23rd Psalm, and I will listen to it gladly.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters,

He restoreth my soul;

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his

name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

Do you know of anything that is better than our Bible to take you in hand as a youth, conduct you through the dangerous places of life, and give you consolation as you close your eyes in death and lead you to believe that in the land where death does not come you shall meet again those whom you have loved on earth? Our religion fills the life. It satisfies the cravings of the soul; it enables man to justify existence and if he has lived up to its requirements, and made life all that he possibly could make it, it gives him the satisfaction when he dies of having helped to make the world better for his having lived in it.

THE CHURCH IN THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY

REV. JAMES E. FREEMAN, D.D.

St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

A few years ago I was talking to a distinguished financier in this city concerning the general situation of the Church. I found him in a pessimistic mood.

Among other things he said to me, "I am very much discouraged about the present situation in the Church." He is a distinguished churchman, very loyal to his church, and a very generous contributor of money. "Yes," he said, "I am very much discouraged so far as the Church is concerned. It seems to me that our generation is not producing great leaders." Then he went on in the same vein, "So far as that is concerned one might say the same thing with reference to other enterprises. Take politics, for instance, where are your great leaders, masters and shapers, the moulders of national destiny, creators of great national politics?" And continuing the thread of his discourse he said, "As for that, in my sphere of life, I am frank to say that I am willing to pay any kind of money to get the right type of man. Great leaders in finance are few, and it is very difficult to reach them."

When he had exhausted his pessimistic view I

said, "Well, sir, I suppose there is a great deal of truth in what you say, but one thing I beg to remind you of: That leaders are not born in times of peace; crises make leaders." He stopped for a moment, and said, "I suppose that is true in part." "But it is not only true in part," I replied, "it is true in its entirety. You didn't know what leaders you had until the Civil War and then you had leaders born in the North and South, men of the rarest distinction. You didn't know what masters you had until the great strain came, and then these men emerged. I beg to remind you that it took the French Revolution to produce Napoleon. It took the crisis with the Old World power to develop the strength of the thirteen Colonies, and out of that crisis, not only great masters of state, but great masters in the field of action emerged. When the Civil War came, from every part of this land, from the South as well as the North, be it never forgotten, there came men of leadership, and today, in this happy period, we bracket together the names of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Yes, and we bracket the names of Stonewall Jackson and William T. Stead. It took a crisis, though. It was a tremendous crisis, but when the crisis came the leaders emerged. Now, sir," I continued, "I beg to say, with reference to the Church, as one of the younger men of this generation, I venture to believe the Church has come to a great crisis in her history. I am almost disposed to think from an exhaustive knowledge of ecclesiastical

history, the greatest crisis in her history. It is a period that some call a transition period. Great forces are at work. We call them by many names: Social forces, economic forces, political forces, religious forces-there is a tremendous change going on. The spirit of fellowship is abroad. Greetings are brought to you from all men and all parts of the great army of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are coming together. The conditions are changed. Take my own church. Within two decades I venture to believe I can recall a tremendous change in the attitude of the Episcopal Church to this great modern movement. I can see that there is a forward movement, not only in the Presbyterian Church, but also in the great aggressive Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church, and others; a tremendous movement, and it is a forward movement, in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America."

Now this transition period (for the sake of argument let us admit that it is a transition period, and no one will venture to rise and deny that it is a transition period) is a crisis and a very important one. It is not only a grave crisis, but a crisis of tremendous importance. In this period of so broad and great issues, I think it is wise to take a look maybe of retrospect and see what has produced, in part, the present situation, for, after all, you cannot minister to disease until you have made a diagnosis of it. You cannot minister to an age until

you have made diagnosis, and no matter how much the diagnosis might cost, it is extremely important, and without it you cannot proceed.

Now, there are certain distinguishing marks that characterize the life of the Church at large. We do not need to talk about denominations, to emphasize the standards of any religious body— our purpose is rather to emphasize one mighty standard and one mighty Captain. When I speak of the Church, I am speaking of it in an inclusive way, of the Church at large. The first thing I note that has distinguished the Church for twenty-five years past is what has been called the institutional movement. Many of you entertain fears, possibly not as much as I do, about this today. I have spent many hundreds and thousands of dollars of my clients' money making experiments about this. I wish to speak, not in any theoretical way, but in an intelligent, practical way, not only out of a ready knowledge, but from a large and extensive experimental knowledge. I know something about institutionalism.

Institutionalism was born for the purpose of reaching the great body of men and boys who are without the pale of the Church. It was added as an adjunct to the Church for the purpose of laying hold, by practical means as agencies, of the youth of our generation, and I trust it has worked admirably along that line. Again I venture to believe that it has, in a very big way, by reason of its very practical side, its utilitarian side, recommended itself to men of