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Society of Christian Endeavor

ual life apart from the churches, this is most desirable.

But we cannot keep too distinctly in mind the fact that the real power of every church is spiritual; and if we are to do the highest and most lasting work for the young, it must be of a spiritual character. It is that attempt on the part of the founders of this new society which has commended it most warmly to earnest pastors. It is known not as a social or literary or musical endeavor within the church, but it is specifically a Christian endeavor. It suggests one way in which the young may be induced to become Christians and be trained as zealous, intelligent Christian workers.

The life of this society centres in and around the weekly meeting. All the active members promise to be present every week, "unless detained by some absolute necessity," and to take some part in the meeting, however slight. Most of the societies have two classes, the active and associate members. The active are professing Christians. The associate, though not members of the church, are willing to join with their Christian friends in such an organization. In many instances there is a third class, called honorary, consisting of some of the older members of the church, who are occasional attendants at the meetings and whose counsel is gladly sought. The exact plan of organization is not imperative and unalterable, nor is it essential to success.

In the church of which the writer is pastor it was decided to have but one class and consider all as active members who were willing to take the prayer-meeting pledge. All the members are expected to be present every week, unless unavoidably detained, and the repetition of a verse of Scripture is deemed a fulfilling of the pledge to take part at every meeting. The prominent committees with us are (1) -(1) the Prayer-meeting, which selects the topics for each week; (2) the Look-out, which presents the names of new members and looks after absentees; (3) the Music, which chooses the hymns, the accompanist and the choir, if that is thought desirable; (4) the Flower, which furnishes flowers

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for the church, which are afterwards distributed in the hospitals and among the sick; and (5) the Temperance. This latter committee during one winter engaged rooms and kept them open every night in the week except Sunday, where a large number of boys were gathered from the streets and saloons, taught, amused and restrained. Committees can be multiplied as the work is increased and extended. Much can be done in behalf of missions in those churches where mission bands are not formed.

Some who read this article may desire to know how these weekly meetings are conducted. This doubtless varies widely in different churches. Our plan is this: Once a month there is a missionary meeting, at which papers are read or addresses made by some of the young men upon a field or a country chosen in advance. The last meeting of the month is one of consecration. At this the roll is called, and each one announces the number of times present during the month; and the aim is to make it not only a time of renewed devotion to the society, but to the Saviour. This is the time to read the reports of the committees for the month.

Our plan for every meeting, with the exception of the missionary, is in the main this: As pastor I always aim to be present and lead the devotional part of the service. After the opening hymn, we each repeat a verse or part of a verse of Scripture, usually selected with reference to the topic of the evening, which has been announced a week in advance. This part of the service is often very impressive and varied in its character, broken in upon and closed as it usually is with singing. With Bibles in hand, we then take up the subject of the hour. Instead of making a short address upon it myself, leaving others to follow, I pursue the interlocutory method, plying them with questions, encouraging them to ask questions in return, as in an adult Bible-class. In this manner the conventional and formal are set aside, no orations or long exhortations are delivered, and those who would never think of "taking part" in an ordinary prayer-meeting find their tongues loosened before they know it. If a

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Society of Christian Endeavor.

little legitimate pleasantry occurs and provokes a smile, it is not repressed, the aim being to make the young people feel entirely at home, and induce them to express their religious views as freely as they would to each other in privacy.

Usually this discussion is divided by a hymn and two or three short prayers, and closed with praying and singing. Very short prayers, though only of a single sentence, expressive of individual or united needs are encouraged. An occasional social meeting is held at the close of the devotional service to allow the young people to become better acquainted with each other.

Of course no work of this kind is carried forward successfully without much thought and prayer and study. Variety and interest must be maintained, occasions and opportunities must be watched and improved.

OBJECTIONS.

Everything new is subjected to criticism, and this society has formed no exception. I will mention a few objections which have had weight with those who have offered them:

1. It has been urged that this is another organization outside of the Church, and not so distinctively under its control as the "guilds" in the Episcopal and Scotch churches. This is a mistake, as it is a component part of the local church, and entirely responsible to its authorities. The pastor ought to be in close contact with it, and if not its leader, a constant attendant upon its meetings.

2. It is charged that this society demands an additional pledge from those who are already pledged to Christ and his Church; that this is an act of supererogation, as uniting with the church is sufficient.

But, as has been seen, young people who are not yet members of the Church are ready to join such a society. During the last year twenty-three persons united with our church from the Society of Christian Endeavor, helped to take that step by the influence there exerted. Yet even if all who join such a society are already members of the church, is there any harm in their

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pledging themselves to attend a Christian meeting once a week?

3. Again, it is claimed that such a society separates the young from the older members of the church, and prevents their attendance upon the usual church prayermeeting or lecture of the week. Without making an accurate estimate, I should say that about fifteen per cent. of our Society of Christian Endeavor attend also our other church meeting, that about fifteen per cent. more would probably attend the mid-week service were it not for this meeting of their own, which they consider more adapted to their own need, while fully seventy per cent. would go to no religious services during the week were it not for this society or something similar. Is not that seventy per cent. of young people in a congregation worth working for, even if it should involve the establishing of a new organization in the church?

We must not overlook the fact, also, that this is an important training-school for the young, a place in which they are prepared to take part more freely and intelligently in Christian work and worship.

How few men who enter into the full communion of the church after the age of forty engage in public prayer or enlist in active Christian work! They lack the religious training just mentioned, and shrink from breaking silence in, the church prayermeeting among those older in Christian life and experience. The importance of remembering the Creator in the days of one's youth is many-sided.

Every criticism which secures improvement in any direction is desirable. It must not be supposed that in order to have a Society of Christian Endeavor it must be fashioned in every minute particular after the "Model Constitution" put forth by the founder. What is needed is some organization of the young in every church which shall be distinctively Christian, and with which the pastor himself shall be closely identified if possible. This youthful force and enthusiasm need kind and wise direction.

Having given much study to the subject of "guilds" and "leagues," and to the vari

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In the early part of 1887 the Mohammedans of Sierra Leone, where there are five thousand of them, some born in the colony and many from the distant interior, invited me to open a school among them, for both adults and youth, for the study and comparison of Islam and Christianity from the sacred records of the two systems, with a view also to the prosecution of the elementary branches of an English education. In July of that year I opened a class of some forty adults, most of them adepts in the Koran, and a number of children. I taught them, or, rather, I should say, we discussed, regularly every day, except Fridays and Sundays. Most of them had copies of the Arabic Scriptures, mostly the Beirut translation; those who had not, supplied themselves from a book-store in the settlement. They came with the Bible and the Koran in their satchel. I began with the opening chapter of the Koran, called Fatihat-elKitab, Opener of the Book. The plan was to read from the first to the last chapter. My custom was to write on a blackboard, introduced for the first time among them, one or two verses from the original text for each lesson. This passage was first translated into English, then into the vernaculars of the members of the class, usually Yoruba, Mandingo or Foulah. It was then analyzed grammatically in English, and explanations given through interpreters to those who did. not understand English. The meaning of each word was then accurately ascertained. By the aid of Fluegel's Concordance, every passage in the Koran in which the particular word occurred was referred to and read, so that a pretty fair idea of the Koranic

usage of the word was gained. Then, if the passage involved any doctrine peculiar to Islam it was discussed, both sides being fully presented. Then the Bible was ap pealed to for illustration or confirmation of the view presented by the teacher. If the passage was in accordance with the teachings of the Bible-and this often happened

then the biblical passage was pointed out and read by all in Arabic, and there was generally surprise and satisfaction. Any tradition or historical fact in connection with the passage was called for; and at this stage of the exercises the teacher learned as much, at least, as he was able to impart. To him it was a novel, interesting and most profitable field of research. Sale's and Rodwell's translations and Wherry's Commentary on the Koran often lay on the table for reference and comparison. Wherry was regarded as fair and instructive, as giving the opinions on the text of leading Mohammedan commentators, as well as his own, which sometimes approved and admired, but often censured and condemned.

After this comparative study a chapter in the Bible was read by the adults in Arabic, and then one in English by the children. Orthography, geography and arithmetic formed the exercises of the younger pupils. The Mohammedans contributed to my support while I taught this school.

I kept up this work for several months, teaching and learning, until I was called off to Liberia to assist in the development of a self-supporting educational work started there by the Baptists in the interior of the St. Paul's river, for the children of colonists and natives, pagan and Mohammedan.

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This institution, founded by the liberality of a Negro immigrant from Virginia, is supported by the Baptists in Liberia with. no aid from America. It is conducted by three Baptist ministers, one educated at Liberia College, one at Shaw University in North Carolina, and the other brought up in Liberia without any special school training. A Mohammedan convert from the interior has been employed to teach Arabic and the vernacular languages. They ask for assistance in the way of books and agricultural implements.

The Sierra Leone Mohammedans are anxious that I should continue the educational work among them; but I am only one man, and there are numerous calls upon my time. I am sure, however, that the Mohammedans of West Africa and Nigritia would bear from me what they would not from a white Christian or an Arab Mohamniedan. When they complained of the

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abominable liquor traffic and were disposed to brand Christianity with it, I pointed out to them the villainous proceedings of the Arab slave-trader, showing them how both the Bible and the Koran condemned rumdrinking and slave-dealing. I exhorted them not to judge Christians by the example of bad white men, as I advise Christians not to take the vile conduct of wicked Arabs as an illustration of the teachings of the Koran. The eagle and the vulture used to be my favorite symbols of the two classes. I am satisfied that only the Negro can approach the Negro with that fullness of sympathy and freedom of intercourse which find a response in the depth of the heart.

But who can tell the result of the effort at Sierra Leone? The kingdom of God, which cometh not by observation, is as if a man should cast seed in the earth and the seed springeth and groweth up, he knoweth not how. E. W. BLYDEN.

TENNESSEE.

Tennessee is in area just larger than Ohio, and is less than one fifth smaller than England. Among the states it ranks twentythird in size and twelfth in population. Its three divisions are strongly marked: the valley of east Tennessee lies between the Appalachians and the Cumberlands; middle Tennessee consists of the great central basin and its highland rim; while west Tennessee extends from the northward-flowing Tennessee to the Mississippi.

Within this rhomboid-shaped state we meet all the varieties of climate to be expected in the temperate zone at altitudes. varying from 250 feet to 6700 feet above the sea. We enjoy the best and mildest features of both the temperate and the tropical regions. The air of east Tennessee is especially wholesome and bracing. For us there is none elsewhere comparable to it. This is to us "God's country."

In so well-watered and fairly productive a region agriculture has naturally been the chief industry. Increased attention is being given to cattle-raising. Plenty but not

Plutus has reigned. The inexhaustible mineral resources will ere long make the state a manufacturing centre. Then will come the influx of foreigners, now so insignificant an element of our population.

Tennessee was the third territory admitted to the Union as a state under the Federal Constitution. From 1796 it grew in importance until for two or three decades before the civil war it contested with Pennsylvania the honor of being the "Keystone State." Great campaigning was done preparatory to the national elections. Tennessee shared with Virginia the title "Mother of presidents." Slavery never dominated the people so entirely as it did in some other In the post-bellum times Tennessee reconstructed itself and abolished slavery. It welcomed the "New South."

states.

East Tennessee is the home of our Church in the state. Only two of our organizations lie west of the Cumberlands. The Southern Church occupy that territory. East Tennesseeans have always differed in sentiment from their fellow citizens of the other sec

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tions of the state. Slavery and aristocracy never flourished among us. A manumission society was founded in 1815, and the "first anti-slavery paper," the Emancipator, was published by Elihu Embree, at Jonesboro', in 1820. In 1860 there were in west Tennessee 101,954 slaves to 201,369 whites, while in east Tennessee there were only 27,439 slaves to 266,792 whites. Our section voted against the ordinance of secession even at the second election, and then, at the cost of untold hardships, sent 30,000 Union soldiers into the field. At our recent prohibitory amendment election the majority in east Tennessee for the amendment was 12,769, while that in the other sections against it was 40,462.

Upon this great southwestern field our Church was the first to enter. In 1773, Rev. Charles Cummings planted the trueblue banner this side of the Alleghenies. Abingdon Presbytery was established in 1785, and included east Tennessee within its limits. The Synod of Tennessee was erected in 1817. The Scotch-Irish were the pioneers of Tennessee, and their descendants are still here. Out of three hundred and twentyeight names of trustees, teachers and students recorded in the last annual catalogue of Maryville College, one hundred and sixtyfour-just one half the entire number-are unmistakably Scotch-Irish, while the other half embraces English, Welsh, Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch. Some Huguenots also drifted over the mountains from the Carolinas. The famous Sevier descended from a Huguenot family named Xavier. Phelan says that "internal and schismatic dissensions alone" prevented the Presbyterians from obtaining a complete ascendency in the state. Differences in doctrine, the Cumberland disruption and the civil war made parties and denominations, but one of the chief causes of the failure mentioned has always been the lack of ministers and of a support for them. Although east Tennessee alone has sent about three hundred men into the Presbyterian ministry, most of this number have labored in other parts of our country and of the world. Before the war many went to free states to escape the contam

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ination of slavery; since the war many have gone into the mission fields of our Church.

At present our venerable synod comprises four presbyteries, including the Presbytery of Birmingham just erected in Alabama, seventy churches, fifty-five ministers and 3900 members. In 1887 the Southern Church reported in east Tennessee alone two presbyteries, sixty churches, twenty-eight ministers and 3615 members; while the Cumberland Presbyterian Church reported three presbyteries, seventy-eight churches, fifty-one ministers and 5367 members. We live in entire harmony with our southern brethren. Outside of the cities there are only two towns where both churches have organizations. We have twenty-five candidates for the ministry, and had we the means to help them could have many more, and worthy ones too. We have done something for our brother in black. We have thirteen colored churches and six colored ministers in connection with our synod.

Our record in furnishing opportunities of education is the best of any denomination in east Tennessee. Washington College, the oldest educational institution in the Southwest, founded as an academy in 1777; Greenville and Tusculum College, founded in 1795, and Maryville College, founded in 1819 as the second theological seminary of our Church in America, continue unto this day their beneficent work. The Huntsville, Grassy Cove, Rittenhouse, New Market, Davies, Rogersville (colored), Beech, Vaughn and Home Industrial academies, the last three located in western North Carolina, are of recent origin, but are of prime importance to our Church and to the communities blessed by them.

We look into the future with hopefulness. We have been loyal to our national Church, and our Church has been faithful to us. Our statistics in the Assembly's Minutes are not impressive, but they do not tell of the large numbers of Tennesseeans who have recruited the Presbyterian churches of the West, nor of the large number of our boys who have entered the ministry and are scattered around the globe in the service of our Zion. Emigration from east Tennessee has about ceased, immigration is rapidly increasing,

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