that of the non-sectarian Men's Church League, led by the Rev. Dr. J. Campbell White. This calls for the enrolling of "one million witnesses" in the churches each of whom pledges himself to bring at least one person into church membership.

It has been calculated that if the two hundred thousand Protestant ministers in this country should persuade one person a month to become a member of the church, the year's total accession would be two million four hundred thousand. Friendly calls and man-to-man talks on the real meaningfulness of Christianity would be the means. It appears plausible. Like the visitation method, it sensibly would move in the direction of something permanent as against the transient emotionalism generated by the eagleeyed, over-night-and-gone exhorter.

The worked-up revival doubtless will pass. Outside the Winona Lake group, about six hundred intinerant evangelists are still active. But they can see the signs of the times and are revising their pulpit practices. One can simply declare himself a Christian to satisfy many of them and one can forego wallowing through a spasm of sentimentalism. Perhaps a few of the more adaptable heirs of Elijah will come out of the tabernacle and qualify as experts in organizing and piloting card-indexed visitation campaigns. There should be at least a decent living in that.

The decline of the roaring revivalist as a type is largely his own fault. At his worst he has disgusted people of intelligence with his crudities and vulgarities. At his best he has not sufficiently considered the social and intellectual needs of mankind, forgetting that to receive religion implies a mental as well as an emotional process and an understanding of one's relationship with the Christian com

munity. To such neglect can be traced the impermanence of his work which, more than anything else, has caused the churches to turn away from him.

For the churches themselves have more ways of offering their message today than any of their supernumerary spokesmen ever had. The preacher of the metropolitan congregation stands before a microphone and rural folk a thousand miles away hear his sermon as well as the singing of his choir and the music of the organ. The religious use of the radio, already indispensable, has a future limited only by the need for men to gather together in order to sense true participation in the worship of their God.

Soon the "talking film" will bring to all the churches, regardless of location, a wealth of pulpit oratory and Biblical drama. It is planned to record sermons of noted clergymen synchronized with screen pictures of them. Famous choirs will be similarly filmed with their song. A group of actors is to be sent to the Holy Land to make "talking motion pictures" of twenty Bible stories in their historical background. As with the radio so with this artit is bounded solely by the cause for which man erected churches.

And yet with all the devices for the almost universal transmission of things heard and things seen, the churches have not more to offer today than was borne out from Judaea two thousand years ago by men who were called evangelists. They tasted death that the Word might live. After them have come others likewise called. Even in the New World, generation to generation, they have risen. And with them must be numbered some who were unworthy of their name, since they presumed to preach of One they said had sent them.

Of the true and the great who have evangelized America

let it be remembered that they lived for nothing else. They lifted up their voice to save their people. And they believed whatever they preached, whether hell or heaven, damnation or saving grace. Edwards, Whitefield and those stalwarts of the Wesleyan fire-Asbury, Cooper, Cartwright of the Western circuits; Miller of the Advent; Swann and Knapp in the Baptist Jordan; Finney, Nettleton and Shaw; Moody the last of the Giants of God and Sankey the Singer of the Soul-they and all who in faith and works deserve to stand beside them preached repentance to a nation, made it better, brought its people closer to their God.

The end is not yet. So long as stands the ancient sacrifice, a broken and a contrite heart, the voice of the true evangel will not cease. With drum-beat and trumpet it shall be heard in the city street. Among the free hills it shall be heard in the wayside pulpit. It shall be heard till none is left to cry unto heaven-What shall I do to be saved!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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BACKUS, ISAAC-"A History of the Baptists in New England"; "A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Baptists, 1724-1806"; "An Abridgement of the Church History of New England, with a Concise Account of the Baptists in the Southern Part of America."

BARNETT, Rev. WILLIAM-"Life and Times of Finis Ewing." BAXTER, WILLIAM-"Life of Knowles Shaw, the Singing Evangelist."

BEECHER, REV. LYMAN-"On Revivals," in the Christian Observer, Vol. 28, P. 537.

BENSON, LOUIS FITZGERALD "Christian Song. The English Hymn; its development and use in worship." "The Hymnody of the Christian Church."

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