I AND MODERN LIF AYTON SEDGWICK COOPER SEP 8 »»11 GIFT LIBRARY OF THE University of California. GIFT OF Class THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/biblemodernlifeOOcooprich tarifufioooicifjfa ricca Omnsiitcoa IpiftTniiiiii inn mifatuuni mri falif ii09 aiiiiri umrquiamanue Domini imgu nif.muarr ptftipiftttt mtfam «tfn camito mn& raturamini i ifcuie iiiiri)! iiiijiiar lie fmbautur fniuonw mri i mum mirtpi ait ut fiamuucin libroftilofcmo tcpiubiiammarMil rem fcuiparuc iu Filter £ (brio untp ip OniipninufUD uiuarrrtn uomfiimo a c cna functtur? fim . it nnf ura mm • ialsoi fiiir mr a:* i tame tura mtcto a lint . iJJuf ui fur 9 fu ego tpert omit met tofpioiiri ftfito uoti aluituSrpofira Ik c Fpra mra iitFinu mra^iDiiarr re-- (fu m mr D inn «j y Fr quaitiur run taDi- mn yf tin imimiam? taita ritfjFugu^ ngo a fan? glatniiqm yiroi niiqtani gtiiOf in fntoit rift tuUiriti £a Bdponimts mt In$$t naara* rljiffa oijar.|Drina mgitaranff t irof FutttOHrFibi:»iW9minii» [4 tap»nit.ttJ«tanam fpantearpie auDwiK fpmws mteHigmtte raa«* A PAGE FROM THE GUTENBERG BIBLE The year of the tercentenary of the authorized English translation of the Bible will be marked by the sale of the Gutenberg Bible for $50,000. the [argesl amount ever paid for a single book in the history of the world. This was the first important book printed from movable type, and dated 1450-5S. It is written in Latin and printed in Gothic characters, the citation here chosen being from Job 19: 23. THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE By CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER Author of " College Men and the Bible " FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON I9I I •v' Copyright, 1911, by FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY {Printed in the United States of America) Published July, 1911 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO Mr FATHER AND MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Preface xi I. Why Men Study the Bible 3 II. The College Man, the Church and the Bible 23 III. Bible Study Among Men in the Orient. . 43 IY. Successful Organization and Conduct of Bible Study 57 V. Bible Study in Small Classes 75 VI. Large Organized Bible Classes 93 VII. Bible-study Courses and Literature 121 VIII. The Bible as a Means to Service 139 Appendix 161 Index 203 vu ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE A Page from the Gutenberg Bible. . .Frontispiece International Bible Group, Columbia University 8 Helen Gould Bible-study Club, Fort Seward, Alaska 16 A Few of the Students at a Northfield Sum- mer Conference 26 G. Sherwood Eddy and Itinerating Band of The- ological Students in India 36 An American Teacher in a Japanese Govern- ment School and His Voluntary Bible Group 44 Robert Gailey and His Bible Class in Tientsin, China 52 Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and Industrial In- stitute, Bible-study Students 60 Bible Class of Railroad Men, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania 64 American Soldiers Studying the Bible in the Philippines 76 An Oriental Bible-study Group in an Occident- al University 88 ix ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE University of Texas Sunday-morning Bible Groups 96 Hubbell Bible Class, Rochester, New York (An Outing) 114 A Memorable Place for Bible Study 126 English Class of Russian and Rumanian Jews. 142 An English Class for Magyars, Taught by a Bible Student from the College of the City of New York 148 PREFACE It is the purpose of this book to suggest a type of Bible study fitted to the needs of modern times. Bible study to many people is a dreary business. It seems far away from the com- mon vital interests of humanity. Those who have made any thoroughgoing study of the Bible, however, know that it takes hold upon the realities, the common tasks, and the deep human loyalties in which men and women live and move and have their being. Should not, therefore, the Christian Scrip- tures, both through courses of study and methods of organization, be treated natu- rally, scholarly, sensibly, practically, and always in relation to real life and conduct? Modern scholarship is ministering greatly to the study of the Scriptures; it is helping to make the Bible real, not by making it less divine, but more human, more intelligent, xi PREFACE more capable of sustaining faith in the liv- ing God. Efficient organization and teacher training are also indispensable to students of the Bible to-day. Modern methods are not to replace devout, Christian experience, which has always illumined, and will continue to illumine the truth of the Bible. Bible study must, however, secure with exactitude the facts of historical Christianity, which are basic to intellectual, moral and religious con- victions. The Bible student must be able also to relate these facts, not simply to individ- ual life, but also with directness and with courage to the conditions of his own times, asking: "What is the teaching of Christian- ity for the state, for society, for the church, and for the school of the present century, and how shall this teaching be successfully applied? " Furthermore, the Bible study which ap- peals to the men and women of representa- tive leadership to-day, is possest of hu- man interest and attractiveness. It is re- PREFACE ported that the editor of a prominent daily paper often returns manuscripts to their respective authors, after writing upon them with a blue pencil the letters, "H. I." This is a brief way of saying to the reporter, "Put human interest into your story.' ' The Bible, if suggestively presented, will make a strong appeal to persons of vital interests, to men fervent in social studies, and to stu- dents of politics, philosophy, ethics, and re- ligion. The type of Bible study which will reach the heart of our day is that which is presented, not simply in the category of duty, but also in the category of pleasur- ableness and readableness. An English critic recently uttered a more or less just criticism upon books dealing with the Bible and related topics, by saying that too often their titles and subject-matter make no appeal whatsoever to the general reader. Such fascinating and remarkable material as the Bible contains ought to "buttonhole the reader," as Richard Wat- son Gilder was wont to express the secret xiii PREFACE of success in magazine writing, and this attention to style in presentation should not be detached from the depth and power of the ideas. For, after all, of what use are lengthy elocutionary or theological appeals and exegetical interpretations of the Bible if they are never read, or if they never in- duce people to study the Bible for them- selves ? With such ideas in general about Bible study the writer presents the following pages. Several of the chapters have ap- peared in serial form in the Homiletic Re- view. The interest in these papers, shown by many requests and much correspondence from widely different sections, seemed to warrant the gathering of these articles, with some additional material, into such form as to make them usable as a handbook on the practical use of the Bible. I would make appreciative acknowledg- ment of my indebtedness to Mr. Eobert Scott, Editor of the Homiletic Review; also to the Bible Movement of the Student xiv PREFACE Young Men's Christian Association, to the Hubbell Class of Rochester, the Madison Avenue League, the Young Men's Bible Class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York City, and the Cooper League of Lynn, Mass., some of whose literature in the way of constitutions, forms of class work, con- ference programs, etc., I have used in the Appendix. With a keen personal sense of the limita- tions of this treatise, but with the ever-grow- ing and deepening conviction that the Bible is destined to become increasingly for per- sons of diverse station, creed, nationality, and race, the Book of Power, the author pre- sents these studies upon "The Bible and Modern Life." Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. New York, May 24, 1911. Chapter I WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE The opening of thy words giveth light. —Psalm, 119: 130 If we be ignorant, the Scriptures will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us. Tolle, lege; tolle, lege. — King James's Revisers, 1611 Lincoln wrote to his intimate friend, Joshua F. Speed: "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a better man." In vain we call old notions fudge And bend our conscience to our dealing. The ten commandments will not budge And stealing will continue stealing. — Lowell The French poet Alfred de Musset was "a child of the sunshine and the storm"; and when he died, his old servant pointed to a New Testament and said to a friend who came to inquire about him: "I know not what Alfred found in that book, but he always latterly had it under his pillow that he might read it when he would. " The testimony of Napoleon I to the Bible as recorded in Bertrand's Memoirs. "Behold it upon this table" (here he solemnly placed his hand upon it). "I never omit to read it, and every day with the same pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, admirable moral maxims, which produce in one's soul the same emotion which one experiences in contemplating the infinite expanse of the skies resplendent upon a summer's night with all the brilliance of the stars. Not only is one's mind absorbed, it is controlled, and the soul can never go astray with this book for its guide." Bead your Bible — make it your daily business to obey it in all that you understand. To my early knowledge of the Bible I owe the best part of my taste in literature. — John Euskin Chapter I WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE I — World-wide Popularity The Bible is to-day the most popular and the most widely read book in existence. Its extensive use is as wide as the world and those who study it are as diverse as the na- tions. In eighteen different countries last college year, 80,000 college men were study- ing in voluntary Bible classes in institutions of higher learning. The Baraca Movement, the object of which is the interesting of young men in organized Bible classes in the church, reported last season a Bible-class membership of 350,000 young men. The Young Men's Christian Association enrolled last year in Bible study in their various branches 97,232 men. These men repre- sented our cities, country districts, railroads, colleges, high schools, industries, and the army and navy. 3 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE The volume of voluntary student Bible study in North America (28,562 students at- tending classes for two months or more last year in 490 institutions) would be much in- creased should we add the hundreds of men who are attending Bible-study classes in con- nection with the curriculum of these institu- tions, and the 8,977 theological students in 167 institutions of the United States and Can- ada who are studying the Bible in prepara- tion for the Christian ministry. It is, moreover, one of the facts for thought- ful consideration that there was last year a total army of 28,011,194 persons, represent- ing fifty-one nationalities, who were studying the Bible in Sunday-schools of various lands. Twenty-seven Bible Societies are printing this book; one in the United States, three in Great Britain and twenty-three on the European continent. These 27 societies re- ported an aggregate output in 1910 of 12,843,196 Bibles. It is conservatively stated that more copies of the Bible were sold last year than WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE of any other hundred books of the world combined. The Oxford Press turns out 20,000 Bibles a week. The British and For- eign Bible Society prints the Bible in 400 languages. The head of one of the great publishing-houses of London stated recently that it had been impossible for several years for the house with which he was connected to print Bibles rapidly enough to supply the de- mand. It was stated that the Boxer War in China would drive Bible religion from that empire, yet the issue of Bibles for China last year was 428,000 copies. The American Bible Society published and distributed in 1910, 2,153,028 copies of the Bible. The total annual issues of Scriptures are over nineteen million volumes. The thousands of men who are being at- tracted at present to the study of the Bible in connection with missionary organizations, and with young people's societies, together with an unrecordable multitude who, in addi- tion to those meeting in regular classes, are discovering day by day the great educational THE BIBLE AND MODEEN LIFE and inspirational values of the Christian Scriptures, add materially to this vast, un- exampled crusade which seems intended at no distant date to make the Bible the univer- sal book of all peoples. Why has this company of men of widely diversified races and religions given time and thought to the Bible? I wish to deal with some of the causes and results of this revival in Biblical study. II — What is Christianity? The Bible presents the facts of the Chris- tian religion. Plato said : ' ' He shall be as a God to me who can rightly divide and de- fine.' ' The president of one of our large North American universities in his convoca- tion sermon recently said that comparatively few people know what Christianity is. We think of a noted scientist who, when he was asked what he thought about the failure of Christianity, exclaimed: "The failure of Christianity! I have never yet seen Chris - 6 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE tianity tried.' ' One of the reasons why men are not able to really represent Christianity to the world is that they have never studied with thoroughness its records and its his- tory. They have never really discovered its underlying principles. A student on the Pacific Coast asked me: "What is the dif- ference between those things which you and I can disagree upon and still be Christians, and the things we must agree upon if we are Christians ?" It is astonishing how much of our relig- ious knowledge is taken in a second-hand fashion from books or from friends. Many men of the church have not really studied with deep seriousness the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. A genuine knowl- edge of the great religion of the Western world is not acquired by snap-shot attention to books or sermons about Christianity. In North China I found a prominent Chinese educator planning to give a good part of his time for the next few years to the study of the principles of Christianity, 7 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE that he might be able to translate these prin- ciples into the vernacular of his people. As one pierces below the surface of our rapidly moving time he finds almost invariably, on the part of men of mind, a real quest for religion, a deep longing for the abiding and eternal truths of the heart and soul. However changeful may be their expression from age to age, their essence is the same and human response to them is universal. The great questions after all are: What is the real meaning of the world? Is God my Father and can I trust Him! Is man my brother or my enemy? Am I an immortal spirit? What think ye of Christ? Upon the answers to such questions hang the destinies of men. But these are Bible questions. They are not treated in any such fulness or with such distinctness in other literature as they are treated in the Bible. These questions are insistent, quite regardless of race, nationality, or belief. Whether a man is a Confucianist, or Buddhist, or Brahman, or Jew, or Chris- 8 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE tian, these are his great problems, for they are the problems of humanity — the problems of life. Last year I found a young oriental student who was reading through the New Testament, after which, he told me, he was going to decide about accepting Christianity. It is quite common to find Orientals getting the facts previous to reaching conclusions. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Ill— The Bible and Life Work The Bible presents the principles invalu- able for the formation and prosecution of a life-work. There is sufficient reason for the study of the Bible in the fact that such study furnishes a suggestive basis for a vo- cation. Men and nations must work out the details for themselves, but the principles are here. Ex-President Koosevelt is quoted as saying that almost every man who has con- tributed to America anything of which America is proud has founded his life upon the teaching of the New Testament. How THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE does the Bible assist men in their life-work? A working knowledge of the Bible fur- nishes proper perspective relative to choosing and pursuing any vocation. It clarifies our vision concerning the things which are really worth while to spend time and thought upon. The college student may graduate as a specialist of the first type. He may be an expert in his particular profession. That is, of course, a high order of accomplishment, but a more important question presses, namely: Does he know what his vocation is really for! Can he wield it to greater ends than toward the mere making of a living? Every man must decide whether his life shall be ruled by principle or by expedi- ency. Does the modern man really know what life is all about and what he is driving toward with such mad zeal ? The fanatic has been described as a man who doubles his en- thusiasm when he has lost his aim. He is just driving fast with no clear destination in view. It was a significant and pathetic cablegram that the students of Japan sent not long ago 10 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE to a large conference of college men meeting in North America: " Japan leading Orient, but whither! " Bible study corrects our individual stand- ards and measurements. It spreads out be- fore us God's plan for human existence. It helps men to put first things first; to see big things big, and small things small. A habit of Bible study is a daily hint that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." To the Bible men have come in all times to find those life visions, where, in Matthew Arnold's words: The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we say we mean, and what we would, we know. A man becomes aware of his life's flow, And hears its winding murmur; and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And the sea where it goes. 11 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE IV — The Church and the Bible To be sure, the Bible is no longer chained to the altar as in the medieval days, but it has not really come to its own among the thinking men of the church. As yet a be- ginning only has been made. In certain sec- tions of our country we find a lack of Bible study among men in the church which is fairly pitiable. In short, it would be almost a misnomer to speak of it as Bible study. In many churches one is imprest not so much with a wrong method of Bible study as the entire neglect of the whole question. In the minds of many men the Bible is still a recondite granary of mystifying and other- worldly facts. By many the Book has never really been discovered as a modern guide to personal living, or as a practical motive to service. But the results of modern Biblical thought and research are pressing rapidly into common and universal knowledge. The Christian ignores them at the peril of being both benighted and ridiculous. A mission- ary told me in India last year, that one of 12 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE the first needs with which he was confronted as he arrived in the Orient was the insistent necessity of a thorough mastery and inter- pretation of the Bible. He found that the heathen world knew the Book of his religion more perfectly than he knew it. In fact, many of these people had studied it, he said, more carefully than they had studied their own sacred vedas. In some way the church must get its men interested in the Bible. This task, like other important tasks, is not easy. As we visit churches in various parts of the world, the question arises: How many pastors and leaders have really tried to enlist men in the study of this Book? The interesting of men in the Bible involves able and courageous leadership, the study of methods, Bible courses and literature, business ability, money, sacrifice, patience, and, beneath all, an unquenchable conviction that God's rev- elation in His Word is eternally worth while. The church needs able, broad-minded, godly men to teach the Bible in men's Bible 13 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE classes, in the Bible school, and in connec- tion with discussional groups outside the churches. Who will be responsible for the bringing of the Bible to thoughtful young men? This is a question which must be an- swered by representative laymen of the church, by students in our colleges, by college graduates, and by the modern ministry. Here is a calling of great importance — a teaching ministry. To popularize and dignify the Bible in the hearts of young men is one of the church's opportunities in this genera- tion. Without real Bible study the church loses objective and spiritual dynamic. To the church, primarily, the Bible is the Book of Life. V — Modem Call for Character Above all the voices of our times one discerns the call for character. Politics, business, commerce, and religion are under the search-light of moral reform. A new and wide-spread reassessment of men's characters and motives is now proceeding. 14 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE There never was a greater demand than at present for men whose honesty and devotion are not measurable in dollars and cents. Among men who really shape the creeds and the progress of nations, there is decreasing faith in that mammon gospel which Carlyle said was "driven by galvanism and possest by the devil.' ' The Bible is the first book npon ethics. The moral codes of the Christian Scriptures have worn well and are still operative. Eighteousness, which continues to be the eternal foundation of nations, is the ground- work of the Bible. The Bible strikes down injustice and wrong wherever these are found. It is the book of right, of integrity, of sincerity, and reality. Its words are "true, and righteous altogether." The Bible assists in character-forming be- cause it reveals us to ourselves as we really are. It is peculiarly personal. The re- sponse of the soul to the Bible message is "search me, God, and know my heart." Herein lie the riches of a personal, daily 15 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE habit of Bible study. Coleridge says, "The Bible inspires me." Carlyle regarded true greatness as depending entirely upon the capacity of the individual for moral and spiritual development. The message of the Scriptures is directly related, not only to spiritual truth, but to such truth in applica- tion to the individual. The Bible makes character by helping men in their moral battles. It shows men their real battle-ground, which is not always a field of dollars. It paints sin as it is. It reveals life roughened by tragedies. But it not only points out the rocks in life's voyage, it keeps men steady at the wheel when there are no sun or stars in sight. Bible study leads to a life of prayer. It saturates the mind and heart with a spir- itual atmosphere in which high consider- ations are natural and possible. The Psalms of David have saved many a shipwrecked soul with their songs in the night. A student told me recently that the following words redeemed his life: "Tho he fall, he shall 16 i 1b! p » S ? c i -3 ,7 n: u 3 o — ' « 2 ., « s J « en H 2 = 4-1 (A 5 5 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE not be utterly cast down, for Jehovah up- holdeth him with his hand." It is, however, by giving added force to the will that the Bible especially strengthens character. The character of Jesus was unique in that He combined high vision with the ability to make that vision real. Many a biography has been the tragic story of a high endowment but an insufficient will. What a man has power to will and to do, and to continue to do, decides his destiny. John Foster describes character as that " which expresses the habitual tenor of a man's active being.' ' No man can read and study the Bible with regularity without feeling a new decision gathering force in his life. A friend of mine has the habit of rushing to his New Testa- ment in times of temptation and reading two chapters to fortify his resistance force. A sufficient reason for the renewed Bible inter- est of to-day is in the fact that the Bible has always been associated with the formation and growth of decisive Christian character. 17 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE VI — The Bible and Religion Superior to all other values, however, which the Bible is bringing to thoughtful men of this generation, is the value lying in the realm of creative ideals. The faith rep- resented in the New Testament, the faith that John says "overcomes the world' ' is the faith, first of all, in a person. The dif- ference between the mere religionist and the Bible religionist is not so much in the men- tal process or operation as in the object of his faith. Jesus reached the potential energy of the soul. Jesus provoked values. He created and aroused thoughts, feelings, pos- sibilities which men never dreamed they had. By His absorbing interest in men He laid hold upon the essence of their hidden resources. "I make all things new." He created for a discouraged and despair- ing heart, locked up within itself, a new heaven and a new earth. His name was Healer, Friend. In His presence there was always hope. He brought out the defaced ideals. He broke the fetters of sin and 18 WHY MEN STUDY THE BIBLE lifted men out of the sloughs of carnality and commonplace and enabled them to be- lieve in the value of their souls. It is one thing to say to a man with a withered hand : "Yes, your hand is withered. Too bad." It is quite another thing to say, as Jesus did: "Stretch forth thy hand." Faith in Him empowers our wills. After all, it is upon such great quest that men go to the Bible to-day, as they have gone in other years. The great secret of the growing power of Bible study lies in the fact that it satisfies this craving for the recrea- tion of the soul's life. It may be true that materialism has low- ered the tone of our journalism, has put the table of the money-changers in the council- hall, and even in the church; yet the great counter-fact remains, even the search of the mind and heart of the modern man for the living God. This age is not an infidel's age. Wholesale ridicule of serious things is un- popular. We find in many parts of the conti- nent, in spite of the indifference and easy 19 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE living of men " untouched by a spark,' ' that it is a time of search for spiritual truth and that men will listen with eager hearts to those who have been in the presence of Christ and can come saying, " Never man so spake." 90 Chapter II COLLEGE, CHUECH, AND BIBLE 21 Charles Dickens placed a Bible in his son's trunk as his boy went to become a colonist in Australia. He after- ward wrote to him: "I put a New Tesatment among your books for the very same reason and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you when you were a little child, because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be faithful and truthful to duty can possibly be guided. " For centuries the Prophets have been ignored as mys- terious oracles, honored and valued merely for the pre- cious texts and sayings which sparkled like rare and brilliant gems upon the dim, obscure surface of an unex- plored literature. Modern scholarship has laid bare their intimate relation to the political and social problems of the day There has been no more helpful, no more stimulating exegetical work done by modern crit- ical scholars than the treatment of the Prophets by Driver, George Adam Smith, Kirkpatrick, and Ottley. — Bishop op Winchester To the Bible men will return because they can not do without it. — Matthew Arnold The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul : The testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of Jehovah is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of Jehovah is clean, enduring for ever: The ordinances of Jehovah are true, and righteous alto- gether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honey- comb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: In keeping them there is great reward. —Psalm 19: 7-11 29 Chapter II COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE I — Bible Study in Colleges College men are becoming increasingly in- terested in the Bible. During the college year 1910-11 the stu- dents of North America conducted fifty Bible Institutes, especially for the purpose of training student Bible teachers, and for the study of the best methods, courses, and men, to be employed in the promotion of Bible interest among the half -million of col- lege, preparatory, and high-school students of the United States and Canada. These in- stitutes usually extended over three days, and meetings were held with all divisions of the student life — faculty men, fraternity men, athletic students, Bible teachers, pas- tors, Sunday-school workers in the college town, and officers and committees of the 23 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE college Young Men's Christian Association. In addition there were held large public as- semblies where the modern movement for Bible study was brought before the entire student body. Many of these Bible Institutes were attended by delegates from the principal institutions of learning in a State or section, thus affording an excellent opportunity to exchange experiences in both the dynamic and the technical branches of Bible propa- ganda. The following subjects of a recent Bible Institute, held at Iowa State College, will be found suggestive : Place and Function of Bible Study in College Life. Essential Relations of the Bible-study Leader: (1) The Leader in Relation to the Truth. (2) The Leader in Relation to the Book. (3) The Leader in Relation to the Student. A Specimen Class Hour — Group 1 : Life of Paul. Group 2: Life of Christ. Group 3: Social Significance of Jesus' Teachings. Group 4: The Will of God. Why Fraternity Men Should Study the Bible. What Bible Study Has Meant to Our Fraternity. (A Testimony.) Fraternity Bible Study from the Standpoint of an En- gineer. (By a Dean of Division of Engineering.) 04 COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE Why Our Fraternity is Planning to Study the Bible. (A Testimony.) Ways and Means of Promoting Bible Study Among Fraternity Men. Relation of the Student to the Church Bible Class. Duty of the Church to Provide Constructive Bible Study Work for the Student. Ways and Means of Promoting Church Bible Classes for Students. Some Fundamental Objectives of Bible Study. Evangelism, One Great Objective of Bible Study. The Place of Habitual Bible Study in the Development of the Strongest Character. Bible Study, a Constructive Factor in College Life. What Can the Faculty Member Do to Promote Bible Study? Bible Study the World Around. It is of critical importance to the church to know how wide-spread is this Bible inter- est among all classes of North American institutions. The State institutions which possess little opportunity to impress moral or religious truth directly through the cur- riculum, are among the leaders in this volun- tary Bible-study uprising. The list given herewith of twenty-five in- stitutions of widely varying types, is striking 25 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE evidence of the fact that the college man is truly aroused to the value and to the modern means of Bible study: Institution (Number of >> 3 5 men m indicated in institution parentheses ) go a as WW Continu Two Mo or Mo 0) Eh University of Toronto (3,305) University of Texas (1,225) University of Illinois (2,900) University of Pennsylvania (5,389) . . . Iowa State College (1,600) Yale University (3,282) Pennsylvania State College (1,632) . . Cornell University (3,800) Princeton University (1,442) Mississippi Agricultural College (1,085) University of Wisconsin (2,800) Clemson Agricultural College (700) . . . Stanford University (1,247) Columbia University (2,736) Georgia School of Technology (648).. Dartmouth College (1,217) William Jewell College (525) United States Naval Academy (774).. United States Military Acad. (419) . . Syracuse University (1,625) Lafayette College (520) Northwestern College (265) Emory and Henry College (215) Keystone State Normal School (250) . . University of Virginia (718) Lawrenceville School (400) 860 576 600 500 750 400 1157 527 800 700 950 850 650 1050 650 641 488 555 350 325 175 348 263 268 240 280 218 276 248 353 300 125 115 340 200 255 227 241 180 135 160 160 180 170 80 80 215 150 20 20 Furthermore, this movement has been largely guided by the best undergraduate 26 w z u m > 2; > •£ < * T -^ 09 - COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE leadership of our institutions. It is not an enterprise for the mollycoddle or for those students simply who would be expected to be interested. It has reached students of all classes of opinion, of all races, of all voca- tions. No one can contemplate the sweep of this great awakening in the appended facts, which have recently been secured from the student constituency of this country and Canada, without gathering new hope for the college, for the church, and for the life of to-day : 28,562 men were reported by 490 institutions as having attended Bible classes for two months or more. 9,089 men followed habits of daily Bible study in 338 institutions. 6,156 non-Christian men were reported in Bible classes in 302 institutions. 5,061 fraternity men were reported studying the Bible in 120 institutions. 2,308 students led Bible groups in 306 institutions. 2,272 of these leaders were in attendance at 305 nor- mal classes in 139 institutions. 800 faculty men cooperated in the Bible-study work in 295 institutions. 27 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIEE 1,252 college men were led into the Christian life through Bible classes in 101 institutions. 33,657 Bible-study text-books were purchased. 185 Bible study reference libraries were available in 142 institutions. That the busiest students in the colleges have time for Bible study is evidenced by the number of men in Bible classes last year who held prominent positions in college life. These included : 1,522 Members of 'Varsity Football Teams. 1,454 Members of College Glee Clubs. 653 Editors of College Papers. 1,402 Members of 'Varsity Baseball Teams. 755 Class Presidents. 983 Prize and Scholarship Men. 712 Members of 'Varsity Basketball Teams. 92 Members of 'Varsity Crews. 1,053 Members of 'Varsity Track Teams. It is interesting to note that the eighteen national movements, comprizing the World's Student Christian Federation, engaged in similar promotion of voluntary Bible study last year. 28 COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE II — Church Bible Study The church, also, through the Sunday- school, is taking fresh hold upon the Bible. The following statistical facts, recorded at the World's Sixth Sunday-school Conven- tion, held in Washington, D. C, are impress- ive: Number of Sunday-schools in the United States, 150,455. Number of officers and teachers, 1,544,455. Number of scholars, 12,777,739. Total enrolment, 14,- 322,194. Average enrolment per school, 95. Popula- tion, 90,000,000. Number population per school, 599. Number of Sunday-schools in Canada, 10,211. Num- ber of officers and teachers, 84,675. Number of scholars, 733,135. Total enrolment, 817,810. Average enrolment per school, 80. Population, 5,371,315. Number of pop- ulation per school, 526. The total statistics for Sunday-schools of the world, according to late reports, are as follows : Number of Sunday-schools, 285,999. Number of of- ficers and teachers, 2,607,371. Number of scholars, 25,- 403,823. Total enrolment, 28,011,194. Average enrol- ment per school, 98. Population, 1,624,321,004. Number of population per school, 5,680. Stockport, England, seems to be credited 29 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE with the largest school, with 235 men teach- ers, 295 women teachers, and 4,824 scholars, making a total of 5,354. Two of America's Sunday-schools follow closely in point of nu- merical success : the Bethany school, of Phila- delphia, with a total reported membership of 5,215, and one at Brazil, Ind., reporting 4,892. The Sunday-school is also recasting its methods and revising its appeals to all classes. It is paying particular attention to its adult department, with the result that over one-half million of young men were re- lated to the Sunday-school and church last year through membership in the large or- ganized Bible classes for men. It is not un- common in our larger churches to find 300 or 400 and sometimes as many as 500 men enrolled in a single class. In the city of Bochester it is reported that 1,000 men meet in four such organized Bible classes each Sunday morning, in four churches within a radius of one mile. The accession to the church from such classes, both in actual 30 COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE membership, and through many avenues of service, is quite inestimable. Ill — Cooperative Bible Study the Next Step The question of vital moment now be- comes: How shall these two great streams of Bible interest in church and school be united? The college man is interested in Bible study in the college, and he is securing invaluable training as a teacher and or- ganizer. What is he to do in the church both during his college days and after gradua- tion? The pastor and the Christian Sunday- school worker are becoming increasingly enthusiastic over Bible enterprises in the environment of the church. Do they feel any obligation for Bible study in the pre- paratory school or college when the church is located in a college town? Are they think- ing and planning to give the students of the college a definite place in church Bible pro- grams? These questions suggest the next step in the advanced Bible movement of our times. 31 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE I suggest five ways by which such indis- pensable union may be accomplished. These hints are based upon work now in progress in various places, and which is bringing to- gether the church and college in Bible study. IV — How Can the Church and School Work Together? First— A cooperating committee consist- ing of five or six members in a college town, including pastor, Sunday-school superin- tendent, faculty man, a student leader of the college Bible movement, and the general secretary of the college Young Men's Chris- tian Association, when such an officer is em- ployed. At Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State College is located, such a committee has been able to correlate the Bible work for students in a successful manner. When I visited this institution recently, 160 students were meet- ing in Bible classes in the church, and at least 400 were in classes in the college environ- ment. Each section knew what the other section was doing. Bible courses and meth- COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE ods were suited to students meeting in churches, as to students meeting on the cam- pus. Pastors were helping in the college Bible classes and the student workers were cooperating in forming and promoting the church classes. Second — Enlistment of college graduates in church Bible study in our large cities. Many a city pastor writes to me asking how he can obtain and maintain the interest and service of college alumni in the Bible cause of the city church. One of the first needs is to study the local church needs relative to engaging college men's attention. Has the church something concrete and practical enough to engage the graduate's time and sacrifice? He is used to definite tasks and often conducts Bible campaigns of some proportion in college. He responds when he is invited to take specific work, such as leading Bible groups or forming boys' clubs for study, service, and athletics. The college man, fresh from school, enjoys studying and applying the social 33 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE principles of Christianity. He would be lured into taking leadership of such Bible movements in the church as those of organ- izing and leading campaigns for small Bible classes ; forming large organized Bible classes for men ; training Bible teachers in the life of Christ ; or in the social and political teachings of the Bible; securing up-to-date reference books for Sunday-school classes; organizing young people's societies for Bible study and mission study ; and assisting in making serv- iceable the Bible study in the church by en- listing Bible-class members in social, re- ligious, or mission work in the town. The definite and valuable contribution rendered by college graduates in New York City, under the leadership of Mr. Orrin Cocks, graduate secretary of the New York City Intercollegiate Young Men's Christian Association, may be stimulating to those in- terested in this problem: A Cornell man, a member of the Committee of the Graduate Department, has seen the opportunity to serve Christ during the past years in a more satisfactory way 34 COLLEGE, CHURCH. AND BIBLE than as an engineer, and has taken a position as sec- retary in a Young Men's Christian Association outside of New York. Another graduate of very good family has had his eyes opened to the social needs of the city through con- versations, trips, and work, and has lately become a director of a settlement among the needy. A technology graduate said, after a trip among the missions, settlements, and tenements on the East Side, that he had received more from that trip than from any course he had taken in college. An Oberlin man decided, after several weeks' discus- sion of moral problems of the day at the Graduate House, that he would give his spare time to an East Side settlement, and is now in residence. A Cornell man, who was somewhat careless and in- different in college, has been slowly coming to a reali- zation of his religious needs, and was approached about a definite bit of work. In the course of the conversa- tion, he agreed that this was the one thing he needed, and is now growing into the lives of a number of young men in a Brooklyn Settlement. Third — Training classes in colleges taught by ministers and leading laymen who are college graduates. Last college year there were 2,308 stu- dents leading Bible groups in North Amer- ican colleges. Such students must be trained 35 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE if the groups are to succeed in maintaining the interest of the men through the year. There were 305 Bible-training classes in col- leges last year ; there should have been double the number to cover adequately the different courses of study pursued. Here is the oppor- tunity for men of mature minds and special Bible training. A clergyman would hardly have a greater, a more multiplying, or a more strategic privilege than that of meeting for an hour of training each week ten young stu- dent Bible teachers, who in turn are to teach 100 other students. Many ministers are at present helping to solve the question of the relation of the church and college in their communities by interesting themselves in stu- dents, and, in person, forming a living bond between town and gown. Fourth — Faculty men teaching Bible classes and training classes in the church. The church should find teachers of the Bible in college professors and in college instruct- ors. At a recent meeting of faculty men, which I attended in a large State university, 36 U 4) 5 I 5 COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE fourteen professors volunteered to teach Bible classes, a number of them saying they had for some time been desirous to do some- thing of this sort, but had not before been confronted by a definite call to a definite class. There were 800 such professors ac- tively engaged in Bible-study organization and teaching in the colleges last year. There were, however, several thousand additional Christian faculty men whose life work is teaching, who were not enlisted in teaching the greatest literature in the world— the Book wherein, Carlyle said, "for thousands of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment, and the response to what- ever was deepest in his heart/ ' A little inquiry on the part of church- members would discover the men from the faculty who would be best fitted for such Bible teaching in the church. Many college professors of my acquaintance are teaching the Bible in university towns with church denominations other than their own. As a certain professor exprest it: "I am inter- 37 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE ested in presenting the Bible to people who have not discovered it, more than I am in- terested in the name of the church where I teach. ' ' Fifth — Appointment of pastors and Sun- day-school superintendents who can interest college people. In the final analysis coopera- tive success is personal success. Some pas- tors and some superintendents never get the cooperation of college men or faculty men because their type does not attract the aca- demic constituency. This may be the fault of the college community equally with the church community. However, it is one of the most stubborn and apparent facts in the way of this successful Bible cooperation in many sections of the world. You can get the college man's respect at long range, but you will seldom get his active, glad service in a college church whose pastor and type of workers are utterly unlike his type in their attitude of mind and methods of work. Sympathetic and intelligent appreciation and breadth of view must be added to depth of 38 COLLEGE, CHURCH, AND BIBLE conviction on both sides, if we are to secure such union of education and religion as the Bible needs in our time. I realize that we are near the heart of our difficulty here, and that it is a matter for church councils and synods and local parishes. It is a question which is lifted out of triteness and inepti- tude because of its transcendent importance. The pastor himself — his kind, his example, his temper, his ability — yes, the spirit of the church as a whole in a given community, these are the facts which concern first and chiefly the college man, the church, and the Bible. 39 Chaptee III BIBLE STUDY AMONG MEN IN THE ORIENT -ii Written in the East, these characters live forever in the West; written in one province, they pervade the world; penned in rude times, they are prized more and more as civilization advances; product of antiquity, they come home to the business and bosoms of men, women, and children in modern days. Then is it any exaggeration to say that the ' ' characters of Scripture are a marvel of the mind"? — Eobert Louis Stevenson Consider the great historical fact that for three cen- turies this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple from John o' Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso were once to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of a merely literary form; and, fi- nally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations of the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities, and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its efforts to do good and hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for their work? — Huxley It lives on the ear like a music that can never be for- gotten, like the sound of church-bells which the convert scarcely knows how he can forego. . . . The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of child- hood are stereotyped in its verses. It is the representative of a man's best moments; all that there is about him of soft and gentle and pure and penitent and good speaks to him forever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt never dimmed and controversy never soiled; and in the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible. — Faber 42 Chapter III BIBLE STUDY AMONG MEN IN THE ORIENT I — Signs of Awakening Bible Interest The Bible is rapidly acquiring a position of preeminence among the college men of the East. In three nations of the Orient during the past year national committees of Bible scholars have been formed with the express purpose of preparing, in the native languages, Bible courses and literature suit- able for Bible students. In Japan the first result of this Bible committee's work has been a course of studies in Japanese on "The Social Teach- ings of Jesus,' ' prepared by Professor Y. Chiba. This Bible course has been arranged especially for use in small groups. It is the first series of studies which has been written with this design for Japanese students. A booklet has also been issued by another 43 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE member of this committee, Professor H. Yoshizaki, entitled " Bible Study in Small Groups.' ' Still another booklet by Pres- ident King, of Oberlin, has been translated by Mr. N. Niwa, the title of which is "Bible Study the Great Way Into Life's Values." In the city of Shanghai in the autumn of 1910 a Bible institute, held for three days, was attended by 3,000 Chinese young men. An extensive series of Bible institutes sim- ilar to this one was arranged with much care for the next college year. These insti- tutes will reach the chief student life of the empire of China. During my visit at the city of Seoul, in Korea, I found the Bible to be the chief book of this nation. Great difficulty is ex- perienced in furnishing enough Bibles at twenty-two cents apiece, to supply the Ko- reans. A few years ago one church ordered 20,000 copies of the New Testament. The publishing of these books was delayed for a brief time, with the result that every copy was sold before a single one was printed. 44 o — rt o rt u > w ~ ■ ~ t; o I £ 1 - w -T! bo o Cfi o (U > "5b 5J — TZ * rt C •S ^ 5 BIBLE STUDY IN THE ORIENT In one meeting in the city of Seoul I saw 655 Koreans enroll themselves in Bible classes. A training class for teachers was formed, with a membership of thirty-five educated men, led by Mr. Ye Sang Chai, one of the leading scholars in that country. In India the Bible is rapidly becoming the most valued of all sacred books. For several years Pandita Ramabai, perhaps the most learned woman in India, has been en- gaging the services of fifty workers, with her own printing establishment, for the translation of the Bible, and the making of a commentary upon the same, for the eighteen million Indians who speak her native language, the Maratha. A Brahman professor, who presided at a student meet- ing that I addrest in the city of Lahore, North India, speaking to an audience com- posed almost entirely of Hindu, Moham- medan, and Parsee students, exclaimed: "I have read through the Bible carefully, not once, but many times. I consider the Sermon on the Mount one of the greatest pieces of 45 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE moral and religious literature in the world. I venture to say that the students of India know the Bible better than they know any sacred book of Hinduism." II — National Bible Secretaries In view of such facts as these, it is of the most striking significance that national Bible secretaries have been appointed to give their entire time and attention to the supervision and promotion of student Bible study, in each of the three sections of the Orient — India, China and Korea, and Japan. These men, already in close touch with the great student Bible movements of North America and Europe, plan to devote their lives to a thoroughgoing study of that spirit and method of Bible study best adapted to the life and development of these oriental na- tions. One of these recently appointed spe- cial Bible secretaries from the West is spend- ing a year in language-study in order to be able to present the Bible to the people in their own tongue. 46 BIBLE STUDY IN THE ORIENT III — Bible Literature and Teachers The whole matter of native Biblical liter- ature, of which these nations are in such peculiar need at present, will be among the first things considered. No mere translation of Western Bible-study books will be ad- equate to meet the demands of these Eastern peoples. Literature must be prepared by men whose knowledge of the life of these nations is both inherent and trained. A great progress will be noted, also, dur- ing the next decade in the Orient in the training of expert Bible teachers. During a six weeks' Bible campaign in China and Korea, not less than 3,000 students were en- gaged in Bible study. This number might have been increased many-fold had there been trained Bible teachers to accept leadership in the classes. The group plan of study is especially consistent with the Oriental love of discussion and argument; but this system in the East, as well as in the West, is dependent upon efficient agencies for the training of teachers. Let- 47 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE ters from the Orient confirm the fact that the leaders of the Bible work among the tens of thousands of students of these na- tions are keenly alive to this particular need. This fact is evinced in the formation of teacher training classes in the student cen- ters, and in the general preparation for Bible- training institutes. IV — Bible Evangelism It is, however, as an evangelizing agency that the Bible promises to be an outstanding influence in the next generation of students in Eastern Asia. An old Brahman in Cal- cutta said to me, "The Bible will stir the conscience of India — the conscience which has been slumbering through thousands of years — and India will awake to Christian- ity.' ' One Christian worker among students in the city of Calcutta told me of scores of Hindu students who had come to him, one by one, to study with him, for an hour, the English Bible, and to discuss the most vital questions of their personal lives. Among 48 BIBLE STUDY IN THE ORIENT these men he also pointed out a goodly num- ber of thoughtful students, who, through the influence of such personal conversations, had been led to accept discipleship with the great Oriental Teacher. In the city of Allahabad an Oxford grad- uate related to me his experience with a Brahman student who read the Bible with him for over a year. Especial attention was given to the life and teaching of Jesus. No reference was made to the personal accept- ance of Christ on the part of this Brahman student. At the end of the year, however, the teacher said one day to his Hindu scholar, "What do you think of Jesus Christ V 9 The answer came slowly, but with peculiar certainty, "I think that Jesus Christ was the greatest man who ever lived. I think — yes, I know — He is my Savior.' ' A competent intellectual and spiritual in- terpretation of the Bible, as a result of this movement, will greatly further the cause of evangelism among thinking men in the East. A very representative scholar and teacher 49 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN LIFE of the city of Tientsin, Chang Po Ling, re- cently accepted Christianity. It is noteworthy that he has been retained as the head of a government school, subsequent to his conver- sion. He exprest to me his ambition to be- come so proficient in the knowledge of the principles of Christianity, through the study of the Bible, that he might be able to trans- late into the Chinese language the central meaning of the Christian religion. One is profoundly imprest, also, in Korea by going into churches that are literally packed to the doors, many containing over a thousand men and women, listening to the exposition of the Bible. The vivid appre- hension of the deep principles of this book is now the predominant influence in bring- ing Korea, as a nation, nearer perhaps to an entire Christian evangelization than any nation on the face of the earth. At least, a traveler in this country is deeply imprest with the fact of the tremendous power of the Bible when it is with transparent honesty ac- cepted in its simplest terms. 50 BIBLE STUDY IN THE ORIENT V — Spiritual Reality It does not take unusual prophetic powers to realize also the wonderful use of the Bible in the East as a means for developing spiri- tual reality and power in personal living. I was deeply imprest to find, in the city of Nagasaki, fifty students in one of the col- leges, arising at six o'clock each morning and spending an hour, singly and together, in prayer and Bible study. It was not sur- prizing to find an unusual depth of serious motive and ideal among the men of this in- stitution. These students had discovered not simply the knoivledge, but the power of the Bible. It is not unusual to see Christian Indians studying their Bibles on the trains, and often in the hostels, where Bible classes are being formed. One Christian worker ex- plained to me how the entire atmosphere of one of his student hostels had been changed through the influence of a Bible group, which met each week in one of the students' rooms. While comparatively few students have as 51 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE yet been brought to accept Christianity openly, the spirit of student relationships has often been entirely transformed. In the main hall of the Association Building at Cal- cutta, one may read the significant words, "Bought by the power of prayer.' ' A Chinese student in one of the colleges of South China was marked off from other leaders by the audacity of his attempts to make the Bible real among his fellow stu- dents. I asked him how he came to be so much more interested than the other stu- dents. He answered, "I have studied for a year the spirit and method of Jesus Christ." I was told that he kept with great serious- ness a half hour each day for the study of the life of Christ. The impression of this student's life was extraordinary. After all, the great question of the East, as well as of the West, is the question of character. Whether we think of the confused political questions of India, the intricate com- mercial relationships of China, the proper industrial development of Korea, or the 52 2 "55.5 to 5 * H -5 « 2 g - BIBLE STUDY IN THE ORIENT striking military and social evolution of Japan — all these are subjects which are di- rectly affected by the influence of the teach- ings of the Bible upon conduct. As one of our own great political leaders said not long ago, "The questions that decide the success of men in the present age are, 'Will the in- dividual lie?' 'Will he steal T 'Is he pure in heart?' " We are utterly convinced that no man can habitually follow the custom of daily Bible study in serious meditation and communion with God, without achieving in his own life the preeminent qualities which made the life of Jesus immortal. The East needs, supremely, at this time the embodiment in the lives of men of the chief message of the Bible — the love of God. I shall not soon forget the meeting with a great pioneer missionary leader in India. For thirty-five years he has poured out his life for that people; and altho he has been obliged often to beat his way against great odds, through all the years he has kept his spirit of "sweetness and light/ ' being 53 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE known far and wide for his great loving- kindness. I said to him, "What is the great influence for the making of Christianity a fact among the educated men of India V J His answer came instantly, "Men whose hearts are filled with the love of God." I saw this great man address an audience of Indians. I saw him at the close, as he took them by the hand and looked into their eyes. I was convinced that he had found the su- preme secret for the evangelization of the world. 54 Chapter IV SUCCESSFUL OBGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF BIBLE STUDY 55 And that the English Version, especially of the New Testament, which bears in particular the impress of the genius of Tyndale, is a greater literary work than the original Greek will be generally allowed. Lord Tennyson, we are told in his biography, would sometimes insist on this point. Some parts of the New Testament, he would say, are finer in English than in Greek, especially in the Apocalypse; and he would instance the passage, "And again they said Alleluia: and her smoke rose up for ever and ever." Magnificent conception, he would say — dark- ness and fire rolling together, for ever and ever! Or he would quote with boundless admiration the opening pas- sage of the tenth chapter, "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire." — John Vaughn: Cornhill Magazine Match, if you can, the Bible's Table of Contents! 1. The story of the Fall and of the Flood, grandest of human traditions founded on a true horror of sin. 2. The story of the Patriarchs. 3. The story of Moses, with the results of that tra- dition on the moral law of all the civilized world. 4. The story of the Kings; virtually that of all king- hood in David, and all philosophy in Solomon, culminating in the Psalms and Proverbs, and. the still more close and practical wisdom of Ecelesiastes and the son of Sirach. 5. The story of the Prophets; virtually the deepest mystery, tragedy, and permanent fate of national ex- istence. 6. The story of Christ. 7. The moral law of St. John and his closing Apoca- lypse of its fulfilment. — John Ruskin Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, And the man that getteth understanding. For the gaining of it is better than the gaining of silver, And the profit thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: And none of the things thou canst desire are to be com- pared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand: In her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. —Proverbs 3:13-17 56 Chapter IV SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF BIBLE STUDY I — Spirit and Method An English friend once said to me, "When you Americans wish to accomplish anything you appoint a committee; if this doesn't work you appoint another commit- tee; and if this fails you start an organiza- tion.' ' This American genius for organization, which has attended some of our chief accom- plishments, is now being focused upon Bible study among laymen. The time is opportune and the need insistent. The Bible has been severed altogether too long from practical experience. It has been regarded as a book of the skies — extraordinary — subtle — exotic — other-worldly — and quite exempt from such treatment as draws meaning and power from other literature. I have noticed sur- 57 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE prized wonder on faces of men when Bible classes which have just been " started' ' have just "stopt." But why should we expect success in Bible study without exertion? What reason in wondering that Bible classes do not succeed when they are characterized by loose methods? The following significant answers have recently come to me from laymen of whom I asked the secret of their success with Bible study among men: "hard work" — "teacher who studies systematically his Bible" — "never say die" — "a Bible-study committee that meets and does business" — "expect to sacrifice to make Bible study suc- cessful" (this answer from a man who has been known to sit up all night with his com- mittee to work out the details and plans of his Bible campaign) — "a task hard enough to test your faith in God" — "real Bible study not all talk" — "making a Bible class mean something worth while in the com- munity" — "regular Bible-study habits on the part of at least a few members" — 58 ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT 11 using Bible study as a means of winning men for the Christian life." There are two elements In successful Bible-study propaganda: spirit and method. The spirit of the work is primary and fundamental. Dr. George A. Gordon in his "Ultimate Conceptions of Faith " declares: "The question of the success or defeat of life belongs wholly in the sphere of the spirit.' ' There must first be the imagination, the sentiment, the belief, the vision-bringing incentive. No satisfactory action lasts ex- ultantly without a clear and continuous con- ception of the need, the objective, the "why." No less essential, however, is the method; the way to do it — the what? the how! the when? the where? and the who? The spiri- tual enginery may be ever so warm and powerful, but the tracks also determine the progress and the arrival of the train. The Bible-study method is the bridge between the dream and its fulfilment : it is always present with successful Bible enterprises. 59 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE We note two elements which have to do with the spirit of Bible-study undertakings and which form the rudiments of their success : II — Large Purpose Bible study often fails because it involves no adequate ambition, no imperial endeavor. Mr. Edison, when asked his secret of suc- cess, replied: "I try to think of the biggest thing that can be done, and then do it." This principle applies to Bible enterprises. A business man said to me some years ago, "I will join in your Bible-study work if you really meditate a big thing." "The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world," said Buskin, "is to see something and then go and tell what he has seen in a plain way." In a successful Bible- study program at least one man must see something and he must see it "in the big," as the college men say. His Bible-study plan must have scale and outreach sufficient to require superhuman aid for full accom- 60 •f. ■- — V ~ +J GO C O > := _ u rt c ■i. a — - S - £ "- 1 X « - < 0) u Jj QJ < be OJ 5b % "aa — H c3 o £ at £ a ~r. •y. < m ■3 ^ s — — < u u « < 3 fro OJ < 1 o 1 X ^ D vr £ H — c nl X ±i tfl aJ £ ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT plishment. This spirit of large faith and audacity made unique the work of Jesus. In a New England church, where only a few men had been interested in Bible study, a dozen individuals, with a vision, met one evening in the church vestry and arranged a Bible campaign calling for an enrolment of two hundred and fifty men in Bible classes within a year. They had first prayed (a small motive can not live in a big prayer, says Dr. Jowett). The money to be appropriated, the place, the time, printing, course of Bible study, and men to be se- cured, were all considered relative to the spirit and demand of this invigorating ideal. Jn six months the membership of the organ- ization passed the three-hundred mark. At the end of the first year more than four hundred men were enlisted in Bible study. In four years one hundred of these men had joined the church. To-day many of these members of the original Bible class are standing solidly in the foundations of that Christian society. 61 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN LIFE Students at the University of Illinois in the year 1903 approved of an advance policy for Bible study which then appeared to be enormous, indeed almost fanatical. They planned to enroll 300 men in voluntary Bible classes. They actually did enlist 290 men. This number steadily increased from year to year until in 1909 this institution reported 725 students as continuing in voluntary and systematic Bible classes in this institution. One can scarcely measure either the direct or indirect influence of such an endeavor in a State university which usually affords no direct religious teaching through its curric- ulum studies other than that inaugurated by the students. While attending a conference of the World's Student Christian Federation in Holland, a few years ago, a teacher from Asia Minor told me that the inspiring ac- count of the Bible campaign of the Univer- sity of Illinois had been the means of crea- ting a new and practical enthusiasm for the Bible in his country. Phillips Brooks said: 62 OKGANIZATION AND CONDUCT "Pray for powers to fit your tasks, not for tasks to fit your powers." The carrying of the Bible to men is a divine work. Men who undertake it must believe in Almighty God. Has Christian faith entered into the Bible program of our churches or communities? Do we believe sufficiently in the Bible to at- tempt great things with it and for it? Jesus said: "He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bounti- fully shall reap also bountifully. ' ' Many a church, or section, or minister, could win, and become a light to the nations in Bible-study influence, if some of the au- dacious faith of Jesus Christ, our teacher and example in leadership, could be breathed through the enterprise. Ill — Spirit of Victory A Bible-study movement to be successful must have one or two leaders who believe in the cause irresistibly and who are filled with the spirit of victory. "That cause is strong,' ' says Lowell, "which has, not a 63 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE multitude, but one strong man behind it." After all, the great method in Bible study- is a man — a man who dares — a man who sees the goal more clearly than he sees the obstacles in his path — a man, as Carlyle would say, "who knows how to die." A few years ago a young man led a Bible work in the city of Brooklyn, which enlisted over five hundred men in Bible study at one of the buildings of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association. He encountered indiffer- ence, hostility, and sometimes disdain. Few believed he would succeed, but the spirit of victory in the man won that Bible campaign. Gradually opposition melted before the burning zeal of this leader. The association building, and the homes of many members were filled, one night each week, with scores of young men studying the Bible. The gen- eral secretary was asked the reason for this great awakening. He answered, "We had a man for a leader who was fool enough to believe he couldn't fail." This man saw the goal more clearly than the obstacles. 64 v 'C ^J ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT Oh, prudence is a right good thing, And those are useful friends Who never make beginnings Until they see the ends. But now and then give me a man And I will make him king, Just to take the consequences, Just to do the thing. Some one has defined a committee as an organization composed of three members, one of whom is dead, a second traveling in Europe, and the third doing the work. Whatever a Bible-study organization or a Bible class lacks, it must not be lacking in at least one man with the habit of success, with "two-o 'clock-in- the-morning courage" — a man who is thrilled, as was the great Leader of men, with the idea: "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished !" If a Bible work possesses a large aim and determined leadership there are points which have to do with method which can not be overlooked. 65 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE Some practical policy is indispensable: a policy which will delegate responsibility to men and assure definite and concrete result. A Bible-study committee is often appointed to look after the plans for organization and development. A successful Bible enterprise in New York, which has for three years engaged the attendance and active interest of many men, was started and conducted as follows: One man who felt this need of Bible study called together two or three of his friends to talk over the subject. Suggestions were made, and enthusiasm, with allegiance, grew. Arrangements were perfected for a dinner at a certain hotel, to be attended by about twenty-five of the representative men of the church and congregation. Care was taken to invite to this dinner men of such type and influence as would add both efficiency and dignity to the organization. At the close of the dinner the Bible plans were presented, cards were passed, and the names and ad- dresses were taken of men who wished to 66 ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT join the Bible class as charter members. A committee was appointed to select a teacher, place, time of meeting, course of study, program for the first session, etc. The very- next Sunday thirty men met for an hour (9:30-10:30 a.m.) and engaged in Bible study and listened to an exposition concern- ing the life of Christ. The course of study chosen for the class was Prof. J. W. Jenks's book entitled, "Social Significance of the Teachings of Jesus " On the following Tuesday evening the members met socially, having supper to- gether at the parish house, after which plans for the development of the organization were considered. The charter members in- vited other men to be present with them at this meeting, when an organization was de- cided upon and officers elected. Plans for Bible lectures, social service, and a weekly meeting were heartily accepted. For three years this organization, "through summer's heat and winter's cold," has maintained this weekly meeting on Tues- 67 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE day night, preceded by a supper which the members attend at six o'clock, coming thereto directly from business. Often the Bible subject presented on Sunday is discust by the members in little groups in the chap- ter-house on Tuesday evening, thereby as- suring individual interest on the part of the members and greatly enhancing the attract- iveness and value of the Sunday interpre- tation. This class has engaged in philanthropic and missionary interests and is constantly training among its officers and upon its committees a goodly number of young men, many of whom engage in the services of the church. It is usually easier, however, to enlist men in Bible study than it is to sustain their inter- est and regular attendance. But it is the men who "continue" in the Word who really dis- cover the Bible. Bible enrolment must be fol- lowed by independent study, by regular par- ticipation in the discussion of Biblical truth, and by active effort to enlist others, if we 68 ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT are to really win laymen for the Christian Scriptures. Among many modern methods for main- taining Bible study the following have proved quite universally successful: IV — Series of Bible Lectures The subject of Bible study is kept attract- ively before laymen by monthly or semi- monthly lectures by Bible scholars. The topics of such lectures are as important as a wise selection of speakers. I give a few titles which have incited much interest in varied communities. "Why Should a Business Man Study the Bible !" "The Place of the Bible in Modern Thinking." "The Bible in Public Life." "The Nature and Origin of the Bible." "Is the Bible Scientific!" "Marks of a Bible Teacher." "How Can I Get Interested in the Bible?" "The Philosophy of the Book of Job." "The Bible and Literature." "Lincoln's Use of the Bible." "The Social Message of Jesus." THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE V — Course of Study The course of study has much to do with the holding of interest. A suggestive outline should be chosen and every man in the class should own a copy. Much care should be taken to fit this outline to the needs of the men. I recently discovered a Bible class of high-school boys struggling hard to maintain their interest in a treatise entitled: " Bible Hieroglyphics and the Ancient Monuments." I would draw attention to two courses of Bible study upon the life and teachings of Christ which have had successful use among thousands of laymen : ' ' The Life and Works of Jesus According to St. Mark," by W. D. Murray (for beginners) and "The Teach- ings of Jesus and His Apostles," by Dean Edward I. Bosworth, for men who wish to give more real study to the subject. VI — Individual Work The teachers who are capable of retaining throughout the year the steady attendance of their students usually confess to a large 70 ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT amount of personal service outside the class. A leader of a large Bible work which has continued with increasing loyalty from year to year makes it a point to entertain a dozen members at his home one evening each week. At West Point, where 250 cadets are studying the Bible every week in voluntary classes in connection with the Student Young Men's Christian Association, we find that the teacher of the groups usually reminds every man in his class, just before the hour of meeting, by a personal call. A popular teacher of two Bible classes in a large city told me he had spent at least an hour alone with each man in his two classes for the sake of personal acquaintance and friendship. A successful Bible class is one that pos- sesses not simply a large aim but also a true aim. What is our Bible study for? Are the results serviceable? There was both a clear object and also a definite result in that first Bible class of which Jesus was the teacher. In one of our large agricultural and me- 71 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE chanieal colleges eight hundred men in sixty- seven groups have this year been making a frank, scientific study of the facts of Christ's life, as presented in Mark and then in John. One hundred men made a quiet, definite de- cision for the Christian life in a four days' evangelistic campaign, a result which the leader felt was a direct outgrowth of this Bible study. He, the Teacher, the Lover of men, is the objective, the incentive of suc- cessful Bible study. The Bible-class teacher may well keep before himself the words of Eichard Watson Gilder: Behold him now where he comes ! Not the Christ of our subtle creeds, But the lord of our hearts, of our homes, Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs; The brother of want and blame, The lover of women and men, With a love that puts to shame All passions of mortal ken. 72 Chapter V BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES 73 I do not know a book which gives in such compact and poetic form every phase of human ideas as the Bible. All the questions which arise out of the manifestations of nature have their answer here; all the original relations of man to man, the family, the state, and religion are known for the first time through this book. The power of truth and wisdom in its simple, childish form, take hold of the child's mind with their powerful charm. The Psalms of David influence not only the thought of the child, but he learns to know for the first time the whole fascination of poetry in its inimitable purity and strength. Who of us has not wept over the story of Joseph and his brethren, or listened to the story of the shorn Samson with much anxiety and beating of the heart; and who has not received all those other hundreds of noble impressions, which we have drawn in as with our mother's milk? I repeat it, without the Bible the education of the child in the present state of society is impossible. — Tolstoy "In this Book," says the aged grandmother, in Tenny- son's poem — "In this Book, little Annie, the message is one of peace." All that I have taught of Art, everything that I have written, whatever greatness there has been in any thought of mine, whatever I have done in my life, has simply been due to the fact that, when I was a child, my mother daily read with me a part of the Bible, and daily made me learn a part of it by heart. — John Buskin All the doors that lead inward to the sacred place of the Most High are doors outward — out of self, out of smallness, out of wrong. — George MacDonald The joyful life is the life of the larger mission, the dis- interested life, the life of the overflow from self, the "more abundant life" which comes from following Christ. — Henry Drummond 74 Chapter V BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES I — The Teacher of a Small Class The tendencies of Bible-study movements in different countries point to the ever- increasing use of the small discussional group as a means of interesting all kinds of per- sons in the Bible. Altho the size of these groups may vary somewhat, through the abil- ity of the teacher and local circumstances, it is generally found that eight or ten persons form the most feasible number for a success- ful Bible group. A clear advantage of the small Bible group over the large organized class using the lecture method lies in the fact that each man in a small group is given op- portunity for expressing his own views, and thereby advancing immediately his interest and enthusiasm in personal Bible study. Whether the Bible class is a large organ- ized meeting of men in a church, or a small 75 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE group of individuals, or a meeting of two or three friends, the first essential is a teacher in whom the members of the class believe utterly. It may not be too often reiterated that character is caught, not taught. Some one has said that influence is a matter of suction. "I do not remember a thing the teacher said, but I do remember him," was a student's comment concerning a great Bible leader. An old lady in Doctor McCheyne's church, in Scotland, said she had rather see Doctor McCheyne walk from the door of the church into the pulpit than to hear any other man preach a sermon. The Bible class is not a mere academic lecture-room. It is not a place for dispensing moral philosophy and "greatest happiness" principles. It is a place for the revelation of the purposes of God. Such revelation is most impressive through human incorporation of the principles in- volved. Bible study, if actual, affects motives, and motives are aroused only by men who believe things irresistibly. The man who faces 76 BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES weekly a group of Bible students has one of the matchless opportunities of these times. This opportunity is something far higher and greater than passing on cheerful quotations and badly worn platitudes. The teacher's chance is to set the current of the student's soul toward God and the service of the hand toward his brother man. For such tasks personal character is indis- pensably important. The teacher will be the only Bible which many of his pupils will truly read. He can teach just so far as he truly is. If he is merely perfunctory or a professional religionist, alas for the class! The true teacher must declare war upon all inveracity and egotistical proclamations of goodness. He must be careful how he talks in terms beyond his own experience. His per- sonal religion is his greatest asset. His absolute fairness and justice to all points of view are frequently as important as his prep- aration. His sincerity, his reality, his genu- ineness, must be so marked that men are re- minded of Him who said : " I am the Truth. ' ' 77 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE 77 — The Atmosphere of the Class A spirit of calm should be felt in a success- ful Bible class. Bible classes, like most boats, sail best on an even keel. The power of the leader and the members is revealed in quiet- ness and self-control. Acrid debate and con- troversy are seldom conducive to the dis- covery and assimilation of truth. Hurry or the keeping of the eye always on the watch is prejudicial to well-poised thoughtfulness and sane discussion. The ' ' inner light ' ' and mind of the teacher is truly revealed in his manner. His attitude is contagious. He often becomes impressive in inverse ratio to his bluster and noisy arguments. Some teachers bring the spirit of peace and deliberation as they enter the room, so that the study can begin at once. Others storm in like a whirlwind, and true thoughtfulness and devotion must wait until things get quieted down. In quietness exists much of the teacher's strength. 78 BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES III — Attention to Details A class secretary is usually necessary. The teacher should have something greater in his mind than roll-calls of attendance, the open- ing and shutting of windows, and the passing of Bibles. The real teacher must feel his truth so big within him that it necessarily fills his entire consciousness, else when it comes out it will not come hard and straight and powerful. But some one must get down to earth and look after the machinery, or the small Bible class may be wrecked by inattention to details. A faithful secretary can well magnify his office by arranging exhibits of Bible literature, by following up delinquent members through correspondence and personal calls, and by keeping the leader informed of attendance, criticisms, and suggestions of need gathered from the men in the class. The secretary can do many things not on the program, provided he is sensitive to conditions, tactful in emer- gencies, and keen to discern the signs of the times. 70 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE IV — Prayer The spirit of prayer is always an attendant of an effective Bible class. In a class where non-Christian men are present, the ease of diffident members would be obtained by the teacher's statement that no man will be called upon for public prayer who has not been con- sulted beforehand. The genuine prayer, how- ever, both audible and in secret, is indispen- sable. The entire hour must be saturated with the spirit of prayer if high results are to be attained. Men should be turned from their sins to accept Jesus Christ as a personal Savior, in our Bible classes. Sham lives of alleged Christians should be cut through by the sword of the Spirit. The peace of God should be realized in sore and troubled hearts. Such unusual events are fruits of the prayer- ful spirit. The disciples ' hearts burned with- in them because Jesus Christ was near. The effective Bible class is an effective prayer- meeting, even tho no prayers are heard. I was much imprest by the power of a Bible class among the cadets at West Point. 80 BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES Upon inquiry I found that the leader of the class met for prayer each week for a few minutes before the class-hour with several of the most devout men in the group. V — Naturalness Naturalness should characterize Bible study. Every man should be himself in tone, in manner, in language, and in appearance. The influence of the Bible class should not be undercut by the use of traditional phrases from which all real meaning has long since departed. Nothing is more fatal to the vital current in the Bible class than cant or the semblance of professionalism; nothing is more winning than a perfectly natural and genuinely simple presentation of truth that is really believed. VI — Discussion Free discussion illumines the Word of God. The Bible class is not a pulpit nor a lecture platform. It is rather a seminar, depending upon the original contribution of each mem- 81 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE ber. Some one has described a successful Bible class as being similar to a relay-race rather than a mile-run. The teacher is the leader, not the preacher. Josh Billings de- fines a bore as the man who talks so much about himself that you can not talk about yourself. The real leader should be more like a committee chairman whose business it is to guide the discussion as the presiding officer. He should strive to keep himself out of the light. The shadow of a man in the brook is fatal to good fishing. To be sure, it is difficult to secure such free- dom of discussion in large classes which form audiences. It is possible, however, to break such classes into smaller groups of ten or twelve men each, where real Bible study and thoughtful exchange of ideas may be stimu- lated on the part of every man. It was my privilege to lead a large Bible class in a New York church some years ago, in which we were gratified with the plan of combining the lecture plan with the discus - sional method. Men to the number of one BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES hundred met together on Sunday morning at 9:30 o'clock in a room by themselves. A de- votional program was carried out which in- volved the participation of five or six mem- bers of the class, after which the teacher took twenty minutes, sometimes less, to outline the central points of the subject for the week's study. The subject of the study was "The Relation of Jesus' Teachings to the Life of To-day." One of the requirements for membership in the class was that each member should secure a personal copy of the Bible course and study for himself. On Tues- day evening a light supper was served in the parish house of the church, after which the members of the class broke up into small dis- cussional groups of six or eight men each, taking one-half hour to talk over the subject which had been presented on Sunday, and which the men had personally studied through the help of their outline. This meth- od was effective to the end of interesting new men through the public sessions, and in main- taining the interest of these men by actual 83 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE Bible study, conversation and friendship in the discussional groups. It should be remembered that the Bible class is for the sake of Bible study ; that Bible study is not for the sake of the Bible class. The class-hour should arouse men to a new interest in the Bible, and to the formation of a habit of personal Bible study. It will rarely do this if the men attend simply to listen to a sermonette on a particular passage. A question-box and the assignment of spe- cial topics may be helpful in arousing indi- vidual interest. If books or chapters of books are cited for reference, the teacher should always go over them with the student in ad- vance to kindle his interest. VII— The Teacher's Other Work Than Teaching The apostle Paul would say, "Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others." The supreme and thrilling thought of the Bible leader lies in his realization that he has something tre- 84 BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES mendously worth while to do for other men. It is more than possessing knowledge of the Bible. It is far more than having a perfect pedagogical system. There must be the abil- ity on the part of the teacher to get out of himself into the lives of the members of his class. He must create in himself conditions which belong to them. It is not enough for him to get the truth in his own mind and heart, and to get it irresistibly ; he must then travel back along the path up which he has come, to return with the new disciple. It is no easy task swiftly to put one's self in the other man's place and to bear his burden. Professor Palmer calls it "the aptitude for vicariousness. ,, It was the ideal Teacher's unique trait so to place himself in the dis- ciple's circumstances as to realize how his teaching must appear to the men hearing it for the first time. No Bible class will be truly effective unless this spirit of mingled sym- pathy and sacrifice unite in the life of the teacher. A man of my acquaintance, who success- 85 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE fully taught eight Bible groups each week in the city of New York, told me that the secret of his success existed not so much in the class- hour as it did in personal acquaintance with the men outside the class. He confest that the first thing he did to make his class suc- cessful was to arrange for an hour's con- versation with each member of his class. He thus was able to secure personal knowledge of, and friendly attachment with, his students. His teaching and his discussion in the class- hour was upon the basis of his personal knowledge of the needs, ambitions, tempta- tions, and temperaments of his class mem- bers. VIII — Serviceablewess Furthermore, an effective Bible class is one that joins Bible truth and action. Bible study is not an end in itself. It is not for the sake of information simply. Neither is its objective fulfilled in giving spiritual thrills and moral satisfaction or selfish happiness. A Bible class is for the sake of life and serv- 86 BIBLE STUDY IN SMALL CLASSES ice. The Bible is a practical book because it treats of practise and conduct. Just as truly as neither books nor sermons nor men abide unless they are serviceable, so it is true that no Bible class possesses lasting value unless it can relate men to tasks, to needs, to action. The real discovery of truth should never leave a man inert and passive and disinter- ested. He must act and react on what he receives, else the objective of the class is lost. The Bible class is not simply a resort for curious, intellectual critics. It is rather a creative center of vital life. It should be a dynamic force impelling men toward new and active ideals. The Leader of the group of twelve men in the first century toiled more than He taught. IX — Evangelism as an Objective Christian evangelism should have its place in the Bible group. A large organized Bible class in a church of my acquaintance has been the means of bringing more than one hundred men into personal acceptance of Christianity 87 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE and church-membership. Over one thousand students are led to accept Christ each year in the colleges directly through the influence of the small Bible classes. We have far too little faith that the super- natural power of God will be manifested in the Bible group. The drift of the present age, however, is bringing us more and more to the Bible as the means of evangelism. The great mass-meeting, with its spectacular ac- companiments, is less and less capable of reaching thoughtful men for the church. The small Bible class, with its intelligent, devo- tional, informal, and natural air, should be a place where God may find hearts responsive to His call. Much depends upon the objective in the leader's mind. I know of a Bible class in which the teacher was the means of leading nine of the ten non-Christian members of the group to accept Christ as a personal Savior. He had gathered these men into a little class with the distinct purpose and prayer that they might be led to know his Lord. A Bible «J .5" — u d ~ Z > i - 'a 3 2 a) D o = X M — /. - - LARGE BIBLE CLASSES more easily obtained. Indeed, the Bible de- partment for men in any church is of suf- ficient importance to command a large share of the serious thought and planning of the entire board of church officers. The modern Sunday-school is in real need at present of the ability and leadership which the thoughtful and representative men of the large Bible class can furnish, and no organization for Bible work among men has any right to es- tablish or conduct its activity out of imme- diate and sympathetic relation to the general Bible-study propaganda of the church. In the description of the men's class which follows, therefore, I would have the leader keep these ideas in mind, realizing that the large organized class is a success only as it can fulfil its function in introducing young men into church-membership and leading them toward the more vital means of really studying the Bible in small classes, which method of Bible study has been proved re- peatedly to be the plan of actually opening the riches of God's Word to individual men. 97 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE II — A Bible Center First, then, we must realize that any ac- tivity which permanently saves and develops Christian character in men must be at its heart religious, having for its foundation nothing less than the Word of God. The em- phasis upon this idea in organized Bible-class work is vitally important. Men should not be deceived into thinking that the class or the department is a social, athletic, or civic club ; it should not be presented to them as merely a musical, or a literary, or a debating society. It is a Bible class, for Bible study, and in every feasible way opportunity should be taken to emphasize this, since the thorough study of the Bible is the secret of its life and the true sign of its practicality and per- manence. The countless vain endeavors to organize and permanently to interest young men in objectless clubs or mere lecture-classes are sufficient proofs of the necessity of em- phasizing this initial idea. Is there danger in forcing this thought to the front? Men sometimes are frightened at 98 LAKGE BIBLE CLASSES the mention of the Bible or at the word, church; the advice is given you to angle for them by socials or athletics or some other artifice; in other words, it is needful to be quite strategic in dealing with men. The trend of this teaching seems to me to be positively wrong. Honesty, sincerity, and reality are the attractions with which to reach the men of to-day, for men are as a rule honest, in motive at least. Preachers and church- members owe a duty to young manhood in the correction of the notion, prevalent in the minds of some people, that men are natu- rally and eternally degenerate and do not care for religion. There are those who would lead us to suppose that young men were possest with the devil from the ground up, that they were creatures "born out of due time," so to speak, and that the most we possibly can do is to tolerate them — but meanwhile to expect very little of serious- ness from them. Those who have had much experience with men in general know that this lack of confi- 99 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE dence in their integrity is not only unfor- tunate and a revelation of ignorance of the real facts; but it is, moreover, absolutely reprehensible. Men are to-day interested in the Bible, and they are eager to study it when a method is found attractive to them. From an experience of fifteen years of almost constant association with large num- bers of young men of various creeds, races, and nations, I wish to place myself on record by saying that I firmly believe that no class of persons is to be found more uni- versally responsive to direct religious teach- ing — courageously, vigorously and frankly presented — than are young men. Youth is naturally religious; "God wrestles with us in the dawning of the day." It is here that the heart controls. The head may take precedence in manhood, but affections are predominant in youth. Young men, if their hearts' truth could be known, are "not far from the kingdom." They think con- cerning religious things. Their decisions are usually frank and open, and much more 100 LARGE BIBLE CLASSES easily made than later in life when habits and dispositions become fixt and when a wrench is necessary for the acceptance of new positions. We should never be skep- tical concerning a man's capacity or inclina- tion for religion or for Bible study, for such skepticism unfits us for our best work among them. The success of Jesus consisted in no small degree in His belief in humanity. Ill — Social 'Adjunct When this central idea is firmly estab- lished one may have as many means to its accomplishment as possible, providing, of course, that these means act as passages simply, leading always to the main room of the house. One of the most important helps in the building of organized Bible classes for men is the true social. By this I include all of those influences in the environment of fellowship, such as exist in connection with athletics, entertainments, and musical, literary and social gatherings within and without the church; in short, everything which makes 101 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE possible the touch of life upon life and the creation and development of friendships. Fletcher, of Saltoun, used to say, "Let me give to a nation its songs and I can mold the nation." If we could likewise give to a young man his companions any one of us could, in the great majority of cases, de- termine his future. The most worn phrase in connection with a young man's downfall is, "he fell into bad company." The young man is naturally social and fraternal in his habits and tastes; he wants friendships and must have them. If the church does not afford opportunity for the formation of friendships, he will seek them elsewhere. A student came into my office in New York and said: "I have not come to you for a position, nor for financial assistance, but I have been in this city for eight months and during that time have not found any man whom I could call my friend; I must have some one to whom I can tell my confidences. Will you be my friend?" Hundreds of young men in our large cities to-day are in 102 LARGE BIBLE CLASSES like case. Let them realize that in our churches are warm, sympathetic, friendly hearts, and they will come to us. Win a man's friendship and you have taken a long stride toward the winning of that man for Christ and the work of the church. Robert Louis Stevenson was a fine example of his creed, that friendship and work are the two things worth while. IV — The Business Side The other chief support of the central Bible idea is business method. It is as unfor- tunate as it is true that many men enter the church from active business life and lop off almost every habit of strict practical method, of regularity, studious invention, optimism, and, most of all, dogged perseverance in un- ceasing work. We seem to expect the church militant in its earthly career to be as invisi- ble as is the church triumphant in heaven. Such policy will never reach men. A men's Bible class can not exist for any length of time without organized, systematic, personal 103 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE work. It must be characterized by hard, earnest, businesslike activity, the same kind of activity which wins success for men out- side the church. Every member of such classes must be harnessed to definite service. The young Christian layman must be taught that he is not just a heroic knight to bow be- fore his King to receive his knighthood, but he must in that same act grasp his sword and stride fearlessly into the lists. Men need to realize the valiant, enterprising side of church life. In these times men should learn that existence in the church, as out of it, is an aggressive thing, as Tennyson says: . . .life is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter M with the shocks of doom To shape and use. There should be conditions of retaining membership, as well as inducements for ob- taining membership. The password of every man into the ranks of Bible-class work 104 LARGE BIBLE CLASSES should be a pledge for some prompt and definite service. Herein is the benefit of the organized class and the large committee sys- tem by means of which one is enabled to utilize with businesslike arrangement the varied talents of different sorts of men. But let this organism be charged always with the heroism of modern successful endeavor. V — Organization Meeting How shall we proceed to form the large class for men? Let the matter be presented to a few of the strongest men in the church; begin with prayer ; start with the idea of having a large class with a large enrolment in small groups for real discussion and study; it is the easiest way; a "big" thing is always popular with men of to-day; advertise the organization meeting as widely as pos- sible; send personal invitations to a large number of men within and without the church (the pastor may get such names by 105 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE cards in the pews and by presenting the matter to the members of his congregation) ; outline frankly and broadly to the men as- sembled the idea of the class; emphasize its democracy and its need of workers; build up a strong esprit de corps as soon as pos- sible. Make this adult class or adult depart- ment a real part of the Sunday-school. Choose a leader who can lead. Appoint a number of additional leaders for the small study groups. Decide upon a name for the class, a course of Bible study, and elect officers if feasible at an early meeting; appoint a committee to present constitution and further plans, and ask for a report of the committee at a def- inite date. Elect a press correspondent to detail in daily papers and religious press such proceedings of the meetings as will in- terest both members and indifferent men outside the church. Adjourn the first busi- ness meeting with the idea of holding the first Bible session the following Sunday at the regular hour of the Bible school, or at the most expedient time, los LARGE BIBLE CLASSES VI— Officers The president should be a man of strong representative value in the community, not a figurehead, but a leader. He should be capable of presiding at business meetings, social occasions, and also at the Sunday ses- sions. His name should appear, together with the name of the secretary, upon the class letter-heads, on cards of invitation, and on class literature. He should keep his hand firmly and intelligently on every department of the organization. The vice-president may at times be the chairman of the executive committee, thus relieving the president from such duty. Both president and vice-president should be Christian men who have the spiritual inter- ests of the class at heart. Certain of the other officers or committeemen may be non- Christian men. The recording secretary, in addition to his regular duties of keeping the attendance at class sessions, social occasions, entertain- ments, etc., should see that every man re- 107 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE ceives an attendance blank as he enters the classroom, whereon he may write his name and address, and, if not a member, his desire, should he choose to become one. The secre- tary may also present the notices at the Sun- day session, and should always have at hand a book containing the constitution, for new members to sign. The corresponding secretary should keep the proceedings of the class before the mem- bership and the public through press notices and such other forms of announcement as are consistent with the locality. It should be his duty to send notification cards to all the members for business meetings, and also for the social gatherings and for special ses- sions. He should have charge of the mailing list, including not only the list of members, but the list of names of men proposed for membership. These men are invited by per- sonal invitation and by letter or post-card to the class meetings. In some classes the same man performs the work for the record- ing and corresponding secretaries. 108 LAEGE BIBLE CLASSES It is frequently found to be desirable in the large organized Bible class to have an individual treasury, the Bible-class members giving a certain percentage of their collec- tions to the Sunday-school. (A class in a church of my acquaintance gives 20 per cent, of the Sunday offerings to the Sunday- school.y Men will at times give more liber- ally to their own class work; in every in- stance a class should be easily capable of meeting its necessary expenditures. Enter- tainments and lectures at which an admis- sion fee is charged are among the means of replenishing the treasury. Men of wealth in the church and community will often con- tribute generously to such an organization if they see that the men mean business. The chorister or organist is an important officer, for he has charge of the musical pro- grams, which should be of the very best quality on Sundays and at the fraternal gatherings. He may organize a male cho- rus, a male quartet, orchestra, etc., as place and conditions permit. It is usually found 109 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE expedient to secure a fund for the Sunday musical programs. Money is not to be de- spised in the promotion of Bible study. The chorister should be a man of magnetic power and personal leadership. He should be able to obtain the cooperation of every man of the class in the program of song and in popular musical performances. The librarian should superintend the dis- tributing of Bibles, hymn-books and any special literature for the day. A large class will soon be able to purchase its own Bibles, hymn-books, singing sheets, etc., thus adding often to the feeling of independence and in- terest in the class membership. A small library of reference books upon the Bible should also be added as soon as possible. The sum of twenty-five dollars would secure a good beginning library. Suggestions for such a library may be gained by consulting the Bible reference literature at the end of this book. A small library of carefully chosen and attractive books is preferable to a large miscellaneous collection. no LARGE BIBLE CLASSES VII — Committees The membership committee in the large class should be composed of at least ten men of ability. Conditions of membership, in one class I visit, are threefold: The young man's name is presented by a member of the class; it is voted upon by the executive committee ; if the vote is favorable, the con- stitution is signed by the applicant. There should of course be no distinction of class or race or social standing. Care should be taken, however, that men are not drawn away from other churches. The large Bible class is not to deplete neighboring churches but to develop men in the church, and to reach men who never attend church. The work of the membership committee should be twofold. First, in the church; members ought to be so distributed at all public services as to meet any stranger who may be present, welcome him, obtain his name and address, if feasible, and interest him in the class. Second, without the church; a house-to-house canvass might be 111 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE made at times for men not connected with other Bible work. By presenting cards of announcement stating the object and organ- ization of the class, together with a per- sonal invitation to be present at some definite meeting, the matter is brought con- cretely to the individual, and the success of such undertakings always depends upon suc- cess with individuals. All new names, with addresses of men secured by the member- ship committee, may be sent at once to the corresponding secretary who can invite these men by cordial letter to class meetings. The visiting or attendance committee calls upon members of the class not attending regularly. Cards of reminder should be sent by this committee to all members who have missed one or more sessions. Personal sympathy, exhibited by calls upon sick mem- bers for example, is a vital factor in this activity. The social committee should be composed of at least ten men who have charge of the maintenance and development of good fel- 112 LARGE BIBLE CLASSES lowship at socials and on Sundays. This committee has charge of introductions, receptions, programs, luncheons, monthly socials (informal affairs with a varied program and an easy, democratic spirit). This committee may also look after the an- nual banquet at which all of the members of the class are supposed to be present. The social committee has been useful in arran- ging outings in the summer, and in planning special entertainments by the class. The employment committee, composed of eight or ten of the leading business men of the class, is a feature of some strong classes for men. The object is to secure positions for members who have lost their situations or who have recently reached the city or town. This work if attempted at all should be carried on in a businesslike fashion, ref- erences carefully investigated, and the con- fidence of business men acquired. The athletic committee is composed of a few men who have general charge of all in- door and outdoor athletics. This work can 113 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE be of immense value in its attractive power to young men. Baseball and football teams, excursions into the country, sailing and fish- ing parties, competitive tennis or golf or basketball— all these are successfully at- tempted by such classes. Many young men discover the Bible via the athletic field. This committee is also engaged in interesting mem- bers in boys' athletic clubs and social service in the town. VIII — The Sunday Session The Sunday class is often held from twelve to one o'clock or at 9:30 a. m. By all means secure a separate room for the class. Men will thus be reached who would never attend the class if held in a room with other classes. When the men meet on Sun- day, the social committee and ushers should be industriously engaged, before and after the morning service, inviting strangers to the session. The first ten minutes of the hour is often occupied in singing led by the chorister, the class president presiding. The 114 2 M LARGE BIBLE CLASSES devotional exercises may be in charge of a different member of the class each Sunday, thus bringing out the abilities of different men. Care should be given to the musical program. A question drawer, taking five or ten minutes of the hour, may be conducted by a competent member of the body. A three-minute review of the previous Sun- day's lesson may be presented by still another member. Strong Christian laymen seem to have proved their peculiar fitness as teachers of these classes. However, there are many advantages in having the pastor of the church as the teacher. He can thus become acquainted with the men and acquire a per- sonal hold upon them which he would be un- able to do in any other capacity than as teacher. He should take not longer than twenty minutes to present the lesson of the day. An informal talk bringing home the vital truth in the most frank and practical way to the hearts of the young men is found especially helpful. If the course of study bears upon social 115 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE or political problems, the skilful leader can arrange with profit for a certain amount of discussion. This should always be the case when the class is a small one, or not exceed- ing fifteen or twenty men in attendance. Questions and answers in large classes, how- ever, are frequently found to breed unprofit- able discussions, and also to frighten away men who hesitate to expose their ignorance in a Bible class. The men are invited to remain for a half hour after the class for introduc- tions and social fellowship. A large class should invariably be broken into small groups meeting at other times for detailed conversa- tion and discussion. The class hour is the center of the spiri- tual work, and the presentation of the Gos- pel of Jesus Christ, which has been in all ages the " power of God unto salvation,' ' is the great magnet around which the class will be drawn. Throughout the organization the power of the spirit of Christ needs to be predominant in the lives of consecrated men, if the best and highest results are to be ac- 116 LAKGE BIBLE CLASSES complished. Leaders of this kind of work may well ask what are the results of this organization in personal habits of Bible study, in church-membership, and in the work of Christian missions at home and abroad. 117 Chapter VII BIBLE-STUDY COURSES AND LITERATURE 119 We no longer need to read the Bible with the blinds of our intelligence half drawn down. We no longer open the pages of the Prophets with the feeling that we are to force ourselves, as once seemed necessary, into a mental attitude, which was a strange mixture of anxious devout- ness and a pained sense of a lack of completeness . . . while our intellectual honesty compelled us to feel that we did not really understand when we had read. — Bishop op Eipon I read the Bible often and with pleasure. A Bible lies beside me at night in which most of the precious thoughts are underlined. I can not understand how many men exist who do not busy themselves with God's word. In all my thoughts and actions I ask myself the question, "What does the Bible say on the point 1" The Bible is to me the source from which I draw strength and light. In hours of trembling and fear I lay hold on this treasure of com- fort. — Kaiser Wilhelm Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. — Mark 13 : 31 If the common schools have found their way from the Atlantic to the Pacific; if slavery has been abolished; if the whole land has been changed from a wilderness into a garden of plenty, from ocean to ocean; if education has been fostered according to the best light of each gener- ation since then; if industry, frugality, and sobriety are the watchwords of the nation, as I believe them to be, I say it is largely due to those first emigrants, who, land- ing with the English Bible in their hands and in their hearts, . . . established themselves on the shores of America. — Hon. Joseph H. Choate Mr. Lincoln, as I saw him every morning, in the carpet slippers he wore in the house and the black clothes no tailor could make really fit his gaunt, bony frame, was a homely enough figure. The routine of his life was simple, too; it would have seemed a treadmill to most of us. He was an early riser; when I came on duty, at eight in the morning, he was often already drest and reading in the library. There was a big table near the center of the room; there I have seen him reading many times. And the book? It was the Bible which I saw him reading while most of the household slept. — William H. Crook, in Harper's Magazine 120 Chaptek VII BIBLE-STUDY COURSES AND LITERATURE I — How to Study the Bible The Bible has received such laudatory commendations from both humble and great that no intelligent person can doubt that it is a good and great Book, and indispensable for education, practical success, and religion. It is one thing, however, to compliment the Bible; it is quite another thing to really study it. I find many people who believe thoroughly in this book who do not know how to study it. Therefore I wish to focus the attention of the reader upon those agen- cies having to do with the practise rather than with the theory of Bible religion. The selection of a course of Bible study is a matter of real importance. Such choice requires a study of the local field, the grade of the students, their previous study, the 121 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE style of class (organized or small group), the teacher, the wishes of the class members, and always the end in view. There is spe- cial need of care in the adjustment of the varied resources of the Bible to different classes; the selection for beginners, for ex- ample, of material which is rich in human or heroic interest, and of outlines for adults that give opportunity for discussion, ques- tioning, or original papers. II — Bible Study Rather Than Bible Reading It is primarily essential that a Bible course should require work — real Bible study. The idea that Bible study demands neither brains, helps, nor sacrifice, is as illogical as it is perilous. A Bible class can be only as effective as real study on the part of the members permits it to be. To make Bible study easy is to trifle with the whole subject ; it also portends failure to maintain attend- ance and sustained interest. An eminent Greek scholar confest that his highest devotional moments came during the 122 COURSES AND LITERATURE most difficult processes of translation and in the midst of his most intense intellectual concentration. Bible readings have some- times been a confusion and a snare ; the good becoming enemy to the best, when reading has been substituted for a genuine, thoughtful study of the Scriptures. A college president told me that his first and his abiding interest in the Bible was the result of eight months of study upon the second book of Samuel. At first he was in- clined to feel insulted that his professor in the seminary should ask him to spend one month upon such a small book of the Old Testament. As he began to delve into the subject, translating the book from the orig- inal, reading it, and rereading it with dif- ferent topics in mind, comparing it, tracing its message, and mastering the outside lit- erature upon it, he became truly interested and fascinated ; the book began to live in his mind, it laid hold upon his heart and imag- ination, and ministered to his deepest needs. "Now," he continued, "whenever I am 123 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE called upon suddenly to preach a sermon, to deliver a political address, or to make an after-dinner speech, I invariably take my text from the second book of Samuel; it is the one book in the Bible that I really know." For persons who truly wish to study the Bible I would suggest a series of studies which has been used by thousands of men of diverse races and beliefs. I refer to "The Teaching of Jesus and His Apostles," written by Dean Edward I. Bosworth, of Oberlin College. The outline is arranged for daily work and is intended to cover thirty weeks of study. It is so arranged as to assist the student in the formation of a Bible habit. The course will be of little in- terest without the expenditure of time and labor. However, by giving twenty minutes or half an hour of earnest study each day, the New Testament can actually be discovered. One may well remember that nothing worth while is ever gained in any line of education without the expenditure of genuine effort. 124 COURSES AND LITERATURE III — Bible Literature and Bible Habits Dr. Augustus H. Strong has said: "No study will be of great use which is not earnest enough to be regular.' ' Every kind of really successful Bible propaganda with which I am familiar fo- cuses its courses, its methods, and its spirit upon the formation of regular Bible habits; as a rule, daily Bible habits. "It behooves us to know," says Epictetus, "that a habit can hardly establish itself with a man unless he every day utters the same things, hears the same things, and applies them withal to his life. ' ' Bible study is too often frus- trated by the lack of system, migratory or hit-or-miss methods, or no method. Biblical literature should assist the student to make his Bible study regular, consistent, and habitual. A Bible course should begin with a definite subject, it should continue upon the theme, and it should arrive at a con- crete goal. To scout the ability to get men to study the Bible daily reveals not only a lack of 125 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE heroic enterprise but also a blindness to the facts. Among the thirty thousand college men of the United States and Canada who continued in voluntary Bible classes last col- lege season, 8,997 students in 332 institu- tions were reported to be following daily Bible-study habits. It is needless to remark that these men compose the vital body of the college Bible movement. Among those agen- cies which have most successfully assisted in bringing about regular habits of Bible study there must be included the ever-increasing number of books which divide their weekly studies into seven distinct portions. Every possible help to the formation of a habit of regular retirement in the quiet places of the soul is peculiarly worth while to-day. So shall I keep Forever in my heart one silent space: A little sacred spot of loneliness, Where to set up the memory of Thy cross: A little quiet garden, where no man May pass or rest, forever, sacred still To visions of Thy sorrow and Thy love. 126 a t a « 5 7 H - - COURSES AND LITERATURE IV — Bible Studies Suggestive not Exhaustive Bible courses, like some Bible teachers, narrate not wisely but too much. The secret of the effective Bible outline lies in its in- ference, incentive, and arousal of fresh ideas — a new viewpoint through thought-pro- voking questions. It should furnish an in- timation, a glimpse, a suggestion that it only half satisfies. Interrogation, not statement, is the rule for the stirring of minds. Robertson Nicoll, in The British Weekly, remarks: "The teacher who first calls the mind from its slumber and sets it to work and to love work, he is the true teacher." A Bible course or a Bible book should set men to work. To do this a book must be inter- esting — to interest is to help. Our Bible lit- erature should lift life out of the dead level of perfunctoriness and platitude. It may do this by the attractive presentation of Bible principles, or, as Matthew Arnold would say, by " turning a stream of fresh thought upon our stock notions and habits.' ' 127 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE V — Bible Reference-books Bible interest is often aroused by reading a great book written upon the Bible. Teach- ers may well have on the table about which their classes meet a few epoch-making trea- tises upon the nature of the Bible, the life and teachings of Jesus, intellectual and re- ligious questions, books aimed at devotional Bible study, and one or two pieces of litera- ture relating to Bible teaching and Bible organization. The following books are types of such literature. Bible Study the Great Way Into Life 's Values. King. Sixty Years with the Bible. Clarke. Theology of the New Testament. Stevens. Introduction to the New Testament. Dods. Book of the Twelve Prophets. George Adam Smith. (2 vols.) Leaves for Quiet Hours. Matheson. The Apostle Paul. Sabatier. Studies in the Life of Christ. Fairbairn. What is Christianity? Adolph Harnack. The Making of a Teacher. Brumbaugh. A well-chosen Bible reference library is almost indispensable if excellence in Bible 128 COURSES AND LITERATURE study is meditated. One successful Bible teacher told me that he read two books upon the Bible each week to freshen and to deepen his Bible enthusiasm. VI — Adequate Objective Biblical literature should be resultful. It should be good for some definite and practi- cal purpose. To be serviceable, Bible studies need clear objective. There are at least five tangible purposes set before modern Bible study. Bible litera- ture should be written and chosen in the light of these demands. 1. Education. If the Bible, as Burke said, is not a book but a literature; if it contains the richest English, the rarest thought and imagination; if it is "the fun- damental document of Christianity"; Bib- lical helps should not fail in presenting the educational values of this book. Indeed, the prime essential of a Bible course lies in its contribution of Scriptural facts. While a Bible outline should not become lost in ge- 129 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE ography and petty critical and textual mat- ters, it should, nevertheless, tell in a plain way what the Bible says. Bible students de- mand informational values. They wish to know, as a student exprest it, what it is all about. The young man who told his teacher recently that he had always thought that Sodom was the wife of Gomorrah, needed information more than he needed metaphys- ics or theology. Bible books for the sake of Bible facts, is a timely motto. 2. Eeligious Conviction. Those people who select or prepare Bible studies should not forget that the Bible is the place of meeting between the soul and God. The Bible is peculiarly personal — it deals with me. Bible helps should develop a sense of spiritual reality. They should arouse the conscience by opening the eyes of the moral and religious understanding. Distinctions between right and wrong should be empha- sized. The student should be led to say: 11 Search me, God, and know my heart.' ' Scores of students at Yale, last year, used 130 COURSES AND LITERATURE that new and invigorating set of devotional studies entitled "The Will of God," by Dr. Henry B. Wright. These studies are aimed at the production of religious conviction. The chief question presented is: What does God wish me to do with my life? 3. Teaching Ministky. The first Bible group was a training-class. Jesus was a teacher of teachers. The church and Chris- tian organizations as a whole wait for effect- ive teaching leadership. The Bible will not become as "universal as our race," until Christian leaders have keener conviction and a workable method relative to the subject of teacher-training. Books upon this subject should not only be brought to the Bible class, but time should be faithfully allotted for the discussion of the opportunity and the method of Bible leadership. Large organized classes for laymen seldom train Bible-teach- ers. Bible lectures and sermons are not chiefly intended to make approved Bible leaders. Even those who teach small classes do not always have in mind the discovery 131 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE and the training of future teachers. The fol- lowing literature used in a discussional way in Bible classes, and also in book reviews before the class, have helped in this teaching objective : The Field of Ethics. Palmer. The Teaching of Bible Classes. See. Talks to Teachers. James. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory. How to Make the Bible Real. King. The Training of Bible Teachers. The Prophets as Teachers. Kent. 4. Arousal of Social Eesponsibility. Bib- lical literature should add a new and wide sense of social and national obligation. The demand upon the Bible is not merely indi- vidualistic. Biblical principles are to be ap- plied to modern problems. They are for attachment to practical life. To study in Bible classes Jesus' teachings concerning the poor, the rich, or the unfortunate, and to fail to make actual application of these teachings in the life about us is religious mockery. I found last year, in Asia, that the Orientals accepted most eagerly that 132 COURSES AND LITERATURE Bible literature which touched directly and progressively their social and political con- science. A new series of Bible studies now in prepa- ration by four specialists in Bible study is directed immediately to the message of the Bible to modern life. The studies by Kent and Smith, "The "Work and Teachings of the Earlier Prophets," are meeting with wide popularity, due largely to the social messages of the Minor Prophets to our own times. Men in the church and out of the church are also reading with interest and enthusiasm Professor Rauschenbusch's masterly book on "Christianity and the Social Crisis." There is indeed a real international patriotism in the modern spirit of Bible study — a patri- otism which will not be fully understood, spoken, or enacted, until the Bible truly be- comes the Book of the Nations — until they "gather from the west and the east by the word of the holy One, rejoicing in the re- membrance of God." James Russell Lowell spoke with a prophetic insight: 133 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone, Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, Texts of despair, or hope, or joy, or moan; While sings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. 5. Modeen Evangelism. The supreme value of Bible literature depends upon its power to transform character, to make men "safe in God." The Bible is the word of our Father to His children whom He loves and for whom His Son died. Who has yet sounded the possibility of Bible literature; that is, literature which is filled with the central message of the Bible in bringing men to know Jesus Christ in our world to-day? The Bible courses, Bible helps, and Bible reference-books which deal seriously and profoundly with the divine life and teachings of Jesus Christ, compose the literature par excellence for our time. Prof. Henry Drummond, when asked his recom- mendation as to the three best books, re- plied: "First, The Life of Christ; second, 134 COURSES AND LITERATURE The Life of Christ; third The Life of Christ.' ' "The Character of Jesus," by Horace Bushnell; "Studies in the Life of Jesus Christ," by Edward Bosworth; "The Fact of Christ," by Carnegie Simpson; "Studies of the Man Christ Jesus," by Robert Speer, with many books in like strain, are vital Bible-study books, for these lead men inevi- tably into the transforming presence of Him "whom not having seen ye love." It is this life of Christ which, as Beecher said, is "never finished." In Him and in books about Him, modern evangelism lives and moves and has its being. Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, As tho a star should open out, all sides, Grow the world on you, as it is my world. It is the day of Biblical literature. De- mands for it are nation-wide. Its future use will be extensive beyond present comprehen- sion; and its profit will be according to its representation of God in Jesus Christ. 135 Chapter VIII THE BIBLE AS A MEANS TO SERVICE 137 Prom an address of Lincoln before the Bible Society at Springfield: "It seems to me that nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited to men in all the conditions of life, and includes all the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and to their fellow man." Most religions are meant to be straight lines connecting two points — God and man. But Christianity has three points — God, man, and his brother — with two lines to make a right angle. — Maltbie D. Babcock Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, prest down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. —Luke 6 : 38 On one of the battle-fields of South Africa a young chaplain found a Highlander sorely wounded and with life ebbing quickly away. He asked him to allow him to pray, but the soldier said gruffly, "No, I don't want prayers. I want water." The chaplain secured, with great diffi- culty, some water, and then asked the refreshed man if he might read a Psalm. "No," said the soldier again. "I am too cold to listen to a Psalm." The chaplain instantly stript off his coat and wrapt it tenderly round the wounded soldier. And then, touched by the chaplain's sympathy, the man turned and said, ' * Chaplain, if religion makes men like you, let's have that Psalm." The man comes out in his work; the character is re- vealed by conduct. — Hugh Black Cross, that liftest up my head, 1 dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be. —George Matheson 138 Chapter VIII THE BIBLE AS A MEANS TO SEEVICE I — Modern Tendencies John Wesley said: "The Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion.' ' Yet for generations the church has restricted the Bible message to the individual. It is true that Luther cut the chains that bound the Bible to the church altars, but neither he nor his immediate successors discovered the social gospel of the Christian Scriptures. Indeed, a study of certain periods of Chris- tianity might arouse wonder as to whether the Bible really contains a social message. The perusal of Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Liv- ing/ ' or "The Confessions of St. Augus- tine,' ' tend to make one quite forget that the Bible presents any word save to the lonely individual, searching his own personal heart and busy with his own personal prayers. Fifty years ago, even, the hymns of the 139 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE church were almost entirely hymns directed to the individual conscience and heart. "My faith looks up to thee." "Holy Ghost! with light divine, Shine upon this heart of mine"; hymns surpassingly beautiful, but self-cen- tered and introspective, expressing only the half-truth of religion. The prophets, for our fathers, touched no note of social or moral reform. They did not believe the Bible for its works' sake. Jesus was Savior, indeed, but to them he was hardly a great physician, a healer of the nations, the founder of a gospel of labor, the lover and uplifter of the poor, a humanitarian par excellence going about doing good. To-day, however, we are in the midst of a new Bible emphasis. In these times of insistent demand for a visualized religion, the Bible lies at the heart of modern reform, both for the recasting of theology and for the reconstruction of society. We are per- 140 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE ceiving that the genius of the Bible is the life of the Spirit in its reaction upon the world. ' l Character, ' ' says Professor Edward I. Bosworth, "is growing good-will express- ing itself in increasingly efficient action." The Bible movements of to-day are placing emphasis upon this active good-will, this neighbor part of the one great command- ment. The hymns which we delight to sing are not simply those dealing with the satisfied personal sense of being safe in God, nor merely a "forgetfulness of evils and a truce from cares," as Hesiod sang; rather we sing— "The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar: Who follows in His train?" or Dr. Gladden's matchless hymn of work: "0 Master, let me walk with Thee In lowly paths of service free. ' ' Professor Peabody, of Harvard, has said that the Bible has emerged from the realm 141 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE of individual ethics into the field of social and organic ethics. "It is the age of the social question," he declares. "The mind of the age has been led from a Ptolemaic con- ception of life, where the single soul was the center of the universe, to a Copernican doc- trine of life, where the single soul is set like a planet in a larger universe, and finds its orbit, with multitudes of other souls, round a common center." This tendency to connect the Bible with serviceableness is indefinitely expanding Bi- ble possibilities. Many a Bible class has be- come static and anemic because it has lacked connection with the great tide of the world's need. Some Bible classes seem to have been characterized by action in two directions only : they have started and they have stopt. They remind one of the old negro lady who, when asked: "Where are you going, Skier Susie?" replied: "Lasee, Fse done been where Pse gwine." The incentive of that "vital altruism," which runs like a golden thread throughout 142 - a u - < - C BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE the Bible, is now not simply helping to usher men out of the parish into the world; it is also taking them out of the realm of theologi- cal dialect and formal integrity into the larger room of natural religious expression and serviceable reality. In other words, the Bible is at present assisting in the unification of the two great branches of the religious life: piety and service, faith and works, goodness and use- fulness. We are taking our Bibles into life to say: "One lesson, nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept in one, Of toil, unsevered from tranquillity. ' ' And this prayer is simply the Gospel of Jesus: "If ye know my commandments happy are ye if ye do them. ,, I saw the Bible in the hands of Indian Christians in the morning, and in the eve- ning I found them lifting their unfortunate brothers out of the depths of ignorance, 143 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE disease, and poverty through the social amelioration of night schools and hospitals and clubs for the poor. In connection with the Young Men's Christian Associations in the city of Shang- hai, the eight hundred Chinese men who studied the Bible, last year, went forth from their Bible classes to lead in that marvelous crusade in which a fund of 65,000 taels was secured to buy and equip land for a building in which to teach religion to the boys of Shanghai, and for an athletic field where these youth could learn hygienic righteous- ness. At Princeton University, last student year, 1909-10, one hundred men of the 524 men enrolled in voluntary Bible classes, under the spell of the stirring ideals of Jesus as discust in their small groups, went out ac- tually to engage in the following practical service : Teaching educational classes in university and settle- ment houses; relief work in connection with the Salva- tion Army; leading Bible classes in the Young Men's 144 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE Christian Associations; visiting the sick; conducting Sunday-schools and boys' clubs in the country; arrang- ing church lectures in the rural districts. As Christian workers, whether within or without the church, we may with profit examine closely our Bible-study motives. What is the object of our teaching? Is this Book, which sprung out of life, returning to life where its message belongs? Are we making it a vital book, or simply an aca- demic or metaphysical book in our Bible de- partment? Does it belong with our deeds or with our words? The exactions of modern life are imperative. Are our Bible classes keeping pace with the complex moral and social issues of the world-spirit? By what means are we to redeem society if not through the spiritual motive-power of the gospel of the New Testament? Jesus repeat- edly drew attention to the serviceable use of the Bible: " Every one therefore that hear- eth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock." 145 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE I would like to consider concretely several ways in which the Bible may become prac- tically useful through the church to our generation. II — Bible Study and Missions The practical study of the Bible should be closely related to missionary endeavor. The modern home and foreign missionary under- takings suffer to-day quite as much from the lack of a deep and steadily growing spiritual experience on the part of their propagandists as from scant material resources. The Bible is the guide-book of missions and of mis- sionaries. Bible study is the chief founda- tion of missionary incentive; it vitalizes and deepens the current of missionary life. A young and well-educated leader, who has been the means of fairly reconstructing the religious thought of an important sec- tion of the Far East told me that he secured his first impulse toward his work in a small Bible group in a State institution in the Mid- dle West. The 11,939 men students who 146 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE were studying missions last year in the col- leges of North America, in connection with the Student Volunteer Movement, were al- most universally enrolled in the Bible classes of these institutions. We find that practi- cally every effective student volunteer in recent years, has made personal Bible study and Bible-study promotion one of the first objects of his career abroad. The men who are called home from work in other lands are not always failures in executive and administrative positions. Quite as often they have become incompe- tent through the neglect of personal habits of Bible study and prayer, for the sake of other phases of business which seemed to them more important. The omission of such exercise undercuts one's power at the very point of its greatest strength, namely, in the force of example. In one of the cities of India an English missionary leader with a growing spiritual experience has an unusual hold upon men of all classes. Some one asked in one of his Bible classes how it was 147 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE thought that Jesus would come into the room if he were to visit their city. A Hindu stu- dent replied : " I think he would come in just as Larsen comes into our class.' ' The light on the face of a Bible student in the East is more conclusive than argument. Ill — The Bible and Modern Problems Moreover, the direct application of Bible teachings to present-day questions is afford- ing a new place to Scripture. This prac- tical tendency has appealed to college men who last year purchased and used thousands of copies of books relating to the social sig- nificance of New Testament teachings. These students eagerly discust in boarding clubs, Greek-letter fraternities, and in their private rooms, Jesus' teaching to men concerning the relation of Christianity to such subjects as money, municipal evils, conditions of the poor, the laboring man, and the social and political tendencies in the nation. We discover in various parts of the coun- try, in clubs and associations both religious 148 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE and secular, that men who never attend church or prayer-meeting will discuss vigor- ously the truth of the Bible as related to the labor problem. But is not the labor problem a religious problem? Was not Jesus interested in it? Did he not spend a great part of his earthly ministry in dealing with the conditions of the time in which he lived? And is not a thorough study of so- cial conditions quite indispensable to the proper adjustment between religion and service? In a Middle Western State I found both members of faculty and students deeply interested in the Book of Proverbs. The able professor of the department of political economy stated that he considered the Book of Proverbs the best reference-book on eco- nomics in the world, as it contains the un- changing principles which hold, whether the tariff is revised up or down. Many people are interested in the temper- ance question. How many of us have studied this question in the light of Chris- tian revelation in the Old Testament, and 149 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE then in the New Testament? I discovered a Bible class some time ago in which the mem- bers studied for a whole year Jesus' attitude to the will, having for a chief purpose the reaching of one of the members of this class who was addicted to the liquor habit. That man stopt drinking, not by signing a pledge, but by receiving gradually into his resist- ance faculties a new power of self-control. As he exprest it, the Bible gave him a new motive — a fresh and overmastering desire. In his " Following the Equator,' ' Mark Twain, in speaking of people limiting their habits, says: "When I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to keep them; but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the habit — the desire; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried limiting a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire perse- cuted me every day and all day long; so, within the week I found myself hunting for larger cigars than I had been used to smoke ; then larger ones still, and still 150 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE larger ones. Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made for me — on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size. Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have used it as a crutch.' ' Modern Bible study defends its claims upon thinking men because of the fact that it reaches the inner desires of men as well as the external results of their desires in life problems. "Whatever success I have obtained in the business world,' ' said a prominent and successful business man recently, "is largely due to the character and ethical inspiration of that greatest of all Christian philosophers, St. Paul." IV — Bible Study and Youth in the Sunday- school Bible stndy is, furthermore, one of the chief means through which the young men and young women of our churches and Sun- day-schools can be led forth into definite service. I listened recently to a leader of Sunday- 151 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE school work who uttered the following sig- nificant statement: Twenty-eight million people in the Sunday-school army; if these marched four abreast, eight hours a day and six days a week, a spectator must needs stand on the street six years and five months to see them all pass by. This is truly an impressive and highly gratifying piece of information, but just what does it mean in terms of utility? "We can not parade the record of great enrol- ments as in themselves certificates of merit. We must demand insistently: What shall be the social result from this vast undertaking? What is the visible and tangible service to our time, even beyond the informational, the devotional, and the evangelistic influence? Indeed, we must press on to ask what should be the national effect of work described by such vast statistics. To attach the Bible study of Christendom to heroic enterprise is indeed our modern opportunity and our modern duty. Our Bible classes need something to do. Mem- 152 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE bers in our Sunday-schools must do some- thing more than attend class. The logic of the Scripture must be found compatible with the logic of life. The Sunday-school is the fulcrum of the social life of a whole community; at least it might be. Every home is a laboratory. Every need of the town or city is a challenge. The Bible-school should become the recruiting-place for leader- ship of all our vast philanthropic and social service. These are no days for persons who are satisfied to remain supinely participant and dependent, just theorizing about religion. Inspiration leads to deeds, else Bible-schools fade into fictitious and unsubstantial mock- eries. The stirring messages of the world come from those who serve, from those whose light is not reflected or refracted, from those who are testing their Bibles in the great school of experience. What can the church and Sunday-school do? Some concrete answers to this question are presented in the constructive social work of the Laity League for Social Service in 153 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE New York City. The following practical services which are now being rendered in New York by this League may well engage the attention of church and Sunday-school workers everywhere. The Flatbush Avenue Congregational Church, Brook- lyn, has decided to do neighborhood work, and has chosen a volunteer director of Civic Work. The social, philanthropic and religious workers of the lower East Side formed a Local Needs Association more than a year ago, and are taking a Survey of vital facts. They are interested in playgrounds, naturalization, tuber- culosis and neighborhood amusements. The Laymen's Christian Federation, on the West Side, above Fifty-ninth Street, sent a large number of boys away for two weeks each last summer. They have done good work in watching the moral situation, and are attacking the problem of turning the energies of the boys on the street into harmless channels. The various interests, social, philanthropic, moral and religious, above Fourteenth Street, on the East Side, have formed a neighborhood organization for the better- ment of that district. In October there was formed a neighborhood organiza- tion at Hartley House, 409 West Forty-eighth Street, to include those interested in the social and moral improve- ment of the people in the section of the city between Eighth Avenue, Forty-second Street, North River and Fifty-ninth Street. 154 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE The men of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Bible Class are being assigned to various lines of chic and social work in which they are most interested. The Bible class at the Washington Heights Baptist Church has been influential in arousing the men in that section to such questions as parks, transportation, the play of the children and the character of amusements at Fort George. The Central Presbyterian Men's Club has been active this fall in the work of the Big Brothers ' Movement. A remarkable series of meetings for men and women at the Mount Morris Baptist Church has been arranged by Dr. J. Gardner Smith and others. Strong speakers discuss social and religious questions. The Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Brooklyn has lately taken a house in which will be accommodated young college and business men. The Spring Street Presbyterian Church is cooperating with Earl Hall, Columbia University, by putting to work with boys and men the volunteers who are sent by that institution. The Brotherhood of the Brick Presbyterian Church has been interested in various civic matters, such as Sun- day theaters, race-track questions, and questions of municipal art. A number of the men have been working in the affiliated churches on the East and "West Sides. They have also cooperated with the Charity Organization Society and committees of the City Club. I would refer the reader to the pamphlets 155 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE of the Laity League, from which the above facts have been taken, and also to the pam- phlet by Miss Byington, entitled "What So- cial Workers Should Know About Their Own Communities, ' ' which will be stimulating to all those who are interested in associating the church with practical activities. Neither is it in the city alone that the church may through Bible classes become practically interested in social betterment. New inspiration and new plans are coming into being for associating the rural church and the rural Sunday-schools with local needs and conditions. Bible workers can organize on the farm an athletic club for boys who can not be lured into the church and who are in greater danger from overthrow by evil habits and evil associates than are our city boys. In the State of Michigan it was recently re- ported that 60 per cent, of the children of primary-school age are in the rural commu- nities. Are our Bible students of our towns and cities at all interested in these problems f A class of young men recently visited a 156 BIBLE AS MEANS TO SERVICE country district. They discovered the con- ditions of the youth of that section. They started a Sunday-school in a schoolhouse, then organized a debating society for the young men, and an industrial school, on a small scale, for young women. For four years this Bible class has been furnishing both inspiration and practical enlightenment to that entire community. Many have been added to the church; seven young men have been led to prepare for college; several members of the Bible class have become ex- perts upon rural subjects ; one man has writ- ten a booklet upon "The Ministry of the Bible to the Country Districts." That Bible class was serviceable. The sessions of the class were always about something. It is needless to remark that the attendance was never a problem. These young men had verified their Bible principles in the house of life. Their religion did not depend for its sustenance upon class discussions of metaphysics and the theory of sociology, neither did these men try to live upon the 157 THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE shewbread of early memory. Their re- ligious life was fed rather by fresh, vital experience, by actual contact with conditions, and this is the food which is "meat indeed." One of the members of the group exprest the value of his study by saying: "We find that Jesus' principles work." This is the social gospel of the Bible. And it is a gospel as applicable to the life of to- day as it was applicable seven or eight cen- turies before Christ, when Micah exprest it: "Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? ... He hath showed thee, man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah re- quire of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God ? ' ' However often we may change our minds regarding theology, we shall never sur- render our belief in the serviceable applica- tion of the principles of the Bible to every- day life. 158 APPENDIX 169 APPENDIX For the purpose of concrete suggestion as to programs of Bible-class sessions, consti- tutions and conference ideas, and bibliog- raphy, I append certain literature in use by some of the most effective organized Bible work for men. I — Bible Institute PROGRAM AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN. Friday Evening 7:30 — Rally Meeting for the Visiting Delegates and for the College Men and Women of Tennessee Institutions. Address. Saturday Morning 9 :00 — Devotional Service. 9 :30 — Sectional Conferences. (A) For the University Men. Theme — Forces Making for Effective Bible Study. 1. Systematic and Continuous Enrolment. 2. A Vitalized Leader. 161 APPENDIX 3. The Normal Group. (B) For the Preparatory School Men. Theme — Leadership. 1. Securing and Training Leaders. 2. High Ideals of a Leader. 3. How to Improve the Class-hour. 11:00 — Joint Conference. Privileges and Opportunities of a Group Leader. 11:30— Address. Saturday Afternoon 2 :30 — Session for Fraternity Men. 1. The Significance to the Fraternity of Having a Bible Study Group in the Chapter House. 2. Jesus as a Fraternity Man. 3. College Fraternity Bible Study Movements. Saturday Evening 7:30 — Sectional Conferences. (A) Faculty Session. 1. Bible Study, a Constructive Force in College Life. 2. Faculty Cooperation, a Factor in the Growth of Bible Study. (B) Preparatory School Session. 1. A Bible Study Policy. 2. Enrolling the Men. 3. Creating and Maintaining Interest. 162 APPENDIX Sunday Morning 9:30 — Session for Delegates. Theme — Bible Study Objectives. 1. Evangelism. 2. Daily Devotional Study. 11:00 — University Church Service. (For the Delegates, and the Students and Facul- ties of the Colleges and Universities of Nash- ville.) Address — Student Life and Bible Study in India. Sunday Evening 7:30 — Closing Meeting of the Institute. Illustrated Lecture: " Bible Study the World Around.' ' 77 — Sunday Program of an Organized Bible Class in New York City Name of Organization Place of Meeting Time of Meeting (10 a.m. Sunday) Date. • Chairman Advisory Committee President Leader. 163 APPENDIX PROGRAM Class Singing — Led by Orchestra and Precentor. Selection by Quartet (Composed of members of the League.) Hymn: "0 Master Let Me Walk with Thee." Devotional Exercises — Led by Class President. Four Minute Paper: "Christ's Mission as Conceived by Himself and His Followers." Solo. Offering — Selection by Quartet. Question Box (Questions presented week in advance by members and answered by teacher or pastor.) Address by Class Leader — Subject : ( ' Christian Friendliness ' ' — Bosworth 's Studies, John 1 : 35-51. Hymn: "Love Divine all Love Excelling." Lord's Prayer. Fifteen Minutes ' informal reception in Parish House. The daily lessons for this week are Study XXV, Bosworth 's Studies, Pages 210-218, Third Chapter of John. Six o'clock, Thursday evening, supper in the Parish House for members and friends, followed by half-hour discussion. The most important League meeting of the year will be held Thursday evening, May , at the Hotel In connection with a dinner there will oc- cur the Annual Business Meeting. The election of officers for the ensuing year, and the adoption of a 164 APPENDIX revised constitution are among the important considera- tions. A strong list of after-dinner speakers, including and No member of the League can afford to miss this meeting. Leave your name at close of meeting with ; Chairman of Reception Committee. /// — Training Leadership for a State-wide Campaign. State Bible Conference Em- phasizing Service held at Albion, Michigan Friday Afternoon 1:30 — Address: " Trained Bible Study Leadership the Key to Every Religious Problem.' ' 2:00— Discussion: "The Student Young Men's Chris- tian Association as a Training School for Bible Study Leadership. ' ' (Presentations limited to 3 minutes) a. The regular Association Bible Class. b. The group leaders' training class. c. Practise in leading classes. 1. In the Student Association. 2. In the City Association. 3. In the County Association. 4. In the Local High School. 5. In Rural Sunday Schools. d. Study of local field. e. An Organized Bible Study Department. 165 APPENDIX 4:00 — Discussion: "The College as a Training School for Bible Study Leadership. ' ' a. Bible Study in the Curriculum, fe. Bible Teacher Training Courses in the Curriculum. Friday Evening 7:30 — Mass Meeting. Address: "Bible Study — A World-wide Enterprise. ' ' Saturday Forenoon 8 : 00— Address : Topic, "Ideal— Every Christian Col- lege Man a Competent Bible Study Leader for the Community in Which He Locates. ' ' 8:30— Discussion: "The Field—Its Call for Trained Bible Study Leadership. ' ' a. The Rural Community. b. The Public School. c. The Average City. d. The Large City. 10:30— Address: "Cooperation of All Agencies for a State-wide Program Under Trained Leader- ship/ ' IV — Bible-study Conference, Cornell University Friday Evening 7:30 p.m. — Intercollegiate Sociable. Saturday Morning 9 :00 a.m. — Devotional Exercises. 166 APPENDIX 9:30-10:00— " Why of Bible Study." 10:00-11:30— "Essentials for Effective Bible Study.' ' 1. Enrolment — (Systematic organization.) (Continuous follow-up work.) 2. A Trained Leadership. (a) Who — (Key to effective work.) (6) Methods for Training (Fraternity leader). 1. Spring Class. 2. Conferences. 3. Normal Group. 11:30 a.m. — "Privileges and Opportunities of a Group Leader. ' ' Saturday Afternoon 2:00 p.m. — Faculty session ( member of faculty presiding.) 1. "Bible Study a Constructive Force in College Life." 2. "Faculty Cooperation a Factor in the Growth of Bible Study." 'Saturday Evening 7:30 p.m.— Session for Fraternity Men. 1. "Significance to Fraternity of Having a Bible Study Group in the Chapter House." Endorsements by several colleges. 2. "College Fraternity Bible Study Movement.' ' 167 APPENDIX Sunday Morning 9 :30 a.m. — Session for Students. Bible Study Objectives. Sunday Evening 7:30 p.m. — Address. V — Bible-study Policy for Men of Entire Community The following policy was adopted in a con- ference attended by representatives of the County Sunday-school Association, Ministe- rial Association, Federated Church Brother- hoods, Sunday-school Superintendents' As- ciation, and the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation at Dayton, Ohio. I. The Objective shall be: 1. To stimulate existing classes. 2. To organize at least one men's class in every Bible School and as many more as the proper classifi- cation of the constituency of the church, the sup- ply of competent teachers and leaders, and the accommodations will warrant. 3. To conduct an extension work to reach men of all classes who do not attend regular Bible classes. 4. To introduce Bible Study into the meetings of Brotherhoods and men's clubs. 168 APPENDIX 5. To secure the attendance at summer training con- ferences of at least one leader from every church. II. The Methods shall be: 1. To prepare and distribute a directory of men's Bible classes. 2. To prepare a directory of forces. 3. To secure a corps of capable men to assist in the organization and promotion of classes. 4. To arrange a uniform adult Bible Class Rally Day in all the churches in October. 5. To conduct a Bible Study Conference, which shall include a big dinner, during the week preceding the Rally. 6. To invite the pastors to preach on Bible Study on the Sunday preceding Rally Day. 7. To conduct a general publicity campaign leading up to the Conference and Rally Day. 8. To consider carefully the question of Courses of Study for Men's Classes. 9. To conduct a Training School for teachers and lead- ers of Men's Bible Classes. 10. The following shall be the Course of Study in the Training School. (a) Methods — Under the direction of a committee. To consist of talks and conferences on methods and practise in conducting the class. 169 APPENDIX (6) Biblical Introduction. To be a combination of the important parts of Biblical Introduction, pedagogy and psychol- ogy, (c) Bible Exposition. To be selections illustrating the various methods of studying and teaching the different parts of the Bible. III. The Division of Responsibility shall be: 1. That the Montgomery County Sunday School Asso- ciation shall be responsible for sections one and two of the Objectives, which shall be done in co- operation with the local Brotherhoods and the Bible Study Committee of Federated Church Brother- hoods and section three of the Methods. 2. That the Federated Church Brotherhoods, through its Bible Study Committee, shall be responsible for sections four and five of the Objectives and that the Committee shall cooperate with the Montgom- ery County Sunday School Association in the work of section five. 3. That the Sunday School Superintendent's Associa- tion shall be responsible for the discovery and en- rolment of men in the Training School. 4. That the Young Men's Christian Association shall be responsible for section three of the Objectives and sections one, two and eight of the Methods, the work of section eight to be done by a repre- sentative committee. 170 APPENDIX 5. That a Men's Bible Study Cabinet consisting of two representatives elected by each of the five organiza- tions represented in this Conference, shall be or- ganized and be responsible for initiative, coordina- tion and results in carrying out this Policy, and for sections four, five, six, seven, nine and ten of the Methods. 6. That the expenses of the Men's Bible Study Cabinet shall be borne equally by the five organizations represented in this conference and that ten dollars ($10) shall be paid to the treasurer of the Cabinet by each as soon as the Cabinet is organized. VI — Constitution and By-Laws of Large Organized Classes for Men CONSTITUTION OF AN ORGANIZED BIBLE CLASS IN LYNN, MASS. ARTICLE I NAME This class shall be called ARTICLE n. OBJECT Its object shall be to promote religious instruction, and to improve the spiritual, mental, social and phys- ical condition of young men. 171 APPENDIX ARTICLE III OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES Section 1 — The officers of the class shall be a Pres- ident, Vice-President, Recording Secretary, Correspond- ing Secretary, Treasurer, Teacher, Chorister, Organist, Assistant Organist, and Librarian, who shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting. Sec. 2 — There shall also be the following committees, viz.: — Executive, Membership, Visiting, Devotional, So- cial, Entertainment, Athletic and Employment; and the chairman of each committee, except the Executive and Devotional, shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting, and the several chairmen, excepting the Ex- ecutive, shall have power to appoint the members of their respective committees. ARTICLE IV DUTIES OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES Section 1 — The President shall preside at the busi- ness meetings of the class. He shall appoint all com- mittees not herein provided for, and shall perform the usual duties pertaining to his office. He shall also be Chairman of the Devotional Committee. Sec. 2 — The Vice-President shall be chairman of the Executive Committee, and shall perform the duties of the President during his absence. Sec. 3 — The Recording Secretary shall keep a record of the members, of their attendance and of all the moneys received at the Sunday collections. He shall 172 APPENDIX also keep accurate minutes in a book provided for that purpose of all business meetings. Sec. 4 — The Corresponding Secretary shall attend to all newspaper notices and printing, and, with the aid of the various committees, to the mailing of all lit- erature. Sec. 5 — The Treasurer shall receive all moneys of the Class and pay out the same as directed by the Ex- ecutive Committee. Sec. 6 — The Teacher shall be the spiritual leader, and as such shall conduct the Bible study and minister to the highest moral and spiritual interests of the class. Sec. 7 — The Chorister shall have entire charge of the music of the class and shall, with the aid of the organ- ists, provide a musical program for each Sunday. Sec. 8 — The Organist and Assistant Organist shall be the regular accompanists in the musical work of the class, and shall otherwise cooperate with the chorister. Sec. 9 — The Librarian shall have the custody of all books and printed matter and shall see that the same are properly distributed. He shall also appoint such assistants as he may deem necessary. Sec. 10 — The Executive Committee shall consist of the elective officers of the class, and the chairmen of the various committees, seven of whom shall constitute a quorum. The duties of this committee shall be to vote upon all applications for membership; to consider all matters 173 APPENDIX pertaining to class interests before they are brought before the class, to audit all bills, and to supervise the general expenses of the class. Each member of this committee shall make, in wri- ting, at the quarterly meetings, a detailed report of his work. Sec. 11 — The duties of the Membership Committee shall be to maintain and increase the attendance on Sunday and at social meetings, of young men eligible to membership, and to submit to the Executive Com- mittee all properly endorsed applications. Sec. 12 — The duties of the Visiting Committee shall be to call upon the new members; to visit any mem- bers who may be ill or delinquent in attendance; and to seek to maintain and better the spiritual condition of the members of the class. Sec. 13 — The duties of the Devotional Committee shall be to conduct the opening exercises of the Sunday services, and to assist the Teacher in making the Sun- day sessions as attractive and helpful as possible. Sec. 14 — The duties of the Social Committee shall be to promote the social interests of the class; to provide suitable refreshments at the class gatherings, and to have general charge of socials, receptions and the an- nual banquet. Sec. 15 — The duties of the Entertainment Committee shall be to provide suitable entertainments of an in- tellectual, esthetic or social nature at the class gather- ings, and to procure speakers for the annual banquet. 174 APPENDIX Sec. 16 — The duties of the Athletic Committee shall be to attend to the athletic interests of the class. Sec. 17 — The duties of the Employment Committee shall be to establish and maintain an employment bu- reau; to keep a list of members desiring employment and positions to be filled; and to endeavor in every way to aid members in need of situations. ARTICLE V meetings The annual meeting of the class shall be held on the first Thursday of April at 8 p.m. The other regular meetings of the class shall be held on the first Thurs- day of the months of July, October, and January, at 8 p.m., or at such other times as the Executive Commit- tee shall decide. Special meetings of the class may be called at any time by the President, the Executive Committee, or on the written request of twenty members of the class, due notice of which meeting shall be given publicly at a Sunday session not more than two weeks previous to the time appointed for said meetings. At special meetings no business other than that spec- ified in the call shall be considered, except by unani- mous consent. ARTICLE VI QUORUM Twenty-five members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. 175 APPENDIX ARTICLE VII MEMBERSHIP Any young man of sixteen years or over, upon the recommendation of any member of the class and the approval of the Executive Committee, may become a member of the class by the signing of the constitution. ARTICLE VIII AMENDMENTS This Constitution and By-Laws may be altered by a vote of two-thirds of the members present at a regular or special business meeting of the class, previous notice, stating proposed amendment, having been given in wri- ting at least two weeks in advance. BY-LAWS The Executive Committee shall hold a meeting at least once a quarter, and oftener if the interest of the class demands. The funds of the class shall be raised by voluntary contributions, and no contributions shall be solicited at any of the social meetings. CONSTITUTION OF A BIBLE CLASS IN NEW YORK CITY ARTICLE I NAME The name of this organization shall be 176 APPENDIX ARTICLE II OBJECT The object of this organization shall be to promote Christian manhood. ARTICLE III MEMBERSHIP 1. There shall be three classes of members, Active, Associate and Honorary. 2. The Active membership shall be composed of men between the ages of 18 and 45 years. But no one shall cease to be an Active member because he has passed the age of 45; nor shall this age limit apply to the present Active members of the Class. 3. The Associate membership shall be composed of men beyond the age of 45 who desire to attend the Sun- day morning sessions of the Class 4. Active and Associate members shall be elected by the Committee on Admission. 5. The Honorary membership shall be composed of those men who have addrest the Class or rendered it some other conspicuous service. Honorary members shall be elected by a majority of the members present at any regular meeting. 6. Only Active members shall be eligible to vote and hold office. ARTICLE IV OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES 1. The Officers of this Class shall be a President, a 177 APPENDIX Vice-President, two Recording Secretaries, a Corre- sponding Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Leader. 2. There shall be the following Standing Commit- tees: Executive, Entertainment, Membership, Cooperation, Admission, Music, Attendance, Refreshment, Visiting, House. 3. The Officers, (with the exception of the leader), and the Chairman of the Standing Committees, shall be elected by ballot at the annual meeting, and shall hold office for one year from the first day of May following. A plurality vote shall elect. 4. The Leader shall be chosen by the Executive Committee at its first meeting in May and shall hold office for one year, or until his successor is chosen. 5. Any office of the Class may be declared vacant, by a two-thirds vote of the Executive Committee at any regular or special meeting. 6. Vacancies in office occurring during the year shall be filled by the Executive Committee, and Officers thus appointed shall hold office until the next annual election of the Class. ARTICLE V DUTIES OF OFFICERS 1. The President shall preside at the regular and special business meetings of the Class and shall per- 178 APPENDIX form the usual duties pertaining to such offiee. He shall also be the Chairman of the Executive Committee and the Chairman of the Committee on Admission, and a member of all Standing Committees, ex officio. 2. The Vice-President shall perform the duties of the President in his absence. 3. The First Recording Secretary shall keep the minutes of the business meetings of the Class and a record of all such matters as the Executive Committee may deem advisable. 4. The Second Recording Secretary shall keep the roll of the Class, notify the Active and Associate mem- bers of their election, and notify the Visiting Commit- tee each week of the sick and absent Active members. He shall also send out to the Active members notices of Class affairs as directed by the Executive Committee, and shall perform such other duties as the Executive Committee shall direct. 5. The Corresponding Secretary shall conduct the correspondence of the Class, notify Officers and Honor- ary members of election, prepare a report of the work of the Class every four months, and perform such other duties as the Executive Committee shall direct. 6. The Treasurer shall receive all moneys belonging to the Class, and shall hold, deposit and pay out the same as directed by the Executive Committee. He shall make a full report of the receipts and disbursements of the Class every four months to the Executive Com- mittee. 179 APPENDIX ARTICLE VI DUTIES OF COMMITTEES 1. (a) The Executive Committee shall consist of the Officers of the Class, the Chairman of the other Stand- ing Committees, the Pastor of the Church, and the Leader of the Class. The President of the Class shall be Chairman of the Executive Committee, ex officio. (b) The Executive Committee shall be vested with the management of the Class, including the appoint- ment of all committees not otherwise provided for, the regulation of expenditures and the determination of the policy of the Class. (c) The Executive Committee shall hold regular monthly meetings and special meetings at the call of the Chairman. (d) One month before the annual meeting, the Executive Committee shall appoint a Nominating Com- mittee to nominate the Officers of the Class and chair- men of the Standing Committees for the ensuing year. 2. The Membership Committee shall consist of from fifteen to twenty-five members. The duties of this Committee shall be to welcome strangers at the Sunday morning sessions of the Class, introduce them to the members of the Class, call upon them and cultivate their friendship, being responsible for the strangers for one to four weeks as may be required in order to make them feel at home and desirous of remaining in the Class, finally in their discretion recommending them for membership in the Class and the Club. The members 180 APPENDIX of this Committee shall secure from strangers such data as may be deemed desirable, filing the same with the Chairman of the Committee, who shall direct the work of the Committee. 3. The Committee on Admission shall consist of the President, the Chairman of the Attendance Committee and the Chairman of the Membership Committee. The duty of this Committee shall be to pass upon and in their discretion elect to either Active or Associate membership those men whose names are presented to them as candidates. 4. The Attendance Committee shall consist of five members, whose duty it shall be to act as Ushers at the Sunday morning sessions of the Class, greet strangers as they enter the Class, and secure their names and ad- dresses, which shall be turned over to the Chairman of the Membership Committee. 5. The Visiting Committee shall consist of five mem- bers, whose duty it shall be to visit the sick and the absent members as they may be notified of such cases by the Second Recording Secretary. 6. The Entertainment Committee shall consist of seven members, and shall have charge of all socials and entertainments of the Class. 7. The Committee on Cooperation shall consist of five members. It shall be the duty of this Committee to keep in touch with the various activities of the Church and such other activities as may seem expedi- ent, with a view to supplying men from the Class as workers wherever they may be required. 181 APPENDIX 8. The Music Committee shall consist of three mem- bers, whose duty it shall be to provide music and a Precentor for the Sunday morning meetings of the Class, and also to provide music for other meetings of the Class when requested. 9. The Refreshment Committee shall consist of three members, and shall have charge of the refreshments served at any teas or other social meetings of the Class. 10. The House Committee shall consist of five mem- bers. It shall have the care of the meeting room and of all Class property. 11. The Nominating Committee shall consist of five members, including the Leader of the Class, and shall be appointed by the Executive Committee one month before the annual meeting. It shall be the duty of the Nominating Committee two weeks before the annual election to present to the Class a list of Candidates for the elective offices and chairmanships of the Class, sug- gesting two names for each position. Upon the request of twenty-five members of the Class the name of a third candidate for any office may be added. 12. The Leader of the Class shall be a member of the Executive and Nominating Committees, ex officio. ARTICLE VII MEETINGS 1. The annual meeting of the Class shall be held early in April. 2. Other business meetings of the Class may be held 182 APPENDIX at such times and places as the Executive Committee shall decide. 3. A special meeting of the Class may be called at any time by the President, three members of the Ex- ecutive Committee, or on the written request of twenty- five members of the Class, due notice of which shall be given publicly at a Sunday session not less than one week before said meeting. ARTICLE Vin QUORUMS 1. Twenty-five Active members of the Class shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. 2. Five members of the Executive Committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. ARTICLE IX AMENDMENTS This Constitution may be altered by a vote of two- thirds of the Active members present at a regular or special business meeting of the Class, previous notice stating the proposed amendment having been given two weeks before the meeting. BY-LAWS OF A BIBLE CLASS IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK Article I— Name This class shall be called the 183 APPENDIX Article II — Object Its object shall be to promote religious instruction, and to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and phys- ical condition of young men. Article III— Motto Pro Christo. Article IV — Officers and Committees Section 1. — The officers of this class shall consist of a President, Corresponding Secretary, Vice-president, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, Librarian, Assistant Librarian. Sec. 2 — The officers of this class shall be elected at the annual meeting. Sec. 3 — There shall be the following committees, viz. : Executive, Athletic, Visiting, Employment, Attendance, Devotional, Social, Music. Sec. 4 — The chairmen of each committee, except the Executive, shall be elected at the annual meeting. Sec. 5 — The elective officers of this class shall be elected by ballot, and a majority of the whole number of votes cast shall be necessary for a choice. Sec. 6 — The elective officers of this class shall be elected at the annual meeting and shall hold their re- spective offices for the term of one year next succeed- ing their election, or until such a time as their suc- cessors are elected. 184 APPENDIX Sec. 7 — Any office of this class may be declared va- cant by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any regular or special meeting of the class. Article V — Duties of Officers and Committees Section 1 — The president shall preside at the reg- ular and special business meetings of the class. He shall appoint all committees not herein provided for, and shall also perform the usual duties pertaining to such an officer. Sec. 2 — The vice-president shall perform the duties of the president during his absence. Sec. 3 — The recording secretary shall keep a record of the members, of their attendance, and of all the moneys received at the Sunday collections. He shall also keep accurate minutes, in a book provided for that purpose, of all business transacted by the class, and the executive committee. Sec. 4 — The corresponding secretary shall attend to the placing of notices in newspapers and periodicals, answer all correspondence, and attend to the printing and mailing of all notices of meetings of the class. Sec. 5 — The treasurer shall receive all moneys be- longing to the class; shall hold, deposit and pay out the same, as directed by the executive committee. He shall make a full report of the receipts and disburse- ments of the class at each annual meeting. Sec. 6 — The librarian shall have the care and cus- tody of all books and printed matter, and shall see that the same are properly distributed. Sec. 7 — The assistant librarian shall perform the 185 APPENDIX duties of the librarian during his absence, and shall assist him in performing his duties. Sec. 8 — The executive committee shall consist of the elective officers of the class, and the chairmen of the various standing committees. The executive committee shall consider all matters pertaining to class interests before being brought before the class; audit all bills and supervise the general expenses of the class; make such expenditures as shall be necessary for the welfare of the class; and shall have power to fill any vacancies occurring in office. Sec. 9 — The attendance committee shall consist of fifteen members. The duties of this committee shall be to maintain and increase the attendance of the members of the class at all of its sessions. Sec. 10 — The visiting committee shall consist of three members. The duties of this committee shall be to call upon the new members; to visit any members who may be ill or delinquent in attendance; and to seek to main- tain and better the spiritual condition of the members of the class. Sec. 11 — The social committee shall consist of fifteen members. The duties of this committee shall be to promote the social interests of the class ; to have charge of all social gatherings, receptions, etc., also to provide suitable entertainment, etc. Sec. 12 — The employment committee shall consist of three members. The duties of this committee shall be to establish and maintain an employment bureau; to keep a list of members desiring employment, and po- 186 APPENDIX sitions to be filled; and shall endeavor in every way to aid members in need of situations. Sec. 13 — The devotional committee shall consist of five members. The duties of this committee shall be to conduct the opening exercises of the Sunday services, and to assist the teacher in making the Sunday services as attractive and helpful as possible. Sec. 14 — The music committee shall consist of three members. The duties of this committee shall be to fur- nish suitable music at all of the Sunday sessions of the class. Sec. 15 — The athletic committee shall consist of three members. The duties of this committee shall be to at- tend to the athletic interests of the class. Sec. 16 — The chairmen of the various committees, except the executive, shall have power to appoint the additional members of their respective committees. Sec. 17 — The teacher of this class shall be a member of all committees ex officio. Sec. 18 — At the annual meeting of the class, and oftener if required, the elected officers shall furnish the class with a complete report of the business transacted in their respective offices, and shall deUver to their successors in office all papers, books, records, moneys, and other properties belonging to the class within ten days after the expiration of their terms of office. Article VI — Meetings Section 1 — The annual meeting of this class shall be held on the last Thursday in the month of January. 187 APPENDIX Sec. 2 — The other regular business meetings of the class shall be held quarterly, or at such times and places as the executive committee shall decide. Sec. 3 — Special meetings of this class may be called at any time by the president, the executive committee, or on the written request of twenty members of the class; due notice of which meeting shall be given pub- licly at a Sunday session not more than two weeks previous to the time appointed for said meetings. Sec. 4 — At special meetings no business other than that specified in the call shall be considered, except by unanimous consent of those present at such meeting. Article VII — Quorums Section 1 — Twenty-five members of the class shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. Sec. 2 — Five members of the executive committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of busi- Article VIII — Membership Section 1 — Any male of the age of sixteen, or over, may become a member of the class by signing a mem- bership card. Sec. 2 — Any member of the class who has not been in attendance at any of the sessions of the class within a period of four months, may be dropt from the mem- bership of the class on vote of the attendance com- mittee. 188 APPENDIX Article IX — Contributions The funds of the class shall be raised by voluntary contributions; and no contributions shall be solicited at any social meetings. Article X' — Amendments These by-laws may be altered by a vote of two-thirds of the members present at a regular or special business meeting of the class, previous notice, stating proposed amendment, having been given in writing at least two weeks in advance. 180 APPENDIX BIBLE-STUDY COUESES AND REFER- ENCE LITERATURE NEW BIBLE STUDIES The Message op the Bible to Modern Life Six series of studies, thirty lessons each, covering the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, arranged for both weekly and daily study, with special application of the Bible to modern social, economic, political, and relig- ious problems. Authors collaborating : Professor Charles Foster Kent of Yale University, Dean Edward Increase Bosworth of Oberlin Theological Seminary, Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks of Cornell University, and Clayton Sedgwick Cooper of The International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations, New York City. The first thirty studies in the Old Testament beginning with Genesis, and entitled "The Making of a Nation," and the first thirty studies in the New Testament upon "Jesus* Life and Teachings," will be ready about October 1st, 1911. OLD TESTAMENT Introduction and History Biblical Introduction. Bennet and Adeney (new edition announced). The Literature of the Old Testament. Driver. A Short Introduction to the Literature of the Bible. Moulton. Introduction to the Old Testament. McFadyen. Old Testament History. Wade. The Bible as English Literature. Gardiner. 190 APPENDIX Prophets Old Testament Prophecy. Davidson. Book of the Twelve Prophets. Smith (2 vols.) Prophets of Israel. Cornill. Messages of the Earlier Prophets. Sanders and Kent. The Minor Prophets. Eiselen. Doctrine of the Prophets. Kirkpatrick. Religion of Babylon and Assyria. Rogers (especially in its relations to Israel). The Great Teachers of Judaism and Christianity. Kent. Prophecy and the Prophets in Their Historical Rela- tions. Eiselen. The Minor Prophets. Farrar. (Men of the Bible Series.) Psalms and Wisdom Literature The Messages of the Psalmists. McFadyen. The Psalms in Human Life. Prothero. (Everyman's Library.) The Epic of the Inner Life. Genung. The Hebrew Literature of Wisdom. Genung. NEW TESTAMENT Introduction A Critical Introduction to the New Testament. Peake. Introduction to the New Testament. Dods. A Short Introduction to the Gospels. Burton. Introduction to New Testament. Bacon. The Study of the Gospels. Robinson. Introduction to the New Testament. Zahn. (3 vols.) 191 APPENDIX History of New Testament Times in Palestine. Math- ews. In the Time of Christ; Sketches of Jewish Social Life. Edersheim. Introduction to Literature of the New Testament. Mof- fatt. Theology of the New Testament. Stevens. LIFE OF CHRIST Life of Christ. Stalker. The Life and Times of Jesus. Edersheim. The Student Life of Jesus. Gilbert. Life of Christ. Farrar. The Life of Jesus. Holtzmann. The Man Christ Jesus. Speer. In the Days of His Flesh. Smith. Outlines of the Life of Christ. Sanday. The Ethics of Jesus. King. The Character of Jesus. Bushnell. The Kingdom of God. Bruce. Jesus and the Gospel. Denney. The Principles of Jesus. Speer. The Life of Christ. Dawson. The Life of the Master. Watson. Jesus Christ and the Christian Character. Peabody. Earliest Sources of the Life of Jesus. Burkett. The Jewish People in the Time of Christ. Schurer. (5 vols.) A History of the Jewish People. Maccabean and Roman Periods. Riggs. 192 APPENDIX The Life of Jesus of Nazareth. Rhees. Studies in the Life of Christ. Fairbairn. Why Four Gospels. Gregory. THE EARLY CHURCH Life of St. Paul. Stalker. Paul the All-round Man. Speer. The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. Conybeare and Howson. St. Paul, the Traveler and the Roman Citizen. Ramsay. The Cities of Paul. Ramsay. Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity. Orr. St. Paul. Iverach. Life and Works of St. Paul. Farrar. St. Paul's Conception of Christianity. Bruce. Pauline Theology. Stevens. Apostolic Church. Thatcher. Apostolic Church. Bartlet. The Apostolic Age. Purves. COMMENTARIES The One Volume Bible Commentary. Dummelow. Cambridge Bible Series. (49 vols.) Expositor's Bible Series. (49 vols.) The New Century Bible. (23 vols.) Modern Reader's Bible. (22 vols.) 193 APPENDIX The Bible for Home and School. Edited by Mathews. The Churchman's Bible. The Westminster New Testament. Commentaries on the Old Testament : Genesis (Westminster Series). Driver. Genesis (International Critical Com.). Skinner. Exodus (Westminster Series). McNeile. Numbers (International Critical Com.). Gray. Deuteronomy (International Critical Com.). Driver. Judges (International Critical Com.). Moore. Samuel (International Critical Com.). Smith. Kings (Cambridge Bible). Lumby. Kings (Cambridge Bible). Barnes. Chronicles (Cambridge Bible). Barnes. Chronicles (International Critical Com.). Curtis. Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge Bible). Ryle. Esther (International Critical Com.). Paton. Job (New Century Bible). Peake. Job (International Critical Com.). Driver. (In preparation.) Psalms (Cambridge Bible). Kirkpatrick. Psalms (New Century Bible). Davison. (2 vols.) Proverbs (International Critical Com.). Toy. Ecclesiastes (International Critical Com.). Barton, Ecclesiastes (Cambridge Bible). Plumptre. Song of Solomon (Cambridge Bible). Harper. Isaiah (Cambridge Bible). Skinner. (2 vols.) Ezekiel (Cambridge Bible). Davidson. Daniel (Cambridge Bible). Driver. Minor Prophets (Whedon Series). Eiselen. 194 APPENDIX Commentaries on the Old Testament — Continued: Joel and Amos (Cambridge Bible). Driver. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (New Century). Driver. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (Cambridge Bible). Davidson. Commentaries on New Testament: Matthew. Allen. Matthew. Plummer. Mark. Swete. Mark. Gould. Mark. Bruce. The Earliest Gospel (Mark). Mengies. Luke. Plummer. John. Godet. (3 vols.) John. Westcott. John. Dods. (Expositor's Greek Testament. Vol. I) Acts. Rackham. Acts. Knowling. (Expositor's Greek Testament. Vol. II) Romans. Sanday. Romans. Williams. Romans. Denney. (Expositor's Greek Testament. Vol. II) Galatians. Lightfoot. Ephesians and Colossians. Abbott. Philippians. Vincent. Philippians. Lightfoot. Colossians and Philemon. Lightfoot. 195 APPENDIX THE SOCIAL GOSPEL The Church and the Changing Order. Mathews. The Church and the Social Problem. Plantz. The Gospel and the Modern Man. Mathews. Christianity and Social Questions. Cunningham. Christianity and the Social Crisis. Rauschenbush. Social Duties from the Christian Point of View. Hen- derson. N Messianic Hope in the New Testament. Mathews. Ecce Homo. Seeley. The Next Great Awakening. Strong. Social Teachings of Jesus. Mathews. Teaching of Jesus. Stevens. Jesus Christ and the Social Question. Peabody. The Approach to the Social Question. Peabody. Social Law in the Spiritual World. Jones. DEVOTIONAL BOOKS Devotional Use of the Holy Scriptures. Gibson. The Still Hour. Phelps. Thoughts for Every-Day Living. Babcock. Decision of Character. Foster. Leaves for Quiet Hours. Matheson. Times of Retirement. Matheson. Moments on the Mount. Matheson. Rests by the River. Matheson. Drummond's Addresses. Imitation of Christ, a Kempis. 196 APPENDIX Imago Christi. Stalker. With Christ in the School of Prayer. Murray. Abide in Christ. Murray. Prayer: Its Nature and Scope. Trumbull. The Master of the Heart. Speer. The Evangelistic Note. Dawson. A Call for Character. Bosworth. The Secret Prayer Life. Mott. Secret Prayer a Great Reality. Wright.. TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES The Teacher's Philosophy in and out of School. Hyde. How to Teach the Bible. Gregory. Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull. Talks to Teachers. James. College Men and the Bible. Cooper. Primer on Teaching. Adams. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory. The Teaching of Bible Classes. See. How to Read the Bible. Smith. How to Study the Bible. Torrey. Hints on Bible Study. Atkins. The Bible Hand-Book. Angus. Literary Study of the Bible. Moulton. How We Think. Dewey. The Pedagogical Bible School. Haslett. How to Study. McMurry. The Bible a Missionary Book. Horton. Starting to Teach. Foster. 197 APPENDIX How to Make the Bible Real. King. Effective Leadership in Bible Classes. The Making of a Teacher. Brumbaugh. Training of the Twelve. Bruce. Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois. INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS. The Fact of Christ. Simpson. Rational Living. King. Studies in Christianity. Bowne. The Essence of Religion. Bowne. Life Problems. The Field of Ethics. Palmer. Religious Certainty. McConnell. Sixty Years with the Bible. Clarke. How to Deal with Temptation. Speer. Things Fundamental. Jefferson. My Belief. Horton. Christian Evidences and Ethics. Schenck. Beyond the Natural Order. Best. Universal Elements of the Christian Religion. Hall. The Gospel for a World of Sin. Van Dyke. The Natural Law in the Spiritual World. Drummond. Nature and the Supernatural. Bushnell. Varieties of Religious Experience. James. Twice Born Men. Begbie. Souls in Action. Begbie. The Spiritual Life. Coe. 198 APPENDIX The Divinity of Our Lord. Liddon. The Right to Believe. Rowland. The True Doctrine of Prayer. Chamberlain. The Lord of Glory. Warfield. The Divine Reason of the Cross. Mabie. The World a Spiritual System. Snowden. The Philosophy of the Fourth Gospel. Johnston. To Christ Through Criticism. Seaver. The Main Points. Brown. — The Substance of Faith. Lodge. e The Gospel for an Age of Doubt. Van Dyke. ^ What Is Christianity? Harnack. The Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life. King. Personal and Ideal Elements in Education. King. The Gospel and the Modern Man. Mathews. The Church and Modern Life. Gladden. 199 INDEX 201 INDEX American Bible Society, the, 5. Athletic Committee, the, 113. Atmosphere of the class, the, 78. Baraca Movement, the, 3. Bible, The, and life work, 9. and modern problems, 148. and religion, 18. as a means of evangelism, 88. assists in character forming, 15. at the heart of modern reform, 140. center, 98. Church and, 12. Church needs able men to teach, 13. Church's opportunity to popu- larize, 14. class, large, How to form, 105. class, large, as a rival to the Church and Sunday-school, 96. Classes in study of, 3, 4. classes in rural communities, 156. classes, large organized, 93. classes, large organized, con- stitution and by-laws for, 171. College men studying, 3. Evangelism through, in the Orient, 48. first book upon ethics, 15. gives added force to the will, 17. Bible, The. Heathen world studying, 13. as helps to men in moral battles, 16. How to study, 121. Human interest in, xiii. Institute for study of, 161. institute, Subjects in, 24. institutes as conducted by stu- dents, 23-25. Interest in, signs of awaken- ing in the Orient, 43. Knowledge of, clarifies the vision, 10. Knowledge of, wanting, 12. Lectures on, A series of, 69. Literature of, and Bible habits, 125. Literature of, and teachers in the Orient, 47. Mastery of, necessary to the missionary, 12. Men eager to study, 100. most popular of books, 3. Output of the, in 1910, 4, 5. peculiarly personal. 15. Reference books for study of, 128. secretaries, National, 46. Social gospel of, 139. students, Influences of, in the Orient, 51. Study of, xi-xv. Study of, among men in the Orient, 43. Study of, among students of all races, 47. 203 INDEX Bible, The. Study of, and missions, 145. Study of, and youth in the Sunday-schools, 151. Study of, a suggestive basis for vocation, 9, 10. study class, Growth of, in the University of Illinois, 62. study class in Brooklyn, 64. study class in New England, Growth of, 61. study class, how organized, 66-68. study conference at Cornell University, 166. Cooperation the next step in, 31. Study corrects individual stan- dards, 11. Study courses in, and litera- ture of, 121. study courses, Reference liter- ature for, 190. study courses, A selection of, 121. study, Enlisting college gradu- ates in church, 33. Study, a bridge between the dream and fulfilment, 59. study, Neglect of, 12. Study of, growing power, 19. Study of, The habit of, 11. Study of, in China, 44, 47. Study of, in colleges, 23. Study of, in India, 45, 48. Study of, in Japan, 43. Study of, in Korea, 44, 47. Study of, in small classes, 75. Study of, in Sunday-schools, 4, 29, 30. Study of, leads to life of prayer, 16. Study of, Methods for main- taining, 69. Bible, The. Study of, methods of asso- ciating the large class with real, 94. Study of, by church and col- lege members, cooperating committee for, 32. Study of, often fails, 60. Study of, rather than Bible reading, 122. Study of, Spirit of work pri- mary and fundamental in, 59. Study of, satisfied craving for the recreation of the soul's life, 19. Study of, spreads out God's plan for human existence, 11. Study of, Successful organi- zation and conduct of, 57. Study of, the secret of the life of the Bible class, 98. Study of, two elements which make for success in, 60. Study of, voluntary, 4. study policy for men of an entire community, 168. Studies of, suggestive not ex- haustive, 127. The church interesting men in the, 13. Theological students studying the, 4. Training classes for the study of, in colleges, 36. Why men study the, 3. Biblical thought and research, modern, 12. Brahman student after studying the Bible, 49. British and Foreign Bible So- ciety, the, 5. Brooklyn, Bible study class in Y. M. C. A. in, 64. 204 INDEX Business side, the, 103. Character forming, Bible as- sists in, 15; modern call for, 14; the, of Jesns, 17; the great question of the East, 52. Characters, Widespread reassess- ment of men's, 14. China, Bible study in, 44, 47. Chinese educator studying the principles of Christianity, 7; scholar and teacher accepts Christianity, 49. Christ's life, The study of, 72. Christianity, Brahman student accepts, 49; Chinese educator studying principles of, 7; fail- ure of, 6; never studied thor- oughly, 7; what it is, 6, 7. Church, the, and the college, Union of Bible interests in, 31; and the school, how work together, 32; and the Bible, 12; and Bible study, 29; needs able men to teach the Bible, 13; large classes as rival organizations to the, 96 ; its opportunity to popularize the Bible, 14. College graduates in church Bible study, enlistment of, 33; men interested in the Bible, 23; studying the Bible, 3; people, pastors and Sunday- school superintendents who can interest, 38; professors teaching in the church, 36; Union of Bible interest in the church and the, 31; Valuable contributions by graduates, 34. Colleges and schools, Study of the Bible in, 23, 26; Train- ing classes in, taught by min- isters and laymen, 35. Committees, 111. Constitution and by-laws of or- ganized classes for men, 171. Conviction, religious, 130. Cooperating Committee for Bible study by church and college members, 32. Cooperative Bible study, the next step, 31. Cornell University, Bible study conference at, 166. Course of study, 70. Details, attention to, 79. Discussion, 81, 116. Dollars, the field of, not always the battleground of men, 16. Educational values of the Bible, the, 129. Employment Committees, 113. Ethics, the Bible the first book upon, 15. Evangelization, the entire Chris- tian, of Korea, 50. Evangelism as an objective, 87; Bible, the, as a means to, 88 ; Bible, the, in the Orient, 48; modern, 134. Faculty men teaching Bible classes in the church, 36. Faith, in Jesus, how it empowers the will, 19; in the New Testament, 18; of Jesus, 63; the spirit of, 61. Friendships, Toung men must have, 102. Fundamental, the spirit of work primary and, 59. God, Men embodying the love of, needed in the East, 53 ; search of modern man for, 19. Growth of Bible-study classes, the, 61, 62. INDEX Habit of Bible study, the, 11; help of Bible literature, 125. Healer, Jesus as the, 18. Heathen studying the Bible, 13. Honesty, Demand for men of, 15. Hope in Jesus' presence, 18. Human, existence, Bible study spreads out God's plan for, 11; interest in the Bible, xiii. Ideals, Jesus brought out those defaced, 18. Illinois, University of, Growth of Bible-study class in, 62. India, Bible study in, 45, 48; Students in, know the Bible better than any sacred work of Hinduism, 46. Individual, standards, how Bible study corrects, 11; work, 70. Influences of Bible students in the Orient, the, 51. Japan, Bible study in, 43. Jesus as healer, 18; brought out defaced ideals, 18; character of, 17; faith in, empowers the will, 19; the faith of, 63; hope in the presence of, 18; reached the potential energy of the soul, 18 ; the great magnet, 116. Jesus' absorbing interest in men, 18. Korea, Bible study in, 44, 47; evangelization of, 50. Korean churches, filled with men and women, 50. Labob problem, the, a religious problem, 149. Laity League of Social Service, 153. Leaders, must be filled with the spirit of victory, 63-65. Leadership, opportunity and method of Bible, 131; train- ing, for a state-wide cam- paign, 165. Lectures, Bible, series of, 69. Librarian, duties of a, 110. Life, Bible the book of, 14; does modern man know what it is, 10; problems of, 8, 9; re- deemed, the student's, 16; work, the Bible and, 9. Literature, Bible, and Bible habits, 125 ; Bible-study courses and, 121, 190; native biblical, needed in the Orient, 47. Love of God, men embodying the needed in the East, 53. Mammon gospel, faith in the, decreasing, 15. Membership committee, the, 111. Men eager to study the Bible, 100 ; those embodying the love of God needed in the East, 53 ; Jesus' absorbing interest in, 18; of honesty, demand for, 15; young, must have friendships, 102; young, na- turally religious, 100. Method in Bible study, the bridge between the dream and fulfilment, 59; in Bible study, the strong man is the great, 64. Methods, for associating the large class with real Bible study, 94; for maintaining Bible study, 69; for union between church and college, 32, 39; loose ones not suc- cessful, 58. Ministry, a teaching, 14. 206 INDEX Missionary, mastery of the Bible necessary to the, 12. Missions, Bible study and, 145. Modern tendencies, 139. Moral battles, the Bible helps men in their, 16. Naturalness, 81. Neglect of Bible study, 12. New England, growth of a Bible- study class in, 61. New Testament, faith in the, 18 ; resistance force fortified by reading the, 17; teaching of the, 9. New York City, constitution of a Bible class in, 176. Objective, the adequate, 129. Officers, 107. Organization, American genius for, 57 ; meetings, 105 ; suc- cessful kinds and the conduct of Bible study, 57. Organized Bible class, a large, 93 ; How one Bible-study class was, 66, 68. Organist, duties of the, 109. Orient, Bible evangelism in the, 48 ; Bible study among men in the, 43; men embodying the love of God needed in the, 53; native biblical literature needed in the, 47 ; spiritual reality in the, 51 ; training expert Bible teachers in the, 47. Oxford Press, the, 5. Personal, the Bible peculiarly so, 15; knowledge of students, 86; service outside the class, 71. Popularity, World-wide, 3. Power of the Bible realized in the Orient, 51. Practical policy, Value of, 66. Prayer, 80 ; Bible 6tudy leads to life of, 16. President, duties of the, 107. Problems, the Bible and modern, 148; those of life, 8, 9. Program at the Vanderbilt Uni- versity, 161; Sunday, the, of an organized Bible class, 163. Psalms of David, the, saved many souls, 16. Purpose, the large, in Bible study, 60. Question drawer, the, 115. Quietness, the teacher's strength in, 78. Ramabai, Pandita, 45. Reference books, Bible, 128. Reform, the Bible at the heart of modern, 140. Religion, the Bible and, 18; real quest for, 8. Religious conviction, 130; knowledge, at second hand, 7. Resistance force, fortified by reading New Testament, 17. Righteousness, the groundwork of the Bible, 15. Rochester, N. Y., by-laws of a Bible class in, 183. Rural communities, Bible classes in, 156. Scholarship, modern, xi. Schools and colleges, those study- ing the Bible, 26; How can they and the church work to- gether, 32. Secretary, the duties of the cor- responding, 108, duties of the recording, 107. 207 INDEX Secretaries, national Bible ones, 46. Service, definite, for members of a Bible class, 104; State Bible Conference emphasizes, 165 ; the Bible as a means to, 139. Serviceableness, 86. Small Bible class, the advantage of a, 75; small classes, Bible study in, 75. Social adjunct, 101; committee, 112; gospel of the Christian Scriptures, 139; Laity League of Social Service, 153; re- sponsibility, arousal of, 132. Societies, Bible, 4, 5. Souls, the Psalms of David saved many, 16. Spirit and method, 57; the, of faith, 61 ; the, of victory, 63 ; of work, primary and funda- mental, 59. Spiritual reality in the Orient, 51. State Bible Conference empha- sizes service, 165. Statistics, Bible study, 3-5, 27- 29, 62, 126, 144; those for the Sunday-school, 152. Students, conducting Bible insti- tutes, 23,25; of all races studying Bible, 27. Study, a course of, 70. Success, two elements which make for, 60. Suggestion of first importance, 93. Sunday-school, Bible study and youth in the, 151; statistics of the, 152; studying the Bible in the, 4, 29, 30; the large class as a rival to the, 96. Sunday session, the, 114. Teacher, the, of a small class, 75; the strong, a first essen- tial of the Bible class, 75. Teacher's strength in quietness, the, 78. Teachers, training expert ones in the Orient, 47. Teaching ministry, 1.4, 131. Temperance question, the, in the light of Christian revelation, 149. Tendencies, modern, 139. Theological students studying the Bible, 4. Treasury, the, Bible class having an individual, 109. Union of Bible interest in church and college, 31, 32-39. Vanderbilt University, pro- gram at, 161. Vice-president, duties of, 107. Victory, Leaders must be filled with the spirit of, 33, 65. Vision, the, Bible knowledge clarifies, 10. Visiting or Attendance commit- tee, 112. Vocation, Bible study a sugges- tive basis for, 9, 10. Will, the, Bible gives added force to the, 17. World-wide popularity, 3. Work, individual, 70 ; spirit of, primary and fundamental, 59. Y. M. C. A., Bible study in the, 3; Bible-study class in the Brooklyn, 64. Youth in the Sunday-school, Bi- ble study and, 151. 208 re 21789 > « n o r» o