Sunday school work had an undenominational aspect at its very beginning, early in the nineteenth century. Disciples took part in the International Sunday School Association, organized in 1872, and adopted its uniform lessons. B. B. Tyler was its president in 1902. Other organizations arose to develop more modern phases of religious education. Robert M. Hopkins was prominent in the Sunday School Council from the start, and he was chairman of the executive committee of the International Council of Religious Education for eleven years after its formation by the union of the old International Association and the Sunday School Council in 1922. Roy G. Ross is now executive secretary of the International Council. Many other Disciples, experts in various phases of this work, have borne heavy responsibilities in these organizations, especially in the latest and most comprehensive one.
In brief, no communion has been more active in all the cooperative enterprises of the churches in recent years, or more sympathetic with the ecumenical trend toward thinking less of the churches and more of the Church.
The bitter experiences of World War II have accentuated the common responsibilities of all the churches in the face of a resurgent paganism and world-wide suffering. Disciples have participated in the counsels of Christians on the problems of war and peace and have not shunned their special burdens. They raised a million-dollar emergency fund, furnished their quota of chaplains with the armed forces, made provision for their conscientious objectors. The Drake Conference on "The Church and the New World Mind" was part of their contribution to the study of postwar problems.
The central body of opinion among Disciples cherishes the watchwords "union" and "restoration," about which the whole movement has developed. But it recognizes that changed conditions and widened horizons may require a reconsideration of the program of union and of the meaning of restoration. It is not the impatience of youth but the voice of experience that rejects a static and unchangeable system. J. H. Garrison was editor and editor emeritus of the _Christian-Evangelist_ for sixty years. In the last contribution written with his own hand, published on April 11, 1929, being then in his eighty-eighth year, he wrote: