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5, a i on ) Ww) Pi AY es LEAS at. TSK: : FL oY rr. a A eats s ¥ shee dof a fe sete bate? o ° i ‘ ‘ "ah. ee | j et Ee aael Br eae i s a >, Bei ih» ey Nid we. a = sf aie. ‘ dey : A Home Enterprise CHAPTER I ITS FOUNDATION The title of this Home Mission study book is “A Home Enterprise.” That sounds like the running of a small business in the home community; moreover, it has a commercial smack about it. Things are not always as they seem. In reality this book treats of the running of the biggest kind of business in the home country, and the “smack” about it is not com- mercial but evangelical—in fact, it is Evangelical Lutheran, which is to say, Gospel and Christian. It is certainly “big business” which is here in prospect; in all the world there is no bigger business than that of gospelizing and Christianizing the world. The object of this book is to relate the part our Evangelical Lutheran Church, or, more narrowly, our United Lutheran Church in America, has taken, is taking and ought to take in the enterprise. Observe those two closing statements. One is that the missionary enterprise is the primary business of the Christian Church. The Church’s second duty is to “build up” its members in the faith and truth and spirit of Christ its Head; but before it can build 7 8 A HOME ENTERPRISE them up in Him, so that they become a holy temple in the Lord, it must gather the many separate living stones. These do not always lie ready to hand; they are not ready to roll themselves onto the foundation or leap up to their place in the walls. They must be gone after and found. They must be sought and brought and then shaped and prepared before they can be inserted in the churchly structure and become members of “The Holy Christian Church, the Com- munion of Saints.” So it has been from the very beginning. The word “mission” itself, as the dictionary defines it, means “a sending, or being sent or delegated by authority to perform some service or function or to transact cer- tain business.” It is not necessarily a religious word (anyone can be sent on any kind of a mission) ; indeed, it does not occur in the Bible at all. But its foundation is there. The thing is there in our present Christian meaning of it, and it began to be there when God sent His only begotten Son into the world to be the Saviour of the world, to be the propitiation for our sins, that we might live through Him. This was the momentous mission on which He was sent, the transcendent business on which He came. And how did He go about it? By seeking and saving that which was lost. It is true that He was not sent, in the first instance, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but He went from city to city, from village to village, throughout every countryside, seeking them and finding them, and when He found them He sent them forth on a similar errand—indeed, before He sent them more than one undertook such a mission of ITS FOUNDATION 9 his own accord, as when Andrew found first his own brother Simon and Philip found Nathanael. Certainly Christianity itself is a mission and Christ Himself is a missionary, God’s missionary to men, heaven’s mis- Sionary to earth. Missions is not a modern fad, the hobby of a feverish few. Missions is as old as the Gospel of Christ; it is the work of the whole Church of Christ, and if the Church were ever to cease to be missionary it would cease to be evangelical and Chris- tian. One has well said: “The Church which is not a missionary Church will be a missing Church during the next fifty years—its candle of consecration put out; if not, its candlestick removed out of its place. As ministers and churches of Jesus Christ, our self- preservation is conditioned on the obedience to the great commission. It is preach or perish, evangelize or fossilize.”’ The other statement to which attention is called is the part taken by our United Lutheran Church in America in the missionary enterprise. We have just learned that the work of missions is the duty of the whole Church, and we should rejoice that almost the whole Church is alert and active—even the Roman Catholic Church. When we look out over the vast Mohammedan world and over the more vast heathen world and when we survey the many millions of un- churched and unchristian people on our own continent and in our own land, we ought to be apostolic enough to rejoice with Saint Paul that “in every way, whether _ in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.” We _ ought to rejoice greatly that Protestant Churches are | diligent in doing their missionary duty, and more 10 A HOME ENTERPRISE greatly still that our Evangelical Lutheran Churches are not slothful in the business of evangelizing the world and extending the Kingdom; but we rejoice most greatly that our own United Lutheran Church in America not only by resolution has pledged herself to the cause of missions but also with resolution is addressing herself to the performance of the mission- ary task. In Article VI of its Constitution, the United Lutheran Church declares one of the objects of its organization to be “the extension of the Kingdom of God by Home, Foreign and Inner Missions.” What the United Lutheran Church has done and is doing in this behalf we shall learn later on; but just here, in passing, we need to note two important facts: that our own Church is a partner in the great mission enterprise, and that any member thereof who is idle and unproductive is a “workman” that needs to be ashamed. He is both disloyal to Mother Church and recreant in his duty to his Lord. Notice again that extract from the Constitution of the United Lutheran Church. . Its opening words are themselves a good definition of Christian missions, “the extension of the Kingdom of God.” And the order of the words next following is significant—‘‘by Home, Foreign and Inner Missions.” The language recognizes the fact that missions are tripartite, a trinity, as it were, three and yet one, like a clover leaf or fleur-de-lis. One thing is sure: to the mind of Jesus it was just—missions. It was Home Missions when He preached the Gospel in Judea and Galilee; it was Foreign Missions when He dealt with the alien Syro-Phceenician woman and the Greeks who came to ITS FOUNDATION 11 Him at the last; it was Inner Missions when He went about doing good, healing the sick and restoring the maimed; but altogether and always it was simply missions, “‘the extension of the Kingdom of God.” It has been only since the mission field has so widely broadened and missionary operations have become so diversified, that the work of missions has become departmentalized. Practical wisdom demanded it. Only by such a division and distribution of the work could it be efficiently administered. But missions itself remains one, a single enterprise, and (as a rule) takes a verb in the singular number. One phase or feature of the work is not to be pitted or played off against another. All three start from the same source—the command and example of Christ—and seek to attain the same goal, the salvation of souls and the exten- sion of His kingdom. At the same time, it is significant that Home Mis- sions is named first. Naturally, Home Missions was first in the order of time. Christianity began at Jerusalem. It was obliged to get a foothold in the Lord’s homeland and the scene of His earthly labors before it could proceed with its message to other and distant lands. So the center of the circle was placed in Jerusalem and the circle was widened—as strong sources or bases of supplies both of men and means were established—to include all Judea and Samaria and so, gradually, Europe on the west, Africa on the south, and eventually “the uttermost part of the earth.” The growth of the Christian Church was organic, not spasmodic or sporadic. It was in this way that what began as foreign mission churches, 12 A HOME ENTERPRISE that is, churches in foreign parts, soon became home mission churches, or rather they became planters and promotors of home mission churches in their own land, themselves being centers and sources from which went out streams of missionary influence and_ effort throughout their own territory and beyond their own borders to lands more remote. Home missions and foreign missions proceeded with an equal step, almost by the law of cause and effect, and, of course, the inner mission was not neglected. The manifold works of charity and mercy which characterized the early Church furnish ground for a comparison not at all flattering to the Church of today. So itis now. The fact of the business is that for- eign missions anywhere in the world are inaugurated and sustained by a Church established somewhere at home, and not only can the home Church not grow in numbers, in strength and resources, without the in- crease which comes to it through the planting of home mission churches, but, lacking such increment and enlarged power and capacity, its efforts on behalf of foreign missions are enfeebled and ultimately must dwindle and fail. So interrelated and interdependent are these two branches of Christian service. They belong and go together—Home Missions in the lead. This is why Austin Phelps once said: “If I were a missionary in Canton, China, my first prayer every morning would be for the success of American Home Missions, for the sake of Canton, China.” Again he said: “I confess that the Home work does loom up before me with a painful and threatening magnitude, which suggests the query whether it is reasonable to HOLY TRINITY, MADISON, WIS. A Product of Home Mission Enterprise CALVARY ELMHURST CHAPEL gir Mee EVANSTON, ILL. PORTAGE PARK CHAPEL WOODLAWN IMMANUEL Chicago and Vicinity Mission Fruitage ee am a af ITS FOUNDATION 13 4 expect much expansion of the foreign service before the home field is more thoroughly mastered. There is a law of give and take in these things which is as inexorable in the work of the world’s conversion as in any other. We cannot convert Asia without a certain amount of spiritual power at home. We can- not give what we have not received. And the power at home must come from a broader and deeper spirit- ual culture, and this must take time, money, labor and prayer. What other view of it can be either philo- sophical or scriptural? ‘Beginning at Jerusalem,’ such was our Lord’s direction to the apostles at the outset of the great work. This is the central law of missions for all time. We must keep the Home work well in hand, and uplifted above all chance of failure, or we cannot get power to impart truth to the heathen mind.” Dr. E. B. Hurlbut has said: “Are we seek- ing the world’s salvation? We must lay the basis of our tremendous undertaking in Christianized America. A wise interest and earnest zeal for Foreign Missions compels intense enthusiasm for Home Missions. The battle lost at home, our cause is slain abroad. Chris- tianity failing in America, it is irretrievably lost in Asia and Africa. Christianity persistent in America will conquer the world for Christ.” No less than others, our own veteran Lutheran missionaries are convinced of this fundamental truth. Said the vener- able Dr. A. 8. Hartman: “As a part of the Church of Christ, and thus identified with the work of the King- dom of God, we cannot but be deeply interested in the progress of that Kingdom in the world. But if the Church of which we are thus a part is to be effect- 14 A HOME ENTERPRISE ive in the salvation of all the world it must first show its effectiveness in bringing to a knowledge of the truth the unevangelized in our own land. In propor- tion as the Church gains power and increases in spir- itual influence among the people of this country, it will have a more earnest desire and greater ability to extend its ministry of the Gospel to the unevan- gelized of other lands, and it will also have more men and women to go as missionaries. It is for this rea- son that Home Missions are regarded as fundamental for the life and growth of the Church in this country, and also as the ‘base of supplies’ for the work of propagating the Gospel in the religiously destitute re- gions beyond. Missions are spoken of as a business enterprise, Home Missions representing the plant and the evangelization of the unchristian world the busi- ness. If the business is to be increased the plant must be enlarged and adequately equipped.” In other words, if today the 3,800 churches in the United Lutheran Church in America are conducting Foreign Missions on an enlarged scale, it is because a large proportion of the 3,800 churches, probably three- fifths, began their existence as home missions and owe their growth into strength to the initial aid and fos- tering care of the Home Mission Enterprise. Just so, Inner Missions and every other benevolent cause in the Church are dependent in large measure for in- creased income and larger success on the planting of new churches, which is accomplished through Home Mission agency. There remain two further observations to be noted. The first one is in connection with the “business” of ITS FOUNDATION 15 Home Missions, a word which has been used in the foregoing paragraphs more than once. The word it- self simply means busy-ness, that which one is dili- gent or industrious about. If it is a secular thing, it is “business” as we commonly understand it; for just as, in the currency of speech, this material world has derived ‘‘wealth” from ‘weal,’ making a man’s wel- fare to consist in his bank account and calling him “wealthy” who is “well to do,” so has the money-mak- ing business world appropriated and almost monopol- ized the word ‘“‘business,” applying it to its own uses and purposes—so much so, that when the Bible de- scribes as “business” a religious enterprise or under- taking, the word seems almost profane, at least irrev- erent and out of place. Nevertheless, the Bible does not hesitate to speak of “the King’s business,” and we hear the youthful Jesus say, “I must be about my Father’s business,” and we read what an apostle wrote: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” The fact of the matter is that God’s business demands and deserves diligence and devotion, including this business of missions. Daniel Crawford, for 22 years a missionary in Africa, used to say that “Christianity is more than ‘let us sing hymn 297.’” The reason why the work of missions, at home and abroad, has lagged and dragged is be- cause in this service of the Lord the spirit of so many of His servants has not been hot with fervor and they have consequently been but slothful in the business. The like sloth in their own business would likewise have kept it small and probably would have wrecked it altogether. ‘Playing at missions” is no meaning- 16 A HOME ENTERPRISE less phrase. When one considers the hundreds of millions of Christians and the almost unlimited re- sources at their command, and then considers the absence of busy-ness on their part when the great cause of missions is concerned, one wonders how they can reconcile their consciences with the vows they have made and the pledges they have given. Nor is this poor dying rate at which the Gospel is made known and the Kingdom is brought in a modern phenomenon. Christian people have been selfish and slothful from the earliest times, and a student of the Bible and of history has gone so far as to say that “it may be what seems the postponement of the final glory of the Church beyond the limits of the period at which it appeared to New Testament writers about to be real- ized, may be due to the backward conduct of the Church, to her slackness in evangelizing the world, and to her want of faith and little readiness for the heavenly state.” Another thing to be noticed is that this business of bringing the Gospel of Christ to men and bringing men into the Kingdom of Christ is, in spite of all hindrances, a going concern. It has gone on from the beginning, but not under its own momentum. To do business you have to do business. You have to make it go. That is why we speak of “running” a business. It will not run itself. You have to get behind it and push it and “run” it. And just so it is with this business of gathering souls into the heav- enly garner. As we learned a while ago, the mis- sionaries themselves were the “‘sent”’ and the mission was the errand on which they went. One has said ITS FOUNDATION 17 that the Gospel itself has “Go” in it, and he adduces the parting command of the ascending Lord. That is so, but undesignedly so. At least it is true that the Lord did say “Go” to His disciples, and He said it more than once. His first recorded words to them, after completing the roll, was a missionary commis- sion in these words: “Go not into the way of the Gen- tiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And His last words, spoken on the very mount of the Ascension, were likewise missionary in their charac- ter and aim. As St. Matthew records them: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.” As St. Mark records them: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation.” And in The Acts St. Luke has this record: “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Certainly, and even literally, the missionary enterprise is a “going concern.” Called and commissioned disciples still go, and the work goes on. Workmen still offer themselves and they are tire- lessly on the go. It is they, along with their supporters, who, under God, make the concern continue to go. And they who go to the work in the homeland are not less true missionaries of the Cross; for the homeland, too, is a part of “all the world.” So we reach the question why we Christians, why we Lutherans, should take an active part in this Home 18 A HOME ENTERPRISE Mission Enterprise. A few reasons are herewith indi- cated, as briefly as possible. 1. Because loyalty to our King and the Captain of our salvation demands it. His command constitutes our duty. To disobey it is to be recreant to duty and unfaithful to Him. 2. Because of the greatness and urgency of the need—as this will later appear in a survey of the field. 3. Because Christ has redeemed the world and has a right to it. He is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe. ‘‘The Gospel of forgiveness is now the Church’s central word, and it is the main- spring of its aggressive work. The Church can only be missionary as it is remissionary. This must always be the mainspring of missions, as it is the marrow of the Gospel. You may always measure the value to yourselves of Christ’s cross by your interest in missions.” 4. Because of the immeasurable value of every human soul, reclaimed from sin and perdition and won to life with God in heaven. 5. Because of the peril of misusing the power of the Holy Spirit which we have received in the gifts of knowledge and faith. They who have must give. They who know and believe the Gospel must go and teach it, or send and support its preachers and teach- ers. Paul said to the elders of the Church of Ephe- sus, “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.” This idea of “keeping back” is most expressive. “Ananias and Sapphira ‘kept back part of the price,’ and we know their fate; Paul ‘kept back nothing,’ and we know with what exultancy he looked forward ITS FOUNDATION 19 to his crown. The goats kept back the bread and water, and they went into everlasting punishment; the sheep kept nothing back, and they entered into life eternal.” 6. Because it is in this way that we become “fel- low-helpers for the truth.” 7. Because of the constraining love of Christ. “Love to Christ is inseparable from love to Christ’s work and Christ’s Kingdom, which embraces the whole human race.” 8 Because we are in this world not simply to hold and enjoy a faith, but to propagate a faith. ‘“‘Chris- tianity is very particularly to be considered as a trust, deposited with us on behalf of mankind, as well as for our own instruction.” ‘Woe be to him that in time of famine has bread, and lets men starve because he will not part with it! Woe be to him that in time of plague has medicine, and lets men die untended! Double woe be to him who has been enlightened of God, and lets men perish because he will not take, by the authority of God, the light that he has received and carry it to them!” 9. Because salvation is through Christ alone. It has been truly said that missionary enterprise is at once wasteful and impertinent if the Christian reli- gion is not necessary to every child of Adam. Paul was familiar with all the civilization, all the culture, all the religious cults of his day, and yet he said, “We are debtors both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians.” He well knew that there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And so we who have the one saving Gospel owe men 20 A HOME ENTERPRISE the Gospel. We owe it to them whether they are richer or poorer than we are or of higher or lower social standing; we owe it to their hunger and thirst of soul which is seldom, if ever, quite lost, so that they cease to be recoverable. 10. Because it is our duty to work as well as to pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Christ has taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” but He has also commanded us to go forth and serve Him with a view to hastening its coming. This is the true motive of Christian missions. Christ’s Kingdom is to come here, to this earth which sin has defiled and on which sinful men dwell, and this was the fact which underlay the missionary command of Christ. “To bring about this consummation is the task of every Christian, so far as his power and opportunity go. It is the great motive of the Christian Church. It is the great motive which animates God and Christ and the Holy Spirit.” QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION 1. What is the object of this book? 2. What is the primary business of the Christian Church? 3. What is the meaning of the word “mission”? Is this meaning found in the Bible? 4, Is the United Lutheran Church pledged to partnership in the missionary enterprise? 5. What is a good definition of Christian missions? What of their “trinity” and unity? 6. Which department of Christian missions was first in the order of time? 7. How does the strengthening of the Church at home conduce to strengthening missions abroad? ITS FOUNDATION 21 . How is the word “business” in connection with missions to be interpreted? . In what sense is the business of missions a “going concern”? 10. Give at least five reasons why Lutheran Christians should take an active part in the Home Mission Enterprise. CHAPTER II ITS FUNCTIONS We have already learned that the missionary enter- prise has its charter in Scripture and that it is the primary business of the Christian Church. It was so at the first, even during the Saviour’s own lifetime, and it shall be so to the very last; for when the Lord gave to His Church the commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, He as- sured His followers whom He thus sent forth that all power had been given to Him in heaven and earth, and He promised them that He would be with them in this undertaking to the end of the world. That means that there will be missions and missionaries to the end of time. In other words, missions is the principal function of the Christian Church, and it is by this means that the Church brings in and establishes the Kingdom of God. Remember that a prime object of our United Lutheran Church, as set forth in its Constitution, is “the extension of the Kingdom of God by Home, For- eign and Inner Missions.” Notice there a distinction, namely, that missions is a function of the Church and not of the Kingdom; missions is an agency of the Church for extending the Kingdom. For the Church of God and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. They are not identical (test it by saying “Thy Church come!” instead of “Thy Kingdom come!’’). 22 ITS FUNCTIONS 23 The Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom in which He bears His holy rule. They who obey and serve the King are subjects or citizens of His Kingdom and know its righteousness and peace and joy. It is the true believers, the members of the so-called ‘‘invisible Church” who are the members of the Kingdom of God. Now it was to establish upon earth the Kingdom of God that the Saviour came. He also came to establish the Church as the institution through which the King- dom of God is to be advanced. “The Kingdom is the end, and the Church is the means to that end.” And the means which the Church employs in extending among men the Kingdom of God is misstons—‘‘Home, Foreign and Inner Missions.” This is the first func- tion of the Church. _ So then we come to the question, What is the func- tion of missions themselves? A singie general answer might be made that the function of all missions— Home, Foreign and Inner—is to carry to the whole world of men the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and its holy Sacraments, in order that by these saving and sanctifying means of grace all mankind might be brought to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus—that He is the only begotten Son of God and man’s only Saviour, that through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit of God all men may become children of God and may pray “Our Father, Who art in heaven; Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The question, however, needs to be answered more in detail, and especially as concerns the function of 24 A HOME ENTERPRISE Home Missions, which is the particular subject of our study. The first function of the Home Mission enterprise is the quest for souls. This function, indeed, it has in common with Foreign Missions and with Inner Mis- sions. It underlies and pervades every other func- tion. It is fundamental. It is truly evangelical. More, it is evangelistic, in the best sense of that term. The work of Home Missions is largely evangelistic in its very nature. The home missionary, entering his field in city or in country, does not go to serve a well- organized, well-ordered congregation, having the habit of assembling for worship and taking a pride in its house of worship and the decorous character of its worship. The most he can hope for is a nucleus of faithful members, and his task at once becomes a spiritual approach to and attack upon the surrounding mass of the cold and careless, the lukewarm and in- different. He is seeking their souls, the salvation of their souls—that first of all; and so he accosts and solicits them personally, visits them in their homes, secures, if he can, their attendance at the services, and then and there he brings to bear on them the Gospel of Christ with true evangelistic fervor and appeal. But all this is done not with the primary purpose to “puild up a church” or “make a success of it,” but from the motive which moved the Saviour Himself in His mission to men—to save lost souls and win them to life with Himself in His Kingdom. Actuated by such a love for souls and for their Saviour, the home missionary performs his arduous task; and this un- selfish aim of his and his patient accomplishment of ITS FUNCTIONS 25 it serves to define and describe his own function and that of the entire Home Mission enterprise. Of course, in the fulfillment of this function the Home Mission authorities use sanctified common sense. The home missionary is not sent where the numbers are few and the need is small. Therefore the Home Mission Boards use a wise discretion and ap- portion or allocate their available supplies of men and means according to the more or less pressing demands, as well as the more or less promising fields. It is true that it is a part of their duty and practice to search out and discover communities which are destitute of the ministrations of the Church and of the true Gos- pel, but in this great and growing country (including Canada, in which our Home Mission operations are carried on) in which no less than half of its 115,000,000 of people are entirely outside the Church of Christ and make no profession of the Christian faith, needy fields fairly jump to meet the eye of the attentive ob- server. Such patent, clamant fields are the suburbs of our great cities and the down-town and run-down sections of the same cities, and their “foreign” dis- tricts as well; wide, unoccupied spaces in the rural sections; the extensive frontier districts of our coun- try and its island possessions; the mining regions and lumber camps, and especially the multiplying and rapidly growing manufacturing cities and towns. To a very large extent the evangelization of these un- churched millions must be entrusted to the Home Mis- sion cause. The Church alone is the chosen agency to do this and Home Missions is the Church’s instru- ment for its accomplishment. 26 A HOME ENTERPRISE A second and related function, therefore, of the Home Mission enterprise, following that of the quest for souls, is to enter new and needy fields and plant and foster churches wherever souls are found in spir- itual want. Notice that it is not said, “Lutheran” souls. Time was when our Lutheran Home Mission enterprise was restricted almost exclusively (and almost necessarily) to the so-called “diaspora,” that is, Lutherans dispersed throughout the land in groups or colonies. But that time has almost passed. Our Church has caught a larger vision of duty and respon- sibility and is better prepared to do her whole duty when opportunity points out the way. It is true that her first duty is to the scattered children of her own household of faith. It begins there, but it does not end there. The mission of the Church is to be mission- ary; her chief business is to save the lost through the Gospel, and the lost millions untouched by the agen- cies of divine grace are recognized as the proper and providential objects of her spiritual care. They form a large and fruitful field, and its cultivation is abso- lutely necessary for the extension of the Kingdom. When our Lord said, “Go, and disciple all the nations,” His words included all the people of all the nations. A home missionary, then, in his quest for souls, has come into such a shepherdless, churchless commun- ity in city, town or country. First he announces his arrival through the usual channels of publicity and makes known the time and place for the church serv- ices. Then he makes a canvass of the neighborhood, beginning with the Lutherans resident there, and known to be there, for he can easily ascertain their ITS FUNCTIONS 27 names and addresses. Just as Saint Paul on his mis- sionary tours was wont to visit the synagogues and seek an entrance for the Gospel among the devout Jews and proselytes there assembled, so the modern missionary will seek to gain a foothold for himself and his mission by recruiting the men and women of his own faith. But then he extends his canvass. He invites to the services and renews, repeatedly renews the invitation. He asks for and persists and at length secures the children of non-churchgoers for the Sun- day school. The work is under way. The Sunday school enrollment increases, the membership list grows. Now it (either one or both) numbers over a hundred. From this time the increase becomes more rapid. And now ancient history repeats itself and the Lord adds to them day by day those that are being saved. The Home Mission enterprise is functioning successfully, and mission pastor and congregation unite in thanksgiving to God. Now it may be that a Home Mission secretary or other salaried executive has taken the preliminary steps and done the pioneer work. If so, he is followed by the missionary pastor. In either case, whether the missionary himself is first on the field and breaks the ground or whether he takes up the work begun by another, he must be furnished—and this is still a third function of the Home Mission enterprise. Pastors of mission churches do not grow out of the ground like grass or grain, neither do they fall down from the clouds like snow and rain. They must be born, grow up, feel called to the ministry of the Word, be educated at college and be prepared at a theological seminary. 28 A HOME ENTERPRISE Then they offer themselves to the Church for service and when examined and approved they are ordained to the office of the holy ministry. Then comes the call to a definite field of labor. Perhaps the church call- ing a pastor is not a mission church. Very well. Then the call may go direct to the available candidate or it may be mediated by and with the good offices of the president of the district synod. But if it is a mission church which is calling a pastor, the call is seldom sent direct. If such a church is located on the terri- tory of a district synod, the president of the synod or a standing committee of the synod will first be con- sulted and then the call will go forward with synod- ical endorsement, after the approval of the appropriate Home Mission Board has first been obtained; for synod or Board (or both) has a financial stake in the mission and is concerned that no mistake in the selec- tion of a pastor be made, such as would cripple or set back the work. If, however, the mission church call- ing a pastor is not yet organized, or rather, if it is not so much a church as a fertile and needy field pre- senting a first-rate opportunity and calling aloud through certain interested individuals for occupation and development, then the call for a minister to come and inaugurate and organize a church at that place may be directed to the synodical officers or to the proper Home Mission Board itself. In any event, first or last, a function of the Home Mission enterprise, allied with that of seeking the salvation of souls and gathering them into a congregation for the adminis- tration and reception of the means of grace, is the function of furnishing ministers to such mission epeueg jo uoluImog oy} UL sjsodjrg UOISSIf[ a SIN VdGVNVO ‘LNIOdNVO LV NOISSIW ‘XVUITVH ‘NOILLOMUUNSAY AO HOUNHSD HUNGARIAN IMMIGRANTS INCOMING IMMIGRANTS A Source of Supply and an Urgent Mission Problem ITS FUNCTIONS 29 churches. Whoever may be the proper officials having the matter in charge, they call to mind and keep in mind suitable consecrated men who have the Spiritual gifts and the natural grit to man a mission station, work hard and endure hardship, in order that there the Word of God may be proclaimed and the Sacra- ments administered, and that there the Kingdom of God may be extended. But this is only a part of this function. The mission authorities are called upon to furnish not only men but also money toward their support and the support of their work. Small and struggling missions must receive pecuniary as well as pastoral aid. In their beginnings they are too weak, their members are too few, to assume the whole financial burden. There is no manna provided for ministers and their clothes wil wear out. And they will marry and have fami- lies, and there are mouths to feed and bodies to clothe and rent to pay—and a minister above all other men must pay his way. Unpaid bills destroy his influence alike in the church and in the community. And then there are the expenses connected with the young con- gregation—a lot to be purchased, a house of worship to be built, furniture to be installed, repairs to be made, light and fuel bills to be paid, not to speak of insurance and the salary of an organist, of a sexton, and many things more. You see, we are touching on the “business” of Home Missions, sure enough, or what might be called the business end of it. Well, what do the Mission Boards or other governing auth- orities do? They do what a capable parent would do to launch his son in business, or what an enterprising 30 A HOME ENTERPRISE firm will do to establish a branch in a new center : they extend financial aid until the mission churches attain sufficient strength to assume their own support. Never mind just now the sources from which their income is derived. 'The money comes in and is appro- priated to the various missions in various amounts according to their various needs. But year by year, as the struggling mission gains its feet and stands more firmly upon them, it leans less heavily on the sustaining Board. Gradually the annual grant is reduced, until at length the glad day comes when the mission church ceases to be a mission and becomes a self-supporting church. Nor does it only now begin to contribute to the aid of new or remaining mission churches. Since its inception and the payment of its first synodical apportionment, it has been nobly and unselfishly assisting in the support of other mission churches like itself. This leads on and over to a fourth function of the Home Mission enterprise. To the quest for souls, the gathering of them into congregations, the furnishing them with pastors and means for maintenance, must be added the extending of needed help to missions in building their churches. This function is exercised by the Board of Home Missions and Church Exten- sion, the particular sphere of Church Extension being defined to be this: “To give such advice and offer such financial assistance to the new congregation as it may require in the erection of a suitable house of worship.” When a mission congregation has been gathered, proper equipment must be provided, and it is the ex- ception to the rule when a mission can procure it un- ITS FUNCTIONS 31 aided. In its last report (1924) the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension stated that 200 con- gregations had been aided in the two years last past, 75 congregations helped with loans for buildings or other property, at an outlay of $283,000. The Church Extension funds now loaned to missions total almost $1,000,000. The Board also reported that 49 missions became self-supporting in the two years, releasing $20,000 for other work. The importance of this fourth and final function can scarcely be overestimated. It is last, but not least. Neither the evangelistic effort out of which the mis- sion is born, nor the presence of a pastor, nor the sustaining arm which upholds the mission in its weak- ness, 18 more necessary than the furnishing of the funds which are essential at the psychological moment of its existence. ‘Whether it ‘sink or swim, survive or perish,’ will depend largely upon securing a spirit- ual home.” Certainly, a new-born child or even an older child has little chance to survive if it has no roof over its head. The waif without house or home may manage to live, but its stature will be stunted and its growth will be slow. But here a difference must be made. A child may be born and grow up in almost any kind of shelter, but a young mission congregation must have a worthier habitation and one more be- fitting its Christian name and nature. Its first quar- ters may be “any old thing’ that offers itself, or comes ready to hand. It may be a room in a private house, a public hall, a lodge room, a garage, any place which will shelter and seat the people. But such a tempo- rary makeshift dare not become or long remain a per- 32 A HOME ENTERPRISE manent arrangement. For two reasons. One is the fact that many of the people who are “prospects” as members of mission congregations are repelled by and refuse to subject themselves to cramped, uncom- fortable, unattractive quarters as a place for assembly and worship. The other is the fact that a meeting place of the character indicated is entirely lacking in religious atmosphere. Its whole appearance acts as a weight on the wings of the soul. The soul finds it difficult to soar aloft to God in sight of that which is unsightly; and because such a nondescript place is a hindrance rather than a help to devotion, it should be replaced as soon as possible by a worthy sanctuary in which the glorious Lord may come into the midst of His people and in which they may be inspired to wor- ship Him in the beauty of holiness. Therefore, the sooner a mission church is provided with a suitable house of worship, the better for it and for all concerned. Such a temple of worship becomes a visible embodiment of invisible truth, its very stones being vocal with a message from Him who is on high, while its spire points to Him in the heavens. “It spiritualizes the material by converting it into a dwelling-place of the Most High, who, though He ‘dwelleth not in temples made with hands,’ yet ac- cepts such as symbols of His presence and makes the house of God a means of communion with His spirit- ual worshipers and a center of influence for Christian- izing the community. The house of God is a silent witness to an invisible presence. It challenges the attention of the community, and constitutes a common rallying place for the religious life of the people.” ; ITS FUNCTIONS 33 The pressing problem which first confronts a new church and its missionary pastor is a house of wor- ship. “A homeless church is a nondescript, which will always be punctuated with a question mark, until it establishes its character and its right to exist by erecting for itself a church home. It is usually the supreme test of its vitality. About 90 per cent. of the churches of all denominations owe their existence to Home Missions and in most cases, other things be- ing equal, owe their success to the securing of a house of worship at the critical period of their career. Their first modest chapel is ordinarily a monument to the Home Mission Committee. Their subsequent magnifi- cent edifice is to the credit of their own sacrifices and spiritual energy.” Now it is this very important work which is done by the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. Indeed, its importance is expressly designated by the addition, in so many words—“and Church Extension.” Many a mission church would-have “died a bornin’,” or shortly after birth, had this Board not come to its aid with funds and provided for it a house of worship and congregational home. And the aid is extended on the most liberal terms. Loans are made for church buildings and lots only upon approved security, and for a stated period of not more than five years, with- out interest. At the expiration of the stated term, such loans automatically bear interest, beginning at 8 per cent. and increasing at the rate of 1 per cent. each year until the legal rate of interest in the State in which the congregation is located shall have been attained. Many and many a self-supporting and pros- 34 A HOME ENTERPRISE perous church today, when it looks, materially speak- ing, to the rock from which it was hewn, looks to the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, from which flowed the funds which were essential to its establishment. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION . Distinguish between the Church of God and the Kingdom of God. . What is the relation of missions to the Church and the Kingdom? . What is the function of missions themselves? . What is the first function of the Home Mission Enterprise? . In fulfilling this function what discretion must be exercised in entering a field? . What is the second function? . How does a home missionary go about his work in a new field? . What is the third function and how is it discharged? . Describe an additional feature of this function. . What is the fourth function? . What is the importance of this fourth function? . How is the problem of a church building solved? . On what liberal terms is Church Extension aid extended? CHAPTER III ITS FIELDS The field of this Home Enterprise is so vast that one must open wide one’s eyes and one’s mind to take it all in. Indeed, to get anything like an intelligent view of it, one must divide it into separate fields and consider its several parts. Then one may group to- gether the constituent parts (as children fit together the pieces of a puzzle) and obtain a complete map or picture. But be it remembered at all times that if the field is so vast the opportunities it affords are equally vast, not to speak of duties and responsibili- ties. Almost immeasurable in its extent, appalling ‘and appealing in its religious need, it presents to the Church a tremendous problem and a stupendous task. The Church is challenged to solve the problem and perform the task. In territorial extent the field comprises the United States and Canada. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It embraces a geographical area of 7,336,000 square miles, stretching all the way from the semi-tropical West Indies to the frigid zone of the Arctic Circle. This immense territory is almost equally divided between the two great nations of the North American Continent. In point of numbers the population of this far-flung 35 36 A HOME ENTERPRISE field is equally impressive, even overwhelming. After all, it is this—and not the immensity of the territory and its material resources—which is of special im- portance and concern to Christians and the Christian Church. Here, in round numbers, are 125,000,000 souls, 116,000,000 in the United States and 9,000,000 in Canada. For these many millions Christ also died and has obtained for them everlasting salvation. But it is a sad and startling fact, when we consider the year of our Lord in which we live and our boasted Christian civilization, that in our own country nearly 60,000,000 people, and in Canada probably 5,000,000 people are outside the Church of Christ and are, to all intents and purposes, religiously destitute. They are rightly said to be “in a state of spiritual illiteracy and religious destitution well nigh as desperate as the millions in the gloom of pagan night.” Never before in the history of either nation has there been greater need or a louder call than today for the enlarging of the Home Mission enterprise in its efforts to save the souls of men and extend the Kingdom of God. And when we remember that apart from the general need there are millions with Lutheran antecedents and pre- vious church affiliation who are scattered abroad in these two countries, churchless and shepherdless, we will begin to realize that there is presented to our Church an imperative challenge to come to their res- cue and bring to them the ministration of the means of grace. But even the figures already given do not tell the whole story. Reliable statistics tell us that there are in the United States 27,275,000 young people, nomi- ITS FIELDS 37 nally Protestant, under 25 years of age, who are not enrolled in any Sunday school or connected with any organization giving religious instruction. These con- stitute 66 per cent. of the youth of the nation. Of these 8,000,000 are growing up in non-church homes. In New York State their number is 3,500,000; in Penn- sylvania, 2,800,000; in Illinois, 2,000,000; in Ohio, 1,700,000, and more than a million each in the States of Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, and Texas. Not only is the rising generation without God and without hope in the world, but they constitute a serious men- ace to the security and stability of our nation; for godlessness is lawlessness, and no nation can long en- dure without the fear and faith of the righteous Lord of lords who rules over all the peoples of the earth from His throne in the heavens. Indeed, the Chris- tianization of the nation has in view the patriotic aim and end as more than a mere by-product. Our national existence is at stake and its preservation and perpetu- ation may almost be said to form a fifth function of the Home Mission enterprise. The value of the work done by the Home Mission Boards in furnishing good citizens for the State can scarcely be overestimated. “They have followed with the Gospel our shifting and constantly migrating populations from the old settle- ment to the new, and from the country and small town to the city, and kept them Christian. Yea, more, this agency has gathered the wandering multitudes that have come from distant lands to our shores into its schools and churches, and has saved them not only for the Church but for the State as well. Home Missions, then, and patriotism are joined hand in hand for the 38 A HOME ENTERPRISE salvation of the State. Save America and you save the world, for the nations of the world are here!” These millions of men, women and children, form- ing practically one-half of our population, very largely constitute our Home Mission problem. The man of little faith will be fairly staggered by the figures and factors which enter into it. Only a mountain-removing faith can courageously face the issue and accom- plish the task—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who said, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and disciple all the nations—and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Without Him the Church can do nothing; the enterprise is doomed to certain failure. With Him—inspired and sustained by His mighty Spirit— His own omnipotent power is released and applied, foes are vanquished, difficulties are overcome, con- quest is made and His heavenly Kingdom comes. But the faith must be the faith which works by love, the faith whose good works prove it to be alive and real. Given such a divine and kingly Christ, given His mis- sionary promise and command, and given a faithful Church claiming His promise and obedient to His command, then its Home Mission enterprise is His enterprise and His will be the victory in spite of hos- tile hosts and the gates of hell. In a later chapter we shall learn of the Forces which are directing and conducting this Home Enterprise, but just here it becomes necessary to anticipate that subject somewhat. The field is so enormous and diver- sified, spread out over so vast an area and presenting such a variety of needs, that the United Lutheran ITS FIELDS 39 Church has wisely divided it into departments and assigned to each division its proper administrative Board. These Home Mission Boards, as at present constituted, are the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, the Northwestern Mission Board, the Immigrants Mission Board, the West Indies Mis- sion Board, and the Committee on Jewish Missions. In the case of the first named board, the Board of Home Mission and Church Extension, the territory has been divided, for the sake of convenience, into four districts, each having a General Superintendent —the Eastern District, the Southern District, the Cen- tral District, and the Western District. A survey of these districts now claims our attention. BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS AND CHURCH EXTENSION. Eastern District. This district comprises the synods and States bor- dering on the Atlantic Ocean, lying north of Mason and Dixon’s Line, extending as far west as the Great Lakes and the Ohio River and as far north as Nova Scotia and the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada. In this territory was laid the foundation of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Here were organized the Mother Synod, the Ministerium of Penn- sylvania in 1748, and the Ministerium of New York in 1786. Here Lutherans first colonized and organ- ized into congregations and synods; here they began their first missionary operations, founded their first educational institutions and institutions of minister- ing mercy. It might be supposed, therefore, that 40 A HOME ENTERPRISE after all these years of occupancy the Home Mission field would be so thoroughly cultivated as to present no need for further activity and effort. But such a supposition would be very wide of the mark. The field is there and the need is there, and they are there for especially two reasons. One reason connects itself with the fact that in this district are located some of the most populous cities in the country—and the trend of population is to the cities—cities like Greater New York, Greater Philadelphia, Greater Boston, Greater Pittsburgh, and cities like Buffalo and Rochester in New York, Erie and Altoona in Pennsylvania, Newark and Tren- ton in New Jersey; Springfield, Massachusetts; Provi- dence, Rhode Island; Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in Canada cities like Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal. There is, it is true, a rural problem, and the smaller towns have needs of their own, but the neediest needs are to be found in the great and growing cities. This is created, as has been indicated, by the influx of large numbers from the rural districts and villages and towns, many of them Lutherans, who must be sought out and cared for. A second reason is found in the fact that the incoming multitudes crowd together until there is formed in the cities a congested district, whereupon relief is found by an exodus to the suburbs, which widen out into the open country as the city expands. And if a third reason be asked for, the answer is that the inflow of a steady and strong stream of immigrants constitutes a distinctive mission field and calls for due provision of its own. ITS FIELDS 41 To illustrate. Co-operating with the Home Mission Board and its District Superintendents are Synodical Boards or Committees, some of which have their own Missionary Superintendent. Well, recently the Mis- sionary Superintendent of the Synod of New York and New England, and of the Synod of New York, stood in the tower of the sky-scraping Woolworth Building in the city of New York, and this is what he reports. ‘‘With the aid of a telescope I beheld the city and its suburbs for a distance of more than 25 miles, covering an area containing one-twelfth of the total population of the United States. To the north I saw beautiful Westchester County, with its four cities, forty towns and villages; to the east Brooklyn and Long Island with their teeming millions; to the south and west New Jersey with its hundreds of cities and towns. I was beholding the greatest mis- sion field in all the world. Hither have come all the nations of the earth, like unto Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Greater New York has 4,300,000 for- eigners and 1,500,000 native born. Thousands of these are of Lutheran tradition and extraction. In this great field alone there are approximately 600,000 Lutherans, 450,000 of whom are without church con- nection. Before descending I took one sweep of the horizon and there came to me the Master’s words, ‘Behold the fields; they are white already unto the harvest. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the la- borers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.’ ” That prayer is being made and it is being answered. 42 A HOME ENTERPRISE Our mission agencies in and around New York are admirably active (although they say, “We have but scratched the surface’) and their work is being abun- dantly blessed. To give but a single instance. “A year ago we started work in the village of Queens, Long Island. On December 31, 1923, we organized a congregation of sixty charter members. During the winter we worshiped in a little 20 x 24-foot two-car garage. To heat it, the men and women brought their kerosene stoves. The cars were shoved out on the runway, an old crex rug covered the oily floor, and the children had to be sent home after Sunday school because there was not sufficient room for parents and children. On January 17, 1924, we bought a beautiful corner lot, 100 x 100 feet, for $5,750. On February 17, we laid the cornerstone. On Easter Sunday over 200 people crowded into the little chapel crying, ‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.’ ” Nor is this all the field or all the need. The matter of immigration was touched on a minute ago and was cited as a third reason why this Eastern District should continue as a needy mission field after so long a period of occupation. Perhaps this phase of the Subject belongs more properly to the province of the Immigrants Mission Board, but a brief glance at it just here will not be out of place. The field now before us is New England, the land of the Pilgrim Fathers, of leadership in education and culture. But a great change has taken place in New England dur- ing the last fifty years. The Puritan stock is dying out and a new racial stock is populating the land of Y i it , 4 : bs : Fe is ITS FIELDS 43 authors and educators and legislators. What is espe- cially notable, from the Lutheran point of view, is that at least nine racial brands or strands of Luther- ans are represented—70,000 Swedes, nearly all of Lutheran extraction; 70,000 Germans, probably two- thirds Lutheran; 14,000 Finns, 98 per cent. Lutheran; 8,000 Norwegians and 7,500 Danes, 95 per cent. Luth- eran, and some thousands of Letts, Lithuanians and Icelanders, nearly all Lutheran. In all the New Eng- land cities named in the second paragraph of this section there is a strong Lutheran population, which is predominantly Scandinavian and German and which is Anglicizing or Americanizing with amazing rapid- ity. Other Lutheran general bodies are actively at work in this field, but the United Lutheran Church has scarcely made a beginning. Out of this foreign- born population of nearly 200,000 people of Lutheran lineage, only about 45,000 have found their way into the 200 Lutheran churches in New England. Other Protestant bodies see here an inviting field. But the Lutheran Church is in a position to do more effective work in New England than all the other Protestant Churches taken together. “It already preaches the Gospel in nine languages and can serve multitudes which others cannot reach. But if, after most of this immigration has been left untouched for a decade or more, it fails to take the children into account (alto- gether there are 3,300,000 people unchurched and 2,360,000 children and youth not in the Sunday schools), what else can be expected but a race of Americans, once Lutheran, who have practically be- come pagans.” 44 A HOME ENTERPRISE Certainly the Eastern District remains a needy mis- _ sion field; and the field and the need extend all the way up to Canada. “The establishment of great manu- facturing plants with United States capital and the immigration of tens of thousands of American skilled laborers and their families to the Dominion justify the strong statement that Canada must be cared for in a way that will be in accord with the needs of the Church of the future in the land which lies immedi- ately adjacent and has so much in common with the United States. To their Macedonian cry we must give favorable response.” At present (1924) 124 mission churches in this district receive appropriations from the Board, in the amount of $66,000. These figures could easily be multiplied by five, or even ten, if the additional men and means were available. Southern District. This district embraces the synods and States south of Mason and Dixon’s Line, bordering on the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and lying east of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, plus the States of Louisi- ana and Texas, which lie to the west of the Father of Waters. In the vast State of Texas, however, only the English Home Mission work belongs to the South- ern District of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, the German and German-English mission work being in charge of the Northwestern Mission Board. Just here it may be said that the small Texas Synod is prosecuting the work of missions on its own territory valiantly and vigorously. Similar ITS FIELDS 45 recognition should be given to the United North Caro- lina Synod, which has raised a large Home Mission endowment fund and supports two Field Missionaries, one in the western and the other in the eastern part of the State. The Synod of Virginia employs a Synod- ical Superintendent, and even the relatively small Georgia Synod has a Home Mission executive in the field. The Southern District presents a vast and necessi- tous mission field. It is true that Lutherans were on the ground and even organized into congregations as long ago as 1717 and 17 37, but the growth through the years has been slow and the increase small. Several causes operated to this end. For one thing, the coun- try was settled mainly by non-Lutherans and the rela- tively few Lutherans have had a hard struggle not to be crowded out or absorbed by the surrounding mil- lions of other persuasions. For another thing, the presence of slave labor in the Old South (which was mainly agricultural) presented a bar to the entrance of immigrants with little capital, who were obliged to work with their own hands and found their social and economic environment uncongenial—just as today, even in the “new” or “industria]”’ South, the employ- _ ment in large numbers of negro laborers and mechanics _militates against the coming of many white immi- grants. For a third thing, those pioneer Lutherans found themselves in widely separated communities and faced the very real difficulty of inter-communi- cation and co-operation. Add the blow sustained by _the South in the outcome of the Civil War, which laid and long left the churches and church members finan- 46 A HOME ENTERPRISE cially prostrate, and it will be understood why today the numerical strength of the Lutherans in the South formerly connected with the United Synod in the South is a little less than 60,000. Now, distribute 60,000 or even 100,000 Lutherans over this district, which covers an area equal to that of the New England and Middle Atlantic States, and it will easily be seen that in many sections of the South a Lutheran is at once a “rare bird” and a “fish out of water.” As for a Lutheran church, that is rarer still, for the churches exist mostly in spots or groups, here, there and yonder, with long distances between. For example, if you draw a line 375 miles long through Middle Tennessee, east to west, from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippi, and then from each end draw a line 425 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico, you will inclose a Lutheran desert in which the United Lutheran Church is not repre- sented by a single church or mission. At the upper end stands the mission church at Chattanooga, Ten- nessee, and at the lower end stands the mission church at Birmingham, Alabama, but between these two out- posts, in a territory which contains the Muscle Shoals property, the fertile valleys of the Tennessee and Mis- sissippi Rivers and the port of New Orleans (the sec- ond largest in America) with its population of nearly 400,000, the United Lutheran Church is simply not onthe map. We have not a single church in the whole State of Louisiana, none in western Georgia, one in western Florida, two in Alabama, two in southern Tennessee, and fourteen small congregations with less than 400 communicant members in Mississippi. ITS FIELDS AT But the need to plant home missions in the South is more than spatial: it is also personal and, so to say, numerical. The entire South has a population of about 36,000,000, of whom only 14,000,000 are in the churches. Of the population of the South 9,000,000 are negroes, of whom but 4,000,000 are members of the Church. As was said, this district is unlike the three other districts, in that it has not received a tide of immigration, and it, therefore, represents the most distinctively American section of both our Church and country. In the absence of peoples of Lutheran ante- cedents, it may be called virgin soil in which to plant the evangelical truth as held and taught by us. It offers the opportunity for real Home Mission work. “It opens the possibility not only of gathering in and con- Serving the scattered members of our own household of faith, but of propagating the faith of the house- hold. It presents the privilege of saving through our faith and of adding to our household people who have no faith and do not belong to any household.” It affords our Church the occasion of approving itself as a true Church of Christ. As Dr. H. E. Jacobs has truly said, “The Lutheran Church in America has more to do than merely to care for the descendants of former Lutherans. By placing such limitations upon its responsibilities it forfeits its character as a Church.” At the same time, in the new industria] South many of our people are leaving the farms and villages and are flocking to the cities and manufactur- ing centers. One who knows whereof he speaks declares that in every city of the South having a popu- lation of 10,000, there are enough Lutherans to justify 48 A HOME ENTERPRISE a mission, and that there yet remain in the Southern District, unoccupied, 39 such cities of 10,000 and up- wards of population. Progress, it is true, is being made, but at a rate which falls far short of the urgency of the need. When the present Board of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension took over the work in 1919, there were in the Southern District 42 missions. This number has been increased to 77, and meanwhile 21 have become self-sustaining. But not 77 but sev- enty times seven would scarcely be an exaggeration if all the demands were to be met—from Maryland down to Florida and from Florida over to and into Texas. There are several features peculiar to this Southern District which call for special remark and emphasis. One is the evangelizing of the 5,000,000 unchurched negroes. The Missouri Synod and the Joint Synod of Ohio are conducting work among them and with a measure of success. Our United Lutheran Church has done nothing definite as yet, but steps are being taken which will doubtless lead to a beginning of the work. We cannot ignore the call to evangelize the negro any more than we can fail to take the Gospel to the native of Africa or the Islands of the Sea. “Until we begin to do mission work among the ne- groes,” said one of our ministers, himself a home mis- sionary and a Southerner to the core, “our Home Mission work will not be an unqualified success. The negroes have need of the Gospel. The Lutheran Church has the Gospel in the purest and _ simplest form. We have an obligation to teach this Gospel to the negroes and we cannot hope for God’s richest ITS FIELDS 49 and fullest blessing upon our work until we obey Him and teach it to them.” A second feature is the presence in this field of the mountain people who are needy in every way. The mountains—the Appalachian Range—extend parallel with the Atlantic Coast from Pennsylvania to Georgia, a distance of 500 miles and branch out in places 300 miles in width. The population of this section is given as upwards of 5,000,000, of which 88 per cent. is white. They are of good old American stock, descend- ants of original settlers and pioneers, but many of them, because of isolation and poverty of the soil, have become ‘“‘poor” in every sense of the word. Many of them are Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians, and those churches are doing religious and educational work among them, but there are perhaps a million of these cabin people who are living in real neglect. Into this Home Mission field the United Lutheran Church, as such, has not yet entered. But the Inner Mission Board, in co-operation with the Women’s Mis- sionary Society, has made a beginning of work of this character by establishing a day school in Currin Valley, near Marion, Virginia, and plans have been made for a school near Konnarock, Virginia, the Women’s Missionary Society providing funds for the erection of the building and the maintenance of the school. A successful work is also being done in Wa- tauga County, North Carolina, the woman worker being supported by the same Society. This is genuine Home Mission work, and it is hoped that it is but the beginning of an important new enterprise of the United Lutheran Church. 50 A HOME ENTERPRISE The third feature is the presence in this field of com- munities of “mill people.” The greatest industrial establishments in the South are those given to the manufacture of cotton goods. The employees of these textile mills live in villages adjacent to the manufac- turing plants. The villages are owned and maintained by the owners and operators of the mills. The oper- atives offer one of the greatest fields for Home Mis- sions anywhere in the land. The villages and mill communities are found chiefly in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Many mill operatives are ignorant both of letters and religion. A noble Lutheran minister who labored successfully in such a village once declared: “The children of these people are as ignorant of the simplest religious truth as any heathen could be.” But their very destitution constitutes a loud call to the Church—a twofold call, for evangelization and for education. With the will- ing assistance of the mill Owners, community centers are established in which Christian teachers teach and train all who apply for instruction. Not seldom a lot for a church is donated and other financial aid is given. A beginning has been made by our Church in this kind of Home Mission work with gratifying re- sults. No greater call comes to it and to us to care for our own and for others otherwise unprovided for, than the call of the mill villages of the South. Still a fourth feature is the presence on this field of two States which call for special mention. One is the great State of Florida—egreat in size, about 150 miles wide and 500 miles long ; great in growth, its crops in twenty years having increased in value 280 ITS FIELDS 51 per cent. and its bank deposits from $10,000,000 to $187,000,000. Its trucking and citrous industries are immense. As for oranges, it is declared that if all the oranges raised in a single year in Florida were put in box cars, the engine of such a freight train would be in Philadelphia and the caboose would still be in Jacksonville, and this train would bring five times as much money as the United States paid Spain for the whole State in 1820. Now, the growing and handling of all these crops and products, with the business pertaining thereto, means necessarily a cor- responding increase in population. That is the fact. The 60,000 Floridians in 1820 have become 1,000,000 in 1924. They have come from all the States in the Union—many of them from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, where the Lutheran Church is strong. And still they come, busi- ness men and women in the cities, farmers and plant- ers on the land, winter tourists by the thousands, at- tracted by the climate and the country, but all of them, whether colonists or transients, in need of the spirit- ual ministrations of the Church. To meet this need our United Lutheran Church has thus far established but five mission churches. The youngest mission con- gregation was organized in the oldest city in the United States, in St. Augustine, in December, 1924, with about twenty charter members. Other places are asking for services and churches. The need is pressing. If we delay, others will take our people— and our crown. Meanwhile, of its million of popu- lation, barely 325,000 are in the churches, leaving over 600,000 unchurched. 52 A HOME ENTERPRISE The other great State on this field calling for special remark is the State of Texas. A better name for it than “The Lone Star State” is “The Empire State of the South.” It is the biggest State in the Union. The land area covers 263,398 square miles. It is twice as large as all the New England States, plus Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey and Delaware. One can travel 24 hours in the State on a fast train in a more or less straight line without crossing its vast stretch of territory. It is unrivaled in area, in diversity of climate and crops—from the corn and grain of north- ern Texas to the cotton and citrous fruits of southern Texas—and in undeveloped resources, such as its pro- duction of oil, which amounted in 1920 to over 100,- 000,000 barrels. Texas has 253 counties. It has four cities with a population of over 100,000, six cities with 30,000 to 80,000, and 110 cities and towns whose population is between 3,000 and 30,000. The total population of the State is 4,500,000, and it is capable of sustaining a population of 100,000,000. All the States of the Union are represented in its population and dozens of other nationalities. There are 31,000 Germans, 13,000 Slovaks and 4,500 Swedes in the State—abundant Lutheran material. Then there are thousands of children of the second generation who are rapidly undergoing Americanization, whose language is the English and whose preference and demand are for the church service in English. Thus there is need, especi- ally in the cities and in their neighborhood, for Eng- lish Home Mission work. This need is more clearly realized when it is known that there are 180,000 un- ITS FIELDS 53 churched Lutherans in the State and only 40,000 con- firmed Lutherans enrolled in all the Lutheran churches combined, that is, in the churches of the Missouri Synod, the Iowa Synod, the Joint Synod of Ohio, and the Texas Synod. Reference has already been made to the Texas Sy- nod of the United Lutheran Church in America and mention has been made of its praiseworthy mission- ary zeal. This small synod of but 15 pastors, 23 con- gregations and less than 3,000 communicant members, is laboring heroically at its missionary task, and, al- though its own task is German or German-English, the call for advance in purely English work has come from the Texas Synod itself. Nobody could be more ardent in its desire to see the many growing cities occupied. Thus far the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, limited as it is as to men and means, has been able to plant but two missions, in the large and influential cities of Houston and Dallas, with San Antonio as the next point of attack. But the Home Mission problem in Texas is one of momen- tous importance. The race is on between the Church, with its Home Mission forces, and paganism, with its worldly and ungodly ideals. For of the 4,500,000 of population, only 1,800,000 are in the churches, leaving almost 3,500,000 without the sanctions and restraints of religion, let alone the salvation of their immortal souls. To these millions of the unchurched the Lutheran Church also owes a duty in the Lord. A Baptist pastor of Houston was asked: “Ts this a strong Baptist community?” “Not necessarily,” was the reply, “but we expect to make it such.” The time ib 54 A HOME ENTERPRISE has come when Lutherans must have more faith in their faith, more diligence in their work, more con- secration in their life. Texas will not be captured for Christ and His Kingdom, nor will any other region or population, unless and until churchmen realize their responsibility and appreciate their privileges and opportunities as disciples and stewards of their ex- alted Lord. Central District. This district is characterized by immense distances, peremptory needs, and superabundant opportunities. Nothing short of superlatives suffice to describe the situation. From a Home Mission point of view it is almost overwhelming. The Central District comprises that great tier of States, with their synods, stretching from Ohio on the east to Montana on the west, and from Oklahoma on the south across the international boundary to and into Canada on the north. Here are many of the great and greater cities of the land— Detroit and Grand Rapids in Michigan; Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati in Ohio; then In- dianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, St. Louis, Kansas City and Okla- homa City. Here, too, in the broad and fertile fields lying between the Ohio River and the Rocky Moun- tains, between the Arctic Circle and the Rio Grande, is the great granary of the world. Into this rich and inviting territory in the last half of the past century poured a wide stream of immigration, for the most part from the Lutheran countries of Europe ~ —Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, Danes. To provide for their spiritual needs the Augustana ITS FIELDS 55 Synod, the Missouri Synod, the Icelandic and Danish Synods, and the Synods of Ohio and Iowa, and last but not least, the Norwegian Lutheran Church, en- tered the field and they have done hard work and good work. All these Lutheran bodies have “labored, served and sacrificed to gather in and minister to their pioneer people. Their early missionary minis- ters have endured hardships, suffered privations and in many cases laid down their lives for the love of Christ, of His truth and of their people. The stories of their labors, their zeal, their heroism and martyr- dom would make reading more thrilling than the annals of the mid-west circuit riders or the exploring Catholic fathers.” But a remarkable change is taking place in that vast western region and one with which the Church, in mapping out its Home Mission program, must speedily reckon. The change does not consist in a change of faith, for Lutheranism still predominates in the life of that great area. In most of the cities named above the Lutheran Church is the strongest Protestant denomination and, in a number of them, stronger than all the others combined. In city and in country the people are professedly Lutheran and in their aggregate represent a majoriy of all the Lutherans in the United States. This is the Lutheran territory of North America. The change itself which is taking place is twofold. One feature of it is the movement of the population to the cities. Westward the course of another empire is taking its way—the Empire of Industry—and this means an exodus from the open country to the cities and towns. In 1910 56 A HOME ENTERPRISE almost 75 per cent. of the population of the Central States were found in the country. In 1920, ten years later, such was the movement cityward that the rural and urban population was equally divided. The other feature of the change is not less remarkable than natural. It is the Anglicizing or Americanizing of the children of the original immigrants. Many thou- sands of young Lutherans are leaving the rural com- munities and their home church, in which the service was (and is) conducted in a foreign tongue and are domiciling themselves in the cities. These enterpris- ing sons and daughters of the sturdy Lutheran races must have the Gospel in the language which they can understand or they will be lost to their Mother Church and the very truth of the evangel which she proclaims will be lost to them—indeed, such deplorable loss has already been sustained in the case of hosts of our young people. Ours has been a country Church; now it must meet the challenge of the city. Here is the pressing, peremptory need. If the Church fails to meet it, Lutheranism will certainly fail to dominate the life of the Middle West. Only an aggressive mis- Slonary policy will serve to satisfy the need and solve the problem. And this must be forthcoming mainly from the United Lutheran Church and its Board of Home Missions, which is doing, or ought to be doing, the English work in this district. Other Lutheran synods are laboring in their own fields, and the respon- sibility to shoulder its task and do its own part in the work rests upon the entire United Lutheran Church in America. To evade this responsibility will be to merit the bitter curse upon Meroz and upon the in- ITS FIELDS 57 habitants thereof, “Because they came not to the help of the Lord, To the help of the Lord against the mighty.” It is true that the Board is at work in this field in the measure of its resources, but they fall woefully short of the demands in the case. Every available man and every available dollar could be profitably used by the Board in the extension of the Kingdom in this Central District alone. As matters stand, 116 mission parishes are receiving aid in the sum of al- most $100,000. As to the Field Force: “Four of the synods are served by Synodical Superintendents; in three synods full-time Presidents supervise mission work. Eleven Field Missionaries are exploring new fields and doing pioneer work for the Church. More than 100 missionaries with intense zeal and true con- secration are carrying the standards of the Church to new battle-fronts. The percentage of increase in the confirmed membership of this territory averages 24.5 per cent.—an eloquent testimony to the missionary Spirit of our mission pastors.” In truth, the zealous and self-sacrificing missionaries and the active co- operating synods are worthy of all praise. And yet only the edges of this vast field have been touched. There are many cities having a population of thousands of people without English Lutheran serv- ices. Michigan alone has a Lutheran population of 630,000 people and a confirmed membership of but 123,000. The Northern Peninsula of Michigan, with a score of cities having a population ranging from 5,000 to 15,000, is an unknown land to the United Lutheran Church. In the great State of Montana two 58 A HOME ENTERPRISE lone missionaries of our Church are holding the field and eagerly awaiting reinforcements. Oklahoma, with its rapidly growing cities, has but two English United Lutheran churches. One-half of the Lutherans in the Northwest are unchurched. Here the sects are busiest and the most successful in proselyting. In 47 of the 102 counties of Illinois, in which are included five cities of over 20,000 each, there is no United Luth- eran Church. The State of Missouri, with 115 counties, has no United Lutheran church in 106 of these, although in all this territory is to be found a large percentage of people of Lutheran ancestry—Germans, Scandina- vians and native-born Americans. In the great in- dustrial centers, in the neglected rural communities, in the lumber camps of the North and the irrigation farms of the West, the unchurched multitudes present an opportunity which comes as a challenge to test the faith and courage of the Lutheran Church of America. Truly it is a field of urgent need. A field mission- ary reports a territory of 100 square miles without a single church of any kind. It is true, this territory is sparsely settled, but the Government has thought it worth while to erect a school building every four miles. Should the Church do less for the souls of these scattered pioneers? In Northern Minnesota there is a section 60 miles square without a Christian church. There had not been seen a preacher or priest on the territory in ten years. A Christian teacher found 30 unbaptized children in her school, of course entirely ignorant of the Bible. And the field is not only needy, it is ripe for the reaper. In a single city, Lincoln, Nebraska, in six weeks a parish worker, a ITS FIELDS 59 pastor not being available, gathered 155 children into a Sunday school. The fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few. Western District. This is a field of prodigious proportions. It is a vast territory with abundant opportunities for ex- tended Home Mission operations. The Western Dis- trict comprises the California, Pacific and Rocky Mountain Synods and its field includes ten States of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast Region, to- gether with British Columbia and Alaska on the north and El Paso, Texas, on the south, the whole covering in round numbers, 2,000,000 square miles, with a population of over 10,000,000. This territory repre- sents more than one-third the area of the United States. It takes the District Superintendent three days and three nights to travel the length of his ter- ritory (without considering Alaska) and two days and two nights to travel the breadth thereof. He must travel two days in going from one synod to the next nearest synod. When the Rocky Mountain Synod re- cently met in Denver, Colorado, the pastor and lay delegate from the church in El Paso, Texas, were pres- ent, having traveled a distance of 784 miles. A mis- sionary superintendent for six months cared for the mission in Caspar, Wyoming, and at the same time was endeavoring to revive the work in Gypsum, Color- ado, 678 miles away. These figures will give some idea of the distances to be traversed as well as of one of the difficulties encountered in carrying on the work. 60 A HOME ENTERPRISE Of the synods forming this district two are on the coast and one is in the mountains, and each is separ- ated from the other, as was said, by a couple of days of travel, and that through territory which our Church has not yet entered and which in many places is ripe to the harvest—wide gaps which need to be bridged. On the north is the Pacific Synod, which operates in Washington and Oregon, British Columbia and Alaska. Washington has 400,000 Lutherans out of a popula- tion of over a million. Among these the United Luth- eran Church has eleven churches. In this State is Seattle and in Seattle is the Pacific Theological Semi- nary, a veritable godsend to this district, for in this institution are prepared native sons for the Gospel ministry, who minister in their own land to their own people. In Oregon there are seven congregations. In far Northwestern British Columbia a substantial con- gregation has been organized at Prince Rupert. The great prairie provinces of the Canadian West, with their fertile fields and swiftly growing cities, are attracting rapidly increasing numbers of Lutheran settlers, who are calling for Lutheran missionaries and pastors. In Alaska the first mission stake has been driven at Juneau, a town of 5,000, with over half of the Protestant population Lutheran. At another place sixty have signed a petition for an English Lutheran congregation and call for a pastor. Other towns vis- ited have been found ready for Lutheran occupancy. Coming south, the California Synod is found to be bi-focal, having two centers, one in the San Francisco Bay region, the other in Los Angeles (it is 1,300 miles from Los Angeles to Seattle, as far as from Wash- ST. JOHN’S, OSHKOSH WIS. ete? REFORMATION, MILWAUKEE, WIS. SAAN ath ih m1 Sa MOTHER CHURCH IN WISCONSIN Wisconsin Fruitage of Missionary Enterprise ST. JOHN’S, RICHMOND HILL, N. Y. Fruit of New York State Mission Work ITS FIELDS 61 ington, D. C., to Omaha, Neb.). The synodical ter- ritory embraces the States of California and Arizona. California alone has an area of 155,000 square miles, nearly as large as the whole of New England with the States of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania added. The population of the territory of the Cali- fornia Synod is 3,700,000, of whom 2,180,000 are not connected with any church and are not directly under Christian influence. The demand for the evangeliza- tion of this imperial State, with its 750 miles of coast line facing the pagan Orient, has never been more urgent, nor the opportunity more favorable. On the Eastern Slope of the Great Divide the young, vigorous but numerically small Rocky Mountain Synod plans eagerly to occupy a great territory of promise and importance to future American Lutheranism. This synod lists 14 pastors, 18 congregations and 1900 confirmed members. The congregations are strung along a line of 1,100 miles in length, as far as from New York City to Florida, and are to be found in the States of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyom- ing. In short, the Rocky Mountain Synod is a “hair- line” stretching almost the entire width (north and south) of the United States, making the work doubly difficult and rendering impossible that stimulus of contact and conference, leading to co-operation, found between the churches and pastors of more compact bodies. It remains to be said that these three synods, two of which were organized in 1891 and the other in 1901, present a total of 82 congregations and that every one of these, with the exception of two, has been the direct 62 A HOME ENTERPRISE result of Home Mission endeavor, out of which have come in the thirty-three years, thirty self-supporting congregations, while fifty-two are still on the funds of the Board. Thus this work is almost wholly the fruitage of Home Mission enterprise, and it presents strong testimony to the vital importance of that cause and of its exceeding great value not only in extend- ing the borders of the Church but also in promoting its greater efficiency in prosecuting its sacred task. At present six Field Missionaries and fifty-one Pas- tors are conducting the work of the United Lutheran Church in this district, under the direction of the three Synodical Boards and the District Superintendent. It is an immense field and it presents peculiar difficulties, such as the migratory character of the population and its addiction to materialism, to pleasure and to all the fads and isms which afflict mankind. But, given the men and the means, God’s sure promise will be ful- filled and these difficulties will be overcome. Mean- while the need is urgent and great. In Arizona we have but one congregation and but one in New Mexico, while there is not even one in Idaho, Nevada or Utah, and Wyoming has but two. In this district there are thirty-one cities of 10,000 population and upwards, which have no English Lutheran church; and it has been estimated that the entire Lutheran force at work in this field has not gotten into its congregations more than about 6 per cent. of the Lutheran material. Yet the field lies ready and ripe to the hand of the reaper. The opportunity is present and abundant, as witness the recent experience of a field missionary who in 500 consecutive calls found fifty Lutheran ITS FIELDS 63 families. The call upon the whole Church is, “Let us go up and possess the land, for we are well able.” QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION . What is the territorial extent of our Home Mission field? 2. What is its population? 3. How is the work of Home Missions allied with the cause of patriotism? 4, Name the five Home Mission Boards of the United Lutheran Church? . 5. Into what four districts is the field of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension divided? . Discuss the Eastern District—its field and its need. . Discuss the Southern District—its field and its need. . Discuss the Central District—its field and its need. . Discuss the Western District—its field and its need. — © Oo ~1 5 CHAPTER IV. ITS FIELDS. (CONCLUDED) The preceding chapter dealt with the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension and the four districts into which that field is divided. This chapter sets forth the work of the Board of Northwestern Missions, the Immigrants Mission Board, the West Indies Mission Board, and the Committee on Jewish Missions. All of these Boards might be considered under the head of the “Forces” of the Home Mission Enterprise, but it is found convenient to consider them under the aspect of the fields in which their work is done. Board of Northwestern Missions. This Board is entrusted with the care and develop- ment of the German and German-English missions of the United Lutheran Church. Its mission field is simply immense. It includes parts of the Canada Sy- nod in Ontario and Quebec; the Manitoba Synod in the Canadian Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, and the State of North Dakota; the Pacific Synod in the States of Washing- ton and Oregon; the Wartburg Synod in the States of Illinois (chiefly Chicago) and Iowa; the German Nebraska Synod in the States of Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and 64 ITS FIELDS 65 northern Texas, and the Texas Synod in the southern and southwestern parts of that State. On this vast territory are laboring the General Secretary, three Synodical Superintendents and 62 missionary pastors. They are in charge of 108 mission congregations, not counting ten or twelve preaching places. Altogether these missions are found in six Canadian Provinces and fourteen States of the Union (for to the above list should be added the States of Wisconsin and Michigan)—an enormous mission field indeed. Special attention is called to the immensity of this field. A traveler takes a train on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad at Ottawa, Ontario, on the east, and he travels fully three days, 1,800 miles, before he traverses British Columbia on the west. Or, going from south to north, he travels 2,500 miles from Los Angeles, California, to Juneau, Alaska—more than twice the distance in length and breadth of the “‘hair- line’ Rocky Mountain Synod. In the performance of his duties the General Secretary, between the biennial conventions of the United Lutheran Church, travels an average of about 30,000 miles—quite around the earth and a fifth part of the next trip around. The Provinces of Saskatchewan (an Indian name mean- ing, “Rapid River”) and Alberta, are each nearly as large as the State of Texas, and with Manitoba cover an area of 800,000 square miles, four times the size of France. These are the Prairie Provinces on whose fertile fields and farms and in whose growing towns are settled about 2,000,000 people, an average of only 2.5 inhabitants to the square mile. From all of which it will be readily seen that the task of the missionary 66 A HOME ENTERPRISE in Canada is not an easy one. The shepherd must go far to find and tend his scattered sheep where the settlements are so few and far-between, and even the individual homesteads are far separated one from another. We are speaking now of Canada and especially of the three great Provinces in which are found the vast wheat fields of America. Here lies Canada’s greatest future and that future has a special interest for our American Lutheran Church, for at least one-fifth of the population in that section is of Lutheran extrac- tion. Its most thrifty and industrious people are of German and Scandinavian origin. It is they—Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Letts, Lithu- anians—who have transformed the great prairies into fields of waving grain. It is true that many of these, sad to say, left their religion at home when they emi- grated and many have fallen prey to proselyting sects and sectlets and many have preferred the choicest homestead lands to nearness to a church of their own faith and their spiritual kindred and have become indifferent and cold. At all events, in a recent census of the nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants of these Provinces, not more than 200,000 or one-tenth, professed them- selves to be Lutherans. Moreover, in Saskatchewan alone, less than 15,000, or about 16 per cent. of the 90,000 of population have any connection with the church to which they profess allegiance; and, pre- sumably, conditions are the same in the two other Provinces. Surely these facts and figures show the urgent need of more intensive and extensive Home Mission work in Canada’s Prairie Provinces than the ITS FIELDS 67 Board of Northwestern Missions has as yet, because of the lack of men and means, been able to do. And the need grows greater and more urgent day by day by reason of the large additions being made to the Lutheran material already at hand. The Cana- dian Government is inviting immigration, especially from German and Scandinavian lands, offering the immigrants homesteads and a certain acreage of land as well as giving them financial assistance for the procuring of livestock, farm implements, seeds, ete. This civil and social effort of the Government must be supplemented by the Church and especially by our own Church. It must send to these immigrants mis- sionaries in their own tongue and thus shepherd and feed them, for otherwise they are shepherdless and exposed to the ravages of the wolf. Indeed, a Luth- eran Immigrants’ Board has been formed by the Luth- eran Synods working on this territory and its efforts have been not without result. By August of 1924 a thousand immigrants had arrived under its auspices and their quality is reported as being especially good. Some of the churches have already greatly benefitted by accessions from this source. For example, a strug- gling mission in the Manitoba Synod has doubled in size since eighty-one of these immigrants have moved within its bounds. These strangers are met at the ports of entry and are grateful for the assistance re- ceived. Funds are being applied by the United Luth- eran Church for the work at the ports, and the Women’s Missionary Society has appropriated for the purpose $2,000 this year (1924). In our own coun- try the restrictive immigration laws limit German 68 A HOME ENTERPRISE immigration to 51,000 a year; the Dominion of Can- ada has no restrictions but encourages immigration, with a preference for Germans, as was said. From July to December of 1924, it is estimated that there were 100,000 arrivals from Germany, Russia, Austria, and other lands where German is spoken. Of course, as long as the restrictive immigration laws are in force in this country, the Board’s field of labor in respect of new material is likewise restricted, but many opportunities to start new work present themselves. These are found in the big cities and in rural sections where bi-lingual work is desirable and necessary to secure the best results, as well as to ex- tend and expand the work in centers in which work has been begun, but where there stil] exist both field and need, as in Chicago, where there are over 400,000 Germans, a half of whom are Lutherans and not a half of the half are in the Church. Another field of great promise which needs to be developed (and which Henry Ford in a materia] way is developing) is the Iron Ridge territory in northern Michigan, where at present two parishes are being served by missionaries with marked success. In these mining, milling and lumber towns are found many Lutheran people who must be gathered into the Church. Moreover, great opportunities are awaiting the Board in Mexico. Al- ready before 1922 an urgent call came to the Board to begin work in this Republic where there were at that time 20,000 Germans and German-Americans without a church and without the ministrations of a pastor. From lack of men and funds the Board was obliged to turn a deaf ear to the call. But now Mexico ITS FIELDS 69 also is making strong efforts to attract German-speak- ing immigrants, especially from Russia, where they are oppressed, and to settle them in the agricultural districts. If these efforts are successful, the United Lutheran Church will have a second chance to begin mission work in our neighboring Republic on the south. The scope of the work of this Board is thus seen to be practically unlimited. Besides the vast field already indicated, it can, on request, take over the German mission work of any synod in connection with the United Lutheran Church in America, provided permission is given by the General Body. In this Board the Church has just the machinery it needs for this work; through its efforts great things have been accomplished, and that in the face of conditions and obstacles which seemed at times almost insurmount- able. The distances to be traversed, the poverty of an immigrant people and their distribution over large and sparsely settled areas, the insufficiency of men and means, combined to form a handicap which only unfaltering faith and determined resolution were able to overcome. All honor to the faithful, self-sacrificing missionaries, who have endured not only the “heat” but also the cold and toil of the day!—men “who travel through trackless forests and over sandy plains, afoot, on horseback, in ox carts and rattling, back- firing Fords in summer, and on snowshoes, in sleighs and what not in the winter when the thermometer drops to 30-40-50 below zero; who live with a family probably of six or seven children in log houses and small dwellings where perhaps the only running water 70 A HOME ENTERPRISE they have is that which comes through the shingles on the roof.” The story of the German work under the Board of Northwestern Missions is a chapter of thrilling sacrifices of devoted men, laboring amid hard- ships not equaled in the days of Muhlenberg and in the pioneer days of the West. Noble men and women —for the wives and children share in the hardships and in so far contribute to the prosecution of the work—laboring under conditions which shame those who sit at ease in Zion, or at least deserve their sym- pathy and prayers and more generous support. And the average salary of these heroic men was for long $600 per annum; then was raised to $800, and is now but $900 in these days of high prices, a pittance on which a man and his family may be able to exist but cannot be said to live. The greatest difficulty in the German Home Mission work has always been the lack of missionaries who were able to preach in the German language and will- ing to labor under the peculiar hardships of pioneer life and for the absurdly small salaries that could be paid. The great majority of missionaries came, like the people they serve, from the old country, especially from the Seminaries at Kropp and Breklum. A hun- dred and fifteen missionaries in four of the missionary synods (Canada, Manitoba, Nebraska, Wartburg) were educated in these two institutions. But as these schools could not fully supply the needs, and as the necessity for a native ministry became more pressing on account of the transition from the German lan- guage to the English, three seminaries were founded on different parts of the mission field about the year ITS FIELDS 71 1913: Waterloo Seminary, Saskatoon Seminary, and Martin Luther Seminary at Lincoln, Nebraska, where ministers are trained for the German and bi-lingual work of our Church. The Saskatoon Seminary re- ceived from its begining and still receives a very large share of its support from the treasury of the Board, and in the Martin Luther Seminary financial assist- ance is given to individual students. Saskatoon Col- lege and Seminary has attained an enrollment of 47, the largest number of students since the institution was founded. It is devoutly hoped that with the help of the now consolidated Breklum-Kropp School and these seminaries in our own country, a sufficient num- ber of ministers for the work of the future can be secured. Immigrants Mission Board. The history of the United States is largely a history of immigration. Indeed, the only native original Americans are the Indians. All others have emigrated from other lands in times recent or remote. America has been called the world’s “Melting-pot,” in which are fused newcomers from almost all the nations of the world. These millions of immigrants present more than a social, a political, an economic problem; they present also a spiritual problem, and it is this problem which is a challenge to the Christian Church. It is true that many of these immigrants have not left their religion in the homeland but are hungry for the means of grace. But it is also true that very many have broken off from all association with the customs of their native land, including the religious habits and influences. In this new, strange land of their adop- 72 A HOME ENTERPRISE tion they are making a new start in life, but they are too often strangers to what was most dear to them at home—the Church of their fathers. They are bent on getting on in life, not on getting wp. These need all the more to be sought out and re-awakened to a sense of their deepest need. Moreover, this problem of the immigrant popula- tion has also become a patriotic one. The immigrants of colonial times came mostly from England and Scot- land, with some additional small groups of Germans, Swedes and Hollanders. It was therefore an Anglo- Saxon element, with the same ideas and ideals and ra- cial traits. The second period of immigration to the United States began about 1820 and lasted until about 1880. This immigration consisted for the most part (to the number of about 10,000,000) of-Irish, German and Scandinavian elements—God-fearing, sober, indus- trious people, who helped largely in the development of our land and the strengthening of our nation. The third period, however, marks a notable change. Since 1880 the tide of immigration not only swelled to a total of upwards of 20,000,000, but its sources are to be found not in northern and western Europe but in central, southern and eastern Europe. The Celtic and Ger- manic peoples are replaced by the Slavic, Italian and Semitic races, quite different in character and educa- tion, in custom and temperament, from the Teuton immigration of Germanic and Scandinavian countries. Their social and political antecedents are quite the opposite of American, and readjustment is needed in principles and practices before they can be assimilated into the body of the nation and prove a source of ITS FIELDS 73 strength; otherwise they will become a source of weak- ness and even constitute a menace. Of these immi- grant hosts, millions have come from Roman Catholic or Greek Catholic or Hebrew lands or environment, but other millions have come from Lutheran lands or from lands in which the Lutheran Church is strongly entrenched; and it becomes the bounden duty and also the welcome privilege of the Lutheran Church in America to provide for the spiritual life of these for- eign brethren from across the seas, as well as to bring the saving Gospel to those who know not the Lord or know Him not in truth. Thus the spiritual and the patriotic problem becomes almost one. It is that of Christianizing and Americanizing these many immi- grant millions, of making and keeping them Chris- tians and citizens. Christian Americans make our best citizens. It is they who render to Government the things which belong to Government, and to God the things which belong to God. To evangelize them and bring them into the Church of God is to do a work both for God’s Kingdom and our country. For their sakes, for our sakes, for the Church’s sake, for the nation’s sake and for Christ’s sake, the Christian Church must earnestly apply herself to the task of teaching them Christian truth and of shepherding them as they establish their homes throughout the land. It is a complicated and difficult task, but the Church dare not shrink from assuming and perform- ing it. In this tremendously important task of the entire Christian Church of America our United Lutheran Church has a share, which it seeks to accomplish 74 A HOME ENTERPRISE mainly through its Immigrants Mission Board, whose function has been defined to be: “To carry on, super- intend and promote the work of Home Missions among foreign-born people and their descendants, and to make of these people good, loyal citizens under the government and institutions of the land in which they now enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The administration of the work of the Board among immigrants is divided into three departments—Slav and Hungarian, Italian, Finnish—each under the di- rection of a Superintendent. For the Board soon found it necessary to departmentalize its work be- cause of the vastness and diversity of its field of labor. This field comprises the Slovaks, who number at least 400,000, from 15 to 20 per cent. being Lutheran; the Hungarians, who number at least 750,000, of whom 3 per cent. are Lutheran; the Letts number some 50,000 in the United States and 5,000 in Canada and are mainly Lutheran; the Italians number 5,000,000, 60 per cent. of whom are nominally Roman Catholic (they are classified as 22 per cent. loyal Roman Cath- olics, 14 per cent. unbelievers and socialists, antago- nistic to the Church, and a possible 4 per cent. Protes- tants) ; the Finns, of whom there are from 350,000 to 400,000, of whom 99 per cent. are Lutheran; and Several smaller groups, each numbering less than 50,000. Slav and Hungarian Department. As has been stated, with the advent of the new immigration, some- times referred to as the “Slav invasion,” a different class of foreigners arrives on the scene, different from the older Anglo-Saxon immigrants who proceeded to ITS FIELDS 75 the broad and fertile plains of the West and North- west and became tillers of the soil. The newer immi- grants have located largely in mining and industrial centers, and during the unprecedented industrial de- velopment which prevailed during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the opening decade of the twentieth century, until the outbreak of the World War, there flowed from the congested areas of cen- tral, southern and eastern Europe an increasing stream of emigrant people which poured itself into our min- ing districts and manufacturing cities and towns. When the catastrophe of the World War halted the procession, 15,000,000 immigrants had arrived in America since the first year of the present century. Of the total immigration in 1918, 87 per cent. came from southern and eastern Europe. Statistics show that there are 17,500,000 foreign-born in our land. Only about 7,000,000 of these are citizens. We have no figures to show how many of these are Christian and connected with the Church. For some time after the flood-tide of recent immi- gration was flowing into America, our Church was uninformed of the distressing spiritual condition of Lutheran immigrants. In 1904, however, the Minis- terium of Pennsylvania took cognizance of it and in 1905 commissioned Rev. A. L. Ramer to visit Hun- gary, present the situation to the home authorities and enlist their co-operation in sending pastors to America. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of ministers in the Hungarian homeland and none could be spared. In that same year the General Council re- cognized the national scope of the mission problem 76 A HOME ENTERPRISE thus presented and assumed the responsibility for its administration. The Home Mission Board courage- ously faced the situation and commissioned the pres- ent Superintendent, Dr. A. L. Ramer, to go to Hun- gary and learn the Slovak language so that on his return he might be able to minister to the Slovaks in America in a satisfactory manner. After a sojourn of two years in Hungary, on his return to America in 1908, the real Home Mission work among the Slav and Hungarian group of foreigners began. The Slovak group received first attention together with the Siebenburger-Saxons from Transylvania (on December 21, 1924, the first Siebenburger-Saxon Church in America was dedicated in Cleveland, Ohio). There is a large constituency among the Slovak and Hungarian people. The Windish, residing in the western section of Hungary, also are Lutheran. The Lettish people from the Baltic regions are largely Lutheran. From the same sections a relatively small number of Lithuanians have come to America. To locate these various groups of nationals was part of the task of the Superintendent of this department. In this work of canvassing the field he visited every State in the Union except Maine and New Hampshire. The number of groups and congregations constantly in- creased, and that at a rate far in excess of the avail- able supply of pastors. It became necessary for the Superintendent to arrange an itinerary among these congregations and serve them as frequently as cir- cumstances permitted. This service was less frequent because of the immense extent of the territory to be covered, reaching from ocean to ocean along the north- OAKLAND, CAL. EVERETT, WASH. REDEEMER, LIVINGSTON, MONT. Western Missions ST. PAUL’S, TORONTO, CANADA ALL SAINTS, BALTIMORE, MD. Sample Mission Plants rae a & ITS FIELDS 77 ern part of the United States, with missions in sixteen States. For the last thirteen years this territory has been visited annually by the Superintendent of this department, and no congregation has been without the ministration of the Holy Communion at least once a year. To prepare a ministry to supply the foreign-speak- ing peoples became a very serious problem from the outstart of the work. The young men who presented themselves either knew no English and first had to learn it before receiving further instruction or they did know the English but were not proficient in their mother tongue which they were obliged to use in serving their congregations. However, this difficulty has been measurably overcome. In the Slav-Hun- -garian Department fifty-five students have been aided in their preparation for the ministry, of whom twen- ty-five candidates have been ordained and are at work on the field. At present there are sixteen Slovak mission congregations in five States, seven Hungarian congregations in two States, two Windish congrega- tions in two States, seven Lettish congregations in four States and three in Canada, and there is a flour- ishing Assyrian mission in Philadelphia, made up of Lutheran Assyrian refugees who found a haven of shelter in America when Assyria was devastated by the Turks in the ravages of the World War. The Board was also asked to missionate among Asiatics on the western coast, but was obliged to refuse because of the lack of means. Altogether, there are sixty organ- ized congregations, many of which have become self- supporting. The Slovak group is the most thoroughly 78 A HOME ENTERPRISE organized. These congregations have organized the Zion Slovak Synod, which now has 28 pastors, 34 con- gregations and 5,500 communicant members. It is one of the constituent synods of the United Lutheran Church in America. A beginning has been made to train young women of foreign parentage to work among their own racial groups. The first of these has finished her course at the Baltimore Motherhouse and has begun her service as a deaconess. Much has been accomplished, but the field is vast and much more remains to be done. The need is for larger resources of pastors and funds. Italian Department. There are 5,000,000 Italians in the United States and their number is increasing to the limit of the immigration laws. There is no city of any size where “Little Italy” is not to be found. In these Italian communities there are from 2,000 to 75,000 sons and daughters of Sunny Italy—there are more than 800,000 Italians in New York City alone. In many of these communities the Church is not estab- lished. Without the Church’s administration it is almost impossible to cope with the agitators who sow the seeds of irreligion, lawlessness and discontent. The Church, co-operating heartily with other agencies, renders it possible to save the Italian and make of him a good Christian citizen. As has been said, of the 5,000,000 Italians in the country, 60 per cent. are only nominally Roman Cath- olic. Really they are out of the Church altogether, utterly uncared for. These people are very receptive to the evangelical faith. They are especially open- minded to the faith, worship and polity of the Luth- ITS FIELDS 79 eran Church. To a very marked degree, owing to various causes, they are much out of sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church. This is especially true in free and liberty-loving America. Learning to know the Protestant Reformation with its fruits of civil and religious liberty, they become interested in the Protes- tant Church. As they come into contact with its mem- bers this favorable impression is strengthened and deepened. They gradually lose the fear of excom- munication and make bold to enter a Protestant church for worship and instruction. Then begins their trans- formation in religious faith and life on the basis of the open Bible. Work among the Italians was started by the late _ Mrs. E. R. Cassaday, in the city of Philadelphia. This work was later assumed by the Ministerium of Penn- sylvania. This mission, St. Peter’s Italian Lutheran Church, is maintained in connection with the Martin Luther Neighborhood House, which has a staff of three workers, not counting the Italian pastor. Kin- dergarten work, Bible Study classes and Americaniza- tion classes are conducted. The Immigrants Board, which long ago took over the Italian work and erected it into a Department, also has an Italian mission at Monessen, Pennsylvania, a steel town near Pittsburgh, where there are 4,000 Italians. This mission was begun by the Pittsburgh Synod in 1918, with 22 members. Now the member- ship is 79, and the active:communicant membership 56. The mission was organized by the Superinten- dent of the Italian Department. Recently the Pitts- burgh Synod has agreed to contribute $5,000 toward 80 A HOME ENTERPRISE the erection of a permanent church for the Italian Lutheran Church at Monessen. In 1922 the Superintendent organized the Holy Trinity Italian Lutheran Church of Erie, Pennsyl- vania, with twenty members. This is the most prom- ising mission the Board has organized to date. This is largely due to the splendid co-operation of the Luth- eran congregations of Erie, which have provided a centrally located church property, fully equipped for every branch of the work, namely, a parish house and a chapel seating 250 persons. The cost was more than $14,000. The chapel is in the heart of the Italian com- munity, which has a population of 8,000. There are 10,000 Italians in Erie, for whom our Board is con- ducting the only Protestant mission. The services are in Italian and English; the Sunday school, which has an enroliment of 150, is conducted entirely in English. During the week there are held, as in the other Italian missions, classes in English and citizenship and wel- fare work. The pastor is the Superintendent of the Italian Department, but it is hoped soon to have a settled pastor so as to allow the Superintendent to enter other territory where the doors are opening for Italian work. One of the young men of this congre- gation has applied for financial aid as a theological student. The Board is supporting three theological students, who work during the summer at mission points. Work was begun among the Italians in New York City late in the year 1923. This work has been in charge of the Rev. Cosimo D. Dell’Osso since January, 1924. Services are held twice weekly, on Sundays and ITS FIELDS 81 Thursdays, in Christ Lutheran Church, of which the Rev. Dr. Geo. U. Wenner is pastor. There is an aver- age attendance of about thirty men and women. There is a Sunday school with an enrollment of sixty-seven and an average attendance of about thirty-five. About the same number attend the classes in Weekday Reli- gious Education. Members of the Luther League of New York City help as teachers in the Sunday school. Financial assistance, in addition to the appropriation by the Immigrants Mission Board, is given the mis- sion by the New York and New England Synod and by several of the churches in New York City. There is bright prospect of the early organization of a flour- ishing congregation in this city with an Italian popu- lation of close to a million. Work has also been begun in Chicago, IIl., and San Francisco, Calif. In order to prosecute this work properly there must be provided a Lutheran ministry, one of Italian young men who are proficient in their own language and also have a good command of the English language. An- other imperative need is church buildings. Such meet- ing places as unsanitary, unsightly store-rooms have no attraction for people who are accustomed to wor- ship in ancient and artistic cathedrals and churches. They come from a land where church architecture and beauty is unsurpassed in all the world. This is true of the small towns as well as of the cities of Italy. To hold the services in English-speaking churches is satisfactory neither to the Italians nor to the local congregation. This does not admit of the use of the church building on every day of the week, as it should 82 A HOME ENTERPRISE be in every Italian mission for the conducting of reli- gious, educational and vocational classes, nor on the festival days, such as Christmas and Easter, when the service would be especially attractive and fruitful. In Spite of these drawbacks, however, the department has five Italian pastors, three organized churches, and two missions recently organized, with a combined member- ship of over 200 adults, one lady parish worker and one student; and six Sunday schools with an enroll- ment of nearly 500 children and 85 teachers. The use of a lady parish worker is a new departure and a very successful one, for her work lies among the moth- ers and children. The new generation is growing rap- idly and in all directions. They are attending the public schools and high schools in our towns and cities. But they are outside the Church. A means of approach must be found. It has been found in Erie, where an English- speaking young lady, in connection with the Italian missionary and under his supervision, is endeavoring to reach the rising generation and bring them into the Church. More such workers are needed, who have the love of Christ and of souls in their hearts and who have the Italian as well as the English point of view. Given the workers for this field, the funds to sup- port them and to erect and equip houses of worship, and given the sympathy and co-operation of the local Lutheran congregations, the Italian work will advance by leaps and bounds; for the field is ripe and the harvest is ready to be gathered. Finnish Department. This department is conducted in connection with the Suomi Synod (Suomi means “Finnish”) with which it shares, on a 50-50 basis, ITS FIELDS 83 in the payment of all expenses. This arrangement has been. in effect since 1920, when the Immigrants Board entered into agreement with the Suomi Synod to co-operate in ministering to the widely scattered Finnish Lutherans, of whom there are in this country between 400,000 and 500,000, 99 per cent. of whom are said to be Lutherans. They are found on farms, in coal mines, in iron mines, in copper and silver mines; they are upon our lake boats and upon our docks; in city as well as in country they are at work with others, helping to build up the country of which they are a part. Too long they have been neglected by our Church. The Suomi Synod, with the active Superintendent of this Department, who is also a mem- ber of the Synod, is doing its utmost to reach and minister to these dispersed thousands. But as the Synod numbers but 51 pastors, 177 congregations and 18,440 confirmed members and through its congrega- tions and missions ministers to only about 80,000 souls, it will be seen how large a part of the field re- mains uncultivated and how large a work awaits to be done. The Synod has congregations in New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, South Dakota, California, Montana, Washington, and Ontario, Canada. New and inviting doors of opportunity and entrance have been opened in the Provinces of Alberta and Saskat- chewan and in the States of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, North Dakota and Idaho. These fields call aloud for workmen and promise a bountiful harvest. It is pathetic and even tragic that lack of men and money withholds the Suomi Synod from prosecuting this exigent work. 84 A HOME ENTERPRISE West Indies Mission Board. This Board grew from two roots planted in the soil of the General Council. One was the “Board of Missions for Porto Rico and Latin America,” created in 1898 after the American forces occupied Porto Rico during the war with Spain; and the other was the “Board to Care for the Lutheran Churches of the Virgin Islands” after the United States had acquired those islands from Denmark, the said churches hav- ing been supervised and supported during the Danish regime by the Danish National Church, but thrown upon their own charges and management by the United States when the islands were taken Over, something for which the churches were totally unprepared. Thus the field assigned to the West Indies Mission Board 2 the outstart was the West Indies and the territory ad jacent thereto, namely, Central America, the Cana) Zone and Mexico; and in 1924 it was authorized to enter upon work among the 7,000,000 unchurched ne- groes of America. It may here be said that the mis- sionaries working under this Board minister to both the white and colored residents of the West Indies Islands and that the language in use is almost entirely Spanish. Porto Rico, one of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea, lying midway between North and South America, has an area of 3,600 square miles and a population of about 1,500,000, composed of 60 per cent. white, 85 per cent. mixed blood, and 5 per cent. negro. Here work was begun soon after the entrance of the vic- torious American troops during the Spanish-American War, the first Lutheran services being held with ITS FIELDS 85 Lutherans who emigrated from the Virgin Islands, whose nearest point from Porto Rico is only 90 miles away. In 1924 the twenty-fifth anniversary of the planting of our Church in Porto Rico was celebrated. The territory is divided into three districts, of which the oldest is that of San Juan, the capital city, in charge of the Rev. Dr. Alfred Ostrom, who has been on the field twenty years—a longer period than any other American missionary. This is the center of the work. Here is a fine church building, with a modern parsonage. The church is used by two congregations, with separate organization in every department of activity. One is the oldest and only English Lutheran Church in Porto Rico, and the other is St. Paul’s Span- ish congregation, organized in 1900. Four other con- gregations and two stations are in this district. Other districts having their own congregations and stations are those of Bayamon and Catano. The value of our church property in Porto Rico, consisting of church buildings, parsonages, homes for native helpers, school buildings and building sites, is estimated at $103,000, which represents the self-sacrificing gifts of our American Church. The confirmed membership is 1,300, with about 700 members in good standing. There are 1,700 children in the Sunday schools and almost 3,000 in the day schools. An interesting feature of the Porto Rico work is the part taken by our mission- aries in ministering to the unfortunate lepers who await their end on “Leper Island” in the harbor of San Juan. The Virgin Islands are a group of fifty-three islands, only three of which are inhabited. They support a — «86 A HOME ENTERPRISE population of about 25,000. It was for these islands that the United States paid Denmark $25,000,000, fol- lowing the Spanish-American War. At that time the Danish churches—established since 1666, when the first Lutheran pastor came from Denmark to the island of St. Thomas—were taken out of the hands of the Danish National Church and thrown upon their own resources. They found themselves helpless and ap- pealed to the Lutheran Church in America to come to their aid. The response was cheerfully given and they came under the care of the General Council’s Board appointed for the purpose. In the Virgin Islands are five organized congregations, divided into three parishes. The first parish consists of two congrega- tions, one in the city of St. Thomas on the island of the same name, and one on the island of St. John. Another parish, on the island of St. Croix, is the Christiansted parish, in which lies the Government’s leper colony, where our pastor conducts regular serv- ices. Here is located one of the homes for sick and neglected babies. The third parish is the Frederik- sted parish, one of whose churches has been in con- stant use for one hundred and thirty years. Here is located the Ebenezer Orphanage, a fine property. Here also is another home for sick and neglected babies. The baptized Lutheran population of these islands is 2.050, with a confirmed membership in good standing of over 1,000. The Sunday school and day school have an enrollment of 1,000 children. In this entire field, during the biennium of 1922-24, seven American pastors were at work full time and four part time. Seven women missionaries also lab- ITS FIELDS 87 ored the full period and six part time. There are at work four deaconesses and twenty native assistants, eleven men and nine women, making fifty full time workers in all. There are nineteen organized congre- gations, with eleven preaching points, and twenty-six Sunday schools. The baptized membership is 3,841 and the confirmed 2,158. In the Sunday schools are enrolled 2,386 children. The congregations raised over $9,000 for their support. The total valuation of the property is $400,000, more than half of which came from the Danish National Church at the time of the transfer of the Virgin Islands to the United States. From the inception of the work in Porto Rico, the Augustana Synod has generously co-operated, and the United Danish Synod has given assistance for the work in the Virgin Islands. The Women’s Missionary Society has been notably interested and liberal and is to be credited with furnishing much of the “sinews of war” by means of which the gratifying gains have been made. There is urgent need for Spanish-speaking pastors and preachers. Happily, this need has good prospect of being met. A theological seminary is about to be established in Porto Rico for the education of Spanish workers, this having been made possible by a legacy of $30,000 left for this purpose by the late Rev. R. L. McMurray, a devoted friend of the work. The effort is also being made to establish contact with the Evan- gelical Church in Spain with a view to securing min- isters for the thousands of Spaniards coming to the United States from South American countries, which are not affected by our immigration laws. Already 88 A HOME ENTERPRISE Texas has a Spanish-speaking population of 450,000; New Mexico, 250,000; Arizona, 100,000, and California nearly as many. Some towns and cities in these States are almost 100 per cent. Mexican. Indeed, a real Spanish problem is looming up before our coun- try and before the Christian Church. The countries occupying the southern half of our continent are more and more coming to the front and immigrants from them are overflowing into our own land. Spanish is rightly being introduced as one of the branches taught in our public schools with a view to meeting the de- mands of the business world, and our Church is equally wise in preparing to meet the religious needs of the Spanish-speaking peoples. Already over 2,000 Span- ish people regularly attend the church services con- ducted by the West Indies Board, and it is most grati- fying to announce that a literature in Spanish is being created—the Catechism, the Graded Sunday School Lessons and the Common Service Book and Hymnal having been prepared in that language. Some of this literature has already received publication. But notwithstanding all these accomplishments, very much land still remains to be possessed. Calls have come (for twenty years they have been coming) from Santo Domingo, an island seven times larger than Porto Rico, with a population of 1,000,000, where some 500 of our members from Porto Rico and the United States have emigrated; from the great and rich island of Cuba, only a few hours’ sail from the United States, with its 2,000,000 of people and not a single Lutheran church; and from Mexico, where the need is no less great and where the last constitution ITS FIELDS 89 adopted opens an opportunity for Protestant work such as has seldom been equaled in this western world. But more missionaries and money are needed—more than the Board at present is able to command—to enter these inviting and promising fields. One field, however, has been entered so successfully that it is as great a pleasure to tell about it as it will be to be told. For the last fifty years, owing to local poor economic conditions, West Indians from “our” islands have been emigrating to and locating in New York City. There they found no church of their own and there on account of their race and color they were uncomfortable in the white congregations of their own faith. In that period perhaps as many as 3,000 such Lutheran immigrants were lost to our Church, many of them, perhaps, to themselves and their God. But on February 22, 1920, in the providence of God and by the enterprise of Rev. Z. M. Corbe, the Secretary of the Board, the first step was taken to stop the leak and prevent the loss. On that day services were begun in Harlem, New York City, for the West Indians, and a mission was established. In three years the work had grown to such an extent that no hall large enough could be secured to hold the people. So, in January, 1923, a property suitable for the purpose was pur- chased by the Board at a cost of $57,000. That the West Indians appreciated the Board’s action is evi- denced by the fact that during the year 1923 they contributed, out of their poverty, $4,500 toward the expenses of the work. The congregation has increased 100 members for each year of its life and now num- bers over 480 communicants and is today the largest 90 A HOME ENTERPRISE colored Lutheran Church in the country. On July 31, 1924, the congregation was organized as the “Evan- gelical Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration,” so named after the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration, Philadelphia, of which the Executive Secretary of the Board, Rev. Z. M. Corbe, is pastor; in which also he preaches on Sunday mornings and in the evening is present in the Harlem namesake, of which he has pastoral oversight, the services like- wise being conducted under his personal direction. But the full scope of the field of the West Indies Board has not yet been described. In 1920 the United Lutheran Church not only heartily commended the Board’s new enterprise in New York City, but re- quested, further, that it make a survey of the whole field of American negroes. This is truly a field of large proportions and one into which the United Lutheran Church has hitherto not sought to enter. The “negro problem” remains a problem and it has become one not less for the North than for the South, not less for the Church than for the nation. Sixty years ago 92 per cent. of the negroes lived in the South; ten years ago 89 per cent.; now about 85 per cent. The entire negro population of the country is almost 12,- 000,000, of whom 9,000,000 are in the South today. That means that nearly 3,000,000 have emigrated to the cities of the North, being driven from the cotton fields by the boll weevil and being desirous of higher wages, better housing and better schooling for their children. During the last few years the negro exodus from the agricultural South to the industrial centers of the North has been markedly great, and in those ITS FIELDS 91 cities and centers the negroes have established dis- tricts of their own. Said one of their leaders: “All problems of health, education, government, vice and crime, inter-racial contacts and others, must be re- garded as questions for the Northerner as well as for the Southerner.” So also must the religious problem which the negro presents be a problem for the whole American Church; for 7,000,000 negroes are beyond the ministrations of the Church and the influences of the Gospel, and they present a Home Mission field which lies at our very doors. It was this great and needy field which the West In- dies Board surveyed. It laid its survey before the United Lutheran Church in 1922, and in its findings stated that the United Lutheran Church has not only a great opportunity but a very pressing call to preach the Gospel to the 7,000,000 unevangelized and unshep- herded negroes of America, but that, recognizing the existence of this unusual opportunity, the Board was not able to recommend beginning work in this field at this time with any assurance of success, both on account of a lack of funds for such an undertaking, and the unpreparedness of our people for this bewil- dering task. At the convention of the United Lutheran Church in 1924, the Board re-affirmed its interest in work among this group of our population and de- clared its willingness to co-operate with synods which desire to inaugurate such work in their own field, under certain restrictions and regulations, affording aid out of its treasury for the purpose. The whole proposition was submitted, subject to the action of the United Lutheran Church. It was approved, and the 92 A HOME ENTERPRISE West Indies Mission Board is therefore authorized and instructed to co-operate in any work undertaken with- in the bounds of any constituent synod of the United Lutheran Church, provided that it have the approval of the proper synodical authorities, that it continue under the jurisdiction of the synod in whose bound- aries it is located, that it be supervised by the West Indies Board only in such matters as require the specialized knowledge of the Board, and that any sup- port for the work be furnished only from such funds as may be placed in the budget for the special purpose and so approved by the United Lutheran Church. Under these instructions and provisions, active steps have been taken in Charleston, South Carolina, look- ing to the establishment of a Lutheran mission among the negro population of that city, and the West Indies Board has made an appropriation for the prosecution of the enterprise. Thus at last (and at least) a be- ginning has been made. The field is actually being entered. The United Lutheran Church in America is on record that it is conscious of a mission to the unchurched colored people of the United States as well as to those who inhabit the isles of the sea. Committee on Jewish Missions. The importance which the United Lutheran Church accords to Jewish Missions may be realized from the fact that it is the first Lutheran body, and for that matter the first Protestant body in America, that has placed Jewish Missions on the official missionary pro- gram of the Church. This is all the more surprising in view of the Church’s manifest duty to evangelize ITS FIELDS 93 the Jew. The Jews have upon it the same general claim for evangelization as all other branches of the human family. They are not Christian, and just for that reason they are included in the divine command, “Teach all nations,” “Preach the Gospel to every creature.” Salvation is not only “of the Jews,” but “for the Jews.” Historically, Jewish Missions holds first place among the missionary activities of the Christian Church. The apostles and even the Lord Jesus Himself were first of all Jewish Missionaries. What Paul declared of the Gospel of Christ—that it is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”—is true today. It is reliably stated that during the nine- teenth century more than 200,000 Jews in Europe alone turned from the synagogue to the Church. The Gospel is said to be proclaimed each Lord’s Day in more than 600 pulpits by Jewish lips, there being 350 Hebrew Christians among the clergy in Great Britain alone. Since the World War the Jews seem to be more approachable. It was reported at the Zurich Conference in 1923 that in the single country of Hun- gary 30,000 Jews had joined the Christian Church in the past four years. So that the task of their con- version is not as impossible as many people imagine. Highty per cent. of the Jews are outside the synagogue and the break they must make to enter the Christian Church is not so much with Judaism as with materia]- ism and indifferentism. Many Christian people see in this step away from the synagogue a step toward the Church; but to induce them to take the decisive second step requires on the part of the Jewish missionaries 94 A HOME ENTERPRISE trust and toil and the patience which must be allowed to have its perfect work. This is the aim and object of the Committee on Jew- ish Missions, and of the missionaries who are actively serving in the field. And that field is very large. There are in the United States and Canada, the territory covered by the United Lutheran Church in America, at least 4,000,000 Jews (their number in the world is estimated at 17,000,000). New York City is cred- ited with a Jewish population of 1,800,000, many more than reside in the “Holy Land” today, and three times more than reside in the whole of Germany. Cleveland has 100,000, as many as England. Pittsburgh has 50,000, as many as France. There are 33 cities in the United States which have 10,000 or more Jews; 10 cities with 50,000 or more; 2 cities with 200,000 or more, while one city, as we have seen, has almost 2,000,000. | Into this large and challenging field have entered the evangelizing agencies of the Protestant Churches, and among them the Committee on Jewish Missions of our United Lutheran Church. Work was first be- gun by the Pittsburgh Synod in Pittsburgh in 1906, and the missionary worker was Rev. John Legum, our pioneer missionary to the Jews, who labored in season and out of season to the day of his death. A mysteri- ous and apostolic man! Born in Russia, educated in Germany, baptized in Paris, he lived for only one thing, to preach Christ to his people. “Without funds, but with an unshaken faith, with every thinkable per- sonal sacrifice, with untiring devotion, with holy zeal for Christ’s reign over Israel, and with a profound ITS FIELDS , 95 understanding of his own people and a burning love for their salvation, he laid down his life for his breth- ren in the flesh.” His truest memorial is “Christ Mission to the Jews” in the city of Pittsburgh. One of his converts, a young Jew, was educated in the schools of our Church, and after spending seven years in a pastorate, in 1917 founded the “Messiah Lutheran Mission” in Philadelphia. A promising young con- vert, educated in the Middle West, on a visit to the HKastern States, made the acquaintance of our Phila- delphia missionary, was persuaded by him to take up Lutheran mission work and is now the missionary in charge of the “Salem Hebrew Lutheran Mission” in Baltimore, established in 1919. A convert of the Norwegian Lutheran Church Mission to the Jews in Chicago and a graduate of our Chicago Theological Seminary, has become the missionary in charge of the “Emmanuel Lutheran Mission” in Toledo, established in 1922. A Philadelphia convert, after a special course in the Philadelphia Theological Seminary, was or- dained by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1923 and was placed in charge of the Philadelphia Mission. The Philadelphia missionary is holding himself in readiness to open a mission in New York City as soon as the Committee has the means and is able to carry out its plans. Although the number of baptisms reported is not large, many hundreds of Jews are reached by the mis- sionaries inside (and outside) the mission. There are results and conversions of the heart unconfessed and unrecorded. ‘There are those of the Nicodemus type, the silent, secret believers. There are the Agrippas: 96 - A HOME ENTERPRISE Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. There are the men who feel bound by family obligations: Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. There are those who pray: Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. We cannot produce them nor count them. We are dealing with them constantly. We cannot and will not forcibly persuade them into baptism.” And so the missionaries continue faithfully to sow the good seed of the Word—in the pulpit, in the Bible schools, in the homes, on the streets,—by word of mouth and by the distribution of tracts, Bibles and New Testa- ments. The Committee and the missionaries themselves keenly realize that the dimensions of the field and of the need far exceed their resources and power. Hence they appeal to pastors and congregations in Jewish neighborhoods and in cities having a large Jewish population, to have a living, loving concern for the Jews in their community. In the language of the Committee: “The cause of Jewish Missions will only then become the task of the Church, when every con- gregation will accept its field as Jewish mission terri- tory and with prayer and aggressiveness lay plans and make attempts to win their Jewish neighbors for Christ. The counsel and assistance of our experienced missionary force is at the disposal of any congrega- tion courageous enough to enter upon this task.” “‘The time has come,” writes the Philadelphia missionary, “when Jewish Missions, in order to justify their exist- ence must begin intensive rather than extensive work. The time has come when we must emphasize the work at the individual stations rather than the General ITS FORCES 97 Cause. The individual missions must learn to look for local support rather than for big appropriations from the treasury of the United Lutheran Church. The time has come when missions should be under the direct control of the synodical bodies on whose terri- tory they are, in order that they may receive not merely their chief financial support but also their moral support, counsel and advice.”” Thus there would be enlisted in this challenging cause—which must be dear to the heart of the Master—not only the United Lutheran Church, but also the district synod, the neighboring pastor, the local congregation and the individual members thereof, giving of their means to promote the work and also their offers of personal service. WOULD I? WOULD YOU? One day in loved Jerusalem, There rushed a shrieking, maddened crowd Upon a lowly kneeling form, Before his God and Saviour bowed, And when with cruel stones they crushed His beautiful and gentle life, He prayed the Father to forgive Their ignorance and raging strife. This man was Stephen. Lo, a Jew, Who died for Christ. Would I? Would you? See! far upon a lonely isle, An aged man with snowy locks, Exiled to labor in the mines, His only temple wind-swept rocks. Ah! Once he leaned on Jesus’ breast, And gazed with fond adoring eyes Into that face where love divine 98 A HOME ENTERPRISE Still beams upon us from the skies This man was John beloved, a Jew, Witness for Christ. Am I? Are you? A Galilean fisher stood Amid a fierce and angry throng, No tremor spoke of hidden fear, His face was peaceful, calm and strong, And when they nailed him to a cross, As they had nailed his blessed Lord, He gloried thus to die for Christ, And counted it a rich reward. This man was Peter. Lo, a Jew, Who died for Christ. Would I? Would you? A captive bound was brought one day To Nero’s judgment seat at Rome: For Christ he wore the heavy chain, For Christ he had no wealth nor home; The noblest martyr Rome could boast Of all the thousands that she slew, The great apostle sent by God To Gentiles with the message true. This man was Paul, e’en Paul, the Jew, Who died for Christ. Would I? Would you? —Contributed. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION . What three Mission Boards and what Committee are treated of in this chapter? . What is the province of the Board of Northwestern Mis- sions and what is the extent of its field? . What is the need of this field and by what is the need augmented? - Tell of the devotion and self-denial of the missionaries and from what sources supplies are obtained. ITS FORCES 99 . In what way is the problem of our immigrant population both a spiritual and a patriotic one? . What is the function of the Immigrants Mission Board? . Into what three departments is the work of this Board divided? . Why did the Board find it necessary to departmentalize its work? . Discuss the work of the Slav and Hungarian Department. . Discuss the work of the Italian Department. . Discuss the work of the Finnish Department. . What is the field assigned to the West Indies Mission Board? . Tell something of its work in Porto Rico. . Tell something of its work in the Virgin Islands. . What call comes to the West Indies Board from the pres- ence of Spanish-speaking people? . What successful mission has the Board established in the United States? . What is the relation of the Board to the evangelization of our country’s millions of unchurched negroes? . Discuss the work of the Committee on Jewish Missions. . Read or recite “Would I? Would You?” CHAPTER V ITS FORCES The supreme Factor in Home Missions, as in all missions, is God the Heavenly Father, whose is the Kingdom, and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the great Head of the Church. A Factor equ- ally supreme is the Holy Spirit, who “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the true faith.” The means through which the call to come to Christ is made to men is the Gospel and it is made by the living voice—it is announced or proclaimed to men by men. It was so from the begin- ning. The Lord Jesus began His ministry with say- ing, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the Gospel.” The Book of Acts (also called “The Gospel of the Holy Ghost” because of the Spirit’s manifest presence and powerful influence in the planting and spread of the Church) is a Manual on Missions, and there Peter and John and Philip and Barnabas and Paul and all the other apostolic missionaries do their work by preaching the Gospel and bearing witness to the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. It has always been so. Redemption goes forward only as men carry it forward. By men God blesses men. He has con- stituted His Church as the instrument by which He will save the world and the means He employs is still the everlasting Gospel of our blessed Saviour, which 100 : ITS FORCES 101 then and now and to the end of time is the power of God unto salvation. But this tremendous task cannot be accomplished by men in their individual capacity alone. Already in the Gospels and in the Acts we see missionaries work- ing in pairs and the Church organizing for effective service. There must be combination and co-operation. As in building the walls of Jerusalem it was said, “The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one from another,” so in the immense Home Mission territory already described the distances are so vast and the Lutheran groups are so widely sun- dered, that practical efficiency has dictated the forma- tion of larger organizations for the prosecution of this work and of every work of a churchly and Chris- tian character. Individual Lutherans unite to form congregations, congregations unite to form synods, Synods unite to form a general body and the general body entrusts the specific work to its several boards by which the work is administered and prosecuted— always in co-operation with the said constituent synods, congregations and the individual members composing them. Thus has come to pass the organization of the United Lutheran Church in America and its creation of the several Home Mission Boards which have al- ready been mentioned and concerning which it now becomes necessary to speak more in particular. The Board first specified is the Board of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension, which has its headquar- ters in Chicago, and whose object is “to carry on, superintend and promote all the work of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension of the United Lutheran 102 A HOME ENTERPRISE Church in America not otherwise specially provided for.” It is authorized “to survey the territory, call and commission missionaries.” In the exercise of this authority it has divided the territory, as we have already learned, into four districts, each having its own District Superintendent, namely: the Eastern District, with headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania; the Southern District, with headquarters in Richmond, Virginia; the Central District, with head- quarters in Chicago, Illinois, and the Western District with headquarters in Berkeley, California. The Board has a General Secretary who is charged with the supervision of all the work of the Board. He stands at the head of the entire forces in the field. He is the Board’s Executive—its arm to give effect to its plans. Under him are the four District Superintendents, who have the oversight of the missions in their respective - territories and keep in touch with them through the Synodical Superintendent—if the synod has one. (There are 386 synods in the United Lutheran Church and to date (1924) their field staff numbers 21). The Synodical Superintendent is the synod’s agent for the promotion of mission work within its own bounds. He may also serve in the field as a field missionary. He counsels with the District Superintendent in mat- ters of mission management as well as establishment and enlargement. If the synod is large and covers an extensive territory there may also be Field Secre- taries, as in the United Synod of North Carolina, where there is a field missionary for the eastern and another for the western part of the State. The field missionary is under the Synodical Superintendent or ITS FORCES 103 the District Superintendent, as the case may be, and his duties are twofold: he locates promising, prospec- tive mission points, and, when the work is begun, he serves temporarily as the pastor of the mission. In other words, he surveys the field, gathers the people, organizes the congregation, advises in the selection of a lot, helps to obtain funds to erect a church or chapel, and remains in charge until a regular pastor can be secured. Thus there is a chain of agencies, linking the General Office with the most distant mission point, an. admirable system throughout the whole process, which is, in reverse order: Missionary Pastor, Field Missionary or Synodical Superintendent, District Superintendent, General Board. To summarize: “The Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, by constructive co-operation, economic administration, expert investigation, careful sustentation, liberal ap- propriation and zealous interest in their stewardship, begins congregations in strategic centers, develops local activities among Lutheran laymen, places conse- crated pastors in mission parishes, affords financial credit through Church Extension, and thus speedily develops self-sustaining congregations. These in turn generate new missions.” Of course, the missionary pastors themselves are, humanly speaking, the real basic force in building up the mission churches. They sustain the same rela- tion to their congregations as do the pastors of self- sustaining charges. The Board neither calls them nor dismisses them; these matters rest with the con- gregational unit. The Board, at most, approves of them as its missionary agents, and if it is not satisfied 104 A HOME ENTERPRISE with their services the only thing it can do is to with- draw its support. These home missionaries, upwards of 400 in number, are a heroic band, truly conse- crated servants of the Church and of its Christ. Their salaries are meager, their work is hard. Moreover, they and their work are more or less obscure. The foreign missionary has a strange and interesting story to tell and can always get a hearing, but there is pre- cious little that is romantic and arresting about the home missionary and his work. He must simply plod on in patience, with the approval of a good conscience that his work is done faithfully according to his ability. Our home missionaries constitute a devoted corps of workers and there are no more noble and self-denying servants of the Cross. The following de- served tribute has been paid to them: “The home mis- sionary does not receive the praise and commendation of pupit and press that should be accorded to him. Yet it often happens that his field has greater diffi- culties and requires more heroism and sacrifice than are required in any other field. As a rule his salary is not so secure, nor is it paid so regularly. Sometimes he is on the frontier, where the drives are long, fre- quently over bad roads, where the congregations are small and his income very meager. His family is often poorly housed, and his exposure in all kinds of weather is an element in the problem which might cause even a brave heart to shrink. Home mission- aries have been known to ride 70 miles by stage to reach a new field when the thermometer indicated 20 degrees below zero. Sometimes he is in a city, strug- gling with the difficulties of a new parish. A mis- ITS FORCES 105 sionary in the city has other difficulties than those of a missionary in the country, but they are quite as real. All honor to the consecrated missionaries, whom the great Head of the Church has given us to carry on our work!” More, many more men are needed of this type, of the very highest type: men of unques- tioned ability, consecrated spirit and a perseverance that cannot be daunted by conditions which vex and try the soul, men, moreover, who cannot be lured from the field by tempting offers elsewhere. There is no intention or desire here to discriminate in favor of one Home Mission Board as over another; but what has been said of the Board of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension in the way of adminis- tration and procedure applies, other things being equal, also to the Board of Northwestern Missions, the Immigrants Mission Board, the West Indies Board and the Committee on Jewish Work. But this statement of the Home Mission Forces, as organized, would be incomplete without mention being made of the very substantial contribution to the cause given by the Woman’s Missionary Society of the United Lutheran Church in America. The aim of this society is threefold: to disseminate missionary infor- mation; to promote the missionary spirit, especially among women and children; and financially to aid the Church in its various activities by co-operating with its Boards. The Society appoints two advisory mem- bers of each Board to whose support it contributes, and these members are given a voice on all questions relevant to the work in which there is a mutual interest. 106 A HOME ENTERPRISE This society is one of the most capable auxiliaries of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension and without its generous support the work would be curtailed and suffer loss. During the biennium— 1922-1924—the total receipts from the society by the Board for loan, interest, gifts and salary, were over $80,000. The work of the other Home Mission Boards likewise received liberal aid. Thirty-five missions were receiving appropriations toward their support at the opening of the biennium. By its close five had assumed self-support and seven new missions were added—three in the Rocky Mountain Synod, three in the Pacific Synod, and one in the South Carolina Synod. Appropriations to Home Missions averaged $2,100 per month. Church Extension aid was given to a number of mission churches. The Society sup- ported the two missionaries working in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia, a woman assistant in Messiah Hebrew Lutheran Mission, Philadelphia, two new immigrant workers (women) among the Slovaks and Italians, students for the ministry to serve their own people (Italian, Slovak, etc.), a woman missionary in Porto Rico and another in the Virgin Islands, and the two homes for children in the Virgin Islands. The budget for 1924-1926 calls for appro- priations for Home Missions amounting to $127,120, distributed as follows: Support of Home Missions, $80,000; Immigrant Missions (education of students), $10,000; Jewish Work, $2,000; West Indies (support of Missionaries and Children’s Homes), $18,200; Southern Mission Work, $16,920. Here it is proper to state that at the convention of ITS FORCES | 107 the United Lutheran Church in America held in Chi- cago in October, 1924, action was taken looking to the reorganization in the administration of the Home Mission work. The contemplated change is radical and far-reaching. The plan is to bring under one cen- tral management and oversight the work of the five Home Mission Boards—Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, Northwestern Mission Board, Im- migrants Mission Board, West Indies Mission Board, and Committee on Jewish Missions. The project had been previously studied and the plan thoroughly worked out by a committee of ten representatives of the five Boards and chosen from them. Their conclu- gions were presented to the Executive Board and ap- proved by it as well as by the five Boards concerned. The purpose is to co-ordinate the various mission agencies and activities without having them lose their identity as distinctive causes and their right to separ- ate presentation to the whole Church. The new mission policy centers in the first item which reads as follows: “There shall be a Central Board of the United Luth- eran Church, which shall function through the synod- ical authorities and shall have power of determining the general policy, and shall be given such general administration as may be necessary for harmonious co-ordination of the various Home Mission interests and Church Extension work.” This feature of the plan places upon the synods the responsibility for initiative and action within their respective bounds, while the General Board, through its General Secretary, guards such absorption in and devotion to local synodical or favorite interests as would lead to the slighting or oy » Shae r mm a a 108 A HOME ENTERPRISE neglect of the other mission activities of the United Lutheran Church. Another feature of the plan will departmentalize the work in such a manner that each particular branch of the missionary enterprise shall be cared for and managed efficiently by men who shall Specialize in those departments. This will tend to unify missionary activity within the Church and yet preserve the distinctiveness of each cause. We return to the present available forces for main- taining and promoting the Home Enterprise carried on by the United Lutheran Church. First, there is its staff of 2,924 pastors, through whose proclamation of the Gospel of Christ, with its closing and crowning missionary command, and through whose leadership of the enrolled membership of the Church, the work is forwarded and obediently done. Then there are the 3,812 congregations—so many district companies charged with the duty to enter this great and needy field and conquer and acquire it for the Church and Kingdom of Christ. This duty is not restricted to the payment of the apportionment promptly and in full. It is limited only by ability and opportunity. What is meant is this: just as some large and affluent con- gregations support missionaries and certain forms of missionary activity in the foreign field, so should they also study the home field and consider its needs and favor it with a share of their funds. “Charity be- gins at home.” It does not “stop there,” it is true, but—it does begin there. And such a beginning has been made by more than one congregation. Here is a United Lutheran Church congregation paying $1,000 on a Home Mission pastor’s salary in a city hundreds CHURCH OF THE ATONEMENT, WYOMISSING, PA. Pennsylvania still a Fruitful Mission Field SGNV'ISI NIOUIA ‘GULSNVILSIVHO ‘HOUNHOD NVYAHLNT ITS FORCES | 109 of miles away. Here is another congregation aiding a mission church in a neighboring State and here is still another aiding a mission church in the same State. Here is a fourth congregation which is the proud and happy mother of two missions. Here is a “brother’s- keeper” congregation which has mortgaged its prop- erty to finance the establishment of a mission in the uptown section of the city. Here is another liberal congregation which has mortgaged its property for $10,000 in order to establish a mission in another city. Other instances could be cited. When once the older congregations, with property free and clear, bor- row and lend to missions, these corporate congrega- tions may be reckoned among the leading Home Mis- sion Forces. A writer says with truth: “There are cities in which the United Lutheran Church is repre- sented by large and wealthy congregations. One would scarcely think so if one counted the number of missions and poorer congregations in these same cities, which are struggling for years against odds in shacks and basements, or which are burdened with debts they can scarcely carry. More than one promising field has been robbed of its possibilities because it has lacked local sympathy and support. Missionaries and pastors have felt themselves isolated and abandoned and have become discouraged in consequence. They often feel themselves discounted in the eyes of the Church and lose that buoyancy of spirit which is so essential to their success. They see church buildings of missions in other denominations rising up under their very eyes and drawing Lutherans away from their par- ishes, and they naturally ask the question, Why do 110 A HOME ENTERPRISE these get local help and encouragement and not we? Is it not time for us Lutherans to wake up and to in- sist that the well-to-do people and congregations of our cities hold themselves responsible for the support of the extension work of the Kingdom which lies next door to them? In some cities this has been done, and it is there where the Lutheran Church need not be ashamed of itself.” This is a situation and an obligation which should challenge the attention of the Church Councils of our stronger city churches. The Church Councils of the 123 United Lutheran Church congregations of Phila- delphia are reported to have taken a step in this direc- tion. To the number of 250 they have held a meeting and discussed soul-winning and stewardship for the community as well as for their separate parishes. In every large city of the land'our congregations could make a large and enduring contribution to Lutheran efficiency and growth by devising a way by which a city-wide movement for soul-winning could be carried on and by which, moreover, its results could be con- solidated and conserved. Still another force, and one of huge proportions, is that of the 840,000 confirmed members of the United Lutheran Church. How many of these can comfort- ably answer the challenge, “Show at what rate you prize your own blessings, pardon of your sins, peace with God, the hope of heaven, by your eagerness to impart the same to others?” And yet it was just that motive—one of love and _ gratitude—which prompted and impelled the missionary apostles and evangelists, and has actuated their successors ‘to this ITS FORCES 111 day. Not necessarily ordained ministers only. Also laymen. It was to laymen that St. Paul wrote, “Have your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace,” that is, Be prepared to go forth at a mo- ment’s notice to make that peaceable Gospel known. Christ’s whole program for the salvation of the indi- vidual and of society as a whole is based on personal service on the part of His disciples in His Spirit and according to His plans. That is the way in which Christianity has been spread and it is the only way in which it can be spread. It is His religion present in the hearts of His disciples and rising to their lips, _ their mouths speaking out of the abundance of their hearts, which causes this advance to take place. Per- sonal service is at the very center of the program of Christ to win the world. Personal evangelism is soundly Scriptural, practical, and it is effectual. Certainly it requires no great effort or courage to ask one’s unchurched neighbor or friend to accompany one to the house of God or even the stranger met casually on the street. By such personal work, by bringing people to church, by witnessing for Christ to men and women,—yes, and to children, gathering them into the Sunday school, any one can become a home missionary. And we can always pray—pray for the home missionaries, for their missions, for the mission of our great Evangelical Church in the home- land, whether one is an American or a Canadian. A recent writer, accounting in part for the millions bap- tized in the Lutheran faith who are now unchurched, is not wide of the mark when he says: “One reason why 90 per cent. of our people [he is speaking of the 112 A HOME ENTERPRISE Pacific District] remain outside the Church is this, that we in the Church have been sadly lacking in the spirit of intercession. We have not prayed for them as we ought to have prayed. We have been too self- centered—busy with building and organizing and even preaching and instructing. But when it came to plead with God for lost souls, we fell short. So few of us have followed the example of Abraham when he pleaded for Lot and his family. God has been waiting in vain to hear the real, burning intercession for mercy on our brothers outside the Church. For God indeed wants such intercession. When you study the Gospels by Luke and John you will find a surpris- ing number of instances where God enjoins interces- sion and promises to fulfill such prayers. If we only had more of the spirit of intercession, how differently we would go forth to rescue the 90 per cent. outside our churches. Soon they would be made to feel that we had higher aims than merely building and organiz- ing. These are only means to an end. And the end is the salvation of precious souls. All other matters are secondary and of importance only as they lead up to this. If the pastors and congregations began to batter the doors of heaven with fervent prayer, con- ditions would soon change. But because we go silent, neglecting our privilege, depending too much on our own resources and ingenuity, thousands go about out- side our churches, not realizing their danger. Who dares deny that we are guilty here and in a large measure responsible for the condition of the un- churched ?” Finally, in His discourse concerning the Vine and ITS FORCES 113 the Branches (John 15:1-16) the Saviour declared that every disciple of His was a branch in Him, and that its first duty was to be fruitful. It was to be a force exerted for Him and His Kingdom and its effect was to be the production of fruit. “I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide.” What is meant by this “abiding” fruit? Fruit which is not consumed, fruit which does not decay. Souls are meant, saved souls, souls saved by the word of those whom He has saved. The fruit which Jesus expects from His chosen ones is the conversion of men to the faith of the Gos- pel, the ingathering of souls into the Kingdom of God. In making this demand, Jesus said, in effect, to His apostles then and says to His disciples now: “Go into all the world, evangelize all the nations; be fruitful and multiply, reproduce your kind in the regenerate life, and replenish the earth.” If all these 840,000 branches of the Vine were fruitful! If but a tenth, a hundredth were fruitful! Then what a resultful force they would be! What a harvest of fruit, of souls, they would bear and bring! What a source of blessing they would prove to be to their neighbors and fellowmen, and in and through them to the land of their nativity or adoption! QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION 1. What are the factors in the Home Mission Enterprise? 2. What is the need for combination and co-operation and how has this need been met? 8. What is the function of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension? 114 A HOME ENTERPRISE 4, Who, under God, constitute the real basic force in building up the mission churches? 5. What contribution to the Home Mission Enterprise is made by the Women’s Missionary Society? 6. What radical change in the administration of its Home Mission work is contemplated by the United Lutheran Church? 7. How may our congregations, as a force, become more forceful? 8. Are laymen to be counted among the forces of the Home Mission Enterprise? 9. Of what force is fervent, effectual prayer? 10. What lesson is to be learned from the parable of the Vine and the Branches? CHAPTER VI ITS FINANCES Another word for “Finances” is money, and with- out this “wherewithal” no enterprise can be carried on or go forward. Hence in the preceding pages and in the whole presentation of the subject thus far, the matter of money and income has _ been touched on again and again. In the previous chapter it naturally and almost necessarily obtruded itself among the “Forces,” and it was seen what some congregations are doing in the way of financing mission churches and also what the Women’s Missionary Society is doing in the way of providing support for the various activities of the Home Mission Enterprise. To some it may seem strange and unnatural that such a spiritual institution as the Church, in its promulgation of the divine Gospel and its extension of the heavenly Kingdom, should be so largely depend- ent for the progress and success of its work upon so material a thing as mere money. Nevertheless, this ig the actual state of the case in the providence of God and by the arrangement of God, and the Church offers no apology in making its appeal for funds. Money is the “without-which-not” for the maintenance of every institution of the Church and the support and advancement of every agency and activity of the Church. “The ordinary means of propagating the Kingdom is through the instrumentality of the stew- 115 116 A HOME ENTERPRISE ardship of possessions, entrusted to God’s people for this avowed purpose.” Money is needed—and men. Or, if you please, men and money. Perhaps men should be named first, for if a sufficient number of men were forthcoming to do the work demanding to be done, adequate supplies of money would doubtless be vouchsafed to support the workmen. The personal consecration which would lead larger numbers of young men to offer themselves for this work of the Lord and which would lead more Christian parents to influence their sons and turn their minds towards the Gospel ministry, would have its second-fruits in more general and generous gifts to support and promote that work. Having first given themselves to the Lord, the giving of what is theirs would follow naturally as a thing of course. These gifts would be “piety’s deposit fund,” as an old Church Father called it. The fact is, the amount of money which men contribute according to their several ability is a pretty sure measure of the depth and reality of their actual piety. “A man’s private-account book is generally the most accurate commentary on his deep- est convictions.” At all events, “Give us men” is the first cry of these Home Mission Boards, and their second cry is, “Give us money.” This language reminds one of the answer made to Louis XI by one of his marshals, when that monarch asked him what was needed to make war: “Three things,” he said, “money, more money, always money.” Of course, soldiers too. But the equipment and support of an army cost money. Without men and money—“more money, always money”—the forces in ITS FINANCES 117 charge of the Home Mission Enterprise cannot en- large it and extend the Church in the far-flung and needy fields and make conquest of the nation for God and for His Christ. This is not the place to assemble the passages of Scripture which speak of the duty and privilege of liberal giving nor yet to preach a printed sermon on the subject of stewardship. Three things, however, may be pointed out in connection with our Lord’s par- able of the Unjust Steward recorded in Luke 16: 1-9. One is that the mere possession of riches is not repre- sented as an evil (some of the Lord’s own disciples _ were rich men), but only the unjust and unwise use of them. A second is that the sin connected with mam- mon consists not in being the stewards of God, but in forgetting that we are. A third is the application which the Lord makes at the close of the parable, which has been paraphrased in this way: “J say unto you, make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness (so-called because money is so often wrongfully come by). Mark my words. I assure you that the line of action I recommend will turn out good policy as well as right principle. If you do those who need what you possess a good turn now, they will be able and willing to do you a good turn hereafter. When you get from death notice to quit, they will receive you into the eternal tents where they dwell in peace and joy with Abraham. Your beneficiaries now, they will become hereafter your benefactors.” Perhaps a fourth thing may here be pointed out. It is this: the Church herself may become the Unjust Steward by lowering her Lord’s claims upon the faith 118 A HOME ENTERPRISE and obedience of men in order to gain their favor. This matter of asking for their money is not very popular with some people. In some congregations there are not a few members who respond to such a request, “You are always asking for money.” Quite true, because, as we have seen, quite necessary. If a Home Mission Board or any other Board were not to ask the Lord’s people for money with which to do the Lord’s work or if they were to ask for less than the least amount needed to carry on that work,—and they do not ask for more than that—such a Board would be an Unjust Steward—unjust both to the Lord and to His work entrusted to it. And any pastor or other responsible church official who would “‘pass up” such a request in order to protect the pocketbooks of those of his people who give grudgingly, that he might curry favor and stand well with them, is likewise an Unjust Steward, and on the day of reckoning he will be obliged to give an account to his Lord. The need of money for the prosecution of our Home Mission work cannot be too strongly emphasized. The Board of Home Missions and Church Extension can- not extend its operations over its truly continental territory, it cannot enter open doors, it cannot answer appealing calls, because it has not the money; and the same thing is true of all the other Mission Boards. “The field is extensive,” they say, “the opportunities are abundant, the demands are urgent and insistent. These cry aloud to our people that they consecrate their sons and substance for the extension of the King- dom of our Christ. We dare not continue to live at the old dying rate. The effort must be adequate to the ITS FINANCES 119 enterprise. We have, indeed, been able to meet all expenses, with a small balance to our credit; but we have done so at the expense of the cause we have been appointed to advance. There has, indeed, been pro- gress, and that in a marked degree; but the opportuni- ties have far outstripped our activities.” The Board of Home Missions and Church Exten- sion has three main sources of financial income, and upon these it is almost wholly dependent for the means to support the work with whose administration it is entrusted. The chief and most reliable of these sources is, of ~ course, the regular apportionment which is authorized by, and the amount of which is determined by the United Lutheran Church in America in convention assembled. This apportionment, which always repre- sents the minimum amount required for carrying on the work, is assumed by the several constituent synods and their respective quotas are then apportioned to their several congregations. Consequently, when there is a considerable deficit in the amount expected from this source, it seriously hinders the Board in the suc- cessful prosecution of the work, both as to its extent and its efficiency. It really means actual and far- reaching disaster to the most important interest of the Church. Because of this fact there should always be the most faithful and conscientious effort on the part of every pastor and congregation to raise the full amount of the apportionment. The second important source of income is that of legacies. This source has not been nearly as produc- tive of large results as in some of the other denomina- 120 A HOME ENTERPRISE tions. It is certainly to be regretted that so small an amount of the money devoted to Christian benefactions is derived from this source. Whatever may have been the causes which have contributed to this undesirable condition, the time has come when our people should be diligently instructed in reference to the important duty of Christian stewardship. The obligation to recognize the imperative claims of God and His Church upon the temporal possessions of His servants should be impressed upon their hearts and consciences with sufficient urgency and appeal to inspire them with a proper appreciation of that duty. A third source of income is the annuity gift. This method of contributing to benevolent objects is of com- paratively recent origin. By this method persons who are interested in the work of the Board of Home Mis- sions and Church Extension and are desirous of giv- ing a portion of their estate to aid in the support of these causes, but who may be dependent upon the in- come from their estates for their living, may devote such a portion of their possessions as they may desire: on condition that they shall receive a certain fixed annuity during their lifetime, with the understanding that at their death the principal shall become the property of the Board. This is a plan of investment in Christian benevolence which is not only attractive but absolutely safe, and it has the guarantee that the gift will reach the destination intended and accom- plish the purpose desired. This annuity gift plan should be more largely employed. It should commend itself to those who contemplate leaving money to causes of Church benevolence by will. ITS FINANCES 121 It will be instructive and of interest to learn the total sums of receipts and expenditures of the several Boards for a recent single year, as well as the appor- tioned annual budget for the years immediately ahead. In each case the receipts include the balance in the bank at the beginning of the fiscal year.. The fiscal year itself is the one ending July 31, 1924. The receipts of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension were $627,651.34, of which $332,000 was received on account of apportionment, $13,600 as Donations, and $18,000 as Annuity Gifts. The dis- bursements were $530,126.62, the first three items be- ing those of $44,800 in donations to churches, $140,000 in loans to churches, $227,800 in salaries to mission- aries. The total receipts for the Missions Fund of the Northwestern Mission Board for the same period were $46,669.30 and the disbursements were $44,- 951.08; Immigrants Board, receipts, General Fund, $50,361.19 disbursements, $48,816.97; West Indies Board, receipts, $64,648.29, disbursements, $65,189.72 ; Committee on Jewish Missions, receipts, $18,669.63, disbursements, $17,796.73. The apportioned annual budget for the Home Mis- sion cause for the years 1926 and 1927 is as follows: Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, $538,- 000, being 26.90 per cent. of the whole budget; North- western Missions, $75,000, 3.75 per cent.; Immigrants Mission, $52,000, 2.60 per cent.; West Indies Missions, $77,000, 3.85 per cent.; Jewish Missions, $19,000, .95 per cent. Total apportionment for the Home Mission Enterprise, $761,000, being 38.05 per cent. of the 122 A HOME ENTERPRISE entire budget apportioned by the United Lutheran Church in America. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION 1. What is the need of money in carrying on the Home Mis- sion Enterprise? 2. What is the relation between the furnishing of men and of money? 3. What is the teaching of the parable of the Unjust Steward? 4, What statement of their financial case is made by the Home Mission Boards? 5. What are the three main sources of financial income? 6. What were the receipts and disbursements of the Home Mis- sion Board in 1923-1924? 7. What is the apportioned annual budget for the Home Mis- sion cause for 1926 and 1927? CHAPTER VII ITS FRUITAGE The Lutheran Church has always been pre-emi- nently a missionary church. Both at home and abroad it has carried the saving Gospel to thousands of men and women who have been without a knowledge of the Redeemer. Beginning as “Foreign Missions’ of a sort—for the earliest Lutherans in this country, as well as other settlers and settlements, were first served by pastors sent from Europe—it long ago developed an agency of its own and itself carried on the Home Enterprise. For Lutherans were among the very first to emigrate to this new land of promise. In the provi- dence of God the discovery of this Western world was made just when a refuge was most needed for those who, for conscience’s sake, became exiles. As early as 1619, Danish Lutherans landed in the Hudson Bay region. Shortly afterward Lutherans appeared in New Amsterdam (now New York City), where they suffered persecution. Then came the Swedes along the Delaware in 1638, and then the Germans in Penn- sylvania and the Salzburgers in Georgia, while the Danish Lutherans had already made for themselves a new home in the West Indies in 1666. In the begin- ning, it is true, and for many a lamentable year there- after, little progress was made by our Church in this country—the movement was rather retrograde. Irre- parable losses were sustained, due to the complication caused by the several languages—Danish, Swedish, 123 i : : ee ms at “4 124 A HOME ENTERPRISE German, English—as well as to the lack of pastors and of funds with which to prosecute and support the work. These leaks never yet have been entirely stopped, and for pretty much the same reasons. But in the course of time our Church “found” itself, or- ganized, and applied itself to the Home Mission task. With the result that the field has at least measurably been occupied and the Church is now prepared as never before to extend its operations and take fuller possession. The fact is that no cause of Church benevolence, in the character and abundance of its splendid fruit- age, has yielded so richly as Home Missions. The enlargement and achievements of our Church in the homeland is very largely the golden fruitage of Home Mission planting. From the initial labors of the Patriarch Muhlenberg—Home Mission Pioneer on the eastern seaboard—with his inspiring watchword, Ecclesia plantanda, “The Church must be planted,” to the present day, our Church has traversed a vast continent, led by the star of Home Missions; and in her radiant path have sprung into life churches and colleges and seminaries and institutions of charity and mercy, which have rendered invaluable service to mul- titudes and trained millions of souls for Christian service. This assertion is supported by the actual figures. In 1800 the Lutheran Church in the United States and Canada numbered 50 ministers, 300 congregations and 20,000 members; in 1850, 575 ministers, 1,500 con- gregations and 175,000 members; in 1923, 10,379 min- isters, 15,444 congregations and 2,567,000 members. WEST INDIES CHURCH ITALIAN MISSION, ERIE, PA. SISTER EMMA WITH HER HELPERS AND ORPHAN GIRLS Types of Mission Work MISSION, STATESVILLE, N. C. TRINITY CHURCH, ST. PETERSBURG, FLA, Missions in the South ITS FRUITAGE 125 Sixty years ago the membership of the several bodies now merged into the United Lutheran Church was 153,000. Now it is 840,000. Then it had 1,500 churches; now 3,812. Then its western bounds were the Father of Waters; now it has crossed the vast plains and mountains beyond and erected its altars on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and in the Canadian Provinces, while on the south the Christian faith, as confessed by our Church, is heralded on the islands whose shores are washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. On this new field the Home Mission Boards have planted literally thou- sands of churches, many of which have become self- supporting and are fruitful in all good works. Entire synods are the fruit of Home Mission planting. Be- yond the Mississippi eight synods have been organized out of nearly 400 churches planted by Home Missions. Probably three-fifths of our churches, as has already been stated, owe their growth into strength to the initial aid and fostering care of Home Mission agen- cies. As we have seen, of the eighty-three congrega- tions constituting the three synods in the Western District of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, no fewer than eighty were of Home Mis- sion origin. In the last biennium alone (1922-1924) sixty-two new missions received regular appropria- tions from the Home Mission Board and thirty addi- tional missions were organized. Had the congrega- tions thus organized been in one State and formed into a new synod, they would actually have consti- tuted a body numbering more parishes than sixteen of the thirty-six synods of the United Lutheran 126 A HOME ENTERPRISE Church. Moreover, in that same period forty-nine missions developed into sufficient strength to assume entire support. These were added to the self-sustain- ing list and they in turn have become contributors to the cause and help to carry the good work forward. Furthermore: The mission crop now standing on the field and ripening to self-sustentation must also be considered. This also is a part of the fruitage. The mission churches now under the care of the various Boards number as many as 546—over half a thousand. The Board of Home Missions and Church Extension is caring for 378; the Northwestern Board for 106; the Immigrants Mission Board for 39. The West Indies Board for 19. The Committee on Jewish Mis- sions for 4. The number of members in these mission churches approaches 100,000, and the property value sums up to many thousands of dollars. Nor is this the whole story. Part of the story must remain untold, for there is a spiritual fruitage in saved souls and Christian graces and virtues which cannot be grasped and tabulated. But this may be said: the Home Mission contribution to the growth of the Church is larger than any other source or fac- tor whatsoever. In 1923 the average adult addition to the membership of the self-supporting congrega- tions in the synods functioning in Home Mission work through the Board of Home Missions was 9.9 per cent.; for the mission congregations themselves it was 17.5 per cent. “The average Home Mission church is the most consistently effective evangelistic force the United Lutheran Church has.” Especially rapid has been the growth and abundant ITS FRUITAGE 127 the fruitage in the cities of our land, as in New York, where, in 1807, there were two Lutheran congrega- tions; in 1852, ten; in 1865, twenty-six; now Greater New York has one hundred and sixty-six Lutheran churches connected with the several general bodies, having a membership of 140,000 souls. In the city of Baltimore forty years ago there were six churches of the General Synod, with a total membership of 2,093. At the present time (1924) there are thirty- three churches with a total membership of 13,400. Of these churches twenty-two of the twenty-six organized ‘since 1883 were established under the auspices of Home Missions. These two instances are taken at random. Such and such like gratifying progress, largely the result of Home Mission effort, has been duplicated in the other large cities of our land, as in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minne- apolis, Buffalo, Toledo, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and many others. Example has already been given (as in the case of the mission at Queens, Long Island, in the Eastern District) of individual growth, from the planting of the seed to the fruitage which rapidly and richly followed. A few other instances may here be cited— for they are informing and stimulating. In the same district, at Flushing, Long Island, mission work was begun in June of 1924, services being conducted in the parish house of the Episcopal Church, which was closed for the summer. During June, July and August the average attendance was over fifty and the plate offerings on the ten Sundays amounted to $565, an average of $56.50 per Sunday. In the middle of 128 A HOME ENTERPRISE August the congregation bought a beautiful corner lot on the main thoroughfare for $22,000, receiving from the Board of Home Missions and Church Exten- sion a non-interest-bearing loan of $5,000, which will be repaid by a self-sustaining congregation in five years. The Board pays most of the pastor’s salary. Rev. H. H. Weber, who was later to become the General Secretary of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, was commissioned home mis- sionary for southwestern Baltimore. This was in 1885. In October of that year he organized Grace Lutheran Church with forty-one members. At the end of three years the congregation had reached 480, and the enrollment of the Sunday school had risen to 700. At that time the mission assumed self-support. In 1916 lots were purchased in a suburb of Chicago by Rev. J. F. Seibert, then Synodical Superintendent of the Northern Illinois Synod, now General Secretary of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. War held up the development. In the spring of 1920 the erection of a brick Bungalow Chapel was begun at a cost of $11,000. The church was dedicated Sep- tember 12, 1920, and on the same day a congregation was organized with fifty-one charter members and eighty-five scholars in the Sunday school. A pastor had been called on May 1, 1920. In 1923 the congre- gation numbered 427 communicant members, with a Sunday school enrollment of 679, exclusive of Cradle Roll and Home Departments. In one year the con- gregation had outgrown the Bungalow Chapel and today it worships in a splendid $135,000 church, hav- ing a seating capacity of 1,050. In the first fifteen ITS FRUITAGE 129 months the congregation repaid to the Synodical Board all the money it had invested in the Bungalow Chapel. “The congregation is deeply grateful to the Home Mission Board for aid received. As to whether it was a good investment: this year (1923) the sum of $3,000 will be paid to Benevolence and the United Lutheran Church; and as the congregation grows, the sum will grow each year. Spiritually, the results can- not be estimated; thousands of souls will be brought to Christ.” Too much credit cannot be given to the faithful home missionaries whose faith worked by love—and ~ who loved to work. To them, under God, the fruitage is largely due. Even before the coming of Muhlenberg the names of workmen like W. C. Berkenmeyer and Daniel Falkner and John Caspar Stoever, Sr., and John Caspar Stoever, Jr., and Anthony Jacob Henkel and John Christian Schultz are to be held in honor and lasting remembrance. But it was Henry Melchior Muhlenberg who, by his extensive and indefatigable labors, earned for himself the title of the Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America and that of the American Home Mission Pioneer. It has been said of him: “He who sent Moses to His people groaning in Egypt, who sent out Paul far hence to the Gentiles sitting in darkness, who raised up Luther with the light of His Word for those who were watching for the dawn, now also, in answer to many prayers, brought forth a deliverer and an apostle for America, a man combining in himself to a marvelous extent the qualities indispensable for the work to be accom- plished, a man deeply penetrated by the pietistic 130 A HOME ENTERPRISE spirit, and who as a manifest instrument of Providence was destined to build from the precious, but chaotic and scattered elements, the foundations of the Luth- eran Church in the new world.” Reverend Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, answering a call to come to America, arrived September 23, 1742. He landed at Charleston, South Carolina, visited the Salzburgers at Ebenezer, Georgia, and then proceeded to Philadelphia. His name is forever linked with the beginning of organized Lutheranism in America. His work was to bring the primitive congregations into order, to infuse into them a strong piety and true church life, to provide them with good pastors, to introduce schools for the education of the children, and to preserve and establish the Christian home. His activities included the States,of New York, New Jer- sey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. On August 26, 1748, Muhlenberg and six other ministers and lay delegates of free congregations organized the Synod of Pennsylvania, the first Lutheran Synod in this country. This was the most important event in the history of the American Lutheran Church in the eighteenth century. Muhlenberg has had many eminent and worthy suc- cessors, who have sacrificed without stint and labored without rest to plant the Lutheran Church in this country. Among the outstanding pioneers and pro- moters of missions on this field may be named Rev. Paul Henkel, Dr. W. A. Passavant, Dr. S. B. Barnitz, Dr. H. L. Yarger. These are but a few names among the many on the Home Mission roll of honor: the names of all the devoted men who sowed and watered ITS FRUITAGE 131 and planted—while, in the majority of cases, other men reaped the increase which God gave—are written in the book of life. Someone, writing in a missionary periodical of an- other denomination in the interest of Home Missions, said: “A great want of our Church is more biographies of Home Missionaries; of men who have been the heroic self-sacrificing pioneers in planting the Church on the ever-retreating frontiers.” Upon this state- ment another writer has made the comment: “We fail adequately to understand any movement until we get back to its individual originators and promoters. We miss the vital force of Home Missions until we make the acquaintance of the agents who set the processes of Christian conquest in motion. Foreign Mission literature is rich in this department and owes much of the ascendancy which it has gained in the minds of Christian people to this source. The foreign work doubtless has some advantage in this respect, involv- ing in its early history many elements of romance and tragedy. There have been, however, characters as heroic, sufferings as tragic, and triumphs as great in the home work as in the foreign. Some day some one will write the epic of the Home Mission heroes—or eall it the new Book of Martyrs—of Christian heroic men who could say and did say with the great apos- tolic missionary, St. Paul, in the face of hardships and difficulties and self-denials and perils; ‘But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God.’ ”’ 132 Ol co bo ee 10. A HOME ENTERPRISE QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION . Sketch the career of our Lutheran Church in this country. What was the watchword of the Patriarch Muhlenberg? . At what rate has our Church grown in the United States? - What has been its growth in the cities? . To what degree have Home Missions figured in the growth of our Church in the cities and in the country at large? . Give some individual instances of growth. - Who were some of the Pioneer Home Missionaries? . Tell something of the life and labors of the Patriarch Muh- lenberg. . In more recent times whose names are on the Home Mis- sion honor roll? What particular biography remains to be written? CHAPTER VIII ITS FUTURE The future of the Home Mission Enterprise has the past as its background and is—or will be—the present itself in projection. The beginnings of the Home Mis- sion movement were fraught with peculiar difficulties and the progress was slow. But the Church has “speeded up” its Home Mission program and the cause is continually gathering momentum and the “business” is increasing in volume and, so to speak, is making greater profits and paying higher dividends. The program now includes almost every State in the Union, most of the Provinces of Canada, Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Into the great cities and smaller towns as well as into the neglected rural com- munities, we have gone with good and gratifying suc- cess. Sunday schools have been organized, congrega- tions established, churches built, and there has been a corresponding increase in interest and financial sup- port that promise well for the years to come. More- over, the mission of the Church to our immigrant population is well organized—the Gospel being preached in at least nine languages—and is lengthen- ing its cords and strengthening its stakes. Altogether, there is every reason to thank God and take courage. But there still remains very much land to be pos- sessed. Over 60,000,000 of our people today are not reached by the Gospel, and among them our own house- 133 134 A HOME ENTERPRISE hold of faith is largely represented. Never since the discovery of America has there been greater spiritual need than at this very time—not to say patriotic need —nor more urgent demand for the most earnest and aggressive use of the evangelistic agencies and forces of the Church to carry the saving Gospel to these mil- lions not touched by the ministries of the Church. This is true of the Christian Church of America in general and of our own Church in particular, which will forego one of the finest opportunities in all its history and shirk a most grave responsibility if it falters in the execution of its God-given Home Mission task in its fullest measure. Should our beloved Church fail to be actuated by the holy ambition to share in the su- premely important work of bringing our land to a knowledge of the Gospel which saves and sanctifies, it would be recreant to its duty and disloyal to its Lord, for the cause of Home Missions is a part of Christ’s own plan for the planting of His Church and the ex- tension of His Kingdom. The proclamation of His Gos- pel in new fields and the evangelization of the nation are a part of His great missionary command, which has as its object the salvation of all mankind. It is the simple truth that the future of our Church, —its achievements, its glory,—is bound up with and will be determined by the character and extent of its Home Mission activity. ‘As goes Home Missions, so goes the Church.” The Home Mission Boards and the large majority of the pastors have caught the vision of this boundless missionary task and are making every effort to accomplish it. But in this respect the ministry is far in advance of the generality of the ITS FUTURE 135 laity. Our laity need to realize five things: (1) That the opportunity and the necessity at this critical hour in our nation’s life for the multiplication of spiritual forces are abundant and imperative, and challenge the Church and every churchman to an aggressive forward movement. (2) That the propagation of our precious faith, the growth of our dear old Church in this west- ern land and the Christianization of this mighty nation are largely conditioned by the effective prosecution of Home Missions. (3) That millions of scattered and unchurched members of our own household of faith— practically as sheep without a shepherd—cannot be reached by the ministration of the Gospel save through Home Mission effort. (4) That the United Lutheran Church recognizes the exceedingly great importance of its Home Mission work by appointing appropriate Boards for its prosecution and providing a generous apportionment for its accomplishment. (5) That the Boards to which the Church has entrusted its admin- istration of this great enterprise are helpless to exe- cute it unless every congregation—which includes pastor, church officers and all the members—heeds their earnest plea to support this work adequately with the full amount of the apportionment and with special gifts, whether out-and-out donations or an- nuities or bequests by will. Nor is money the only thing which is needed. Su- perior to the need of money is the need of men. What use is there for a synodical field missionary to locate a promising mission field in city or countfy, among this group of people or among that, if there is no regular minister available to carry on the work? This 136 A HOME ENTERPRISE is what hinders most of all—the lack of men. Given the men, the funds for their support, upon definite appeal, will not fail to be contributed. After all and in the last resort, it is from the laymen and laywomen of the Church, the people in the pews, that the men and the means for the performance of the vast Home Mission enterprise must be forthcoming. When our people of means give of their means; when our people having sons give of their sons; when all our people with means and sons or without them, give their fer- vent effectual prayers—praying the prayer the Lord Jesus Himself has given them to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done”’—then a better and brighter day for our Home Mission cause will have dawned and its future will be secure. “Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way; Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious; And haste the coming of the glorious day. “He comes again: O Zion ere thou meet Him, Make known to every heart His saving grace; Let none whom He hath ransomed fail to greet Him, Through thy neglect, unfit to see His face.” QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION . What are the chapter headings in this book? . What reason has our Church to thank God and take courage? . Is the Home Mission work a finished task? . In what does the hope of our Church in the future lie? . What five things do our laymen need to realize? . What is the need of men and means, if the future is to be made secure? 7. Recite the two stanzas of the hymn with which this book concludes. ; a or WN KE cas ri ee * NNR ey ey el Aa ae De ay nee cal ; ad rs “ ; ‘ ta Ta i ane Pe nN Se hana NT me ee we os - 4 amen Ne. pa ta used hie tte eee aET Ge ae hae nae rn itlng tia trap ms te gn erent 4 “ spa peaeet Mert se beeen siete seein pezmnn santrree ste Se Seen Se Sr iotiginese Sonny tener eye tnt hen ate De OL, Se AY, Pe AR MERE ITE ORE es ar Res Bi OS Te aetenteep ee - f wn eter Ss = a ee pene anaenn eee ? Scee near na tn oat aed wean aes mt AEE OUE PADRE We AON eT TN ns Sete ar ney yeahs ‘ar Soret “ fr, vo emene valictpslorts onsets srenpurmrrinwinces eres lagleth ; : pees : pe faae tors ith oesecser salt taapies may fe Ale. Ph, OS etre than he ey tPF