The record-union., 1896-08-09

enc would suppose the worlds hope re-
volved around the Society of Christian
Endeavor. Without denying any good
1t has wrought, we must still hold that
if Christianity has ever had any real
and historic basis, no organization of
the last quarter of the nineteenth
century can safely offer itself in the
place of the church, or the church's
head, or the spirit of life by which the
church exists. We do not say for a
moment that the Endeavor movement
has thought of doing this Consciously
it surely has not. But we do say that
in our Judgment there is great danger
just here
Whether our Christian young men
and women could have laid such plans,
met such difficulties and won such VIC
tories fifteen years ago as an interna-
tional convention of Christian Endeav-
or of the day presents may be reason
ably doubted" remarks the Boston
Congregationalist." "On the other
hand, what a decade and a half of
Christian Endeavor training has meant
to the leaders of our young people in
the society can be read in the success
of the now lengthening series of annual
gatherings. What daily prayer, week
ly testimony, and monthly conservation
have effected in these young lives is
beyond the words of President Clark
or Secretary Baer to more than sug-
gest. What care of details, what fidel-
ity on the part of hundreds of En-
deavor workers in preparation and
what persistence to the end, must be
pledged for such a group of conven-
ticns as the yearly ueeting has now
become can only be guessed by the on
lockers, who see and wonder, but who
can neither count the pains nor the
power"
Zone of the most significant facts in
connection with high development of
character" observes the New York
Outlook" ''is the standard which such
an attainment instantly imposes on a
community. Every good man and
woman brings the community in which
he or she lives to judgment by defining
a moral and personal standard. Just
as Christ brought the whole world to
judgment, not only by the truth which
he spoke but by the life which he lived
SO in lesser degree every noble person
brings the world to the bar of judg-
ment. Michael Angelo, pursuing his
task with noble fidelity in an age of
corruption, unconsciously imposed
judgment on many of his contempora-
ries. Dante, preferring exile to the
compromise of his convictions, by the
greatness of his career and the ardu-
BUSINESS of his work, set standard
which was in itself an inexorable judg-
ment upon many of the men and
women of his time. 1t is, therefore,
always perilous to associate with su-
perior people, because the moment we
know a superior person we greatly en-
large our own responsibilities. Every
disclosure of truth, whether in abstract
or concrete form, imposes a new re-
sponsibility upon those to whom the
knowledge is brought home. To live in
the intimate relations of the family
with noble character is to bring ones
self daily to the judgment bar. Goethe
once said that the only protection
against great superiorities is love; that
is to say, men can free themselves from
envy and jealousy and the habit of de-
traction when they stand in the pres
ence of those who tower over them
only by loving that which they recog-
nize is higher than themselves"