Arizona republican., 1920-08-09

Faith in God. faith in Christ, faith in man. Faith is the life, the hope. the | inspiration, the soul, or all that is | worth while in human history and l human aspiration. Faith is belief, trust, knowledge l conviction, sight. steadfastness. It is more than sight knowledge, experi- l ence, the substance of things hoped 1 for" It Is positive. eonvfcing. satis flying. gives strength, joy and pur- pose to all the endeavors of life. Now abideth faith" It has always been there. When faith goes out. life goes out and the soul is dead. It abides in all the big plans of men and in the foundation of prog ress. It is the little child with implicit trust in the par ents. It is the wife trusting the hus band in the time of storm and flood. It is Tennyson writing. his Tn Memo riam." 1t is Coledrige in the Ancient Mariner It is the story of the Bish- op and Jean Val Jean. Faith is the soul and spirit of the only religion that ever related itself to man in such a way that he Knows that his Redeemer liveth. It is and will be the same faith that moved the prophets and seers in the time of Abraham and Moses. It is the same faith that led Paul and Savanorola. It is the same faith that inspired Livingston. Moffatt, Carey and Grenfell. It will never change. On this rock Christ ever will build his church. If we have it we are happy and safe. If we do not have it we are wayering and unhappy. All may have 1t. With if we can all do our part in the church and without it our church languishes.
 A second message to the angel Of the church is, teach. show, guide. As a I tan nf od tn oyerstress the importance of this work in the minds of many in this audience who do not attend Sunday school and do not think much about it. I will try and speak very modestly and con servatively on the subject.
 The Book tells us Teach these pre- cepts to our children" From a child thou hast known the Holy Scripture Train up child in the way he should go." Take this child and nurse it and I will give thee thy wage"
 Wherever Jesus talks to people we are told that He taught them" Every religion is propagated by the teaching method. The Jewish religion depended entirely upon teachers. Christianity was taught from the first. The first 1 disciples were not converted, they 1 were taught. The divine element in Christianity comes from God and is | by faith. The human element comes by the way of knowledge. teaching. leading. The future of the church must depend as 1t never has upon the 1 teacher.
 In the last analysis. evangelism, con- version and reformation hinge upon 1 being properly taught and informed The church must organize all its forces for instruction. It must not depend | upon the Sunday school any longer or 1t will continue to go backwards Most of the churches report a decrease in membership during the last two years Part of this is caused by the transit | tion period now on. The church is now changing from the old to the bet ter way. The leaders are recognizing the need of better way
 | All the forces of the local church and the strongest men and women of the denominations should be centered on the educational part of the church l work
 Fifty-two hours each year is not enough for our children. The Cath olics report 1so hours and the Jews 22o hours. This is not quite fair to Pro- testants, because it takes what is re- ported by Catholics and Jews as their aim and goal. but not always reached
 Of course the Sunday schools do not furnish all the religious instruction our boys and girls receive. Some of them attend young peoples meetings Some of them are in probationers'
 
 get much training in Boy Scout and other organizations and some get training at home. But we are all fac ing the fact that they do not get enough and they do not get it in the right way all the time.
 We are proposing the following to be put into operation just as soon as we can organize for it:
 Teacher training classes to fit teach . CTS to do better teaching
 Community religious educational schools to prepare laymen to take their place as leaders of the young.
 Week day religious educational pro- gram in all the churches with credit in the schools for high grade of work The children to be excused from school one hour each day to attend these church schools in their own church.
 Vocational schools as now are ir operation in 344 cities.
 Bible taught as literature and his tory in the schools,
 We believe there will be many changes in the public school. program and we are sure there will have to b. revival of home instruction alone religious lines but neither the home or the schcol will do for a large ma jority of the children what the church can do if it is equipped and organized for the task. It must get ready a once to take up the most Ymportan work the church has ever undertaken in history There are today twenty