Christian Endeavor Society

“ There has recently sprung into existence a society of vast extent, the professed purpose of which is to promote the doing of good deeds by its members. We refer to the Society of Christian Endeavor, a monster convention of which was held in this city two month ago. So far as its main object goes, it is impossible to find any fault, even were one so disposed, with the Society of Christian Endeavor. ”

“ They have Christian Endeavor societies there, and all kinds of Christian work. I saw one morning delegates from the Christian Endeavor Society going out to teach a white Sunday-school nine miles off in one direction, and another similar school four and one-half miles off in another.
"It is said that the young people will go back to the blanket. In ten years we have had only one case of that in our Santee school, and that was the case of a young girl who had only been in the school six months; 95 per cent. of all that come to the schools go back consecrated young men and women. ”

“ The same families continuing with us, year after year, seem like our own. Our Junior Christian Endeavor Society, already quite large, received nine new members at the last business meeting, and is reaching out for more. ”

“ A Junior Endeavor Society in the Madura District in India helps to support a Sunday-School in a near-by village, the children bringing their offerings of one pie each (one sixth of a cent) with noble regularity. In one boarding-school in Persia, four or five Endeavor Societies flourished some years ago, and, when the girls went home for their vacations, they led the singing in the village churches, teaching the congregations new hymns learned at school. Each girl saw to it that a Christian Endeavor Society was formed in her village during the long summer vacation. ”

“ Our hope for the land is in saving them, and our work is largely for them. We have many Sunday-schools connected with our churches and many others where we furnish some helps and where our students teach. Our Bands of Hope are encouraging. Our Christian Endeavor Society has a large membership, and is a power for good. But while we rejoice over these places that have these helps we think of the hundreds of counties along this mountain range that have no such helps. ”

“ Society proves, therefore, among the Indian boys and girls and young people just what it does everywhere else. It gives them larger views of the kingdom of God, it stimulates them to greater sacrifice in giving of their means to the spread of this kingdom, and awakens within them deeper spiritual earnestness. The life of a Christian Endeavorer, wherever that life may be spent, cannot be a narrow, selfish life, if loyal to the great Christian Endeavor idea. This society is an important factor in Christian enlargement and quickening among our young people on the prairie. ”

“ I mean to live a good Christian life and do all I can for my Saviour." They were all received into church, and joined as well the Young People's Society of {137} Christian Endeavor, which is a good thing for young people, as it trains them for future work, and to be active and useful in the service of Christ. ”

“ They think they’re it!” The feeling was gradually melting away, and a new brotherhood and sisterhood was springing up between them. It was not infrequent now for a college maiden to greet some village girl with a frank, pleasant smile, and accept invitations to lunch and dinner. And college boys were friendly and chummy with the village boys who were not fellow-students, and often took them up to their frat rooms to visit. So the two elements of the locality were coming nearer to each other, and their bond was the village Christian Endeavor Society. ”

“ On the 2nd of February 1881 he founded at Portland the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor, which, beginning as a small society in a single New England church, developed into a great interdenominational organization, which in 1908 had 70,761 societies and more than 3,500,000 members scattered throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, India, Japan and China. ”

“ Does any one say that the human society is too big for one to feel any affection or loyalty toward it? If so, it is not wisely said. The Society of Christian Endeavor is getting to be very big indeed—running into the millions—but is the interest in it lessening on that account? We do not hear that it is. In point of fact the human society is not too big for many to feel a deep interest in it already ”

“ The societies in our churches and schools of South Carolina are doing a good work in Christian Endeavor. The Endeavor spirit is alive at Avery Institute and Plymouth Church, Charleston.
Christian Endeavor Hall, at Dorchester Academy, McIntosh, Ga., was built by the gifts of Northern Endeavorers. This school, with its church and Endeavor societies, is located in Liberty County, in the black belt of southeast Georgia. This is one of the most needy sections of darkest America. The American Missionary Association has done a noble work of uplifting in their behalf. ”

“ Alec Stoker, with best wishes and sympathy of the Grace Church Christian Endeavour Society." Inside was a fragrant bunch of hothouse roses.
Alec held them up in amazement. "Why should they have sent them to me?" he cried. There was no Endeavour society in Ridgeville, and he did not understand its methods.
"The flower committee sends 'em to all the sick people in the congregation," explained Jimmy. "Posies and piety always sorter go together, seems like. Pretty, ain't they? But they ain't half [100] so pretty as the young ladies that brought 'em." ”

“ All sorts of societies were already in existence, ready to be amalgamated. There was the “Society of Christian Endeavour,” which numbered thousands of young people; and it was easy and natural to show how their endeavour, which was, firstly, for their own religious advancement, should be, secondly, definitely on behalf of other boys and girls less favoured than they. ”

“ If Endor himself and the secret society to which he was pledged usurped terrible functions which his conscience could never approve, they, too, must sink to the level of the thing they sought to destroy.
John Endor knew now that he was on the horns of an inescapable dilemma. The body of fanatics and visionaries whose will he had sworn to do would not be in the least likely to release him from his vows. It was not the way of such a camarilla. Once a member, always a member. Before God he would have to assume full responsibility for its acts. ”

“ If one has found what he believes to be the highest form of Christian life and service, if one feels that he is treading the surest and shortest road to heaven, it is certainly commendable in him to wish others to share his peculiar blessedness.
Jesus, however, rebuked him, and said, “Forbid him not: for he that is not against you is for you.” After all, there is no place for bigotry among the followers of Christ. We may love and admire our sect or society, but we are never to stop the work of a fellow Christian however much he may differ from us. ”

“ The young people say that they have already embodied in their society pledge the same principle in the words, 'I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would have me do.' This is not exactly what is included in Maxwell's proposition, which is that the disciple shall try to do what Jesus would probably do in the disciple's place. But the result of an honest obedience to either pledge, he claims, will be practically the same, and he is not surprised that the largest numbers have joined the new discipleship from the Endeavor Society. ”

“ In order, therefore, to have their cake and eat it, to do what they please and yet seem to please others, men often conceal the discrepancy between what they profess and what they practice. One of the least agreeable features of civilized society is the extent to which the codes which men and groups profess differ from those by which they live. Men who have ostensibly Christian codes of honor, and, indeed, practice them in their private lives, will have an actual "ethics" for business that they could not possibly sanction in their dealings as trustees of a church. ”

“ Nothing could be simpler or easier than what you have now to do. Will you not help us all by fulfilling your oath?”
“That’s quite impossible,” said Endor. “No one could welcome the limiting of the Society’s functions [321] more earnestly than myself, but rather than take the life of another, in such circumstances, I am fully prepared to take my own.”
“All of us,” said Hierons, “are particularly anxious that your life shall not be sacrificed. We recognize that in the immediate future it is likely to be of signal use to the world. ”

“ The great theologians of Andover—the gentlemen who wear the brass collars furnished by the dead founder—have been disputing among themselves as to what is to become of the heathen who fortunately died before meeting any missionary from that institution. One can almost afford to be damned hereafter for the sake of avoiding the dogmas of Andover here. Nothing more absurd and childish has ever happened—not in the intellectual, but in the theological world. ”

“ I am an outcast of society, made so by my own acts, the dark enormity of which I now behold with astonishment, and, unless some great influence is brought to bear in my favor, I dare not return to a Christian community, and if I remain here among the heathens, I may give up all hope at once, as it will be impossible for me, as one of the savages, to become a moral and Christian man. It is in your power, fair lady, to give me the requisite guarantee of safety. May I hope that you will extend to me the hand of salvation?"
Ellen hardly knew whether to believe in the man's sincerity or not ”

“ As noted above, there was one economic doctrine which neither he nor any other early Christian teacher ever attempted to reconcile with the facts, and it is undoubtedly true that the doctrine of the sinfulness of interest was alike detrimental to the spread of Christianity and to the general well being of society as it then existed. ”

“ It ought to be recognised just as easily in maturity as in childhood: there are men and women, [Pg 244] as well as boys and girls, who distinctly represent evil, and whose society is to be declined. To protest against them, to repel them, to resent their life and conduct as morally offensive, is a Christian duty; it is the first step towards evangelising them.
It is worth noticing in the passage before us how the Apostle, starting from abstract ideas, descends, as he becomes more urgent, into personal relations. What fellowship have righteousness and lawlessness? ”

“ LIV HELEN and the American had a sudden craving for fresh air. For both the restriction of four walls had grown intolerable. Endor’s wife begged her friend as he was leaving the house to let her walk with him some of the way towards his hotel.
Hierons readily assented.
Devoured by pity for a brave woman, he was also devoured by pity for a brave man. Loyal as he was to the Society which he had sincerely believed to be necessary to the world’s governance and which he had done as much as any man to call into being, he saw now that its methods had been pushed too far. ”

“ The animosities of this nation, should they go on, as it seems they go on now, would by time become to such a height, that all charity, society, and mutual agreement among us, will be destroyed. Christians shall we be called! No; nothing of the people called Christians will be to be found among us. Nothing of Christianity, or the substance of Christianity, viz., charity, will be found among us! ”

“ In addition to these well-known people has been a gradually increasing number of Christians from the First Church and lately from other churches of Raymond. A large proportion of these volunteers who pledged themselves to do as Jesus would do comes from the Endeavor societies. ”

“ I would disendow every Church. They are not productive institutions. There is no reason why they should exist. There is no use in them.”
“No use in the Church!” said Endymion, reddening; but Mr. Trenchard, who had tact, here interfered, and said, “I told you our friend Jawett is a great Radical; but he is in a minority among us on these matters. Everybody, however, says what he likes at Joe’s.” ”

“ He sketched the individual efforts already made to overtake the social need, to care for children and the poor, and to secure a regeneration in the inner life of the state, church and society. Perhaps a single sentence has been authentically reported: "May the Evangelical Church set upon this work its seal and declare : the work of the Inner Mission is mine! love belongs to me as well as faith." ”

“ While Edna fervently thanked God for this most wonderful change, she sometimes repeated exultingly:
"Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave!"
One darling rose-hued dream of her life was to establish a free-school and circulating library in the village of Chattanooga; and keeping this hope ever in view, she had denied herself all superfluous luxuries, and jealously hoarded her savings. ”

“ The reply of Jesus not only defeated the lawyer; it smote his conscience. He realized that he himself had never fulfilled the requirement of the Law he knew so well. He therefore attempted to justify himself by limiting the sphere to which the law of love applies. This is always the experience of those who seek to save themselves while rejecting the salvation of Christ. No one in his own power can fulfill the demands of this perfect law; either we must secure aid outside ourselves and trust in a loving Saviour, or else we must in some way lessen the demands which the law makes. ”