Trends

First in War, First in Peace. The Methodist Church was the first Church of the country to split into North and South over the slavery issue. Attention has been called (TIME, March 10) to the coming peace between the two sections of this Church. A long step forward was taken in Cleveland last week, when the Committees on Unification both of the Northern and the Southern branches approved the basis of reunion which each Church had presented to the other. One interesting result of the union would be the dropping of the ban on dancing, card-playing, theatre-going, which is a part of the canon law of the Methodist Church North. For many of the Northern Methodists these laws are already a dead letter; the discipline of the Southern branch of the Church never contained any such prohibitions. Practically the entire Board of Bishops of the Northern branch favor making the question of amusements a matter of advice and not of law.

" Ye Cannot Serve God and Mammon." " Al " Staton, crack football player last Fall on Georgia Tech's famous " Golden Tornado " team, was offered a salary of $10,000 a year as a mechanical engineer when he graduated this June. He turned the job down and took a position as missionary in Brazil, with $100 a month to support himself and his wife and child. He prefers the saving of souls to the building of bridges.

"Lutherans of the World." The Lutherans of the world are planning to form a world organization. Meeting at Eisenach (Martin Luther's birthplace), representatives from all over the world will confer on the problem of unity, and the deeper problems of how to stabilize the afflicted countries of Europe and minimize the hatreds caused by the War. Attention is drawn below to the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Stockholm. Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians also have world-wide organizations. Any association that might be formed at Eisenach this August, however, would be more significant than any of these, because the Lutherans of the world number over 90,000,000, which is almost, if not quite, half of the Protestant believers of the world.

A Growing Union. TIME, June 25, noted the union of the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Canada into the new "United Church," with a membership only slightly less than the membership of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. At a recent convention held in Winnipeg, the Disciples' Church, another strong evangelical body, endorsed the union.

Stockholm. The meeting of the Baptist World Alliance continues at Stockholm. Greetings were sent to the convention by Lloyd George and President Harding, both of whom are Baptists. President Harding's message, read by his pastor, Rev. W. S. Abernethy, ended with the sentence: " I believe with all my heart that nothing is more needed in the world today than the practical application of the spirit of Christ." The 4,000 delegates of the convention pledged themselves " to counterwork everything likely to provoke war," and "to cleanse all textbooks of all the nations of all racial and national antagonisms, to quench the worship of military heroes and to kindle admiration for all who serve the world in positive ways."