The completion of the first hundred years was celebrated by a Centennial Convention, at Pittsburgh, October, 1909. This was a gathering of unprecedented and still unequaled size. It quickened the interest of Disciples in their own history and heritage. Coming so soon after they had embarked upon these large ventures in cooperation, it directed their minds not only to the numerical and institutional success of their own movement but also to the path of common service and the hope of unity that lay ahead. It was a true instinct that directed the choice of the centennial of the _Declaration and Address_ for this observance rather than, for example, the promulgation of Walter Scott’s “uniform, authoritative method of proclaiming the gospel,” or the dissolution of the Mahoning Association. This choice expressed the feeling that the essence of the movement is not in its separateness or in its “particular ecclesiastical order,” but in its call for union upon the will to do the will of Christ. CHAPTER X GROWING INTO MATURITY, 1909-45 Growth in numbers had been very rapid during the first eighty years. It was not unusual to hear the confident prediction that at this rate they would soon “take the country,” and it seemed disloyalty to doubt that the rate of increase would continue. But the population of the country was also growing very rapidly, though not so rapidly as the Disciples. So long as there was an open frontier—that is, until about 1890—and even later, while the heavy westward migration continued, the Disciples outran the general population increase. But so also did the Methodists and Baptists. Immigration from Europe brought tremendous reinforcements to Roman Catholics and Lutherans, none to Disciples; and Disciples gained by conversion almost none of these immigrants or their children. The nation was becoming increasingly urban, while the Disciples remained more rural than other large communions. Inevitably there were diminishing returns in growth. There was a high point in 1910. It was higher still in 1914, with an abrupt drop of nearly 300,000 to 1915, and a fair rate of growth thereafter. An improvement in statistical methods probably explains the greater part, though perhaps not all, of the apparent loss in 1915. Certainly there was no great disastrous event in that year. Perhaps some of the “Churches of Christ” were included in the count until 1915. Here are the figures since 1900: 1900 1,120,000 1905 1,238,515 1910 1,363,533 1915 1,142,206 1920 1,178,079 1925 1,450,681 1930 1,554,678 1935 1,618,852 1940 1,669,222 1944 1,681,933 Improving the Machinery