because we are in it and should therefore make it the best. Prayer and benediction by Rev. Harrisville.

Sixth Session

The sixth session opened with devotional service, led by Rev. Sigmond. We were favored with a vocal solo by Mrs. Louise Moe Peterson.

Round Table Open Parliament was led by Rev. Luther M. Kuhns, general secretary. Many took part, helping to make same very interesting.

QUESTIONS.

The Luther League is not the Church, but an auxiliary to the Church.

I. What is my duty to the Church of which I am a member? Invite people to service. Do something however small. Love, loyalty and service.

II. How can the Luther League be of greater service to the Church? Supplying the Sunday school with teachers and good workers, and ushers in church. Helping support missionaries. By holding the young people.

III. In the Christian development and work of the Church, in what has the Luther League been a great factor? Has set Church to thinking. Develops Christian life in giving members something to do. Educates in Christian truths.

IV. Why believe in the Luther League? Because it is based on God's Word.

V. What are some of the Luther League's opportunities? Social, educational and missionary lines.

VI. Why should all confirmed youth of our Lutheran Church belong to the Luther League? Practical training for service. Become familiar with what is being done by the Lutherans. VII. Give some methods in to interest persons Luther League work. Give each one some work to do. Shake hands with them and be social at all times. Speak well of your League and get everyone interested.

VIII. What attitude should the Luther League take toward amusements? Must not interfere with Church work. Also consider our example.

IX. What is the best method for caring for Luther League finances? Most societies find free will offering the best, but some like the dues system.

X. What can we do after organizing? Get to work; that is, have some special object to work for. See that Church is well attended, etc. Put LUTHER LEAGUE REVIEW in hands of everyone.

XI. What can be done toward securing and estab lishing a standard of excellence for the League? Attendance at all devotional services. Daily reading of the Bible Preparation on the part of the leader. Committee work.

XII. What are some of the benefits of a District Luther League? Get ideas from others. Become acquainted at delegate meetings.

ex

XIII. Can the District League be made an change; and how? Exchange ideas. Call forth

treasurer.

3. We recommend the suggestion made by our president in his report, that some special program be arranged for in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Luther League of Illinois, which oc curs June 4, 1914.

4. We recommend the action taken by our Executive Committee to have 1000 copies of the Constitution and By-Laws printed for distribution among our Leaguers.

5. We specially urge upon our local Leaguers to have their secretaries send in their statistical reports at least two weeks before convention.

6. We recommend that the secretary inform the various Leaguers that new Certificates of Membership can be had if so desired.

7. Whereas: It has come to our knowledge that Rev. Luther M. Kuhns, the general secretary of the Luther League of America, has tendered his resignation. We deplore this action, knowing of the faithful and efficient work performed by nev. Kuhns during the past twelve years, and believing that its acceptance would retard the progress of the Luther 1.eague of America, we therefore suggest to the Executive Committee of our national organization to do all in their power in urging Rev. Kuhns to withdraw his resignation.

8. We instruct our secretary to send the greetings of this convention to our faithful missionaries, Miss Theresa Peterson in China, and Miss May C. Melander in Porto Rico, wishing them God's blessing on their work. We also instruct the secretary to acknowledge all greetings received by this convention and to express our appreciation of the same.

9. We recommend that a vote of thanks be given the officers of our State organization in commendation of their faithful and efficient work during the past year.

10. We recommend (1) that a rising vote of thanks be given the press of Morris, for the splendid recog nition given by them of our convention. (2) That a vote of thanks be given all those who have inspired and helped us by taking part in our program. (3) We especially desire to express our appreciation for the courteous, kindly and hospitable manner in which we have been entertained by the members and friends of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church and we also ap preciate the presence of the pastors of other denominations who have shown their brotherly spirit in attending some of our sessions.

11. We recommend that a copy of these resolutions be spread upon our minutes, a copy be given to the press, and a copy be sent to the editor of the LUTHER LEAGUE REVIEW.

The election of officers resulted as follows: President, Mr. J. Alex. Nelson, Chicago; executive secretary, Miss Minnie Stohr, Elgin; recording secretary, Miss Hulda Miller, Chicago; treasurer, Mr. Henry Hanson, Chicago. Executive committee (three years), Rev. I. O. Nothstein, Rock Island, Ill.

The president informed the new officers of their duties to the League and introduced them to the convention.

The convention closed with the singing of the Rally Hymn. Prayer and benediction by Rev. Johnson.

The convention was very well attended at all meetings and each one derived some good for having come.

cate careful work on the part of their authors. The delegates and visitors began arriving early, and when the first session opened at 10.30, a very large crowd was in attendance.

First Session

The convention was opened with the regular morning service, in charge of Rev. C. E. Gardner, D. D., pastor loci, and Rev. J. L. Miller, of Youngstown, preached an extremely practical sermon and very interesting, choosing as his text from Matthew 27:22, "What shall I do then, with Jesus which is called Christ?"

"This is the most potent question of life," he said, "and the answer given will decide one's future. You cannot rid yourself of the responsilibity of answering this question. It is as continually in the heart of man today as it was in the heart of Pilate during the hours of Jesus' trial.

"There can be but three answers to the question: (a) Utter rejection, (b) indifference, (c) acceptance. How will you as young Lutherans answer the question? There can be no real progress in holiness until, with the mercy of God, we make this choice for Jesus."

A short business session followed the close of this service.

Second Session

The afternoon session convened at 1.30 p. m., with devotional services in charge of Rev. E. C. Dolbeer, of Delaware, after which the president, Murray S. Moist, of Toledo, took charge. The address of welcome was presented by Miss Lulu Adams, of the local League, and we were all made to feel at home in a very hearty manner. The president responded in a few well chosen words and then presented his annual report, calling attention to work accomplished within the State and to the future outlook. The entire State is now organized into districts with one exception, and it is hoped to bring this in at an early date.

Mr. Glen Ford, of Zanesville, then delighted the convention with a well rendered solo.

The first address on the afternoon's program was a very scholarly effort, intensely interesting and practical, and eloquently delivered, by Rev. A. B. Markley, Ph. D., of Zanesville, who spoke on "The Luther League as an Educational Force in the Congregation." He said in part:

The Christian Church as instituted by Christ Himself was a teaching Church. His last and great commission in Matthew 28 is to make disciples by baptizing and teaching all the nations. This Greek word for teach, didaskoo, is used ninety-three times and with its derivatives is used 204 times. Teaching oc cupies a most prominent position in the program proposed by Christ.

The Lutheran Church is an educating Church. Born in a university, it has the greatest institutions of learning and the most learned theologians. The Lu theran Church is also the best teacher of the masses

of the people. In Lutheran Scandinavia and the Lutheran parts of Germany less than half of one per cent. are illiterate. We need not stay to compare this with the illiteracy of some other countries, espe cially Roman Catholic, where it is a hundred times as great. If our Lutheran Church in America wishes to be true to itself and attain and hold the place that is its of right it must bestir itself in the work of education, especially that of the masses of its people. We need a method and system that will reach every member and every person that comes within the sphere of our influence. We need not only learned theologians and pastors able rightly to teach the Word of Truth, but we need a laity well informed and able to give a reason for the faith that is within them.

Locking into the face of an audience such as is before me I may assert that the Lutheran Church has not failed. It is rare indeed to meet such a large gathering of young people with such an intelligent and wide-awake look as we meet in our Luther League conventions. They have learned and are anxious for more. They are not the kind that can be satisfied with ice cream and cake socials.

One of the great educational forces of the Lutheran Church in America for the last twenty-five years has been the Luther League and kindred young people's societies in the Church. The future presents much greater opportunities.

I wish briefly to indicate how the Luther League may bset fulfill its highest mission in the Church. To be a religiously educating force the Luther League must do three things, and do them well.

I. First of all it must instruct our young people. Christ distinctly says "teach." The revelation of God to man and our holy faith is not something that can be educed from our inner consciousness. It must be taught us. As we must teach the heathen so we ourselves must be taught. The Luther League has presented a most excellent course of instruction. It has not endeavored to duplicate the work of the Sunday school, nor to take the place of the pastor, but has laid out a course distinctly its own. In its annual courses it has presented in charming variety history, biography, missions, institutions, doctrines and Scripture in attractive form.

A vast amount of information is brought to our congregations in the weekly topics that would be possible in no other way. We sometimes despair of the silent members of our Leagues and think they are getting no good, when, in fact, they are laying up stores of information. No person can possibly attend the meetings of a live League without being benefited. This is the planting time and without it there can be no harvest. I regard this instructive work as the most important side of League work. For many of our members without library or opportunity of study it opens visions and leads to inspiring examples that otherwise they would never have dreamed of.

Let the League never neglect this side of its work. It must be the instructor of our youth. We can never get too much of this work. If we are to have well informed people in our churches. informed as to the glorious history of our Church, the Biographies of our noble men and women, the progressive work of the Church in missions, foreign, home, inner, the knowledge of Scriptural faith among the many dif ferences around us; in short, if we wish to know why we are Lutherans and Christians, then we must have our Leagues most active in diffusing information, in teaching, in instructing.

II. The second element in the educational force of the Luther League is the discipline of our young people or education in the narrower meaning. The mind may be filled with information as a meadow with driftwood. With orderly arrangement the driftwood may become a beautiful home.

Our young people need disciplined minds as well as informed minds. We must educate them to think. This is to educate, that is, to draw out. This is espe cially demanded in our day and circumstances. With our usually excellent Sunday schools, our careful catechetical instruction by the pastor, our Scriptural preaching from our pulpits, our people are undoubtedly the best informed Christians. Yet when it comes to a matter of stating, maintaining, defending our position many are lamentably weak. The reason lies in this, that they have not been trained or educated in the expression and systematization of their informa

tion. They must be taught to think and express themselves.

This the Luther League does more effectively than any other organization of the Church. It gives every one an opportunity of practice in the expression of self. The good listener of the League now becomes the ready leader in the teaching of the topic. It would be a great mistake, even a misfortune, for any League to have a few members who always lead, however able they may be. If necessary, each League must insist that gradually every member must develop himself in the expression of what he has learned.

This leadership will itself be the best educational force that can be applied to any one. For as leader, or even as possible leader, he will seek for information and arrange it with a distinct purpose, and the information or instruction will become vital and useful instead of dead material in the mind. The teacher becomes a scholar of original research. When any one does that he has acquired the first and most im portant element of an education.

We hail the day when every congregation will have a Luther League or other society which will train its young people in the art of self-expression, so that Our most holy faith will count its defenders and propagators by the millions instead of the present thousands. If the history of the League for the last twenty-five years is an assurance of the progress of the next quarter century, then I believe the Lutheran Church member will not only be the best informed, but also the best educated, in the sense of best disciplined in the art of self-expression. This audience and this convention is a foretaste and proof of greater ability to follow.

III. The third thing in making the League an edu cational force is that both in the intelligence it imparts and the training that it gives it must serve to the edifying of all its members. The teaching which Christ commands was to make disciples, followers of Christ. Let us say once for all, that if the League does not make better Church members, better Christians, better followers of Christ, then it is a failure. To be ever learning, yet never coming to the truth is wasting time. To train in ability of expression without a love of souls is to place a two-edged sword in the hands of an evil man. To fill a mind with the facts of truth and the kingdom and yet not digest them is like putting bread and meat into a vessel to breed worms. The greatest work of the League is to edify or build up souls.

very pointedly the necessity of the Luther League furnishing a large quota of future ministers and deaconesses in addition to a ministry to all in need of assistance.

At the conclusion of this session more business occupied the attention of the League. Two new Leagues were received into membership, and several others were reported as having affiliated with district organizations without applying direct for State membership.

The treasurer's report showed a balance of $311.55 on hand.

Several committees were appointed and the session adjourned.

Third Session

At the evening session the convention was favored with two exceptionally fine musical numbers, a tenor solo, "The Prodigal Son," by Mr. Ross Stoever, and an anthem, "Oh, Be Joyful," by the church quartet. Vespers were conducted by Rev. A. A. Hundley, D. D., Findlay.

Rev. L. H. Larimer, D. D., of the Hanna Divinity School, of Springfield, presented "The Church Overshadowed."

This subject calls our attention to the relative position of the Church in the general life of our day. Does the Church stand supreme, towering above all other features and institutions of the complex life of this twentieth century, or have the varied forms and enterprises of our modern civilization, together with the erroneous and proud thoughts of man, succeeded in crowding the Church into narrow quarters, and have they succeeded in putting the Church under their cool and damp and deadening shade?

What are the features of our modern life which to overshadow the Church? Some say it is commercialism, others that it is intellectualism, and still others say society.

or

The address was followed by a very spirited discussion, participated in by a goodly number of delegates and visitors.

After the singing of that stirring old hymn, "My Church! My Church!" Rev. G. A. Bierdeman, D. D., of Toledo, addressed the convention on "The Luther League and the Future Ministry."

A free discussion followed this, bringing

The vital question, however, is: What can the Church do in order that she may control the forces about her and be the dominant and centralizing power which she ought to be?

There are four words I wish to say concerning this.

(1) Education. Whatever the diseases of the times may be, there is only one remedy-the Gospel of be Jesus Christ, and this must be known, must taught to the people.

The teachers, preachers and leaders must make the Gospel plain. The Church's first passion must be a passion for the Gospel in its purity.

The Lutheran Church has great advantages in knowing the Gospel. In her confession and in all her accredited teachings she has put forth an interpretation of the Gospel which is the highest and best in the whole Christian Church,

The Lutheran Church needs to give every effort pos sible that her people in the aggregate become an informed, instructed, educated people in her concep tion of the Christian faith, and she is to give such clear teaching that other communions also will adont consciously or unconsciously the same central and regulative doctrine. The greatest need in the Church today is doctrinal preaching. The

Our first word-Education-Enlightenment. Church must work intensively before she can work extensively.

(2.) Enthusiasm The Church needs to stimulate a proper enthusiasm for herself.

There are too many who have an uneasy feeling that the Church is not serving the end it should serve, and that, possibly, a connection with it is not essential after all. The idea of unionism as it is

practiced has produced harmful results. It has led many Christian people to take two steps in their views: (1) One Church is as good as another; (2) no Church is absolutely necessary. Not everyone who takes the first step takes the second, but the second follows very naturally from the first.

The union of the Church in faith and hope and love and doctrine is a good thing. No doubt there ought to be a simplification of ecclesiastical relation ship.

This work should go on in the Lutheran Church.

We have every reason to be enthusiastic for our Lutheran Church-the whole Lutheran Church. Her history, her doctrine, her work, her responsibility, her future, summon us all to supreme devotion and allegiance to her. The Luther League is contributing and in coming years will contribute more towards that enkindled and enkindling fervor of soul which inspires one to live and to work and to die for his Church. This is our second word-Enthusiasm,

(3.) Efficiency. The Church needs to adhere steadfastly to her specific work, efficiency in the accomplishment of an appointed task. Doing some one else's work is not efficiency. Doing your Own work is efficiency.

The great call to the Church and especially the Protestant Church is to adhere to its appointed task. And what is that task? Preaching repentance. Repentance alone can bring the kingdom of heaven into the hearts of men and into society. It is a sense of sin and an acceptance of Jesus Christ, the Saviour, which men need more than they need bread. The preaching of repentance-that is the Church's ap pointed task in every age.

Repentance reaches down to the depths and changes the three functions of one's being-it changes one's thinking, it changes one's emotion, it changes one's will. When these are changed there is nothing else in us to be changed.

The Lutheran preacher or teacher, in whatever place his work may lie, should never get far away from the meaning of the second and third articles of the Apostles' Creed as given in Luther's small catechism. Whoever does get out of sight or out of hearing distance of these clear statements will lose his efficiency as a worker in the Church.

Efficiency requires that the Church carry the Gospel into the homes of people. Modern professional evangelism, even when tried under the most favorable advantages and with most compact organization, has failed to reach the masses-notwithstanding some presumptuous claims to the contrary.

The Lutheran Church is evangelical. Her heart is as big as human kind. She desires to pass no one by. She has a plan of evangelization-a correct and comprehensive plan. The Lutheran Church will be efficient only as she follows her own plan, and other churches can increase their efficieny only by adopting the Lutheran plan of work and the Lutheran interpretation of the Gospel.

Efficiency that is the clear command of our Lord. The Church must not scatter her energy.

(4) Enlistment.-The Church needs to enlist and train in largely increasing numbers those who can do the work of the Church. Trained workers in all lines of church work ought to be raised up in large numbers. We are not giving proper attention this feature of our work. The work of getting men and women to dedicate themselves to the Church is done in a haphazard way. This is the one thing at which the Church ought to work more systematically, more perseveringly, more prayerfully than at anything else.

These are the four words I wish to say to you: Education, enthusiasm, efficiency, enlistment. The Luther League is well adapted to contribute towards these ends. The best blood in the Lutheran Church of the United States is that which is flowing in the veins of men and women who have in their hearts the aspirations, the ideals, the purposes, the hope of the Luther League.

The Church overshadowed? Yes, Jesus lived under a shadow. The apostles, Peter, Paul, lived under a shadow. The Churches of early centuries were under a shadow. Every line of the New Testament glows with a light that can never be dimmed, yet every line of it was written in deep darkness.

The age succeeding the apostles was a time of shadows and darkness. Persecution from withoutcontroversy within Every century has been a century

of conflict. Yes, the shadows have been deep, and the night has been long. Perhaps it will be long yet. "Watchman, what of the night?"

Above the roar and the tumult of the wild waves dashing their spray in our very faces, we can hear the divine oracle concerning the Church of Jesus Christ. "The morning cometh! The morning cometh!” At the close of the evening session the local League tendered the delegates, visitors and friends a very enjoyable reception in the church parlors. Many old friendships were renewed, many new ones formed. Music delighted the ear and refreshments soothed the inner man. It was a truly delightful hour. Fourth Session

Thursday morning the session was opened by Rev. S. E. Greenawalt, D. D., of Springfield, conducting the service.

The addresses this morning dealt entirely with missions. Mr. Harry B. Gerhardt, Springfield, spoke on "The Luther League and Home Missions." Rev. Harry P. Long, Toledo Inner Missionary, "The Luther League and Inner Missions," and Mrs. F. G. Zwerner, Akron, "The Luther League and Foreign Missions." Each subject was followed by a discussion which was unusual on account of so many of the laity taking part.

Mr. Gerhardt, who is secretary of the movement among the Lutheran Brotherhood, said:

Our society is entirely missionary. Missions are the lever that lift our whole enterprise. The fact which woke us up was we learned that many of our fellow creatures in the world never so much as heard of a Saviour. The knowledge of this fact "woke up" the men, and from excusing themselves on the plea, "Am I my brother's keeper?" they are actually an swering it by action, "I am my brother's keeper."

While the beginning of this movement was entirely in the foreign work, as time went by we realized the importance of home work.

The word missions should be the keynote of the Luther League if it would be successful.

I will present my subject under two heads: (1) What are the present important essentials in home mission work.

(2) How can the Luther League work them out? Under the first I should say there are two essentials: (a) Knowing the field; (b) taking care of

our own.

Knowing the Field.-There is a tremendous oppor tunity for our Lutheran Church when we consider the fact that about thirty-four millions of people over ten years of age are outside of any Church right here in the United States, and more are coming every year and when the tide of immigration will end it is impossible to tell. The immigrants are not all of one race. but represent a Babel of races and languages. And further, out of every shipload that does come here, 695 out of every 1,000 are Lu therans already. Hence I say: "Know our field." and then you should take care of your Own." Everywhere I go I find Lutherans, and so I realize so fully the need of taking care of our own.

The question of every Luther Leaguer should be. "What can I do for those of my faith around me?"

Two questions for a program each Sunday evening: "What have you done this week to make Lutheranism count in your community?" "Have you directed any one to Christ and His Church?"

In addition to discussing the subject have some definite work in view, and remember that prayer is needed, the real meditative kind which has real force back of it.