UNITARIAN YOUTH.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 259, 25 July 1908, Page 12

UNITARIAN YOUTH.

• DECLINE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL . ' ' ;| ATTENDANCE. ' ■■■ Tho anniversary meetings of the English", Unitarian Sunday School Association • were held, at.Essex Hall• last - month, .Miss. Edith Gittins (Leicester) presiding. Tho annual report noted that the schools in maiiy instances showed ah increasing number of scholars above tho ago of 16, but the totals of scholars and teachers had diminished, and this called for serious consideration. In the Manchester district there had been a falling off in tho morning attendances. In moving tho adoption of the report and accounts, Miss Gittins said she _ did not regard the view of Manchester with so much concern. In tho Midlands they did hot fina that a falling off in the morning attendance had a similar cffcct on the afternoon schools. They though that 1 if the morning schools was poor, tho afternoon classes should prosper all tho more. She, therefore,-did not tlnnk t'hero was any reason for them .to be despondent over this statement. 1 The Rev. A. Hall seconded the resolution, and in doing so deplored tho fact'that there seemed to bo no desire to get the young peoplo to remain in tho church. Tho report and accounts were adopted, and Mr. Cuthbert C; Grundy (Blackpool) was elected president for the coming year. JOTTINGS. Mr. Jesse Boot,, head of tho well-known firm of chemists, has offered the Wesloyan Mission £3000 towards the/cost of an organ, in addition' to subscribing'£3ooo to the, rebuilding fund of the Albert Hall. Nottingham, which was recently damaged by lire to the extent of £20,000. Mr.- Boot recently rcforred to his. early association with Methodism, and his earnest desiro to see re-estab-lished in his native city an aggressive agency of social righteousness and- spiritual tionBishop "Wilkinson writes to the 'Guardian". from Bradford Court,: Taunton:— "Eloven years ago tho Bishops of the ionAnglican Conference mare a pilgrimage to Glastonbury, and listened with deep interest to its past history. It would bo an historic point in our Church's story if the. two hundred Bishop of this year's Conference wont down to dedicate the sacred spot as a nursing-mother for tho future spiritual sons of their far-away dioceses: The Bishop of Bath and "Wells has au.undertaking.lodged with him to raise £10,000 as a nucleus of endowment for such,a College should it be determined so to uso the Abbey: and I have littlo doubt that, should it bo found necessary, twice that sum might bo raised. "During the past year,'.' says the Bishop of London, "I havo taken services in shearina sheds, in dancing halls of low hotels, m railway sheds, in police courts (where the magistrates' bench served as a pulpit), and onco in a disused butchors' shop (where a groat block of wood was at once the readingdesk and tho altar for tho divine mysNoiigns of decadcnco in the Christian Endeavour movement havo. been discoverable at "Nottingham, '08"—the eighteenth annual Convention of the British Union. The most critical and convention-hardened veterans agree that in almost every rcspect "Nottinirham, 08" has been oven better than many of its predecessors. It has been marked by '.i serious purposeful tone, and has reached high" lovels ■of thought and spirituality.. It has been well attended; oyer 2500, railway vouchors were sent out, aiid. special trains and excursions brought many additional, delegates. It has been delightfully young, with an unusual'proportion of delegates 'who had nover before attended a British National Convention, and it has boon fruitful in resolves. One of the open-air services was attended by 15,000 peoplo.