man teacher succeeded in interesting and holding the class and it grew to ten boys. Just when this class reached its height a second time this same superintendent repeated his action and separated the class. It took a conference between the pastors, the teacher, and the ten boys to win them back to the school. Gangs refuse to be separated and a failure to understand this by-law of boy life is fatal. Insufficient time during the Sunday school period for the study of the lesson is another "Why." Older boys enjoy a discussion, but the time given does not permit of this interestholding method. In the Child Welfare Exhibit held in New York several years ago, the following statement printed upon a huge standard impressed me very much: "Thirty minutes a week for religious instruction in Protestant churches, whereas in the day school the instruction in mathematics would be equivalent to forty-one years of Sunday school instruction." When the significance of this statement is realized we wonder that so few boys have "skedaddled" instead of so many. Even this thirty minutes is often frittered away and many times seems difficult to occupy fully. If the boy has added to this thirty minutes an hour's study of the Bible in a Young Men's Christian Association, as compared with the time spent in the secular schools, he is receiving but a small proportion of the religious education which will fit him to live not only upon this earth, but for eternity. "Only thirty minutes." How many teachers look upon this thirty minutes as a supreme opportunity? Many Sunday schools are not yet aware of the seven days a week hold upon the boy and therefore make no provision for his week-day interests. There are one hundred and one varieties of activities for boys which may be legitimately developed by the Sunday school. While church vestries and Sunday school rooms were not erected to abuse, yet their efficient use remains to be demonstrated. How to stem the out-going tide of boys from the Sunday school will be discussed in the next chapter. There are many problems to consider. The youth looks forward. What he shall do in life is a question of vital concern to him. The Sunday school must give him that inspiration and counsel or else he will seek elsewhere. If a boy is lost to the Sunday school he is lost to the Church and to society. BROTHER, SAVE THE BOY "Brother, save the boy The boy of the early teens, Land of strange, foreboding fears, "Brother, save the boy The boy of the early teens, Boy no longer, boyhood gone, "Brother, save the boy The boy of the early teens, Immature, emotions rife, Choppy waves on lake of life, Time of stress and storm and strife- "Brother, save the boy The boy of the early teens, "Brother, save the boy The boy of the early teens, Love for freedom, love of might, Love of justice, 'honor bright,' Love of food and fun and fightSave the boy." -RAFFETY. CHAPTER XII STEMMING THE TIDE "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries." -SHAKESPEARE. Just as truly there is a tide in the affairs of the Sunday school, which, if taken at the flood, will permanently hold the boy, but if omitted, the older boys, at least, will silently pass out into life's ocean like ships without rudders. In eight years 11,000,000 scholars passed through the Sunday schools of the United States without manifesting any definite decision for the Christian life. While we do not believe that every scholar who gave up Sunday school attendance had a moral decline, yet it is safe to say that they were unable to resist the waves of temptation, which buffeted them from every side, with the same spirit of confidence and faith as in the days when they were supported by the moral strength of Sunday school attendance. A Brook 1 Statistics 12th Int. S. S. Con., Louisville, Ky., 1908. lyn judge in sentencing a young man of nineteen to a term in Elmira for burglary said: "Of all the undesirable professions, that of burglary is the worst. No matter how good a burglar you may be, you will be caught and sent to prison sooner or later. I have seen your friends who wished to speak to me about you and I find that all attempts to have you go to Sunday school have failed. In the five years I have been sitting on this bench I have had two thousand seven hundred boys before me for sentence, and not one of them was an attendant of a Sunday school. Had you gone there I am sure you would not be before me today." In 1910 appeared a statement by a social worker, regarding the chances of a boy's going astray under modern living conditions, which challenges not only attention but thought. His deductions were as follows: Couple these deductions with the experience of those who come daily in contact with the misery and crime of life as seen in the police courts, and you have presented for serious consideration a condition and not a theory, which |