Arizona republican., 1914-10-03
Dr.. Wilkinson Delivers An nual Message to Arizona Sunday School Associa- tion at Prescott Now in Session

Dr. w, w. Wilkinson, of Phoenix, | president of the Arizona Sunday | School association now in session at Prescott, last night delivered the fol- | lowing stirring address as his annual message to the. Sunday school work CTS of the state, upon the occasion of the seventeenth annual session of tn association.
 Marvellous and unprecedented in the history of the church has been the growth and development of the Sun day school during the past twentysev- en years. In 1887 our North American enrolment was 100000 it is now eighteen times that number. Then our annual Sunday school budget, for this continent, was $3,000 now it is $100,000. Twenty seven years ago there was not a salared officer in connection with the International Sunday School asso- citation of America. Now there are twenty seven. New members have joined our schools to the average num- Der of 11,655 every Sunday for the past three years over half that number, or 6,765, Sunday school scholars have joined the church every Sunday dur ing the triennium just passed. When we consider that after twenty years of age only one person in hun dred ever joins the church, and after thirty years of age only one person in a thousand, and after the fourth decade only one in ten thousand ever joins l the church, we realize how fully the Sunday school is fulfilling it's mission, when 6,765 of our boys and girls join | the church every Sunday
 Why this tremendous growth? God | has watered the seed sown by our con secrated Sunday school workers. Again, why has God so singularly blessed the | Sunday school? Because it is the only ! organization in the Protestant church where Genominational lines have ceased | to divide the workers in the campaign for the advancement of the Redeemer's s l Kingdom. Our Y NJ C. A. and Y. w. | c. A. excepted, the Sunday school is the one institution in all Professionalism that is fulfilling our humble Masters prayer | of John r and 21: That they all may be one; as thou Father art in me, and 1 I iii thee, that they also may be one in l us; that the world may believe that | thou hast sent me-
 1 A well organized church has four di- visions:-
 l The Sunday school.
 The Christian Endeavor.
 1 The Women's societies, and
 l The Brotherhood.
 1 We have been considering the gigan- | tic growth of our Sunday school under non sectarian state and national orga- nization. With the other three divisions l similarly organized and officered effici- | ent state and national general Secretar | ies, the church would harness it's great | numerical strength and could do any | thing that ought to be done; and thus 1 become a dominant factor in solving alright the labor. social and moral ques- | tions of our day. May the day not be | distant when each division of the
 church shall have as efficient a state | secretary as Clarence R. Craig. Not
 until then will we have an effective state federation of our various church
 societies, and become indeed one body | of which Christ is the head.
 As a step in the direction of com l munity service I would recommend that our state Sunday school associa- | tior promote the initiation of such a law as Pennsylvania has enacted, mak- ing it compulsory for every public
 school teacher to open each days ses-
 sion by reading not less than ten vers-
 es of scripture.
 When l was a boy all the children marched with their parents to the cem etery on Memorial day, carrying flow CTS, and taking an active part in the program and in decorating the graves of our heroic dead The value of the patriotic lessons thus taught cannot be
 over-estimated, and if our general sec lretary would urge the Sunday schools of each community to unite in approp- riate exercises and the decoration ot
 the graves of all good citizens and deal friends, as well as those of our brave
 boys who have so nobly answered theii
 countrys call, and followed the Stars and Stripes on land or sea wherever
 the patriots duty called them, from CO.,
 lonial days to our recent occupation ol
 Vera Cruz.
 l The Poster Advertisers association
 placed upon it's bill boards in ever,
 town of over 5000 population las Christmas and Easter large pictures
 9x21 feet, which were beautiful and ap propriate. Let our association talk, suitable action in appreciation of tn uplifting and helpful work this purel.
 commercial association has done.
 Several states are already contribut
 ing to the national association a sun equal to one-tenth of their entire loca
 budget Shall we not do likewise an, urge each Sunday school in the stat to tithe to the Arizona Sunday Schoo association? Thus every Sunday whel we contribute to our local school W
 will also be contributing to our state national and world wide Sunday schoc
 york; and by this agency we will b
 going into all the world and preachin
 and teaching the gospel to every crea
 ture as our Savior commanded
 Many of us have been agreeably sur
 prised to learn that the Sunday schoC and public school are getting close t
 each other. In Colorado and Mort
 Dakota credits are given in the pubfi
 schools for Bible study done in tn
 church, and there is hearty co-opera
 tion between the State Teachers asso
 citation and the State Sunday SchOt
 association
 Marian Lawrence tells uS-"It