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The Review of Reviews. 



to the general public, but there is much in this museum 

 that is as lilvcly to attract a multitude as does Madame 

 Tussaud's. In fact, it is a kind of Madame'Tussaud's 

 for London, with wonderful reproductions of London 

 before the great Fire,, and illustrations of scenes in the- 

 past history of the great city, from the time when the 

 rude barbarian sat in his dug-out canoe down to the 

 dolls of Queen Victoria. To make the analogy more 

 complete there is a Chamber of Horrors. I congratu- 

 late Mr. Laking upon having combined the erudition 

 of the historian with something oi the inst'nct of a 

 popular showman. 



A vcrv remarkable religious move- 

 The Men ', , ■ , • 



and ment Jias been m progress during 



Religion Forward the winter in America, which has 

 Movement. attracted much too little attention 



in this country. For some time past it has been noted 

 in the United States that the Churches are falling more 

 and more into the hands of women. They say that on 

 an average there are three women Church members to 

 one male. To arrest this tendency and to restore the 

 requisite masculine element to popular religion in the 

 States a syndicate was formed for tlie purpose of uniting 

 evangelical Churches in America, and of combining 

 effort to bring men and boys into the Church. Women 

 apparently are left out of the movement altogether. 

 It began last summer with a representative con- 

 ference at Silver Bay, in the State of New York, which 

 was attended by delegates from all parts of the 

 Union. It was decided to hold a series of eight-day 

 missions, having as their objective the reviving of the 

 interest of men and boys in the work of the Church. 

 ■j'he dominant idea of the promoters was to bring 

 business methods into religion, and to work for the 

 attainment of moral ends with the same energy, 

 concentration, and common sense that are used in 

 the making of a great fortune. Selected teams of 

 speakers were sent to the various cities with the object 

 of getting the Churches into line in the first case, and 

 in the second case for the getting of the men and boys 

 into the Churches. The objects of the Men and Religion 

 Forward Movement are divided under seven different 

 heads :—(t) Membership; (2) boys' work ; (3) Bible- 

 study ; (4) evangelism ; (5) social service ; (6) home 

 and foreign missions ; (7) inter-Church work. With the 

 \-iew of enthroning God in the conscience of man they 

 undertook a religious and sociological survey of the 

 territory, and suggested no fewer than si.xty charts 

 which were to be made as the result of this exhaustive 

 .series of censuses. The department for social service 

 naturally app<-als most to the w^orld at large. The 

 Social Institute programme is very comprehensive. 



It appeals to all our readers because it is an attempt 

 to realise on a national scale the ideals of our old Civic 

 Church, plus a distinctly evangelistic element which the 

 Civic Church movement lacked. I am interested and 

 surprised to find an almost entire absence of any 

 allusion, direct or indirect, to the fact of existence after 

 death. The committee has been kind enough to ask me 

 to address a meeting, held under their auspices, on the 

 " World's Peace," in Carnegie Hall, New York, on 

 April 2 1 St, at which President Taft and others will be 

 among the speakers. I expect to leave by the Titanic 

 on April 10th, and hope I shall be back in London in 

 May. 



A very striking contrast in the 

 Old Age Homes housing of the aged is reported by 

 Workhouse. ^^e Browning Settlement. Away 

 in a delightful valley of the Surrey 

 higlilands has sprung up, under the care of the Settle- 

 ment, a picturesque village for the aged, called the 

 Browning Bethany Homes. Already there is accom- 

 modation for 135 old folks, though the grounds afford 

 room for many more than the twenty-one cottages now 

 built. The present occupants average only seventy- 

 two. The expenditure for 191 1 has yielded most 

 instructive results. The coal, water, gas, oil, rates, 

 medical care, wages, extras for the sick, provision for 

 depreciation, cost of superintendence (estimated, the 

 office being actually an honorary one), amount to an 

 annual cost of £8 os. 4jd. per head. Add to this sum 

 the cost of an Old Age Pension from the State of £13 

 for the \ear, and the total thus reached — £21 os 4ld. — 

 works out at exactly 8s. id. per head per week. Now 

 take the corresponding figures for the London work- 

 houses, which generally in appearance and surround- 

 ings are the verv opposites of the chalet-like Bethany 

 Homes. Mr. John Burns has announced in Parliament 

 that the annual cost per indoor pauper in London, 

 according to the latest available figures— those for the 

 year ended March, 1910, when paupers were still dis- 

 qualified for pensions — was £34 8s. 4d. This is at the 

 rate of 13s. zjd. per head per week. In neither case 

 does the capital outlay on land and buildings enter 

 into consideration. The Settlement reports : — 



So tlic contr.ist nms : liappincss, self-respect, .sense of inde- 

 pendent home at the llethany Homos cosls per week an average 

 of 8s. id. ; misery, degradation, homelessness in the Morlihoiise 

 costs 13s. 2jd. This represents a weelily savins: per liead of 

 5s. ijd. a week, or /13 7s. iiid. per year. If the metliod 

 of the Hethany Homes were carried <Jiit with the indoor p:uipers 

 of London, the savini; of more than 39 per cent, on tlie present 

 rate of cxpendilnrc would lie a most substantial gain to iho rate- 

 pavers. How lonj; will the nation persist in the folly and 

 enielty of spending nearly Iwo-lhirds as much ag.iin in making 

 ihe old folks miserable in the workhouse than on making them 

 happy in villages for the aged like that at Whytelcafe ? 



