Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1901 — ENDEA VORERS MEET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ENDEA VORERS MEET.

GREAT ANNUAL CONVENTION HELD IN CINCINNATI. If ... Twentieth International Gather!ng of Christian Young People la Attended, by Thousands Services in Many Halls and Churches. The twentieth annual convention of the Young People’s Christian Endeavor societies at Cincinnati was international as

well as i i • ter denominational, and re p re s entatives from all parts of the world were i n attendance to the number of nearly thirty thousand. There is no other kind of convention whatsoever that ' draws together each year so vast a concourse of people. Nor is there any great popular

gathering which is attended with more enthusiasm. *l__ After the business sessions of Saturday and the evangelist and other mass meetings of Sunday, the regular prbgrams of the convention of the Christian Endeavor were begun Monday. Several of the largest’churches in the central part of the city were used in addition to Odeoa Hall, and the three large auditoriums heretofore used for exposition purposes. No event of the year has greater significance in the religious world than the annual convention qf this society. Certainly no religious movement of modern times has so thoroughly enlisted the sympathy of those who, while having no denominational affiliations, recognize the ethical power and uplifting influence of Christianity. There are many reasons for this. Chief among them, no doubt, is the undenominational character of the organization. Its membership now embraces forty denominations of the evangelical church, reaching into all lands where Christianity has an organized following/ Some idea of the phenomenal growth of the organization may be gainel from the fact that it now has 61,427 societies with a total membership of nearly four million, while in 1891 at -the close of the first decade of Christian Endeavor there were only 16,274 societies with a membership of a million. Nothing comparable to this growth can be found in the history of religious movements. This great social-religious movement was started in Portland, Me., twenty years ago. The Rev. Francis E. Clark, then a yduU'g’ Congregational pastor in that city, was its originator, as Robert Raikes had been of the new Sunday school movement in Gloucester, England, just one hundred years before, and as Mr. ■George Williams, in London, was of the Young Men’s Christian Association just fifty years ago. Each one of these three distinct forms of religious association and organized effort for children and young people canie into being not because of any theory, but to ’meet what were felt to be the necessities of a condition. In neither case did the new organization have any kind of ecclesiastical origin. No form of popular evolution in its inception could have been more spontaneous, simpler, or less ostentatious. . . It iS a remarkable fact that over against the multiplication of sectarian independences and differing denominations in modern times there have sprung into power three great unsectarian and interdenominational forms' of Christian association, which are making so irresistibly for a new fellowship of the freest and broadest character.

The better element in. the modern phenomenal development of vast commercial and industrial combinations had already been anticipated in these young people’s Christian associations and societies, One year ago . the. .international Christian Endeavor convention was held in London. Exeter Hall, Albert Hall, and Alexandra palace were scarcely able to accommodate the large assemblies. There were officially, reported 59.172 different societies,.with a total membership of 3,500.000. Of these societies 43,262 were in the United States; in Enland, 7,000; Australia. 4,000; India, 439; China, 148; Japan, 73; Africa, 69; Germany, 168; Madagascar, 93; Turkey, (iff. Besides these nearly four millions of the so-called Christian Endeavorers were in fellowship with the United C. E. Society. Worthy of note is the spontaneity and freedom which characterize this immense organization. Nothing could be more democratic. The great conventjpns do not enact a particle of legislation; do not even adopt resolutions. The utterances, the discussions, the demonstrations go for what they are worth. The organizing principles of the society are clearly enough defined, and these are left to make their own headway. The United Society, of which Dr. Francis E. Clark is still the head, neither assumes nor exercises any authority' over the local societies. It gathers statistics, gives information, publishes a newspaper, and in these and other ways keeps alive the sense of universal fellowship. It manages and provides for the great annual conventions, and thus undoubtedly exerts an influence to prepare the younger men and women in all the churches for the larger and yet the closer federation which the new times are demanding. After this the international conventions of the society are to be held only once in two years.

REV. DR. CLARK.