THE TRAINED LAYMAN 321 



tion and prevention of crime, by the cultivation of active righteous- 

 ness in daily life. To-day, of its own initiative, and with wonderful 

 skill, the Association is emphasizing education and giving it definite 

 religious value. Its usefulness is narrowed by the fact that its con- 

 stituency is a changing one, the average duration of desirable mem- 

 bership being less than three years. Only a small fraction of its 

 membership is permanent. But within the limits thus imposed the 

 Association is achieving a marked success in religious education. 

 The movement had last year over fifty thousand registered students 

 of the Bible. 



A similar showing can be made for the Young People's societies. 

 Organized at the outset to promote habits of religious expression in 

 devotional meetings, they have come to emphasize strongly the value 

 of Bible study. President Charles Cuthbert Hall in his annual 

 Survey of Progress in Religious Education, just published, cites the 

 fact that within a trifle over one year the Epworth League secured 

 among its membership over a thousand classes, with more than 

 eighteen thousand members, for the study of a text-book on the life 

 of Christ, to the value of which I can testify. 



Equally significant is the fact that the Methodist order of deacon- 

 esses are given careful instruction, in order to fit them for wise and 

 efficient educational service in connection with their ministration. 



In the second place, not only do these lay movements develop 

 educational functions, they thereby tend to produce a host of eager 

 and intelligent students of the varied problems of religious education. 

 In the Religious Education Association to-day, a large and valuable 

 section of the membership is composed of men and women who have 

 a practical reason for their great interest in religious education. 

 They are primarily interested in young men or boys or some dis- 

 tinctive class of people. 



Thirdly, the infusion of this lay element among those who look at 

 the problems of religious education from a theoretical point of view 

 is in last analysis truly and broadly valuable. The influence of the 

 able and consecrated layman makes for economy and directness 

 of effort, for effective organization, for supervisory provisions, and 

 in particular for a continuing emphasis upon the education and the 

 consecration of every normal function of life. There is in the mind 

 of the average layman an impatience with the merely theoretical 

 survey of life which is not unwholesome. His participation in the 

 working out of religious problems tends also to a normalizing of 

 experiences and duties once regarded as obtainable only in an un- 

 usual way. This may account for the decay of the revival as a 

 means of religious stimulus and the substitution of contact with a 

 religiously earnest friend. It is the social evangelism of the person 

 that seems to tell in this generation. 



