the end of the convention. It is a beautiful, and, in some respects, a strong document. In these days, when the most earnest prayer of Christians is for reunion, it is good for us to hear from the official leaders of another Church an utterance with almost every word of which we can heartily agree. Its aim is the aim of our Holy Father, Pius X.-to restore all things in Christ. Catholics will note with more than sympathy its unequivocal assertion of our Lord's divinity; its vivid realization of His unceasing work in the world, enlightening, purifying, and strengthening mankind; the personal devotion to our Savior which the letter breathes; the longing for a united Church; the condemnation of godless education, the insistence on the necessity of religious education for the preservation of the nation; the recognition of eternal truth, dogma, as the foundation of religion; and, finally, the high doctrine of the Church as the custodian of truth, the representative of Christ on earth, and His protagonist in the unending conflict with the wickedness and ignorance of the world. In all these great truths and principles, we are one with the author of the letter, whose meaning we hope to have given correctly. We trust we are one, too, with the great majority of the bishops in whose name it is issued; though, knowing the diversity of opinion in the Episcopal Church, we are not so sanguine as to believe that all interpret the letter precisely in the sense of its author. Some things in it we should say differently, and we would add many; but, taking it as it is, we are happy to be able to agree with it so heartily. We count it a great gain that a document so strong in its doctrines and principles, so catholic in tone, is put forth in the name of all the Episcopalian bishops.

II.

The most distinct advance in Episcopalian opinion which this convention marked, in our judgment, is in the earnestness of its conviction about the necessity of Christian education. The note is not new, but never before was it so clear and insistent. Danger opens our eyes. It has forced the Episcopal Church to see clearly, as all the Churches will see in time, that "the foundation of our hope for the future of this country, of the Church and of the nation, is the Christian education of our children."

The spectre which the Episcopalians have seen in their own. house, is the diminishing interest in religion on the part of children. A considerable increase in adult church membership is, strangely

enough, accompanied by a falling off in the enrollment of the parochial and Sunday schools, and in the number of children confirmed. The decrease in the Sunday school is particularly remarkable, being a loss of sixteen thousand since 1910. Furthermore, the Sunday school, which ought to be the aid of the Church, has become to no small extent its rival or supplanter; a kind of children's church, as I believe it is called. The children who go to Sunday school, having had enough religion for one day, seldom accompany their parents to the family pew. Apparently, they have little sense of the meaning of divine worship. The church is no more sacred than the class-room, where they may sing hymns and listen to a discourse. Would this be so, we may ask parenthetically, if they believed in the Real Presence of Christ and in a Sacrifice? It is not surprising, then, that after Sunday school days are gone forever, a very large percentage, perhaps seventy-five per cent of the boys, disappear as active members of the Church. No doubt, much of the blame must fall where the committee which makes this report places the whole of it: upon the indifference of parents. "We cannot escape the conclusion," it declares, “that parental neglect, and the non-attendance of children at service and Sunday school, may cost us our very existence as a Church in this nation."

The situation is serious: what can mend it? Is it the public school? We note it as a sign of the times that hardly one word was said at this convention in praise of our public school system; and nobody seemed to regard it as an aid to religion. The most radical and outspoken was Bishop Brent, whose words condensed as much wisdom and practical sense in a short space as any speech on this subject we remember to have read. The Bishop finds in our public school system "a degree of moral failure," "a degree of moral chaos" which threatens the life of our country. "Am I not right in saying," he asks, "that many of you who are just as loyal to the spirit of democracy as I am, are sending your children to Church schools because you are afraid for the morals of your children?" He instances the proposal to teach sex hygiene" as an indication of that moral failure, as well as a fresh danger for the children.

Our secular system of education, however, according to most. of the speakers, is fixed and permanent; a change cannot be made and ought not to be attempted. Nevertheless, a resolution was passed without debate, instructing their General Board of Religious Education

to take up the whole question of moral and ethical education in the public schools, and to effect, if possible, through coöperation with other religious bodies, a system of instruction commensurate with the needs of our youth, together with such forms and exercises as will conduce to the truest patriotism, the highest sense of personal integrity and purity of life, and that as one means of furthering this object, the General Board of Religious Education be instructed to take prompt action to promote the daily reading of a portion of the Holy Scriptures in the public schools.

The import of this is not yet clear. It seems, however, to evidence a desire (we do not say a design) to introduce “undenominational religion" into the public schools. There are no indications that any attempt of this kind could succeed for many years to come. It would be opposed by the great majority of nonCatholics; and by Catholics as well. Whatever be the meaning of this resolution, the dominant sentiment at the convention seems to be crystallized in this saying of Bishop Brent, that "religious teaching in schools is the normal thing." It is secular education, education with God and religion eliminated, which is the abnormal thing, deformed, maimed, as truly piteous as a child born blind. The idea was put in the clearest light by Mr. George Wharton Pepper.

Education without religion [he says] is no education at all. There cannot possibly be a religious education and a secular education. There is only education, and these two elements must enter into it. This being so, if you neglect the religious part of education, you make a mess of the whole matter. Education consists in drawing out of a man all that is noblest and best in him, and the very noblest and best thing is for a man to find God and know that he has found Him.

Bearing in mind these words of Mr. Pepper, as well as Bishop Brent's opinion of public school education, let us read now the statement put forth at the end of the convention in the name of all the bishops. "The noblest faculty of the human soul is the capacity of knowing and realizing the presence of God; and a system for the training of youth which should make no provision at all for the development of this faculty, would be a travesty of education and a menace to civilization." Strong language, indeed. It is put hypothetically, for the House of Bishops would not

countenance a direct attack on the public schools; but its application is obvious.

It is but a short time since none but Catholic priests and bishops dared to use such language: it will not be long before the sad logic of facts the decline of religion, the thinning of Sunday school ranks, the decay of morals among children and youth-will cause the leaders of other Churches besides the Episcopal to see a great light. History will record (we grow prophetic, for there are some things too plain not to be foreseen) that one of the most curious anomalies of the nineteenth century was this, viz., that the religious teachers of a people enthusiastically embraced the suicidal policy of opposing the daily teaching of religion in the schools. Already many of them realize that the only hope of preserving the Protestant Churches lies in some system of religious training more efficient than the Sunday school. Children need the daily bread of religious instruction and influence; is it possible for them to thrive on a cream puff Sunday afternoons?

For the Episcopal Church to reduce its high ideal to practice -to create parochial and secondary schools and colleges-is no light task. Conditions are not favorable. We must remember that the Episcopalians are a relatively small and widely-dispersed body. Parochial schools are necessarily local; and as it rarely happens that Episcopalian children are numerous enough in a neighborhood to justify starting a parochial school, success in this line is quite limited, and prospects are not bright. Their secondary schools for both boys and girls thrive better, some of them being among the very best in the country. Unhappily, they are usually for the very rich. What the Church needs urgently, as Bishop Brent points out, is an increase of secondary schools for people of modest means. Strange, with all the wealth of Episcopalians, they do scarcely anything to supply this need. Their rich men prefer to endow secular colleges. The Church thinks it wiser to spend its millions on the numberless struggling or moribund little missions that dot this land. It even prefers to waste, as it seems to us, its money and men and women in the effort to convert Cubans, Porto Ricans, Haitians, Mexicans, Panamanians, Brazilians, etc., many of whom, we are sure, need the Gospel very sadly, as sadly, perhaps, as the unchurched millions in our slums, possibly even as sadly (who knows?) as the unchurched myriads in our fashionable suburbs, apartment houses, palaces, and Newport villas; yet, sadly as they need the Gospel, they have shown only a very feeble desire

to receive it from Protestant missionaries. If the Episcopal Church concentrates its efforts on building up its own life; if, heeding the advice of Bishop Brent and men like him, who see things, it develops teaching vocations among the many earnest men and women of its communion; if it multiplies schools where God and our Savior Jesus Christ may be named and honored and worshipped, then will there be great hope of preserving its children from the materialism and agnosticism of our secular education. None wish them this success more heartily than Catholics.

III.

The idea of social service has seized strong hold upon Episcopalians. It stirred this convention to enthusiasm. How much of this was real, how much the sort that flourishes at conventions and dies the day after, we do not know; but there can be no doubt that a new spirit is kindling the hearts of many. The Episcopal Church has always been considered the ally of the rich classes, the apologist of capital. It used to have hardly any contact at all with the poor; and the little it knew about them aroused no warm sympathy for their lot. The present convention was very much occupied with conditions among the poor, and with the question of social justice. When we read the speeches of some, we are inclined to believe that the pendulum is swinging towards the other extreme, Socialism; but these are, of course, the more ardent and radical minds. The convention created a permanent Joint Commission of Social Service, and referred to it, among other resolutions, the following which deserves notice and consideration:

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring: That we, the members of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, do hereby affirm that the Church stands for the ideal of social justice, and that it demands the achievement of a social order in which there shall be a more equitable distribution of wealth; in which the social cause of poverty and the gross human waste of the present order shall be eliminated; and in which every worker shall have a just return for that which he produces, a fair opportunity for self-development, and a fair share in all the gains of progress. And since such a social order can only be achieved progressively by the effort of men and women, who, in the spirit of Christ, put the common welfare above private gain, the Church calls