The efficient Epworthian , being the "Epworth league methods," rev., enl., rewritten

Introduction

This volume is "Epworth League Methods" revised, rewritten, enlarged, brought down to date.

Much old material has been left out, and much more new material has been added. The League moves, and any writer who hopes to deal adequately with its activities must be able to see that yesterday's methods are not all usable to-day, though yesterday's principles have not changed.

The purpose of the book is not to offer exhaustive discussion of the League's many-sided life. It is meant to be, mainly, suggestive and provocative of independent work. It leaves much to the initiative of the resourceful young people of the Epworth League. Also it is a guide to the sources of ten times as much practical aid as is given within its limited compass.

The groups of brief paragraphs scattered through the book will be found of much use in stimulating the inventive and aggressive faculties of League officers and leaders. These paragraphs will serve that purpose again and again, without being of much immediate use for particular problems.

It is in no sense an original work. It owes a debt it can not even state to scores of earlier writers in this field. Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the Rev. W. F. Sheridan. D. I)., General Secretary of the Epworth League; to Professor Harry F. Ward, Secretary of the Methodist Federation for Social Service, and to the Rev. George F. Sutherland, of the Department of Missionary Education, for particularly definite and valuable assistance.

The best acknowledgment I can make for all the material on which I have so freely drawn is to put this book just as freely at the service of all those who are at work in the hopefulest enterprise in the world, — the great adventure of young life, as it follows Jesus Christ.

Dan B. Brummitt.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. In the Beginning, ----- 7

II. The Organic Law, - 24

Chapter I. In The Beginning

The Church and Youth.

The Epworth League is the young people's society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Under its banners practically all the young people of the Church are enrolled.

No other Church has succeeded in organizing its young life so extensively, and, at the same time, so intensively, as has the Methodist Episcopal Church by means of the Epworth League.

But it must not be supposed that this Epworth League movement was the initial effort of Methodism to promote the social, intellectual, and spiritual culture of her young people. During all the years of her eventful history individual Churches have maintained societies for the special benefit of their younger members.

In the years immediately preceding the birth of the Epworth League these organizations had multiplied until, in the larger Churches, they had become quite common. Many of the distinguishing features of these local organizations were retained in the more general organizations, and, in turn, have been inherited by the Epworth League.

The first movement to provide a uniform organization dates back to the year 1872. Some time previous to that date there had been organized by the Rev. Dr. T. B. Neely, in the Fifty-first Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, a Church Lyceum, the chief object of which was to encourage a systematic reading of approved books. Several similar lyceums were formed in neighboring Churches, and soon it was thought best, for purposes of mutual co-operation, to unite these in a city union.

At a meeting of the Board of Managers of this central body, held March 3, 1872, it was resolved to memorialize the General Conference, then soon to assemble at Brooklyn,

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

N. Y., asking formal recognition of the Lyceum. The memorial was referred to a committee, which made a favorable report, but, owing to the great pressure of business at the close of the General Conference session, the recommendations of the committee were not acted upon. At the succeeding General Conference, that of 1876, the request for official recognition was renewed. The Conference adopted verbatim the paragraph sent up in 1872.

The Lyceum was received with much favor in different parts of the Church. It did good work in stimulating the intellectual life of the young and in promoting a taste for the pure and upbuilding in literature. The organization was destined, however, to give place to the Oxford League, a society which retained the idea of intellectual culture, but provided also for special activity in the realm of social and spiritual life.

The Five Original Societies.

The Epworth League is the resultant of the amalgamation of five other societies — the Young People's Methodist Alliance, the Oxford League, the Young People's Christian League, the Methodist Young People's Union, and the Young People's Methodist Episcopal Alliance.

Of these the oldest was the Young People's Methodist Alliance. It came into existence August 25, 1883. Its birthplace was a woody grove on the old and historic Desplaines Camp-ground, not far from the city of Chicago. It emphasized the highest spiritual existence, mutual helpfulness, daily Bible study, the avoidance of doubtful pleasures, and ardent lovalty to all that is embodied in the word "Methodism."

The prime mover in the organization and development of the Oxford League was Dr. John II. Vincent. The General Conference of 1876 made provision for the Lyceum, but it was found that the purpose of this organization did not meet the needs of the young people. Dr. Vincent, keenly alive to the real requirements of the multitudes of young Methodists, sought to supply the vital thing which the Lyceum lacked. He proposed to organize a young people's society that should provide symmetrical spiritual and

IN THE BEGINNING.

intellectual culture. This society was called "The Oxford League," after the famous English university in which the "Holy Club/' to which the Weslej^s belonged, was founded. The new organization was received with favor by many pastors and leading laymen, and was given hearty and significant indorsement at the centennial anniversary of the "Christmas Conference," which was held in Baltimore, December 0-17, 1884.

The late Rev. Dr. J. H. Twombly was the originator of the Young People's Christian League. Years before, in his early pastorate, he organized the young people for service. One of his dreams had been the gathering of a great Methodist international meeting of young people. The hour of the fulfillment of his dream was not far off when the Young People's Christian League was started with broader plans than any society then existing in the Church. The Young People's Methodist Alliance at that time had only one class of members, and the Oxford League required a uniform constitution, and neither of these societies was able to group together the already existing societies which were in many of our Churches. The Young People's Christian League aimed to unify the interests of these older societies, Lyceums, Guilds, Bands, etc., with their local histories and associations, by making them auxiliary to a central body without requiring any change of name of constitution or method of work, wherever these were acceptable to their local Church.

The Methodist Young People's Union had its headquarters in Michigan. The organization was the outcome of a meeting of certain alert Detroit Conference pastors. For some time they had been impressed that the time had come for the formation of a society for the social and religious culture of their young people — a society better fitted for this high purpose than any of those already in existence. The matter was first broached in November, 1887, and a Conference organization was formed, known as the "Young People's Society of Detroit Conference." A comprehensive constitution was adopted. Many of its best features were ultimately wrought into the plan of the Epworth League.

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

The fifth of the "original societies" was but an infant when the consolidation took place. The organizers doubtless hoped that they had found the solution of the problem that was vexing the leaders of the younger hosts of Methodism. One who was high in the councils of this new organization said that the North Ohio Conference Methodist Episcopal Alliance was the outgrowth of a desire for the consolidation of all Methodist Episcopal societies of young people into one great connectional society.

The Birth of the Epworth League.

There are certain localities of historic interest to which Methodists instinctively turn witli gratitude and pride. Epworth, the home of the Wesley family, is one of them. City Road Chapel, in London, is another. Old John Street Church, in New York City, is still another. Others are old St. George's Church, in Philadelphia, and Lovely Lane Chapel, in Baltimore.

Future historians of Methodism will need to place Cleveland, Ohio, in their list of favored names, for in that city the Epworth League was born. The event occurred on May 15, 1889, in the Central Methodist Episcopal Church. The old building in which the historic meeting was held has been removed, and a handsome modern structure, known as Epworth Memorial Church, a very hive of activity and efficiency, has taken its place.

As indicated in the foregoing paragraphs, negotiations had been carried on for some time between representatives of the five general young people's societies of the Church looking toward a possible union. That some steps ought to be taken to centralize and harmonize the work was freely admitted. But just what method would most easily and successfully bring about the desired consummation was a question not easily answered.

Finally the leaders of the Young People's Methodist Alliance proposed a conference. This plan met with favor. In due time an invitation was extended by the Rev. B. F. Dimmick, the pastor of Central Church, Cleveland, to representatives of the various societies to meet in that

IX THE BEGINNING.

church. The invitation was accepted. On the morning of Tuesday, May 1 1th, the leaders met face to face.

The work of the Cleveland Conference was not accomplished without serious and thorough discussion. The representatives of the various organizations had come together on purpose to unite on a plan of organization. But each one was naturally inclined to favor the distinctive features of his own society. Several plans were proposed as a basis of union, and at the beginning of the conference these plans differed so widely that some despaired of reaching an adjustment.

The Oxford League stood for all-round culture, and took as its model the Holy Club of Wesley's Oxford days. The Young People's Methodist Alliance was intensely spiritual in its purposes and aims. The Young People's Christian League was more a federation than a compact organization, seeking to affiliate all classes of young people's societies through a central body. The .Methodist Young People's Union had large aims for spiritual, literary, and social work. The North Ohio Conference Methodist Episcopal Alliance had scarcely been at work long enough to develop any peculiarities of plan or organization when the historic meeting at Cleveland was called.

Two days were spent in the discussion of various proposals looking to a union of all existing societies. At one point in the proceedings the representatives of one of the organizations felt impelled to withdraw from the conference. Later they returned, and the work of finding a basis of union issued, toward midnight of the second day, in the unanimous decision to organize The Ep worth League, and to make it the successor and sole heir of all the societies represented at the conference.

The years that have intervened since that memorable Cleveland Conference have been years of stirring history. A new Epworth League host has come to the front since then. Some of the workers of that day have passed on to the other life. Many are leaders of thought and action in the Church. But no other service they can render will so greatly make the Church their debtor as the work they did

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

so faithfully and so unselfishly when they called into being the Epworth League.

The Faith and Wisdom of the Founders.

Some of those men have finished their work. All of those who remain are many years older than they were at the League's beginning. But in some things they can not be wiser. Their work was done with a courage and discernment which they could not excel to-day, and which the years have justified to the full.

They were wise enough and brave enough to organize a young people's society of the Church, for the Church, and by the Church. That was not so settled and accepted a principle of efficiency and fraternity as it is to-day.

They were far-seeing enough to put into the organization a provision for good works that was to make the League quickly responsive to the new note of personal helpfulness and social service then just beginning to be sounded, and now so clear and loud that all must hear and heed it.

They were helped to plan for a weekly religious service in charge of the young people, which has become in many places the largest attended and most democratic social means of grace the Church possesses.

They had vision enough to provide for study classes in which young people should be teachers and learners, making use of the educational chance that life never offers the Church except when life is young.

They had self-restraint enough to give the new society room to grow, to develop its aspirations and abilities out of its own activities.

The Epworth League of to-day is not all they dreamed it might be. But that is small fault of theirs. The pattern they showed the young people of Methodism, and the leaders of those young people, was a marvel of skill and simplicity, of faith and practical wisdom.

The League Tested by Time.

A quarter century has passed since the Cleveland meeting. Many people have asked and are asking whether the outcome of these years has proven that the founders of the

IN THE BEGINNING.

Epworth League were as wise as they have been proclaimed by enthusiastic Epworthians.

The ordinary facts of to-day's life in the Church are sufficient answer. There is no disposition to claim that the Epworth League has accomplished everything which its founders dreamed might be done. But its shortcomings are the flaws in a record whose value can not be estimated.

The League has stood for three great ideas in Christian life and service — democracy, initiative, and fellowship. In organization and operation it is beautifully democratic, and there is constant exchange of position by every member, — to-day, leader ; to-morrow, follower ; and not long in any one department of the organization.

The League manages its own affairs, not for offensive self-assertion, but for training in responsibility and capacity. Its whole work is determined by it, not for it, and this has been one great element in the value of the League's training. Its activities have been "our" business, and so have been regarded with a loyalty and affection not otherwise attainable.

And the League's fellowship, maintained by conventions, institutes, rallies, and, in large measure, by The Epworth Herald, has had very much to do with keeping up the esprit de corps, the enthusiasm, and the unity of the great multitude, which, in widely separated places and under infinitely varied conditions, is one "League, — offensive and defensive," in the service of Jesus Christ.

The League must be judged not by how much more it might have done, but by how much less would have been done without it. The great majority of Methodists have come into the Church since the League was organized, and have always known it as a part of the Church. Its work has been taken for granted. But there can be no doubt of the value of its service to the Church and the community.

The Epworth League has sustained a weekly prayer-meeting, which, by its democratic atmosphere and its simple directness, has been a distinct addition to the Church's social means of grace. This meeting has been a training-school in devotion, in Christian confession, in fellowship, and in leadership.

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

It lias discovered great fields of practical service which, before its advent, were almost wholly unoccupied by the young people. The Social Service (formerly known as Mercy and Help) work in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the similar work in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the corresponding work in Canadian Methodism, have done much to make pointless the criticism that Methodists were too busy getting happy to pay much attention to the needs of those about them.

The remarkable Deaconess Movement, which has grown side by side with the Epworth League, has been very largely helped by the League. Scarcely a League convention is held but the deaconess is there to invite and direct the practical philanthropy of the young people, and to enlist young women for deaconess service. Hospital, orphanage, and training-school have been benefited by this co-operation in many ways, for the gifts of money and supplies have been crowned by the gift of self. Nearly every wearer of the white ties is a gift of the Epworth League to the Church.

He would inquire unwisely who left the League out of his studies of the present missionary revival. The "parish abroad" idea derives its chief support from large or small organizations of the League. In a single State the Epworth League has assumed the entire support of a score of missionaries in the foreign field. This plan, which provides the personal element so much needed in the support of mission work, would have been, at the outset, almost a negligible quantity but for the Epworth League.

Apart from this form of missionary activity, the League has furnished a direct and easy channel for the diffusion of missionary intelligence. Mission study classes, missionary institutes, the emphasis on missions in conventions and rallies are only the outward signs of a great missionary concern in the League. And the supply of missionary recruits in the past two decades has come mainly from the ranks of the Epworth League, in which missionary interest has fired missionary zeal, which has fused the purposes of many a life into the white heat of personal dedication to the missionary enterprise.

IN THE BEGINNING.

The Conferences of Methodism are very largely the business meetings of a great and complex institution. They are necessarily cumbered with much serving. The Epworth League, with its minimum of machinery, has had opportunity to provide in its conventions general gatherings for the cultivation of the spirit of fellowship, for the emphasis on the connectional idea, and for the conduct of exceedingly profitable "Conversations on the work of God."

The Epworth League, through its consistent and continually increasing emphasis on personal dealing with the unconverted, has helped to provide a fruitful means of evangelism. And in the stated revival efforts of the local Churches there is a mass of unassailable testimony which accords the League high place as a loyal and effective agency, affording aid of the utmost value to the pastor and the officiary in the work of reaching the unsaved.

There is more giving, more generous giving, and more systematic giving among the young people because of the work and influence of the Epworth League. There is more private prayer, more religious meditation, more devotional reading of the Word of God in Methodism than there could have been without the efforts of the League.

In brief, every activity of the Church, every outgoing of Christly service, every element in the upbuilding of strong and symmetrical Christian character, every interest of the Kingdom of God, has been blessed and profited through the providential use and spread of the Epworth League throughout the Methodist world.

The Wheel That Became a Cross.

The changes in the Epworth Cross, made in 11)13, marked one more step in the evolution of a device that is now at least twenty-five years old.

In organizing the League, at the memorable Cleveland meeting, the founders united in a new plan of organization. The scheme, when printed in chart form, became the forerunner of the famous "Epworth Wheel," which later gave place to the "Epworth Cross," the present graphic form of showing the varieties of League work.

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

It is interesting now to see what the young people of the late nineteenth century were trying to do. We have small reason to say of our own League time that it is so much more wonderful than the days of old ; we are the heirs of great thinking and large purpose in the former generation.

The descriptions of the six departments, in the Cleveland plan, were arranged in a hexagon, around a circle marked "President." As now, there were four Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, and a Treasurer.

The department of Christian work was under the First Vice-President. It had these subdivisions: (1) The Conducting of a Weekly Prayer-meeting, (2) Missionary Work, (3) The Spiritual Welfare of Members, (4) Carrying on Christian Work Among the Young, and (5) Sunday School Interests.

The second department was that of literary work, including: (1) Lectures and Literary Entertainments, (2) Lyceum Reading Circles, Papers, Magazines, Library, and all Educational Work; (3) C. L. S. C. Reading, (4) Oxford League Readings, and (5) Home Culture Circles.

"Social Work" was the name of the third department. Its divisions were: (1) All Sociables and Social Entertainments, (2) Systematic Visitation, (3) Reception and Introduction of Members, (4) Look-up Legion Work, (5) Social Purity, and (6) Temperance.

The department of entertainment was the Fourth Vice- President's care. It provided for: (1) Music for all Meetings, and Selection of a Chorister; (2) Excursions and Picnics, (3) Amusements for all Meetings, (4) Flower Mission Work, (5) Badges and Signals, and (6) Children's Dav Exercises.

The only points needing special attention in the Secretary's department are that this officer was expected to gather historical and other statistics, and that he was to keep a record of the Chapter's literary work.

Looking through these divisions of the work of one group of Oxford Leagues, it is easy to see why so much of the idea has been preserved until now, and also why some things have been dropped.

IN THE BEGINNING.

Missions has grown from being one-fifth of a department until it is a department by itself. The work among children has come to such proportions as were not dreamed of in the Cleveland "wheel." Literary work, though changed in form, has not lost in earnestness or interest, and has gained in directness

Children's Day exercises are no longer conducted by the League, nor does the League provide for Chautauqua Circle work or Home Culture Circles.

Now we are thinking a little more than formerly about serving and helping the community. We have an entirely new notion about what Christian stewardship means. We talk about personal evangelism, and do more of it. We think of amusements and entertainments as something we owe to the whole neighborhood.

These new movements are germinal in the old. The League could not live, and grow without producing new applications of old principles.

But — and this is the significant thing for us of to-day — the Wheel long ago became a Cross! In 1903 that happened.

And there 's a difference. A wheel carries the burden ; a cross is itself to be carried. A wheel runs with the minimum of effort; it costs something to take up a cross. A wheel is good for the beaten path ; a cross must be borne wherever One goes before who has said, "Follow Me."

In a word, we know now, perhaps a little better than was known twenty-five years ago, that the Christian work of young people is as serious, as urgent, as imperative, as any other form of Christian work. It is not mere drill work nor wooden gun parade. It is, for the moment, the business of life.

They felt something of that in the other days when the League was seeking to be born. But the time of its full realizing came later. And when that time arrived, that which had been a Wheel became a Cross.

"If any man will come after Me, let him take up his Cross daily and follow Me."

2 17

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

The Vindication of the League's Church Relationship.

In the beginning the Epworth League was organized as a Methodist young people's society.

At. the outset it met with more than a little' adverse criticism from people who felt, in all sincerity, that the proper thing to do was to merge it into an organization which might include the young people of all Churches.

The Epworth League was thought to be too narrow a society, too exclusive. It was urged to be broad and inclusive ; to make itself a part of a great interdenominational demonstration of the unity of the Churches.

At that time there existed a great, all-inclusive organization for work among the children and young people, in which Methodists worked side by side with other Christians of all names. That was the International Sunday School Association. It provided the Uniform Lessons, and was completely organized, with auxiliary associations reaching down through provincial, State, county, and township associations, clear to the little Sunday school at the forks of Elk Creek.

That organization is here yet.

But not as it was ; and the difference is an endorsement of the wisdom which, at the outset, held the Epworth League to the denominational form of organization and control.

In February, 1913, two groups of leaders came together at Dayton, Ohio. One group represented the long-established, far-reaching International Association. The other represented the official leaders of denominational Sunday school work in North America.

But the meeting was of the highest interest to all workers in denominational societies of every sort.

It forecasted the taking over by all the denominations, sooner or later, of the control of their Sunday school work. They are no longer willing to leave it largely to an interdenominational association, although they are more than ever willing to work together in the Sunday school movement.

IN THE BEGINNING.

The thought of the Sunday school executives who are chosen by the Churches, and responsible to them, was expressed with great clearness in the report of the secretary, Dr. H. H. Meyer.

Because two paragraphs of that report state the exact principles on which the Epworth League was founded, they are reprinted here. We have taken the liberty of substituting for the words "Sunday School," wherever they occur, the words which are printed in italics:

Every denomination at all equipped and organized for Young People's work is awake and disposed to regard its responsibility seriously, and to strengthen its own agencies at every point, from the local society to the denominational supervising board or committee. This does not mean an unwillingness on the part of any denomination to enter heartily into fellowship with interdenominational Young People's leaders, either in the local or in the general field. It does mean, however, that the seriousness of the task with which every denomination is confronted, and responsibility for the fulfillment of which rests upon the denominational Young People's leaders, will make it quite impossible for the denominations permanently to co-operate with each other in interdenominational Young People's work through the channels offered by an outside, independent organization, in the inner councils of which the responsible denominational Young People's executives, as such, have no voice.

The principle lor which the council stands, and stands as a unit, is that of denominational autonomv in matters of Young People's administration and instruction. The corollary of this principle is that the denominations, as such, can not conduct their co-operative educational and extension propaganda except through channels over which they have immediate control. There will always be a broad field of usefulness open to independent organizations, but ultimately, though perhaps gradually, every important department of work, on both the educational and administrative sides, must be taken over by some organization officially

THE EFFICIENT EPWORTHIAN.

constituted by and for the co-operating denominations themselves.

Now, these words do not speak the thought of narrow-minded partisans. There is no fencing-out, no disfellowshiping of the other man. There could not be in this day of enlarged and enlarging comity among the Churches.

For example, the Federal Council of Churches is a pretty broad affair. So is the Home Missions Council. And the missionary secretaries of the various Churches are doing an amount of united, co-operative work that would have staggered the imagination of the most aggressive Church a few years ago. These secretaries can not possibly be denominational hardshells.

But they are all seeking to get their own Churches as compactly organized, as denominationally self-conscious as possible, for the very reason that the Churches must work together more efficiently !

To do the large tasks which are the present business of the Protestant Churches, every Church must first be, in every department, efficiently organized and operated within itself.

Then it can bring to bear in Sunday school work, in Social Service, in the Missionary enterprise, in Young People's work, a force which, by its very concreteness and compactness, can be used in co-operation with the like forces which its denominational neighbors have developed.

For, as Secretary Meyer says, in another part of the report which is quoted above:

Let us not deceive ourselves with regard to the present trend of the development of every department of Church work in the larger field. This is obviously and most definitely in the direction of direct co-operative denominational control of interdenominational activities.

This subject is not referred to here to revive a forgotten controversy, which has no present-day interest save as history.

This, rather, is the thing the League should consider : If the League was so wisely directed in the days of its

IN THE BEGINNING.

beginnings that, after twenty-four years, the leaders of the Churches began to apply the same principles to other departments of religious activity — what have we of the League to do but to justify our birthright, by working with all our might to make ourselves fit for Methodism's share in the co-operative work of the Churches?