efficiently all the time. The International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association keeps a secretary employed in New York whose duty it is to tie up young college men to some church for definite service. Their secretary said to me recently, "You have no idea how few churches can give a man a man's job."

The Brotherhood Movement is a movement to put men to work. It says a man is not converted until he has gone definitely to work to extend Christ's kingdom. It tries to inspire the local church to provide a place for him to work. It does not say that there shall be a specific form of organization called a Brotherhood in every church. It provides that any organization of men in any Congregational church can be affiliated with the national organization. It does not encourage a Brotherhood organization outside of the church in opposition to the church or any of its agencies. It urges that men in the local church organize to do the work of that church, and tries to furnish them with inspiration and information to make their work efficient.

With this in view, it maintains a central office, keeps a most efficient secretary in the field, and publishes the Brotherhood Era as a clearing house of information and enthusiasm. It coöperates in the state and city Brotherhoods to promote the fellowship of Congregational men and increase their efficiency.

But you ask what does a Brotherhood do? For answer I would refer you to an article in the October number of the Brotherhood Era, by our Mr. Harter, which gives a list of one hundred and fifty things a Brotherhood can do. Not one of them but has been tried successfully by some Brotherhood.

The Congregational Brotherhood has been on trial for two years and a half. What has it accomplished? What are the definite and tangible results?

Because it does not work for itself, but through the church for the good of the church, and upon the various problems of the church, no statistics can be given, yet it has in the local church and in the city, state, and national organizations brought to the front Congregational laymen, increased their efficiency, and promoted their fellowship. The efficiency of the Brotherhood in missionary work was demonstrated by its leadership in the Two Million Dollar Campaign," largely conducted by our

secretary, Mr. Dyer, and the head of the Missionary Department, Mr. John B. Sleman, Jr., with the help of our national directors and officers of various state Brotherhoods.

In our boys' work, we have been exceptionally fortunate in having had as leader Rev. Wm. Byron Forbush. Through the Brotherhood channels he has furnished inspiration and information to Congregational men throughout the country, which has led them to put new methods and new vigor into boys' work in our churches. The December number of the Brotherhood Era has furnished one of the best catalogues of possible forms and methods of boys' organizations that has ever been published. Our Bible Study Department, under the leadership of Mr. E. K. Warren, has placed special emphasis on Bible study for men, and has furnished frequent and valuable advice and helps for the organization of men's Bible classes.

Working with a similar committee from the National Council, the Department of Labor and Social Service, under the leadership of Mr. H. M. Beardsley, of Kansas City, has directed the attention of our men to the great industrial problems. The questions of equal rights and equal justice to all; of legislation regarding employer's liability, child labor, hours of labor, Sabbath rest, living wages, health and sanitation, have been discussed in our Brotherhoods, and in many cases representatives of the labor unions have been invited to present their arguments.

Our department of evangelism, under the leadership of Rev. E. B. Allen, has kept continually to the front the principle that the chief aim of the Brotherhood must always be to win men to Jesus Christ.

In various parts of the country, Brotherhood organizations have followed different methods as local needs might require. For instance, the Congregational Brotherhood of Southern California called together the representative Congregational men from the Brotherhoods of that section in Los Angeles last January, to determine upon and provide for a larger missionary policy for the churches of their conference. The Seattle Brotherhood has maintained a strong department through which fellowship luncheons of the Congregational men of the city are given to meet prominent visiting Congregational men who may be passing through the city. The telephone numbers of the men

are kept by the officers, and by an efficient division of labor the men of the Brotherhood can be brought together at short notice.

In the Michigan State Union the problem of the efficiency of the Brotherhood in the country church has been considered. An extract from the report of that Brotherhood by its president, Mr. L. P. Haight, of Muskegon, Mich., is significant as showing how that problem is being solved. He says, "We attempt to stimulate interest in agriculture, especially in the rural churches, by the Brotherhood renting or buying one acre of land, known as the Olivet Acre, the same to be tilled by the Brotherhood with a view to determining the best methods for raising the kind of crops suited to their section, especially corn and potatoes, that the yield of these crops may be increased by a better knowledge of their culture. This gets the men together in the rural sections. They spend one-half hour in studying the experiments and one-half hour as a Bible Class.

66 Where the ministers have entered into the life of their people they are getting nearer together and reaching the men as never before.

(( One church has rented two acres and will cultivate them next year, using the proceeds for the minister's salary. This little church has not been able to hire a pastor. The people are poor, but have set a good example by giving of their labor, although their dollars are few."

Is it necessary to have a Brotherhood to accomplish these things? Are there not too many organizations already?

Do you realize that a banker, who could not leave his desk to go to a state conference, will take a week to attend a bankers' convention? Congregational business men who will not go to an association meeting in their own town will get out and pull wires for days at a time to be elected delegates to a political convention in a distant city. This is because they do not feel the responsibility of the religious gatherings. They believe the minister is a better talker and knows more of such things, and they cannot compete with him on the floor of the conference or association. It has been demonstrated over and over that the laymen of the church will get together in laymen's movements, which they handle and direct. This of itself indicates that if we are going to reach the laymen it must be through organiza

tions of laymen, and not through those which they believe are dominated by the ministers.

But to come back to the question with which I started. How are we to get men into the churches? Should we say a man is a loyal church member who does not attend its services? Should we give up insisting that he be regular in attendance and in contributing? By no means. We are hearing a good deal of the "back to the farm " movement. What we need is a “back to the church movement among our men. I do say this, however, that if you wish to fill your pews and get the men to your services you will only in very exceptional cases do it by preaching, or advertising, or special music, or stereopticons, or moving pictures. When you put all your men to work; when there is a man's job for every man in the church, and he is on his job all the time; when every man who is examined for church membership is given an opportunity and expected to choose some definite form of Christian work and DO IT, the question of men attending the services of the church will give you no further trouble. To this end, the Brotherhood is your obedient servant. It does not guarantee to put your men all to work, but it does promise to give you, and them, all the assistance in its power.

POLITICAL INTEGRITY.

REV. GEORGE S. ROLLINS, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

I. Why should a church convention be concerned with political affairs?

What has religion to do with politics? Are we not meddling with matters outside our province? Political bosses say yes. A certain type of commercial interests say yes. They cannot afford to have conscience in the affairs of that kind of politics called "business." A certain man said he belonged to a particular branch of the church because it never interfered with business or politics. Are we not treading on dangerous ground? We are told that we know nothing about practical politics. The fact is, we know too much for our peace of mind. We are in danger, we are told, of turning the church back upon the old track which leads to the dogma that the church should rule the state. We are warned that we degrade religion when we drag the church into the mire of politics. And finally we are told that the minister of the gospel cuts a sorry figure in politics. Why, then, should an assembly like this discuss any political subject?

Our reply is, first, that religion comprehends the whole of life. Religion is not an esoteric emotion, not a secluded experience, but a call to a life of righteousness and of service to men. We do not deny the vision in the desert solitude or the sanctuary, but the voice from the flaming bush or the cherubim is the command to go down into Egypt, or to gird up rulers. Our Lord leads us out of the sanctuary upon the street, and into business and politics, there to realize the will of God and bring in his kingdom of righteousness and love. Our Christianity is as broad as the manifold life of our age. It has come out of Sunday and the church and entered the counting-room and legislative hall, and commands us there to realize the kingdom and its righteousness. A religion that cannot do this is not fit for our age, and is not Christian.

In the second place, Christianity has created most of our