doing it; but we could not fill their places to any extent by expert teachers, any more than we could reform society by limiting homes to those trained before marriage to beget and bring up children by scientific methods.

Our churches are a democracy. We can no more restrict those who teach in Bible schools to trained theologians and adepts in the art of teaching than we can forbid laymen to express opinions to one another on religious doctrine. We leave that method of propagating Christianity to churches which claim infallibility, or, at least, special official gifts of knowledge and grace to their clergy. If we held revealed truth to be a deposit once for all committed to a divinely-appointed succession of sacred rulers, as the Roman Church holds, we might put a ban on those who do not understand or accept the dicta of priests which they also received by tradition. But so long as we are Congregationalists, holding that revealed truth is a living seed, we shall regard the entire-community of believers as its appropriate soil, and encourage all to think for themselves, and to communicate their thoughts to one another. We shall encourage them to do this in the Sunday school, in conference meetings, and in personal intercourse.

It is none the less important, however, that we should have as many trained teachers as possible, and that we should put honor on limited training where we cannot secure higher attainments. Progress in this direction is greater than ever before. Schools are increasing in numbers and efficiency to prepare teachers of teachers, and to kindle in them that divine inspiration without which no amount of knowledge is power. In many cities and smaller communities courses of lectures and classes for Sunday-school teachers are given. Many seek the help afforded by normal classes giving ten, twenty, or more lessons in a season. These classes should be multiplied. Churches of all denominations ought to co-operate in maintaining them. Still, it is not in the line of reform to discourage from teaching in the Sunday school those who have had no such preparation. It is the essence of Congregationalism to declare as Moses did, "Would God that all the people were prophets." The scorn of ignorance and the scorn of scholarship are alike obstacles to Sunday-school reform. Some teachers, perhaps all, will make mistakes; but it is a gain to the kingdom of God to get into work all who want to teach and can hold pupils to be taught. Their experience will move them to want to do better work, and

the church must help them to opportunities for greater power. Reform, then, means better training for teachers; the best possible, but without diminishing the number of voluntary unpaid workers.

3. The third reform needed is in the line of making pastors active leaders in their Sunday schools. Bishop Potter, giving his charge at a recent annual meeting of the diocese of New York, expressed his conviction that the methods of teaching in the Sunday schools of the Episcopal church have become superannuated by the march of modern scholarship. He said: "If the church is not a teaching church it does not greatly matter what she is. . . . She will never be a church of power or leadership, with a divine healing and quickening in her touch, until she recognizes her calling as a teaching church." We may say confidently that the church will not be a teaching church unless her pastors are teachers, and appreciate the importance of their trust for the children of their parishes. The fundamental work in making churches is teaching, patient, systematic, skilful training from childhood up, and that not by the pastor alone, but by parents and teachers under his guidance. Christ preached few, if any, formal sermons. He did not claim to be an orator. He called his followers disciples, and said to them, "Ye call me teacher, and ye say well, for so I am." The spirit of the time must either impel the churches toward more efficient teaching, or else away from the common people. The emphasis in men's minds to-day in secular and spiritual things is on teaching. This is indicated by the large proportion of gifts to educational institutions as compared with those to churches.

The minister who knows ecclesiastical history and traditional dogma, and the lives and times of men who handed it down, is not in demand unless he also knows men of to-day, and society — its temper and sins and needs. "Ministers are the first to lament over the incompetence of Sunday-school workers," says Dr. Schauffler, "and among the last to try to remedy the evil. Why? Because they have not been taught how to do it. They know a good deal about Tertullian and Origen, but next to nothing about Sam or Jim. The result of all this antiquated scholastic education is to turn out armies of ministers into whose hands the responsibility of the religious training of our age is placed, who do not know how to do much more than prepare sermons."

Some progress has been made in this reform during the last twenty years. Ministers might be named who are conspicuous

examples of teaching pastors, and many more who, if not noted in this work, are yet faithful and successful.

Theological seminaries which are in touch with the churches are taking steps to fit their students to be not only preachers and pastors, but also masters. Hartford Seminary, for example, is equipping itself efficiently to do this work. Union Seminary has still more extended plans for the coming season, with courses of study open to both sexes, including Sunday-school superintendents, teachers, and those who wish to increase their efficiency for other forms of Christian work. A complete course in the English Bible and in pedagogy in popular form is announced, with certificates for those who finish the course successfully. The time is probably not far distant, and is foreshadowed by the plans of these and other institutions, when professors and students from our seminaries will go out to churches and communities to give instructions to teachers' classes. Those ministers will be in demand who can organize and administer their own schools, and create sustained enthusiasm in the study of the word of God, as applied to present needs of the individual and of society.

4. The last need of reform now to be considered is along the line of Sunday-school organization. The fellowship of Sunday schools is not second in importance to any part of the fellowship of churches. Needed reforms will be accomplished when those who appreciate the need act together to provide for it. The Sunday school, instead of being on the programmes of our local, State, and national meetings once in a decade, ought to be in evidence at every meeting, showing what progress is being made in training the children and youth of the parish, and, if none is made, to find out why, and what ought to be done about it.

Our denominational Sunday-school statistics give us more reason for anxiety than ever before since statistics of our churches began to be gathered. The attendance on these schools, which till a few years ago has steadily increased, has fallen off about sixteen thousand since 1896, and last year the decrease was over ten thousand, the largest in our history. This condition is somewhat relieved by the fruits of the missionary labors of our excellent Sunday-school Society, which appear in the report of 1,883 Sunday schools not included in the regular summary, with an enrolment of 69,673. But this does not indicate any effort toward growth on the part of the majority of our older churches beyond their contributions to the society.

It is a suggestive comparison that, while our Sunday-school membership is only about six per cent greater than that of the churches, the Congregational Sunday-school membership in England is nearly double that of the churches.

This Council has usually carried standing committees on various reforms, whose reports have done little more than reiterate the desires on which Christians generally are united, that particular kinds of vice may be abolished, and that corresponding virtues may be established. I suggest that a standing, or rather a working, committee on Sunday schools might be of great practical service in stimulating efforts for their improvement through our local and State bodies, in considering the systems of Bible study in use, and methods of teaching, and other means for bringing children and youth into active service in the churches, and in reporting on these matters to the National Council. Our Sunday-school Society no doubt would coöperate with such a committee, and would meet its necessary expenses should the Council request it to do so.

But the interest of our churches in Sunday-school organization should not be limited to our denomination. The benefits of federated Christian work were never so much appreciated as now. There is a practical unity of faith and spirit in evangelical Sunday schools. Congregationalists ought not to be outdone in supporting it. The International Sunday-school Association is doing a service of great importance to the Christian life of our country. Without attempting to plant new Sunday schools, it has done much to improve the teaching, increase the attendance, and quicken the life of Sunday schools everywhere. Its effect in strengthening those in our denomination is demonstrated according to the support given to it by Congregationalists. In Massachusetts, for example, it is now admitted to be the most effective of any State in the Union. Congregationalists are at least as prominent in its work in that State as any other body. While in thirty-two States the loss of Congregational Sunday schools last year was 20,385 members, in eighteen States the gain was 10,383, and nearly half this gain was in Massachusetts. While the net loss in all the other States, apart from Massachusetts, was over fifteen thousand, the net gain in that one State was over five thousand. It is for our advantage, as well as for the growth of the larger Kingdom of God, for us to support this International Sunday-school Association.

But the main causes for the temporary decline of the Sunday

school lie deeper than organization. Their effects are not confined to any one denomination or to one country, nor to the Sunday school alone. They are to be discovered in the changes going on in men's ideas of God, of his revelations to mankind, and of their relations to one another in human society. These changes profoundly affect men's attitude toward the trinity of institutions which represent historic and vital Christianity— the holy book, the holy day, the holy house. The old position of reverence toward all three has been to a large extent abandoned. The new position is not yet well defined.

But they are all three essential to the continuance of Christianity, which as a vital force was never so potent in the world as now. This fact gives assurance that a nobler, wiser use of this trinity of power will be found. A deeper reverence for these institutions will develop, because of their necessity to worthy manhood and free, progressive, orderly society. To that end the teaching element in propagating truth must have larger prominence than in the past. A higher civilization requires that the emotional religious life shall rest on a solid basis of knowledge. The holy book will be studied on the holy day in the holy house. Christians, young and old, will go to school to learn of God, of his revelation to men in ancient times, and his revelation to men in our own times. these supreme themes with such enthusiasm that others into their company, convinced that the only safety for our country from the perils of anarchism and its brood of disorder and crime, the only safety for any country, is the enthronement of the moral law in the soul of man.

They will study they will draw

The Bible school, then, will come to take a higher place than ever in Christian life and effort. Enlightened experience will be the supreme qualification of the teacher, and Christly love for men will search it for answer to the deepest inquiries of the soul. If Congregationalists are prophets and seers they will anticipate the coming day and be found at the front in providing the most effective means for studying the mind of God revealed in his Word and Works.