THE TRAINED LAYMAN 319 



General Booth was for all practical purposes a layman when he 

 organized the Army as an instrumentality for reaching and for 

 educating in simple ways the religious instincts of the desperately 

 poor. Arnold Toynbee sought, as far as possible, to divest his en- 

 terprise of clerical appearances, and the whole settlement movement 

 has consistently aimed at religious and moral instruction through 

 friendly fellowship with a neighborhood or through classes and clubs, 

 rather than by preaching. 



The settlement suggests the clubs of every description which min- 

 ister to the religious, moral, and social education of various classes. 

 Of these the boys' clubs and girls' clubs are representative. Adoles- 

 cent life is being explored in our day. It would not be far amiss 

 to say that boy nature is being discovered. The boy is no longer 

 spiritually a sort of dark continent, an unexplored territory popularly 

 supposed to be incapable of production. We are coming to under- 

 stand his true capacity for religious impression and to realize that 

 he is never too young to be religiously trained. The secret key to 

 his heart has been discovered by various sorts of laymen, some of 

 them as widely-known educators and scientific students of psychology 

 as President G. Stanley Hall; others incited only by their loving 

 sympathy for the boy himself. It has been essentially a scientific 

 and a practical problem. 



The various societies for the cultivation of the religious life of the 

 young people in our churches were originated and have been in large 

 measure developed by ministers. Nevertheless they offer an un- 

 limited field for the religiously active laity, and much of that rapid 

 growth and adaptedness to the religious needs of young people which 

 has made them noteworthy is due to the efficient service of such 

 leaders. 



A similar remark might be made regarding the Brotherhoods, i. e., 

 of St. Andrew, of Andrew and Philip, etc., which are assuming an 

 important relation to the young men of our churches. To these the 

 ministers of those churches sustain a close and important relation,, 

 yet the characteristics which make for their efficiency are largely 

 due to the far-sightedness and organizing ability of Christian lay- 

 men. 



The greatest of the movements which owe their inception and their 

 development to the enterprise and inventiveness of clergy and 

 laity alike, and yet would pitiably fail in efficiency if the latter class 

 were to cease to participate, is that of the Sunday-school. It is 

 easy to criticise the management and the standards of the average 

 Sunday-school, and yet we cannot overrate it as a significant re- 

 ligious institution, full of promise and potency. Like every other 

 useful instrumentality, the Sunday-school has been developed by 

 experiment. It has accomplished, even though the methods may 



