In the meantime, loyalty cultivated by a variety of wholesome contacts largely outside of traditional church work must serve to win and retain the boys of today. For loyalty to the minister who serves them readily passes over into loyalty to the church which he likewise serves. Wherever the club is made up predominantly of boys from the church families, it will be well to have an occasional service planned especially for the boys themselves--one which they will attend in a body. Such a Sunday-evening service for boys and young men may be held regularly once a month with good success, and the value of such meetings is often enhanced by short talks from representative Christian laymen. Demands for service as well as the important questions of personal religion should be dealt with in a manly, straightforward way. Beating about the bush forfeits the boy's respect. In preaching to boys the minister will appeal frankly to manly and heroic qualities. He will advance no dark premise of their natural estrangement from God, but will postulate for all a sonship which is at once a divine challenge to the best that is in them and the guaranty that the best is the normal and the God-intended life. They must qualify for a great campaign under the greatest soul that ever lived. They engage to stand with Him against sin in self and in all the world about, and in proportion as they take on His mission will they realize the necessity of high personal standards and of that help which God gives to all who are dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom. The normal boy will not deliberately choose to sponge upon the world. He intends to do the fair thing and to amount to something. He dreams of making his life an actual contribution to the welfare and glory of humanity. When it is put before him rightly he will scorn a selfish misappropriation of his life, and will enter the crusade for the city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. Happy is the minister who has boys that bring their chums to see him for the purpose of enlistment. Happy is the minister whose hand often clasps the outstretched hand of the boy pledging himself to the greatest of all projects--the Kingdom of God in the earth; to the greatest of all companies--the company of those who in all time have had part in that task; and to the greatest of all captains--Jesus of Nazareth. CHAPTER IX THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB[10]