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2 Tour Thousand Student Volunteers OUR THOUSAND “Volunteer” stu dents! An army of active; earnest, en ergetic young people, full of all beau tiful enthusiasms of youth and of all the noble aspirations that make life worth living and the world a field of fruitful labor! A significant sight was that which met the eyes of the think ing public during the week just past, when four thousand of the most prominent young students from every part of our country and from many foreign lands, assembled in the great audi torium at Nashville, Tenn., and voluntarily put themselves into communion with 11 invisible things that are,” and by their own act, steadily set aside diversions, amusements and the usual pleasant rou tine of college life, to sit for hours in eager listen ing to the words of teachers, thinkers and workers in the great cause of Christianity. The pleasant Southern city seemed filled to over flowing with this vast concourse of workers, and for more than an hour before that fixexd for the open ing of the Convention, the streets leading to the assembly hall were filled with a steady stream of people all moving toward the common goal. Young men and women, in the familiar college cap and gown or the more conventional attire of our modern civilization, more mature, though not more earnest, teachers and leaders also of both sexes, strangers and visitors alike mingled in the throng in perfect cordiality of speech and manner. It was character istic of the assembly that a spirit of universal cour tesy prevailed and questions were asked and an swered alike by strangers and by friends. The hour for the opening of the Convention was three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, February 28th, and long before the appointed time, not a sin gle vacant seat could be found in an auditorium which seated, at a conservative estimate, more than five thousand people. Viewed from the platform, tier on tier of earnest upturned faces, seemed to mingle in a sort of composite whole, which at the first .word of the opening speaker, became blended to gether as though by some magic alchemy of the spirit—an alchemy whose potent power never wav ered during all the days that followed when this same audience sat silent and motionless for six hours each day for five days, beneath the spell of a common interest and a common cause. Strange as it may seem the real meaning of this vast assemblage was not generally understood throughout the country, and even in the city of Nashville itself the question was asked, “What does this movement really mean?” Therefore, be fore going more deeply into details of the Conven tion under consideration, it may be well to briefly review the Aim of Such a Convention, which it is officially stated, is “to bring together carefully selected delegations of students and pro fessors from all important institutions of higher learning in North America and leaders of mission ary enterprise, both at home and abroad, to con sider the great problem of the evangelization of the world, and unitedly to resolve to undertake in His strength greater things for the extension of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” The germ of this movement may be traced to a meeting held in 1886 at the invitation of Mr. Moody at Mt. Hermon, Mass., which was termed the first “Student Summer Conference,” and when this con ference closed, one hundred men had volunteered for missionary service. This fact soon made the need felt for definite organization for future work, which was consummated in 1888, the work being in the hands of a Supervising Committee, repre senting the leading student interests in North America with their 250,000 students. “The Evan gelization of the World in this Generation” being The Consecration, the Heart, the Hope of American College Life Assembled in Nashville. The Golden Age for March 8, 1906. the watchword of the organization, its purpose was, and is, to further'in every way an interest in for eign missions among all Christian students in the United States and Canada; to enroll a larger num ber of properly qualified students as volunteers to meet the demands of missionary societies; to help all such intending missionaries, and to lay an equal burden of responsibility on all students who are to remain as ministers and lay workers at home. Be fore the recent meeting at Nashville, it has been recognized that the Achievements of This Movement have been to present the claims of world-wide mis sions in 900 educational institutions of North America; it has enrolled and aided in the training of a large force of volunteers, 3,000 of whom have already entered mission fields from North America alone; it has stimulated a systematic and thorough study of missions; has increased the number of pastors and laymen in the home churches “who have caught the vision of the missionary oppor tunity, and have been raised by it;” it has sup plied during the last eight years, eight secretaries for seven of the mission boards; it has led many men and women into the field of home missions; it has been instrumental in increasing the gifts of colleges for missions, and has created systematic giving among the students—in 1904 such contribu tions amounted to over SBO,OOO, while at the recent Nashvivlle Convention Nearly One Hundred Thousand Dollars was Contributed by the assembled Convention. The movement being intercollegiate, it necessarily brings together many thousand students from the various colleges throughout the country who would not otherwise come into any sort of contact, and being interdenominational and international, its members are given the great advantages of asso ciation with representatives of all the great evan gelical denominations, as well as with fraternal delegates from the universities and missionary so cieties of Europe and from the active working fields of the far East. The educational advantages of such a Convention as the one just held, is a feature not to be lightly regarded, for while contact with new fields of thought and endeavor is at all times broadening, it becomes inspiring also when its source is spiritual as well as intellectual. So much for the great Student Volunteer Move ment in general, this review of which it is believed will assist in a fuller appreciation of the Conven tion just closed at Nashville. That city was chosen as the meeting place at this time because of the Urgent Invitations From its Civic and Religious Organizations, and it may be truly said that in no meeting place was there ever a more generous or more cordial re ception given to any body of delegates than that accorded to the members of the Student Volunteer Convention. The arrangements were all in the hands of a com mittee whose able chairman, Mr. John R. Mott, with his competent assistants, had so perfectly planned each*detail of the Convention that there was not a single discordant note, not an evidence of hurry, of confusion nor of any element save most perfect order, and the strictest regard to detail. The general meetings were so arranged that admis sion was by card, almost exclusively, the holders of the various cards, such as delegates, press, speak ers, etc., etc., were admitted by different doors, each door being guarded by uniformed officers, and unlike most large Conventions, admission into the meetings of the Student Volunteers, was regarded as a privilege, to be valued according to the diffi culty of its attainment. As soon as the auditorium was filled, the doors were locked, and not a single auditor left his seat during the progress of the meeting. The hall was most attractively decorated in flags of the United States and Great Britain, while maps of the two great nations hung side by side as though to emphasize the tie of brotherhood between them. The Convention was opened by Chairman Mott, and the vast audience stood and sang “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” The singing was a fea ture of the meeting, a special book of convention hymns being provided. Chairman Mott’s address at the opening was most powerful and his conclu sions most striking. He said that it was the most REPRESENTATIVE, AND THE LARGEST MIS SIONARY BODY that had ever been held in all the world, and that its “possibilities were limit less.” Mr. Herbert Speer, secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, was the next speaker at the opening session, and his words were elo quent and touching—he urged the volunteers to so “expose their lives to the scrutiny of Christ that each might be brought where no clouds of sin hide the beauty of His face.” It would be of interest to follow step by step and day by day the words uttered from the plat form of this great Convention by speakers who have made the Movement the “dynamic force” it is, but space forbids more than the briefest mention of the speakers as well as fuller reference to the words of guidance, of wisdom, of experience and of advice which they so freely uttered. The second meeting of the Convention was mark ed by the executive committee report, and by the most interesting address by Mr. Karl Fries, of Stockholm, Sweden, who spoke on “Some Facts in the Missionary Life of the Universities of the Con tinent.” Other Speakers of Prominence were Mr. Wm. Gundert, who brought greetings from Tubingen, Germany; Mr. G. T. Manley, Edu cational Secretary of the World’s Missionary So ciety ; Miss Una M. iSanders, Bishop Thos. F. Gailor, of Memphis; Sir Mortimer Durand, British Ambas sador; Jno. W. Foster, J. A. Macdonald, Hon. H. B. F. McFarland, of the District of Columbia; Mr. Harlan Page Beach, Educational Secretary of the Movement, and professor elect of the theory and practice of missions at Yale; Mr. Donald Fraser, of British Central Africa; Dr. Herbert Lankaster, Home Secretary of the Church Missionary Society of London; Dr. James I. Vance, of Newark, N. J.; Dr. S. B. Capon, of Boston; Dr. T. P. Haggard, Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union; President John F. Goucher, of the Woman’s College of Baltimore, Md. and Mr. John W. Wood, of New York. Dr. Shepard, a colored missionary to Africa, gave interesting accounts of his personal experiences in the “wilds of Africa,” while students of India, China and Japan gave messages and incidents re garding their work in the various districts from which they came. Mr. V. W. Helm, of Tokio, Japan, addressed the Convention as representative of the League in Japan, and presented to the Chairman a gavel, the head of which was cut from a tree at the home of Joseph H. Nesema, the great Japanese patriot and educator. Mr. Helm is foreign secretary ot the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and brought a message from the students in Japan. There are sixty-two of these associations in Japan, and their work and impor tance was briefly but interestingly reviewed by Mr. Helm. While each d,ay of the Convention was marked by the immense general meetings held at 9:30 a. m., (Continued on page 5.)