Excerpt from Four Wonderful Years: A Sketch of the Origin, Growth, and Working Plans of the Epworth League

The Epworth Ifeague is the young people's society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is just four years old. - F0ur wonderful years they have been. No young people's religious organization has ever enjoyed a more rapid and symmetrical growth. It has caused universal amazement and almost universal congratula tion. Think of it! There are now in the Methodist Episcopal Church ten thousand senior and two thou sand junior chapters. This includes organizations in all parts of our own country and in Mexico, Brazil, Ar gentine, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Bulgaria, India, China, Japan, and other lands where our Church has planted missions. The membership is already more than six hundred thousand. Besides this, the Epworth League has taken firm root in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and in the Methodist Church of Canada. In England, too, the movement has 'been introduced, and is already received with marked favor. The pres ent rate of growth is rapid. Everywhere the League is winning golden Opinions even from those who were at first skeptical abouf its utility and permanency.

Enthusiasm over the success of the Epworth League has not been confined to the young people. Senior leaders in all departments of our church life have warmly approved. The bishops, without exception, have said, God speed the League I Our college and university authorities, recognizing the movement as a potent agency for stimulating the intellectual activity of the young, have gladly given their indorsement. The editors of our church papers have written columns of encouragement and inspiration. Presiding elders have welcomed the League to their districts and promptly set its machinery in motion. Literal thousands Of our, most alert'and successful pastors have helped the cause forward by their prayers, counsel, and enthusiastic adfi vocacy, and have never been quite so happy as when marching in the vanguard of the Epworth procession. Our senior friends mingle with us at our conventions, participate in our discussions, speak from our platforms, bow at our altars of consecration, unite with us in our songs of g - ladness, and plan with our leaders for the extension of the work. The cordial expressions of Dis triet and Annual Conferences, and the decisive action of the General Conference in giving the League a place beside the other great connectional organizations of the Church, have reflected in a more formal way the friendly sentiment of the entire denomination.

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