and the home missionary problem is solved, Christ is honored and the true mission of the Church is accomplished.

Thus far I am glad to report that the six cases of federation, after an experience of from one to five years, have demonstrated that brethren of different denominations can work and worship together in unity and do it more successfully than by working and worshipping independently. They are able to secure and support a better preacher; there is an added inspiration that comes from an increase of numbers and the impression upon the outside public makes greatly to the advantage of the united over the separated plan of work. Business men say: "This is good Christian sense, we believe in it and are willing to support it more liberally."

Social Service Commission.

Another result of our work is the establishing of a social service commission of fifteen whose work shall be to present to the people of the state the facts of the leading social problems, such as the labor problem, child labor, the liquor problem, Sabbath observance, poverty causes and cure, the social evil, and other like questions of vital importance to the welfare of the state and nation; to serve as an advisory committee in matters of the relation of our churches to social betterment movements; to investigate social and moral conditions of an aggravated nature and report its findings and to represent the Federation of Churches at hearings of legislative committees in matters of importance relating to the social and moral welfare of the people. This commission is made up of leading men and women in Christian reformatory work and bids fair to be a very effective agency in the line of social betterment.

Cooperation in Rural Evangelism.

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The Wisconsin Federation is laying plans for aggressive united work in rural communities as also in the largest cities. The result of a series of rural evangelistic meetings last year in which twenty-one churches of five denominations in a single county, Waukesha, united in holding simultaneous meetings for ten days in eighteen localities, was of such a signal character as to receive the hearty commendation of the ministers of the county and the appointment by the federation of a state supervising committee for a continuance of the plan. It was inaugurated at the instance of an offer of the Presbyterian General Assembly's Evangelistic Committee to provide for the financing of such a campaign as an experiment. Two hundred and fifty-four conversions were reported besides a great spiritual strengthening of the churches. It was indeed a great success.

Our experience thus far in Wisconsin opens up to us an inspiring vision of glorious victories within reach of the Church of Jesus Christ, when her forces, no longer directed by a sectarian ambition but under the leadership of the divine Spirit, shall unite against the organized forms of vice and sin of every sort, when each Church shall stand shoulder to shoulder with every other Church of Christ as the regiments of an army against a common enemy. More and more Churches are falling in line for the conquest of the forces of iniquity. More and more it becomes evident that in a Christendom united in heart and purpose is the secret of success in the building of the kingdom of righteousness, and that in such a unity the prayer of Jesus finds its answer and the hope of the world its realization.

is that of the Greek Orthodox Church. While there has been criticism of this policy from outside, there has been perfect harmony within the Federation. Personal acquaintance has dispelled prejudice. As one conservative said of a Lutheran representative: "I don't care what his Church believes. He is a Christian man if I ever met one!"

The organization is that of a State Federation, each denominational body appointing a representative for each 3,000 members. Yet it has done the work of a Providence City Federation, without neglecting state-wide agitation.

The Definition.

The definition which it has worked out in practical experience is this: A state federation is a joint-committee, officially appointed by the state denominational bodies, for the purpose of learning all the facts and so allying all the factors in order to overcome our overlapping, overlooking, and overorganizing. It claims no authority but the logic of the facts. It keeps the facts before the churches till the churches change the facts. The changes which it demands are expressed in the phrase: Con. solidations somewhere, co-operation everywhere. By frequent discussion its Council has gained that force which comes from united opinion.

These first ten years are regarded only as a period of experiment and preparation. It has not done things so much as demonstrated what should and can be done.

Covering the Ground-Quickening Sense of Responsibility.

It has demonstrated the possibility and necessity of a cooperative parish-plan. Inaugurated in Providence in the fall of 1903, it is still in active operation. More parishes were canvassed the last season than ever before. Each church willing is assigned a "responsibility district," not as a limiting, or an exclusive, but as a cooperative parish, to ascertain all religious preferences, to be mutually reported through the Federation, and to give moral and social oversight. The churches increasingly prize their opportunity. The plan has given the down-town churches a new vision of their neighborhood responsibility, and changed their whole future. They have discovered the large boarding-house population, and are laying cooperative plans to reach it. The pastor of the Beneficent Congrega

tional Church has said: "It is not the downtown church to-day that has a problem: it faces great tasks at its doors!" A member of St. John's Episcopal Church remarked that the work of its "responsibility district" has transformed it from a church about which the bishop was in despair into one permanently established, now raising an endowment of $40,000 for its parish house to meet the needs of the missionary field discovered at its doors, in which all but about 800 out of 7,000 are Jews or Catholics. Mathewson St. M .E. Church is fitting up its basement at a cost of $10,000 to provide a "down-town girls' parlor" and boys' clubrooms.

Protecting the Active from Intrusions.

No less valuable have the facts, discovered by the plan, proved to the Federation's Committee on Comity. Four or five denominations have been contemplating new or relocated churches in a growing Protestant section of the East Side. When the figures of a recent canvass were laid before it, the committee agreed that only one denomination would be justified in entering, if even that; and recommended that none take the step without putting up an adequate building and conferring interdenominationally. In Pawtucket, the figures, for the second time, protected a growing church from intrusion, by showing that it was holding the population to its field. The whole Council devoted a session to the discussion of cases of duplication, and unanimously agreed upon principles, appointing a committee to devise some plan of federating missions among the Italians.

On

Putting Efficiency Into Social Ministry. The Federation has also demonstrated how "overorganizing" may be overcome. At its suggestion, the Board of Trade has appointed a Charities' Endorsement Committee, with which the Federation's committees on Comity and City Missions cooperate to persuade the public to give to no unendorsed solicitor. the positive side, it has shown that it is possible for a committee of the Federation to do the work of a separate organization, its Committee on Public Morals taking the place of a former Watch and Ward Society. It has started a state-wide agitation on sex-hygiene; by a questionaire, has put all the clergy of the state on record regarding the remarriage of divorcees; and, encouraged by an overwhelming vote in its favor, has asked Prof.

Walter Rauschenbusch to prepare a manual for bridegrooms, to be placed in their hands by the minister as a recognition of the duty to give instruction as well as to solemnize.

The Women Brought Together.

A Woman's Auxiliary unites the ladies' church societies, using the facilities of the Federation. Their meetings not only afford the first opportunity they have had to confer as to objects and methods of their own work, but have brought them together in prayer and the study of home and foreign missions. The Providence meeting, on the day of prayer for home missions, was the largest reported in the country. Ladies of the "liberal" churches are equally active: and all have learned from each other. Columbia's Congress, a great temperance spectacle, and an excursion to the World in Boston have demonstrated how fifty church societies can together assume large undertakings.

Medium of Cooperation With National Move

ments.

As a permanent bureau of cooperation, the Federation can save organization for temporary movements. Thus it cooperates this year with the Men and Religion Forward Movement.

A Great Meeting-All Represented. One of the unique features is the Conven

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tion of the Churches of Rhode Island. The second was successfully held in April. Every church in the state is invited to send pastor and five delegates. Even the Christian Science Church and the Reformed Synagogue were invited. Besides strong addresses, including one by Rev. Charles L. Thompson, D.D., of the Presbyterian Home Missionary Board, the chief features were two reports, prepared by committees of twenty each, on "The Rural Church" and "Urban Cooperation," discussed for an hour from the floor. The former was a remarkably constructive study of the extreme rural problem presented by the depopulation of little Rhody's hill towns, which under the state constitution makes moral and political conditions so serious. Its striking phrase, the remedy of "state-wide Church," was one of the mottoes before the eyes of the three hundred delegates. Another was: "The Church of Christ in Rhode Island is One."

Permanency.

At the semi-annual meeting of the official Council in May, progress from the beginning was summarized and recognizing that the interdenominational committee in opening an office had developed a permanent bureau of cooperation, which involves the expense, the question was frankly faced whether the Churches are prepared to maintain it. The Council itself was unanimous that there must be no backward step.

T

HE Church Federation of Los Angeles

was organized in the fall of 1905 just before the first meeting of the Federal Council in New York in November. Since that time our organization has been in existence and has been constantly growing more compact. Practically all of the Evangelical churches in the city are members of the Fed

The Organization.

The object of our Federation is in harmony with that of the National Federation Council of Churches, viz.: to so unite the Christian forces of the city that they may act as one regarding all questions of a religious and moral nature that are of common interest. The members of the respective churches are all

done through a representative body elected by the congregations, called the Council, which body meets once a month. There is a smaller body, our Executive Committee, which is composed of the officers of the Federation and the chairmen of our Standing Committees, which meets weekly. At these weekly meetings it is our aim to review the whole local field, having reports from our chairmen and thus keep in touch with whatever is going on in the city that would come under the general plan of our Federation work.

Concentration and Regulation.

Our chief obstacle is the matter of over strong denominational emphasis, which, however, we are hoping will be so modified eventually as to enable all the Christian forces of the city, to work for the common upbuilding of the kingdom of our Lord. One plan that we have been able to use only with a degree of success we are believing is going to be very shortly made so efficient as to yield results of the most valuable nature. I refer to the plan of the forming of a thoroughly representative Interdenominational Commission to which all questions of the differences regarding the location of missions and other new Church enterprises in our city may be referred and whose decision, while advisory, will yet practically be binding. We have had for more than a year, such a Commission and while so unusual a plan has been hard of adoption on the part of some, it is yet ever more proving itself worthy and we are hoping that it will not be long until such a Commission will have the hearty sympathy and cooperation of all of the local denominations. Prompt Action.

One of the most valuable results that have come from our organization in this city is that the city at large has been made conscious of the fact that there is a compact InterChurch Organization in existence and so organized as to be used effectively at a moment's notice regarding any matter of public moral interest.

Respect of Community for Church. The non-Church part of our community has been brought to highly respect such an organization and to approve it and the knowledge of the fact of its existence has in a number of cases been very powerful as a deterent of evil and as an encouragement for the working out of plans that are for the public good.

Committees.

The most important of our Standing Committees are the following: Evangelistic, Civic Righteousness, Investigation of Interdenominational Enterprises and Bible Cause. We have also a Committee on Church and Labor that will prove a great help, we believe, in the immediate disturbed conditions of our city at any rate through this committee we are going to be able to make it apparent that the Churches of Jesus Christ are in deepest sympathy with all men and anxious for the welfare of all and free from prejudices and class spirit of which the Churches are too often accused.

The fact of our being a permanently organized Federation with the history of years behind us now gives to any position we may take in regard to these great questions of common interest a larger meaning.

The Idea Spreads.

Our local Federation has aroused interest in a number of cities in California to a degree that has resulted in the organization of Federations in these cities and we are just now calling for representatives from the denominations to organize a State Federation and also for the home mission leaders of the state to meet at San Francisco on the 23d of this current month for the purpose of considering the overlooked sections of the state; thus from our local Federation we feel that there has come the emphasis for a larger state organization and for a wiser and more efficient home mission work in the state.