CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR VERSUS POLITICAL ENDEAVOR.
By W. N. G.
Dr. Charles Roads, of Chester, Pa., preached in the First M. E. Church of Oakland on Sunday, during the Christian Endeavor Convention in San Francisco. His text was Matt. 18: 1-3, and his delineation of the characteristics of a little child was indeed apt and instructive. The energy, activity, earnestness, and confidence of the child were graphically depicted, and held up as a striking example for adult Christians. He said the child is “a great reservoir of undeveloped possibilities.” From a picture of childish earnestness in playing church services in the home, he turned to the efforts of older people at missionary work. He said, “We only play at missionary work;” people can not claim Christian zeal in missionary work while they spend more money for flowers and feathers, ice-cream and amusements, etc., than they do for the cause of Christ. Then he turned to the juniors and children in Christian Endeavor work, and dwelt on the fact that they were far more active and enthusiastic than the older classes, and ventured the opinion that a convention of the youngest element in the Endeavor Society would manifest far more enthusiasm than any Christian Endeavor Convention that has yet been held. And just here he unwittingly punctured the great Christian citizenship bubble,—that is, the Christian Endeavor movement as it is being manipulated by the men of “gray hairs and wrinkled hearts,” who have stepped in to control what was designed as a young people’s work. The Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor is ostensibly an organization through which the young people may engage in practical Christian work, along lines within their ability. This ostensible motive is good; it might be, it ought to be, and no doubt has been, within the capacity of the young people, a means of doing much good. Then the question arises, On Dr. Roads’ theory that the younger members are the more earnest, active, and enthusiastic in the work, why was it not left with them? Why was it not continued as a young people’s society? The young people never would have dreamed of making of it anything different from the original design. Why, then, have the older classes, whose earnestness of action and simplicity of desire have become deadened and warped as their “gray hairs and wrinkled hearts” have swayed them from the straight line of Christian endeavor,—why have they assumed to lead these young people into the paths of political endeavor? So many of these older heads, professed ministers of the Gospel, whom the young people have been taught to regard as great, and learned, and pious, are telling the earnest and pliable boys and girls that Christian endeavor means to drive people to Christ with political power. They are teaching the boys that it is their duty, as they grow up, to control the political arena in order that Christianity may rule the world. They are teaching the girls that their proper mission is to acquire the9ballot in order to wield a political influence for Christ. Those men of “gray hairs and wrinkled hearts” are using the alluring scheme of “Christian citizenship” to turn the Christian Endeavor Society from its legitimate field into a mere political machine. The speaker held up the little children as examples for the older ones; then we repeat the question, Why not follow their example in the simplicity and enthusiasm of Christian endeavor, so vividly depicted, rather than to lead them off into the meshes and pollutions of political endeavor? W. N. G.