The Congresses of the Disciples, which began in 1899 and were held annually until about 1925, were a valuable means of adult education for ministers. These were gatherings for the discussion of religious, theological, and social problems which could not properly come before the conventions. They were characterized by great freedom of utterance. At first, all phases of opinion were represented, but as the more conservative element gradually dropped out, the congresses lost much of their value. Liberal Tendencies Through all these agencies, the liberalizing effects of the newer learning were widely diffused. One aspect of this was that a great number of ministers accepted the so-called “modern view” of the Bible, based upon historical and critical methods of study, in place of the theory of inerrancy and level inspiration. Proof texts lost something of their finality. The pattern of the primitive church seemed somewhat less sharply drawn, and the duty of restoring it in every detail less axiomatic. Christian truth and duty were seen as far more extensive, and far less simple, than the conversion formula and the restoration of the ancient order as these had been conceived. In this atmosphere of opinion, the stress was upon union, while the concept of restoration seemed to require reinterpretation to give it continued validity. All this had begun to happen in the previous period; but now it happened on a large scale, reaching many important pulpits, the colleges, the missionary executives, the missionaries themselves. It was no longer possible to say that only a little coterie of young men held and taught these disturbing ideas. Their spread could not plausibly be charged to the Campbell Institute, though this provided a free forum for its members. The Campbell Institute began in 1896 as a company of fifteen young men who had done some graduate work, or were still doing it. It was organized, as its constitution says, “to enable its members to help each other to a riper scholarship by a free discussion of vital problems; to promote quiet self-culture and the development of a higher spirituality both among the members and among the churches with which they shall come in contact; and to encourage productive work with a view of making contributions of permanent value to the literature and thought of the Disciples of Christ.” The young men grew older, and their number increased to several hundred. The institute’s meetings were all open to the public, its membership was opened to any college graduate who cared to enroll, and a wide variety of theological opinions found expression on its programs and in its organ, the _Scroll_. It never pulled a wire to get one of its members into a position of honor or leadership. Still, it was and is of some significance as an incentive to untrammeled thinking, an organization liberal enough to be equally hospitable to liberal and conservative opinion.