WEEKLY PAPERS Our weekly papers have been published as in previous years: The Mayflower for children under nine, Boyland and Firelight, for boys and girls respectively from nine to twelve, The Wellspring for young people of high school age. Books For a part of the year this department has had oversight of the books of general interest in addition to those directly concerned with religious education. The second year of the Pilgrim Training Course has been completed with the publication of the last two parts: The Program of Christianity by Prof. Frank K. Sanders, Director Board of Missionary Preparation, New York; Training the Devotional Life, by Prof. Luther A. Weigle and Prof. Henry H. Tweedy, of the School of Religion, Yale University. Progress has also been made in outlining the books required for the third year of the training course. These will be published through an informal syndicate of denominations of which we are members. books have been published as follows: Other The Seven Laws of Teaching-Gregory, Bagley, LaytonSpanish translation by A. S. Rodriguez. Pilgrim Followers of the Gleam, Katharine S. HazeltineThis is a reading or study book of Congregational History for boys and girls from eleven to fifteen years of age. Childhood and Character, Hugh Hartshorne. Christian Approach to Islam, J. L. Barton. REPORT OF YOUNG PEOPLE'S WORK COMMITTEE The National Council instructed the Congregational Education Society to make a careful study of work among young people in our churches, to plan for strengthening that work, and to provide such leadership as the enlarged program might require. Such a study has been made by a committee of which the editor of this department is a member. Correspondence has been carried on with pastors and young people's organizations and several days have been spent by the committee in studying and discussing this matter. In brief the plan of the committee's work has been as follows: First, the outlining of various types of young people's organizations found in the local church. This outline included (a) the Sunday School class, (b) Christian Endeavor, or corresponding society, (c) the societies which have sprung up because of some specific object, such as a local Grenfell Association or mission study class, not clearly provided for in either the Sunday School or Christian Endeavor, (d) community organizations such as the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. over which the church has no control but in which its young people are found. The second part of the task as the committee saw it was to suggest a plan for federating these various interests and such a federation is outlined in the committee's report which has been printed separately. An article setting forth the proposed federation will also appear in the October issue of "The Church School." THE INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL COUNCIL The year has been of special significance in actions taken by important conferences which have a direct bearing on our work. Chief among these have been the meetings of the International Sunday School Association and the Sunday School Council. Friends of both the Council and the International Association have been interested in an effort to bring these two associations into some working agreement so that there would be no duplication but rather harmony and efficiency on the field. Committees were appointed by both bodies to confer and arrange if possible a basis of co-operation between the two organization. These committees submitted suggestions for reorganization which if followed out will unify the two organizations. It will surely be one of the greatest advance steps of our day when these two leading organizations in the field of religious education join forces and work together for the religious training of the children and youth of the nation. FINANCIAL A word should be said as to this department's effort to do its share in meeting the financial pressure of the past months due in part to war conditions. The reduction in the size of the two teachers' magazines has already been mentioned. These reductions afford a substantial saving in the cost of articles and manufacturing. The subscription prices of both Uniform and Graded publications have been raised, thus providing an absolutely new source of income. The Business Department and the Department of Educational Publications are co-operating effectively, and the spirit and purpose of the whole force is such as to promise the best things for the denomination in the future. THE CONGREGATIONALIST AND ADVANCE Throughout another biennium The Congregationalist-bearing for the first time in its history the title, The Congregationalist and Advance-has sought to inform, serve, unify, and inspire the nearly six thousand churches of our order from Maine to California, not forgetting Canada, as well as groups and individuals scattered throughout the thirty-two foreign lands to which the paper goes. Its primary endeavor, as in the one hundred and three years past of its history, has been to be a living link between the far separated followers of the Pilgrim faith and polity, who otherwise would be very loosely bound together. This fundamental obligation to represent the denomination made more imperative by the combining into one paper The Congregationalist and The Advance two years ago and the fact that The Pacific is no longer a weekly, but a monthly, naturally imposes certain clearly defined limits beyond which the paper cannot go and fulfill the denominational duty. It must carry from week to week material not eagerly sought and quickly appreciated by the average reader of periodicals and magazines. It cannot be an Atlantic or an Outlook or a Saturday Evening Post. For example, about one-fifth of the reading material each week consists of items and articles relating to our local churches. Even so large a proportion of space does not suffice to do justice to all the sections of the country which we desire to represent with equal fairness, but yet we consider this Church News altogether necessary and desirable for a paper of our class, and we hope to publish more rather than less of it, and to improve the quality. On the side of our common denominational enterprises, the paper has put its shoulders constantly to the activities, pending or prospective, that were enlisting the energies of our administrators and challenging the attention of the Church. Early in the biennium, the Tercentenary Correspondence Course, originated by Rev. E. H. Byington, was given prominent space and its progress has been noted from time to time. The "Every Member" canvass has found a strong friend in the paper, and in different ways it has been constantly before the constituency of the paper. When the Commission on Evangelism undertook systematically, through proper literature, to arouse and help the churches in their important task of winning individuals, fallow ground was already found in the League of Intercession which The Congregationalist had established early in the war. It was easy to adjust this department to the pre-Lenten readings and petitions which the Commission on Evangelism scattered so widely among the churches. Editorials and contributed articles enforced the meaning of this particular campaign. When Secretary Miles B. Fisher came to his post as Missionary Educational Secretary, he quickly included The Congregationalist as one of his chief mediums to inculcate his ideas upon the Congregational public. A similar welcome was extended by the editors to Secretary Arthur E. Holt, when he came to take charge of the Social Service work, succeeding Dr. Henry A. Atkinson. Dr. Holt's articles, signed and unsigned, have helped to keep The Congregationalist in line with social movements of the day. The Executive Committee of the National Council and its secretary, Dr. Herring, have also made free use of the columns of the paper in order to further. undertakings bearing on the welfare of the churches. More than in former years Congregational schools and colleges have been brought within range of vision of the readers of the paper, and the interests of these important institutions, East, West, North, and South, have been advocated. When it comes to the definite missionary endeavors of the denomination, The Congregationalist and Advance has commented upon and chronicled numerous phases of effort, both at home and abroad, in the Southland, the Far West, and in the old New England communities. Secretaries of the American Board who have gone to other lands have described in graphic contributions their discoveries and experiences-Dr. James L. Barton for Turkey, Dr. C. H. Patton for Hawaii and Japan, Dr. E. L. Smith for China, Rev. Enoch F. Bell for the Philippines and Mexico. All through the biennium, intimations of the greatest single piece of work in which the denomination has been engaged have appeared on the pages of the paper as the Pilgrim Memorial Fund, and the successive stages of the interesting process have been reported. At present, as the movement draws nearer its culmination, the paper every week plays the part of a barometer and mirror in this most interesting and inspiring common enterprise, and during the next few months the paper will redouble its energies in behalf of the success of the fund. Parallel with this effort to assure ministers when they retire, of added support, has been the movement started by the paper itself to increase the "going" salaries of ministers. The Roll of Honor, listing the churches that have increased the salaries of their pastors since January 1, 1918, has been an incentive to many churches to go and do likewise. Though nearly seven hundred have thus far reported themselves as having taken this desirable step, it is to be hoped that the list will be brought to at least one thousand in a comparatively short time. As an incidental adjunct to this general movement designed to bring more men into the ministry and to supply more adequately their material needs, the little illustrated series of articles the paper is publishing, entitled, "Fathers and Sons in the Ministry," is worthy of note. Along with this service to the denomination, at once minute . and comprehensive, The Congregationalist as in all its past has sought to set forth and promote the things of Christ's Kingdom, in which all the members of His household are interested. It has looked with favor upon movements desiring to promote federation and unity. Through its columns almost exclusively, have Congregationalists learned of the proposals of unity put forth by a group of Episcopal and Congregational ministers. Such a series of articles as that published in 1918 on "The Second Coming of Christ" showed the disposition of the paper to take up in a sane, strong fashion a question that was agitating many sections of the country. |