322 THE FREE CHURCHES 



Foreign Missions. The World Conference on Foreign Missions which met at Edin- 

 burgh in June 1910 (E. B. xviii, 5g8d) did much to educate and stimulate the Free 

 Churches as well as the Anglican in this important department of their activities. Its 

 work is being made permanent by a Continuation Committee and by the International 

 Review of Missions, a quarterly periodical of high merit. In many churches small 

 study circles have been established for the regular and systematic discussion of the 

 different missionary fields and problems. It cannot however be said that there has been 

 any considerable increase in subscriptions for foreign evangelistic enterprise, and most 

 of the societies have to declare a succession of deficits in their budgets. They are all 

 alive to the importance of the hour in China, and in India, even in the South Seas where, 

 with the advent of the trader, problems unknown a generation ago are causing some 

 perplexity. In Africa it is difficult to say how far Christianity is holding its own against 

 Islam. South America is another field to which increased attention is being paid, and 

 there will be not cnly a Roman Catholic but a Protestant mission to the Indians of the 

 Putumayo. We may also note the effort of the Wesleyan Methodist church to raise 

 250,000 in celebration of the centenary of its Missionary Society. For the rest it is 

 pleasant to record the comity that exists among the different Christian Churches on the 

 mission field itself. One of the missionary events of 1913 will be the looth anniversary 

 of the birth of David Livingstone. 



Some Personal Changes. The Salvation Army mourns its founder William Booth, 

 who died in 1912, and is now under the command of " General " B ram well Booth, who 

 was appointed to that office by his father's will. A good many changes in " divisional 

 commanderships" have followed. It is significant that the memorial to the late " Gener- 

 al " is to take the form of an institute or institutes where officers shall be more efficient- 

 ly trained for public service than hitherto. 



The Rev. Dr. Jowett after fifteen years ministry in Birmingham has become pastor of 

 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. The pulpit of the Metropolitan 

 Tabernacle in London, on the other hand, so long associated with the name of C. H. 

 Spurgeon, is now filled by an American, Dr. A. C. Dixon. Another well-known Ameri- 

 can preacher, Dr. Leonard Broughton, is at Newman Hall's Church in Westminster Bridge 

 Road. In the academic world, the late Dr. Fairbairn has been succeeded at Mansfield 

 College, Oxford, by Dr. W. B. Selbic (1910), formerly minister at Cambridge. That 

 college has also appointed to its chair of New Testament studies Dr. James Moffatt, 

 formerly United Free Church minister at Broughty Ferry. Dr. Campbell Morgan of 

 Westminster Chapel has combined (1911) with his pastorate the presidency of the 

 Countess of Huntingdon's Institution, Cheshunt College, Cambridge, where new 

 buildings are being erected. 



Allied Organisations in the United Kingdom. The Brotherhood movement, in some places 

 known as the P.S.A., continues to attract large numbers of men on Sunday afternoons for 

 brief and bright services where addresses are given on Bible subjects or on themes of current: 

 interest from the Christian point of view. Much stress is laid on the obligations of Christian 

 citizenship. The movement has extended to the mainland of Europe and is having remark- 

 able success in Canada. Similar meetings for women are in many churches held on Mon- 

 day evenings. The Adult Schools, a much older institution and one in which Friends hav<; 

 been particularly active, are rather hampered by the lack of suitable local leaders and class 

 teachers, but exercise a very potent influence through the men who meet usually on Sunday 

 mornings about 9 o'clock. Sunday Schools have suffered in the number of scholars mainly 

 through Anglican aggression, but the quality of the work done is rapidly improving, as better 

 methods of grading and instruction are introduced. All the churches are increasingly aliv-j 

 to the importance of this branch of their work; the difficulty is to get teachers who are as 

 intellectually equipped for their task as those of the day school arc. Boys' Brigades have 

 perhaps suffered temporarily through the Boy Scout movement. 



The Y. M. C. A. has been more vigorous of late years and is trying to emulate the success 

 of the American Association. Excellent new premises have been opened in London, and 

 there, as in Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh, "lightning campaigns" have been organised 

 with fair success with a view to clearing off debts in ten or twelve days.. 



The Student Christian Movement is one of the most vital Christian agencies in existence 

 and affords a happy meeting ground for the educated youth of all the churches. It has 

 widened its earlier scope, when it was chiefly concerned with foreign missionary aims, and 



