The efficient layman: or, The religious training of men

Front matter

^ c

D

^O

CHAPTER I Principles of Masculine Development i CHAPTER H The Church Winning Men ii

CHAPTER HI The Church Training Men 23

CHAPTER IV A Lay Ministry 47

CHAPTER V The Sunday-school and the Man 53

CHAPTER VI The Adult Bible Class 74

CHAPTER VII The Brotherhoods — Their Organization 99

CHAPTER VIII The Brotherhoods — Their Plans of WbRK 113

CHAPTER IX

The Brotherhoods — Their Extension Work 125

xi

Xll CONTENTS

Pagb

CHAPTER X The Brotherhoods — Their Educational Policy 144

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER Xn The College Man in the Church 172

CHAPTER Xni Training Men in the Colleges 184

CHAPTER XIV Social Settlements 204

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI The Strategic Moment for the Churches 230

CHAPTER I

What are the physical characteristics of this period ? The structure has attained its general proportions; the various organs have entered upon their functions; normally Is Development there will be little change in size or theAdultlile? weight; physically the growing period is over. What, however, is taking place in the body of the adult from the age of twenty-five to that of fifty? Is he not still in the process of anabolism ? The breaking down is less on the whole than the building up. Strength increases for a number of these years. The muscles develop ; in whatever way they are exercised greater dexterity is acquired; the body is still susceptible to training. In nearly every instance, however, some functions develop unduly, without balance with the others, while these others, being neglected, tend toward atrophy and decay. The athlete or the acrobat may not be able to begin his preparation in maturity, but it would be folly to state that he cannot hope to improve, to develop, to " learn any new tricks " during that period. The general recognition of the principle of continuous physical training and development is evident to-day in the popularity of outdoor sports and indoor exercises for adult men.

Psychologically ^ manhood is the period of the co-ordination of the life of intellect and of the senses. The " stress and storm " period is Masculine usually past. The man feels his

Charactensbcs ■' ^

grip on life. He fits into his place in the life of the world and bends to its service. Opinions are viewed less tragically, more calmly; the man concerns himself more with their practical aspects than with their theoretical bearings. Unless opinions are stirred by intellectual combat, by the good fortune of political strife for example, they tend to fixity, then to stagnation and mental sterility. Centuries of placidity, freedom from intellectual strife and necessity, accompanied by unremitting repression, account for the brief youth and the long, colorless manhood of much of the European peasantry.

But instances ^ almost innumerable exist to remind us of the possibilities of psychological development during the period of manhood.

Mature and Yet Many men who have achieved dis-

CjTOWing ...

tmction m various calhngs, as artists, scientists, and statesmen have been entirely unconscious of their powers until manhood was at-

^ The literature on the genetic psychology of the adult is not extensive. For a discussion of the adult religious development, see " The Psychologry of Religion," Starbuck, pp. 277-310.

2 A classic list of examples is given in " Self Help,'' by Samuel Smiles.

tained. Their real period of development has apparently covered the years after twenty-five. Scarcely any of the great contributions made to science or to art or to literature have been created earlier than during this period of manhood. Many are the instances of those who, after reaching physical maturity, have resolutely set their faces toward fields, hitherto by them untried, in which they have attained signal success. Within himself every man who has the introspection that accompanies a larger vision and service in life sees clearly that, important physiologically as was the period of adolescence, and important as it may have been in determining the trend and habits of the later years, the greatest growth intellectually and spiritually, in power and reach, in grasp and facility, has come during the later years. One case comes to mind of a man who, having practised the violin as a youth, finding an instrument in his possession after eighteen years of silence, found also that his mind had been so trained in those eighteen years that it was apparently much easier to acquire facility than it had been when he had ceased to play as a boy. Intellectual training had given the mind power to grasp quickly the musical notations, and to secure ready muscular reaction.

Our graduate and professional schools contain a goodly percentage of men of adult years. They may be divided into two general groups : those who come after a hiatus in their academic experience, after some years spent in business or professional service, seeking wider preparation, and those who either because they have begun their undergraduate studies late in life or because they have made unusually extended preparation come, after the age of twenty-five, to graduate work without a break in the habits of sustained systematic study. Observation and inquiry in many directions show that the latter class altogether outstrip their juniors in thoroughness of work, in application, and in powers of sustained concentrated attention and painstaking investigation ; that they outstrip even those who, with equal opportunities and breadth of preparation, are younger than they. In the case of those who have lost somewhat, through the excursion into active business or professional life, the habits of sustained study, the loss is more than compensated by the general grasp on affairs and by thoroughness of application. Steadfastness of purpose marks the mature student; nearly all who have to do with him testify to his powers of development.

One often hears the expression, " He is growing in mind," or, " He is broadening out," and occasionally, with no small measure of wonder, " He is always learning something new." The popular assumption seems to be that it is an abnormality for a mature man to develop intellectually. The truth is that the many, many men who are pushing on, unsatisfied, conscious of incompleteness, recognizing that " man partly is and wholly hopes to be,"

reaching out after life, are the normal men in a world where, if all had the spiritual heritage which is theirs by right, all would yield to this same passion for improvement.

Is this period also one of religious development ? ^ Or are we to assume, as leaders in religion have often done, either that the fine growth of the spiritual life is so Religious

° . ^ Uevelopment

achieved by some mysterious or miraculous bound into fulness of life that nothing more remains to be done, or that childhood and youth are the only periods of growth, and when these are past all hope of further development may well be abandoned? If manhood is a period of possible psychological development, it must be a period of possible spiritual development; there can be no difference in these characteristics. The fact that the period of maturity is not marked by greater religious growth is due, not to man's incapacity for development therein, but to failure to furnish or improve the proper conditions for such development. Churches have been maintained and their activities supported very largely in order that the mature men might grow in grace; but the plan of feeding these men with milk for babes or of fattening them on angel's food, literally as well as figuratively, naturally has not resulted in healthful development. We have not stopped to ask, has a man a religious

3 On mature religious beliefs, see Pratt, in " Psychology of Religious Belief," Chap. VIII.

nature which requires any particular form of spiritual nurture, any types of exercise, any activities for its development other than those which have been found favorable to the development of infants or of women ?

It is perhaps less necessary to point out in what

ways the religious life of the man differs from that

of the child or the youth than it is

Men and Women .-j'-i-nj- - e

to mdicate briefly divergencies from the religious characteristics of the feminine mind.* Questionaires among the sexes show that to the woman religion is more largely a life of feeling, that consciousness of the divine presence and friendship is perhaps the characteristic religious experience, that there is more proneness to introspection, a keener appreciation of the graces and finer beauties, the tenderness, the light, the gentleness of ideal characters among women than among men.^ If we select one hundred hymns, say the best in general use, from the songs of the church, we find, first, that those which are hymns of subjective experience and those which are hymns of adoration and passive aspiration, appeal much more largely to women than to men, while men select those which express action, describe conflict, or as-

* Compare Coe, in "The Spiritual Life," pp. 236-244; also a chapter on " Sex " in " The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity," by G. B. Cutten. " The Masculine in Religion " is the title of a suggestive little book by C. D. Case, Ph. D., containing a ch'^pter on " Sex in Religion."

^ See on comparative characteristics, Havelock Eljis' " Man and Woman," Chap. XII, XIII; also a summary by Geo. A. Coe, in " The Spiritual Life," pp. 236f ; also discussed by C. D. Case in " The Masculine in Religion," Chap. I-IV.

pire after social salvation. In compiling such a collection of hymns,® the writer, receiving many suggestions of " favorite hymns," could almost without fail detect the sex of the suggester from, the character of the hymn, even before the name was reached in the communication. Secondly, one finds, in the study of hymns, that since the practice of singing is rather an act of adoration than a form of direct activity, hymns have a much larger place in the religious life of women than of men.

The speculative side "^ of the religious life of men ^ differs from that of women in that the man finds pleasure often in the philosophical and abstract problems of religion, while to the women all such problems are personal. He exercises himself in theology, biblical, historical, or theoretical; she in experience, in the consideration and discussion of the life of feeling and relationships, as she knows it. Ordinarily, and broadly, the emphasis with the man is intellectual ; with the woman, emotional.

The distinguishing characteristics of mature masculine religion are, the sense of right and duty which regards religion as a life of goodness and service, the emphasis on the positive, practical, and concrete, the desire for expression of faith and conviction in action and an awakening regard for the social significances of rehgion.

® " Hymns You Ought to Know," by Henry F. Cope. ^ See " The Psychology of Religion," Starbuck, Chap. XXV. ^ See, for the religious life of young men, " The Church and Young Men," Cressy, especially Chap. II.

The question as to whether men or women are the more religious is usually answered by inade- Men and the quate tests. As the churches are or- Churches ganized and conducted to-day, they meet the religious needs of the feminine type so much more closely that they are bound to show the man as, if not less religious, certainly less churchly. When the church meets the actual life needs of men — of real men as men are — the men will be there in due proportions.

The differences in mental characteristics between men and women suggest that while many church activities and opportunities may meet the needs of both, there should be special and adequate provision, based on careful study for the peculiar needs of the masculine life, just as now there has come to be that which is suited to the feminine.

What has been said in regard to the introspective habits of the feminine mind must not lead us to suppose that men are never introspecn ospec on ^.^^^ rpj^^ adult tendencies in this direction are most marked at two periods, from eighteen to twenty-five, and very late in life. In women this habit often becomes morbid through middle life. In men, while morbidity is very infrequent, in some cases the habit is so strong and the inspection so minute that it becomes a species of mania, resulting in brooding melancholy.

There are strata of melancholia in almost all men. It is easy to bring these to the surface and to make them the material of the life building. The pensive habit is apt to lead to pessimism. It must often be corrected by sharp, and even caustic, remedies. For less severe cases, cheerful company, especially of those v^^hose seriousness of purpose is undoubted and, above all, plenty of wholesome activity, are good medicine for the blues. Actively to participate in relieving real sorrows will readily dissipate imaginary ones. Doing one's duty dispels doubts, and ^ despair vanishes in endeavor in worthy service.

On the whole men love cheer, light, and hope; they would rather believe in the good than in the bad. You will never get far with men without some faith in their es- The Magnerism of sential love of the good and the true. Robert Louis Stevenson is a type of spiritual development by no means as common as we might wish, the cheerful wayfarer who struggles against tremendous odds, with most serious handicaps, but who, nevertheless, whistles as he pushes on. He may have a ravenous beast tearing his breast, but there is more than Spartan courage or Stoic calm as he not only keeps up his own courage, but heartens us all so splendidly. It is significant that Stevenson is the ideal of so many men. There are those who know nothing about his inner life struggles who, from him, are learning his lesson, and there are yet others who live with him in the fellowship of suffering through some secret disease or burden.

Stevenson suggests at least one characteristic that must be studied in the life of the modern man — ^he feels the duty and finds the joy of so living and bearing himself as to add to the sum of all happiness. Something in a man answers to that. You will find in the office of the pessimist the sign, " Keep smiling " ; that means nothing. You will find in the life of the greater number of men the aim to keep the world sweet, and that means cheer and brightness; to bury your sorrows and water your joys. You must take account of this altruistic optimism if you would train and use men.

Above all, one must bear in mind the gregarious tendencies of men. They gravitate together; they are social beings. The solitary Hfe dies down; in communal living, in the friction and co-operation of business, in the mind sharpened upon mind, in the tonic atmosphere of homogeneous groups, men expand, their powers push out and are developed. Religion must use the social instincts and necessities, and must furnish men with an atmosphere socially masculine and spiritual.

Chapter II The Church Winning Men

To comprehend the work of the church in the religious training of the adult man, we ought first to ask, " What should the church hold itself responsible for in the religious education of the individual ? " and then, " How should the church discharge this responsibility?"

There are many possible views of the responsibility of the church ^ ; some hold that religious education belongs to it exclusively, since to it is committed all religious work, and whatever is done without the church is unreligious ; others, that the limits of its responsibility are self-determined in that it is a voluntary body undertaking the work it deems best; in other instances, the policy and the sense of responsibility is determined by the acceptance of that philosophy which regards religion as relating only to some hidden entity within man, and does not include education among the processes of salvation. Must it not be true, however, that in the church, as in every other living organism, responsibility is determined by nature and functions?

1 See "The Improvement of Religious Education," pp. 208-210; "The Aims of Religious Education," pp. 29, 50, 147; "Education and National Character," pp. 37, 78.

II

It can have no obligations beyond its opportunities, its powers, and capacities.

The church is the social-group organization of the religious life and spirit. Its functions are primarily spiritual, in the realm of ideals; they are inspirational, prophetic, promotional.^

As a group the church will bring to the individual the force and benefit of group-religious potencies; it will mold individual opinion by the force of its collective opinion ; it will strengthen individual conviction, stimulate individual aspiration, and direct individual conduct by the power of group ideals adequately expressed. And, since that which gives unity and vitality to this religious group is its spiritual character, it will bring into all life the distinctly spiritual element, and will hold itself responsible for the right and perfect relation of the individual to the spiritual, for the development of the individual into spiritual being and service, and for his acquisition of his full heritage as such a spiritual being.

With the broader view of education in mind, all the duties and responsibilities of the church appear Church and to be related to religious education. Education fhe church is responsible for the community or group expression of religion, for the relation of the agencies and forces of the religious group to the individual, for the inspiration of the

2 On the contribution of the church, see J. H. Crocker, in " The Church of To-day," Chap. VII; S. Mathews, in " Church and Changing Order."

THE CHURCH WINNING MEN I3

individual with the rehgious aim and spirit, for the direction of the individual in those forms of religious service which develop character, and for the organization, co-ordination, general conduct, and inspiration of all other agencies of education having the spiritual development of the individual in mind.

In particular the church is responsible for the spiritual nurture of the individual; indirectly, through the training of parents, the inspiration of family and home life, the stimulating and aiding of other teachers, and the care for the whole physical environment of developing life as related to moral and religious character. Directly, the church is responsible for the creation of a religious social atmosphere for the individual, for the direction to right relations to formal religious institutions, for definite instruction, formal and informal in religion, for the erection of standards and creation of ideals and their indorsement by itself as a social group, and for the opportunity for the individual's self-expression of the religious life through service.

To sum up, then, the church is responsible for the religious instruction and nurture of all those related to it in any way, for the preservation to the youth and the man of those spiritual heritages to which they are born, for the inspiration of all educational agencies with the religious spirit and ideals, and for the improvement of these agencies, whether within its organization or without, to greater efficiency as moral and religious forces.

The process of readjustment in order to meet the nurtural need of adult religious life must go on all the way down through the organization and methods of the church. The religious training of the adult begins in infancy; what the man will be the kindergarten is determining. We have been altogether too short-sighted in our religious educational programs. We cannot remedy the defects of adult training by considering the adult division of the Sunday-school only. All the divisions of the school have to come into the unity of singleness of educational purpose, that purpose being the training of the full religious life.

It is impossible to provide for the religious training of the adult if this training is not an integral part of the training of the Where ^d When ^^ole life from childhood up, and

to Begin ^

if this training is not prefaced by suitable processes in the earlier years. The least part of the child's development is a large part of the life of the man. It is therefore, for the sake of the man, necessary to consider a little the training of the child.

Manifestly there is need for certain readjustments before the church can be said to discharge this responsibility. Provision must be made for the religious nurture of the infant. Then, there must be provision for the relation of the child to the church in early childhood, in order that one of its first conscious impressions after it reaches the age of

THE CHURCH WINNING MEN 1$

consciousness of self may not be that that self is outside the church. Recognizing the development of the religious life as a gradual process, should there not be corresponding stages in the development of the relation of the youth to the church? As it is to-day practically the child is either an alien or an outcast or, being in the church, he is burdened with the responsibility of an elder in Israel. The practice of causing the youth to take the whole course of admission to full church life in one leap may be as damaging as the philosophy which regards salvation as achieved at a bound. The church must adapt its methods to the lives and the life processes of those who are under its care ; the child must determine the work of the church for him by the laws of his life and the man by the laws of his life. The church must provide for the expression of the child's religion; it must especially avoid the present common attempt to force the young to wear the father's spiritual garments and to give empty expression to assumed maturer virtues and experiences, as in the junior young people's meetings. There must come the substitution of comprehensive, continuous spiritual nurture for sporadic, unrelated efforts. The various activities of the church, societies, clubs, meetings, etc., must be so determined and co-ordinated as to furnish opportunity for steady symmetrical development and complete and harmonious religious education. Individual and group character must become the aim rather than an organization. This will eliminate the conception of the religious educational work of the church as being the conduct of miniature theological seminaries or the care of inert fragments of heavenly bodies. The ideal will be the development of character in stability, unity, fertility, efficiency, and beauty. Religious education will not be the function of one agency of the church alone; it will be the aim of all. Then the child and the adult will both have their places in all the life of the church ; the Sunday-school will not take the place of the church for the child, nor the Sunday newspaper be wholly sufficient for the man.

The church has a heavy responsibility to-day in

educating its people from the passive to the active

type of religion, that they may be

Activity and YiQve " not to be ministered unto,

Lxpression • • „ x i •

but to mmister. It must begm this work early, and continue it through all the life of the individual. The need for expressional activity may be met, in some measure, through the use of the institutional activities in the church itself, through its social activities. But, still more may be done, as the church teaches the individual to realize that the church itself finds the expression of its life and the individual finds the expression of his religion largely through the things outside the institutional life of the church, in daily living, in social duties.

At present the church presents instruction without

THE CHURCH WINNING MEN \J

Opportunity for expression, and often some opportunities of adult expression without any attempt at correlated instruction. Perhaps there is as much need to remedy the latter defect as the former, to provide for the formal instruction, the continuous nurture of the later adolescent and adult. This will be but the following of the principles of education on the part of the church. The time has come to plead that every advantage that has come to the Sunday-school by the recognition of its educational function shall come also to the church in all its work, that in all that is done for the spiritual development of men the highest efficiency shall be secured by simple obedience to the principles which educational science is discovering. When we honestly apply ourselves to the training of character as a business, we will find that fully half of our other problems, as of finances, attendance, influence, and authority, are solved. Get the heart of the man in his inner life, in that which molds him, and you have him in all of his activities.

The indictment that rests against the church is not simply that she has failed to carry the application of the laws she is learning now p^ ^^^^ church in relation to the development of the Mean to religious life of the child forward Educate Men? into the life of the man; it is more general and sweeping — it is that she has not, in modern times, at least, accepted the elementary laws of education in their relation to her work of the development of the

1 8 THE EFFICIENT LAYM/ N

religious character. While here and there are to be found men and women who recognize the unitary character of all education, and so follow the laws of the child's life in the Sunday-school and home, scarce anywhere can we discover any who have asked whether there are such things as the laws of the life of a man, whether there is such a thing, indeed, as the religious training of the adult. In practice the man is left to chance or, at best, to disconnected appeals to intellect, emotions, and senses. In church service, Bible class, prayer meeting, and even in brotherhood or club, the thing desired and sought seems to be to keep him amused, to hold his attention, and to tie him, formally, mechanically almost, to the activities or at least to the support, by presence and by subscription, of the church. Who has heard of any definite program adopted by a church for the orderly, progressive training of its grown men in the understanding of the religious life, in their appreciation and acceptance of their spiritual heritage, in their religious duties and service? The great leader of Christianity spent no small portion of his public life in the definite task of training a small group of adults. Under his educational activity phenomenal changes were wrought in these men, in breadth of vision and ideals, in development of unsuspected powers, and in personal elevation of character. They were adults when their training began, but they were brought from mediocrity to power.

THE CHURCH WINNING MEN I9

Once the church almost entirely neglected the child, waiting until the life period came in its experience when by revivals and similar appeals to fear and other ^'^^pp^'J^j^^^^^^*'''^ emotions the lost lambs should be herded back into the fold by awesome crook or even by hounds that barked with sulphurous breath. Catastrophic experiences were relied upon to accomplish the work neglected for years. A large proportion of the lambs refused, however, to be thus brought back; indeed, they did not then return at all, and so the church was compelled to spend her energies in repeated endeavors to win back these wanderers and, year after year, as they grew up into manhood, all that the church could do for them was to bid them repent and be converted. There were so many of these wanderers that the labor of winning them back absorbed her time and powers. Her case was like that of a man who, having to build a wall in so many hours, carelessly allowed all his bricks to fall from his wagon along the road, so that when the evening began he scarcely had time to go back and pick up the lost material, and so, though night fell, the work of construction was not even begun.

In these later days the church has begun to stop the losses at the beginning; will she go on and learn the business of holding what she has gained and leading all on to full living? There appears to be an assumption that the axiom," Give me the children and the adults will take care of themselves," means that, if the religious training of the child be properly conducted, the man will care for his own complete religious development without further thought or effort on the part of the church. Is that true? If men, from infancy, are held to the church through the period of adolescence, will the church be able without further effort to hold them through the rest of their days ? It might seem as though that question would answer itself; men having acquired the life habit of religion, having long breathed the religious atmosphere, would habitually remain in it, refusing to leave it, and if it did not meet all their needs, they would proceed to supply any deficiencies themselves. True, the establishment of right habits, the chief end of the education of youth, will insure right acts to a large degree in the man. But life is more than habits. It may be determined from within, but it also depends on things without, not only on habits, but also on light, atmosphere, and nutrition. Even habits are but settled reactions to stimuli from without. Of what avail is it to cultivate ideal tastes and appetites if no food shall be furnished for these? Some say, when all our youth shall know the right way, then all men v>^ill walk in it, and that accomplished fact will furnish all light and nutriment needed on the way. But we are not sure that all will walk in this way, nor if they did, would there be less necessity for providing formally for their sustenance. Since education is a continu-