and very frequently pay taxes. But a religious organization, like a church or a Sunday school, is hardly justified in asking a library supported by public funds to become a propagandist of its own peculiar ecclesiastical tenets. But as far as my own experience goes,none of these things ever happen. Sunday schools, as a rule, do not ask for ecclesiastical books, dogmatic books, or controversial books. They want, as a rule helpful inspiring and wholesome books for the young. They ask for the kind of books that a library delights to buy, and duplicate, and reduplicate. We find hat they are going in the right direction, and we can ride with them without quarreling, and not without pleasan converse on the trip.

I hope to see the day come speedily when all the Sunday schools of all the churches will use the books of all the public libraries. There are many Sunday schools that will not do it now, and there are many public libraries that would not permit them to do it even if they were willing and eager for the service. There are a few theoretical obstacles in the way that look portentous; but they are built largely of mist and moonshine, and recede into nothingness as we advance upon them. The thing works well in actual execution. Here are two institutions, the Sunday school and the public library, both of them hampered more or less by human defects and un-wisdom, but both of them with lofty ideals, both of them trying to do men good, both of them sound-hearted at the core. Both of them think that somehow they are moving toward that "far-off, divine event to which the whole creation moves." We are traveling toward a common goal. Let us go together and help each other along.

HILLER C. WELLMAN

LIBRARIAN CITY LIBRARY, SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

Is it worth while to have secular books in a Sunday school library? This question is frequently pressed, now that public libraries are ministering so generously to children. The answer must be an unqualified Yes. Such books add to the attractiveness of the Sunday school, and furnish the child with quiet recreation to help him observe Sunday. But the paramount reason is the moral influence of books. The two or three assistants in the public library's children's room deal with some five thousand children while the teacher may have but five. She is brought into the most intimate relations with them. She often meets those whom the library can never reach. She must have at hand proper books, in order to interest children in good reading. For this reason libraries are eager to lend books to Sunday schools.

Many of the

latter already have books of their own; but, to be effective, such collections must be kept fresh. Replies to a circular sent to various Sunday school libraries all over the country brought out this unexpected fact — that if the library is to be a live one, there must be frequent additions. Otherwise even a large collection soon becomes dead.

In Springfield, from fifty to one hundred volumes are sent to any Sunday school applying for them. The plan is quite flexible. There is no formality, except a note from pastor or superintendent promising to make good undue loss. The books are chosen by the superintendent or by the library officials, and are exchanged as often as may be desired, but usually they are kept six months at a time. Explanatory circulars have been sent to every pastor or superintendent, and although only nine Sunday schools last year took advantage of this plan, they borrowed among them nearly a thousand books, and presumably each book was read many times.

The propriety of this service has sometimes been questioned by library authorities elsewhere, when a similar plan has been proposed, but it seems quite as justifiable to lend several books to several people or an association as to lend one to an individual. The service differs only in degree, not in character.

In two cases, branch libraries have been established in churches, which keep the books in their parish houses, and once a week open the room to anyone wishing to borrow the books. At first the churches supported these branches entirely without aid, but in one case the work grew so extensive that a library assistant now takes charge of it.

Besides these general collections, the library, of course, supplies numerous books to individual members of Sunday school classes. One such class, for example, is making an uncommonly thorough and comprehensive study of ecclesiastical history from the very earliest times. Its members are assigned topics, for which the library hunts up and furnishes the books and articles. Other classes are studying missions, and for them the library furnishes practically all the books suggested in Dr. Griffis' "Dux Christus."

The teachers, too, constantly seek the library's aid. Guides and manuals for teaching are often found in the Sunday school library, but they frequently are not used there, owing, probably, to the absence of the catalogues, apparatus, and staff of assistants that exist in a public library for fitting the right book to the right person. Certainly, at the public library teachers' manuals of all kinds, particularly such books as Moodie's "Tools for Teachers," made up of anecdotes, legends, etc., classified according to the moral qualities they illustrate, are in constant

demand. The single text-book no longer suffices either in the Sunday school or the secular school. New methods call for much collateral and illustrative material, and for this the teacher naturally depends on the public library. Brief lists of the teachers' manuals, of books on the Holy Land, of the best popular works on the archaeology, science, and manners and customs of the Bible, etc., are being prepared to be printed and distributed among Sunday school teachers. The ministers' club appointed a committee of clergy and laymen to compile a list of the best books in the library for Sunday school pupils, and this, too, if completed, will probably be printed by the library.

The clergy and the library maintain intimate relations. Last winter a conference was held to discuss methods of co-operation. Advice in the purchase of religious books is often sought from the ministers, and they are invited to furnish descriptive notes for bulletin and newspaper notices. The library has a fund yielding two hundred and fifty dollars per year, given by its former librarian, William Rice, for buying religious books, and as the total number published annually in the United States is only some six hundred or seven hundred, this sum is ample to buy all those of general interest for the library. New books of this class have been sent to the monthly meetings of the ministers for inspection. Non-resident clergymen from neighboring cities and towns also are allowed to borrow these books without charge. This valuable and unusual privilege was instituted when William Rice was librarian, and has been continued partly in recognition of his devoted services and generous endowment of the theological department.

Besides books, the library has a large collection of pictures, many of which were gathered expressly for Sunday school use. There are over a thousand illustrating the Bible. Those showing scenes in the life of Christ are arranged chronologically, according to Stevens and Burton's "Harmony of the Gospels." A key consisting of a numbered list of the events makes reference easy to the groups of pictures. The cost of gathering such a collection is very small except for the expenditure of time.

THE NEED OF PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIES TO MAINTAIN

THE STANDARD OF OUR MINISTRY

GEORGE A. JACKSON

LIBRARIAN GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

I have made some careful and far-reaching inquiries of men standing in official relations with all branches of our ministry in several states. To these inquiries I have received courteous and pains taking replies. The substance of my inquiry was as to the proportions of trained and untrained men in our several associations, conferences, conventions, dioceses, etc., and what relation these sustain to similar proportions of a generation ago. By "trained" men, I explained that I did not of necessity mean college-bred men, but did mean those whose education or experience, however gained, should enable them to meet on a certain. parity of footing with the educated people of their communities.

These are the general results of my investigation:

1. Contrary to a former impression, I to-day think that the original training of our New England ministers is not behind but is in advance of that of a generation ago.

2. This opinion is of our ministry as a whole. In some well-peopled sections, and among classes of ministers where we once looked for broad training as a matter of course, there has been a little falling off. Institutions promotive of piety rather than learning have sent students into parishes once manned by competent scholars. But judges to whom I defer think that this is but a temporary phase, due to influences which are passing away. But over against this waning, we must place the conspicuous up-grading of other and very considerable bodies of our ministers, thus more than maintaining the general status.

3. Yet candor compels me to assert that in certain large and more remote districts there is a somewhat general decline in ministerial efficiency, which decline, I am confidently told, is due to the pitifully small salaries given to the ministers.

4. A noteworthy fact is this, that all our denominations are getting many excellent ministers from other states and other countries. Once we exported ministers in large numbers: now we import them. And we must not let any petty provincialism prevent our welcoming these men. The colleges of the West and South show no serious dearth of candidates for the ministry. So much for the educational status of our clergymen. Their moral status, their sincerity and devotion, no one

questions. Our efficient school system and our unparalleled library equipment make it unsafe for a half-taught pretender to pose among us as learned. Our communities are few where there are not families with college traditions, if not actual college connections. Our people read. They know what is going on in the great world. Few churches could be found among us where the bearing of the great Russo-Japanese struggle upon missionary work, and the progress of the kingdom of God, have not been considered by lay persons. And the world of thought is known to us. The universally accepted conclusions of science have become to us axioms. For a preacher to insist upon six literal days of creation would be likely to discount him down in Aroostook as truly as here on the Back Bay. And we know in a general way that these scientific truths are not, as it was once feared they might be, antagonistic to religion.

All this makes the present period a very exceptional one in the history of religious thought. Men think to-day involuntarily in accordance with canons of the evolutionary philosophy. Nothing stands isolated; all is related. Fiat origins are next to unthinkable. Orderly processes with results take the place of ultimate and inexplicable events and entities. True of every other department of thought, this was bound to be true of our religious thinking. As a consequence, everything most sacred to us has had to bear new tests.

Now, one of the reasons why ministers to-day and for the next twentyfive years should have the best professional books is that they may be true spiritual guides upon this supremest subject of religion, the reality of the revelation of God among men. For if it has taken enlightened scholars a quarter-century to reach restful conclusions, it will take the popular mind at least a like period to reach the same goal.

I said earlier that there was one unnamed topic upon which our people had a general knowledge. It is this of Biblical criticism. Thousands and tens of thousands among us know just enough about it to inspire doubts and fears, and a half distrust of the teachings of their ministers, a feeling that they are not telling them the whole truth. And too often from sheer ignorance the ministers are not telling them the truth. Too often, alas, when they do speak of the subject, it is simply to denounce criticisms as ungodly attacks upon the Bible. This manner of treatment, in communities of reading people who know that the best and ablest divines in the country approve of reverent criticism, simply undermines the minister's influence. Either so people reason he is himself ignorant upon this distinctively professional subject, where it is his duty to be informed, and so not fitted for a religious teacher, or he is