Russell H. Conwell, Founder of the Institutional Church in America Part 11

"Make the Church home cheerful and happy.

"Arrange social home gatherings for various church or charitable enterprises.

"Solicit books or periodicals for the reading room or circulating library.

"Secure employment for the needy.

"Treat all visitors to the rooms as special personal guests in your home.

"Undertake large things for the Church and Christ in many ways, as may be suggested by any new conditions and deeds.

"Instruct in domestic arts, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, decoration, and, through the Samaritan Hospital, in the art of nursing.

"Furnish statedly instructive entertainments for the young.

"Develop the various singing services.

"Specially care for and a.s.sist young sisters.

"Cooperate in sewing enterprises of all sorts.

"Aid the Pastors by systematic visitation.

"Push many branches of City Missions, especially with reference to developing young women as workers.

"Maintain suitable young women as missionaries at home or in foreign fields.

"Carry sunshine to darkened hearts and homes.

"Be n.o.ble, influential Christian women."

It has a room of its own in the Lower Temple, with circulating library, piano and all the cheerful furnishings of a parlor in the home. To this bright room comes many a girl from her dreary boarding house to spend the evening in reading and social chat. It has been the cheery starting point in many a girl's life to a career of happy usefulness.

The Young Men's a.s.sociation follows similar lines and is an equally important factor in the church work. It plans to:

"Help increase the membership and efficiency of the Young Men's Bible Cla.s.s and other similar organizations.

"Persistently follow the meetings of these a.s.sociations and keep them in the hands of able, consecrated managers and officers, who will lead in the best enterprises of the church.

"Make the reading-room attractive and helpful.

"Help sustain the great Sunday morning prayer meeting.

"Invite pa.s.sers-by to enter the church, and welcome strangers who do enter.

"Advise seekers after G.o.d.

"Bring back the wandering.

"Organize relief committees to save the lost young men of the city.

"Look after traveling business men at hotels, and bring them to The Temple.

"Promote temperance, purity, fraternity and spiritual life.

"Initiate the most important undertakings of the church.

"Surround themselves with strong young men, and inaugurate vigorous, fresh plans and methods for bringing the gospel to the young men of to-day in store, shop, office, school, college, on the streets, and elsewhere.

"Visit sick members, help into lucrative employment, organize religious meetings, make the church life of the young bright, inspiring and n.o.ble, plan for sociables, entertainments for closer acquaintance and for raising money for Christian work and to use their pens for Christ among young men whom they know, and also with strangers."

It has a delightful room in the Lower Temple, carpeted, supplied with books, good light, a piano, comfortable chairs. It is a real home for young men alone in the city or without family or home ties.

During the building of The Temple many a.s.sociations were formed which, when the need was over, merged into others. As Burdette says:

"Often a working guild of some sort is brought into existence for a specific but transient purpose; the object accomplished, the work completed, the society disbands, or merges into some other organization, or reorganizes under a new name for some new work. The work of Grace Church is like the operations of a great army; recruits are coming to the front constantly; regiments being a.s.signed to this corps, and suddenly withdrawn to reinforce that one; two or three commands consolidated for a sudden emergency; one regiment deployed along a great line of small posts; infantry detailed into the batteries, cavalry dismounted for light infantry service, yet all the time in all this apparent confusion and restless change which bewilders the civilian, everything is clear and plain and perfectly regular and methodical to the commanding general and his subordinates."

Another a.s.sociation of this kind was the "Committee of One Hundred,"

organized in 1891. The suggestion for its organization came from the Young Women's a.s.sociation. A number of them went to the Trustees and proposed that the Board should appoint a committee of fifty from among the congregation to devise ways and means to raise money for paying off the floating indebtedness of the church. The suggestion was adopted. The Committee of Fifty was appointed, each organization of the church being represented in it by one or more members. It met for organization in 1892. The Young Women's a.s.sociation, pledged itself to raise $1,000 during the year. Other societies pledged certain sums.

Individuals went to work to swell the amount, and in one year, the Committee reported that the floating debt of the church, which at the time of the Committee's organization was $25,000, was paid. Encouraged by this success the Committee enlarged itself to one hundred and vigorously attacked the work of paying off the mortgage of $15,200 on the ground on which the college was to be built.

Among the minor a.s.sociations of the church that promoted good fellowship and did a definite good work in their time were the "Tourists' Club," a social development of the Young Women's a.s.sociation. The members took an ideal European trip while sitting in the pleasant reading room in the Lower Temple. A route of travel was laid out a month in advance. Each member present took some part; to one was a.s.signed the princ.i.p.al buildings; to another, some famous painting; to others, parks, hotels, places of amus.e.m.e.nt, ruins, etc., until at the close of the evening they almost could hear the tongue of the strange land through which in fancy they had journeyed. Maps and pictures helped to materialize the journey.

The "Girls" Auxiliary was formed to meet the needs of the younger members of the church. Any girl under sixteen could become a member by the payment of monthly dues of five cents. There were cla.s.ses in embroidery, elocution, sewing, etc.

The "Youth's Culture League" was organized for the work among youth of the slums; an effort to supplement public school education, making it a stepping-stone to higher culture and better living.

Sports of various kinds of course received attention. The Temple Guard, the Temple Cyclers, the Baseball League gave opportunity for all to enjoy some form of healthy outdoor sport. But since the college and its gymnasium have become so prominent, those who now join such organizations usually do it through college instead of church doors.

The following incident from the "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin" is typical of the help these organizations often gave the church in its religious work:

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OBSERVATORY

Built on the Site of the Old Hemlock Tree]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRESENT CONWELL HOMESTEAD IN Ma.s.sACHUSETTS]

"Eight and a half years ago the Rev. Russell H. Conwell surprised a great many people by organizing a military company among his little boys. The old wiseacres shook their heads, and the elders of the old school wondered at this new departure in church work. Then again he fairly shocked them by making the organization non-sectarian, and securing one of the best tacticians in the city to instruct the boys in military science.... From the first the company has clearly demonstrated that it is the best-drilled military organization in the city, and the number of prizes fairly won demonstrates this. However, the company does not wish to be understood as being merely in existence for prize honors, although it cannot be overlooked that twenty victories over as many companies afford them the best record in Pennsylvania.

"In 1896, the Samaritan Rescue Mission was established by the Grace Baptist Church, and proving a great financial burden, Dr. Conwell offered to give a lecture on Henry Ward Beecher. The Guard took the matter up, brought Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, despite her threescore years and ten, to Philadelphia for the first time in her life, and so great was the desire of the church-loving public of this city to attend that the mission did not perish."

When the stress of building and paying the church debt was pa.s.sed, many of these societies went heart and soul into the Christian Endeavor work. Indeed, for awhile it seemed as if the Christian Endeavor would absorb all the church a.s.sociations. There are at present fifteen Christian Endeavor Societies in the church. In addition to the Christian Endeavor pledge, the following special ways in which they can forward the church work is ever held before each member:

"For the sake of your character and future success, as well as for the supreme cause, keep your pledge unflinchingly.

"Endeavor persistently, but courteously, to seek after those who ask for our prayers and advice at any meeting.

"Never discontinue your endeavors to get new members for the societies. Follow it continually in the name of the Lord.