The lessons which the children of this world are teaching the children of light are obvious. If upon our farms, our highways of commerce, in our hospitals and schools; if men and women touching the various phases of animal and human life, his physical and mental welfare, need a standard of efficiency, why not the Bible-trained man be best equipped for spiritual service among the sons and daughters of men? The dignity of his position, the gravity of his responsibility, the place of power which he occupies, all signify that his equipment for service should be the very best.

      The keener the sword, the more skilled should be the soldier. A Luther Burbank transforms the flower of a weed into a sweet-scented fragrance and the useless plant into a cultured utility, and all because he is trained in the field of horticulture. How much better is a man than a flower, which to-day blossoms and to-morrow withers under the rays of the sun? What Luther Burbank is to the flowers in the gardens of California, the Bible-trained man is to the mental, moral and spiritual culture of the flowers of childhood and youth in the garden of God's church on earth.

      The wording of this topic is power, not influence--"Bible-trained Men in Places of Power." Influence is not to be despised. Bible-trained men often have influence that is marvelous indeed. But we must remember that those who were trained at the feet of the master Teacher were men of power, rather than of influence. They had little influence socially, financially or politically. On some occasions they had not influence enough with the politicians of their day to keep out of jail. They were despised [562] by the magistrates and populace of the great cities in their day. Measured from the world's standpoint, influence was wanting in their lives. But they were all men of mighty power. Like the trolley wire from the cable above to the car below, they were silently, but surely, connecting high heaven above to men below, with power so marked that the magistrates were concerned and felt that they were "turning the world upside down." The man who knows and lives God's word is a man of power. He is a revolutionist, a path-maker and a pathfinder in the way that leads to civilization and Christianization. Bible-trained men have hewn out the paths through the forests of sin and darkness and superstition; they were the pioneers of discovery, commerce, inventions and progress. The wheels of commerce that roll amid the prosperity of to-day were made possible by men who yesterday schooled our fathers in the alphabet of Christianity. The army of volunteers for the mission fields and the ministry at this very hour are the sons and daughters of noble sires who taught them their first lessons in the Holy Scriptures. They builded better than they knew.

      Teacher-training is already bearing

S. M. PERKINS.

rich fruitage. In many a young soul it has created a thirst for larger knowledge and fanned a cherished ambition into a living flame. It is thus that since the movement has been inaugurated our colleges and universities have witnessed unprecedented progress. Recent reports, not only of financial bequests, but also of the student body, indicate that our own educational institutions are prospering as never before in our history. There has been a marked advance along educational lines such as has not been experienced by any other phase of our work. Larger and more frequent gifts, more students in our schools, and an aroused interest everywhere among our people, indicate that something has taken place in very recent times to produce such a revolution. Who will deny that the teacher-training movement has fanned into a flame the dormant ambitions of many a youth for a wider knowledge of God's word, and through them aroused the latent forces of the church to a larger vision of the value of Christian education?

      Thus the necessity of Bible-trained men and Bible-training men in places of power. Let every pulpit of our land become a radiating center for teacher-training, and you have created in the youth of our land a thirst for a higher education. This alone will supply the missionaries for the foreign fields; this will solve the problem of the pastorless church and the churchless pastor; will furnish our quota for the student body of our educational institutions, infuse new red blood in the veins and arteries of the whole church, and usher in the new and better age for which we have prayed and labored for a hundred years.

[CCR 562-563]