ally as other people. Episcopalians are no longer looked upon as having no religion simply because they don't "see and hear things."

What has brought about this change, and what has this to do with good citizens? My answer is this: The change is undoubtedly due largely to the increasing intelligence of the people and that, to the ever-widening influence of the large number of young men and women who go out every year from our Church schools to all sections of the South, there, like the little leaven, to work and work until the whole is leavened into a mass of desirable citizens.

Would to God that our Church schools were fully endowed and provided with such an abundance of scholarships that they would be able to open their doors to hundreds of poverty-stricken boys and girls who must be denied admittance because it takes money to buy bread that they may eat and work their way through school.

What has it to do with good citizenship? Everything! For no truly religious man can be other than a good citizen, and the Negro is no exception.

Of course all the boys and girls trained

in Church schools do not become Churchmen; but it is true that a large number of the representative men and women of the race got their early training in Church schools, and they are proud of it. Surely we should not feel that our labor is lost if through them we are helping to elevate a race and save souls for the Kingdom. Some of these boys trained by the Church now occupy important positions in the denominations, preachers, editors of religious papers; while others are professors in leading colleges and universities, or doctors, lawyers and business men of no mean capacity.

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The Church is lifting the veil of ignorance and superstition from the minds of our youth and thereby implanting a desire for higher and better things. She is teaching them that the religion that counts must be lived as well as talked, and thus making of them honest and moral men and women. Would that I could take you into the 500,000 homes, many of them having from four to twelve rooms, and some even more, and cosily furnished and all kept sweet and clean by the well-trained women who were once girls in our Church schools.

Daily the Church is developing for our boys and girls their mechanical skill, teaching them the dignity of labor and transforming them into honest, industrious and desirable citizens. I would like to tell you how the Church took a little boy from the woods of North Carolina, trained him in her ways, admitted him to Holy Orders, and made him a man of great and wide influence among his people; how he rose step by step until his voice was heard on the floor of the General Convention, and how he died a hero, at the post of duty in a great storm that swept over one of our far southern cities.

I could also tell you how she took another boy from the malarial swamps of Florida, and, after years of training, he is now the honored vice-principal of the greatest Church school for the education of Negroes.

Likewise she found another boy in the country districts of Virginia, gave him his first lessons and prepared him for his life's work. He it was who founded the greatest Normal and Industrial School for Negroes yet attempted by any

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Churchman, and is to-day the principal of that institution and also the archdeacon for work among colored people in the Diocese of Southern Virginia.

Again I could tell of a noble woman brought up under Church influences who organized a school in a bush arbor, and taught there for six weeks until she built a log cabin in which the school was continued. A little church was erected and then she taught school during the week and read the prayers of the Church on Sunday and taught the Catechism.

I could tell also of another woman who, after years of earnest working and great sacrifice, saw the fruits of her labors in a beautiful chapel, crowded from Sunday to Sunday with children eager to learn about the Church.

I could give many instances of earnest, self-sacrificing work done by men and women once boys and girls in our Church schools, but if I have written enough to show how the Church can help or has helped in the past to make the Negro boys and girls good citizens, then I have not written in vain.

THANKSGIVINGS

"We thank Thee"

For the sweet and silent years of the Holy Childhood.

For the light and gladness brought into the world by little children.

For the grace of Christian nurture, which is the blessing and protection of childhood in lands where the Gospel is known.

For the influence of Christian homes and the benediction which they shed upon the nations of the world.

For all true Christian parents, who through patience and affection train souls for the Kingdom of God.

For the opportunity of blessing childhood, protecting youth and planting Christian homes among all nations.

For the good example and the loving service of those men and women who are ministering to children in this and other lands.

For the growing interest and cooperation of the children of the Church in the upbuilding of the world-wide Kingdom.

INTERCESSIONS

"That it may please Thee"

To guard and protect the innocence of children, and by their example to win men and women to a worthier life.

To bless all family life, direct parents in their sacred task, and give to Thy children a fear and love of Thy Holy Name.

To prosper with Thy blessing all schools and orphanages, and make them fruitful nurseries of noble lives.

To bless those who, as teachers and pupils, are gathered in the Sunday-schools of Thy Church that they may grow in grace and in the knowledge of Thee.

To bring to children of joyless lives brighter days and better hope.

To bless with enlarged success the efforts of the Sunday-school Auxiliary in their gifts and sacrifices during the coming Lent.

To grant to those to whom Thou hast committed the care and training of children such patience, sympathy and love that they may worthily fulfil their great work.