In this day, our men who do large things in business want to have their denomination undertake large things. They believe it is as easy to do a big thing as a little one. And our missionary societies are frequently hampered by ourselves, while we wonder why they seem to be somewhat out of touch with our churches.

At a much less cost than the several societies are put to, under our present methods, we believe that a more vivid and permanent impression can be made, and each man's share in the whole work brought home personally to him, if all of the societies were to combine in creating and maintaining one Bureau of Information and Support. Operating from such centers as Boston, New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, with a strong cooperating committee back of each center, intensive methods of beneficence could be introduced which would greatly multiply the returns and divide the expense.

By the Apportionment Plan we estimate that our churches should raise ten million dollars annually, of which four fifths, or eight millions, are to be expended for home purposes, and one fifth, or two millions, contributed to the seven national societies, on a basis agreed upon among the societies themselves, figured on their proportionate needs extending over a period of years. The Apportionment Plan reaches through the State Conferences and the District Associations to the local church and to the individual. It creates no new ecclesiastical machinery, no additional wheels, but aims to put vastly more power into such as we have. It takes notice of our world-missionary right, and it confesses our personal accountability. It is a proof and an expression of our denominational loyalty and unity, which it creates and continues. It is businesslike, as it seeks to inform us as to the source and amount of our income before we assume obligations for its expenditure. It is economical, as it reduces the cost of solicitation and administration. It provides against deficits, and thus steadies the work in every part. It makes possible the development, and anticipates the advance, of our enterprises. It eliminates the special pleader, whose efforts tend to unsettle balance; and it encourages the presentation of every departmental endeavor in its proper relation, magnitude, importance, and needs. It commands the careful study by the

individual of the fields. It calls for the educational sermon rather than for the emotional or sensational address. And it demands a world-response because it furnishes a world-motive.

WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?"

We are closing a triennium of unexampled activity in every department of the world's work. We are about to enter upon another of undefined opportunity and of uncharted obligation. The achievements of this period in the realm of religion are numerous and important. They have been secured by our brethren of many Christian communions, and are not confined to any one of them. They have touched denominational development at almost every point. In them we rejoice as though they were our own. We can do little else here than enumerate some of them; but they belong to us as a very real part of our common Christian heritage, and as such, we believe, have a proper place in our triennial history.

Our Baptist brethren consummated, this year, at their national meeting held in Chicago, a notable advance in centralization and efficiency. Some such consummation, representing the practical wisdom and virile energy of our people applied to administrative affairs, is devoutly to be desired among us; and in these days of swift social change, the old Puritan motto, Reformation without tarrying for any," is more effective than the often obstructive policy expressed in the caution, "Make haste slowly."

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Our Presbyterian brethren have witnessed the completion of one of their union movements, which mean so much to other Christian bodies as well as to themselves.

Our Catholic brethren assembled in Montreal have had a remarkable celebration, attended and participated in by distinguished clergy from Europe and America, and by thousands of their devoutest members.

Our Episcopal brethren are even now holding their influential general convention at Cincinnati, Ohio.

To both these last-named fellow-Christians we owe an especial debt of gratitude for their uncompromising attitude and their unequivocal utterances concerning the purity of the marriage relation and the sanctity of the home. The same standard of

personal morality should be required of the man as of the woman, and this it is the duty of every body which bears the Christian name to preach, and to teach, and to enforce, with all the power and authority God has given his servants.

The World's Sunday-School Association's gathering in Washington, D. C., was a great one, the third in the series, sadly shadowed, however, by the drawing of the "color line." *

The monarch of a mighty nation, speaking our own language, has let it be understood that he is averse to subscribing to an official oath, some of whose terms are offensive to the religious convictions of a large number of his loyal subjects, and no longer considered necessary in this year of grace in a Christian country.

Another monarch of a great continental people spends long days and nights in earnest discussion with learned doctors of theology of his empire concerning the foundations of belief in the personality of Jesus and of the historicity of the New Testament.

In Great Britain there is a well-organized movement for the promotion of the publication of pure literature.

The World's Young Women's Christian Association, held in Berlin this year, set apart much of the time of its fourth conference to a study of the best methods of practical service in behalf of members of their sex; assured that it were better to help one of the Master's little ones than to change the geography of a hemisphere, or to be the ruler of an empire whose boundaries know no setting sun.

And we note with interest the meeting, also held in Berlin this

*This reference to the color line was the occasion, from the floor of the Council, of a protest of a delegate from Washington, D. C., who denied its correctness. The authorities on which the above statement was based were: Mrs. Lillian Camp Whittlesey, correspondent of The Congregationalist, at Washington, D. C., and an esteemed member of the First Congregational Church of that city, who wrote of this incident under her own name, on page 782 of The Congregationalist, of June 4, 1910; and The Advance, of Chicago, in its specially prepared report on page 682 (10) in the issue of June 2, 1910.

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The Washington, D. C., Post, of May 20, 1910, stated that negro delegates were ruled out of the convention." On May 21, the same paper stated that President W. P. Thirkield, of Howard University, and Dr. E. L. Parks, of the faculty of the same institution, and a prominent member of Hamline Methodist Church, declined in advance to take part in the parade from which their colored brethren were excluded." The Washington, D. C., Herald, of May 21, contained an article in which Rev. Dr. Waldron, chairman of the "Committee of Protest," said that " negro churches had sent delegates to every world's convention in the last twelve years, and that this was the first one where the color line was drawn." The parade, which it was said was local only, is announced twice, once each on pages 8 and 9 of the "Official Programme," as a part of the convention's exercises.

year, of the World's Congress of Free Christianity and Religious Progress, where a distinguished speaker (Professor Troeltsch, of Heidelberg) declared that "every future culture, in proportion as it possesses religious depth and maturity, will contain within itself that which forms the intrinsic vital power of Christianity the regeneration and sanctification of personality through God."

In response to an aroused Christian sentiment, we have had the satisfaction of seeing the governor of a Pacific coast commonwealth prohibit by public proclamation the holding within the confines of his State of a brutal exhibition; and we observe with hearty approval that this courageous course is being supported in other States and in many cities, in effective protests made against the display of pictures of this debasing event.

We learn with profound thankfulness that there has been completed the revised translation of the New Testament into the Chinese language, together with a number of the books of the Old Testament; and we are assured that this will be to China what the Authorized Version of the Bible has been, and is, to us.

The Student Volunteer Movement, begun with 250 students, reports that, up to the present year, 4,338 recruits from this source have gone to labor in foreign fields, appointed by fiftyfive different mission bodies, and numbering among them hundreds of young women.

From government census sources, we have the gratifying information that, contrary to popular impression, church growth in the United States during the past ten years has been greater than the growth in population; and that this increase, both in the number of communicants and of religious organizations, is notably the case in the cities, while in the country districts the church growth has kept pace with that of the population.

The third International Congregational Council, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in June and July, 1908, provided for its permanent organization, and it will be continued at stated intervals, under a constitution adopted at that time. America may well become the host of the next assembly of this body, representing our brethren from all parts of the world.

The American Bible Society will no longer be without suitable permanent endowment, as this year it reports the receipt of a million-dollar fund contributed for this purpose.

The establishing and maintenance of schools for the training of laymen and women for church work go well forward, and Congregationalism is not behind in these lines of Christian education.

We need again and again to be reminded of the necessity of studying carefully, and cordially coöperating in, the work of our Mr. Metcalf, of Oberlin, Ohio, and Mr. Ford, of Cleveland, Ohio, in their all-too-little-appreciated efforts for the conservation of Congregational trust funds and endowments.

We would not mourn as those without hope the call by the Captain of our Salvation of our Christian soldier, Gen. O. O. Howard, from the ranks of the Church Militant to those of the Church Triumphant; the calling to the Higher Bar of our Christian jurist, Justice Brewer; and the closing of the earthly career of that devoted Christian minister and leader, the last of the noble "Iowa Band," Rev. Dr. William Salter.

But to enumerate further would be like "cataloguing the ships"; and yet each means so much, and represents so much, and has to do with so much, that the history of the day would be incomplete without them, and many more like them, of which space will not permit even the mention.

"THE MORNING COMETH."

We rejoice that we are members of an avowed companionship, in the United States alone, of over thirty-two million Christians, of whom our Catholic brethren comprise three-eighths. The capacity of these hosts for altruistic endeavor and moral uplift is measureless.

The frank and fearless preaching of a hundred and eleven thousand ministers in nearly two hundred thousand pulpits, sabbath after sabbath, throughout the land, of a gospel of individual responsibility to God, of personal cleanness and honor, and of honesty and efficiency in the public service, is doubtless in large part the immediate cause of the remarkable revival in civic righteousness which we are now experiencing.

This moral and political restoration does not mean that we are to make one single struggle only, and then fall back satisfiedly to somnolence and shirking. We shall learn well, and wisely apply the lesson, if we remember that weeds grow per