men along the following lines: Biblestudy, evangelism, boys' work, social service, and home and foreign missions. Each of the teams of experts will have a man whose specialty will be one of these divisions of Christian work. The movement differs in many respects from every movement that has gone before. The teams will not be composed of revivalists or evangelists in the ordinary acceptance of the terms, or of great speakers. They will be made up of men that have had the greatest experience and the greatest success along their respective lines of work, who will be fitted to advise with the Christian men of every city to which they go, and leave with them the latest and most approved plans whereby the kingdom of God can be extended. While the single objective of the whole movement is the winning of men and boys to definite membership in the Christian Communions of the land, it is not expected that the actual winning will be accomplished directly by means of the leaders and speakers and experts. The unwon men and boys of any given city are to be won for Christ by the men and boys of that city who are already Christians. The business of the leaders and experts will be to bring to them the very best plans as to how they can make themselves individually, and their organization, more efficient in the winning of men. in the general lines along which the campaigns will proceed. The movement has been fortunate in securing the active cooperation of practically all men's religious organizations, because it involves that peculiar and wellnigh unique kind of cooperation whereby each one in reaping his own harvest for Christ and fulfilling his own responsibility and doing his own work will be doing at the same time exactly what the plans for this movement require him to do. It is the business of the Methodist Brotherhood, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the men's Bible classes, and all the different organizations so to use their own methods and their own men that they will come into touch with the men near whom God has specially placed them and whom God has given them peculiar opportunity to reach, so that they will reap their especial part of the harvest by bringing these men to membership in their respective religious bodies. In this way each one can work faithfully and earnestly, and with the likelihood of the most definite results, and at the same time be ministering to what is just exactly the aim of the whole campaign; namely, a tremendously increased addition to the different membership of the Christian bodies in this country. Much valuable assistance has been rendered from the beginning by leaders in the Christian Endeavor movement, and Endeavorers everywhere will find the year beginning with this month the best year they have ever had to reach and to win men and boys everywhere for the Kingdom and the Kingdom's King. The Christian Endeavor World. Racing Jockeys and Religion Christian people in England have gone further afield than those in America in the organization of missionary societies for classes and callings. Here almost every attempt in the direction named is met with the cry of over organization. A "Racing Stables Mission" carries on religious work among the hundreds of English lads at Newmarket, Goodwood and other English racetracks, and the almost as many English boys who mi What Laymen Can Do for the Church A CALL TO BROTHERHOOD MEN MORE LAY MISSIONS NEEDED TO AID CHURCH EXTENSION IN OUR RAPIDLY GROWING CITIES – QUALIFICATIONS OF LAY READERS RETREATS FOR LAYMEN ΤΗ ADVOCATED - MORE CITY MISSIONARIES NEEDED BY HENRY BURTON, TRINITY CHAPTER, Seattle, Wash. HE day and time in which we live has been called an age of missions. The missionary spirit is abroad in the land and men of our own Church as well as Christian men of every denomination are being brought as perhaps never before to realize their duty, obligations, and privileges in this connection, and nowhere is the call to assume these duties and obligations clearer or of more deep and far reaching import than in this great northwest. To those of us who for the past ten years have watched the growth and developments of the section of our own state immediately surrounding us this call is not by any means new or strange. We have realized the fact that while material progress has advanced with unbounded strides, the progress of our Church has not been marked with anything like the same growth. Whenever the question is asked why do we not as a Church make greater advance in this great northwest, we are invariably met with the stereotyped answer, "No men," "No money." Taking it for granted that is good and sufficient reason we have been contented to draw into our shell and like Micawber wait for something to turn up. of the Church an absolute necessity in the planting of our Church in the outlying residence districts or in the logging and mining camps which surround us on every hand-can this work be carried on successfully by the laity under proper supervision? In the absence of the Priest cannot the prophet find a sphere of labour which will be honored and blessed of God? To this I am fully aware there will be two answers, yes and no. Some good people feel that unless there be an ordained Priest and an altar and all the accessories of an ornate Service in which all the authority and beauty of Priesthood and ritual are presented, then the Service had better not be held. Should it be attempted to hold a religious service by lay-men they will tolerate him and that is all; his welcome is liable to be very frigid and his efforts appraised at very small value, no matter how many excellent qualities he may possess or how much prayer and effort he may put into the work. This condition however I am very glad to know is not universal and does not obtain to any very large extent, and is very often due no doubt to the very very indifferent quality of the lay service. rendered. The great majority of our Church people are not to be thus classed. The great fault is that they are indifferent. Rather than take any steps looking to the establishment of a Mission in their own neighbourhood they prefer to come into town every Sunday to Church once, stay away from everything else during the week, except it be an occasional men's club dinner, and leave their own neighborhood to be preempted by some of the denominational bodies. One feels sometimes that if only a change could be brought about in the spirit of their dreams how different things might be. I wish we could only realize that every Christian man is in a very large sense a "King and a priest unto God." The "No men," "No money," shibboleth seems, to me at any rate, a very flimsy and unsatisfactory solution of the problem, if indeed it can be deemed a solution at all. At most it is a pitiable subterfuge. By the term "no men," of course we understand it to mean no ordained Priest-and no means of supporting him. I do not wish my remarks to be misconstrued. I yield to no man in this Brotherhood or out of it in the high esteem in which I hold the Priesthood of the Church, or in my loyalty and allegiance to them personally as well as for their office and work's sake, but what I want to ask and in some way to answer is, Is the presence of an ordained Priest The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not limited to any chosen few. The man who opens his house on Sunday and gathers his neighbors, and, taking his place at their head, reads the Services of the Church and opens up the Scriptures is as much open to the inspiration of the Spirit of God as the man who officiates under the dome of St. Paul's and this man's dining room, with the "Two or three gathered together" may become just as consecrated to God as the nave of Westminster. If we could only bring our Churchmen whom God has blessed with an accumulation of this world's goods, to realize that upon them is laid of necessity the provision for some place for the worship of Almighty God we should have the battle half won. In the absence of this we must cast around and see if by some means we cannot do as others have done, viz., rent a store, building or public hall and make some provision by which we may make a start. Now, supposing that we could bring about such a condition of things (not by any means impossible) that half a dozen such places were open to us - scattered anywhere, to apply the suggestion locally, from Orillia to Interbay or from Fauntleroy to Mount Baker, or South Seattle to Columbus-could we step into the breach? The answer is no. But it need not be no unless we will it should be. We have in our Brotherhood, men who are capable of carrying on such mission work if only they were organized and sufficiently impressed with the dignity and importance of the work, and last but most important of all baptized with the spirit of God for the work. Qualifications for Lay Readers What does it mean to be a Licensed Lay Reader? To answer fully this question would take too long; suffice it to say for our present purpose that the Lay Reader must first of all be impressed with the importance and dignity of his office, not his own importance or dignity. In his office for the time being he represents the Church officially. To him is committed the conduct of the Service. and teaching that the Kingdom of God shall come nearer to the hearts and consciences of men and women. If he is not permitted to give his own address he must make such selection (unless such selection be made by his Rector) as shall illustrate the doctrine and teaching of the Church for the time and season. permitted to give his own address then he need be particularly careful as an awful responsibility, if he will only realize it, rests upon him. If He will feel that in his congregation of say from a dozen to twenty people, he will most assuredly have as many kinds and conditions of men. During the twenty minutes or so that he has at his disposal he must say something that will help some poor woman whose way is toilsome and lonely, some man who perhaps is trying amid manifold temptation to climb the hill to the city of God, to help some soul to believe that amid all the changes and chances of life God is still with her, even though she cannot see Him perhaps for blinding tears. In order to do this and do it with any success (not human applause-God forbid) but success which achieves the result he strives after, he must be a lay reader, must give his leisure and may be his sleeping hours to his work, and if he will, then he will not regret that God has called him to his work. It has occurred to me that there is a way by which more successful results might be accomplished in this direction. I believe if it were tried we might be instrumental in starting many more local assemblies, establishing a lay readers' league or union to be composed of licensed lay readers. Such a body of men would meet at not too frequent intervals. If possible let the meeting be presided over by scome largehearted sympathizing Priest whose counsel would have weight and inspire confidence. Let work be revised and mapped out and some concerted plan of action formulated. This would tend to give the lay reader what he has had so far very scantily bestowed upon him, viz., recognition and confidence. It is not enough that we, having thought much on this subject have come to feel deeply the necessity Its reverence and dignity are intrusted to him. He is so to interpret its liturgy, that more must be done. The question is how shall we act. The statement has been repeated in our hearing so often that I am afraid it has lost much of its vital force, viz., It is not what you do but what you are. This is perhaps among the hardest lessons we have to learn. It seems to us, especially in our earlier Christian experience that to be doing something is to fulfil the major portion of God's requirements. To cultivate the Christian character, to lay broad and deep the foundations of one's spiritual life, to try and enter into what our fathers in a less strenuous day and time were wont to call the grace of sanctification, seems to some a thing very far off. Take Time to Know God But the lesson must be learned. Some of us have been trying for many years to learn the lesson and have not yet quite succeeded. It seems a more difficult task with each succeeding year. We do not take time to know God. The hurly burly of our every day life, the ever increasing demands upon our strength in the business competition which surrounds us, the multitude of occupations which absorb what little leisure is left to us, the protracted summer holidays. and week ends which every year seem to become longer and bring in their train, it is to be feared, much Sunday dissipation and many spiritual lapses, all these things tend to rob us of that calm. contemplation and soul culture which is the secret of our spiritual growth. Cannot we burst the bonds and let the soul go free? Must it forever be confined in earthly temples? When our Lord laid the foundation of His Kingdom, He attached much importance to the quiet of the closet. "Enter in" He said, and shut the door and "pray to thy Father which is in secret." I wish this could be graven with a pen of iron on the soul of every Brotherhood man, private, personal, heart to heart frequent communion with God, the opening of the door of the innermost recesses of the soul and a quiet waiting for the divine response. Better by far to understand in its fulness what is meant by "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" than to be chas ing hither and thither to see what we can "do." We are apt to smile in our day at the mystic of bygone years. Retreats Advocated It will also take away the breath of some of my evangelical friends when I shall make a plea here in the year 1911 for a repetition of the retreats and days of quiet prayer which made Littlemore so notable prior to Newman's translation to Rome. We need more quiet, more opportunities to shut out the world and its passing abstractions and take more time to learn those deep hidden truths and to make a fuller and more complete consecration of our own life. It is here that we gather up strength for the battle, here that we learn that it is "not by might nor by power but my spirit saith the Lord." Cannot one Brotherhood in a quiet and unostentatious way set a practical example to the laymen of the Church by arranging for and attending real devotional retreats which will strengthen our lives spiritually and prepare us to do that work for which the Brotherhood stands and in which the Church is making far too little headway. There is still another matter to which I would like to ask the attention of Brotherhood men everywhere. I refer to the engagement of a City Missionary. in all cities where there is none at present to undertake the oversight of work among the floating down town population. We, as a Church, have been accused of being an exclusive Church, as paying little heed to those who are not of a certain social status. In a word it is charged, rightfully or wrongfully, that we have overlooked our duty in this respect. As a matter of fact every down town City Church should have attached to its staff a man peculiarly adapted to this kind of work. A man of large heart and broad sympathies who would see, as the Christ Himself saw, man a ruin but a ruin capable of infinite reconstruction. A man whose heart would go out after the flotsam and jetsam of our city life. Given such a man Brotherhood men would find cooperation with him among their chiefest joys. Teaching and the Teacher in the Bible Class BY CLAYTON S. COOPER, SECRETARY, STUDENT DEPARTMENT, BIBLE STUDY, INTERNATIONAL. Y. M. C. A. No man has a better right to give advice to Bible teachers than has the author of this article, himself a successful Bible teacher whose capacity and enthusiasm. have worked together to elevate him to the important position of secretary for Bible study on the staff of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations. Mr. Cooper's recent articles in The Century Magazine on the study of the Bible in the colleges of America attracted extraordinary attention. Mr. Cooper will speak at the Thursday Evening Mass Meeting at the Buffalo Convention on "The Great Advance in Bible Study." We are fortunate in having such an authority on this special subject to address us. HETHER the Bible Class is a larger organized meeting of men in a Church, or a small group of individuals, or a meeting of two or three friends, the first essential is a teacher in whom the members of the class believe utterly. It may not be too often reiterated that character is caught, not taught. Some one has said that influence is a matter of suction. "I do not remember a thing the teacher said, but I do remember him," was a student's comment concerning a great Bible leader. The Bible Class is not a mere academic lecture room. It is not a place for dispensing moral philosophy and "greatest happiness" principles. It is a place for the revelation of the purposes of God. Such revelation is most most impressive through human inauguration of the principles involved. Bible study, if actual. affects motives, and motives are aroused only by men who believe things irresistiblv. The Teacher's Self More Important Than His Teaching The man who faces weekly a group of Bible students has one of the matchless opportunities of these times. This opportunity is something far higher and greater than a chance to pass on cheerful quotations and badly worn platitudes. The teacher's chance is to set the current of the student's soul toward God, and the service of the hand toward his brother man. The teacher will be the only Bible which many of his pupils will read. He can teach just so far as he truly is. The true teacher must declare war upon all inveracity and egotistical proclamations of goodness. He must be careful how he talks in terms beyond his own experience. His personal religion is his greatest asset. Courses of Bible study thoughtfully arranged have assisted thousands of men in forming Bible study habits. Many people would study the Bible, but hardly know how. A Bible study course makes it necessary to begin somewhere, to continue, and to end somewhere. It necessitates systematic and thoughtful treatment of a particular subject or portion of the word of God. It helps to make Bible truth cumulative and stimulative, and it relegates to the background mere hit-or-miss Bible reading. The Bible should not be used as a fetish, but rather as a light to the mind as well as to the conscience and the heart. As Dr. William N. Clarke has said in that remarkable record of his Christian experience entitled "Sixty Years with the Bible": "Christianity calls for no illegitimate intellectual processes and has place for none." The Bible Class which is permanently to hold the attention and interest of its members must furnish stimulation for the reason as well as for the heart. It must engage the intellectual powers as well as the devotional processes. A well-thought-out plan which gives the subject in hand a definite objective, and a constructive, intelligent method of arriving thereat, must be among the first matters of attention in a Bible Class which is to be truly effective. A spirit of calm should be felt in a successful Bible Class. Bible Classes, like most boats, sail best on an even keel. The power of the leader is revealed in quietness and self-control. The sense of hurry or keeping the eye always on the watch is prejudicial to well-poised thoughtfulness and sane discussion. The "inner light" of the teacher is truly reIvealed in his manner. Some teachers bring the spirit of peace and deliberation |