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THE CHINA CONTINUATION COMMITTEE 399reports, for all of the special committees had far-reachingmatters to be considered ;but it has become clear that somesuch plan is necessary if the Committee is not to becomemerely a formal gathering for passing on a large number ofresolutions, none of which the Committee as a whole hastime to consider with serious deliberation.The fact that the Continuation CommitteeWork of thej self-perpetuating body and that the choiceNominating..n . .^Committeel^ members as well as the choice of thespecial committees depends largely on theNominating Committee, renders the work of the NominatingCommittee exceedingly important. The arduousness of thiswork can hardly be appreciated by anyone who has notparticipated in it. The Committee was appointed at thefirst session of the Annual Meeting, and the chairman ofthis year s Nominating Committee, Rev. J. Walter Lowrie,D.D., declared that he had never had a more exacting andexhausting piece of work to do than the work this committeeentailed on him. Personal and ecclesiastical prejudicesmust be and are eliminated. In fact the effort to beabsolutely fair to all the national, ecclesiastical, racial andgeographical interests which should be considered, and tosee that no important element among the Christian forces inChina or department of work is overlooked, involves aknowledge of those forces and a fair-mindedness which thosewho work conscientiously on the Nominating Committeehave the rare privilege of seeing applied with a devotion anddetachment which are the surest indications that the Committee may continue acceptably its delicate and far-reachingwork.No one who has attended the AnnualMeetings of the China Continuation ComCharacflr"mittee can have failed to be impressed by itsinternational character. This was more marked than everthis year in the closer drawing together of the Chinese andforeign members, and in the presence at the meeting ofmembers from the European nations at war. There hasbeen manifested at every meeting a spirit of Christianfellowship which is in itself, to the members of theCommittee, as it must be to those not on it, one of the