as
taken in the basis of the organization: it was provided that it should
not interfere with any member's fidelity to his church or his sect, but
rather promote it. Doubtless jealousy of its influence was thus in some
measure forestalled and averted. But in the rapid spread of the Society
those who were on guard for the interests of the several sects
recognized a danger in too free affiliations outside of sectarian lines,
and soon there were instituted, in like forms of rule, "Epworth Leagues"
for Methodists, "Westminster Leagues" for Presbyterians, "Luther
Leagues" for Lutherans, "St. Andrew's Brotherhoods" for Episcopalians,
"The Baptist Young People's Union," and yet others for yet other sects.
According to the latest reports, the total pledged membership of this
order of associated young disciples, in these various ramifications, is
about 4,500,000[369:1]--this in the United States alone. Of the
Christian Endeavor Societies still adhering to the old name and
constitution, there are in all the world 47,009, of which 11,119 are
"Junior Endeavor Societies." The total membership is 2,820,540.[369:2]

Contemporary currents of theological thought, setting away from the
excessive individualism which has characterized the churches of the
Great Awakening, confirm the tendency of the Christian life toward a
vigorous and even absorbing external activity. The duty of the church to
human society is made a part of the required curriculum of study in
preparation for the ministry, in fully equipped theological seminaries.
If ever it has been a just reproach of the church that its frequenters
were so absorbed in the saving of their own souls that they forgot the
multitude about them, that reproach is fast passing away. "The
Institutional Church," as the clumsy phrase goes, cares for soul and
body, for family and municipal and national life. Its saving sacraments
are neither two nor seven, but seventy times seven. They include the
bath-tub as well as the font; the coffee-house and cook-shop as well as
the Holy Supper; the gymnasium as well as the prayer-meeting. The
"college settlement" plants colonies of the best life of the church in
regions which men of little faith are tempted to speak of as
"God-forsaken." The Salvation Army, with its noisy and eccentric ways,
and its effective discipline, and its most Christian principle of
setting every rescued man at work to aid in the rescue of others, is
welcomed by all orders of the church