Religion: Personal Work

Of ways of winning men to God there is no end. The Church Spiritual has been content down the ages to minister to men's souls; but the Church Militant—and sometimes Rampant—has dealt and deals by preference with corporeal man. The great brass founding city of Waterbury, Conn., is at present counting the spiritual cost or gain to its citizens of an onslaught made upon them by 55 college men and 15 college women: The Student Christian Mission: "An organization to produce producing Christians."

These young exponents of the Church Rampant were directed in their activities at Waterbury by four undergraduates prominent at Yale, Harvard, Princeton. Before commencing their campaign the 70 student evangelists assembled at Camp Hazen, near Waterbury, for a "wash out" or mutual confession of sin. During this process "a condition bordering on emotional frenzy" was generated, in the opinion of so experienced an observer as Mr. Ernest W. Mandeville, who last week began a series of articles on the Waterbury phenomenon in The Churchman. Finally, having "received guidance," made "complete surrender," and "washed out," the students entered Waterbury for a ten-day campaign.

A succession of students spoke in relays on nine prominent street corners. Local ministers cooperated, and such powerful speakers as Sherwood Eddy and Dean Charles R. Brown of the Yale Divinity School addressed mass meetings every evening. By day the students spent a portion of their time in private converse with prospective converts. By "washing out" themselves they endeavored to draw a reciprocal confession of sin from the person interviewed. As one student evangelist described his technique: "The people of Waterbury are interested in us as rotters. They are not interested in us as saints."

Soon the effects of this technique were felt. Converts "washed out" by scores. One student evangelist was removed to a hospital suffering from epileptic fits. The Rev. Herbert D. Gallaudet, minister of the Congregational Church of Waterbury, testified that he had seen the Savior while motoring near Bethany, Conn., had stopped his car, and "walked in the woods with Jesus." Finally, the student evangelists began a series of visits to the clergy of Waterbury, urged them to abandon their present technique and go personally among their flocks, confessing their sins and drawing "wash outs" from penitents. When the campaign ended, some $4,500 having been raised and spent, the press of Waterbury was not unanimous in praising the results attained.