Training the Church of the Future

The digital copies of this book are available for free at First Fruits website.

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INTRODUCTION THE volume which is herewith presented to the public is the result of a suggestion made by the President and faculty of Auburn Theological Seminary, that I should prepare a course of lectures on Christian Nurture with especial reference to the Society of Christian Endeavor as a means of Christian training. Much has been written on this subject, but never to my knowledge has there been a systematic effort to set forth the great principles of Christian nurture as they are related to the modern young people's movement. However imperfectly I have succeeded, this volume is an attempt in this direction. Much new light has been thrown upon child nature by recent studies in psychology that tend to establish the principles which in a practical way have been confirmed by the experience of a multitude of busy pastors during the past twenty years. These lectures were delivered first at Auburu, then at Oberlin, and afterward in an abbreviated form at the Congregational Seminary of Chicago, at McCormick Seminary of the latter city, and also in the schools of the prophets at Andover, Bangor, Newton, Rochester, New Brunswick, and in the Union Seminary of New York. They have often been received by faculty and students with a favor which I felt was beyond their desert, but which, however undeserved, has encouraged me to accept the further suggestion of the President of Auburn Semi- nary, and prepare them for publication with the hope that in their printed form they may still accomplish something for the advancement of the Kingdom among the young. In the Appendix will be found. much information concerning the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and its later developments, which has not before been brought together within the covers of one book. This method of Christian nurture seems to be receiving the renewed and continual blessing of God. Nearly four mil- lions of young people are being trained in such schools of Applied Christianity, and millions more have graduated therefrom. The Society is constantly growing in numbers, and I believe in spiritual grace, in America and in every other land. It will soon be twenty-one years old, and as this society "comes of age " and enters upon its years of strength and maturity, I would ask the prayers of every reader of this book that it may in the years to come modestly, efficiently, and more fully than in the past, prove a training-school for the Church of the Future. FRANCIS E. CLARK. BOSTON, MASS., December, 1901