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""CHAPTERXLIIUNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR FOR CHINAG. F. FitchAnnualTlie great outstanding feature in this year sConvention history of the Christian Endeavor movementand Visit of in China is the Eighth National ConventionDr. Clarkat Hangchow, April 6th to 10th. Two factscontribute toward this conviction. The first is the visit toChina during the year of Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D.,founder of the Christian Endeavor Society and President ofthe World s Christian Endeavor Union, and his attendanceat the Annual Convention. The second is the motto ofthe Convention, "Every Endeavorer an Evangelist."There was inspiration in Dr. Clark s visit, and a new visionand strong challenge in the Convention s motto and message.The first Christian Endeavor Society wasformed in theOrganisationearly spring of 1881, in theWilliston Congregational Church of Portland,Maine. (It represented the fruits of a winter s evangelisticefforts carried on by Dr. Clark, the pastor. Many youngpeople were won for the Church during the evangelisticcampaign and the pastor realized that if those young peoplewere to be held for the Church, they must be trained forservice, they must have something to do, and they must beshown how to do it.) Twelve years later, 1893, during avisit of Dr. Clark to China, the United Society of ChristianEndeavor for China was organized, in Union Church,Shanghai. Rev. John Stevens, then pastor of the church,was the inspiring leader, and became the society s firstPresident. Since then the history of the society has beenone of continual progress and expansion. Born, as it was,in a home of evangelism, it has continued to grow mostrapidly in lands where evangelism is the dominant featureof the Church s life. It is thoroughly inter-denominationaliu China, there being eighty-seven different denominations