work in editing The Pilgrim Elementary Teacher, which is easily the leader in its field, and which should be furnished. by every church to the teachers in the elementary departments of its school. A new departure of great interest is the publication, in syndication with the Methodists, North and South, beginning with October of this year, of a new maga zine entitled The Church School, which is devoted entirely to religious and moral education. It offers notes on no particular system of lessons, but aims to be of general practical service to pastors, officers, teachers, parents, and other leaders of children and young people.

It must be admitted, however, that Congregationalism has in certain respects lost the place of leadership in the Sunday School world that once was ours. It is not that we are doing less; but that in these respects some of the other denominations are doing more. Our Education Society is weak, as compared with analogous departments in certain other denominations, in what might be termed its general staff as contrasted with its field workers. Except for the special departments of Missionary Education and Social Service, the whole work at the center falls upon the General Secretary, with one Educational Assistant. If we are to go forward, to undertake our share of the experimental, constructive work of these days, and to reap the results of such a far-sighted educational policy, there should soon be added to the staff of the Society, not only the Secretary for Young People's Work and Student Life whose appointment has already been decided upon, but an Elementary Division Secretary, an Adult Division Secretary, and a Secretary for Teacher-training.

Religious Education in the Home.

However efficient we may make our church schools, they cannot do the whole, or even the most important part, of the moral and religious education of our children. It rests ultimately upon the home, which has the child first and gives him the impressions which serve as background, foundation and apperceptive basis for all subsequent education; which has the child in his most impressionable years and educates him by the method of constant contact and association, with influences all the more vital because for the most part in

direct and unnoticed; which forms the child's character in the matrix of family life; and which affords him, through his experiences of loving and being loved, helping and being helped, within the family, the basis for his understanding of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

It is not our purpose here to enter into the reasons why many homes of to-day are failing to give to their children the education in religion which is their birthright. This is the result, we believe, of changed material and social conditions rather than of a real decline in spiritual life. But it will lead to the spiritual decline of the race, should the present tendency to hand over all religious education to the church and school continue.

In particular, we believe that the lack of family worship in so many otherwise Christian homes is a distinct loss to the children of our Congregational families. They are being deprived of their opportunity to share in the atmosphere, attitude and spirit of worship in the family group. No mere training in individual bedside prayer can take the place of this.

Modern business and industrial life has crowded out the family altar. But we believe that many fathers and mothers would gladly lead the family group again in worship if they knew how. Many lack time and understanding for choosing suitable material. We are convinced that if the right type of material were provided, and emphasis placed on the importance of recreating family group worship, there would be a marked increase in spiritual power in our families and churches.

The Department of Educational Publications of the Congregational Publishing Society has asked this Commission to prepare for as early publication as practicable a Congregational Book of Family Worship, which will keep in mind the needs and capacities of the children and assign to them a share in the worship for which it will furnish materials. We recommend that this Council authorize the preparation and publication of such a book, and that it commit the work to this Commission.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON COMITY,

FEDERATION AND UNITY

The great war has had a powerful effect on the movement toward the unification of the church. The idea had gradually been gaining momentum before the war, that the day had dawned for the integration of Christian forces. But the war has made men feel that to perpetuate the unnecessary and schismatic divisions of the church would bring the church itself into derision and contempt. Hence, the two years past have been busy and eventful ones for the Commission charged with the conduct of these negotiations.

It ought not to be forgotten that, in a measure, the conscience of the churches of America has been voiced and its united influence felt. Through the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ of America, both in international matters and in regard to the grave domestic concerns of labor and capital, it has spoken in no uncertain tones and it has rallied the churches to the support of the program of a League of Nations, the new internationalism, and to a fresh study of the democracy of Jesus in relation to industrial conditions, standards and ideals. Never before, perhaps, has the worth and meaning of the Federal Council been more clearly demonstrated than during the past two years. Your Commission has co-operated with it and in addition to the denominational apportionment paid from our National Council treasury has endeavored to assist the Federal Council in securing the funds needed.

The growing demand for a union of church forces to meet the needs of the new world has resulted also in the great Inter-Church Missionary Movement for the pooling of the intelligence, strength and finances of the churches in a comprehensive effort: first, to survey the home and foreign missionary fields and then to plan a united and constructive program to accomplish the task which they present. This has been one of the most interesting and promising of the Movements which have sprung up as the result of the war. If philanthropic agencies could unite in meeting the demands of

the war, it has been felt that churches should be able to unite behind the program of the "Prince of Peace." A descrip tion of the Movement in detail belongs, however, to the report of the Commission on Missions.

The most important work of our Commission has been in co-operation with the movement initiated by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which extended an invitation to the national bodies of evangelical communions of America to meet for the purpose of formulating a plan of organic union. A preliminary conference was held at Philadelphia, December 4-6, 1918, and an Ad Interim Committee was there chosen to carry forward the movement initiated by that conference. Representatives of this Commission have shared in the labors of this Committee, which has finished its preliminary labors and has called a Council of all co-operating churches to meet at an early day to consider its proposals. While no final decision has been reached as to the form of these proposals, the Committee appears up to the present time to be united in its judgment that a plan of Federal Union should be submitted. The chief features of this plan will be as follows:

1. The adoption of a brief declaratory statement summarizing the common evangelical faith of the churches thus entering into association.

2. The selection of a name, such as "The United Churches of America," to be used in connection with the various denominational names as a symbol of their association.

3. The creation of a representative Council which would meet biennially and to whose hands would be committed the guidance of certain great common interests, notably matters of missionary promotion and policy. The Council would also constitute a forum in which American Protestantism would meet for discussion of its major responsibilities.

It is manifestly inexpedient at this time to attempt a consideration of the possibilities of this plan or its bearing upon other movements which seek to unify the churches of America. This will be in order when the contemplated Council on Organic Union shall submit its proposals.

While this plan is in the nature of a federal union rather than an actual merging of denominations into one single

church, it will be noted that it is a genuine union in that the Council has definite duties and functions, and that through the operation of this practical method of action the churches will be prepared for a more complete union. Thus the United Churches of America may become the United Church of Christ in America. The serious attention of the National Council should be given to this important forward step in the unification of the churches in the United States.

Not much progress has been made so far as the North American churches are concerned toward realizing the World Conference of Faith and Order. Since the termination of the war, however, efforts have been made by the Episcopal Commission to secure the participation of the Church of Rome and of the Eastern churches in this conference. Rome has declined these overtures, but it seems increasingly likely that the East ern churches will be represented. The new attitude of the Eastern churches to the Western churches outside of the Roman communion is one of the significant church tendencies of the times.

A few individual members of the Protestant Episcopal and of the Congregational churches, acting on their own initiative and in no official sense representing either communion, have issued in recent months certain proposals bearing on the question of Christian unity. This Commission as a body has no relation to these proposals and no opinion to express upon them. It simply reports their essential features for the information of the Council. The fundamental judgment contained in the paper issued by the individuals indicated is to the effect that certain valuable practical ends would be attained if the Protestant Episcopal Church were to adopt a canon permitting its bishops to give Episcopal ordination to non-Episcopal ministers, and if the opportunity thus tendered were to be accepted by ministers so situated that such double ordination would give them wider access to persons of different types of training. The main details of the canon proposed are as follows:

1. Each bishop to be free to decide at his own discretion what ministers, if any, he will accept for such ordination. 2. In all cases his action to be conditioned upon the ap