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the Council should consider carefully the steps which it may take in the promotion of practical methods of advance.

Your committee recommends:

(1) That the Council express its hearty approval of the enlightened and generous service in religious education rendered to the denomination during the past triennium by the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, of its progressive publishing policy and its far-reaching schemes for developing the leadership in religious education needed by our churches. The Council reaffirms the willingness of the Congregational churches of the country to respond to a special appeal for funds for the promotion of this work in addition to that which the Society makes for its work of Sunday-school organization and extension.

(2) That our Congregational churches aim to place their work of religious education on a sounder basis, with thoroughly trained men or women as directors of religious education in every large church or over groups of churches.

(3) That your Committee on Religious Education be authorized to secure the appointment of corresponding committees in each state conference and district association, with which it and the representatives of the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society may coöperate in bringing to pass three desirable ends, viz.,

(a) The general adoption of some scheme of teacher training which will promote the efficiency of our Sunday-schools. This would involve no break with the plans of the International Sunday-School Association, but would merely be better adapted to our denominational needs.

(b) The general adoption of some scheme of standardization, by which schools may be classified. Few pastors or superintendents have a clear-cut ideal toward which they are working. The formulation of simple standards will open the way to many needed reforms.

(c) An active response among our churches to the policy of the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society under its educational secretary, Dr. Winchester. Without such a simple but general system of committees, the best results cannot be reached with the means at his disposal.

(4) That the Council express its approval of the action of the

International Sunday-School Convention at Louisville in 1908, in authorizing its Lesson Committee to issue a system of graded lessons for Sunday-schools, and of the unflagging zeal of the International Executive Committee and its staff of officers in promoting the efficiency of our Sunday-schools everywhere, and that we pledge the active sympathy and support of the Congregational churches to all wise and enterprising endeavors.

(5) That, recognizing the supreme place of the home in any scheme of religious education, the Council would urge upon all Congregational ministers that they bring publicly the responsibilities of parents before their congregations at least once each year, selecting, perhaps, the Rally Day of the Sunday-school in the fall, or Children's Day in June.

(6) Realizing, likewise, the importance of the fullest use of all of our available resources for Christian education, the Council would urge upon all of our Christian colleges and theological seminaries that the question of the wise utilization of their equipment in the promotion of religious education be given careful consideration without delay, in order that all possible means be taken for the equipment of competent leaders and intelligent teachers. It hereby authorizes its Committee on Religious Education to hold such conferences with the representatives of these institutions as may lead to some concerted agreement in action.

(7) That the Council approves the proposed appointment of an educational missionary secretary, and urges that the field of his activity be made to cover, as far as possible, every agency of religious expression among young people, and that he be associated as closely as possible with the director of the educational work of the Sunday-School and Publishing Society.

(8) That for the furtherance of these and other pertinent ends, the Council reappoint a Committee on Religious Education, of from five to nine members, to serve during the next triennium. Respectfully submitted,

FRANK K. SANDERS,
ALBERT E. Dunning,

JAMES A. BLAISDELL,

EDWARD I. Bosworth,

MARY E. Woolley,
WILLIAM HORACE DAY,

SAMUEL T. DUTTON,

CHARLES A. BRAND,

Committee on Religious Education

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE.

The question of temperance as it relates to the traffic in intoxicating beverages occupies a larger place in the mind of the public than ever before.

The limited time set apart for this report will only permit the briefest references.

OPPOSING FORCES.

For the first time in history, Christianity is challenged by an organized and defiant foe. What the church as an institution is to the Kingdom of Light, the saloon is to the Kingdom of Darkness. What the one builds, the other destroys. They are by nature and must be forever opposed to each other.

THE MORAL ISSUE.

The moral issue as a necessary factor in self-government appears in stronger light than usual. The public record of the brewers and the liquor traffic from the time of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 to the last meeting of the National Liquor Dealers and Brewers' Congress makes clear the fact that the traffic is a menace to the government, a nullifier of law, and a breeder of anarchy and disorder.

The National Model License League is the latest organized effort to unite all the interests of the liquor traffic in the country. Its declared purpose is to "defend the trade" and "to support for public office only candidates committed to the interests of their traffic, and to work at the ballot box against the election of any other." They operate largely through the pseudonym of "personal liberty." They stand for high license and regulation, and then defy the law and refuse to be regulated.

The National Liquor Dealers' Journal recently contained an editorial which said: "Christian patriotism and American patriotism are widely apart. The former is patriotic to its narrow, unjust dogma, and would arbitrarily force all peoples under its own vicious rule."

It further said: "The supreme question now is, 'Shall the church rule this country and turn the hand on the dial of liberty

back to class slavery?' The Supreme Court of the country is now confronted with the sad results of its own un-American decision in making prohibition the supreme law instead of liberty. It was Christian patriotism which made that court an enemy to American patriotism."

This is a direct attack upon two of the most sacred institutions of our government, namely, the Church and the Supreme Court.

The fact that the liquor interests of the country have thus taken their position and declared their attitude toward the church and the government may not be an unmixed evil. By these and other statements, as well as by its deeds, the enemy locates itself.

On the other hand, "In many places this has solidified the Christian forces and developed a spirit of unity which, disregarding minor differences as to methods, has rallied influence and effort against the common foe to the great advance of private virtue and public morals."

"In no other movement has the solidarity of the Christian Church yielded more significant results."

PROGRESS.

Civilization advances along many lines. The saloon as an institution promoting the drink habit is an obstacle to progress in every direction. The science of to-day is publishing its condemnation even of moderate drinking.

Dr. Frederick Peterson, of Columbia University, says: "Alcoholism is one of the common causes of insanity, epilepsy, paralysis, diseases of the liver and stomach, dropsy, and tuberculosis. The father or mother who drinks, poisons the children born to them, so that many die in infancy and others grow up as idiots and epileptics."

Dr. McNicholl, of the Academy of Medicine of New York, says: "Fifty-five thousand school children were examined. Of those free from hereditary alcholic taint, ninety-six per cent were proficient and four per cent were dullards. Of those with hereditary alcholic taint, seventy-seven per cent were dullards and only twenty-three per cent were proficient, while seventysix per cent suffered from some form of neurosis or organic diseases."

Dr. Weyman, one of the government counselors of the Working Men's Insurance Incorporations of Germany, declares that "every variation in public health is a matter of profit or loss in insurance economy." "Alcoholism increases the cost of insurance by leading, indirectly, to diseases of the stomach, liver, and nervous system, and, directly, by promoting tuberculosis and nerve diseases." "It increases the liability to accidents and renders them more serious." “Alcoholism is one of the most serious sources of injury to public health."

It is an established fact that alcoholism is responsible for nearly ninety per cent of the pauperism and crime in the United States as well as in foreign countries.

The sixtieth session of the United States Congress, in its report of the Commission on Country Life, says: "The saloon is an institution that must be banished from at least all country districts and rural towns if our agricultural interests are to develop to the extent to which they are capable."

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, declares: "The time has come when the saloon and the labor question must be divorced."

The railroad and manufacturing interests are making more stringent prohibitions against frequenting the saloon and the drinking habit year by year in the interest of safety and economy.

FEDERATED COUNCIL OF CHURCHES.

The liquor traffic was declared by the Council of the Federation of Churches of Christ in America to be "a parasite on the body of trade, that our mad houses are more and more crowded with people drawn thither by drink, and that the saloon stands in the way of the progress of the great constructive forces of civilization."

But why cite these things? Because we are fully convinced that, when the churches see the facts as they really exist, they will not be indifferent, and they cannot remain silent.

That great Council further declared that "in our land no evil can long withstand the power of the Christian churches united."

The first plenary council of the Catholic Church of Canada, held in 1909, declared that " among the social evils which have

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