in history. One of the most satisfactory ways of measuring the power of any movement is to analyze it in relation to the fundamental institutions of society. Reducing civilization to its simplest terms society is built around five great institutions. In one column the institutions are named, in the other the human relations which each represents.

• The Home—social.
• The State—political.
• The Shop—commercial.
• The School—educational.
• The Church—religious.

While the illustration must not be carried too far, yet in a striking way it is true that the great awakenings of the last two thousand years have been characterized by only one or two central and controlling principles. The Renaissance was an intellectual awakening, thus changing the educational life of Europe. The Reformation was religious and profoundly influenced the Church. The Rise of Popular Governments was political and began a new era for the state. So on through the list. By way of contrast, we are to-day in the midst of an awakening which radically affects all these fundamental institutions of society. In China, for example, a movement is in progress which is not simply affecting the state, or the social life, or the religious character of the people, but is transforming all five of the fundamental institutions of life. As Dr. J. E. Williams, of Nanking University, puts it: "If we could conceive of the Renaissance of learning after the dark ages, the interest in literature that came with the study of Latin and Greek, and the awakening of thought that followed upon the discovery of new worlds—material and intellectual—and then add to this the new forces of the Reformation, the reconstruction of men's moral and religious ideas and ideals and the recovery of the right of the individual conscience, and if to these we could conceive as added the French Revolution—the break-up of all that men had regarded as final in social and political organization; and if to these again could be added the movement of modern science, which began with Lord Bacon's Novum Organum—and the application of the inductive method in the discovery of the forces and laws of nature; and, if further we could conceive of these great forces as operating, not at different times, in different countries, through a period of several centuries, but as combined and concentrated in a brief decade or two in one country upon a great people, we should have a more adequate conception of the magnitude and significance of the present Revolution in China."

A significant fact is that most of the revolutionary forces and agencies which have brought about the awakening have come from Christian lands. The most powerful single force at work has been the missionary. He has carried with him the finest ideals of Western civilization, and has been able in an unusual way to bring the latest ideas in all realms of life to bear upon the non-Christian world. A condition exists which Professor Ross, in The Changing Chinese, a book which it will pay every man to read, finely describes in the following words:

"The crucifixion was two hundred and eighty years old before Christianity won toleration in the Roman Empire. It was one hundred and twenty-eight years after Luther's defiance before the permanence of the Protestant Reformation was assured. After the discovery of the New World one hundred and fifteen years elapsed before the first English colony was planted here. No one who saw the beginning of these great, slow, historic movements could grasp their full import or witness their culmination. But nowadays world processes are telescoped and history is made at aviation speed."

All this makes it clear that we have come to an hour of crisis in the relations between Christendom and the non-Christian world. What is a crisis but a point of time in the history of the human race when great issues are at stake, when there is an unprecedented break-up of civilizations, when Christian nations must make great decisions about their relations with the non-Christian world. We find everywhere conditions that are passing and that will not return. It is the time of all times for men who love Christ to make him known to the ends of the earth. The situation is summarized in "the Message of the Edinburgh Conference," in the following language: "The next ten years will, in all probability, constitute a turning-point in human history, and may be of more critical importance in determining the spiritual evolution of mankind than many centuries of ordinary experience. If those years are wasted, havoc may be wrought that centuries will not be able to repair. On the other hand, if they are rightly used, they may be among the most glorious in Christian history."

The Increase of Populations in Christian Countries.—At the beginning of the nineteenth century the entire population of the United States and Canada was only about 5 millions; to-day it is 100 millions. In the same period of time the populations of Europe have increased from 170 to 450 millions. During this same hundred years the population in some parts of the non-Christian world has declined, in others remained stationary, or the growth has been very slow. While the birth rate is much greater in many non-Christian lands, the cheapness of human life, the lack of sanitary and other conditions for safeguarding life greatly increase the death rate. The population of the world at the end of the eighteenth century was estimated to be approximately 1,000 millions. During the nineteenth century the numbers increased by about 600 millions. Europe and North America together increased in population by nearly 400 millions during that century. These figures for the world are only estimates but are given by the most reliable students of such matters. While exact figures for the non-Christian world cannot be given, the significant fact is that there has been a marvelous expansion of Christian nations within the last one hundred years, far outstripping the expansion of other parts of the world. The nations which know most of Christ and his gospel have increased in numbers as well as in power out of all proportion to the rest of mankind.

The Spread of the English Language.—We quote from a leaflet entitled "The Seven Wonders of the Modern Missionary World," by Dr. A. W. Halsey.

"The spread of the English language is one of the wonders of the age. The English language is spoken at the present time by nearly 200,000,000 people; each year sees large additions to the group of English-speaking peoples. In the Philippines more people to-day speak the English language than spoke the Spanish language after three hundred years of Spanish rule.

"In all higher education in India, English is compulsory; in the secondary schools in India, English is taught. In China, the government has made English a part of the regular curriculum. In Japan, the students are eager to learn English. It is the avenue through which the missionary frequently is able to reach the educated classes. In Syria, one of the boys in the classroom wrote on the blackboard, 'God is love' in his own language, thirty boys followed, each writing the text in his own language; yet these boys sooner or later will all speak the English language. A speaker at the Edinburgh Conference declared that some missionaries read the Lord's command as though it were written 'Go and teach all nations the English language.' Macaulay says that whoever knows the English language has 'ready access to the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and stored in the course of ninety generations.' The English language is the language of liberty, of law, of morals, of high ideals. The English Bible, which has molded Anglo-Saxon civilization, is making no