Devotional exercises were led by Mr. Leroy St. John.

      Mr. Logan: There may be many of you who until this Convention had not looked upon the next speaker's genial face. He teaches every Monday night in the city of Cincinnati a teacher-training class of over five hundred students representing 102 different churches. I have pleasure in introducing to you Herbert Moninger, who will speak to you on "Methods of Building Up an Adult Bible Class."

      Mr. Moninger: The characteristic feature of religious life to-day is the awakening interest in Bible study. Bible study has its best manifestation, so far as the masses are concerned, in the organized Bible-school work. Within the Bible school the two movements most prominent are the teacher-training and the adult Bible-class work. The first was discussed in all the sessions this afternoon. This evening in the Bellefield Presbyterian Church the women are assembled, and in Duquesne Garden the men are there by the thousands, and you are here representing the mixed classes, and all of these sessions are part of the second movement, that which we call the adult Bible-class movement. I want you to realize the fact that men and women want to study the word of God. I want you to realize that men and women want to keep busy. And I have been given this subject to-night, not because of its profundity, but because we may possibly get some suggestions by talking together that will send us home with the enthusiasm and inspiration that will enable us to do a larger work for the Master.

      What are some of the methods that have had to do with the building up of this movement? What are some of the methods that have had to do with the building up of those magnificent classes of Fred Gordon's, that are behind me to-night? What are some of the methods that have had to do with the building up of P. H. Welshimer's class of nine hundred men? What are [580] some of the methods that have had to do with the building up of that great men's class of William Grant Smith's? I might mention many other ministers and superintendents that are doing things. You ask the question, How? My friends, in the conferences, as everywhere else, that one word is spoken more often than any other, save possibly the name of the master Teacher, how. How can we build up an adult Bible class? How can we build up a teacher-training class? How may we build up a Home Department? How can we build up a Cradle Roll? So they ask, How, how, how? until it seems to me that it will not be time wasted if we ask, How may we build up a great Bible class in any community?

      And so my first method is this--and it is not new, but it needs a new emphasis:

      1. Make Bible study paramount. Whatever you may do to build up your Bible class, remember this, that it is the study of the Bible that holds men together. We may talk about Brotherhood work in building up enthusiasm, but I tell you that as long as the world remains as it is you can not build an organization around anything excepting the word of God, so far as the church life is concerned.

      I think there is an illustration that perhaps would be fitting here that I got from one of our magazines. Into a home a baby was born to a young father and mother. And after it was some weeks old and the father and mother could leave it with the maid, they went downtown one day. When they were coming home they saw the maid pushing the baby-carriage along toward them. And they were laughing and talking about how the baby would look, and greatly anticipating lifting up the top and looking in. And when they got to the carriage, the maid pushed back the top and she cried, "Oh, I forgot to put the baby in." I believe, friends, that to-day with all our methods sometimes we forget to put the Bible in, which is the center of the Bible class, which is the center of the Bible school, round which all the normal activities of our church to-day must revolve.

      Some of you have heard possibly of that man who came over to this country and was hired as a coachman. I think of him as I remember my experience in Steubenville. I can remember how, when I took up the work there, I found something like sixteen organizations, and I thought it was my business to wind them up. So I began with the Endeavor society. And I put my ministerial key into it and it ran pretty well. And then I put my key into the prayer-meeting and wound it up until it went pretty well. And then I used my key on the boys' organizations and wound them up until they went pretty well. Our men's organization then met down in the basement; there were about ninety-four of them, and I wound them up until they pretty nearly ran away with

H. MONINGER.

me. And then I tried my key on the morning preaching, and then on the evening preaching, missionary society and then I tried it on the young ladies' and on the women's missionary society, and wound them all up until they went along pretty well. And, finally, I came around to the ladies' aid society, and when I finally had got this society wound up, I found that my Christian Endeavor society had run down. Are there any preachers here having that experience now? What was wrong? Well, I wish somebody had told me when I started in this work in the wrong way. I had not heard the story that gave me the vision. Will you hear it and accept its lesson?

      The story is that of a man who came over to this country and was hired as a coachman. His first work was to grease a buggy. And he was all forenoon at it. When his employer called him in to know what caused the delay, he said, "You surely know it ought not to take half a day to grease a buggy." But the new coachman had not yet finished the job. After he got back from dinner, the man called him and said: "Well, did you finally get it greased?" And he said: "Yes, I greased it all over [581] except the little places where the wheels turn round. I couldn't get into them." And then I said to myself, and I have said it over and over again to myself, "Moninger, you are greasing every place excepting the place around which all normal church activities revolve." In other words, the Bible is the center of all normal activities of the church to-day, and especially is it the center of our men's classes, our women's classes and our mixed classes. So, if you want to have a big class, put over that big class a teacher who can make the Bible a fascinating book, and before long you will have a large organization wound around Bible study as the center, a class solidly enthusiastic in the study of the word of God.

      I think there is a man in this audience to-night, the pastor of a beautiful church, who organized a big men's class. One day I was talking to one of the members of that class who had never been to Sunday-school since he was a child, and he said to me, "I never knew what the Bible was and what it meant to go to a Bible school until I got into that man's class," and he is so enthusiastic you could not keep him home. Why? Just because Justin N. Green has made Bible study fascinating, and the Bible is the center of that great organization. You ask, How is it that Fret Gordon can reach this class? I do not know. Only this, that he teaches the Book, or 350 people would not gather week after week that they might be in his Bible class. He teaches the Book. Bible study is fascinating, and any one can make it that way if they want to. And when you are organizing a teacher-training class or a men's class or a women's class, think of this.

      It is said that a boy had a dog that would do all sorts of nice tricks. One day a man came along and saw the dog perform, and wanted it, and he offered the boy five dollars for the dog. The boy said, "All right, you can have it," and the man took the dog home. But he wouldn't do any of his tricks for the man at all. So he said, "I have been cheated and I will take the dog back." So he took the dog back and said, "Boy, you have cheated me; this dog won't do anything for me. This dog don't know how to do tricks." And the boy took the dog back and he put him through his paces, and he did all the tricks he had done before. The man looked at the boy and he looked at the dog and he said, "What is the matter? The dog will do tricks for you, but he will not do tricks for me. What is wrong?" And the boy looked up into the man's face, and said in his own boyish way, "Well, you have got to know more than the dog." To build up, hold a big class, the teacher must know more than the class. Thus the summary of our first point is this, make the Bible the center of your men's class, your women's class, your mixed class, and put at the head a teacher who can make Bible study fascinating, and before very long you will have a class that is not only big, but a positive force with which you can do almost anything you want in the church life.

      2. A vision. The next thing it seems to me is to give our people a vision. After having traveled during the last four years 160,000 miles, visiting Sunday-schools (little and big), Sunday-school institutes, State and national conventions, if you ask me this, What is the one thing that our Sunday-schools most need to-day? what would I say?

      A Voice: The Bible.

      Mr. Moninger: The Bible, you say?

      Second Voice: The church.

      Mr. Moninger: The church? Well, I will answer by an experience. I remember one time when I went to a certain section of a city where there were four churches--Presbyterian, Christian, Baptist and Methodist--and I asked the superintendents, "What do you need most?" The first one, the Presbyterian, said, "Teachers." Then I went to the superintendent of the Christian Church Sunday-school and I said to him, "What do you need most?" and he answered, "Teachers." Then I went to the superintendent of the Baptist Sunday-school and said, "What do you need most?" and he said, "Teachers." Then I went to the superintendent of the Methodist Sunday-school and I said to him, "What do you need most?" and he said, "Teachers." And then I asked them if they did not think they ought to start a teacher-training class. They said, "Sure." Then I asked, "How [582] many ought to be in the class?" There were eighty-four teachers in the four schools, and they said, "We have held a meeting to study the regular Sunday-school lesson and in this meeting we had thirty-five, so we feel that if we could have thirty-five in a training-class we would do very well." I said, "What you need is not more teachers, but a larger vision of the possibilities of the Sunday-school work. So, that is what your school needs and that is what my school needs--a larger vision of the possibilities of the men's class, a larger vision of the possibilities of the women's class, a larger vision of the possibilities of the mixed class, a larger vision of the possibilities of the teacher-training, a larger vision of the possibilities of the whole Sunday-school service.

      I do not know where he is, but in this Convention somewhere there is a long, lank, enthusiastic, intelligent man that has everything bound up in him that has to do with teacher-training, that has to do with Bible-school success. That fellow went over to Canton, O., some time ago, and he took a church with a membership of about 150 and a building they ought to have been ashamed of, and they are ashamed now that they stayed in it as long as they did. And that fellow Welshimer got those people before him, and he said, "I see a vision, and that vision is a church that has a thousand people studying the word of God." They did not see it. But some of them after awhile began to say, "Maybe he sees something, and if he does see something we will look that way." And they, too, began to see, at first dimly, then more clearly, that there was something in his vision, and so they said, as deacons and elders. "We will follow; lead us toward your vision." What was the result? They began to grow--200, 800, 1,600, 2,000, 2,400, 2,600--until to-day it is the largest school among us, and the second largest school in the wide world. Why? Because one man had a vision and saw it so definitely that he led a mighty people in Canton in the teaching service of the church.

      But the best thing is untold. It is this: During the seven years, while that man was leading that congregation to see his vision, seventeen hundred people have come directly from the Sunday-school into the church. Isn't that worth while? And then six hundred more people were influenced by those seventeen hundred, so we have in the seven years twenty-three hundred people that were brought to Christ. And not only that, they are there to-night (if they are not here), in the active service of the church. Friends, can you not catch a vision, and go, after it when you get home in your individual church and Sunday-school?

      I must just mention the other things, for my time is up. We must

      3. Form, the habit. If you have ten people in your class and one is absent, send the nine after him. Keep this up until you have formed a habit, and then you can grow from that to twenty, and from twenty to forty, and from forty to sixty. The thing is to form a habit in your class so that you can hold them after you have won them.

      4. Create a passion for service. The next thing is to create a passion for service. If we get that once, and our class gets it once, everything else will be all right. A passion for service. Did you ever hear how Mr. W. C. Pearce sent a letter to those great men that you read about--Williams, of the Williams Shaving Soap fame; Colgate, of Colgate Soap fame, and Gamble, of Ivory Soap fame (nearly every great soap man in the world is a Sunday-school man); John Wanamaker, H. J. Heinz, and others, asking them this question, "Why do you go to Sunday-school?" And the best answer that came back was from Mr. E. K. Warren, the Featherbone man, who said, "I go to Sunday-school because it is the best place to invest my life." Now, business men to-day are looking for opportunities for investment. Here is the opportunity of opportunities, the greatest opportunity for service that the church presents. And so you go to Sunday-school--and I go to Sunday-school, if we have caught the vision, because it is the best place to invest our lives so they will bring the richest return on the investment we make. Over your door are you putting this motto, "Use me or lose me"? Are you doing that with your business men who come to hear you preach once in awhile, but are not in the [583] Sunday-school? There are thousands of men to-day willing to be used in the service of Christ. If we do not use them, we will lose them.

      Everybody in the world is either a channel or a barrier. But I like to put it this way: everybody is a channel or a plug. I got that from a girl. You know girls always preach good sermons; you who have been married as long as I have know that. The story is this: A bunch of cowboys went into a town, and, wanting to play a joke on the city, they dove in the reservoir and put a plug in the main. The city, of course, could not get any water, and the mayor was in trouble. After two or three days one of the cowboys wrote a note to the mayor and said, "If you want water, pull out the plug."

      When I read that I said, "Every Christian and Christian church is a plug or a channel." Friends, when you go back to your homes, are you going to be a plug to let all the things you have received in this grand Convention stop with you, or are you going to be a channel to carry them on to others? Anybody who starts in the teacher-training movement, and does not stick to it when he could, is a plug rather than a channel. Anybody who attends a men's class, anybody who attends a women's class, anybody who attends a mixed class, and does not stick to it, is a plug rather than a channel. So I ask you to-night, are you going to be a plug when you go home to stop the blessing of God with you, or are you going to be a channel to carry that blessing on to your congregation, to your church and to your community, that through you others may catch the vision of life, which is the vision of service? Let us pray the prayer of that great gospel poet who says:

      The Bethany Bible class of the Pittsburg (Knoxville) Christian Church gave a demonstration under the leadership of Fred M. Gordon, teacher.

NETZ SISTERS QUARTETTE. [584]

[CCR 580-584]