THE WORLD'S STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2309, 2 June 1898, Page 39

THE WORLD'S STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION.

[Contributed.}

This is one of the most remarkable movements of modern limes. It is indeed in some respects unique in the history o£ the world. Whether we regard it in its aims, ita instruments, or iti results, it is without parallel. What is its aim P Its nim is — "nothing lent than uniting the Christian forces of all universities and colleges in the work of winning fhe ttadenta of the world for Christ, of buildiag them up in Him, and of sending them out into tha world to wotk for Him." Its marching order is the evangelisation of the world in our time. That does not mean the actual Christianising cf tha heathen population of the earth, but it means eufc actual offer of Christianity to i.hem.

But the specialty of the movement ij the instrument with whicb it proposes to work. That instrument is the student. The average student is a proverbially difficult fish to catch. He is shy of anything that has the look of a definite creed about it. His mental training tends to tn&ke him & dcubter, helps to create and culture the scepric spirit;, Till this movedFiit started he had practically been left alone. Hjre and there spasmodic attempts had been me.de-, «nd eporad'c nocieties in. the interests of religion oxiuted. But their isolation loft them without strength ew outlook beyond' the individual. It was considered a hopeless task to get into the great heart of the' university students of the 'irotld ; but fctu's federation of which we are spe&kicg has demonstrated t'a« falsity of that idea. " - -*

From an a priori standpoint nothing could saem more utop&n than the ideals of .the Students! Christian Federation, especially when considered in relation to the meann used to attain them. But we have learned to distrust abstract theories. We have come to be guided by experience, and the results already achieved by the Students' Christian Federation are enough to stall le, if they' do not convince, tbe most sceptical. Let vi set down some of the results. Twenty y&ars ' ago there were lesi than 30 Christian associations in the colleges of America. To-day thay exist in some 550. Within the last 10 years 35,000 students have been influenced to entar the Christian life, and trained in Christian thought and ambition ; 3500 have entered the home ministry ; while about 4000 more have entered er are purposing to enter tbe foreign .field. In Britain four years ago the British College Christian Union began its organising work. It now numbers 100 unions and has 14-60 volunteers for the foreign fields. An evidence of the results of the work was seen best a few months ago ia Cleveland. A Student Christian Conference was held there. We have before us as we ws-ite files of one of the Cleveland daily papers— Tbo Leader. It has given as many as seven columns of its space to the doings of the conference. There were delegates from 458 colleges and universities, and betwebn 25 and 30 nations were represented. The daiiy moei-i'ngs, .-am op So nearly 3000, while iv iiorse cases hundreds could uot get admission.

Two years ago Mr J. R. Mott, M.A., of Yale University, was seuc on a tour to establish and affiliate branches of the federation all over the world. He visited Australia and New Zealand in pursuance of this mission. And now in almost every college of Australasia branches have been organised. In Sydney, especially, the movement has taken deep root. Some of the most remarkable results have been attained in the East, in China, Japan, India, &c. Mr Mott, in his very striking book recently published (•' Strategip Points in the World's Ooirtiueßt ') md which gives no ac-

cocnt pf hie tour, says of China — " No peojtfhj 1 has imprefweul a? as pos»egsing snob, strength. He endorse* Napoleon's sayiug, " When Cfciun is moved it will change the. fact of the glebe." To ciove China its students must be ocgiiß-'s^ It tfr s* peccliirity ef the Chinese tc p»y aieaS ds!ercm<;e to fch« educated, Ifc has fciM? ait edncaiinu&l oystena for 2000 yea?a that; ;^ vsvwque. It has the educaUonaJ degrees c-ovssi npcuding in inipoi'Knop to our 8.A., M.A.. and Ph.D. It is surprfeiop to learn that abou* 590,000 students sit foe oxainination every year. As many as 150.000 s^udoutu from all parffo of the Empire coming up to the capital Pekin fa rt erne of the doob* striking facts in the student UFe of the world." It fa a remarkable thiff& that in no other country of ths world has the! Student Christian Federafeion taken such a hold at the starfe. Branob«s of the feddratioo h»va also b?en formed in ladia, C&ylon, Turkey*, and all the European nations. It is thus e^ldeat that this movement has spread itself ove v r Shp seats of higher learning to an extent unpv.alle)ed by any other, s There is one remarlcawe feature about it. Ifc was begun, and it ii carried forward, by thb. students themselves. No chnrch originated vf, and ie is entirely unaectarian. It does not indeed ignore the churches, it seeki to be the ally of all, but the propagandist of none. At the last Anglican Conference at Lambeth the Archbishop of Canterbury and 56 other bishops reported favourably on the movement. It must indeed wonderfully affect the moral and social life of tha -future. To begin with, id safeguards the student himielf. There is perhaps no life more exposed to temptation than that of the young men and women attending our universities . Exceptional perils of an intellectual and moral kind beset them. To be .committed openly to the aims and principles of the. Student Christian Union must ba a great defence against such.

Thea again, from our seats of learning come the men and women who are to teach others. Here are in training our future schoolmasters, lawyers, doctors, judges, magistrates, &o. It is an immense gain to direct the thought and character of such towards high ends. ' Goethe once said, " Tell me what a number of the brightest young men of a country are thinking, and I will tell what the future of that country will be." We suppose that on the whole it is the brightest of our youths who gp to college. To get them to think rightly is to determine the right-thinking of the future nation. We may differ as to the doctrines of Christianity ; but at least we are all agreed as to its ethics. We believe that its spirit and morals are the highest the race has yet had revealed it. It follows, therefore, that any movement which seeks to bring 'them to bear on the student's life must affect the whole of the destiny •f the State.

Once more. The Student Christian Federation helps materially to widen the . outlook of those who are enrolled on it. One of its cardinal principles is to direct attention to the regions beyond. It seeks to win sympathy for countries unaffected by Christianity. It does this by spreading knowledge regarding such countries. It thus trains the student to look beyond his own nation, and to feel the pulse of the ocean of life beating towards shores far distant from his own. Michael AngeJo once wrote over the picture, o£ an art student in his school *'• amplius." It is a word that is needed both in She study and the State, and unless we gefe it in the former we need not expect it in the latter. :

Thus the Student Christian Union seems destined to be one of the most potent of those powers that work for righteousness in the life of the university, therefore >n the life of the , nation. It has already proved itself §uch by 'results of an unexampled kind. What its future may ba we cannot tell, br.t it if % movement that must 38 witched with intense interest by all who wish well to the higher thought and life of ths world.