From Racine, Wisconsin, come the following thoughts of a seventeen-yearold boy upon the artificiality of school religion.

His first impressions on entering one of the Middle Western Church schools last month are graphically recorded in his first letter home, as follows:

"The first question I was asked when I arrived was: 'Are you studying for the ministry?' Rather took me by surprise and I wanted to look in a mirror and see if my collar was on backwards. Most of the college students are theological students. Some are all right, some aren't. In chapel they have candles burning, a red light they call the sign of the sacrament, incense, and several boys serving on the altar. The bishop visited us today, and we had a special service from 10 to 11:30 a. m. I don't like the long services and the High Church. In their way of thinking up in these parts you have to kneel to the altar going in and out of the pews. Every now and then you cross yourself-when, I don't know.

If you

know, kindly tell me. And they think the 'Low Church' is heathenish! To be plain spoken, as is my motto on most occasions, I don't like their Church. I think it is artificial. The bishop was all dressed up and wore a hat like this (sketch of mitre). It also is collapsible, just like an opera hat. They also call their ministers 'father.' I keep my mouth shut. I have been to chapel twice today. When I come home I expect to have a halo on my head. With love from your 'Catholic' in the making."

The Rev. A. Worger-Slade has resigned the rectorship of Holy Trinity Church, Benton Harbor, Mich.

CHICAGO

Relief Report Issued-The Society for the Relief of Aged and Infirm Clergymen of the diocese has issued its final report, showing a net increase in the funds of the Society for the year of $6,574.71. The total assets of the society are $70,812.86. The President, Mr. Henry E. Bullock, points out that in building up its funds and those of the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Clergymen of the Diocese, the assessments to be paid by the parishes of the diocese will be reduced materially, as the incomes of the respective funds are now to be turned over to the General Pension Fund, reducing the monthly payment to be made by the parishes and missions from 7 per cent. to 41⁄2 per cent. Thus another of the great works accomplished by Mrs. Lydia B. Hibbard for the diocese of Chicago has its fruition.

"Four Minute Man"-The rector of St. Augustine's Church, the Rev. Frank E. Wilson, has been appointed a "Four Minute Man," and is now filling assignments at the theatres and moving picture shows of Chicago and suburbs, speaking between acts for four minutes on subjects relating to the war. Messrs. Ross Stewart and Thomas B. Casey of the parish have received commissions as second lieutenants as a result of their training at Ft. Sheridan, and a third member of the parish, Mr. John B. Boddie, has been accepted for training in the Second Officers' Reserve Camp and is now at the fort.

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War Work at Trinity Church-During the month past Trinity Episcopal Church Auxiliary of the Chicago Chapter of the American Red Cross was or

ganized and authorized to carry on the work of making surgical dressings and comforts for fighting men. The women and girls of the parish are at work in the parish house three afternoons of every week. The Junior Auxiliary of the parish has been busy making trench candles, while Trinity Sewing Circle, under the direction of the parish deaconess, has made a large number of cretonne bags, and as well a goodly number of Christmas bags, which have been forwarded to the men at the front.

On Sunday, September 16, the Rev. Henry Ewing Batchellor, locum tenens, blessed a handsome silk flag, which was presented to the parish by Mrs. Jacob Kern as a thank-offering to God for the escape of her family.

The Rev. Francis R. Godolphin is rector of the Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, Lake street near Kenilworth avenue, Oak Park, which is nearly ready to dedicate a new parish house costing, with the improvements in the Church itself, $65,000. Uncertainty over certain features of the work delays the fixing of the date of dedication, but it is expected it will be in October.

On Nov. 1 the rector completes four years of his pastorate of Grace Church. Last week he returned from a two months' sojourn in Colorado, where he did missionary work in behalf of the Church while likewise building himself up in the mountain air. Today at 10 o'clock he will preach in the high school yard to members of the First Battalion of the Second Regiment, Illinois Reserve Militia.

The new parish house is located at the rear of the Church but projects to the west, so that the entrance to it is plainly seen from the front of the Church on Lake street. It is built of Bedford stone and stucco. A guild hall on the first floor and a parish hall on the second floor each have a seating capacity of 475. The guild hall is used for din

ing purposes and is connected with a large modern kitchen. The parish hall is provided with a stage for plays and general public assemblies.

On the first floor, near the entrance to the Church, is a chapel seating seventyfive, in which service will be held daily.

Every convenience for parish work as well as for social life, is provided-a Church office, fireproof vault, central telephone with several extensions, rector's study, choir rooms, closets for each of the guilds, a special closet for sewing machines and sewing material, and a room for boys. The lower guild hall is arranged so it can be divided into two rooms by means of folding partitions.

The architect of the building has kept a constant thought on the beauty as well as on the utility of the parish house, and as a result one is reminded of the parish churches of England, covered with vines and surrounded with attractive foliage. Dedication week will give expression to all the forms of Church and community life.

Not a Single Chaplain!-There are today camps containing ten and fifteen thousand men which have not a single chaplain, according to the recently appointed War Commission of the Church. Are we to allow our boys to go without spiritual leadership, without the sacraments and the personal touch of a strong and sympathetic pastor, or shall we call from our churches strong clergymen, send them in this emergency into the camps and supply their places in the parishes? Shall we send men and women to the help of a rural parish which sees springing up beside it in a night a city of 50,000 men? A bishop in the Southwest wrote to a Northern bishop, "Send me fifty dollars a month for three months and I will send into the big camp here just the right sort of a young clergyman." The check went and the man has done a fine piece of work.

A certain bishop in the middle west. commenting on his new clergy writes in the Diocesan paper: "We now have the Chief Baker at and the Chief Butler at and Joseph down in Egypt. I wonder if I am going to have seven years of plenty or seven years of famine.

The Synod of the Mid-West met in Fond du Lac October 9th. The bishop of Fond du Lac was the celebrant at "Low Mass" and it was quite a surprise to some of us Protestants how he carried out the service. Enough said. There was a good number of bishops present at the opening service and about 100 delegates. Bishop Reese made a splendid address on social service. Bishop McCormick goes to France on the war commission. The Rev. H. H. H. Fox of St. John's, Detroit, has been elected Bishop Coadjutor of Marquette, Mich.

At the Church of the Ascension, the most noted "High" Church in Chicago, where things are carried out Katholic fashion, there is a special service book in the place of the book of Common Prayer entitled the "Canon of the Mass" for "pew use." Our correspondent was there one Sunday morning, having made a sick call in Chicago and having nothing to do or any where to say "Mass" thought it well to drop in and hear the "Mass" in a Protestant Episcopal Church. The service book in the pews is so arranged after the Roman missal and to be perfectly certain no person will take the book away, the rector has placed a notice in large black letters: “Should this book be taken from the Church return same and we will pay the postage." Mass is said here at 5, 6 and 7 o'clock and high mass at 10:30 A. M. with incense, lights, etc,

etc.

Bishop Williams certainly had a great time after leaving Detroit to go with

Dr. Inches to do Red Cross work; for on his arrival at Havre, France, he was arrested and searched and all his letters, books and documents taken from him and these sent to the chief of police, of Paris. All the protests of the bishop failed to impress the "gendarme" who had orders to arrest a "bishop." Seeing Bishop Williams' name down on the passenger list they thought surely this was their man so he was delayed with his journey. The New York Sun remarked that "Bishop Williams always travels in plain attire and no one would know him to be a bishop of the Episcopal Church in America. That is his way of doing things. If he had gone over to France in a long purple Episcopal Robe he would have 'passed and gotten through.' Another bishop from Pennsylvania made the journey a short time ago all 'dolled up' and not a word was said. Everywhere he went he was wearing his 'abdominal' cross which secured for him the rights and privileges of a 'padre.'"

MISSIONARY DISTRICT OF NEVADA

Missionary Trip-The bishop goes on a missionary trip over the state each summer by auto. He has just returned from such a trip. The distance covered was over 1600 miles. He went through twelve of the sixteen counties. Services were held in places to which he alone goes. Some new places were visited. Conditions were looked into in many sections. The bishop feels that he should know by personal observation the needs for Church work throughout the state. He hopes in time to visit practically every community. In some places there is no opportunity for our work, in other places there is the opportunity but it cannot be seized at once, in others something can be done now. He finds isolated communicants and baptized members of the Church and in various ways can keep in touch with them through the year. The sections between Tonopah and Hamilton, be

tween Deeth and Jarbidge and between Sulphur and Lovelock were the wholly new territory gone over. Only by a visit can one learn about such places as Tybo, Hot Creek, Duckwater, Charleston, Jarbidge, Farrel, Mazuma, Seven Troughs, Rabbit Hole, etc. They are on the map in as large type as Chicago, and one must know what is in each place. Three of the clergy were along a part of the way, returning from the Synod. The rear spring of Mr. Creasey's car broke and all hands made a dry camp on the desert for 28 hours. We obtained bread and water from a passing car, to augment our supplies. The Rev. Mr. Price is English but he made a good joke. He called the bishop and Mr. Creasey "the mendicant friars." They begged for food, they mended the car, they fried the bacon. Jarbidge is a wonderful place. In a deep canyon with tremendous grades in and out, one of the worst ever. Magnificent rocks, trees, fine stream, much gold. It will be a great camp in another year, and the Church must get to work there. The bishop held the first service in the history of the camp.

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Work Begun At a New Town-McGill is the Smelter-town situated fourteen miles down the valley from Ely. It has grown considerably of late. For a long time we have been looking for a chance to start there. At last the opportunity came through the kindness of the Knights of Pythias who opened their lodge hall to us. This was July 1st, and since then the prayer book has been in use there on Sunday evenings and it seems to be taking very well.

In all the district no place turns out so well as Wonder. The evening attendance is usually between 40 and 50. In July three children were baptized. On Sept. 25th the attendance was small on account of a social evening planned in advance but the people said "Try to come on a Sunday and there will be a

full house." Sixty miles by auto is a long trip, but when people show their appreciation by attending the services one forgets the desert sand, wind or sunshine.

Mina is known throughout the district as having the only Church building in Mineral County, and it is Episcopal. By the way, a man in another town said to me, "Nevada has never been overridden with churches." "No," I answered, "but it has been overriden with saloons." Let us hope when prohibition comes next year there will be a turning Churchwards.

CARSON CITY

ST. PETER'S PARISH

From August 1 to 10, the rector, the Rev. Lloyd B. Thomas, attended the Y. W. C. A. Student Conference at Asilomar, Cal., where he led a Bible Study class. The subject was "The Social Democracy of Jesus" and the studies were based upon St. Luke's Gospel. About 170 students of Pacific Coast colleges were in attendance, including about one dozen from the University of Nevada, among whom were a couple of loyal Church girls. The Asilomar conference is a wonderful stimulant of the life of consecration, and the writer urges the Church girls at the University to plan to attend the one next

summer.

The Boy Scouts have been doing their bit this summer. They canvassed for Liberty Loan subscribers, and one of the troop, Scout Esser, has received the award from the National Council for having secured ten. They collected funds for the Red Cross. This month some of the scouts distributed 250 food pledges. Most of the troop now have uniforms, and they presented a good appearance as they marched in the procession escorting the first contingent of Carson's boys to the train when they left for the training camp.

The war is teaching us the meaning of reality. It has too long been our custom to place a label outside things and causes and to judge them by what they proposed to be instead of what they really are. Much that we thought to be valuable has been jettisoned by stress of circumstances and we find that a few central convictions, deep founded in our hearts, are what sustain our life and determine our attitude. Men are learning that "symptoms" may or may not be dangerous. Some practices and ceremonies are aesthetic-others are the inevitable outcome of deep seated causes. This is what is behind the most serious of our present controversies on reservation. It is impossible to return to practices that had one meaning when introduced to the Church and have quite another signification when reintroduced after long abandonment in quite another environment. In the early centuries the reserved elements were kept for purposes of communion only. There was no theory of a localized presence or change of elements. The theory grew up and the elements were worshipped. The reformers abandoned reservation for they found it impossible to separate reservation from adoration in consequence of the prevalent teaching. Those who today urge the necessity of reintroducing reservation have theories of a sacramental presence in the elements varying from transubstaniation to a vague sense of "something very different to ordinary bread and wine" and the assertion of a permanent presence in the elements is universal in this School. It is found you cannot say "reserved only for communion" and by so doing prevent adoration. The division of opinion tends to become more acute every day and the problem of the bishops more difficult.

On another subject we are approaching a testing time. What constitutes the final doctrinal authority in the Church of England? Fifty years ago the one answer would be Holy Scripture. Now we find Church custom, tradition, made superior to Scripture or the judgment of the educated conscience converted into the last word in religious authority. Someone has said that the famous canon that what has been held everywhere by all Churchmen and in all times is a worthless test for when it is truly applied it results in a residuum of belief that is small and has no gift for solving questions of truth and error. The more we know of Church tradition the less we are impressed by its unvarying witness and the vagaries of the individual conscience are as uncertain a guide as the cross currents of traditions. Men are looking for certainty in all points as if life is to be passed in a walled-in space that cannot be overleaped. We are all supposed to be runners in our definitely separated compartments like sprinters in a hundred yard race and therefore we need guidance from authority in every step we take. Here the war steps in. The men at the front have found the observance of ecclesiastical rules impossible and "the rigorists" have had to give way. They have learned that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, is the great object they must have in view, that Holy Scripture alone gives a final message concerning Him and in spite of criticism and discussion, the New Testament alone contains the record of His life and teaching. It may be that we at home may share their lesson and find in our controversies and difficulties that we can only reach truth and find help by appealing to the Scriptures. There are signs that this will be the case.