"However," I remarked, "I have not said yes or no. I have not said yes because I want to think over this proposition. It appeals very strongly to me, because of its possibilities; but the amount of money is very large. I don't want you to go away with any encouragement. I am going to try to decide wisely the thing I ought to do."

About two years before this I had traveled throughout the country with a party of men, talking to the people of our denomination. During that time I visited eight or ten of our colleges. I do not know how many of you have visited Church colleges, but I want to say this to you: If you make such a trip some time and have the same experience that I had, you would always feel a very deep spirit of sympathy with these institutions; for to my mind no men in all this world with whom I have come in contact are doing so much toward the uplift of humanity and to help along the cause of Christ as these men in connection with our Christian colleges. In one of the best known of these institutions, three of our prominent educators live on four hundred dollars a year and the compensation they may receive for preaching, in addition to their salary for teaching.

These Christian colleges ought to be well supported, so that a great many more of our young men and women may acquire their education in them. So it seemed to me that this proposition ought to take in all our societies and boards: the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, the American Christian Missionary Society, the Christian Women's Boards of Missions, the Ministerial Board of Relief, the Church Board of Extension, and all the colleges in which our people are interested. Everyone would be working for this one common fund, rather than here and there a man supporting only one cause. It seemed to me that the unifying factor would be simply wonderful; and the more I thought of the proposition the more it grew upon me. And as I thought how it could be utilized, it seemed to me it was one of the most marvelous plans of which I ever had heard. I worked it out this way: A million dollars is a large sum of money; but, if by giving that amount the members of the Churches of our brotherhood throughout this country could be inspired to give the other five millions, it seems that it would be worth the sacrifice-but that is only a small part. Brother Crawford tells me he is a Methodist. The Methodists are four times as strong in numbers as we. That means that the Methodists might raise twenty million dollars more, and so on down the line. I shall not be much surprised if this amount results in raising from seventyfive to a hundred million dollars for the purpose of educating Christian young men and women, to the end that we may have missionaries with the proper spirit and understanding to send throughout the earth to preach the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

God has been good to me in the days that are gone. He has given me many blessings-more than I am entitled to. He has given me a family who have joined with me in every good work that I have undertaken. My wife said to me not long ago: "I am glad you gave this money, and the only objection I have to it at all is that a public announcement has to be made of it," for she shrinks from things like that. I am not an old man; neither am I a young man. By the time this proposition has been carried out I shall be close to threescore years and ten, if I live. What I have done will entail careful attention to business and much hard work, but I am accustomed to that. I believe that God will give me life and strength to accomplish this purpose. Of course, it is possible that He may not; it is possible that the strain necessary to its accomplishment may absorb and consume my life. That matters not. What is one life if, by giving it for the cause about which I have tried to talk to you, that cause has been spread unto the ends of the earth?

EVANGELISTIC WORK BY LAYMEN

WILLIAM C. COLEMAN, WICHITA, KANSAS

I AM TO describe how we laymen in Wichita have done evangelistic work. We have forty groups of laymen, including every type of men; bankers and manufacturers, merchants, laborers, etc. There is perfect social equality among them in the cause and they work shoulder to shoulder. Since February 1, 1912, these forty groups or "teams," comprising about three hundred men, have visited at one time or another all the towns in every direction within a certain distance of Wichita. They have traveled by train and in automobiles-distances of a hundred and twenty miles to the east, a hundred miles to the north, two hundred miles to the west and a hundred and twenty-five miles to the south. These men went out for the sole purpose of winning men, and what has been the result? Three thousand actual decisions for the Lord Jesus Christ won by laymen! These laymen went out without being accompanied by pastors; but they have gone into the pulpits and have done a little service in the resident pastor's place, with the result that they won men to Christ at every meeting. They have added a spiritual impulse to their own Churches. They are at the prayer-meetings and in every good cause that comes along; they are on fire with zeal, and all are praying Christians.

Another good thing that it has done is the bringing about of real Christian unity in our town. You know what that means? It means the same thing that has taken place on the foreign field. You know the old saying that it has taken the heathen to save the men

at home! We have learned that we must work together for the common purpose; so these fellows have worked together shoulder to shoulder. Denominational lines are not drawn in team work. Of course, some of the Churches have their own teams, and a team may go out largely made up of Methodists, or there may be a Baptist or a Presbyterian among them; this is made possible for the reason that we have a common purpose and are working together in real Christian unity.

It has also built up some of the weaker Churches. Some of these in our own city have taken on a new lease of life and have become aggressive forces because the laymen have told the story, have awakened men to the possibilities of their own endeavors, and these have bent themselves to the task. Many new Bible-classes have been organized. It has helped in a measure to solve the troublesome problem of the rural Church. Everywhere were these weaker Churches where the Gospel was heard only occasionally. All the executive part of this work has concentrated in one office, where proper arrangements are made by the secretary of the Church organization. A room in the Young Men's Christian Association Building serves as headquarters.

Nothing is so contagious as religious fervor, and nothing is more contagious than a spirit of service; and when these men who have the spirit in their hearts and the purpose to do something for their fellow men have gone out in these surrounding towns the dwellers therein have simply been "exposed" to religion, so to speak. A group of our men went to Hutchinson. During the visit we said to the Hutchinson men, "You have a great community out here for which you are responsible. We cannot do the job of converting it for you. You will have to do it." They caught the idea, and began to go out among their fellow citizens.

One Saturday night a Pullman car with twenty-five home-mission passengers went out of Wichita. Next day they took possession of the town of Alva, Oklahoma. They filled all the pulpits. There were two big meetings in the afternoon and two big meetings at night. There were twenty conversions that day. But the men of Alva caught the idea. They said, "We can do just this sort of thing ourselves." So they went to work. They made twentyeight trips, and organized nine teams in surrounding towns. A team from Alva went down to Woodward. The fellows there caught the spirit, and Woodward organized teams that go out to the surroundings towns to win men for Christ. In this way the work has spread.

How do we organize a team? Let me say this, men: This is the work of the Spirit, and you cannot organize teams as you organize other things. Any attempt to organize teams in a sort of great propaganda is almost sure to be a failure, if indications prove anything at all. A team must first have a leader-a leader who has had a vision. That is all. Every team in our city of Wichita, with

its forty teams to-day, and nearly all the teams in the surrounding towns, have merely followed a right leader, a man who has seen the vision and grasped the possibilities of it. He has asked his friends to join in the work. So he makes up his team. Some men would go merely because their friends asked them. Some went with the express stipulation that they were not to be called on to say anything. But their hearts get full when the work begins and they begin to take part. That is the way a team is organized. Any live Christian man who gets a vision of this work can organize a team.

What is the program? How shall you arrange for it? First get into touch with your pastor. He knows of some outlying community where they have preaching only once a month. As soon as its people find out what you can do, and that you have a message and testimony, they will be glad to have you come. There are many pastors struggling in small communities who want something to wake up their men. If you will consult your pastor, or someone who has the vision in your town, they will make more dates than you may have time to fill.

Another important thing is the preparation of the teams. There is one preparation that is paramount to all others. It is an invariable rule, on the part of our teams, that before they go before any audience, in any community, no matter whether in a country schoolhouse or small church, they go by themselves and have a session of earnest prayer that God will purge their own lives and give them the message required for that particular place. Sometimes they go back of the school-house and sometimes they go out behind the hedge-row-to any place where they can get away from the crowd. Sometimes they will kneel down on the frozen ground in the snow to pray, because there is no other place to go.

What is the character of the message? They tell the Gospel story as it has affected their own lives. They do not theorize. They are having new experiences every day. They do not tell simply about the time when they themselves were converted. When a man is just converted, he tells of his conversion. It is all the experience he has had. The men soon get beyond that point; they have new religious experiences day by day to tell of. They tell of the daily happiness that comes to them from communion with God. The message comes from men like themselves, and they feel its power. Not only do the speakers tell the Gospel story in publicand they know by the expression of a man's face and by the attention he is giving whether he is really affected or not-but they go right after them later, and plead with them kindly, through the power of the Spirit. Sometimes a series of meetings is conducted in the community, when different teams go out night after night and summon these men, who catch the vision and get into the work themselves so that they can carry it on after the team has gone and have a real old-fashioned revival.

Fill the day. Have a union service in the town when you get to it, morning or afternoon. Our workers go into the men's Bible classes, and scatter out to speak in pulpits which are open to them. In the afternoon they come together for a mass meeting. That is a common program for one day. As to the program of the meeting itself, the leader is the key of the situation. He makes his introductory talk and introduces the men, who simply testify as to the power of the Gospel in their own lives. After they have given their testimonies, the leader makes a further appeal and gives the invitation. The other men then go out into the audience for personal work.

What started that movement? It was begun in this way: the Reverend Mr. Ross of the United Brethren Church telephoned to one of our citizens, a Mr. Blodgett, and said, "I have to be out of town next Sunday night, and I wish you would come down to my Church and give an address." Mr. Blodgett has been known for a long time as an eloquent and effective public speaker. The idea struck him that he would take some of the fellows with him— men that had not been very long in the service, new converts-and that when he got them down there he would have each one testify. The results were surprising, although the meeting came right at the close of the Billy Sunday campaign in our town. There were fifty-two new conversions.

This sort of campaign is really a wonderful thing. All you have to do is to catch the vision, get a few earnest helpers and go to work.

The question of finance: This is a campaign that cannot be commercialized in any way without killing it. These men give their services without compensation. In some instances business men have paid the expenses of the team. As a usual thing, after the project was started, the surrounding towns, in order to have the workers visit them, would say, "If you will come to us, we will gladly pay the expenses." The expense of transportation has been light; but where the trip is made by train the expense is usually borne by the town to which they go.

If you want this story told in its entirety, Mr. Stranahan is to publish soon, at the solicitation of many persons, a comprehensive pamphlet, in which the whole matter is covered more fully than I have been able to describe it. If you will write to Mr. E. H. Stranahan, Wichita, Kansas, you may obtain copies.