face to face with God through a study of His Word, but our Sunday Schools should be vitalized and spiritualized in order that they may do more and better work in this direction. The accomplishment of this lies with us. May God grant that our Association, so rich in consecrated men and women, so blessed in years gone by, may sound forth the note of evangelization stronger and clearer than ever, as we face the new triennium. May the Holy Spirit of God come upon this convention in mighty power, melting all our hearts into one, giving us a new vision of His face, a new vision of a hungry and dying world, a new vision of our responsibility and sending us forth to our tasks with a purpose and consecration we never knew before. Let us see to it that this Golden Gate of the Sunday School is lifted up, so that the King of glory may come in, Respectfully submitted, Merion, Lowrance General Secretary. REPORT OF REV. W. C. MERRITT. SECRETARY FOR THE NORTHWEST. As your Western Secretary entered upon his second triennium it may have seemed to some that the progress has been slow; but today, as we review the three years, we are gladdened by the progress achieved, the fruitage of your faith and work. All of our Western States, Provinces and Territories of the main land, are now employing their own General Secretaries, who are doing fine work, except Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. These four are still, necessarily Missionary fields. And good work is going on in all, and the promise of larger and better things still beckons you forward. One of the very interesting features of development in the Department of Agriculture at Washington is its work of Demonstration Farming. Under the direction of Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, five hundred skilled men are employed and are sent into those sections where their help is needed (and that is very universal) and through personal touch with the farmers give the coöperation required for better results. I am not sure but that we are yoke-fellows. Let me quote a few terse sentences from the Doctor: "Profit lies in the best. This is true every way; whether in the case of a horse, or a cow, or a citizen, the profit is in the best." "The great force that readjusts the world originates in the home. Home conditions will ultimately mold the man's life.'' "There is no such thing as poor land. It is the poor brain of the thoughtless man on top of the supposedly poor soil. No matter how poor the land appears, it can be made profitable if the farmer knows how and he has the will power to carry it out. Try this system of education that makes men as well as farmers. This would sound like hyperbole, were not the Doctor "making good." Change only a few words and the proposition fits our field and work. WE NEED DEMONSTRATION WORK. Far too many of our Sunday-schools are content to let "well enough alone," and are satisfied if they think they are "holding their own." For us there should be no such thing as a "poor field." Silverton, Oregon, a town of 1,500 people, was so regarded. A man with vision and soul and purpose went there to see what could be done, and in three years' time, through the coöperation of three little Sunday-schools and their churches, the town was transformed. Mr. Phipps reported last October that fifty per cent. of the population was enrolled in the three Sunday-schools there, in the place of the ten per cent. of three years ago. And that these influences accompanied by a blessed revival, had changed that infidel-dominated community into a Christian town. The splendid work done in Teacher Training is not confined to east of the Mississippi. A class of 289 was graduated at Spokane, Wash., in April, 1910, before an audience completely filling the First M. E. Church, while the total graduates of the Teacher Training Department of the Inland Empire Association that year were 423 as reported by Mr. Boppell at their Moscow Convention. How great the need of consecrated specialists like Rev. F. E. Billington at Silverton and Miss Lillian M. Robertson of Spokane, who will lead in Demonstration Work until we reach out for fifty per cent. of our population in the Sunday-schools of every town and city in the land supplied with trained teachers. Our work is the making of Christian citizens, and it is making good, step by step. The Adult Bible Class work of the International Association, together with the Baraca, Philathea and other related organizations, is gaining a fine headway and seems certain to be a vital factor of the churches' work in the immediate future all over the Pacific Coast country. As a preparation for and an ally of "The Men and Religion Forward Movement' soon to be inaugurated, the Adult Bible Class Movement offers the best and largest hope of permanent results. If "The Men and Religion Movement" should prove to be the spark to fire this train of Bible Class men and women into zealous soul-winners, it would be a great day in the King. dom of God. The Teacher Training Department reports for the Pacific Coast section for the triennium 9,706 enrolled members, and 1,656 graduates. The Adult Bible Class Department reports 1,474 enrolled in organized Bible classes for the same time and section. Our other departments are making encouraging progress, and we all believe that the marvelous advance of the Temperance sentiment has in the Sundayschool one of its most potent allies. It is simply and literally true that no man could have foreseen three years ago the extent and character of the "Dry Territory" of today in our West land. The changes that have swept over Oregon, Idaho and Washington would have been ridiculed as impossible if they had been prophesied. Towns and cities have been cleaned up, families transformed, and the opportunity of a generation stands before the churches and Sunday-schools in these changed conditions. Immediately following the Louisville Convention I was assigned a month's work in Old Mexico. The fires of insurrection were then smoldering and interfered somewhat with the work. But the love and regard shown Mr. Sein were very delightful to witness. He is doing a good work, and however it may be temporarily hindered, it is bound to realize large results. I am sending this report from Hawaii, our Territory 2,100 miles Southwest of San Francisco, further in time and travel than to Chicago. I have just arrived and have only touched the situation, so cannot report details. But these Islands were lifted out of the sea of moral oblivion and heathen darkness by the Bible and the messengers of Christ and the churches. They have become the "Paradise of the Pacific," and for more than three score years they have been a Gospel light to the Islands beyond. But the battle here is still on. The increased importance of these Islands to the Kingdom of God, with the completion of the Panama Canal, will be just as great as to commerce and as the Pacific Ocean outpost of our nation. It seems to me that the churches of America must again become alive to the significance and importance of these facts. The cosmopolitan character of the population is startling. In a single Mission Sunday-school, with a related membership of 250, 32 different nationalities are found. The leading nationalities are Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Koreans. It is strictly missionary ground. Two months were recently spent in Arizona and in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico. Both territories are practically unorganized by coun ties. The response in Arizona, to the call of the Territorial Executive Committee was, as a rule, fine, and the workers are interested for better things. Choice work is going on in many places. Our brother, Walter Hill, has a noble class of organized young men, and the State President, Brother J. M. Stewart, a busy business man, is Superintendent of a fine, working Sunday-school. I presume you will have a large delegation with you from Arizona, to testify their interest and zeal. In New Mexico, Brother W. F. Schwartz, of Artesia, member of the International Executive Committee, arranged for the meetings in the Pecos Valley. It is an interesting field, and good work is being done in many places, but they need help. We had hoped to visit Alaska, but through their request for a change of date, and later its withdrawal, that was made impossible until later, but we hope to go there in July or August. And so the work goes forward, and we believe that the Lord has great blessings in store for this West land. I append a condensed tabular statement of work done, with expenses and receipts for the triennium, incomplete as to this trip. Since the Louisville Convention, 619 meetings of all kinds have been attended by me in this work, in 294 cities and towns; in 68 different visits, made to 22 States, Provinces, Territories and countries, where 28 organizations of countries or districts were effected, and 1,222 addresses of all kinds, sermons, Round Tables, etc., were made, and $6,832 raised for local work in cash and pledges, involving 72,019 miles of travel by rail, steamer, and stage. Received on expense account from local fields....$1,196.06 Net expense to the Association for three years.. 645.00 1,841.06 $ 90.96 DIVIDENDS ON OUR INVESTMENT MR. JOHN R. PEPPER, MEMPHIS, TENN. Among the dividends the Sunday School has already declared I want to name the following: 1. Friendships. One of the sweetest flowers that blooms in the Sunday School garden is friendship. Many a tie of friendship has begun in the Sunday School that has actually lasted and strengthened through a long life. 2. Winning the Home. Whole families have been brought into the school, the church, and to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ because of the connection of one child with some Sunday School. The scholar furnishes an open door for the faithful teacher and pastor to enter the home. 3. Personal Influence of the Teacher on Life. Not what the teacher says or does, but what he or she really is, furnishes the most potential lesson learned by the scholar. Old Billy Garner, the miller, a very plain earnest old man, who never said a real smart thing in his life perhaps, and whose words I do not recall at all as one of my earliest teachers, had more to do with my introduction to Jesus Christ than any one else, save my sainted mother. Many years after the old miller had gone I visited the old mill in the mountains of Virginia where I was reared. I went back into the corner of the mill behind a pile of bags, where my godly teacher long ago had put his dear old hand upon my boyish head in loving |