colored brethren are to be found in greatest numbers. Many avenues for improvement are entirely closed to them. Their own race cannot as yet furnish the religious and educational privileges which they need, and must have, to continue their upward progress as a people. In every one of these cities we should establish, and support, a church modeled after our splendid First Church in Atlanta, under capable and consecrated leaders, like our beloved Dr. Proctor.

2. In the Southland, also, we should have at least a score of Tougaloos, with suitable equipment and ample endowment, and with as many Dr. Woodworths; as well as an equally strong and serviceable circle of institutions after the type of Fisk University.

CONGREGATIONALISM AT UNIVERSITY CENTERS.

The stability of our faith is eternally important. Whatever tends to strengthen it is constructive Christianity; whatever tends to enfeeble it is destructive of Christianity and of its finest fruits.

During the past decade our pulpits, generally speaking, have been free from the charge or suspicion of enfeebling or attempting to undermine our faith. The dangers in this particular have been brought about chiefly, may we be permitted to say, by some who occupy high places in several noted institutions of learning.

It is, therefore, a matter of satisfaction, and a cause of profound thankfulness, to observe the attitude of Christian people with reference to the planting and maintenance of evangelical churches at State university centers. In the central and western States, this has become a distinct movement. In our own circle, the entire denomination in several States has been, and is being, asked to help found and maintain Congregational churches at these State educational centers. The specific purpose is to furnish those of the student body who come from Congregational homes with worship and work after our faith and order. Where these university cities and towns have thus been cared for, under approved leadership, the moral and religious influences have been marked and gratifying.

Our relation to the college and to the university is of the utmost importance. Our denominational institutions should, of

course, be maintained, and will be. There is, however, a relation between our churches and our seminaries to the State universities which has been almost entirely neglected by us. The attitude of these institutions generally toward religion, we must come more clearly to understand. It is one of hearty receptivity, and not at all either of rejection or of hostility. Both faculties and student bodies are cordially welcoming the teaching and preaching of the gospel. University churches and religious houses are invited, and their purposes and work are given generous approval and support.

It is to the universities as well as to the colleges that we must look for candidates for our ministry. We want their choicest graduates for our seminaries, and later for our pulpits. Our Education Society has here one of its great opportunities. It should strongly reinforce the splendid work of our seminary presidents and professors in their efforts to enlist young men for the ministry, by the maintenance of a department, under capable leadership, that shall place before our college-bred men the imperative need of ministerial recruits, the high character of the service to be rendered, and the glorious compensations of such a Christlike ministry.

To guarantee the perpetuity of our Congregational work at such university centers, where church properties or religious houses have been acquired or erected by general denominational contributions, or by special gifts, I recommend that the title to such properties or houses be vested in the regularly incorporated State Conference, to be held by it in trust for the denomination in the State; or that the title be vested in our Church Building Society, as our national representative body, to be held by it in trust for the denomination in the nation.

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL THE CONSTITUENT STATES.

The fact that we as Congregationalists hold that we of right ought to be, and are, free and independent, enables us to do much, and will enable us to do many more things, best adapted to bring about the results we are seeking.

Since the National Council at Portland, Me., in 1901, we have been making much denominational history. At Des Moines, in 1904, we came to a real denominational conscious

ness, and then and there was uttered the first formal national expression regarding the wisdom of increasing the efficiency of our agencies in States and districts. This was set forth:

1. By a recommendation favoring the readjustment of the functions of our State and District bodies; and

2. By a wider conception and a newer definition of the obligations and opportunities of these State and District organizations respecting their oversight of churches needing their care.

This subject was carefully considered by the Committee on Polity of the Council of 1904; and its report made at Cleveland in 1907 was cordially approved by that Council. In substance, its recommendations include the following:

That the State organizations become legally incorporated bodies; that they carry on the work under a general superintendent and such boards as they may create; and, acting in coöperation with local associations and churches, that they provide for and direct the church extension, and the mutual oversight and care of all self-sustaining as well as missionary churches and other missionary and church activities, to the end that closer union may insure greater efficiency.

Out of what threatened to be a chaos of divergence is emerging a strong denominational consciousness which seeks expression and operation through District Associations and State Conferences, and which is certain to realize itself in a closer denominational union through the National Council.

There is great need of wise guidance at this point. We cannot afford the luxury of a revolution. What we need is an orderly and well-directed evolution. We are seeking how best we may express our growing Congregational life in terms consistent with our history and practice, and adapted to our growing national life.

For this reason it will be of vital importance that, during the next three years, our churches move with a common purpose in the direction of a perfected representative democracy.

THE "TOGETHER CAMPAIGN."

The Inter-Missionary Societies' movement of 1909, felicitously termed the "Together Campaign," is deserving of a chapter in our church history, both because of what it accomplished directly, and on account of what it may lead to.

When we met in National Council in Cleveland, in 1907, this was an enterprise not thought of. As an undertaking with a definite monetary object, it has gone far beyond the dollarmark. As a denominational endeavor, its results have been pronounced, and, I believe, permanent.

For the first time in many years, our missionary societies are now out of debt. This of itself is a notable thing. But the way in which they came to be delivered from their heavy, hindering, financial load is even more notable.

Competing methods were wholly discarded. There was no duplication of agencies, no waste either in labor or literature.

Our secretarial statesmen saw eye to eye. To them is due the credit for the conception of the campaign and for its successful execution. The labor involved was neither little nor limited. The entire group of our Missionary Societies entered into the canvass of the church membership upon an agreed and equitable basis. Thus united, they carried through a program marked by entire freedom from rivalry, and in a spirit of coöperation as fine as it was successful. Gratifying and helpful as were its financial results, it produced at least three important effects:

1. The "Together Campaign" gave an impressive exhibition of the essential unity of all the mission work which we have had, and now have, in the denomination.

2. It did much to promote and establish unity. Coöperation between our Missionary Societies is now made vastly easier; and, through the presentation of the Apportionment Plan in that campaign, it has come to pass that our churches are more than ever inclined to insist upon an all-round and balanced missionary effort.

3. As a part of these results, or rather as including them both, there came into existence a larger consciousness of the importance and of the claims of the missionary cause than we had for many years, if ever. This did not come through addresses to large audiences, for in most places the attendance was small; but it did come about because, through the wise and wide statement of the plans and purposes of the campaign, and through the final achievement of the minimum amount sought for, our people were led to think of missions in a more general way than had been the case in recent years.

These results were a triumph and a prophecy. There are les

sons for us as a denomination in this wonderful union effort. Greater things for the kingdom must be conceived and undertaken. The business judgment of our thoughtful men approved the methods followed in this canvass. The way in which the campaign was conducted met the hearty commendation of our churches. The churches represented in this National Council, and the societies affected, cannot but contemplate their own and each other's future somewhat in the light of that which has been taught by this experience.

THE WORK OF OUR NATIONAL SOCIETIES.

The work which the national societies are managing, as agents of our denomination, needs only to be carefully studied to be cordially approved. That work has been and is being carried on with broad intelligence, with splendid courage, with great efficiency, and with rigid economy.

1. What our Congregationalism is:

Our Congregationalism is a great philanthropy.

Do we realize how many kinds of Christian service our denomination is actively engaged in, both at home and abroad? Are we in sufficiently close touch with their various enterprises to keep informed regarding the nature and extent of the work which our national societies are doing in our name and for us, in establishing and maintaining hospitals and dispensaries, and in other humane physical relief which they are furnishing to the needy every hour, in some part of the world?

Do we appreciate the fact that through them we are helping to support, abroad and in the homeland, an educational system, where the "color line" is never drawn; in which class and caste are obliterated; in which primary and grammar and high school branches are taught; in which academic, and industrial, and normal courses are provided; where the open Bible has a large and honored place, and is taught by competent instructors; and that we are keeping at work presses which supply a religious and ethical literature of the very best type?

Are we aware that countless communities exist, in which our societies have planted stations and chapels and churches, which are practically the only moral and social and literary, as well as religious, centers?