which they may properly handle for the purpose of devoting the profits to some immediate charity; making for sale articles in wood, metal, or leather for the same purpose; winning other boys from bad associations to the better influences of their own group, helping in the conduct of public worship by song or otherwise, acting as messengers and minute-men for the pastor—­something of this sort should engage part of their time and attention in order that they may be drawn into harmony with the spirit of the church.

[Illustration:  A CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SALVATION]

Ordinarily the general administration of the church could be made more effective and the standard activities more attractive if the preacher would keep the boy in mind in constructing and illustrating his sermons and would make appeal to the known interests of boyhood; and if music committees would adopt a policy for the development and use of his musical ability instead of stifling and ignoring this valuable religious asset and rendering the boy, so far forth, useless to and estranged from the purposes and activities of the church.  In church music the paid quartette alone means the way of least resistance and of least benefit, and it is a harmful device if it means the failure of the church to enlist boys in the rare religious development to be achieved in sacred song and in participation in public worship.  It is to be regretted that hymns suited to boyhood experience are very rare and that so little effort is made to interest and use the boy in the stated worship of the church.

But if these evils were remedied there would still be the problem of the Sunday school which, although generally a worthy institution, usually succeeds at the cost of the church-going habit which might otherwise be cultivated in the boy.  To make a Sunday-school boy instead of a church boy is a net loss, and with the present Sunday congestion there is little likelihood of securing both of these ends.  Probably it will become necessary to transfer what is now Sunday-school work to week-day periods as well as to renovate public worship before a new generation of churchmen can be guaranteed.

In the meantime, loyalty cultivated by a variety of wholesome contacts largely outside of traditional church work must serve to win and retain the boys of today.  For loyalty to the minister who serves them readily passes over into loyalty to the church which he likewise serves.  Wherever the club is made up predominantly of boys from the church families, it will be well to have an occasional service planned especially for the boys themselves—­one which they will attend in a body.  Such a Sunday-evening service for boys and young men may be held regularly once a month with good success, and the value of such meetings is often enhanced by short talks from representative Christian laymen.  Demands for service as well as the important questions of personal religion should be dealt with in a manly, straightforward way.  Beating about the bush forfeits the boy’s respect.