course to the possibility of foreign work. Men who would probably have refused if approached first in their senior year, became interested, and finally undertook the work abroad when they had had ample time to consider the challenge. The result is that each year sees splendid men offering. Last year two were appointed, one being Professor Hand's own son; this year three; and apparently each succeeding year will see more men offering than the college in Smyrna can appoint.

Other members of the Pomona faculty have contributed; the appeal of a splendid college in Smyrna, the enthusiasm of the men now there and of the men who have completed their terms have also helped. But it is to Professor Hand and his quiet persistence in keeping the Pomona-in-Smyrna interests strong, and particularly in recruiting men for the enterprise, that the largest credit for this success belongs. Are there not other colleges where similar work on the part of a faithful professor or group of professors would not fail to produce a like response?

T

A CENTER OF INSPIRATIONAL LIFE Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, Claremont, Cal.

A FIVE CENTURY HOP

Turkey woke up so suddenly that it took the nations of the earth a long time to realize just what had happened. She is now attempting to achieve what may seem at first glance impossible; she is endeavoring to transfer a people, almost over night, from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. And the most remarkable thing about it all is that she apparently is doing that very thing. Yet this new venture is not an easy one. The reactionary is present in Turkey as in every other country.

GROPING

Turkey is looking toward the West with a very definite desire to make herself like other nations. She is stretching eager hands to grasp the signs and symbols of the Western World. She has swept aside in a night certain religious and social customs that have been part and parcel of Turkish life since the foundation of the empire: she has forbidden the wearing of the distinctive fez and enforced the donning of European trousers. She is breaking down the Oriental barriers that have surrounded her women. This much is apparent to the casual observer. But the thing which is not so thoroughly appreciated, but which the sympathetic worker in Turkey is feeling keenly today, goes much deeper. Turkey, they say, is groping, indeed seeking, for that inner and spiritual something which she feels is at the center, if often deeply concealed, of what we are daring enough to call "Western Civilization"-that civilization most representative of the Christian nations.

BARRIERS BREAKING DOWN

"For years we have been praying that the wall which seemed always to rise up between us and the Turk might be destroyed," says a recently returned missionary. "Now the door has opened. We no longer are depressed by the feeling that there is an intangible barrier raised between us and people there. The opportunity for real intimacy with the real Turk is one of the most outstanding things of the past few years."

BETTER TO LIVE RELIGION

Under the present laws of Turkey religion cannot be taught in the schools. Freedom is given, however, to religious discussion with adults outside academic walls. "Perhaps it is a good thing that we cannot teach religion," said one particularly thoughtful missionary who had just come home to America on furlough. "To me it is better that we LIVE RELIGION. We need greatly to clarify our religious thinking before we offer it to the Turk. We must not bring him an array of theological theories-we must bring him JESUS CHRIST." And as still another missionary expressed it "We want to give them the Christ of the Turkish Road even as the Christ of the Indian Road is being given to India."

WILL TURKEY FOLLOW RUSSIA?

The situation in Turkey today is a perilous one for the soul of that new nation. "There are today in all Turkey only fifty men in line to take up the work of the Hojas in the mosques," declares a returned American worker. "Three years ago, at prayer time, the aisles of any train in Turkey would be filled with men saying their prayers at the appointed times. Just recently I traveled across the

entire country and saw in all that time but one man performing his religious rites en route. Ramazan, the once closely kept religious festival, is no longer devoutly observed. During it the schools are not permitted to close, neither are the children excused from attendance." Whither is Turkey bound? Will she follow Russia in her disregard of religion as a vital factor in the life of any nation? Will she turn to a purified and reorganized Islam? Or will the religion of the Nazarene, as Christianity is there coming to be spoken of, arouse her enthusiasm by its moral strength and spiritual beauty?

THE HEART OF IT ALL

"Turkey is not afraid of religion as religion," said a competent observer, "but she is afraid of denationalization. She is afraid of anything that would, in her mind, tend to run counter to her strong passion for Nationalism."

A comprehensive survey of all the ways in which Turkey is showing her desire to become one among the other nations, would furnish material for a book. But some of the more significant things, which over and over again are reported by those who have been on the scene, may indicate the drift of affairs there.

TURKISH PROGRESS

Better roads to travel on, improved commercial life, schools for all the children-these are some of the outstanding things Turkey is striving for. The normal school students are subsidized, and they in turn must agree to give five years after graduation to teaching where, and for what pay, the Government sees fit to designate. The salary, however, is always a living wage, we are told.

CHILD-LIFE CHERISHED

A most hopeful sign is found in the care that is given to child-life. There is something worth while in any nation that has at heart the welfare of its children. They are trying to teach through the medium of the schools and children's reading books the fundamental virtues of kindness, respect, obedience, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, self-support, and generosity. If a generation of children grow up under such training, what is to become of the "terrible Turk"? The men who engaged in the last terrible events so thoroughly known to the world are now well over thirty years of age. There is a new generation growing up that knows nothing of these methods.

"JUST NORMAL GIRLS"

The Turkish boys and girls are keen students. The testimony of American teachers to this fact is convincing. Girls at the Intercollegiate Institute in Smyrna have greatly enjoyed English literature. "They have a wonderful capacity for appreciating the finer things," said one missionary teacher. "They are normal girls, playing basket ball, dressing in the new fashion, and walking about the streets with their bobbed hair blowing in the wind."

This is a new and startling change from the old days and ways. But this new freedom bears no taint of "boldness," or of self-consciousness. The Turkish girl seems peculiarly free from such evils-she bears herself gracefully and easily in new circumstances. All the Turkish people, those who know them well agree, are sociable and appreciative of friendliness. But it is a far cry from eager girls in a city college who study English, general science, algebra, geography, hygiene, evolution, sociology, and community civics under a foreign man teacher, to the isolated women in the small towns and villages of back country Turkey. It is no easy task that the Turkish leaders have set themselves, and it is because they are striving so hard to achieve an end worthy of success that outside nations might well extend a helping hand where possible.

on.

THE TURK A HUMAN BEING

The Turk, like every other human being on the face of the earth, cannot bear to be looked down He wants to be like other people. So he has his Red Crescent, like our Red Cross. He has his anti-tuberculosis societies, his anti-liquor organizations, his Purity Leagues, his hospitals, and his orphanages. He wants playgrounds and athletic instruction for his children. The Mayor of Smyrna, a widely read man, made himself personally responsible for the cost of apparatus for a playground in Smyrna in case the city failed to appropriate the desired amount. Missionary workers have found Government coöperation very cordial in social service and agricultural work.

TAG DAYS STRIKE TURKEY

The Turk is more Westernized than one would suppose for when he wishes to raise money he resorts to Tag Days, fairs, and benefit balls! But the rub comes in seeing that the money thus raised is satisfactorily spent. The Turk wants the money usedbut he wants it used in the right way and to the best advantage. Here it is that the trusted, friendly man, be he foreigner or otherwise, can serve a new, groping, and eager Turkey. She is looking for leadership and she cares little from whence it comes if it be honest, friendly, and in no way an attempt to denationalize her.

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

In the College at Smyrna there is now an enrollment of 270 students, of which 90 per cent are Turks; the remainder are Jews, with a sprinkling of Americans and Europeans. In the Girls' School 80 per cent of the 86 pupils are Turks.

"IT'S NONE OF OUR AFFAIR!"

Evidence of an entirely new point of view in Turkey may be found in such an incident as that of two young people who wished to be married. The objection on the part of the would-be bride's parents was violent. To be married in Turkey, you must show your birth certificate. This important docu

ment was held by the girl's parents and no amount of persuasion could get them to give it up. The Government was appealed to, and after investigation a new birth certificate was issued to the girl. The Government, furthermore, refused to interfere in the affair, saying: "They wish to be married. They are old enough to be married. It is none of our affair. Let them be married." And they were married.

"INTERESTED IN JESUS"

Not long ago "Ben Hur," that film version of a Christian story, was shown in Turkey. It was shown

in a large city during Ramazan, Islam's great religious festival. A Turkish father took his boy, and upon being queried about it, replied that he had done so "because my son is very much interested in Jesus."

One of the many interviews with missionaries back from Turkey was drawing to a close. The missionary's wife, who was herself an active worker, had talked enthusiastically of the possibilities in Turkey. Keyed up by her own enthusiasm, she ended by saying:

"Isn't it a thrilling thing to be right in at the beginning of such a great movement?"

I

T was in the Smoking Room of a club for Moslem young men, carried on along the general lines of a Y. M. C. A.

Entered Hassan, a burly blacksmith and a regular attendant. After the usual polite preliminaries, he took from his spacious girdle his tobacco box and match box and proceeded to roll himself a cigarette. Then followed this conversation :

Hassan: "Badvelli" (Reverend), "this club has been

going now for several years, and every week you have about 1,000 young men in attendance, and every Sunday night you have several hundred in a meeting in the Audience Hall. Now, we want to know what your object is."

Director: "Well, Hassan, if I were to give you a categorical answer to that question you would not understand it, for you come to me with an idea in the back of your mind that would forbid your understanding it. But let me try to illustrate it. What is Islam for: to make good men or bad?"

Hassan: "To make good men."

Director: "And what is Christianity for? To make good men or bad?"

Hassan: "To make good men.”

Director: "Are all men who call themselves Moslems good, and all who call themselves Christians good?"

Hassan: "No; about three out of five Christians are good and two out of five Moslems are good." (This was a polite concession to the director's religion.)

But from his acquaintances he picked out certain representative men whom he claimed were good Moslems or good Christians, or vice versa, and, according to the director's knowledge, he certainly seemed to have taken the correct measure of his fellow citizens. "By their fruits shall ye know them."

Director: Taking up Hassan's tobacco box: "Here we have a sealed package marked on the outside 'First-class tobacco.' How do you know it is first-class tobacco?"

Hassan: "One would have to open it and smoke it to tell what kind of tobacco it is." Director: Picking up his match box: "This, too, is a sealed package; on this I will write 'Secondclass tobacco.' How do you know it is secondclass tobacco?"

Hassan: "It is the same thing; if you don't open it and smoke it you can't tell." Director: "Now let us take a man, and on him we put the sign 'Moslem.' How do you know that he is a true Moslem?"

Hassan: "According to the illustration, we can't know until we get inside." Director: "Exactly."

Hassan: "But how can you get inside of the man?" Director: "Can't you? How long have you known

me?"

Hassan: "Oh! I have known you for several years." Director: "And do you know me, i.e., what kind of a man I am inside?"

Hassan: Smiling: "Yes, I think I do." Director: "Yes, and I know what kind of a man you are. You may deceive me or I may deceive you for a while, but eventually we come to know what the other is inside.

"Now let us take another man and on him let us write 'Christian.' How do you know he

is a true Christian?"

Hassan: "It is the same test. One has to get inside." Director: "Now, do you know what you are afraid

of? You are afraid that I am going to take the tag 'Moslem' off a man and put the tag 'Christian' on him. But I am not interested in tags. What I am concerned about is to see that you men are changed inside."

Hassan: "Badvelli, if we could believe that we would follow you. But we don't believe it." Director: "Well, I am sorry, Hassan, that you don't believe it, but it makes no difference. It matters not to me whether you are called a Moslem or a Christian or a Kalathumpian as long as you are right inside. The name is an external matter, which will rectify itself in time." Hassan: (Taking up the statement "it makes no difference.") "No, it makes no difference, be

G

cause you will go on and on and finally you will get us, for you fellows never give up."

As Hassan prepared to depart, the Director said to him:

"Now, Hassan, before you go, there is one verse out of our Sacred Book that I should like to give you to think about, and it is this: 'Man looks on the outer appearance but God looketh upon the heart!'

ARDNER is the name of a thriving city in Massachusetts, as all the people of the Bay State do know, and as all the citizens of the other states should know. Its interest for us does not consist in the fact that it is one of the leading chair manufacturing centers in the United States, important as that may be, but that here occurred the first of the Congregational Men's Dinners held this Fall; in a way, the most significant of the series. It was this Dinner which, in our hopes at least, occupied the right of the line in the write-up concerning the Congregational Men's Dinners in the September number of the Herald.

Just to refresh the memory of the readers, it was there stated that at the Dinner held at the Hotel Bancroft in Worcester, May 12, men from Gardner and Athol came to the Dinner leaders with expressions of regret that only 20 or 30 of the 50 or 75 men from these two communities in the Worcester North Association who would have cared to attend could be accommodated, though both the large and small ballrooms and the three galleries of the largest hotel in Worcester were utilized.

"Let's have a Gardner-Athol Dinner," was the rejoinder, and so keen were the men that plans began to take form immediately. In less than a month a small but most capable committee was at work, headed by Mr. Chester P. Pearson, either now or formerly mayor of Gardner, President of the GoodnowPearson Company, operating twenty-one stores in four states. These laymen proceeded almost entirely under their own steam.

Six o'clock, October 7, was zero hour. When the clock struck, the dining room of the Colonial Hotel at Gardner was crowded with Congregational men. The 11 men who went from Athol to Worcester brought 68 Atholites to Gardner, while the 12 Gardnerites who attended the Worcester Dinner corralled 97 of their associates for this later event. Of the 17 churches in the Worcester North Association only 2 were unrepresented. The smallest delegation from any church was 3, though the tickets were $1.75. Never in the history of the hotel had a larger number been entertained, and the number had been equalled only once. Two hundred and thirty-nine Congregational men dined, sang, listened, and enjoyed the fine fellowship together.

The following comment, reported to us by a speaker who carried the missionary story to one of the Hilltop churches the following Sunday, is in point. The word is as follows:—

"The thing you will be most interested in was the echo from the Congregational Men's Dinner at Gardner. My host Sunday noon had attended. His wife stated very honestly that at first $1.75 seemed a good deal to pay for a meal, but they felt that the church should be represented, so three went. The man interrupted here (and this was the echo I referred to) 'that money was for more than food. It was wonderful to see all those men, and we had fine speeches.' The glow on his face told how much it had meant to him."

Three modifications were tried out at this point. Since the Every Member Canvass was only two months distant, utilizing Dr. Potter and the secretary of the Laymen's Advisory Committee to speak concerning the Foreign and Home enterprises respectively, it was thought best also to refresh the minds of the men with reference to the significance and place of the local church. This service was ably rendered by Rev. Ashley Day Leavitt, D.D., who spoke on the theme "Faith of our Father's Sons." This was the first modification.

Secondly, on the succeeding Sunday, October 9, all of the seventeen churches were visited by missionaries, and the story which had been told to the little delegation which had gone to Worcester and the larger delegation at Gardner, was given to the whole of the several churches on Sunday.

Third, on Sunday evening a Young People's Rally was held in Athol. "The rains descended and the floods came"; so did the people, for, despite the downpour, nearly 500 convened, four-fifths of them young people, to listen to a presentation of the topic "What Shall I Do With My Life?"

The unique contribution which it was hoped the Gardner meeting might make was thus characterized in the September Herald.

Now this is a fairly strong assertion for a statement which was intended only as a prophecy, but the Dinner has occurred, and for once a man's prophecy has come true. Once in human history hope has been exceeded by actuality.

AMONG THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS

Monday, October 10, another series started. Superintendent Frazier of Vermont had read the Missionary Herald for September and had been busy for weeks arranging Dinners for the Congregational men of Vermont, with Rev. R. Hawley Fitch of Dorset as a most unusual song leader, with himself as chauffeur and introducer; with Dr. James L. Barton of the American Board, himself a son of Vermont, graduate and senior trustee of Middlebury College, and the secretary of the Laymen's Advisory Committee, as speakers.

Six Dinners were held at the following points: Brattleboro, Bennington, Springfield, Montpelier, St. Johnsbury, Middlebury, with Sunday services and an evening mass meeting in the Burlington churches. The entire results of the week none of us will ever know. Some we do know. Due to the spirit of Superintendent Frazier, whose effectiveness can only be adequately described by the speed with which he drives his car, 1,200 Congregational men listened to the story of their World Wide Work, a number equal to nearly 20 per cent of the entire resident male membership of the Congregational churches of Vermont. At every point men were present from considerable distances. Man after man shook hands with us the last Sunday night at Burlington, who had driven in from twenty, thirty, or thirty-five miles. At St. Johnsbury twelve men came from North Troy, who had to make a trip of sixty miles each way to be present.

Governor Weeks, that royal churchman, thought the Dinner of enough importance to drive from Montpelier to Middlebury and back just simply to preside. One can only hope that Congregational men everywhere are thinking and acting with something of the same concern in these last days, with reference to the needs of Vermont, with which Vermont Congregational men looked out over the world those wonderful seven days.

WITH THE MEN OF MAINE

A week later followed two Dinners in Maine. To the first, held at the Congress Square Hotel at Portland, with 117 men present, four drove down from Farmington, a distance of 100 miles each way. The speakers were the secretary of the Laymen's Advisory Committee and Dr. Frank C. Laubach of the Philippines, concerning the Home and Foreign Field, and Rev. Douglas Horton of the Leyden Church, Brookline, concerning the local church. The succeeding Monday night, October 21, came the Bangor Dinner at the Penobscot Country Club, with the same team, except that the local church was presented by Dr. Raymond Calkins of the First Church, Cambridge. From the whole eastern section of

Maine came the 135 men. Thus care the men of Maine for their work.

Rev. Basil C. Gleason of Brewer, the Bangor Dinner executive, says that "next year the difficulty will not be in persuading the men to attend, but in finding a place large enough to hold all who want to attend." President Moulton of the Seminary speaks in similar vein.

The Gardner Dinner has been succeeded by two other Massachusetts' Dinners: the first held at the Hotel Hawthorne, Salem, for North Shore Congregational men, 154 attending, with Rev. Arthur M. Ellis of Newtonville speaking to the local church; Dr. Charles S. Mills and Dr. James L. Barton representing the Home and Foreign work. This Dinner was held on Armistice Day.

The next occurred November 15 in the new Parish House of the First Church at Winchester, with 400 men from the Woburn Association present, the speakers being the Gardner team.

As I write, a clipping and a letter have come to my hand. The clipping is from the Boston Transcript and contains the word of a person who was present at that Dinner. He says: "I have attended Rotary Lunches and Masonic Visitations aplenty in that district, but I have seen nothing like this. The straighter the talk, the more direct the appeal, the more it got the men." But the second comment is more significant still, for it is the contribution of a sixteen-year-old High School boy, who said: "I am going home to tell Dad what he missed. I wish all the young fellows in our group could hear these speakers sometime." Well, it may be that we oldsters will all be converted eventually if we can keep the youngsters on high speed long enough.

The last of this series will take place at Plainville, Conn., December 5, when the Plainville men are expecting 300 from the Farmington Valley area. Gov. John H. Trumbull of Connecticut will preside.

RESULTS OF THE SERIES

This ends the 1927 series. What are the results? Here are a few.

Between February 28 of this year and December 6, a little more than nine months, approximately 4,500 Congregational men, all in New England with the exception of one group, have paid $1.50 to $3.00 apiece, and have sat from 6.30 to nearly 11.00 P.M., that they might be informed as to the status of their missionary enterprises. Isn't it about time that the general run of Christians stopped worrying about the male life of our churches when 4,500 men are ready to pay for the privilege of attending a missionary meeting?

Secondly, to the inquiry which I have uniformly put to those present at these meetings, as to when in a given area so considerable a group of Congregational men have been convened, for any purpose whatsoever, the reply has been invariably made, "Never." To be able to achieve in nearly a score of instances what has not been accomplished from the standpoint of Christian fellowship in from one to two hundred years of church history, is a result not to be lightly set aside.