The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-05-04
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION
SEVENTY SECOND ANNIVERSARY TO BE HELD .IT NORTH CH URCH
 NEXT SUNDAY.

The American Sunday School Union is one of the oldest benevolent organiz- ations in the country. The Philadelphia Sunday School Union was organized in 1877. Tn 1924 thls society with it's eleven auxiliaries in as many states was re- crganizicd as the American Sunday School Union.
 Seventy, years ago! James Monroe was then President of the United States There were only twenty-four States in the Union, and the population of the country was less than Il, 900, ,oOo California and Texas were a part of Mexico, Michigan, Arkansas and Flor ida were then mere territories. Wis consin, Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas were unknown even as territories, until many years latter Philadelphia was a little city of 10000 people, Boston of 50,00o Pittsburg a thriving town of $500 Louisville could only muster 7,500 and St Louis 5000 while Chicago was a mud hamlet.
 Seventy two years ago, God-fearing, patriotic men met in Philadelphia and organized the American Sunday School Union, They established national SOC iety, through which all denominations might heartily unite in founding Sunday Schools for neglected children. They aimed to christianize America in the bud and to get the start of vice and infidelity in all our vast territory. The moment was opportune. The great wave of French infidelity, which had come into the country, was spreading in every direction. There were but few Sunday-Schools and scarcely any re- ligious books and papers suitable for the young.
 A GRAND ENTERPRISE.
 At the sixth anniversary, the famous Mississippi Valley Resolution With great enthusiasm, was unanimously adopted. In many respects it is the most important resolution ever adopt ed in America. It read as follows. The Union, in reliance upon Divine aid, will, within two years, establish a Sun day school in every place where it is practicable throughout the Valley of the Mississippi" This action aroused the nation. The movement was not only advocated by noted ministers of the time, but eloquent addresses were made | in its behalf by such distinguished statesmen as Webster, of Massachu- | setts, Wm. Wirt of Virginia, Chancel- l Tor Walworth of New York, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, Thos S. Grimke, Of south Carolina, and Theodore Ere llnghuysen Of New Jersey. Thousands l of new Sunday schools resulted from l this movement The mighty uplift which it gave religion and morality in the great valley is felt to this day. | MAGNIFICENT RESULTS. | Through many financial panics, the great civil war and in spite of con- stant opposition from sectarian preju- dice, the American Sunday School has, for seventy-two years, steadily continued its work of establishing Sun day schools all over our country. The 1 late Rev. James w Alexander, D. D., of New York city, in q powerful ad- dress to the Christians of America once declared: "Tt is our own fault that this society has not carried Chris tian education to every corner and l household in the land' What it could have accomplished, if properly sup ported, is almost beyond estimate but what it has done is one of the wonders of our country. No society in any land or age has such a record It has or ganized, on an average nearly four ] new schools every day in the year for | seventytwo years The total number in now 96,o00
 When we consider that the total number of Sunday schools in the whole land in only about I23,000, we see how much the churches of the country owe to the American Sunday School union in promoting the organization of such schools. The society has brought 4,430,000 scholars and teachers into the Sunday school, an average of 63.285 each year It has created and dis tributed through the land nearly s9,- 000,000 worth of religious literature. All of this does not represent more than half of the work done, for these and many other schools are constantly being nurtured and visited, to make them more effective. In each year are these schools reported about 10000 con- l versions
 THE METHOD FOLLOWED.
 The society has steadily grown through the seventy-two years of it's history. It began with one book in 1877 and one missionary in 1921, (under its former name.) To-day it expends in it's work at least S125,000 annually, reaches every part of the country with its efforts and maintains in the field about 125 permanent missionaries. These are consecrated self denying and well adapted to reach the people whom they seek They go into rural ] districts where churches are not found | and where gospel privileges are un- known, for the purpose of carrying the gospel to the needy. In this work they do for the retired rural districts what
 the city missionary does for the city. They go where the busy pastors of es- 1 tablished churches cannot go They
 call on the people in the little rural
 hamlets or out on the prairie, talk with
 them, and win their consent and in-
 terest in establishing a Sunday school | The school is started in school house or in 6 farmhouse, in a barn or under
 an oak tree. The superintendent and
 teachers are selected from the people
 in the neighborhood. Because the
 school is a union school, the people ot
 different denominations can all come
 together in it without any sacrifice
 of convictions and be happy in feeling