 
 By Belle H. Bennett 
 
 F ROM the little Epworth parsonage in Lincolnshire, Eng¬ 
 land, where the great founder of Methodism was born 
 
 and reared, the spirit and influence 
 of a missionary mother have gone 
 out to the ends of the earth. 
 
 Susannah Wesley was the 
 daughter of a non-conformist 
 father, and though the wife of a 
 clergyman of the church of Eng¬ 
 land, and a member of that com¬ 
 munion from her thirteenth year, 
 she had the blood of the reformer 
 in her veins. 
 
 She was a woman of marked 
 mental ability and an earnest 
 student of the word of God, char¬ 
 acterized by a deep consistent prayer life. With a large 
 family of children, and a small living she was a conscientious 
 mother, teacher, and friend in her own home; yet she found 
 time in the midst of her many duties and cares to gather the 
 poor and illiterate of her husband’s parish into her little 
 
 home and minister to them in holy things. Neither an ad¬ 
 verse public opinion nor the disapproval of her scholarly 
 husband could prevent this outpouring of her faith and love 
 to the needy souls round about her. Can we wonder that 
 John and Charles Wesley, the sons of such a mother, be¬ 
 came the founders and leaders of “The Holy Club” at 
 Oxford. 
 
 God gave a rich heritage to world-wide Christianity 
 through that chosen mother in the little Epworth manse, and 
 no church or nation has received a larger portion than the 
 Methodism of America. 
 
 There is a longing in every soul sometime, somewhere, 
 to know that God is and that He is a rewarder of them that 
 seek after Him. When the great scriptural assurance—the 
 witness of the Spirit—through conversion and sanctification 
 was made plain to the newly formed societies of England, 
 by the preaching of the Wesleys and their fellow workers, a 
 new light and a new life came to the Protestant world. 
 Women heard the glad tidings with joy, and “proving God” 
 they entered into that “liberty wherewith Christ hath made 
 us free.” 
 
 In the testimony meetings, the prayer and class meetings, 
 and even in the chapels and other meeting houses on the 
 Sabbath day, the voices of women were heard as they told 
 of what God had done for them, and spoke of the ‘‘Joy of 
 the Lord,” and “Peace that passeth all understanding” 
 through Christ’s abiding presence in their hearts. 
 
 The women of the rapidly growing Methodism were not 
 slow to catch the heavenly vision nor to obey the divine 
 voice. As they taught their children around the firesides, 
 or sat together in the class meetings, they studied and 
 memorized the word of God, and many of them used it with 
 power as the sword of the Spirit, and knew the joy of bring¬ 
 ing c ouls to Christ, and seeing them bring still others. 
 
 The hymns of Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts were on 
 the lips of women and children in every Methodist home 
 and were a part of the outspoken prayer life, in the pew, at 
 the family altar and in the closet. 
 
 Women on the frontiers became missionaries and Chris¬ 
 tian teachers to the Indians, and the “Great Spirit” found 
 in many tribes Methodist hearts and tongues ready “To go 
 and tell.” 
 
 In the Southern states where the African slave trade found 
 its greatest market, Methodist women taught and worked 
 and prayed with the dark skin foreigners in their own homes, 
 winning them to Christ. 
 
 As the eighteenth century drew to a close the Church of 
 God in all lands caught the vision of nations that sat in 
 darkness and in the shadow of death, and the marching order 
 of the risen Christ, “Go ye into all the world and preach 
 the gospel to every nation,” laid its spell upon the hearts of 
 the Methodist women everywhere. 
 
 By the middle of the new century Women’s Missionary 
 Auxiliaries had become educational and financial forces in 
 the large denominations, and the next twenty-five years wit¬ 
 nessed the organization of a strong Woman’s Board of 
 Missions in many of these. 
 
 Methodist women went out as missionaries to foreign lands 
 by scores and hundreds. Schools, hospitals, orphanages, the 
 “all things whatsoever I have commanded you” were gladly 
 accepted as the work to which the Master called them. Today 
 their ranks are belting the globe. Millions of money have 
 been raised to support the work and multi-millions of mis¬ 
 sionary leaflets and tracts have been scattered broadcast 
 throughout the church to educate its membership. 
 
 At home the Deaconesees order claimed hundreds of con¬ 
 secrated lives and the hard places of our own land, the great¬ 
 est mission field in the world, have been made to rejoice in 
 the love of God, because of some woman’s love and fidelity 
 to Him. 
 
 57 
 
Americanization in the Methodist Centenary Movement 
 
 By Charles W . Blanpied 
 
 
 Immigrant Mothers and Their Children 
 
 B ECAUSE of the part foreign-speaking and foreign-born 
 peoples must play in the national life of the country, 
 
 Americanization, as applied to the 
 church, may be thought of as a 
 double heritage — on the one hand 
 that of national duty and on the 
 other, that of Christian responsi¬ 
 bility. 
 
 In this hour of reconstruction, 
 the church, as well as other social 
 agencies, should place her re¬ 
 sources at the disposal of America 
 — not alone to evangelize, but also 
 to Americanize all men and 
 women unacquainted with the 
 blessings of American citizenship, 
 and to strengthen the ties of allegiance for those who are 
 citizens, whether native or naturalized. 
 
 It was with this feeling of responsibility that Methodism 
 — always patriotic and democratic — decided to utilize the 
 resources of the church in effecting an adequate program 
 in Americanization. 
 
 The Centenary movement made it possible to meet this 
 responsibility both constructively and comprehensively. 
 What have been the results? The places where Methodism 
 is responsible for a definite program were listed through the 
 survey. The kind of program required to meet the need in 
 these various neighborhoods and communities had been de¬ 
 termined. The objects of the program are: 
 
 1. The Pulpit. To enlist the entire pulpit force of our 
 church for the purpose of holding up the standard of a 
 genuine Americanism, demanding an intelligent, understand¬ 
 ing citizenship, and calling upon men everywhere to lay aside 
 prejudices and insist upon social and economic justice for all 
 men living under the flag. 
 
 2. Religious Education. To teach by means of the 
 pulpit, the Sunday School and week-day religious education, 
 the elements of brotherhood and Christian love to those for 
 whose spiritual and moral development Methodism is re¬ 
 sponsible — thus lending our aid to the spiritual and moral 
 fiber of our Americanism. 
 
 3. Home Visitation. To enlarge the activities of our 
 women’s organizations and Young Peoples’ Societies, that 
 
 they may not only study, but practice Christian principles 
 by acting as home visitors and teachers among those of for¬ 
 eign birth, especially the women who are kept at home. 
 
 4. Foreign Language Churches. To increase the present 
 staffs of our foreign language churches, so that a more 
 definite social uplift program may become a part of the 
 work. 
 
 5. English Speaking Churches. To strengthen pastor¬ 
 ates of English speaking churches in parishes where genuine 
 American leadership is needed for counteracting anti-Ameri¬ 
 can propaganda. 
 
 6. Neighborhood and Community Cooperation. To 
 utilize our downtown churches, or groups of rural churches 
 where one or more language pastors or workers are em¬ 
 ployed, by providing a director of Americanization work to 
 cooperate with the various civic and social forces of the 
 community in working out a constructive program. 
 
 7. Remodel Churches and Revamp Programs. To re¬ 
 model hundreds of our rural and city church buildings now 
 barely functioning or entirely abandoned, and make them 
 into practical Methodist Neighborhood Houses under Ameri¬ 
 can leadership, and to install the necessary material equip¬ 
 ment in old structures and, where necessary, in new and 
 rented buildings, for club, class, forum and lecture work; 
 also clinics, dispensaries, nurseries, kindergarten, domestic 
 and industrial arts, etc. 
 
 8. English and Citizenship. To teach English and pro¬ 
 vide a curriculum for training in citizenship, and cooperate 
 where other agencies are better equipped to do this funda¬ 
 mental educational work. Where the public schools are 
 conducting satisfactory English and citizenship classes, the 
 church will put on a program for conserving the results 
 among her own constituency. 
 
 9. Ports of Entry. To cooperate with all agencies whose 
 aim is to drive out quackery and to prevent the victimizing 
 of newly arriving and unsettled immigrant peoples. 
 
 10. Training of Leadership. To provide for the train¬ 
 ing of the necessary leadership, not only by means of scholar¬ 
 ships for students taking work in universities and seminaries, 
 but also for graduate field fellowship that will give a year’s 
 study and experience in emigrant countries, or in foreign¬ 
 speaking fields in America. There will also be a program 
 of short time summer institutes for raising the standard of 
 our present leadership. 
 
Italian Religious Procession andjEllis Island Groups 
 
 59 
 
 
Methodism and City Problems 
 
 By M. P. Burns 
 
 T HE great challenge of God, at this hour, to American 
 Christianity, is the moral uplift and security of the 
 cities. The cities dominate the 
 financial, industrial and commer¬ 
 cial life of the nation. The city is 
 where the gerat political battle be¬ 
 gins, rages and ends. In the city 
 in where all the combined forces 
 of sin are assembled in solid file for 
 the purpose of uprooting and over¬ 
 throwing Christian civilization. 
 The fact is the city is the real 
 heart of the republic. Lose the 
 city and you lose the state; lose 
 the state and you ultimately wreck 
 the hope of the world. 
 
 Methodism has never been a city church. She has never 
 understood the psychology of the city mind. She has never, 
 up to this moment, seriously and intelligently undertaken 
 the moral solution of the city problem. However, the task 
 is now squarely before her and she must discover a solution. 
 To evade this responsibility would be rank cowardict. "I o 
 assume it and go forward is divine. I herefore she must 
 assume, and go to it. 
 
 To accomplish this task we need a new church possessed 
 completely with a passion for sacrificial service. A self- 
 forgetting, self-abandoning institution in which the spirit 
 of the Man of Galilee is dominant. How often by the dog¬ 
 mas of men Christ, in the person of some of His children, 
 is excluded from what proposes to be His church. This 
 is the God-born philosophy, “Inasmuch as ye have done it 
 unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
 unto me.” The service church is the demand of the hour. 
 It is the only church bearing the divine imprint. We also 
 need a great new message and program of social justice, and 
 community uplift and welfare. This message and program 
 must be saturated wholly with the spirit and passion of 
 infinite love and godlike compassion. God so loved that He 
 gave H is all to win. Is the church of the hour ready to 
 follow in His footsteps? If so, the complete reconstruction 
 of the life of the nation is already in sight; if not, then our 
 efforts are already doomed to unqualified and inglorious 
 defeat. 
 
 The stewardship drive in our denomination has been suc¬ 
 cessful. The church is on her knees; the money is pouring 
 into the treasury; our tremendous need now is life, leader¬ 
 ship, judgment, common sense and a great consuming passion 
 for God appointed brotherhood. This penticost is forth¬ 
 coming; it is now at hand; the touch and thrill of the in¬ 
 finite is being felt; God has come and is leading the church. 
 
 The program of the Centenary as related to city work 
 declares for the conquest and possession of the down town, 
 congested and corrupted districts, the polyglot, foreign, 
 industrial, suburban and residential sections. In fact 
 the program of the Church calls for the complete 
 social, civic, political, industrial, economic, moral and 
 spiritual redemption and uplift of city life. This is truly 
 the call of God. This is the call of the Church. The 
 general call is, “Onward Christian soldier, marching as to 
 war”; war to the conclusion; war to the death of wrong; 
 war to the complete annihilation of crime; war to the 
 thorough elimination of sin; war to the breaking down of 
 satan’s entanglements; war to the unconditional surrender 
 of the powers of darkness; war to the perfect conquest of 
 equity, truth, justice and the all consuming love of the Son 
 of righteousness. 
 
 Methodism and Rural Problems 
 
 By Paul C. Vogt 
 
 T HE popular attitude toward life in the open country 
 which leads the country minister to seek “promotion” to 
 
 the city pulpit; the country boy and 
 girl to go to the city to enter 
 business or professional life; the 
 employment agencies to report 
 abundance of labor in cities and a 
 scarcity on the farms; and even 
 the farmer to “retire” to the vil¬ 
 lage or the city, is abundant evi¬ 
 dence that there are real country 
 problems. Realization of the ex¬ 
 istence of these problems, to¬ 
 gether with the failure to under¬ 
 stand them has led people to get 
 away from them by moving to 
 urban centers instead of attempting to remedy existing 
 conditions. 
 
 Although farmers have apparently been prosperous during 
 the past few years, the great bulk of wealth is still owned 
 by city people, and the income from it is enjoyed by them. 
 So long as urban, or suburban residents can afford to pay 
 more for services rendered and can have more commodious 
 and better equipped buildings than country or village people, 
 just so long will the pull to the city continue for all but truly 
 country-minded or truly missionary leaders. So long as city 
 homes can have better improvements; city children have 
 better educational facilities; city families have better medi¬ 
 cal attendance and hospital facilities; and the energetic young 
 people from the farms have larger opportunities for per¬ 
 sonal advancement, economically, socially and politically; 
 just so long will there exist real rural problems and a situa¬ 
 tion dangerous to the welfare of the nation. 
 
 In certain sections, survivals of unfortunate race rela¬ 
 tionships still present serious rural problems. These dan¬ 
 gerous conditions will continue until an awakened social 
 conscience compels definite action looking to racial improve¬ 
 ment and adjustment which will eliminate present sources 
 of conflict and which will make possible the fullest develop¬ 
 ment of the Christian spirit in American life. 
 
 In other sections, the increase of the propertyless classes 
 in the country as exemplified by the tenant and the farm 
 laborer groups is bringing the unfortunate class conscious¬ 
 ness into the country which has been such a serious problem 
 in industrial centers. Unless the church has a program of 
 economic justice for all rural folk, the time will come shortly 
 when the church will be despised by a large part of the 
 rural population. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church, because of its large 
 following in rural America in all parts of the country, holds 
 a strategic position in the period of reconstruction, and the 
 Centenary movement could not have come at a more oppor¬ 
 tune time to enable the Methodist Episcopal church to 
 render this service. It can take the lead in interchurch 
 adjustments and can set the example of denominational 
 sacrifice for the larger interests of the kingdom. It can, 
 through the combined leadership of its district superintend¬ 
 ents, bishops, and missionary boards, formulate a national 
 program for dealing effectively with economic problems, 
 illiteracy, health, recreational and other conditions. And 
 above all, it can so dignify and spiritualize rural life that 
 it will continue to be as it has been in the past, the safeguard 
 of morals, the conservator of loyalty to national ideals, and 
 the foundation of the spirit of true democracy and of the 
 recognition of men and women for their personal worth 
 free from the trammels of wealth distinctions or of position. 
 
 Methodism will be tested in the rural fields because of 
 her largely increased resources for service. 
 
 60 
 
Tenement District In Lower New York 
 
 61 
 
The Methodist Press 
 
 By James R. Joy 
 
 OHN WESLEY taught the people called Methodists 
 the use of printer’s ink at the very start. He opened a 
 
 Book Room in the Foundery, his 
 first preaching house in London, 
 in 1739, and was for years a whole 
 Methodist Book Concern in him¬ 
 self, writing, editing and publish¬ 
 ing books, hymnals and periodicals, 
 and turning a large annual profit 
 into the charitable and extension 
 funds of the Methodist societies. 
 His example has been followed by 
 Methodists in every part of the 
 world. Wherever the Methodist 
 travel he will find a Methodist 
 publication house or Book Room 
 and a Methodist newspaper which is likely to be called “The 
 Christian Advocate.” 
 
 The Methodist Book Concern was founded in May, 1789, 
 by the Conference in Wesley Chapel, John Street, New 
 York, which appointed the Rev. John Dickins as Book 
 Steward. He set up his shop at 43 Fourth street, in Phila¬ 
 delphia, August 17, 1789, on $600 capital which he ad¬ 
 vanced. The first publication was Wesley’s abbreviated 
 edition of Thomas A. Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ.” Ten 
 years later the Rev. Ezekiel Cooper succeeded him. In 
 1804 the business was removed to New York, where it has 
 continued ever since. It is the oldest publishing house in the 
 New World and one of the largest. In 1820 a branch was 
 established in Cincinnati by the Rev. Martin Ruter, which 
 has expanded with the growth of the imperial west. In 
 1919 the Methodist Book Concern owned and operated 
 extensive printing plants and binderies at New York, Cin¬ 
 cinnati and Chicago, with offices and stores in Pittsburg, 
 Kansas City and San Francisco, and depositories in Boston, 
 Detroit and New Orleans. In the last fiscal year its total 
 sales were $3,327,809, and the profits $278,754. The total 
 assets were $6,848,468. The profits are distributed to the 
 Annual Conferences for the relief of retired preachers. 
 About $1,000,000 was thus appropriated in the last qua- 
 drennium. The business is owned by the General Confer¬ 
 ence, which elects the three publishing agents. These are 
 Henry C. Jennings, Chicago; Edwin R. Graham, New 
 York; and John H. Race, Cincinnati. 
 
 The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, in 1846, provided for a book agency only 
 with depositories at Louisville, Kentucky; Charleston, South 
 Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia; and John Early was 
 appointed agent. In 1854 when the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, received its share of the assets of the 
 Methodist Book Concern due in 1844, when Episcopal 
 Methodism was divided, the agency was discontinued and 
 plans for a publishing house at Nashville, Tennessee, were 
 adopted by the General Conference, and Rev. E. Stevenson 
 and Rev. F. A. Owen were the first publishing agents. In 
 August, 1855, the publishing house had assets amounting to 
 $413,238.83. In 1918-19 its assets were $1,779,325.70; 
 the total sales for the year ending February 28, 1919, were 
 $1,210,916.54. Since 1891 the gross sales have been $17,- 
 179,092. The present publishing agents are Mr. D. M. 
 Smith and Rev. A. J. Lamar, D. D. 
 
 1 he first weekly paper authorized by the General Con¬ 
 ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was “The 
 Christian Advocate,” published at New York since Septem¬ 
 ber 9, 1826. 1 he Wesleyan Journal, published at Charleston, 
 South Carolina, antedated the Christian Advocate. The 
 two papers were consolidated in 1827 under the name “The 
 Christian Advocate and Journal.” It was followed by the 
 Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati, 1834); Der 
 Christliche Apologete (Cincinnati, 1839 ); the Pittsburgh 
 
 Christian Advocate ( 1840 ); Northwestern Christian Advo¬ 
 cate (Chicago, 1852 ) ; Central Christian Advocate (St. 
 Louis and now Kansas City, 1856 ) ; California Christian 
 Advocate (San Francisco, 1852 ); Pacific Christian Advo¬ 
 cate (Portland, 1856 ) ; Methodist Advocate-Journal 
 (Athens, Tenn.), and Southwestern Christian Advocate 
 (New Orleans). Semi-official and Conference papers of 
 wide influence are maintained in New England (Zion’s 
 Herald, Boston) ; Michigan (Michigan Christian Advocate, 
 Detroit); Maryland, (The Methodist, Baltimore), and 
 other localities. 
 
 For over one hundred years the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church has maintained The Methodist Review, New York, 
 now published bi-monthly. It also issues an ever increasing 
 list of Sunday School periodicals, with an aggregate circula¬ 
 tion of many millions. 
 
 The Epworth Herald (Chicago), is the organ of the 
 Epworth League. The Boards of Home and Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions unite in issuing World Outlook, the most attractive 
 missionary periodical in the world, and each of the Woman’s 
 Missionary Societies has its own magazine, The Friend and 
 Woman’s Home Missions. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has an influen¬ 
 tial list of weekly papers, of which the Christian Advocate 
 (Nashville), is the only one owned by the General Con¬ 
 ference. This paper was established at Nashville, Tenn., 
 in 1834. The seventeen others are issued under the patron¬ 
 age of individual conferences and groups of conferences. 
 Among them are St. Louis Christian Advocate; Wesleyan 
 Christian Advocate, (Atlanta) ; New Orleans Christian 
 Advocate; Florida Christian Advocate, (Lakeland, Flor¬ 
 ida) ; Arkansas Methodist, (Little Rock) ; Southern Chris- 
 tion Advocate, (Columbia, South Carolina) ; Baltimore 
 Southern Methodist; Richmond Christian Advocate; 
 North Carolina Christian Advocate, (Greensboro, North 
 Carolina) ; Pacific Methodist Advocate, (San Francisco) ; 
 Midland Methodist Advocate, (Nashville, Tennessee) ; Cen¬ 
 tral Methodist, (Lexington, Kentucky) ; Advocate-Herald, 
 (Sutton, West Virginia) ; Alabama Christian Advocate, 
 (Birmingham, Alabama) ; Texas Christian Advocate, (Dal¬ 
 las, Texas) ; Der Missions-freund, (San Antonio, Texas). 
 The Methodist Quarterly Review (Nashville) is a magazine 
 of theology and general culture. The Missionary Voice is 
 the official organ of the Woman’s Missionary Council, the 
 Epworth Era serves the Epworth League, and the Sunday 
 School periodicals are issued in great variety. 
 
 Publicity for the Kingdom 
 
 By Ralph Welles Keeler 
 
 T HE church has at last awakened to its opportunity to 
 send its message to the multitudes who know of its 
 
 mission only by hearsay. Accept¬ 
 ing the challenge of the business 
 world it is using every possible 
 means to bring its claims and bless¬ 
 ings to the attention of those who 
 will receive such information only 
 when it comes to them by the silent 
 messenger of the printed page. 
 
 The publicity campaign for the 
 Centenary of Methodist Missions 
 has demonstrated fully that people 
 are eager for the news of the 
 kingdom when brought to them 
 in the form of live, human stories 
 related to the everyday, commonplace activities of life. The 
 newspapers of the country are anxious for such news. But 
 heretofore the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Method¬ 
 ist Episcopal Church, South, have had no agency which 
 was willing or able to perform the service of furnishing to 
 the world this information which often out-thrills the stories 
 whi ch usually carry the two-inch headlines in the daily press. 
 
 62 
 
Organized as is the office of a great newspaper, the Pub¬ 
 licity Department of the Centenary has sent the message of 
 the needs of mankind, of the plans made for meeting them 
 and of inspiration for securing the consecration and interest 
 essential for success the world around. Newspaper stories, 
 magazine articles, page after page in the church press, ad¬ 
 vertisements, books, pamphlets, leaflets — there is no form 
 of printed instruction and appeal that has been neglected. 
 It has meant the realization of the dreams of the pioneers 
 in Church publicity. 
 
 Publicity is primarily the bringing out into the sight of 
 all men the facts as they are. It strives for the interest of 
 folks in the cause for which it speaks. The purpose of this 
 in the case of the church is manifold. It brings to the at¬ 
 tention of those already related to the church a definite 
 knowledge of the magnitude of the task of the church. It 
 furnishes material for a broader vision of the process of 
 spreading the kingdom of God on earth and arouses an in¬ 
 terest in the intelligent investment of its resources. 
 
 To those whose conception of the church is that of an 
 organization only slightly related to the affairs of this life, 
 it serves to break down prejudice, to create interest and to 
 develop practical participation in the program presented. 
 
 A new day is with us. If the kingdom of God is to be 
 established on the earth, the news of the kingdom’s growth 
 must be a part of the news of the world. The daring ad¬ 
 venture of launching a celebration of the Centenary of 
 Methodist Missions such as is now being observed through¬ 
 out American Methodism has thrown down a challenge to 
 the church itself henceforth to consider the news of its 
 affairs in the light of their real value and to let it be known 
 to all the world. 
 
 The Publications of American 
 
 Methodism 
 
 By David B. Downey 
 
 T HE publications of the Book Concern of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal 
 
 Church, South, are divided nat¬ 
 urally into three classes — Sunday 
 School Lessons and Helps, Peri¬ 
 odicals and Books. Quite natur¬ 
 ally also these classes shade into 
 each other, for much Sunday 
 School literature is also periodical, 
 and these days of graded lessons 
 books are now in the Sunday 
 School curriculum. 
 
 It is worthy of note that in the 
 publishing departments of these 
 two Methodisms there is already 
 a good deal of unification of a very 
 practical sort. The Sunday School editors are in constant 
 
 communication and a good deal of the literature is prepared 
 and published jointly. Also joint imprints and the recipro¬ 
 cal taking of imprint editions are not infrequent occurrences. 
 One cannot help thinking that if more attention had been 
 given in the past to practical phases of unification and less 
 to the theoretical and historical greater progress toward * 
 real oneness would have been made. It is easier to unify 
 from the bottom up than from the top down. 
 
 Methodism has been in the business of printing and pub¬ 
 lishing good literature for the last one hundred and thirty 
 years. It began to publish in 1789, just thirty years prior 
 to the beginning of its distinctive missionary activity. It is 
 utterly impossible even to outline its contribution to the 
 religious life of the nineteenth century. Some of its earliest 
 publications were naturally polemic and defensive. Method¬ 
 ism was on trial. Its message was opposed and misinter¬ 
 preted, and its preachers were often bitterly denounced. 
 H ence books on doctrine, discipline, history, were essential. 
 From the beginning Methodism, both in England and 
 America, stressed the doctrine of Christian experience. 
 Leaflets, booklets and more formal volumes, dealing with the 
 various phases of Christian duty and experience, were in 
 great demand, and the publishing houses not only met the 
 demand but enlarged it by the high quality of their 
 publications. 
 
 In time Methodism became an integral part of the re¬ 
 ligious life of the nation and its publications changed ac¬ 
 cordingly. There was no need of defending what no one 
 opposed. It was now the time to write history and theology 
 from the point of Methodist experience and life. The 
 noble volumes that bear the imprint of our publishing 
 houses North and South bear witness at once to the doc¬ 
 trinal soundness of Methodist historians and theologians. 
 
 It was to be expected that so virile and practical a type 
 of Christianity as Methodism would be interested in all 
 matters of moral reform, and that being interested in all 
 matters of moral reform, and that being interested its writers 
 would print and publish. It is not surprising, therefore, to 
 find a vast range of Methodist literature dealing with every 
 conceivable phase of social, civic and industrial readjust¬ 
 ment. Many evil doers have had good cause to remember 
 that Methodism is in truth “Christianity in earnest” and that 
 as regards moral betterment it still practices its ancient 
 motto, “all at it and always at it.” 
 
 If the future of Methodist publications may be judged 
 by the past it can be confidently predicted that the presses 
 of Methodism may be counted upon to rush to the limit 
 any program that Methodism stands for. Writers in the 
 varied fields of theology, history, sociology, economics, belle 
 lettres and fiction may be sure of a fit channel for their 
 productions provided they meet the high ethical and literary 
 standards of our publishing houses. 
 
 One Hundred Years of American Methodism 
 
 1918 
 
 Number of Annual Conferences. . . . 207 
 
 Number of effective ministers. . . . 21,245 
 
 Number of members. 6,039,330 
 
 Number of baptisms. 315,498 
 
 Number of Sunday Schools. 52,247 
 
 Number of church buildings.... 47,564 
 
 Net value church and parsonage prop¬ 
 erty . 325,423,850 
 
 Ministerial support . 27,312,094 
 
 ^Disciplinary benevolences . 8,471,422 
 
 * Including Special Gifts, etc. 
 
 t Methodist Episcopal Church South reports separately after 1844. 
 
 1894 
 
 1869 
 
 f 1844 
 
 1819 
 
 170 
 
 IOO 
 
 33 
 
 11 
 
 17,072 
 
 10,070 
 
 4,479 
 
 812 
 
 3 . 755 . 12 6 
 
 1,683,307 
 
 ',139,587 
 
 240,924 
 
 345 . 2 4 I 
 
 l62,97I 
 
 
 . 
 
 43,432 
 
 l6,29I 
 
 
 
 3 8 .495 
 
 | I 2,048 
 
 
 . 
 
 140 , 344,702 
 
 154, 1 > 5, 2 97 
 
 61,669 
 
 . 
 
 13,307,65! 
 
 1129,777 
 
 
 2,599,061 
 
 958,289 
 
 112,524 
 
 
 tNo available statistics for Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
 
 68 
 
Our Bible Society 
 
 By W. I. Haven 
 
 M ETHODISM has always believed in the Bible. Wes¬ 
 ley was, first of all, a student of the Scriptures. The 
 origin of Bible Societies can be 
 traced directly to the Wesleyan 
 movement. The early itinerant 
 preachers in America took Bibles 
 with them in their saddle bags; 
 they were among the earliest of 
 colporteurs. Asbury in his declin¬ 
 ing years, when he went about 
 with the Scriptures, said, “Now I 
 know I am sowing good seed.” 
 
 The Methodist Missionary So¬ 
 ciety, when it started in 1819, was 
 a missionary and Bible society. It 
 continued so until 1836 when it 
 dropped the latter part of its name and placed the American 
 Bible Society, in which all the churches were interested, on 
 its official list of benevolences. This was an early tribute 
 to the wisdom of the churches working together in matters 
 that were common to them all. 
 
 Since 1836, for over three-quarters of a century, Method¬ 
 ism has borne its share in the far-reaching work of the so¬ 
 ciety. It has contributed translators. Its presses have been 
 used in printing the Scriptures. It has had leadership in the 
 councils of the society, on its Board of Managers, in its pres¬ 
 idency and its vice-presidency, and in the secretarial offices. 
 A list of Methodist preachers too numerous to mention have 
 been agents or secretaries of the auxiliaries of the American 
 Bible Society in the United States and have had charge of 
 its agencies at home and abroad. The veteran foreign sec¬ 
 retaries of the society at the present time are Rev. Francis G. 
 Penzotti of the Argentine—a name beloved and honored all 
 over South America; the Rev. Dr. H. C. Tucker of Brazil 
 —than whom, perhaps, no one stands out more conspicuously 
 in the missionary forces of that country; the 
 Rev. John R. Hykes of China—one of the 
 moulding forces of the nation, respected 
 and honored by princes and presidents; not 
 to mention others like McLaughlin of the 
 Philippines, Beck of Korea, Schwartz of 
 Japan, or Wragg, Kirkbride, Ragatz, Mell, 
 
 Morgan, and Parkin at home. 
 
 Methodist scholars have contributed to 
 the versions of the society. The Sheetswa 
 and Tonga Bibles in East Africa were 
 translated by Dr. E. H. Richards. Dr. 
 
 Spencer Lewis is one of the translators and 
 revisers of the Mandarin Bible of China, 
 and Dr. Hykes also. The Hinghua Col¬ 
 loquial was translated by Dr. W. N. Brew¬ 
 ster; the Shanghai Colloquial by Dr. Y. J. 
 
 Allen and Dr. A. P. Parker; the Fuchow 
 Colloqulai by Dr. C. C. Baldwin. The 
 Japanese version owes much to the work of 
 Dr. R. S. McLay and Dr. R. C. S. Davison. 
 
 Dr. H. S. Appenzeller, who met his death 
 by drowning on his way to attend a meet¬ 
 ing of the Translation Committee, Dr. W. 
 
 B. Scranton, and Dr. G. H. Jones who has 
 just left us were deeply interested in the 
 Korean Scriptures. Long in Bulgaria, 
 
 Goodrich in the Philippines, Baez of Mex¬ 
 ico and Dress of South America belong on 
 this roll. These are Methodist names that 
 must not be forgotten in the fascinating 
 story of the translation of the Scriptures 
 carried forward under the auspices of the 
 American Bible Society. 
 
 Methodist missions everywhere have been quick to assist 
 in the circulation of the Scriptures. Dr. F. D. Gamewell of 
 China said that when he first went to the field he never 
 thought of going out on a missionary journey without mak¬ 
 ing the distribution of the Scriptures one of his chief objects. 
 According to the testimony of Dr. J. W. Butler, almost 
 every preaching station occupied by Methodism in Mexico 
 was opened by Bible colporteurs. Innumerable have been 
 the Methodist colporateurs of lowly station who have gone 
 out to prepare the highway of the Lord. 
 
 Methodism and the Bible Society are inseparably inter¬ 
 woven. 
 
 Mandarin 
 
 Revision 
 
 Committee 
 
 64 
 
Views in and about Columbus 
 
 6S 
 
Crowds—Labor, Finance, Sport, Religion 
 
 WORKERS DEMANDING BETTER INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS. 
 
 baseball“fans” 
 
 AT GREAT GAME OF SEASON. 
 
 NATIVES SEEKING CLEANSING FROM SIN IN GANGES DIVER. 
 
H ow the Crowds Are To Be Reached 
 
 METHODISM AN EVANGELISTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 By IV. W. Pinson 
 
 H UMANELY speaking Methodism is a historic acci¬ 
 dent. It is the product of one of those sublime in¬ 
 directions of history by which pro¬ 
 vidence rebukes our human pride. 
 Bishop Quayle has said that “Col¬ 
 umbus was seeking a direct route 
 to India when he stubbed his toe 
 against America.” John Wesley 
 was seeking a direct and efficient 
 wa> for saving men when he 
 stumbled on the Methodist Church. 
 It was the last thing he ever in¬ 
 tended and about the last thing he 
 ever consented to. He was a born 
 sacerdotalist bue he was born again 
 as an evangelist. The passion for 
 evangelism prevailed against the prejudices of the church 
 man, and turned a brilliant ecclesiastic into a flaming apostle. 
 
 Woodrow Wilson has said: “The eighteenth century 
 cries out for deliverance and light and God prepared this 
 man to show again the might and blessing of His salvation.” 
 So well did he and his co-workers fulfill this mission that 
 McCaulay ridiculed a history of George III that left out 
 the rise of Methodism and Greene, the historian, declared 
 the Wesleyan revival saved England from the horrors of 
 another French revolution. 
 
 Methodism was not a protest, it was a passion. It was 
 not a reformation, it was a revival. It was not a schism, it 
 was a search for the sheep in the wilderness. Unlike the 
 other great branches of the Protestant church, Methodism 
 stood for no negations — neither political, ecclesiastical nor 
 doctrinal. It grew out of the fundamental affirmation of the 
 evangelistic message and method. It was not thought out, 
 it was wrought out. Unconsciously Wesley and his co¬ 
 workers were obeying the purpose of an all-wise providence, 
 and fashioning the most fitting machine that could be de¬ 
 vised for carrying the saving gospel to the neglected areas 
 of the earth and through the dust and tumult of a great 
 revival one can see the outlines of a great church emerging 
 as it was needed as an instrument. 
 
 The historian can trace every step of the evolution of 
 Methodism by the ashes of its evangelical altar fires. Its 
 bishops are the lineal descendants of Asbury “the prophets 
 of the long road”; its gorgeous temples are the children of 
 brush arbors; its pulpits are rooted in the hillsides of old 
 England and its vast multitude of sons are brothers to the 
 begrimed colliers of Kingswood and the humble folk of 
 Smithfield Commons. The Methodists went to the fields 
 only when they could not reach the folks in the churches. 
 They accepted lay preaching only because it was efficient, 
 and exchanged the arm-chair of the parson for the saddle of 
 the itinerant only because the arm-chair did not get them to 
 the people. 
 
 It was this that sent the Methodists to America, that kept 
 them on the trail of the pioneer, and held them steady to 
 their task through the Revolution when others fled from the 
 field. It was this that divided the church in twain in 1844, 
 that they might continue to carry the gospel unhindered to 
 the slave-holder and the slave in the South, and also to the 
 abolitionist of New England. It is this that will some sweet 
 day bring them to be one again — not the ambition for a 
 great ecclesiastical organization, but that they may be more 
 powerful and swiftly carry the cross to the ends of the earth. 
 The only fires hot enough for the re-welding of Methodism 
 are the same fires in which it was originally forged. 
 
 Just now God and a stricken world are calling Methodism 
 to the reassessment and reassertion of her true mission. It 
 
 would be a ghastly mockery to offer fine-spun theological 
 formulas or the “flat fluency” of dogmas or the gorgeous 
 ritual and costly buildings of a great ecclesiasticism to the 
 stricken and bleeding children of men. Now as in the 
 eighteenth century the world cries out for light and salva¬ 
 tion and God is trying again to answer through Methodism. 
 Not alone, but with other evangelical bodies, she must throw 
 her forces into the rescue with the fervor and fire that will 
 vindicate her heritage and justify her name. 
 
 If a handful of men in the eighteenth century could start 
 a movement that in a hundred and seventy years could set a 
 river of joy singing round the world, what may not the 
 Methodism of America do under the same spirit and moved 
 by the same motive in this great plastic hour? Let him 
 answer who can. The answer will be the measure of our 
 Centenary responsibility. 
 
 EVANGELISM IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
 CENTENARY MOVEMENT 
 By George B. Dean 
 
 T HE great drive of the Methodist Episcopal Churches 
 which culminates in the celebration of American 
 Methodist Missions at Columbus 
 is more than a striving for a great 
 financial goal. Evangelism, the 
 larger mission of the Church has 
 been the dominating motive from 
 the beginning, and now comes to 
 the front in the plans of Metho¬ 
 dism’s leaders for a great nation¬ 
 wide evangelistic campaign begin¬ 
 ning in the fall of 1919. 
 
 Nor has evangelism been left 
 out in the work already done in 
 acquainting members of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church and 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the huge obli¬ 
 gations which they must meet and the problems which they 
 must help solve both in the United States and in every land 
 the earth around. In the many plans which have been used 
 to stir the church to its responsibility, none has received 
 more prayer and consideration than the winning of church 
 membership to complete consecration to Jesus Christ and 
 their guidance in going forth in their own communities to 
 lead others into that same fellowship. 
 
 Evangelism has brought to them a permanent task. Pas¬ 
 tors are being urged to meet the new points of contact. 
 Laymen are being trained for practical evangelistic effort. 
 The upheaval in our economic life forces an interpretation 
 and application of the gospel which demonstrates the justice 
 of its appeal. Labor unionism is becoming a religion which 
 must be met at the point where practical righteousness is 
 demonstrated. The industrial world has felt the heavy 
 burdens which Christianity offers to remove and is waiting 
 for an utterance which will bring relief. 
 
 The educational interests of the country want the message 
 translated so as to meet the needs of the developing minds 
 of the student body. A presentation is needed which has 
 the same intellectual adequacy as has the presentation of 
 those philosophies at which the world has grasped during the 
 centuries. An evangelism is needed that knows no class dis¬ 
 tinction. It must be tireless in its efforts. It must know 
 people as well as its message. 
 
 Methodism in its united efforts to celebrate the centenary 
 of its missionary activities in a large way has opened up to 
 the consciousness of its people the opportunity and the chal¬ 
 lenge now to go forth and give the gospel to every man, 
 woman and child of every race and language wherever 
 human beings are found. This challenge appeals to the 
 people and will be met. 
 
 67 
 
Views at Exposition Grounds 
 
 68 
 
The Centenary and the Laity 
 
 By E. W. Halford 
 
 r HE Centenary is a cry back to first things. In the be¬ 
 ginning the church was one body. The term “lay” was 
 
 not heard of until wealth and pro¬ 
 fessionalism became dominant. It 
 took six centuries “to fix the me¬ 
 morable distinction between laity 
 and clergy,” using the phrase of 
 Gibbon. Then ensued one thou¬ 
 sand dark years, until the skies be¬ 
 gan to be streaked with the dawn¬ 
 ing of the reformations. The 
 essence of these reformations was 
 the discovery of the laity and their 
 essential function in the Church. 
 McGiffert sums up Luther’s work 
 by saying that “he changed the 
 whole tone of society, a new lay culture taking the place of 
 the clerical culture of the middle ages.” Wesley, following 
 with his revival, said, “Give me one hundred preachers who 
 fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care 
 not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will 
 bring in the kingdom of heaven upon the earth.” 
 
 The big thing in the missionary revival movements of the 
 last few years is the recognition that “the evangelism of the 
 world is a business rather than a profession,” and that to get 
 the business done business men must be enlisted and made 
 to work in the church. There had not seemed to be much 
 worth while for laymen to do. President Wilson recently 
 said, “I have been present at some church organization meet¬ 
 ings at which nothing more important happened than hap¬ 
 pened with the Light-foot Baseball Club.” A good Metho¬ 
 dist bishop said that “business men who dealt on the streets 
 in hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, were not like¬ 
 ly to be much interested in church movements that were main¬ 
 ly carried on by selling strawberries at fifteen cents a dish.” 
 
 The Centenary has come with its commanding challenge. 
 There was nothing small about the Centenary from the first, 
 and it captured the imagination and gained the sympathy of 
 men of wide vision and large hearts. When the far-seeing 
 men launched the movement, not a few wiseacres wagged 
 their heads and said, as others like them did to Paul, that 
 they were “mad.” But now our entire Church and the 
 greater Church of Christ have come to be almost a universal 
 Bedlam. Men are going “mad” to bring the kingdom of 
 God into the world. The world went “mad” — rabidly 
 ■“mad” — in the great war, and it was time for the Church 
 to try similia similibus curantur. The prescription works. 
 Not only so-called Christian men, but statesmen, presidents, 
 soldiers, philosophers and “business” men are a unit in de¬ 
 claring that Christianity must be enthroned in the world or 
 civilization cannot be saved. “It is Christianity or chaos.” 
 
 In our own united Methodist Church, as an index of the 
 lay revival, there are fully one hundred and fifty thousand 
 Minute Men who have been enrolled for work. There are 
 six hundred and fifty thousand enrolled in the “Fellowship 
 of Intercession.” There are more than two hundred thou¬ 
 sand Tithing Stewards; the proposition for a million such 
 within five years seems likely to prove too small an estimate. 
 The Every Member Canvass has called into service literally 
 hundreds of thousands of men. In the Baptist communion 
 more than six hundred and sixty thousand have been or¬ 
 ganized for church work, and something similar has taken 
 place in other communions. The Presbyterian General 
 Assembly (Northern) has just elected a layman to be 
 Moderator,— the first of his kind. So far no signs or por¬ 
 tents have been observed among the heavenly bodies however 
 great the disturbance may be among some earthly bodies, 
 ecclesiastic and otherwise. It is possible that in the lap of 
 the gods there are lay as well as ministerial General Super¬ 
 intendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Missionary Centenary Reviewed 
 
 By Charles Sumner Ward. 
 
 F OR every one of a number of reasons the Methodist 
 Missionary Centenary has been one of the most re¬ 
 markable campaigns in which it has 
 been my privilege to participate in 
 half a lifetime given to the direct¬ 
 ing of great money-raising efforts. 
 
 First of all, the raising of $140,- 
 000,000 for the advancement of 
 the kingdom of God is the great¬ 
 est enterprise ever undertaken by 
 any Church in Christian history. 
 
 Secondly, despite the huge sum 
 involved, Centenary leaders never 
 lost sight of the spiritual aims of 
 the Centenary nor allowed the 
 spiritual element to be obscured. 
 Through the adaptation of modern methods of organization 
 and publicity, stewardship and prayer and all spiritual values 
 were kept ever to the fore, with the result that Methodism 
 has received a spiritual impetus and awakening such as it 
 has perhaps never known before. 
 
 But the Missionary Centenary is remarkable also for the 
 way in which the whole of Methodism, with its 25,000 
 pastors and its more than 6,000,000 members, was knit into 
 a coordinated, smooth-running machine that functioned like 
 clockwork in its drive through to the goal. 
 
 Remarkable also, and perhaps more hopeful and significant 
 than all the rest, is the inspiring fact of the hearty and ef¬ 
 fective cooperation of the two great bodies of Methodists, 
 that of the North and that of the South. Aside from any 
 of its other attainments, the Missionary Centenary would 
 have been worth while alone for the drawing together in a 
 cause of these two kindred branches. 
 
 In the great intensive effort of May 18 to 25 the problem 
 was essentially one of organization. It was almost a slogan 
 that “any Methodist Church could raise its quota more 
 easily in a week than it could in a month.” The plan that 
 brought the highest success wherever it was followed was 
 the one that has resulted from years of experience in all sorts 
 of religious and philanthropic endeavors. 
 
 It has been intensely interesting to note what wonders 
 the principles used in Red Cross, Y. M. C. A. and United 
 War Work national campaigns worked when adapted to a 
 great denomination’s needs. Admitting no possibility of 
 extending the time of the national effort, Methodism gained 
 all the strength and momentum resulting from united action. 
 
 Daily supper rallies of workers were a source of great 
 stimulus. There is a magic in getting campaigners together 
 to eat, report and “swap” experiences that never fails. So, 
 through the loyal cooperation of Methodist women, these 
 daily suppers were held throughout campaign week in thou¬ 
 sands of Methodist Churches from one end of the country 
 to the other. They were a large factor in whatever success 
 has been attained. 
 
 Another factor was the enlistment of leading Methodist 
 laymen everywhere. Their labors have been invaluable in 
 the Missionary Centenary, and from the joy of serving 
 actively which they derived the Church at large will long 
 benefit by way of increased interest and support. 
 
 Finally, the Missionary Centenary may be looked upon 
 as Methodism’s “Plattsburg,” its course of intensive training 
 for the big things that are ahead of the denomination. 
 Through the Centenary American Methodism has learned 
 the full measure of its own strength and effectiveness. No 
 task will daunt it henceforth. 
 
 Methodism is a great dynamo of spiritualizing and evan¬ 
 gelizing energy, and now for the first time in full effective¬ 
 ness, as a result of the Missionary Centenary, it is “direct- 
 connected” to the pressing, but no longer depressing, World 
 Problems and Needs. 
 
 69 
 
Three Great Departments To Make 
 
 LIFE SERVICE 
 By G. F. Ream 
 
 N the early days of the Centenary movement it was real¬ 
 ized that money and prayers must find their expression 
 
 in actual service—that the Chris¬ 
 tianization of the world at home 
 and abroad is to be accomplished 
 by workers who understand the 
 Christian program and who are 
 highly trained for its accomplish¬ 
 ment. The surveys of our Chris¬ 
 tian enterprises throughout the 
 world very soon made it clea’* that 
 we must employ many more work¬ 
 ers, that the degree of their train¬ 
 ing must be upon higher stand¬ 
 ards than ever before, and that 
 our entire system of local churches 
 from which they come must be prepared beyond all previous 
 records for complete modern service. 
 
 The Department of Life Service therefore was organized 
 to arouse the young people throughout the entire church to 
 a realization of this mightily expanded call throughout the 
 world; to guide ministerial candidates and young laymen in 
 further preparatory education; and to aid those already at 
 work in becoming most effective. It shows them that those 
 who are to be selected must be Christian in character, de¬ 
 voted in spirit and must bring an educational preparation 
 and training adequate to the new tasks. It guides them 
 finally to those positions of service which constitute the 
 largest opportunity and the most immediate needs as seen 
 by the various boards of the Church. 
 
 The new call to service is being presented in all of our 
 colleges and universities, in the summer conferences and 
 institutes, in the camps of the army and navy at home and 
 abroad, and in the local churches throughout the land. 
 Everywhere the young people are invited to consider the 
 investment of their lives and to make estimates of their 
 talents in view of the world’s greatest needs and the work 
 which the Christian church must undertake. Local churches 
 are being called upon to nominate definite numbers from 
 among their capable young people who could render accep¬ 
 table service when properly trained. These young people 
 are taking courses of instruction in Christian work and are 
 being advised toward higher education so that as rapidly as 
 they become qualified they may enter into their life work. 
 
 The department is seeking ministers, missionaries at home 
 and abroad, directors of religious education, college pro¬ 
 fessors, teachers in church schools, experts in many profes¬ 
 sions, including medicine, engineering, agriculture, etc., 
 nurses, church secretaries, exceptionally trained laymen (men 
 and women) for staff service in local churches, deaconesses. 
 Every form of Christian work has its opportunities here. 
 
 All the boards and societies of the church interested in 
 recruiting Christian workers for any task cooperate in the 
 
 Department of Life Service and present in a united fashion 
 their needs for workers. 
 
 The time has come to recognize in the most practical 
 fashion that our lives are a stewardship under the will of 
 God and that all our homes and churches are called upon 
 to make contribution of their young people to the Kingdom 
 in this high day of opportunity. 
 
 STEWARDSHIP 
 By Ralph S. Cushman 
 
 I T will make an interesting story when, some day, the 
 account is fully written. For the present purpose, it is 
 
 enough to go back to the fall of 
 1917, in the annual session of a 
 Methodist Conference, when it 
 was argued that “If this confer¬ 
 ence will carry through a Steward¬ 
 ship Educational Campaign, with 
 a definite goal to enroll ‘Ten 
 Thousand Tithing Stewards in 
 the Central New York Confer¬ 
 ence,’ it will not be long before we 
 will hear a larger slogan for ‘A 
 Million Tithers in Methodism.’ ” 
 The sequel of the story is be¬ 
 ginning to be well known. In 
 the two branches of Methodism there are already enrolled 
 approximately one quarter of the million, and what was 
 thought of at first as a five-year task seems now possible of 
 accomplishment in less than half the time. 
 
 The preparatory Centenary Conference at Niagara and 
 Junaluska prepared for the Stewardship movement in this 
 language: “We welcome, therefore, as fundamental to this 
 entire world program, the proposal of the Centenary Com¬ 
 mission that it shall provide for a revival of study of Chris¬ 
 tian Stewardship, and the payment of the tithe as a material 
 acknowledgement.” 
 
 A few months ago a Presbyterian writer, in an interde¬ 
 nominational paper, declared that “the stewardship cam¬ 
 paigns in the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and the 
 new slogan ‘A Million Tithers in Methodism,’ will un¬ 
 doubtedly change the climate for the whole church of Christ 
 in the United States.” 
 
 Another, a Methodist leader, recently announced that he 
 did “not know any one thing in a generation that has gripped 
 
 the church as the call for ‘A Million Tithers in Method- 
 
 • > >> 
 ism. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that the Centenary 
 Stewardship program is much larger in its purpose than the 
 enrollment of a million tithing stewards. Proportionate 
 giving, with the tithe as a minimum, is only the gateway to 
 the much larger program of educating the entire church in 
 the teachings of Christian Stewardship. 
 
 The prime necessity of this day is to bring men to see the 
 vital relation between the acquisition and spending of money 
 
 70 
 
The Centenary Campaign Permanent 
 
 and Christian consecration. It is clearly evident that the 
 program of world redemption is being held up by church 
 members who are robbing God. And on the other hand, 
 “The money that belongs by every right to God, but is kept 
 back from Him by His people is probably the greatest hin¬ 
 drance to vital spirituality that there is in the world today.” 
 
 Accordingly, it will be seen that the Stewardship move¬ 
 ment is a spiritual crusade — a revival of religion — and 
 not merely a program to secure adequate provisions of 
 money. The slogan “A Million Tithers in Methodism” is 
 in reality a call for a million Methodists — and more — who 
 will put God and His Kingdom first; who will so genuinely 
 believe in God’s ownership and man’s stewardship that they 
 will acknowledge this through the holy habit of laying a 
 tenth of their income on the altar as a minimum acknow¬ 
 ledgement. 
 
 A Methodist bishop has said, “A revival in the realm of 
 Christian stewardship will bring every other blessing needed 
 in the church of Christ.” 
 
 INTERCESSION 
 By JV. E. Doughty 
 
 I N uncounted hidden places in the home land and in the 
 far fields, the streams of prayer have been ascending un¬ 
 ceasingly to God for a new day of 
 blessing and power in the church. 
 Many a missionary at home and 
 abroad has cried with agony that 
 the church might feel with him the 
 burden of the baffling tasks in the 
 field where he was working against 
 great odds to win and hold the 
 frontiers of the kingdom. The 
 Centenary is God’s answer. 
 
 It is impossible to trace all the 
 streams that at last united in this 
 spiritual crusade, but it is true that 
 a group of men who had been 
 drawn close together in the pressure of kingdom campaign¬ 
 ing were led to pray with special intensity and reality that 
 the church might be lifted to new heights of devotion and 
 achievement. A deep and wonderful fellowship in prayer 
 has glorified the lives of those who have carried the responsi¬ 
 bilities of the Centenary. 
 
 Wonderful have been the experiences of Centenary 
 leaders in both branches of American Episcopal Methodism. 
 At the Clifton Hotel, Niagara Falls, in September, 1917, 
 preceding the first meeting of the World Program Com¬ 
 mittee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, members of the 
 staff and others spent several days in making final prepara¬ 
 tions and in prayer. The Sunday before the meeting of the 
 committee was a never-to-be-forgotten day of fellowship 
 with God. The results were evident in the vision and cour¬ 
 age and faith which came to the committee as they faced for 
 the first time a part of the tremendous task as revealed by 
 
 the survey and as they approved the Centenary plans, in¬ 
 cluding what seemed at that hour an overwhelming budget. 
 After the victory of those days the final outcome was never 
 in doubt. 
 
 The Committee of One Hundred on World Program of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met at the Chisca 
 Hotel, Memphis, March 19-21, 1918. Hundreds were in¬ 
 terceding for that meeting, and it was an occasion of spiritual 
 power unsurpassed up to that time in the history of the 
 church. The action of the General Conference which met 
 in Atlanta, in May, 1918, unanimously and enthusiastically 
 adopting recommendations of the Memphis meeting, was 
 another token of victory through prayer. So also prayer 
 prepared the way for victory in the Joint Conference at 
 Lake Junaluska and in many other great meetings. 
 
 During the two days preceding the meeting of the Dis¬ 
 trict Superintendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 in June, 1918, a group of leaders spent hours in prayer at 
 Columbus, and a special request for intercession for the 
 meeting was sent to sixty thousand people throughout the 
 world. There can be no question that herein lies the ex¬ 
 planation of the gripping power of the days that followed 
 when God poured out His blessing upon the leaders of His 
 Church. At various meetings of the staff, notably on a 
 Sunday morning at Wallace Lodge, in September of 1918, 
 the power of God has been manifested and the conviction 
 has been constantly deepening that the church was going 
 God’s way. 
 
 The Fellowship of Intercession was organized early in the 
 campaign and a widespread appeal for prayer made to the 
 church. More than 650,000 have enrolled and the end is 
 not yet. The first Sunday of the Four Weeks’ Stewardship 
 Program has been given to enlisting intercessors and in the 
 conferences, conventions, and other public meetings of the 
 Centenary, special emphasis has been given to the sources of 
 spiritual power. 
 
 In a few short months about six million copies of pamph¬ 
 lets on prayer have been circulated in the Methodist Epis¬ 
 copal Church, and about five million copies in the Church, 
 South. 
 
 A multitude of pastors and others have testified that the 
 spiritual quickening which has come in answer to prayer 
 has been the greatest single factor in bringing success in the 
 Centenary campaign. 
 
 No movement in the history of the Christian Church has 
 ever attempted to enroll and train so many intercessors as 
 have been enlisted in the Centenary, yet only a beginning 
 has been made. Thrilling possibilities of undreamed of 
 achievements lie ahead as the Conservation Committees plan 
 to follow up and extend their feature of the campaign. 
 
 As American Methodism makes fresh discovery of God 
 through fellowship with Him, she will be lifted to ever 
 higher levels of spiritual vision and power and go forward 
 with unfailing strength during all the coming days. 
 
 71 
 
The Trumpet Call to Methodism! 
 
 “The field is the world---’’ 
 “The world is my parish.’’ 
 
 -JOHN WESLEY 
 
 STONEMAN PRESS, COLUMBUS, OHIO 
 
 73 
 
The Continuation of the Centenary 
 
 The Centenary Celebration, in the commemoration of the hundredth year 
 of missionary activities of American Methodism, has been a greater success than 
 even its most ardent advocates anticipated. The Celebration, however, has been 
 but an incident in the great program of missionary advance now being conducted 
 as the Missionary Centenary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Meth¬ 
 odist Episcopal Church, South. 
 
 The Methodist Missionary Centenary is a three-fold program for the dedica¬ 
 tion of the total resources of the Church,—material, personal and spiritual—to the 
 further conquest of the world in terms of the spiritual Kingdom of Jesus Christ. 
 It means the awakening of the Church to a new sense of the world’s supreme need 
 of Jesus Christ; the evangelization of the peoples of the whole world in His name; 
 and the spiritualization of the processes that shall enter into a rebuilding of a war- 
 ridden world, in order that a permanent peace, based on Love instead of Law, may 
 prevail throughout the earth. 
 
 This program of the Centenary, which, in its activities for “Intercession,” 
 “Life Service,” and “Stewardship,” has already achieved so much in the lifting of 
 the prayer life, development of the spirit of sacrifice, and the accumulation of mil¬ 
 lions of dedicated wealth, will not only be carried on aggressively throughout the 
 five-year period as originally outlined, but a program is being planned by our 
 Bishops and other leaders to continue indefinitely the work of these various de¬ 
 partments until the total resources of the Church have been dedicated to the ends 
 of the Kingdom of God. A definite program of evangelism is being planned 
 which shall be prosecuted as systematically and faithfully as has been the cam¬ 
 paign for finance. The Life Service Department is just beginning its thorough 
 and detailed program for the purpose of enlisting the young life of the Church 
 for the further Christian conquest of the world. The Department of Stewardship 
 will continue its program of education and inspiration until the whole Church 
 has recognized its “Stewardship to God,” and its total material resources have 
 been laid on His altars of service. 
 
 Therefore, the Missionary Centenary must not be regarded as a closed incident 
 with the closing of these halls of celebration and jubilee. Nor is the total obliga¬ 
 tion of the Church in relation to a new world situation to be met by a mere 
 spasmodic effort toward missionary advance. The Church has caught a new 
 vision of the challenge of her Lord to go into all the world and “disciple in My 
 name,” and a new standard of religious life and practice has been set from which 
 the Church shall never recede. 
 
 The Church Universal must continue on this new basis until the world shall 
 not only have been evangelized, but all the processes of life and thought have been 
 regenerated in terms of the personal life of Jesus Christ, and the ethics of his gospel 
 shall have become the foundation of all governments, and these shall have become 
 a Brotherhood of Nations under the Lordship of a common Father. 
 
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF THE 
 CENTENARY CELEBRATION GROUNDS 
 
 COVER BY THE NEW COL UHBl/S LITHOGRAPH CO COIUMHUS o