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ground. A life-and-death struggle was going on, the nim to crush out the fig-tree, and the latter to burst open and destroy the former. The fig-tree was being triumphant, the nim being cracked from top to bottom. Does not this represent the struggle now going on in the spiritual world between good and evil, all over our land? The king lom of darkness has had a tremendous growth, and all its powers are organized to crush out everything that is good. Our hope is in the new young life of our land, in winning them for Christ. Then we shall have the victory over every evil, however mighty it now appears, dividing it asunder and destroying it forever. It is indeed a life-and-death struggle,, but it is not death to us, for we have the promise of triumph in the living Christ."

THE NEW WEST EDUCATION COMMISSION.

SPEECH OF REV. CHARLES R. BLISS, SECRETARY.

WHAT I shall say for the New West Commission will gather itself about four points, the work in hand; the methods of doing it; the results reached; and plans for the future.

THE WORK IN HAND. space allotted to me?

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- How shall I describe it to you in the brief Two Territories, vast in extent, on the highways of national trade, rich in resources, and destined soon to become States in the American Union, are under the control of un-American, anti-republican, and anti-Christian authority. The masses in both have little, know little, enjoy little. In the one a civilization older than any other in the Union prevails; but it is a civilization of mediæval times, unchanged in its main features from that existing in Europe, where all learning was the possession of the few, and superstition was the halter with which the common people were led. The native inhabitants of New Mexico are under masters, held by ecclesiastical authority as in a vice. They suffer from the lack of one great element of strength, viz., the school. The lost art in New Mexico is the art of teaching, the absent force is the force of intellect. Authority has no check, superstition no antidote, liberty no guide, because the rulers have conspired to shut out the light of education, and govern the land according to the profane maxim, "Ignorance is the mother of devotion." hundred thousand people is not a great number, when compared with the millions in Asia or Africa, but when the fact is considered that that hundred thousand have their hands on the door of the

American Senate, it is a very great number, far too great to be lightly treated. They must be educated, and numbers are now saying, "Give us a school." On Monday of this very week, I received letters from two purely Mexican towns, asking teachers. Said a Mexican to me last summer, "I have nine children, and I will send them if you will start a school here.' “But," said I, “ won't the priest object?" He replied, "Yes, but what of that, all the world is moving, and we must move.” Believe me, there are thousands among that people who will move if they can find helpers.

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But the problem in Utah is more pressing and more difficult. Fifteen thousand criminals, law-breakers in the infi action of those social laws which the world recognizes as essential to the purity of homes and the peace of the, State, have under their control one hundred and twenty thousand more whose voices and votes and personal influence they use to conceal and defend their crimes. The problem is to break the grip of the smaller number upon the larger, to destroy the religious fears by which the larger are led, to dispel the cloud of ignorance by which they are enveloped, to disprove the slander by which they are made to believe that the people of this country are their enemies, and to break that church alliance which makes them the abettors of impurity and crime. There are thousands of uneasy, dissatisfied, even rebellious Mormons who are kept in their church relations because they do not understand the temper of the American people. All Mormons have for a long time been put together into the furnace of public scorn, and they have become welded fast. We must change that policy. We must disintegrate, and so destroy. We must convince the masses that the words "despise," "hate," "loathe" have no place in our vocabulary when we speak of the honest, the misled, and the non-criminal among them. We must prove by our acts that we are glad to meet them on the common ground of Christian forbearance and helpfulness, and that the word "Mormon" itself is no longer a word with which to call up shapes of horror and of shame. In short, the "Christ spirit" must be carried into Utah and make itself felt in all glad, sympathetic, kindly ways, in homes, social life, and daily interAnd this, without enlarging further, is the work of the New West Education Commission.

course.

THE METHODS OF DOING IT. - These are mainly embraced in the Christian school. The Commission goes into a Mormon town, lays a site, builds a school-house, and puts into it a warm-hearted Christian woman, skilful as a teacher, sympathetic in personal

qualities, earnest as a Christian, familiar with Sabbath-school methods, a player on the organ, a singer, and one who will not shrink from disagreeable contacts or hard work. It then invites in the children and they come. The fact that its errand is one of love interests and awakens them, and attracts their parents as well. Its new methods and appliances, with its evening meetings and temperance meetings and Sabbath schools, make its movements popular and influential, and indicate very plainly a method of breaking off the recent fetters by which the people are held.

When opportunities are given, the Commission says to the more intelligent, "This movement of ours is no new thing. Ever since the first settlements were commenced on the Atlantic coast, the East has been giving to the West. You have had a hard time, subduing the wilderness and building your homes, and now, in this matter of education, we will help you. We fight against nothing that is consistent with Christianity, and shall use no weapons but those of intelligence and religion. Our teachers in Utah have come from our best schools, some of them from wealthy homes; they are our best girls, and you will find them the best friends that you and your children ever had.”

To its teachers, the Commission says, "You go to Utah, not to wage a war of words against Mormonism, you go neither to criticise the people, disprove their beliefs, nor condemn their leaders. You are a Christian teacher, and your office is to instruct the children, to awaken their inquiries and develop their minds, so that of themselves they will throw off the errors in which they have been bred. Start a Sabbath school soon. You will be the superintendent and the whole corps of teachers, but your power will ncrease with the demand for it, and it may be your good fortune to lay the foundation of a church where, not long ago, your coming was feared, perhaps denounced."

To the Home Missionary Society the Commission says, "These 'buildings that we buy and build are for your use, as well as ours. Bring on your missionaries and hold every inch of ground that we get. Our teachers will help you in every way, and by your efforts and ours, with God's help, churches will not be as scarce in Utah ten years hence as they are now."

THE RESULTS REACHED. These have more than justified the movements hitherto made. The work now prosecuted was commenced before the Commission came into existence, and from the first until now has had the following history. There were in

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These figures, gratifying as they are, express but a small part of the actual results. Prejudice has been undermined, emulation aroused, Christian literature disseminated, the spirit of inquiry awakened, and a decided impetus given to the process of disintegration, which, beyond question, is going for ward in many Mormon Add to all this the Sabbath schools formed in connection with our schools, and the preaching services established by the four home missionaries at work in circuits of three schools, and an amount of good beyond computation will be seen to have been done aiready.

towns.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.We know no such word as failure in this work. Providence has smiled upon it from the first, and we certainly shall not stop till that smile becomes a frown. demands for the current year are as follows:

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$27,500

5,000

22,500

5,000

$60,000

To enable it to meet these demands and to enlarge the work as occasion shall permit, the Commission asks the indorsement of this Council and the earnest sympathy and prayers and liberal gifts of the churches.

RESOLUTIONS OF REV. A. H. ROSS ON MINISTERIAL

STANDING, 1883.

THE following preamble and resolutions were also presented by the Rev. A. H. Ross, of Michigan, accepted, and referred to the Committee on Ministerial Standing, to report in 1886:

Whereas, This Council, at its first session, in 1871, by unanimous vote, adopted resolutions declaring "that all ministers in our denomination ought to be in orderly connection with some ministerial or ecclesiastical organization which shall be able to certify to their regular standing in the ministry," and urging "our

churches not to employ, as preachers, unsettled ministers without such evidence of their good standing in the ministry"; and,

Whereas, This Council has since then reiterated for substance the same declarations as in 1877 and 1880; therefore,

Resolved, 1, That this Council means by "orderly connection" of ministers such a membership in some association or conference as is secured on proper ministerial credentials by vote of the body receiving to membership.

Resolved, 2, That "regular" and "good standing in the ministry" in our denomination is the continued membership of minis ters in associations or conferences thus secured, by which these bodies are made responsible for all ministers thus connected with them.

Resolved, 3, That, in the exercise of this responsibility, the association or conference, for cause, may arraign, try, expel, or drop any minister in connection with it; or, if there be no complaint against him, it may dismiss him with credentials to any co-ordinate body.

Resolved, 4, That, if the excluded or expelled shall be aggrieved in the action of the said body, he may ask the association or conference doing the alleged wrong to join with him in calling a mutual council to review the case and advise in the matter; and, on its refusal or neglect to do so, he may call an ex parte council for the same purposes.

MEMORIAL OF GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHUSETTS AND OF THE GENERAL CONNECTION OF WISCONSIN ON SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHUSETTS TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES OF THE UNITED STATES: Brethren, We are persuaded that you fully recognize the fact that the Sunday school includes, to a large and increasing extent, the work of the churches in Bible teaching and in the religious training of the young, and that no department of the church is more important to the matter of knowledge of Scripture, to its increase in numbers and power, to the cause of temperance, the preservation of the Sabbath, and all moral reforms.

It is, therefore, of the highest importance that the church should recognize and adopt the Sunday school as its teaching, and aim

[This Memorial, in identical form, was presented by the General Convention of Wisconsin.]

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