THE year 1920 will have one more day in it than 1919. We shall need it; "and then some." For there A New are many things to be done in

Year

this fateful year of 1920. There are the Treaty and the League of Nations still to be settled with, problems now deeply involved and troublesome, but that must be met and that will have far-reaching consequences. Then there are economic tangles to be unraveled; the railroads to be returned to their owners or somehow provided for; mines, industries, corporations to be delivered from their conflicts; commodities to be secured an adequate productivity; international trade and financial relations to be reëstablished on a steady and safe basis; a host of such commercial questions left over from 1919.

For the churches and the Christian people of America there is the prodigious Interchurch World Movement, with its activities covering the first half of the year and absorbing a wealth of energy. For the Congregational people there is the promotion of the Congregational World Movement created by the National Council at Grand Rapids, which it seems in its operation will be linked up with the campaign of the Interchurch Movement; and the completion of the Tercentenary Program with the rounding out of the Pilgrim Memorial Fund; and the International Congregational Council to be held next. summer as part of the Plymouth celebration of the Tercentenary; all this in addition to the readjustment of the churches after the war and the recovering of their scattered forces.

For the American Board and its constituency, which comprises all the Congregational people of the United States and Canada, there is the enor

mous but inspiring task of reconstruction in several lands after the war, and of readjustment in other great lands to meet the fresh or expanding opportunities that recent stirring years have produced. The world is now so tremendously alive and awake, so restless, eager, and sensitive to friendly approach, that the year 1920 promises to be the most critical year that the American Board has ever known, on the fields abroad as well as at the home base.

It is a great time in which to live; a year to be thankful for as it opens; to meet with sobered but high-hearted purpose and expectancy; a year that, if we live it right, will be more than a happy year; a great, a memorable, an uplifting year, that will send us forward with the true Pilgrim spirit.

And for ourselves, our health, our fortunes, our homes, and daily life; if we are seeking first the Kingdom and its ongoing, we may expect that all things needful will be forthcoming.

A Turkey Feast

IF all the supporters of the American Board and Woman's Boards could have been in the Committee Room at the Congregational House on December 11-13, there would be little need to say more about the call of Turkey today for renewed missionary work. During those three days was held a conference of Turkey missionaries who had been in that land during the war and were now in this country. About thirty men and women came from different parts of this country to meet with the officers of the two Boards and members of their Executive Committees. Each of the three Turkey missions and a majority of the fifteen stations were represented. From a docket of

suggested topics, various questions touching situations, needs, possibilities, new emphases, and readjustments were selected and freely discussed. The experience of different stations was reported; the point of view of different workers was revealed.

Facing a field swept clean and an almost total need, effort was made to see things in their proportion, and to put first things first. It was impressive to see how unanimous was the feeling that America was the one hope of all the races of Turkey; that without her help it was impossible to see how safety, order, peace, and welfare could be secured in that land of violence. The outlook for possible closer union between the Evangelical churches and the Gregorian church was dwelt upon, with testimony as to experiences in that line at one and another station. Some significant cases of Moslems turning to Christianity, one of which is described in an article in this number by Mrs. John E. Merrill, prompted discussion as to new openings in this direction.

Tea

ON the second afternoon, a reception and tea were given to the missionaries in attendance at A Turkey Park Street Church chapel. Just one hundred years ago a meeting was held in the same church to bid good-by to Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, leaving to begin American Board work in Turkey. It was most appropriate that in this centennial year, when readjustment in Turkey is a missionary question of the hour, representative missionaries of that land today should be welcomed to Park Street Church, as was most heartily done by the pastor, Dr. Conrad. Several men and women, President Gates, of Robert College, Luther Fowle, of Constantinople, Dr. Haas, of Adana, President Riggs, of Euphrates College, Harpoot, Dr. Hamilton, of Aintab, Mr. Irwin, of Talas, together with Secretary Barton, who presided, spoke briefly but most effectively of different aspects of the Turkey situation. It

was a delightful and inspiring after

noon.

From the beginning to the end of the conference the past was not dwelt upon; it was the present and the future that commanded attention. The participants had lived through the horrors of war days, but they said little about them; the atrocities, the losses, the interruption of work, the hardships and dangers were in the background. Interest and concern were as to what could now be attempted and what provision could be made therefor.

One significant utterance of the time was the reaffirmation of the broad purpose with which the Board entered Turkey a hundred years ago; a purpose blocked by the prejudice and opposition of prevailing races and religions of the land, but which now, it begins to seem, may be possible in the changed conditions and the turnings of heart which are appearing among the distracted peoples of Turkey. This utterance which follows is characteristic of the temper of the conference.

What the Conference Said

"WE feel that in this, the centennial year of our work in Turkey, the time has come to reaffirm the purpose of all our missionary effort in that land. That purpose is to declare the gospel of Christ and develop Christian civilization among all the races of these ancient lands. Hitherto, owing to existing circumstances, efforts have been mainly confined to the Armenian and Greek races, and we rejoice that God has honored our work for these peoples far more than it could have merited. But as we look to the future and face the great task of reconstruction, we desire to reassert the original purpose in its broadest aspects. We are in the Near East to help every race there found, and to declare the gospel of God's eternal love to Turk as well as Armenian; to Greek, Kurd, Arab, Circassian; to every race and tribe which will receive us and listen to our message. We have a gospel as wide as men's needs, and a Christ in whom