comings and summon us to a totally new sort of life and service.

In addition we find ourselves ashamed and humiliated by the contrast between the kind of effort evoked in war and the kind we have given to the tasks of peace. Money has been poured out like water. Countless lives have been surrendered for hardship and death. Leadership of surprising amount and quality and devotion has everywhere arisen. No undertaking has been too huge, no appeal too audacious. With clear-eyed and smiling courage America for nearly two years devoted her money power, her man power and her prayer power to meeting the crisis hour of the world. It is an altogether happy and heartening thing to remember. But how impossible to return to old levels of service. Shall the nation which has counted out billions to win a war, count out a few scanty millions to win a world for Christ? Shall our young men and women who have had a taste of heroic devotion return to the easy ways of selfish pleasure and pursuit of gain? Shall the eager tide of thought and study given to the problems of war now turn to other forms of world helpfulness or waste itself on the lesser concerns of life?

Transferring these general statements into the terms of our denominational life we are compelled with thoughtful and humble searching of heart, to face the demand of the hour. Every memory of the high achievements of the past, every conviction inherited from the men of faith whose name we bear, summons us to a higher standard of devotion. Beginning in the field of our gifts for local uses, it is only too plain that we shall do no more than mark time unless we provide in far more sufficient way for aggressive effort. Many of our church plants are inadequate. They make no real and dignified provision for the varied service the church of today must render. Not a few need an increased staff of workers. A single minister in a city parish labors against hopeless odds.

Turning to our mission gifts, it is even more glaringly plain that we must set for ourselves new aims. In what possible sense is the three dollars per member, given annually for all missions and charities, the measure of our ability or duty. How can our Mission Boards even begin to cover the vast

field of their responsibilities with the two dollars per capita which we place in their hands? We have long known and mourned the inadequacy of our gifts. But now there is revealed as by a flash of light, through the achievement of sister denominations, the possibility of better things. During recent months the Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian communions, with a noble response to the challenge of the new day, have carried their gifts for missions to a point unprecedented in their history and from two to three times the average of our own membership. Their obligation and their ability are not different from our own. Shall we not, in a spirit of generous emulation, move with them into an era of bolder plans and ampler gifts?

If our workers in mission fields at home and abroad could reach our ears, they would tell us how critical is the hour in which we live. They have toiled on through patient years on low salaries, with reinforcements deferred and in buildings pathetically unsuited to their work. Despite these difficulties they have made a record of noble achievement which warms our hearts. But this situation must not continue. To permit it would be gross disloyalty to our ideals and to the devoted men and women who represent us on the firing line.

We must also face and answer the call of our time for a richer surrender of life. There must be an unwonted volume of interest and of prayer behind our gifts. We must have more of world vision and of missionary passion. In larger numbers and with fullest devotion our sons and daughters must dedicate themselves to the ministry and to mission service. We must have done with the situation long in force which has compelled us to draw practically half our leaders from other communions. Under the conscription of faith and love we must fill up our ranks.

It becomes, therefore, a matter of simple honesty and of elementary fidelity to our Master to face our needs and to fashion such future course of action as they demand. It is plain that this cannot be done in haste. It must be the product of patient inquiry. The program which we adopt should not be for a year, but for a stretch of years. It must not deal with external activities merely, but must go to the

roots of our denominational life. It must be projected upon broad lines of educational publicity, with a purpose of accomplishing nothing less than the enlistment of the judgment and conscience of our total membership.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON EVANGELISM

The Report of the Commission on Evangelism is divided into two sections. The first relates the work and plans of the Commission up to the time that its activities were practically merged with those of the Tercentenary Evangelistic Committee; the second covers the work of that Committee up to the present time.

Soon after the close of the Meeting of the National Council in Columbus in October, 1917, the Commission on Evangelism met in Chicago and took up the recommendations of the Council in a positive way. Rev. Dwight Goddard of Ann Arbor was added to the Commission in place of Mr. W. B. Davis of Ohio, who found it impossible to serve. The Commission also asked Dr. H. F. Swartz of New York and Dean Frank G. Ward to sit with it as counseling members.

At the first meeting in Chicago on November 8, 1917, it was decided to prepare a program for the work of the Commission and to set to work at once in the effort to raise the funds necessary to provide the salary of a Secretary. Mr. Goddard gave generously of his time in the solicitation of subscriptions and an excellent beginning was made.

The Commission found that it would be obliged to make a considerable adventure of faith if it were to attempt to put its program into execution in the autumn as it had desired to do. An unexpected pressure of work in connection with a financial campaign had engrossed the time of the chairman and the war conditions made the prosecution of the work extremely difficult. The Tercentenary Committee of Evangelism held a meeting in New York on November 7, 1918, at which time an organization was effected to undertake vigorously the work of the five-fold program which contemplates the addition of five hundred thousand members to the Congregational churches in the five years of the campaign. As this is evangelism, it appeared to the Committee that relations should be established with the Commission on Evangelism,

and therefore the members of the Commission were invited to become corresponding members of the Committee.

This action was thoroughly acceptable to the Commission, who heartily approved a plan that would insure larger resources for the execution of the program which they had striven to carry out. The subsequent activities of the Commission on Evangelism are involved therefore in the work of the Committee, whose report follows herewith.

In the early autumn of 1918 the Tercentenary Committee faced the question of its course for the last two years of the Tercentenary period. It found that effective work had been or was being done under three of the five items of the Tercentenary Program. For item 1, the Tercentenary campaign of 1916 made fairly adequate provision, including the publication of "Pilgrim Deeds and Duties," helps for sermons and addresses on Pilgrim Principles, the correspondence course, etc., etc. For item 4, that is, the attainment of our goal to reach the apportionment, the Every Member Drive of last year set up machinery and stimulated the churches to increased effort and enthusiasm that promises much in this direction. For item 5, the Pilgrim Memorial Fund Commission was organized by the National Council and is prosecuting a most vigorous campaign for securing the $5,000,000 endowment.

The Committee discovered, however, that little had been or was being done to realize the aim of Article III, which called for an adequate number of recruits for the gospel ministry, missionary service, and the like; nor for Article II, under which we set out to attain the standard of 100,000 additions to our churches annually. Holding in mind the thought that in the final year of the Tercentenary campaign it might be well to emphasize item 3, namely, the recruiting of Christian workers, it was decided to concentrate upon item 2 in 1919. The Committee desired permanent results, and therefore consulted the Secretary of the National Council and the Chairman of the Commission on Evangelism of the National Council, also making the members of the last named Board all corresponding members of the Tercentenary Committee, and with this co-operation evolved a plan of action. The Tercentenary Committee on Evangelism was therefore