le, alert, resourceful, and an
embodiment of the "square-deal" principle, and if he is prepared to set
aside everything that might interfere with the religious observance of
every single appointment with his boys--then he may consider himself
eligible for the attempt.

But how will he go about it? Shall he print posters of a great
mass-meeting to organize a boys' club? Shall he besiege his church for
expensive equipment, perhaps for a new building? Shall he ask for an
appropriation for work which most of the people have not seen, and of
whose value they cannot judge except from his enthusiastic prophecies?
Let us hope not. To succeed in such requests might be to die like
Samson; while to fail in them would be a testimony to the sanity of his
responsible parishioners.

There is a better way--a way that is more quiet, natural, and
effective. Possibly there is already in the Sunday school a class of
eight or ten boys between the ages of twelve and fifteen years. Let the
pastor become well acquainted with them and at first merely suggest--in
their class session or when he has them in his study or home--what other
boys have done in clubs of their own. He need not volunteer to provide
such a club, but merely indicate his willingness to help if they are
interested and prepared to work for it. If the boys respond, as they
undoubtedly will, then the pastor will need to find a few sympathizers
who will give some financial and moral assistance to the endeavor. He
may find some of these outside the church, and often such friends are
the more ready to help, because they are not already taxed to carry on
the established church work.

The best policy is for the pastor to figure out how boys' work can be
begun without coming before the church for an appropriation. It is well
to begin in a very humble way with such funds as the boys can raise and
the backing of a few interested people, securing from the trustees of
the church the use of some part of the premises subject to recall of the
privilege on sufficient grounds; and--a consideration never to be
slighted although often hard to get--the good-will and co-operation of
the sexton. With the sexton against him, no pastor can make a church
boys' club succeed. The club will make no mistake in paying the church
something for the heat and light consumed.

If an indoor area sufficient for basket-ball and a room suited to club
meetings can be had, the initial apparatus for winter work nee