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 BV 2765 .W5 1915 
 
 White, Charles Lincoln, 1862 
 
 -1941. 
 The churches at work 
 
JOHN MASON PECK 
 Pioneer Missionary 
 
THE CHURCHES AT 
 
 SEP 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES L. WHITE 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 1915 
 
Copyright, 191 5» 
 
 Missionary Education Movement of the 
 
 United States and Canada 
 
TO OUR FELLOW WORKERS 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 / 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 I The Land and the Workmen 3 
 
 11 Difficulties to be Overcome 23 
 
 III The Evangelistic Method and Message 51 
 
 IV The Reach of the Individual 81 
 
 V The Reach of the Local Church 109 
 
 VI The Church in the Nation 1.39 
 
 VII The Church among the Nations 165 
 
 VIII Master Workmen 189 
 
 Bibliography 215 
 
 Index 221 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACE 
 
 John Mason Peck Frontispiece 
 
 Cosmopolitan Bible Class, Indianapolis 6 
 
 Edward A. Steiner ;^2 
 
 Joseph Ettor 38 
 
 Vincent Maroney 38 
 
 Sunday Crowd, Coney Island, New York 44 
 
 Church of the Ascension Athletic Club, New York 120 
 
 Mulberry Bush Gang, New York.. 120 
 
 Sunday Evening Meeting, Ford Hall, Boston 126 
 
 First Baptist Church, San Francisco, Erected 1849 144 
 
 First Baptist Church, San Francisco, Erected 1910 144 
 
 Booker T. Washington 150 
 
 Type of Japanese Immigrants, Seattle Washington 158 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, Detroit 166 
 
 Judson Memorial Church, New York 170 
 
 Epworth Memorial Church, Cleveland 170 
 
 Daily Vacation Bible School, New York 176 
 
 Neidringhaus Basketry Class, St. Louis 176 
 
 Italians Studying English, Green Street Church, San 
 
 Francisco 178 
 
 Boyle Center Night School, St. Louis 178 
 
 Typical Mountaineer Home 198 
 
 Church for Mountaineers 198 
 
 Opportunity for Service, Santiago, Cuba 2C2 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It has been my desire to show In an Intimate, popu- 
 lar, and concrete form the serious situation confront- 
 ing the churches of America, and suggest ways in 
 which they may work In the spirit that prevailed in the 
 early Christian centuries, when, without facilities for 
 reaching and serving the people, astonishing spiritual 
 results were obtained. The inference is that America 
 may become Christian in the fullest sense and influ- 
 ential among the nations in the broadest way if her 
 highly organized Christian forces, with modern tools 
 in hand, can feel the individual responsibility and have 
 the consecration and personal enthusiasm of the Chris- 
 tians of the first century. 
 
 Charles L. White 
 
 New York City, May lo, 191 5 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 
 
 The Land 
 
 Wide Horizons. While crossing from Antwerp to 
 London an American student boasted of the great 
 extent of the United States. The Englishman to whom 
 he spoke replied : "My friend, do you not know that the 
 worth of a picture does not depend upon its size?" 
 And then he dropped a word about the vast extent of 
 Canada, showing that size impressed him also. It 
 affects every one. A mountain gives to the soul more 
 than the hill, the wide prairie more than the pasture, 
 the swift, deep, broad river more than the brook, how- 
 ever sweet its song. 
 
 The Earliest Inhabitants. The continent has been 
 here, who shall say how long? and who can safely state 
 whence came its earliest inhabitants? Were they Mon- 
 golians? What we know about America dates back to 
 a certain time when different types of men with various 
 motives began here their new and strange lives. 
 
 America's Real Founders. The first to arrive suc- 
 ceeded not so much because of what they brought as 
 because of what they were. It was their character that 
 conquered. Their courage could not be crushed. If 
 harvests failed, their hearts did not falter. If disease 
 laid low their leaders, fresh determination came to those 
 
 3 
 
4 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 who were left. Their intensity was the ax that cut 
 away the underbrush ; their zeal was the fire that burned 
 it. They met all foes face forward. They understood 
 each other, knew their own hearts, and grasped much 
 of God's plan. In most cases the settlers were persons 
 of high purpose, anxious to find in the new world an 
 open door to religious freedom and to personal initia- 
 tive. What did they bring with them ? They reached a 
 strange shore with an ax, a saw, a hammer, a gun, the 
 Bible, a conscience, and high thoughts. They estab- 
 lished simple homes, started necessary schools, erected 
 plain, commodious churches, and by means of these 
 three agencies small groups of brave people scattered 
 along the Atlantic coast have grown to be one hundred 
 million souls. 
 
 Guarding the Springs. The home, the school, and 
 the church are the springs from which flowed the pure 
 waters that quenched the thirst of the workmen. To 
 keep these springs unpolluted, to guide and use their 
 waters rightly, is the task of the Christians of this cen- 
 tury. Every man who would throw into these waters 
 the poison of his unbelief, every man who is indiffer- 
 ent to their value, though eager to enjoy their benefits, 
 must be treated kindly but firmly, and made a friend 
 of the springs. The little child and the stranger within 
 our gates must alike be taught their worth and trained 
 to use the dipper and satisfy all inner longings. This 
 work must be done by Christians in the home, the 
 school, the church, and in every walk of life. A Chris- 
 tian who strays from this path of labor is an idler, a 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 6 
 
 tramp, a drone. But they who spend their lives for 
 the springs are the sons and daughters of the King. If 
 they do their work well with each generation, the long 
 future may have earthquakes, storms, and fire, but the 
 still, small voice of Christianity will be heard and 
 heeded. 
 
 What Might Have Been. Who were the first Chris- 
 tians of America? They had suffered for their faith 
 and wanted a place "to grow in the sun." They came 
 from Anglo-Saxon lands and transplanted their cus- 
 toms and habits. What if storms had driven the first 
 ships to the coasts far to the south, where the climate 
 is enervating? Would they have built what we to-day 
 have ? Were the blasts of winter needed to winnow the 
 chaff from the wheat whose planting and harvests have 
 been the admiration of the world? 
 
 What might have been the results if the Spaniards 
 had colonized the whole Atlantic seaboard and had 
 repeated in the North their work in Mexico and through 
 the South? What might have resulted if the French 
 had retained Canada and conquered the colonies ? 
 
 What would have been the development of the middle 
 and far West if France, during the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, had kept the Louisiana territory, and strongly 
 dominated its civilization? If the war with Mexico 
 had not come, would the states ceded to our country be 
 now just emerging from the darkness of feudalism and 
 be often rent with civil strife? 
 
 One impressive fact calls for long thought. In 
 America God established a great country strongly Prot- 
 
« THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 estant, facing the older continents, with the poUtical 
 and spiritual influence whose future reach and power 
 can be only faintly understood by the wisest. This has 
 happened in the fulness of time when men who had 
 been justified by faith took large views of life and were 
 eager for hard tasks, and one wonders if God has not 
 made America another chosen nation. Is there the 
 same danger of sin and captivity as in ancient days? 
 Is a period of exile possible? 
 
 The Unseen Hand. The racial struggle for a con- 
 tinent was guided by an unseen hand. The aftermaths 
 of regrettable wars were at first bitter, but the later 
 harvests have been sweet. The forces of Protestantism 
 in the founding of the republic were numerous and 
 strong. A large number of the most influential lead- 
 ers were loyal to Christ. The political and religious 
 factors in the growth of some states of the nation were 
 strangely intenningled, but soon the puzzle was solved 
 and "Church and state" in every place has given way 
 to the Church in the state. 
 
 An Inventory of the Population 
 
 The First Americans. How many kinds of Amer- 
 icans are there ? The first Americans were the Indians. 
 They are yet with us. It is thought that they came 
 after still earlier peoples. In our country to-day we 
 have 330,000 of these people, belonging to 200 tribes, 
 speaking 57 languages. A western orator who excit- 
 edly shouted : 
 
 "The Indian has gone, is going, and is about to go," 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 7 
 
 would have told the truth if he had added, "forward." 
 Whether these first Americans will go forward alone 
 or blended in other races, who can say? Of late they 
 have been among the progressive people of the nation. 
 Many of them have great mental capacity, personal 
 initiative, and Christian leadership. 
 
 Hyphenated Americans. We have also what Presi- 
 dent Wilson, with others, has styled "hyphenated 
 Americans." They cannot easily forget their former 
 homes, and, while loyal to their adopted country and 
 fighting its battles for freedom and righteousness, each 
 cannot separate himself in sympathy from the land of 
 his birth. Its dangers try his soul, its honor is as per- 
 sonal to him as his own, and in its wars of defense and 
 aggression he will assist with gifts of money or even 
 Steal silently away and die under his boyhood flag. 
 
 Transients. The transients are visitors from many 
 lands who come to America as miners go to Alaska — 
 to get gold and return home, or as fishermen sail to 
 the Newfoundland Banks for a catch. Many of the 
 transients are overcome by temptation, as men die 
 tinder the stress of a northern winter. Others are 
 crushed beneath the wheels of industrialism, like fisher- 
 men run down by ocean greyhounds. Those who 
 escape the smoke and the filth and the injustice go back 
 at last with savings that promise a home and a lifelong 
 independence in their native lands. What do they think 
 of the new land ? Were their hands burned in the fires 
 of sin, or cleansed in the water of life? They helped 
 to build America. How much has America built into 
 
8 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 them of the kingdom of God? Did the churches by 
 closed doors discourage them, or by outstretched hands 
 help them? Did Christians in America drop any seed 
 in their lives to gemiinate in this or in another land ? 
 
 Ideal Americans. The ideal Americans are the 
 Christians who recognize the brotherhood of all men. 
 They count the vantage-ground of birth as a sacred 
 trust. Their roots, reaching backward into the rich 
 soil of a Christian civilization, bear fruit for the poor- 
 est of the newcomers. They have no pride of "face, 
 nor place, nor race, nor grace." They do not make 
 broad their phylacteries but their sympathies. In busi- 
 ness they are kind to the employed, just in all dealings 
 with their fellows. They are not pirates, but prophets 
 of the new day of social justice. They possess the 
 faith in Christ which they profess, and when they ex- 
 plain the gospel with their lips they do not have to ex- 
 plain their lives. Their lives are not only transparent 
 but translucent. They live in the open, and can look men 
 in the eye. They are not boastful, but direct, sincere, 
 frank ; and church-membership means to them disciple- 
 ship. They do not hesitate to talk of Christian experi- 
 ence. They do not have to pump the water up. Con- 
 fession of Christ flows from their lips as freely as water 
 from a faucet under the pressure of the reservoir open 
 to the sky. Their conversation is clear as crystal, and 
 it brings refreshment to many souls. The ideal Amer- 
 icans are loyal to Christ, devoted to the Church, faith- 
 ful to those whom their lives touch in the customary 
 ways or in forms of service which they devise. 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN « 
 
 How many ideal Americans are there? Who can 
 answer? They are scattered through the land. They 
 differ in poHtical, social, intellectual, and denomina- 
 tional convictions, but they use the same spiritual meas- 
 uring-rod. America will be largely saved by them, 
 and their number is surely increasing. 
 
 Possessors of Wealth. A national inventory of our 
 resources shows that the wealth of the nation is exceed- 
 ingly great. A large part of this is in the hands of 
 those who profess to follow Christ. Some of these men 
 are almost embarrassed by their riches. How to dis- 
 tribute even their income without harming the giving 
 power of others is a task for which they seek the advice 
 of experts. 
 
 Cross-section views of the business world cannot be 
 made. Surface suggestions indicate that the ideals of 
 Christ are greatly needed in an industrialism based on 
 competition. But it is encouraging to learn that a busi- 
 ness man of international reach declined to address a 
 woman's club on the subject, "Dishonest Men Whom I 
 Have Met in Business," saying in his reply that, dur- 
 ing a long life of very wide connections, he had met but 
 two dishonest men. A wholesale merchant in New 
 York has made the statement that, among the thousands 
 of men with whom he has done extensive business, 
 the most honest belong to the group whose racial name 
 has in some quarters been used as a synonym of dis- 
 honesty. 
 
 Changes in the business world are coming swiftly 
 and in the right direction. They are being hastened by 
 
le THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 men who are administering their fortunes as a sacred 
 duty, or who are sharing their profits and helpful ideas 
 among those with whom they are bound up in the 
 bundle of hfe. 
 
 The Cave-Dwellers. The cave-dwellers are still in 
 the land. They live as far removed from Christian 
 ideas as despotism is from democracy and as light is 
 from darkness. They are in politics corrupt. They 
 plan their campaigns in the loathsome atmosphere of 
 bribes and spoils. Their hiding-place is still a mam- 
 moth cave. 
 
 The mercantile cave-dwellers are more cautious, for 
 they fear the light. They conduct business by graft, 
 and plot to deceive in quality and quantity. Their short 
 measures and imperfect scales are gathered by wagon- 
 loads when righteous men are in office. They are the 
 Shylocks of the business world and are of many tribes, 
 but are probably growing fewer in number. 
 
 The social cave-dwellers are the most cautious, but 
 they draw into their underworld of vice the willing and 
 the unwilling alike, and to a slavery which destroys 
 both body and soul. 
 
 The cave-dwellers of intemperance are still in many 
 places. The doors into their dens open from popular 
 corners and in respectable neighborhoods. They lure 
 into their haunts the unwary and poison them. They 
 drug the conscience, deaden the intellect, demolish the 
 home, fire the passions, and destroy the hearts of men. 
 They are very loyal to each other, and defend them- 
 selves by underground connections with other cave- 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN H 
 
 dwellers. Indeed, subterranean passages seem to con- 
 nect the dens of all evil workers. 
 
 The churches are the foes of the cave-dwellers. 
 Christians in all ways now known and yet to be devised 
 must fight all cave-dwellers, destroy their caves and 
 drive them up into the sunlight. Against these agencies 
 of evil Christians and churches must array themselves, 
 not spasmodically under reform leadership, but con- 
 stantly under divine guidance, not a few here and there, 
 but all together always and everywhere. 
 
 The Workmen 
 
 How the Churches Grew. The development of the 
 denominations generally followed the lines along which 
 the members of their churches went westward. It was 
 a natural growth. Convictions were strong and a life of 
 toil and danger made the next world seem near. The 
 voices of nature came as messages of God. If faith 
 was stern, it was also strong. The anchors of hope 
 seldom dragged at their moorings. The rapid settle- 
 ment of such a vast extent of territory was followed 
 by the establishment of Christian churches, and the 
 efection of educational institutions. In all these de- 
 velopments Christian men and women had a large 
 share. They placed their altars where they plowed 
 their acres, and taught their neighbors to love and wor- 
 ship God. 
 
 Men Who Kept the Faith. The region west of the 
 Mississippi River was brought to its present Christian 
 strength by those who did not leave their religion be- 
 
12 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 hind them when they crossed its flood. These men 
 were the leaven that has worked for righteousness in 
 every western state. The results already seen could not 
 in their full measure have been accomplished if the 
 home mission societies had not sent their missionaries 
 to be the spiritual leaders in new communities. A few 
 of them were swept away, as was Demas, by the lure of 
 gold, but the vast majority were tried in the fire and 
 were not found wanting. They were men of great faith 
 and large vision. Their strategy in founding churches 
 and schools was based on spiritual intuition. Men who 
 could have amassed wealth preferred to lay up treasures 
 in heaven. They laid foundations of gold, silver, and 
 precious stones, and then they pushed on like Chris- 
 tian scouts, searching for other groups of believers. 
 These they established in the faith, and inspired their 
 children to get an education and to be the leaders of 
 the nation. 
 
 Later Workmen. Christ's plan is to complete the 
 tasks of the earlier by the toil of the later workmen. 
 Christians of to-day are the later workmen. They 
 build the superstructure on a foundation laid by hands 
 now quiet. They dig for gold in the mines the earlier 
 men started. They macadamize the roads former men 
 cut through the wilderness. Their hearts beat faster 
 in eagerness to do Christian work because other hearts 
 were crushed by cruel opponents. They cultivate the 
 plants others placed in the garden, and they gather the 
 fruit. They discover diamonds on the farms others 
 cleared. Christ alone can m.ake later work supplement 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 13 
 
 earlier labor. His superintendence of both sets of lives 
 gives completeness to what would be fragmentary. 
 
 The Search for Laborers. As the angel of God stood 
 before the tent of Abraham looking for some one to 
 trust, so Christ searches for trusted workmen now. 
 There is more important work to be done now than 
 Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, and Daniel did. The 
 workmen who are set apart by ordination vows can 
 lead and plan, but they cannot win battles any more 
 than military officers can. The common soldiers do 
 this. The captain on the bridge cannot sail or save the 
 ship. The stokers, the engineers, working out of sight, 
 and the sailors aloft, on deck, everywhere at work, are 
 the saviors of the ship. 
 
 The churches are well officered by consecrated men 
 who lead those that will follow. They are the archi- 
 tects, and they need masons, carpenters, and others to 
 execute their plans. One can deceive himself into 
 thinking he is doing his full Christian service in polish- 
 ing an altar-rail, or helping in a bazaar, and of course 
 all work done for Christ's glory is of value, but spir- 
 itual workmen are needed. 
 
 Divine Training Schools. This demand for spirit- 
 ual workmen is the test, and shows the task of the 
 churches. No other organizations can produce these 
 workmen, lead them into the life of God, show them 
 the water that slakes the thirst and a bread that 
 strengthens the soul. No other force can equip them 
 for service than this divine agency for saving the people 
 of the world. A true church makes a true workman. 
 
14 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Her ministry and inspiration are essential to give life 
 and light and power. "Where there is no vision, the 
 people perish." 
 
 The churches teach men to realize God's plan for 
 the world's rescue from sin, his plan for the family 
 and for each human life. Christians to-day, though 
 far removed in time from the Lord's ascension, read in 
 the holy Scriptures his thought for all time. They are 
 not sailing under sealed orders ; they do not build with- 
 out an architect's plans; they do not work in a tread- 
 mill, seeing no result of it all. 
 
 The workmen of to-day are distracted by a thou- 
 sand things their fathers did not have, to divide their 
 thought and consume their energy. They must toil at 
 spiritual tasks in the center of such great social changes 
 that some are seriously asking how much of what now 
 exists will remain. The chances for work that lift men 
 out of sin and on toward goodness and up to God were 
 never greater. If they are thrown away, men's souls 
 will shrivel and the workmen will be ashamed when 
 they come to the day of death. 
 
 The Test of Life. If any institution proves itself to 
 be a part of the kingdom of God, whatever its poverty 
 or trials, it will have vitality. If a church ministers to 
 the spiritual needs of the world it will be divinely 
 blessed because it is a part of this kingdom. It may 
 even for local causes cease to exist, and yet still live 
 forever in the lives it molded and fired and adorned 
 with heavenly grace. 
 
 The same is true of each one in the church. If he 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 15 
 
 keeps himself unspotted from the world and visits the 
 fatherless and widows in their affliction, he will not 
 live in vain. Christ will keep his hands busy, if a man 
 keeps his heart beautiful. The home, the school, the 
 mill, the office, the circle of friends, can never be what 
 they were before such a life blessed them. 
 
 As in the past, so in the future, there will be a divi- 
 sion of labor among the workmen. The burning ques- 
 tion which each one should ask and in its light read the 
 answer is : "Have I found my part in the division of 
 labor? How can I find it at once and make my life 
 more effective?" 
 
 The Inner Proof. Does any one forget that he must 
 be in the kingdom of God to work in it? A pupil 
 stands by the bed of Raphael as he is dying. He longs 
 that the spirit of his master may come into his life. He 
 prays that the same spirit may come to his hand, that 
 the productions of his life may be as beautiful and 
 great as those of the one so soon to leave him. But 
 Raphael whispers to him: 
 
 "You must begin where I began. I cannot give my 
 skill to you." It is not so with the divine Master. He 
 breathes his spirit into each disciple, walks and talks 
 with him, supplements his weakness with his strength, 
 guides and girds him, and stays with him till the day of 
 life ends, and goes with him beyond the dark frontier. 
 
 A Christian Ambition. Facing present world con- 
 ditions what Christian could say this : "My chief ambi- 
 tion is to amass a fortune ; to win honors ; to sit quietly 
 down among congenial friends, enjoy as many lux- 
 
16 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 urks as possible, read a little poetry, keep in touch with 
 current literature, occasionally go to Europe, get away 
 from the cold of winter, spend my summers at the sea- 
 shore, and own an automobile. I do not want to see 
 the suffering of the world. I may have enough of my 
 own at any time." 
 
 What says the normal Christian workman? "My 
 chief ambition is to serve my generation according to 
 the will of God; to impart my knowledge of Christ to 
 all I can; to be a divine agent in lifting those cast 
 down in suffering, in sorrow, and in sin; to help in 
 changing the conditions that favor imperfection and 
 misfortune; to be not cynical or critical but charitable 
 and hopeful; to consecrate my life in the service of 
 God and to the uplift of men." A man with this am- 
 bition will find his life full of surprises, and his path 
 will often cross the path of others whom he can save. 
 In America, the land of the world's largest promise, 
 such souls are needed: not just a few to save the 
 nation by their presence, as ten righteous persons 
 could have saved Sodom, but a multitude, trained in 
 the churches to make Christ known everywhere. 
 
 The Spirit of the Workmen. The same earnest 
 spirit must be in the later workmen that was in their 
 fathers, although we use methods as widely different 
 from those employed in the earlier days as our mod- 
 em machinery differs from the simple tools of three 
 centuries ago. The first builders worked by hand and 
 we labor largely through organizations. How can 
 the churches get a revival of man-power into Chris- 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 17 
 
 tian work while still employing the latest wheels, 
 pulleys, and belts? How can the machinery of modern 
 Christian agencies enlist more fully the services of 
 men who are not professionally attached to it? 
 
 Are the Workmen Positive? The earlier workmen 
 who labored so well lived simple lives. How can we 
 to-day make our complex lives more simple? They 
 had few social engagements. How can we spiritualize 
 our social life? Will it be by cutting out the less 
 important part as athletes do the food that does not 
 make muscle while they are in training? Did St. Paul 
 have this in mind when he urged men to lay aside 
 every weight? Our fathers were sure of their per- 
 sonal relation with God. Do we know that this rela- 
 tionship is constant? They read the Scriptures and 
 followed their spiritual teachings. Do we have the 
 same daily contact with this magnet that charges men 
 with its power? They were sure of something, and 
 punctuated their statements of faith with periods and 
 exclamation-points. Do we use the dash and the inter- 
 rogation mark too freely? They prayed, and con- 
 quered sins. Do we neglect prayer, and find ourselves 
 vanquished? They worked at a white heat. Do we 
 labor as Christians just to keep warm, and is much of 
 our service like the beating of the hands to keep them 
 from freezing? 
 
 Toilers and Oilers. In America men are undertak- 
 ing great things in art, literature, science, government, 
 and business. Shall the churches sit down before the 
 conquest of souls and let the organized forces of evil 
 
18 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 entrench and outflank them? In this age of great 
 foundations and organizations closely allied to the 
 churches, everything depends on the man who under- 
 stands their intricate inner works and can use them. 
 In the church with its complicated wheels, individual 
 workers must make the whole effective. Some will be 
 toilers; others will be oilers. Some will work in the 
 open and others in hidden places. Personality and 
 skill count most strongly. Is not the laggard a para- 
 site? 
 
 God's Use of Tools. The nineteenth century saw a 
 republic of thirteen states — leaping the central rivers, 
 crossing the prairies, climbing the mountains — sweep 
 north to Alaska and cross the Pacific to help peoples 
 climbing toward freedom. What may not the twen- 
 tieth century witness in th^ intensive growth of the 
 same area ? 
 
 What can the churches through their membership 
 and organizations do in this wide area within the life- 
 time of a generation? Exactly as much as God can 
 do with such human tools as he finds to use in 
 America. Shall they be dull, poorly tempered, weakly 
 made? Can they be beaten out on the anvils of our 
 churches under the hammer of divine truth and. hard- 
 ened, sharpened, and tested? Christians are the tools 
 in God's hands, and the slogan o-f the churches of the 
 present century may well be: "Have thy tools ready; 
 God will give thee work." Some must be sharp to 
 cut away the underbrush. Others must be made to 
 plant the seed, to cultivate the soil, and still others to 
 
THE LAND AND THE WORKMEN 19 
 
 reap and garner the wheat. The Spirit giveth to every 
 tool its work. 
 
 What are the peoples among- whom these churches 
 have worked and must labor? At first they were 
 alike; now they are unlike. Nothing in the history of 
 the world faintly foretold the multitudes who have 
 come from many lands to get the gold, the freedom, 
 and the blessings of America. 
 
 The Labor is Long and Hard. Among the first 
 group of selectmen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 were those who carried out a vote of the town meet- 
 ing and built a road extending a few miles westward 
 from the village center into the wilderness. When 
 they reported their work and the expense, they were 
 asked why they built so long, a road ? The chairman 
 answered : "While we were doing the work we thought 
 we might as well build it as far as a road would ever 
 be needed in that direction." 
 
 Those early workmen little realized how far that 
 road would go in three centuries, what cities it would 
 pass, what institutions of a Christian civilization, what 
 monuments of peace and war, what churches and what 
 schools, the millions that should walk it would see. 
 
 Are the later workmen holding views of America's 
 future as inadequate to what will be in the advance- 
 ment of America's greatness in population, material 
 increase, intellectual growth, and spiritual influence? 
 It is high time to think of the tests and tasks of the 
 Christian churches of such a land and to be guided to 
 them all. 
 
-20 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Three Centuries Hence. Three centuries from now 
 how many inliabitants will dwell within our borders? 
 What dangers will be faced and escaped? What civil 
 wars may come to threaten our land? What foreign 
 complications may rise to embarrass us? Great social 
 upheavals may break forth like slumbering volcanoes 
 and try our souls. New and sudden tests may come 
 to our democracy. Dangerous caste systems may be 
 produced by pride and wealth and arrogance. Heavy 
 chastisements may be visited upon the land if its people 
 forget God. Painful social reconstructions will ap- 
 pear if men trample the Golden Rule under their feet. 
 What industrial revolutions may spread terror in the 
 business world? What new and secret combinations 
 are possible between politics and religion which would 
 prove as dangerous as shells, whose impact not only 
 destroys but whose explosion spreads poisonous gases 
 and fire over wide areas? These questions suggest a 
 hundred others that rise to perplex American churches 
 and to paralyze the activities of not a few Christians as 
 they contemplate the spiritual work that must be done 
 and gird themselves for their strenuous tasks. 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 
 
II 
 
 DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 
 
 Some Compensations. Stumbling-blocks in the 
 path for many timid souls have been stepping-stones 
 for other brave spirits. The progress of the world, 
 material, educational, social, and spiritual, has been 
 one long conquest of difficulties. Many men have 
 failed, but others have surmounted the obstacles, as 
 the steamship rides the seas through which it rushes 
 because it has power within its frame. A complicated 
 trade is easy to the one who has learned it. The spe- 
 cialist amazes us with his skill. Men are everywhere 
 attempting and doing seemingly impossible tasks. In- 
 deed, as certain knives are sharpened by hidden stones 
 set in complicated machines, so Christians who would 
 achieve spiritual victories are made efficient by the 
 opposition that they must meet. 
 
 American Conditions. The spiritual conquest of 
 America grows more complex and perplexing, as the 
 polyglot population of the continent increases, and as 
 its resources enlarge. The difficulties to be overcome 
 must be fearlessly examined, and measures should be 
 taken to conquer all of them. 
 
 Race Friction 
 
 The Indians. The friction between the Indians and 
 
 23 
 
24 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 the white people was formerly of a violent kind. The 
 Indians asserted their rights by strategy and war; 
 the white people asserted their superiority by break- 
 ing treaties and by reprisals. Since the day that A 
 Century of Dishonor was written, the Indians have 
 been cheated out of millions of dollars of property by 
 white men by the aid of unjust state and national 
 legislation which rendered the Indians helpless to de- 
 fend themselves. Their contact with the white race 
 has brought them disease and death. Efforts for their 
 advance along lines that have been largely devised by 
 the Indian Conference at Lake Mohonk have been con- 
 stantly retarded by political schemers in states where 
 the Indians had been allotted valuable lands. Utter 
 discouragement seizes those who have been treated like 
 children, compelled to be quiet and kept under re- 
 straint. That they have accepted the gospel so freely 
 at the hands of white men whose brothers have de- 
 ceived them encourages mission workers to believe 
 that Christianity will yet be received by all the tribes. 
 Fully forty-six thousand Indians are not touched, 
 to-day by any interpreters of Christianity. Many 
 tribes number only a few hundred and are largely 
 engaged in agricultural work and other forms of man- 
 ual labor. Several tribes thus far have proved inac- 
 cessible to the missionaries. The treatment they have 
 received makes them cautious, and who can blame 
 them? 
 
 The Negroes. The Negro problem also is made 
 difficult by racial friction. This exists to some extent 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 25 
 
 in every part of the country, and many keen observers 
 fear that it is increasing, but not in its more violent 
 forms. Men inflamed by the passions of v\^ar see 
 through a glass darkly, but when fifty years have sub- 
 dued their emotions they behold the far-off events of 
 the struggle v^ith the poise of candor. History cannot 
 be written till hatred is dead. Swords have been 
 melted into plowshares in the furnace o»f affliction, and 
 where the thorns of hatred grew, love and peace are 
 yielding their happy harvest in the South, 
 
 Conditions have vastly improved, and the best ele- 
 ments in both racial groups are approaching the solu- 
 tion of their difficult problem in a spirit which augurs 
 well for the future. The tradition that a black man 
 carried the Savior's cross may be supported by scanty 
 scholarship, but it is true that many white men, North 
 and South, have won their crown by helping the Negro 
 carry his cross. The white man's cross-bearing with 
 and for the black man overcomes prejudice and de- 
 stroys friction. Southern leaders warn the rest of 
 the nation not to be over-impressed by the railings 
 of their politicians against the Negroes. Indeed, it 
 is a common observation that when in politics or relig- 
 ion men throw mud at their fellows they simply 
 prove that they live on the muddy side of the street. 
 President E. M. Poteat, a distinguished southern edu- 
 cator and minister, stated the situation with fine exact- 
 ness : 
 
 "The Negro here is a severer test of our loyalty to 
 Christ than the Chinaman in Canton, and we cannot 
 
26 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 maintain our Christian consistency while we glow with 
 generous piety and melt to tears upon the recital of the 
 blessing of God upon our work for the Negroes in 
 Africa or Brazil, and freeze to hardness on seeing with 
 our own eyes the pitiful destitution of the Negroes 
 here at home. The love of all men is a thrilling senti- 
 ment, but it often suffers a sudden blight by the find- 
 ing of a particular individual on our doorstep. And 
 we must remember that almost if not quite the sever- 
 est indictment Jesus ever launched he launched against 
 a man who despised a certain loathsome bundle of 
 humanity full of sores laid at his gate." 
 
 Dr. Poteat was addressing Southerners when he 
 said these words, and his recommendations were unan- 
 imously adopted by a great religious convention. But 
 every word of exhortation given in the South may well 
 be repeated in the North, where prejudice against the 
 Negro is not growing less. Indeed, the Christians of 
 the North and West may well read the burning utter- 
 ances of southern religious leaders, and labor more 
 zealously in their cities for the evangelization of the 
 Negro people, many of whom absorb the vices and 
 not the virtues of their environment. 
 
 National Bearings. The Negro problem is not only 
 a Christian problem but a national problem. With 
 practically every ninth man in the United States a 
 Negro, and with racial friction that often increases as 
 he rises to leadership, this problem constitutes one of 
 the difficulties in evangelizing America. It will never 
 be solved by the North alone nor by the South alone, 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 27 
 
 but by Christians both North and South together work- 
 ing on a larger plane than has ever before been devised, 
 and in constructive ways that will utilize the financial 
 ability, the intellectual leadership, and the moral 
 power of the Negro race. This friction will be over- 
 come by the increasing capacity of the Negro for leader- 
 ship and developing the educational foundation boards 
 and the missionary societies, along lines that will ulti- 
 mately fasten these institutions to the public and relig- 
 ious schools of the southern states, and will at the same 
 time conserve the best traditions, sacrifices, and spirit 
 of those who, both North and South, have built their 
 lives into the growing temple of Christian education 
 that has aimed to train leaders for the nearly ten 
 millions of Negroes in the country. 
 
 The Foreign Units. The presence of foreign-speak- 
 ing units is seen both in cities and in rural commu- 
 nities. New York, for example, is a conglomeration of 
 alien communities. One passes into Italy and then 
 finds himself suddenly in Portugal. He goes through 
 Hungary with its several groups of people, walks for 
 miles in the streets of a Jewish city, crosses an avenue 
 to discover that he is in Greece, and after walking 
 through communities of Russians, Turks, and Bohe- 
 mians, takes his dinner in Chinatown. These commu- 
 nities have little to do with each other. Their people 
 seldom intermarry. They retain their social customs, 
 and, while their rivalries do not lead to disorder, yet 
 in politics, religion, and home life they are as dis- 
 similar as the colors of the spectrum. 
 
28 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Racial Antagonism. An employer of labor states 
 that the smoothness with which the work in his great 
 mill is conducted depends upon keeping apart various 
 workmen. He has learned by bitter experience that 
 certain races, for example, could not be trusted to 
 handle receptacles holding molten lead or to carry 
 heavy weights from one part of the shop to another. 
 Accidents traceable only to hatred had proved to him 
 that the terrible race warfare of Europe has been trans- 
 ferred even to America. Even missionary societies 
 find it difficult to train for the ministry in the same 
 school students from peoples which have been rivals or 
 enemies in other lands. 
 
 Phases of Friction. The friction between different 
 races in America forms an obstacle to their evangel- 
 ization not paralleled in any other part of the world. 
 In the West the feeling against the Chinese, Japanese, 
 Hindus, and other Asiatic workmen who compete with 
 American labor brings on a state of mind that makes 
 it difficult to work for the Christianization of these 
 people. This feeling produces reactions, and many 
 Christians who do not hold these views concerning the 
 Orientals but are interested in their salvation find that 
 the people from eastern lands will not respond to their 
 advances on account of the general attitude. Persons 
 in the eastern and central states cannot safely sit in 
 judgment on their neighbors in the West, for under 
 similar circumstances they might themselves feel the 
 same way, and indeed, some of them have similar 
 prejudice toward other races. Race friction is a fact. 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 29 
 
 Mohammedanism has no such prejudice. Is this the 
 reason why Mohammedanism so rapidly conquers new 
 peoples and makes its world into one great brother- 
 hood? A careful study of the New Testament affords 
 us no warrant for the class distinctions and racial 
 frictions inherited from our fathers. 
 
 Ultimate Influence. Shall we estimate the value of 
 souls by their present efficiency, or by their probable 
 worth in using their influence on a race ? Each group 
 is equally worth saving, and no racial unit can be 
 safely neglected. Does not the history of the world 
 prove that unpromising peoples have risen to exert a 
 great influence? A thousand years hence the Chris- 
 tian leadership of the world may be extended to na- 
 tions that are now in heathen darkness or to peoples that 
 were once regarded as backward and possibly deca- 
 dent. 
 
 Every man bears the divine image in his life, and 
 when these lines have been restored by the grace of 
 God the world may be astonished by the fine texture of 
 his Christian leadership and initiative? Can the na- 
 tions now Christian be confident of their perpetual 
 possession of a Christian civilization when they recall 
 that wide areas formerly held by Christian nations 
 across the seas are now in possession of Moham- 
 medans? The parable of the tares may be repeated in 
 America. While the husbandmen slept the enemies 
 sowed tares in earlier Christian countries, and Moham- 
 medanism is the harvest. .While American Christians 
 have slept, has the enemy been sowing tares, and is 
 
so THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 racial friction, class hatred, and the growth of Mor- 
 monism the harvest? 
 
 There is no fairer test of a Christian's relation to 
 his fellow man than for him to imagine himself born 
 into a backward race and to measure his present feel- 
 ing toward various people by the feeling he would like 
 to have shown toward himself if he were one of the 
 submerged tenth, or of a despised nation. Does the 
 Golden Rule break one's rules of conduct and smash 
 his ethical standards? Can a man holding such views 
 stand in the van of the Christian army? Can he be 
 more than a camp-follower, timidly pitching his tent 
 to-day where braver men fought yesterday? 
 
 Guiding Principles — Christ versus Caste. How 
 can race friction be overcome except by the spirit of 
 Christ? No other force now or ever will exist in 
 America for reaching down to those who are sub- 
 merged and bringing them up to the rock of safety. 
 The delicate problems involved in social equality are 
 the greatest hindrance in the salvation of the masses. 
 How can tendencies in America be overcome which 
 have produced in India the caste system? Can India 
 be evangelized while the caste system remains? Can 
 America be Christianized with conditions prevalent 
 which may lead to perpetual lines of demarcation be- 
 tween different groups of people? Is the dislike for 
 the Asiatic a Christian feeling? Our answer to these 
 questions too often depends upon our birth, environ- 
 ment, and early education. We seem to be almost 
 able to tell a man's views on these difficult subjects 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 31 
 
 when we leani the state in which he was born. The 
 provincial element now largely influences social and 
 religious convictions. 
 
 Actual Brotherhood. The question is too perplex- 
 ing for solution in the early part of the twentieth 
 century. Before this century has closed will race fric- 
 tion in America be a thing of the past? If it is, it will 
 be because Christianity has conquered in causing men 
 to believe in the doctrine of human brotherhood, not 
 only theoretically but actually, and to apply it to the 
 questions raised by the various peoples of the conti- 
 nent. One general principle may guide those who are 
 critical. While the stream is nmning clear we should 
 not roil it by continual stirring, but patiently stand 
 upon its banks until we can see reflected in its clear 
 water the firmament of Christian truth. 
 
 Industrial Friction 
 
 Organized Labor's Leadership. In recent years the 
 approach to the industrial classes by the Christian 
 churches has been retarded by friction between labor 
 and capital. The virgin forests, the vast water powers, 
 the almost boundless resources of nature have wit- 
 nessed such material progress and accumulation of 
 fortunes as have astonished the world. Skilled work- 
 men receive wages which would have been regarded 
 as almost princely incomes in other days. Some of 
 the most skilful trades require to-day a technical edu- 
 cation. Realizing the basic and creative value of labor, 
 skilled and unskilled workmen have organized in ac- 
 
S2 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 cordance with the latest rules of efficiency. They are 
 ably led. Some of these labor leaders are conspicu- 
 ous members of Christian churches. The editor of 
 one of the great trade union journals is an officer of 
 a Christian church in Pennsylvania. His soul is 
 stirred by what he regards the unrighteous treatment 
 of labor, believing that it does not receive its portion 
 of the reward of industry. On every possible occasion 
 he and his friends who believe in Christianity, speak 
 with great earnestness. They have been listened to 
 with profound attention by delegates at great conven- 
 tions who are divided in their opinions and who in 
 some instances hotly state that the churches are the 
 foes of labor. There are indications that conditions 
 are slowly improving, but the friction is intense and 
 widespread. Labor has organized, demands its rights, 
 and uses its full strength to enforce its demands. The 
 group of employers meanwhile find themselves face 
 to face with problems that discourage the continued 
 employment of capital. Capitalists organize for self- 
 protection, and conditions approaching warfare fre- 
 quently occur in various parts of the country, and 
 sometimes simultaneously. No one can doubt the 
 presence of friction and no one can doubt the pres- 
 ence and activity of devout Christian men, who are 
 striving to the fullest extent to reduce the friction, 
 to mend the breaches, and to restore confidence. 
 
 Steiner at the Steel Mills. Dr. Steiner in his book, 
 From 'Alien to Citizen, says of his life in a steel mill 
 in Pittsburgh : "For half a day, out in the bleak, stock- 
 
EDWARD A. STEINER 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 33 
 
 aded yard I grappled with countless bars of crude 
 iron: I strained and lifted and released them doing 
 what I was bid to do, not knowing what ends my labor 
 served. When noon came my back was so sore that 
 I could not straighten it, and my fingers were torn and 
 bleeding. The foreman saw that I could not stand 
 the strain of the task, and in the afternoon put me at 
 much easier if more dangerous work in the mill. 
 
 Between Equator and Pole. "I merely pushed a 
 huge, hot caldron from a room in which the temper- 
 ature was over two hundred into a broad, cold shed, 
 thus traveling constantly between the equator and the 
 polar regions. I believe I suffered no serious discom- 
 fort; for I was young and life juices were running 
 full. It was a hard job, nevertheless, and as it grew 
 colder I often had the experience of my hands being 
 parched from heat while my feet were nearly frozen. 
 
 One of the "Cattle." "The end of the day, when 
 the work was over, proved, after all, the hardest period. 
 All my senses seemed to go to sleep at once as soon 
 as the strain was over, and then, indeed, I was just 
 one of the 'cattle,' a dumb brute, ready to be fed and 
 lie down to sleep. If, at the close of a ten hour day's 
 work in a steel mill I had been offered a ticket to a 
 symphony concert or in fact anything except a good 
 supper and a bed, I would not have accepted it: al- 
 though my mind and soul were still hungry for the 
 best things, and I was sure I must climb out of the pit. 
 
 "Not long ago I was taking this drive in a luxu- 
 rious limousine. My friends were eager to point out 
 
34 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 the beauty spots, the superb residences with their far- 
 reaching lawns, the churches, and museums: but I 
 knew too much of the great price paid for it all to 
 joy therein. As we glided on in the softly cushioned 
 car, I studied the outline of the river and imagined I 
 could see the very mill in which I worked some twenty- 
 eight years ago. I did not know then that I was help- 
 ing to lay the foundations of a colossal fortune, to be 
 used in many splendid ways for the public good: for 
 at that time I was merely one of the 'cattle,' as a cer- 
 tain 'captain of industry' expressed it the very day 
 of the drive." ^ 
 
 The Lawrence Strike. One of the most serious 
 exhibitions of industrial friction that has ever been 
 witnessed in America, took outward form in Lawrence, 
 Massachusetts, on the morning of Januar}'- 12, 191 2. 
 The statement of this conflict is described by one who 
 anxiously watched its various phases and has kindly 
 prepared a description of the actual experiences through 
 which the city passed. "The following day Joseph 
 Ettor and Mar Zarelli appeared on the scene, and 
 under their leadership the strike assumed serious pro- 
 portions. A general strike committee now took hold 
 of the situation. Ettor was made chairman. Sixteen 
 nationalities were represented. The Herculean task 
 of organizing 20,000 mill operatives of divers tongues 
 and conditions was begun. 'Solidarity' was their key 
 word, and loyally did they maintain it for nine suc- 
 cessive months. 
 
 ^Pp. 101-104. 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 35 
 
 "Whatever may be our views regarding the strike, 
 we must admire the coherency and sohdarity of the 
 representatives of these sixteen nationahties ; and what- 
 ever may be said of the personnel of the strike com- 
 mittee, its masterful leadership was unquestioned. 
 
 "The strike committee issued a manifesto, ignoring 
 the fifty-four hour law, the supposed cause of the 
 struggle, and made the following demands : 
 
 1. Fifteen per cent increase in wages for all. 
 
 2. The abolition of the bonus system. 
 
 3. No discrimination against strikers. 
 
 "The next day brought many new developments. 
 Rioting and disorder were frequent. The state militia 
 was called out. The morning of the street car riots 
 will long be remembered by Lawrence citizens. A 
 change of sentiment followed. The people now fdt 
 that the real issue was not a strike for higher wages, 
 but the question of the preservation of rights due to 
 every true American. The citizens in general were in 
 sympathy with the strikers for higher wages, but they 
 could not stand for the anarchistic leadership of the 
 Industrial Workers of the World. 
 
 "Grievous mistakes were made, both by capitalists 
 and strikers. The most reprehensible act in connec- 
 tion with the strike was the 'planting' of dynamite in 
 an Italian cobbler shop and in the home of a Syrian 
 family. It should be remembered that this was done, 
 not by the strikers themselves, but by a school com- 
 mitteeman, the son of an ex-mayor. The purpose was, 
 of course, to turn public opinion against the strikers. 
 
36 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 This 'unworthy citizen,' who was the leader of this 
 reprehensible act, fumbled at his job. He was found 
 guilty and a few months later the citizens of Lawrence 
 indicated their disapproval and shame of this evil- 
 minded man by issuing papers of recall and by placing 
 another in his place as a member of the school com- 
 mittee. 
 
 "Sunday, September 29, will be a day long to be 
 remembered by Lawrence people. The strike was 
 over, and the strikers had won. Ettor and Giovan- 
 nitti were still in jail. A permit for a demonstration 
 was granted by the city authorities. This parade be- 
 came a scene of riot and disorder. The local leaders 
 broke faith with the civic authorities. The red flags 
 of anarchy were carried, together with the banner 
 bearing the inscription, 'No Master, No God.' 
 
 "This day of anarchy and riot stirred the Lawrence 
 people to their very depths. On the following Wednes- 
 day hundreds of citizens responded to the call of 
 the mayor for a protest meeting in the city hall. That 
 the day of mob rule and anarchy must come to an end 
 was the tenor of the meeting. 
 
 "October 12 was appointed as a day for demonstra- 
 tions, in which thousands of citizens joined in the 
 parade, carrying no other insignia than that of the 
 j\merican flag. There can be no question that this 
 manifestation of loyalty to the flag of our country 
 taught an important lesson of patriotism to our foreign 
 neighbors. 
 
 "In conclusion we may say that the great body of 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 37 
 
 foreign people of Lawrence were misled by selfish and 
 unpatriotic leaders who had foisted upon them theories 
 of life destructive of our principles of government. 
 The seed had been cast into fertile soil — a soil made 
 ready by the generations of oppression in southern 
 Europe. Their own souls were stirred by the impulse 
 of a new opportunity given to them, as they had come 
 to this land of liberty, in knowing that liberty does not 
 mean license. Thousands of them were right at heart, 
 but they were misguided. 
 
 "A wrong industrial system was at the bottom of 
 the whole problem. In Lawrence it was wicked, merci- 
 less, and competitive. The extravagances of the rich, 
 and also of the moderately well-to-do, had much to do 
 in the creation of a spirit of unrest among the unskilled 
 and underpaid operatives. The Lawrence strike was 
 a symptom and not a disease. The disease is in the 
 system. The Industrial Workers of the World, though 
 anarchistic, are not the fundamental cause but the in- 
 evitable result of present industrial conditions. If this 
 be true, then we do well to study the industrial condi- 
 tions of our cities as never before. Social and economic 
 conditions may give rise to rioting and anarchy, but 
 we cannot place the entire blame upon the foreigner."^ 
 
 Middle Meeting-Ground. Conditions so acute if 
 not dangerous are being studied by capitalists and 
 laborers in the light of Christianity, and may we not 
 hope that out of such efforts of the employee and em- 
 ployer a middle ground of brotherhood may be dis- 
 
 ^Report by the Rev. E. M. Lake. 
 
38 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 covered? Can any one doubt the presence of industrial 
 friction which frequently rises into flame, and can any 
 one find in the world a promise of its quenching out- 
 side the teachings of Jesus? 
 
 In an American city where industrial friction was 
 at white heat, a representative of each struggling group 
 was asked to state his convictions and a remedy. The 
 largest church in the city was packed with men and 
 women. The capitalist spoke first. He was a man 
 of fine training and believed to be honest by every one 
 who heard his words. Any one who faintly suspected 
 the contrary would have been convinced that evening 
 of the speaker's sincerity. He stated the matter 
 cogently, but his words carried conviction only to his 
 friends. At the end of a long address he said : 
 
 "I cannot hope to convince you all, but I know the 
 remedy for our differences. If we would govern our 
 lives by the words of Jesus, who said : 'Do unto others 
 what ye would have others do unto you,' we should 
 never have to come together again on an occasion like 
 this, to discuss our differences." A great hush fell 
 on the people. 
 
 The representative of labor then followed with a 
 masterful statement of his cause. He convinced his 
 friends, but gained no others. At the conclusion of 
 his address he paused and said: 
 
 *'I am in doubt whether I should add the next few 
 sentences with which I had intended to end my ad- 
 dress." But after a moment he continued reading the 
 words previously prepared: 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 39 
 
 "We do not agree here to-night. Were we to talk 
 indefinitely and discuss this matter in every possible 
 phase, we should disagree fundamentally, but if in 
 some way we could all stand in the presence of Jesus 
 on the mountainside and agree to govern all our 
 actions by the Golden Rule, the struggle would be 
 over and the human brotherhood would be realized." 
 
 Until that hour arrives, or so long as industrial fric- 
 tion shall last, it will constitute a difficulty in the evan- 
 gelization of America. 
 
 Roving Populations 
 
 The westward waves of people still continue to How. 
 The movements that began before the middle of the 
 last century and which were stimulated when the sol- 
 diers returned from the Civil War, are still in prog- 
 ress. Men from the eastern states have flocked to the 
 West and to the Northwest in numbers that are surpris- 
 ing. People from the South are also spreading through 
 the West. The subdivision of farms as the popula- 
 tion has increased has not been the rule in the eastern 
 states, and will not be in the western states until the 
 land now so abundant is more densely populated. The 
 movement westward has been encouraged by low- 
 priced lands on the frontier. When the prices of land 
 there have reached a certain point, the tide may turn 
 eastward again, for it always moves toward cheaper 
 lands. Intensive farming in the east and in the states 
 from which the people have been departing may also 
 cause refluent waves of population. 
 
40 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Agricultural Changes. Successful farmers retire to 
 the towns when the stress of life is passed. To reach 
 such people with the gospel, and to bring them to their 
 largest spiritual estate when the material struggle of 
 life is over is very difficult. The renters of farms are 
 not fixed to the soil and they move freely and fre- 
 quently long distances. This occurs as often because 
 there are poor crops at home as because the crops are 
 excellent elsewhere. They are constantly en route, and 
 to reach them with the gospel is not easy. 
 
 Social Arrangements. The roving tendency comes 
 to the surface everywhere in American life. Prosper- 
 ous persons who are deeply interested in church life 
 pass their winters in the South if their homes are in 
 the North. The Southerners are not content unless they 
 spend their summers in the mountains. Dwellers by 
 the seashore must go to the mountains, and the people 
 of the mountains must flock to the seashore. The 
 custom of arranging for a winter and a summer home, 
 which an increasing number of families have, or even 
 several homes when this is possible, has sadly disor- 
 ganized Christian work, and makes the reaching of 
 these people, if they are not Christians, extremely hard. 
 
 The vacation habit, which is increasing in America, 
 frequently upsets the vacationists and deranges the 
 life of the communities where they are entertained. 
 People in cities move to other sections in the same city 
 so frequently that it is almost impossible for the most 
 vigilant pastor to keep track of his congregation. 
 Many good people thoughtlessly select a home remote 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 41 
 
 from a church. Christian contacts are broken, or are 
 weakened, and families that have been brought under 
 the influence of the church and are yielding to the 
 power of the truth suddenly remove beyond the reach of 
 organized Christianity, Social customs that prevail in 
 great cities, where persons dwell as total strangers in 
 the same block or in apartments under the same roof, 
 raise a middle wall of partition that is as difficult to 
 break down as those which formerly separated the Tew 
 and the Gentile. 
 
 Industrial Motives. Great numbers of the indus- 
 trial classes are restless and are constantly moving 
 from town to town. This is made necessary by the 
 fluctuation of business, by decadence, and by the tramp 
 habit, which becomes permanent among large classes 
 of the American people. The wandering mechanics in 
 the United States are legion. The factory system, both 
 North and South, attracts rural classes, bringing them 
 from the farms to conditions in the city which are fre- 
 quently unsanitary, abnormal, and destructive to all 
 that is best. Miners seldom have permanent homes, 
 and are but typical of other groups of workmen who, 
 following lines of least resistance or governed by pru- 
 dential or selfish motives, change their habitations. 
 
 Educational Adjustments. The attendance at 
 schools of higher education means always long absence 
 from home, and often permanent residence in new 
 communities. The growing tendency for students in 
 the West to attend the eastern universities for at least 
 their graduate courses, and for students in the East 
 
42 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 to attend universities and other institutions in the 
 middle or in the far West, is everywhere seen. North- 
 erners who have estabhshed their homes in the South 
 because their business has called them there naturally 
 send their children to northern educational institutions, 
 while Southerners who reside in the North send their 
 sons and daughters to the schools still glowing with 
 the traditions of their fathers. Meanwhile graduates 
 from the higher institutions seldom return to their 
 homes, but go elsewhere. As they rise to positions of 
 prominence in business and the professions, they go 
 from one part of the country to another, and as often 
 change their habitation. The tides of the population 
 from the country to the city flow constantly. Great 
 movements are also being made from the cities to the 
 country and are growing stronger with the introduc- 
 tion of the telephone, rural delivery, the automobile, 
 and other rapid transit facilities. 
 
 Other Leadings. Large numbers of men have for 
 their social goal the purchase of a home in the country, 
 which means that when the stress of life is ended, the 
 churches and institutions into which they have built 
 their lives will lose the inspiration of their presence, 
 while they move to other places where they will be 
 tempted to sit down and rest. 
 
 The crop followers, who go from one part of the 
 country to the other, are many. The strike-breakers, 
 who are thrown here and there when industrial wars 
 are raging, are not a negligible quantity. A very large 
 percentage of the foreigners who reach the Atlantic 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 43 
 
 seacoast linger in the vicinity of its large cities, but 
 many of these save their earnings in order that they 
 may purchase farms, for an agricultural people will 
 never be perfectly satisfied away from the soil. These 
 people become scattered in every direction, and their 
 scattering increases the difficulty of their evangeliza- 
 tion. Russians stay in Pittsburgh long enough to save 
 money to bring their families to America and to go 
 West and purchase land. Very few of them wish per- 
 manently to reside in cities. Industrial agencies 
 scatter their workmen. The railroads do this most 
 of all. Business corporations constantly move their 
 best men from city to city. The number of men and 
 women who travel for business is increasing. Every 
 great industry takes on national breadth, and this 
 means the scattering of its promoters. Itinerant ac- 
 countants, wandering minstrels, professional enter- 
 tainers and tramp mechanics suggest numerous groups 
 whose homes are constantly changing. The whole 
 nation seems to be in a state of flux. 
 
 Legal Restraint Useless. Legislation regarding 
 nomads has always failed. English law was powerless 
 to restrain them. The remedy is in self- regulation, not 
 in a statute. In no other nation in the world is the 
 movement so constant and the intermixture of the 
 people so ceaseless and astonishing. Doubtless it is 
 in accordance with the divine plan, and, while it makes 
 difficult the present evangelization of the people, may 
 it not produce conditions that will ultimately assist 
 the rapid Christianization of the nation? 
 
44 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Other Difficulties 
 
 Reaching Foreign Colonies. The national units of 
 foreign-speaking peoples are grouped into colonies 
 both urban and rural. A man returning to a rural 
 schoolhouse in a little town in Connecticut in which he 
 received his early education, discovered that only two 
 of eighteen boys and girls had American names. All 
 the other names were foreign, and most of them ended 
 in "ski." In that state, whenever a large farm is sold 
 the probability is that a foreigner will purchase it, and 
 generally for cash. To break into a colony of Italians 
 numbering from ten to two hundred thousand and to 
 gain the attention of a considerable group to the gospel 
 of Christ is a task that tries the mettle of the wisest 
 missionaries. It can be done only by representatives 
 of their own people, but to train these leaders to be 
 tactful guides in Christian truth and life is not easy. 
 Even the edges of the national colonies do not seem to 
 be melted. Hollanders in Michigan wear wooden 
 shoes, and one can hardly look over the walls which 
 separate some foreign communities from their Amer- 
 ican neighbors. It is as difficult to penetrate into the 
 inner life of a Chinatown as it is to pass through the 
 gates of many other entrenched foreign colonies. 
 
 Drift toward Irreligion. Another obstacle which 
 the Christianization of America meets is the enthron- 
 ing of pleasure in the lives of the people. The stream 
 is swift, wide, and turbulent. Sacred relations are 
 entered upon lightly. Divorce is increasingly prev- 
 alent, with such a diversity of state laws that national 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 45 
 
 regulation of this great evil seems to be almost indef- 
 initely delayed. The absence of a day of rest for a 
 multitude of people and its careless treatment by many 
 who were reared in the light of its blessing is another 
 distressing element in American life. 
 
 The widespread indifference to religion of all kinds, 
 the increase of atheism, and the worship of material 
 things by millions of people who came to this country 
 nominally connected with the Church of their fathers 
 present a grave challenge to the Christian forces in 
 America. 
 
 The large number of those who entirely neglect the 
 churches, or who only occasionally attend them, or 
 who are socially connected with them, relying upon 
 their offices only in the crises of life, and who go to 
 civil magistrates rather than to their ministers for en- 
 trance upon the marriage state, is probably increasing. 
 The drift to fraternal and social organizations, with 
 ritualistic forms and vows which good men almost 
 fancy a substitute for the blessings that only the relig- 
 ious life can give, is an acute problem in many commu- 
 nities. 
 
 The losses at the top and at the bottom of church life 
 are reflected in the statistics of the non-resident mem- 
 bers in the churches. Church attendance is disquiet- 
 ing, and the emphasis that is laid on Go-to-church Sun- 
 day is an indication of a condition of affairs that needs 
 radical treatment. 
 
 The growth of antichristian societies, the catechism 
 of the anarchist which teaches the little children to Iiate 
 
46 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Christ and every institution that expresses his thought, 
 the losses to strange metaphysical cults, the Buddhist 
 temples in America, the influence of assemblies where 
 spiritualism, eastern mysticism, and Oriental theories 
 of religion are exploited and encouraged by Ameri- 
 cans all show that the forces of evil are strongly 
 organized. 
 
 The mania of materialism, the thirst for glory and 
 power, the two sets of moral standards in business 
 and private life, the passing of the age of individual- 
 ism, and the transition to the age of cooperation of 
 capital and labor all explain still other difficulties. To 
 these may be added the socializing tendency at work 
 which places the churches in a difficult position, as 
 their members hold diverse views on many of these 
 vital matters. 
 
 Facing the Problem. Will all these hindrances of 
 race and industrial friction be overcome? Can the 
 roving populations be sought and saved, and organ- 
 ized into effective workmen in the churches? Can 
 other difficulties created by sixty or more national 
 groups widely scattered, be vanquished? Can the de- 
 votion to pleasure, indifference to religion, loyalty to 
 lesser ideals, the madness for wealth be offset; and 
 love for purity, allegiance to Christ, devotion to the 
 highest standards, and passion for sacred possessions 
 be substituted in their place ? 
 
 When this is done America will be evangelized. 
 Can it be done? Faith answers, *'Yes," but love sighs, 
 "How soon can the churches do it? How soon will 
 
DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME 47 
 
 they have enough zealous, consecrated, active, and 
 alert members for even beginning the task?" 
 
 The Love of Conquest 
 
 Ground of Confidence. The spiritual conquest of 
 the peoples within the limits of the United States and 
 Canada is a colossal work. Americans have a genius 
 for great undertakings, and their capacity for initia- 
 tive is almost boundless. Their swords cut paths 
 through any wilderness. They build their roads 
 around all precipices if once they determine to reach 
 the summit. 
 
 Our fathers remember the first short lines of rail- 
 roads that were built. The country is now a network 
 of railroads. Men are living who recall the thrill with 
 which they read about the instalment of the first tele- 
 graph, and men are now in middle life who remember 
 the days when there were no telephones, while wire- 
 less telegraphy is but the discovery of yesterday. 
 When coal was first offered for sale in Philadelphia, 
 men would not buy "black rocks." The same unbelief 
 was first expressed concerning oil. The obstacles over- 
 come, the vast amount of money spent in pushing these 
 important enterprises, reveal the character of our 
 people. The tunneling of mountains, the spanning of 
 rivers, the cutting of canals, the construction of sub- 
 ways and of aqueducts which convey water vast dis- 
 tances or even under rivers and bring it under high 
 pressure into great cities, constitute the wonders of the 
 age. No difficuhies deter men from their conquests. 
 
48 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 The things which have been done in the name of Christ 
 in enlarging the borders of his kingdom during the 
 last eighty years in which all of these material steps 
 forward have been taken are a sure prophecy of what 
 may be accomplished in spite of the difficulties which 
 we have enumerated. 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND 
 MESSAGE 
 
Ill 
 
 THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND 
 MESSAGE 
 
 Early Centuries. The work of the first century 
 was conducted by those who had seen the Lord or by 
 those who were acquainted with them. The zeal of 
 these disciples and their testimony for Christ brought 
 wonderful results. They were ably led by ministers 
 who served them in the gospel and who inspired them 
 by holy example. Under the most adverse conditions, 
 facing opposition, persecution, and death, they gave 
 faithful witness to their Christian experience. The 
 new religion spread like a fragrance, unseen but easily 
 detected. Slaves, their masters, merchants, humble 
 workmen, soldiers and princes, poor and rich, ignorant 
 and learned, became Christian disciples. 
 
 With an organization that was simple and very 
 plastic and without church buildings or continuous 
 meeting-places, the progress of the gospel was swift 
 and surprising. From the records of the martyrdoms 
 and from the notes of church life appearing in 
 letters which were known to the writers of the fourth 
 and fifth centuries but which have now been lost, we 
 learn that the characteristic of the first three centuries 
 was the universal witness of all believers to their faith 
 in Christ. It was a time when men confessed with 
 
 51 
 
52 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 their mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in their hearts 
 that God had raised him from the dead, and were not 
 ashamed. Household piety was precious in those days. 
 
 Period o£ Middle Ages. In the fourth century, 
 when Christianity became the recognized religion of 
 the Roman Empire, the profession of faith in Christ 
 became easier and opportunities for preaching the 
 gospel publicly to the multitudes who came to churches 
 made private Christian testimony seem less important. 
 'At length, while there were doubtless many who gave 
 fine witness to their personal faith in Christ, the tend- 
 ency during the next twelve centuries was to leave 
 more and more the interpretation of Christianity and 
 the preaching of the gospel to those who were the 
 pastors of the churches. Here and there through all 
 these centuries were groups of devout people who con- 
 tinued the ideals and methods and point of view of the 
 earlier days. But such personal witnessing was unpop- 
 ular and at length made peculiar those who gave it. 
 
 Modern Special Evangelists. The last four cen- 
 turies constitute a period in which the gospel has been 
 preached chiefly by ministers of the churches and by 
 special evangelists. Some of the most wonderful relig- 
 ious movements during this modern period had their 
 beginnings in the preaching of great and gifted evan- 
 gelists. The methods of work have not been the same, 
 and different groups of doctrines have been empha- 
 sized by differing types of men. The benefits how- 
 ever have been largely the same. Indeed, it is difficult 
 to imagine what might have been the religious status 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 53 
 
 of America had not these evangelistic leaders aroused 
 the churches to their spiritual responsibilities. Aston- 
 ishing results were achieved and great multitudes w^ere 
 brought into fellov^ship with Christ. Large numbers 
 of those who became most influential as ministers and 
 Christian leaders were converted in periods of revivals. 
 In communities seemingly indifferent to the claims of 
 Christ at the beginning of such meetings a sudden in- 
 terest was aroused by the preaching of the gospel, and 
 the permanent results proved the saneness of the meth- 
 ods and the genuineness of the work. The churches 
 will surely enjoy in the present century other great 
 revivals. 
 
 What May Men Expect? Have the forms of appeal 
 which brought spiritual results in the past in certain 
 parts of the country failed at last to call the attention 
 of sinners to their need of Christ and to win large 
 numbers of converts as formerly? What form of 
 evangelistic appeal is needed? This question has been 
 asked with great seriousness and very often in recent 
 years. Must we not return to the early practise of 
 personal work and lay evangelism of the early cen- 
 turies? If those early disciples, with so few helps, 
 could win so many who were unfriendly to the 
 gospel into the ranks of Christians, how many ought 
 modern disciples to win to the Christian profession? 
 Will not the success of such personal work and lay 
 evangelism depend upon the clearness with which 
 men realize the presence of Christ and rely upon his 
 help for their daily life and for inspiration to service? 
 
54 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 The same Holy Spirit that imbued the early disciples 
 with power and made their message strong and true is 
 indicating to-day the possibilities of our churches when 
 their members become imbued with the power from on 
 high. The evangelistic movements which later in this 
 chapter will be traced have been begun in great meas- 
 ure, not by professional evangelists, but by men who, 
 though often receiving their inspiration from these 
 evangelists, have adopted new methods, have selected 
 new forms of approach and new ways of testimony, 
 and have shown to the churches what may be accom- 
 phshed when a considerable number of their members 
 are filled with evangelistic fervor. 
 
 If in the first three centuries so much could be 
 gained with such simple organization and with such 
 meager equipment, what ought to be the present results 
 if the same consecration and the same intense religious 
 testimony are shown in the lives of present-day dis- 
 ciples? Is it possible that the effort to care for the 
 machinery of our modem churches saps the energies 
 of those who must maintain the organizations and 
 leaves them little ambition to win new disciples for 
 Christ? 
 
 Reaching Out. How may church groups be formed 
 with efforts to reach the more easily accessible per- 
 sons in a community who are regularly or occasionally 
 present in the church serv-ices, but which evidently 
 do not bring them to a point of decision to serve 
 Christ? 
 
 What startling and unusual ways are there for 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 55 
 
 reaching those who are outside the regular parishes of 
 the churches? How may we avoid the folly and loss 
 of spasmodic and sporadic efforts which have been 
 made so often in some communities and from which 
 recovery has been so painfully difficult? How may 
 we make a place in the church services for a public 
 confession of faith? Perhaps it is possible in the more 
 formal communities to observe the custom of some 
 of the churches of aggressive type, and to invite all 
 who have not already done so to make a public con- 
 fession of faith before the sei'vice is concluded. 
 
 The Neglected Zones 
 
 Between-town Regions. A careful study of a large 
 number of churches in the towns and smaller cities 
 shows that there are neglected zones whose radius in 
 each instance is from one to three miles from the meet- 
 ing-house. The social and church life of the commu- 
 nity seldom extends beyond this limit. An occasional 
 Christian family may drive to the church, and the 
 coming of the automobile has perhaps made such at- 
 tendance more regular, while it may have tempted 
 still others who live nearer the church to become less 
 even in church attendance. Between the three-mile 
 limit, however, and the same point of the next town 
 or city, there is frequently a large stretch of territory 
 that, in the more thickly settled portions of the country, 
 is filled by a farming or sometimes manufacturing, 
 population which receives slight spiritual attention. 
 
 A Minister Who Explored. A minister in one such 
 
56 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 community, after making a card catalog list of his 
 church and faithfully calling upon each family and 
 becoming acquainted with the children's parents and 
 all the members of both church and Sunday-school, 
 determined to see for himself what was the spiritual 
 destitution of the people outside the limits of the town, 
 Anned with a map of the roads he started and for sev- 
 eral weeks explored the territory, sometimes walking 
 twenty miles a day and calling at every home. He was 
 always well received, but was amazed to find that he 
 was the first minister that had undertaken this kind of 
 work within the memory of the persons who gladly 
 talked with him about their religious needs. They 
 ■told him that an occasional Bible agent had called upon 
 them, but that the sermons they had heard had been 
 those delivered on funeral occasions. One farmer, 
 well educated, living about twelve miles from the 
 village, said that the prayer that this minister offered 
 in his home was the first that had been spoken under 
 his roof for seventeen years. The former prayer had 
 been at his mother's funeral. It turned out that this 
 man was religiously trained by a Christian mother 
 who had long been an invalid and whose light was 
 kept burning brightly in her home. As best she could 
 this lonely soul had tried to give instruction to her 
 children. They had drifted out into the world, and 
 only one son remained. His mother had died at a 
 great age, and he, well advanced in life, welcomed the 
 man of God over the threshold to his lonely home. 
 How Two Churches Acted. The entire country was 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSx\GE 57 
 
 Studied and visited again and again. Meetings were 
 held in every convenient place. Many were led to be- 
 lieve in Christ and made a good confession of faith. 
 Religious conversations were held with practically 
 every one in all that area, and then a most strange and 
 sorrowful thing happened. The pastor was a brilliant 
 preacher and generally spent his mornings in his study. 
 He did not neglect his narrow parish work, but his 
 interest in the surrounding country was so keen and 
 strong and he urged his people so constantly to join 
 him in this wider ministry that they became suspicious 
 that he was not caring as much as he ought for the 
 one hundred or more families who called him pastor. 
 It was an ill-founded suspicion, but it led to his resig- 
 nation. He was at once called however to another 
 strong church that welcomed such outside service and 
 was proud of their pastor for doing it so well. 
 
 In the second church, which was his last pas- 
 torate, he became the most familiar figure in all the 
 rural regions round about. He knew every child, 
 every parent, and was the trusted adviser of many and 
 the friend of all. In the parish where outside service 
 was not acceptable to the church he could not persuade 
 other pastors in the town to join him in his work 
 among the valleys and the hills. In the second parish 
 the pastor of another church encouraged him in his 
 work, and, while he himself was too advanced in age 
 to make long journeys into the country, cooperated 
 with him in every way and toiled with him for a com- 
 mon result. 
 
58 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 What Happened to Two Churches in One City. 
 
 They belonged to the same denomination, with well- 
 defined parishes. Many members of the first church 
 were rich; the second church had no one who was 
 wealthy. The first church insisted that its pastor 
 should confine his attention to his parish and judged 
 his ministry by the classic and wonderful sermons 
 which he preached. This church was benevolent, but 
 in its extension work was self-centered. It was the 
 leader of the two, and had every advantage in wealth, 
 social standing, members, and equipment. Its pastors 
 were godly and faithful men, but felt hampered by 
 their limitations. 
 
 The second church was united as was the first, but 
 found it difficult to meet expenses and built a new 
 meeting-house with the greatest sacrifice. Many years 
 were required before all indebtedness was removed, 
 but during all this time the church realized its obliga- 
 tion to the neglected zones about the city which was 
 the center for a large farming population and rural 
 trade. The pastor of the first church stayed at home 
 and attended to his parish work. The pastor of the 
 second church, without neglecting his parish work or 
 his pulpit preparation, explored the villages beyond^ 
 and in the course of twenty years became well known 
 in all the region within a radius of twenty miles. 
 
 He held evangelistic meetings, conducted funerals, 
 attended weddings, made addresses on rural festival 
 occasions, and was the best known man in that part 
 of the world. He was probably known by name to 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 59 
 
 several thousand people outside of the large numbers 
 who knew him in the city. His home community was 
 situated favorably for the outside work, for the rail- 
 road stretched off into an undeveloped portion of the 
 state where the inhabitants were few and evenly scat- 
 tered. All this territory he explored and mapped. 
 
 What was the result? Aside from the spiritual re- 
 sults of his noble service, as his city was the business 
 center of a large area, people in the surrounding vil- 
 lages and towns were constantly moving toward the 
 center of population. In the city they recognized the 
 pastor of this second church, who had been their friend 
 and had perhaps been with them in times of sorrow 
 and of joy, and whom they had heard preach in school- 
 houses and in their homes, and naturally drifted into 
 his congregation. He therefore found his audiences 
 constantly growing, recruited very largely from the 
 persons who were making their new homes in his par- 
 ish. His wider parish and the personal touch which 
 he had had with them in the country made him their 
 friend and protector and spiritual adviser in their new 
 abodes. 
 
 The stream of members into that church flowed con- 
 stantly. Some of these industrious, ambitious people 
 became successful merchants in the city and are now 
 the leaders in the second church, which is strong and 
 prosperous. Meanwhile the first church, self-con- 
 tained, conservative, with shortened outreach, has lost 
 nearly all its wealthy members and finds life a strug- 
 gle. Its congregations have dwindled, its aggressive 
 
60 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 leaders have become few, and, although the city has 
 grown in population with the years, there have been 
 seasons when some of its members advocated the union 
 of the two churches. How many times may not this 
 same situation have been repeated in the history of our 
 land? 
 
 How a Church Was Saved. In a city of about 
 forty thousand souls a church with excellent parish 
 room had never prospered. It lived unto itself, and a 
 few families attended its services. It never reached 
 out into the community. It seemed in danger of death 
 from inactivity. It almost forgot the meaning of 
 Christian hospitality. Its relations with churches of 
 other denominations were friendly, and there was an 
 abundance of work for all to do. Able preachers be- 
 came discouraged and left for more promising fields. 
 At length, when the tides of congregations and interest 
 were very low, a new pastor was called and raised the 
 standard of evangelism. It was not the kind of evan- 
 gelism with which the people had become familiar. His 
 sermons were not often evangelistic in tone, but he 
 selected three men who gave promise of evangelistic 
 zeal, and on every occasion possible took them with 
 him into the surrounding villages and spiritually neg- 
 lected communities. At first he did not ask these mem- 
 bers of his church to speak, but it was not many weeks 
 before they were carried away with their profound 
 interest and enthusiasm, and all three men developed 
 unexpected talents. 
 
 Soon the pastor encouraged his brethren to go with- 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 61 
 
 out him occasionally, until at length the burden of the 
 meetings and the speaking fell almost entirely upon 
 them. Two of these three men developed such unus- 
 ual preaching ability that they were heard with accept- 
 ance on Sunday evenings in the home church, when the 
 pastor was called to assist a neighboring minister. 
 Strange things happen in a church. No one can ex- 
 plain just why the new prosperity came, or how the 
 congregation increased, and the church attracted many 
 strangers, and grew in financial ability and in member- 
 ship. All these things occurred, however, and the 
 growth has been pennanent. The three pastoral help- 
 ers prospered in business, exerted a wide influence in 
 the surrounding regions, and became towers of spirit- 
 ual strength in their church. Since that pastorate the 
 congregation has established a mission in the city which 
 is well manned and is itself the center of evangelistic 
 zeal and large spiritual fruitage. 
 
 A Logical Layman. In a community numbering 
 about three thousand, the center of a wide rural region, 
 one of the most remarkable revivals, conducted entirely 
 by laymen, occurred some years ago in Maine. The 
 town had two churches, but a large number of the 
 people were members of other congregations across the 
 river in a neighboring city. A business man one eve- 
 ning was told by a friend that the Odd-Fellows' Lodge 
 had secured over fifty new members. The information 
 was accompanied with the suggestion that another fra- 
 ternal organization, of which both men were members, 
 should try to do as well or better in enlarging its num- 
 
62 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 bers. Careful plans were laid and success was 
 achieved. 
 
 A little later it suddenly occurred to the prominent 
 member of the church that a fraternal organization 
 ought not to be more successful than the church in se- 
 curing new members. He prayed over the subject, and 
 about a week later spoke to one of the most aggressive 
 young men of the congregation, who was not, indeed, 
 a very active Christian. The young man however 
 responded very quickly to his friend's suggestion, and 
 both of them met for conference and prayer. When 
 they had outlined a simple plan of action, they spoke to 
 a third man, who was prospering in business and had 
 strong initiative but who was lukewarm in his interest 
 in the church. To their surprise the business man 
 kindled with a strange enthusiasm. After a few meet- 
 ings for prayer the three determined companions laid 
 their plan before their pastor, who boldly assured 
 them that the community, in his opinion, was about to 
 witness a wonderful revival. 
 
 A simple announcement the next Sunday morning 
 was made by the minister that there would be a serv- 
 ice of prayer the following Thursday evening, and that 
 men only were invited to be present. The attendance 
 was not large, but an organization was effected, and 
 the week following the room was full of eager, serious 
 men. Conversions occurred on the second evening. 
 One of the first who confessed his faith in Christ 
 was a man who was known in the town as a shiftless, 
 intemperate fellow. Some feared that the work would 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 63 
 
 be injured by the announcement that this man had be- 
 come a Christian. In order that he might be cared for, 
 however, a committee was appointed, and each man 
 served as a big brother to the new convert. He was 
 a skilled workman, and it was believed that his great 
 temptation would come before breakfast, at the noon 
 hour, and after work at the close of the day. During 
 these three periods, without his knowledge, some one 
 watched his movements. Arrangements were made 
 with his wife that a cloth in the window would mean a 
 signal of distress. 
 
 One day, soon after twelve o'clock, when he re- 
 turned home, the cloth was put in the window. Two 
 men were watching the house at that moment. Temp- 
 tation had suddenly asserted itself in the poor man's 
 thirst for liquor. Yielding to a moment of weakness, 
 he ran out of the house, unseen by his wife, who in a 
 moment discovered his absence and hung up the signal 
 of distress. The poor man, almost crazed by his de- 
 sire for drink, on leaving his home, ran across the 
 garden through the field to the river bank, seized an 
 oar with which he sculled himself across the river. 
 Abandoning the boat he crossed a railroad track, 
 climbed an embankment, and as he was leaping over a 
 high board fence, jumped into the anns of two of 
 his friends, and surrendered with the words : 
 
 "If you love me as much as that, you can take me 
 home !" 
 
 Meetings were not multiplied, but every week new 
 converts were reported and frequent neighborhood 
 
64 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 services were held. The work spread quietly through 
 the town, out into the suburbs, and to the open country. 
 Sunday afternoon services conducted by these men 
 and their friends who followed them in large numbers 
 attracted great companies of people, who drove from 
 long distances to witness these revival scenes. Those 
 who came to scoff remained to pray. There was little 
 excitement and very little preaching. The program 
 was simple, with prayer and Scripture reading, and 
 was generally led by recent converts, who after giving 
 their own testimony asked the people to speak. Nearly 
 two hundred came into fellowship with the little 
 church, which entered a new era of prosperity. Many 
 converts joined other churches, and a high spiritual 
 level of life was reached which was reflected in com- 
 munity improvement in many ways. 
 
 A Force of Kansas Laymen. After a great revival, 
 which reached deeply into the social and business life 
 of the city of Wichita, Kansas, gospel teams were 
 formed for lay evangelism. On Sunday afternoon, 
 January 21, 1912, at the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, five men professed conversion. That night 
 the meeting was transferred to a church, and soon 
 after bands of laymen conducted services in various 
 parts of the community and in other places where they 
 had invitations to work. Among those who banded 
 themselves together for evangelistic work were lawyers, 
 physicians, barbers, carpenters, merchants, real estate 
 dealers, railroad men, teachers, bankers, editors and 
 reporters, ex-prize-fighters, lumbermen, commercial 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 65 
 
 travelers, manufacturers, coal buyers, blacksmiths, 
 printers, association secretaries, postal men, seed 
 sellers, musicians, college students, bookkeepers, coal 
 heavers, insurance agents, restaurant keepers, and 
 laundry men. Rich and poor took upon themselves the 
 common task; the learned and the ignorant joined 
 forces for aggressive Christian v^ork. 
 
 Astonishing results are recorded.^ A published re- 
 port shows that two hundred and twenty-nine meet- 
 ings were held in the city of Wichita, with eight hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven professed conversions. Outside 
 of the city the teams held three hundred and twenty- 
 five meetings, where two thousand four hundred and 
 nine persons inquired their way to Christ. The work 
 is on a permanent basis. 
 
 On the Edge of the Forest. Several years ago a 
 president of Colby College passed a Sunday at Old- 
 town, Maine, to assist the pastor, who was absent, in 
 evangelistic work. This church had recently been 
 reaching out in several directions. The pastor encour- 
 aged a group of business men in the parish to estab- 
 lish Sunday-schools from ten to twenty miles distant. 
 They were greatly needed, for Oldtown was the last 
 community to the north in that part of the state, and 
 only scattered villages were found along the railroad 
 and near the lumber camps. This church enlarged its 
 borders, and, through its laymen assisted by its pastor, 
 covered the region in a most fruitful way. 
 
 ^Information concerning the work can be gained by addressing 
 the Church Federation, Beacon Building, Wichita, Kansas. 
 
66 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 On the Sunday of the visit three teams of these 
 workers were busy with their tasks. One of these, 
 consisting of two men, invited the visitor to go with 
 them. Twenty minutes after the benediction was pro- 
 nounced, having eaten dinner, he found himself in a 
 sleigh drawn by two horses, driven by a leading mer- 
 chant of the community. As they were leaving the edge 
 of the town, a second man stowed himself away in the 
 furs and, with the temperature much below zero, the 
 ride of ten miles was begun. A half hour later, the 
 driver stopped the horses and quietly said : "About 
 here we stop for a moment of prayer." All three men 
 prayed briefly, and then they silently drove on. Very 
 little was said. When they reached the schoolhouse, 
 where the meeting was to be held, they found that the 
 congregation had gone to a neighboring house where 
 the preacher was asked to offer the prayer at a funeral. 
 The funeral procession then proceeded to the school- 
 house, and he was asked to conduct the service and 
 preach a sermon. 
 
 At the conclusion, nearly every one left the house 
 and repaired to the cemetery, a half mile distant. But 
 the minister was asked by one of the chief mourners 
 to postpone his return to Oldtown, if possible, until 
 they should all return to the schoolhouse again, where 
 they hoped he would preach another sermon. A half 
 hour later the second service was held, and, after a 
 simple, evangelistic presentation, three men expressed 
 their determination to begin the Christian life. The 
 return to Oldtown was made at a rapid pace, and 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 67 
 
 mostly in silence. The company reached the church 
 twenty minutes before the preaching service. A simple 
 luncheon was prepared for them, and they were soon 
 in the auditorium crowded with an eager congrega- 
 tion. It seemed to the visitor that the hearts of the 
 people reflected the deep and profound spirit of the 
 leading laymen in that church, with two of whom he 
 had served in the gospel that afternoon, while others 
 had been busy with their more distant engagements 
 and returned later to their homes. That evening, in 
 response to an appeal which had been suggested, still 
 other inquirers made their way into the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 A Leaf in a Note Book. While conversing with a 
 superintendent of missions at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 
 vania, a friend asked him if he had one or more de- 
 voted laymen who could be asked suddenly to conduct 
 meetings in the vacant churches, and especially in rural 
 communities. He looked up in surprise, and then drew 
 from his pocket a note-book containing the names of 
 twenty-six men, with their addresses and telephone 
 numbers. Reading these names over, he stopped to 
 say that one was a merchant, another a teacher, another 
 a labor leader, and a fourth the superintendent of one 
 of the great industries of the city. He did not stop 
 until he had described each one of the twenty-six men, 
 and all of these were more or less prominent in the 
 social, civic, and commercial life of the community. 
 
 He then declared that, although these twentj^-six 
 men were loaded with great responsibilities, he could 
 
68 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 rely upon each one of them to conduct the service in 
 any sudden emergency and to preach in pulpits of 
 large or small churches as he might indicate. He 
 seldom called on any one more than once a week, but 
 felt at liberty to do so, however, if the need was 
 urgent. Each was able to present the gospel in a force- 
 ful, direct, and effective manner, and to explain to an 
 inquirer the way into the kingdom of God. Sunday 
 evenings frequently found several of these men in 
 vacant pulpits, which they were able to supply with 
 acceptance to the people, often outside of the city limits 
 where they might easily go by railway, trolley-car, or 
 automobile. The expenses were usually met by the 
 men themselves, and when churches insisted on paying 
 for the services or when collections were taken, such 
 contributions were passed to the superintendent for his 
 missionary work. Great good is accomplished by these 
 men, and their service for others has widened their 
 own lives and developed gifts that had long been latent. 
 Their experience and spiritual harvests surely point 
 the way to what other groups of men, under proper 
 encouragement and leadership, could do in every city, 
 town, or rural community in the land. 
 
 Let Lay Evangelism Spread. In many colleges 
 Christian students are conducting meetings in needy 
 fields, with constant revivals and conversions. Why 
 should not every college group of Christians undertake 
 this work? Was there anything exceptional in any 
 one of the several cases mentioned in this chapter, 
 where laymen did evangelistic work with splendid re- 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 69 
 
 suits to themselves and with rich blessings to others? 
 Was not the work accomplished in communities of dif- 
 ferent size, temperament, and traditions? Is anything 
 needed but consecration, intelligent zeal, holy enthusi- 
 asm, and a passion for the conversion of men ? 
 
 Should not a work like this be established in every 
 church, and reach out beyond the usual limits of its 
 parish? Is there any reason why, under suitable lead- 
 ership, such a group of Christian workers could not 
 begin their evangelistic endeavors in any church and 
 community? Are we not told to go out into the high- 
 ways and hedges and to compel men to come in ? Have 
 we not too long expected such work to be done by min- 
 isters and professional evangelists? 
 
 Would it not be well to return to the method of the 
 early Church, when, so far as we can judge, every one 
 was expected to win converts to Christ? In arranging 
 for such work would it not be well to have the pastor 
 indicate certain lines of thought that might be pre- 
 sented, and .give instruction to the special workers in 
 ways of leading inquirers to Christ and making them 
 feel that the blessings of the Lord are for them and 
 for their families ? 
 
 Did the pastor of a city church act wisely in discour- 
 aging a group of ten of his leading laymen, whose 
 hearts were burning with the desire to bring souls to 
 Christ in the surrounding rural community, when he 
 told them that he needed them all in his evening con- 
 gregation to help make a congregation that was far too 
 small? What might have been accomplished had he 
 
70 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 not discouraged these men, who felt it unwise to enter 
 upon this work if their minister opposed such evangel- 
 istic endeavors? Is not evangelism, and especially lay 
 evangelism, the crying need of America to-day ? Would 
 not its widespread activities go far to accomplish the 
 spiritual results for which the century is waiting as a 
 fresh demonstration of the power of God unto salva- 
 tion, to save unto the uttermost all ranks and condi- 
 tions of men? 
 
 Home Training. The churches ought not to be 
 asked to do what Christian homes should constantly 
 accomplish. One mother who is very active in her 
 church always excuses herself from all afternoon en- 
 gagements in time to meet her children at five o'clock. 
 She spends with them the hour from five to six each 
 day in reading and in talks about the Bible and noble 
 men and women. In this period more than one set of 
 spiritual questions have been asked and their answers 
 committed to memory. The father passes a half hour 
 at least each evening in reading to his boys and girls 
 from a Child's Story of the Bible. These periods are 
 prized by parents and children alike. Saturday after- 
 noon is usually spent in outdoor games, but the relig- 
 ious instruction is regarded as normal as the relaxa- 
 tion of their pleasures. These parents are laying a 
 deep foundation for Christian living in the minds and 
 hearts of their children. 
 
 In this city another family that resides on the 
 same street leaves the religious instruction of the chil- 
 dren to the church and Sunday-school. Where Sun- 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 71 
 
 day impressions of religious truth are strengthened by 
 home instruction, the child has a double set of influ- 
 ences through which the forces of evil seldom break. 
 What wonder is it that from such homes have come 
 the most devout and gifted Christian leaders the world 
 has ever seen! 
 
 The Sunday School Helps Also. In Massachusetts 
 a minister has developed the educational function of the 
 Sunday-school to an unusual degree. He asks each 
 teacher to submit to himself the following questions: 
 "Am I teaching Christ when I teach the lesson?" "Is 
 my hfe his message?" "Do I really know him?" 
 "Have I a place where I meet him often and talk with 
 him about the boys or girls in my class?" "Do I plead 
 with him that he will let me bring him to them?" "Do 
 I know him well enough for this?" "Have I in mind 
 a list of the good points in each boy or girl and the bad 
 points also?" Frequently at the close of the Sunday- 
 school committee meeting a brief consecration service is 
 held. 
 
 In December they plan for Decision Day. The 
 superintendent and pastor are appointed a committee 
 on evangelism, and decide that no undue advantage 
 shall be taken of the deep emotional nature in the child's 
 life. The date for Decision Day is determined three 
 months in advance, and the lessons are taught with 
 this in view. The pastor confers with each teacher 
 separately, sometimes with two teachers in the same 
 department. Each child is studied, his home life is 
 reviewed, the characteristics of his age are taken into 
 
72 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 account, and the teacher is told how the points in the 
 lessons may be brought out in order that they may point 
 to Decision Day. Before this time arrives the members 
 of the class are brought together at the teacher's home 
 and a frank talk on life is given and the claims of 
 Christ upon each one are clearly stated. 
 
 When Decision Day arrived each teacher was 
 anxious but calm, and in the room there was an atmos- 
 phere of persuasion born of months of prayer and 
 careful teaching. The pastor made a few remarks, 
 the session became more quiet and earnest than usual 
 and was free from all frivolity. Then the teachers met 
 their classes and in the time that had been carefully 
 reserved for them went over the ground and made a 
 straightforward, earnest appeal to their scholars and 
 asked them what they had decided. The decisions were 
 registered on cards with which the teachers were pro- 
 vided. The school was re-assembled and two young 
 men spoke briefly on the importance of being "out and 
 out" for Christ. After this the pastor asked all who 
 had registered their decisions to stand, and this included 
 those who were already Christians. The opportunity 
 was held open a moment for any one who hesitated. 
 One after another by invitation answered the pastor's 
 question about loyalty to Christ with the words, "I 
 will, I will." The follow-up work was carefully done 
 by the pastor, teachers and superintendent. The lessons 
 continued evangelistic in tone, and the work gave evi- 
 dence of permanence. 
 
 A skilful teacher in the Sunday-school makes the 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 73 
 
 class eager for service. One teacher suggested in one 
 year that members of the class read to the sick in hos- 
 pitals, visit the aged and the infirm w^ho were shut in 
 their homes, and speak about a personal religious life 
 to their friends in the school or in the store. Instruc- 
 tion in service supplemented the instruction in the Scrip- 
 tures, and the results w^ere wonderful. 
 
 One Sunday-school teacher who worked in a room 
 where profanity was prevalent had a Bible verse 
 printed in large letters, framed the lines and placed 
 them above his head. One after another passed by and 
 read the words, "Thou shalt not take the name of the 
 Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold hin; 
 guiltless that taketh his name in vain." 
 
 On one occasion the superintendent of the factory 
 entered the room in a rage to lay the blame for a mis- 
 take which afterwards proved unjust on the Christian 
 above whose desk the Bible verse was fastened. Be- 
 tween his oaths he glanced up, read the words, and 
 suddenly left the room. This experience led to the 
 man's notable conversion. This happened in a large 
 shoe factory in Massachusetts. Instruction that can 
 be put into practise is doubly effective. 
 
 Young People's Work. Much teaching begins in 
 quiet Christian culture that ends in personal labor for 
 attracting other souls to Christ. The young people's 
 societies have led thousands of young people who have 
 enjoyed the Christian nurture of pastors and devout 
 parents and teachers into the life of conscious devo- 
 tion to the Savior, and have established them in active 
 
74 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 spiritual lives. Speaking in the smaller meetings has 
 led to testimony at the church service and to a wider 
 work. A group of such young people thus led into the 
 Christian life and trained, branched out into a mission 
 work three miles from their church and by simply 
 conducted services in a schoolhouse began a spiritual 
 movement whose benefits have proved permanent. 
 
 United Influence. When the church, the home, the 
 Sunday-school, and the young people's society each 
 contributes its share of Christian training, the ideal 
 conditions are present that produce efficient personal 
 workers. Against this inspiration of the church, this 
 nurture of the home, this instruction of the Sunday- 
 school, and this training of the young people's societies, 
 the forces of evil will not prevail. 
 
 What Must the Message Be? 
 
 The Note of Assurance. Whether the evangelist is 
 one who gives his entire time to the ministry of relig- 
 ion or who, absorbed with the business of life, yet 
 finds much opportunity for special Christian work, the 
 message which he brings must always contain the 
 assurance of personal salvation. One who has an 
 acquaintance with Christ can introduce others to the 
 Lord. One must know him whom he has believed. 
 It is not the man who guesses or who is uncertain that 
 can give to an unbeliever a statement throbbing witli 
 the power of conviction. 
 
 The Note of Christian Truth. The message must 
 assert at least the foundation doctrines of Christianity. 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 75 
 
 Men may not agree fully as to what these are, and may 
 differ still more as to their statement, but the need of 
 a man who is not a Christian must be realized, and the 
 announcement must be brought to him in a way that 
 will command his attention. It must be a message, not 
 weak and wavering, but strong and soulful. To state 
 these doctrines in terms of modern life and daily 
 speech is difficult but not impossible. The message 
 must show that man's distant and present needs are 
 met by the gospel. To prepare for the future is what 
 men are doing in business, in education, in farming, 
 and in every other activity of life. Laying up for 
 future need is a natural instinct in the lower animals, 
 and in man it is a divine suggestion. As school days 
 make boys and girls ready for the toil of later life, 
 Christ prepares us for the long future and for the 
 work of another world. Do we not warn the youth 
 of our land against evil habits and the follies of igno- 
 rance that bring disaster in later years? Can it then 
 be weakness to warn all whom we know against the 
 sins that injure and derange the soul? Shall we not 
 help to remove that deeper ignorance which destroys 
 the spiritual life here and forever? 
 
 Correcting AH Life. The message will show that 
 salvation is for every department of man's life. His 
 heart must have no bulkhead arrangements. His life 
 must be consistent in each part or it will be incon- 
 sistent in every part. It must be clearly shown that 
 Christianity does not do a surface work in a man's 
 life. It does not paint the rotten ship nor whitewash 
 
76 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 the ruined wall. It does not make the architecture of 
 the exterior of the life structure beautiful and leave 
 the interior ugly and forbidding. It does not wash a 
 man's life in spots. Though his sins "be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like 
 crimson, they shall be as wool." A sufficient statement 
 of Christ's claims upon human hearts will show that 
 discipleship is a lamp of cheer that makes plain to 
 each one who loves the Lord how he may serve him 
 consistently in business and in professional life. It 
 does not make a man righteous on one day of the 
 week and morally careless during the next six days. 
 It not only teaches him to worship but to work. The 
 hands that are clean must lift. The eye that has been 
 made to see must correct everything in human life that 
 is out of proportion. The feet that are shod with the 
 preparation of the gospel of peace must wear paths of 
 righteousness in the commercial and social world as 
 well as walk in ancient ways of private piety. The 
 light that shines in the human soul must shine in eveiy 
 dark corner, making sin hide its face and sinners see 
 its enormity. The message must emphasize social 
 justice, for if any Christian allows a wrong which he 
 can right to go unrighted, and does not throw the 
 weight of his words and example on the side of fair 
 dealing, he thereby is weighed in the balances and 
 found wanting. If a man has not made restitution 
 for wrong, his lips cannot bring a message of peace 
 to the one whose peace of mind has been destroyed by 
 his unjust act. The message also must reach out into 
 
THE EVANGELISTIC METHOD AND MESSAGE 77 
 
 the community and take for granted that Christian 
 people will unite everywhere and always against every 
 foe of society, in the suppression of vice, in the clos- 
 ing of the saloons, and in removing every pitfall to sin. 
 
 The Simplicity of the Gospel 
 
 Fitted for All. A remarkable fact about the mes- 
 sage of Christ is that it can be stated in the simplest 
 words of the language. How much of his thought 
 Jesus put into terms of love, life, liberty, bread, water, 
 friendship, purity, righteousness, peace, joy, patience, 
 repentance, forgiveness, work, prayer! Nearly all of 
 these words children understand. With few excep- 
 tions they are daily on their lips, and it is the charm 
 of Christianity that one must be converted and become 
 as a little child to enter into its spirit and kingdom. 
 The message, therefore, can be stated in words so 
 simple that a child may understand it, and so intimate 
 and searching that any man, whatever may have been 
 the length and breadth and depth of his sin and suffer- 
 ing and sorrow, will find it fitted to his needs and able 
 to save him, even unto the uttermost. 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
IV 
 THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 Early Aim. The aim of Christianity has always 
 been to save the individual. St. Paul said, "I am not 
 ashamed of the gospel : for it is the power of God unto 
 salvation to every one that believeth." It has always 
 been the glory of the gospel that it is the power of God 
 unto salvation. The churches have clung tenaciously 
 to this ideal. Hegel observed that the individual has 
 an infinite worth, as he is the aim and object of God's 
 love, and Martineau believed that the true meaning of 
 the Christian faith is its reverential estimate of the 
 human soul. Principal Fairbairn says : "The Chris- 
 tian era created two novel notions as to man — the value 
 of the unit, and the unity of the race." 
 
 Individualism was a new idea in the days when 
 Jesus and his disciples taught the first lessons of faith 
 and cried: "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is 
 at hand." The teachers of Greece and Rome insisted 
 that the state was of main importance, not the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 In Plato's Republic social solidarity was stressed, as 
 it was later by the Roman Stoics. They said the indi- 
 vidual was of very little importance. Those whose 
 predecessors were not influenced by the Reformation 
 in the sixteenth century teach that the welfare of the 
 
82 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Church is of first consideration. When the Church 
 speaks, private judgment must be silent. The individ- 
 ual's path is opened for him by his spiritual teachers. 
 He must simply be docile. The Church is all-important. 
 He passes, but she stays. His life evaporates, the 
 stream of the Church goes on forever. His religious 
 leaders tell him that his heart-breaking questions are 
 his soul's greatest danger. 
 
 In the days of the Reformation the worth of the 
 individual was stated again. The evangelical Churches 
 regard each person in the same way in which St. 
 Paul measured his worth. The work for the churches, 
 well stated by one who is not himself an evangelical, is 
 "to save the individual whose worth is beyond all 
 earthly computation — to educate him if ignorant, to 
 uplift him if degraded, to civilize him if barbarous, 
 to moralize him if sinful, to redeem him if lost — and 
 this has been the work of the Church since the days 
 when Jesus was first called Jesus down even to the 
 present time." Have the churches always been doing 
 this work? Are the churches all doing it to-day? 
 
 A Pertinent Question. In later years, however, men 
 have been asking, "What is an individual?" The 
 modem world has been stirred profoundly by this 
 question. A new thought of what a man is and in 
 what his life consists is quietly taking possession of 
 the age. Much of the confusion of our day and of the 
 cry for changes that make men's hearts tremble is a 
 demand that a correct definition shall be given. Some 
 thoughtful people are fearful that the consequences of 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 83 
 
 the discussion may be revolutionary. They see the 
 spirit of change sweeping through the world to-day 
 and unrest manifesting itself everywhere. 
 
 No Life Is Isolated. The individual we know now 
 is not an insulated or an isolated person. He lives in 
 relation to others. He has vital contacts. In society 
 he is a father, a son, a brother. He has a family life, 
 and his life has the mutual element in it. He has 
 neighbors, and helps them or hurts them. His com- 
 munity life is bound up with other lives. His course 
 of life may injure them or their possessions. In that 
 case the law holds him responsible and makes him pay 
 a fine or suffer a punishment. His cattle cannot eat 
 grass or trample the gardens of his neighbors. He is 
 a citizen, and helps to make the town or city. He obeys 
 laws which are made by the government, and cannot do 
 as he pleases if he is pleased to do wrong. He is 
 not a solitary digit, but stands with other numbers and 
 gives them meaning. Educationally, socially, polit- 
 ically, industrially, spiritually, is he not a part of a 
 system? Has he not a body unlike another, a mind 
 of a certain strength, and duties which are his own 
 and not another's? When he moves, and often when 
 he stands still, does he not discover that his body can- 
 not act independently of others? Do not his thoughts 
 and ideas constantly relate themselves to those of his 
 friends and strangers, and do not his footsteps cross 
 and recross the innumerable paths marked by the feet 
 of other men? He is a wire, but is he not also one of 
 the system of wires? His life, like his telephone, has 
 
84 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 intricate connections with others. He is a spring, but 
 do not the lower and the higher waters of the moun- 
 tain out of which the spring flows intermingle freely 
 with those of other lives? How far down the moun- 
 tainside does the brooklet that finds its way from the 
 spring pass before it is joined by the waters from 
 others? He is a rose that spends its fragrance on the 
 morning air; but does not the flower depend upon the 
 soil and upon the gardener who cultivates, prunes, 
 and waters the bush on which other roses as fragrant 
 and beautiful are maturing? Does any man live unto 
 himself? Does not the bad father bring desolation to 
 the home ? Can the wicked citizen fail to help to lower 
 public morals in the state? How high may not the 
 Christian lift them? 
 
 A Separate Individual Impossible. The unfaithful 
 health officer spreads disease that may attack his own 
 children. "The universe of the isolated self is an 
 imaginary universe." A Christian, like every other 
 man, has social attributes and must solve social prob- 
 lems. Some of these are as simple as the examples 
 of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 
 Others are as complex as the problems of the higher 
 mathematics. It makes a great difference what an- 
 cestors a man has, what environment he grows in, who 
 his friends are, who gives him his ideas of religion, of 
 government, of God. Was his grandfather a thief 
 and his great-grandfather a pirate? Is he the son of 
 a noble father, and did his mother teach him to pray 
 and worship the Lord? .Was he born in a jungle, or 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 85 
 
 near a gristmill, or in a palace; in a free or in a 
 despotic country? These questions help us to define 
 the individual. The roots of a Christian's life go 
 down far below the surface and spread out widely like 
 a tree in the forest, with enemies and friends. His 
 roots hold others as do his arms, interlocking with 
 theirs when the storms try all lives. He is an intimate 
 part of the experiences of many people, and the lives 
 of many people are freely interwoven into the texture 
 of his soul. All his problems have a social reach. As 
 Dr. Peabody has said in The Approach to the Social 
 Question: "A separate individual is an abstraction not 
 known to experience." 
 
 Society, according to Dr. Stuckenberg, is not com- 
 posed of individuals, but of what each individual con- 
 tributes toward the group or groups of which he is a 
 part. Therefore a church may be poor, although 
 several of its members are rich. And the art tone of 
 a community may be low, although several individuals 
 possess high artistic culture and own valuable paint- 
 ings which they keep carefully from public sight. 
 
 The Contagion of Health. The most stringent pre- 
 cautions are taken to avoid the contagion of disease, 
 and the progress made by medical science encourages 
 us to hope for still greater results. Every step for- 
 ward, however, has been denounced by the opponents 
 of vaccination and of other precautionary efforts. In 
 the truest sense, all contagion is the contagion of 
 health. Contagion is the power of the germ to select 
 its food and grozv, and this power is due to its health, 
 
86 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 or vitality. Christian love, faith, hope, and goodness 
 are contagious, but they bring health and life, not sick- 
 ness and death. We hear less about the contagion of 
 health, but this is as truly scientific as the contagion of 
 disease. 
 
 A man is discouraged by losses in business. He has 
 stood also recently in the shadows of sorrow. He feels 
 the foundations slipping from under his feet. The 
 night of unbelief is shutting down. His heart action is 
 abnormal and his courage has gone. His soul is 
 strangely filled with fears. He thinks even of suicide. 
 Into his office suddenly comes a Christian man, who 
 speaks words of cheer and hope, and at once he is in 
 a new world. He has courage to try again in business. 
 He sees the blue heaven through the clouds as he re- 
 calls a promise of Christ. His feet hold again to the 
 pavement. It is morning everywhere. He feels the 
 thrill of a new hope and has a fresh grip. He resolves 
 to lead a life of Christian service, he enters the church 
 of his Lord as a restored disciple, and to the remotest 
 corners of his life a new spirit travels. This new man 
 remodels the tenements he owns and makes them fit 
 homes for the poor. He mingles charity with his 
 business and is kind to those who are out of work 
 and gentle with them when they cannot pay their 
 rents promptly. He introduces profit-sharing into his 
 mills and becomes interested in the men he employs, 
 until they realize that he is not seeking their life- 
 blood, but desires to give them new red blood for 
 the battles against poverty, ignorance, and wasted 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 87 
 
 years. He reaches down into the community as he 
 serves on welfare committees. He insists that every 
 house shall be suitably lighted, properly ventilated, 
 and sanitary, that the milk supplied shall be pure, 
 that the merchants shall give proper weight and 
 sell pure food. He throws all his influence against 
 those who comer the markets and artificially lift the 
 prices of food. Wrong-doers hate him, but they fear 
 him also. At first they questioned his sincerity, but 
 soon they knew he was a true man. He was to them 
 another Earl of Shaftesbury, He has fought the 
 saloon, the grafters, and those who keep houses of sin 
 until he is a tower of spiritual strength. His sense of 
 justice has become so keen that he serves frequently 
 as arbitrator in industrial strife, and all because another 
 man stopped a few moments and came to him when 
 he was at a crisis in his life and persuaded him to 
 be a Christian hero. This good man and brave joined 
 with others. They mutualized their contacts and 
 labored to save the city and its people. 
 
 A Young Man with Thirty Families. This social 
 worker and spiritual enthusiast devotes his spare time 
 in doing a piece of work which he discovered. He is 
 a business man, and in touch with groups of various 
 interesting people. When he went to New York he 
 had several ways of life open to him. He might have 
 gone into politics, into club life, or into social life. 
 Without neglecting his friends, he selected something 
 very diflFerent. He examined a part of the city where 
 the people lived in a very congested area, represent- 
 
88 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ing many foreign nations. Associating himself with 
 a work already established, he lifted with all his might 
 to help first a few and then many souls. 
 
 From the beginning his efforts have been corrective, 
 and later he has added forms of preventive service. 
 He ranges himself among the foes of all varieties of 
 evil and is attacking in every way possible the vari- 
 ous forms of wickedness that show their heads in the 
 part of the city where he specializes. He has taken 
 on his heart and into his life one family after another 
 until he has now thirty families to which he is a big 
 brother and adviser in every way. As fast as these 
 families are helped to self-support and self-respect and 
 brought into touch with some Christian church or mis- 
 sionary institution, he takes another family, and, be- 
 ginning at the bottom, repeats the process. 
 
 He has become an expert in social service. He 
 knows the names of the children in each family, advises 
 their parents in their bringing up, keeps track of their 
 progress in school, and studies the monthly reports 
 of the boys and girls which the teachers send to the 
 homes. He knows when the little baby cuts its teeth, 
 and is a friend in time of sickness and distress and 
 unemployment. He is frequently called in to settle 
 family disputes. He often stands guard when a 
 drunken parent returns to the home. When his mother 
 visited him one day in August he took her into his 
 strange parish. As they walked through the crowded 
 streets, a little girl playing on a fire-escape spied her 
 friend and big brother. With a cry of joy she raised 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 89 
 
 a shout which was heard throughout the neighbor- 
 hood, and within five minutes fifty children were danc- 
 ing with joy around the young man and his white- 
 haired mother. One can imagine her emotions. 
 
 Why was he visiting his boys and girls that day? 
 It was to arrange for their outing in the country. This 
 young man who has discovered such a fine piece of 
 work in the heart of the foreign quarter of New York 
 spends generously his income on his self-imposed but 
 delightful tasks. It is probable that his friends who 
 know of his work have some share in its cost. He 
 does not neglect, however, the work of his church, but 
 is regularly at the Sunday morning services, mid-week 
 meetings, and for several years was the superintend- 
 ent of the Sunday-school. Why cannot hundreds and 
 thousands of young men repeat what he is doing? 
 
 What a Girl of Nineteen Began. Eighteen years 
 ago in the crowded part of a great city she rented a 
 room at her own expense and began to teach weary 
 mothers how to care for their children. While they 
 were at work, she encouraged them to bring their 
 babies to her. When they were sick, she nursed them 
 back to health. Of course such an angel could not 
 work unobserved, and a few friends began to help 
 her in her holy purpose of service. The work grew 
 until several hundred persons every month during all 
 these years have been helped by her ministry. With- 
 out regard to their religious affiliations she has assisted 
 all who were in need. 
 
 Homes that she found broken by sin and dissipation 
 
90 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 have been mended by her skilful, patient, and loving 
 work. Hundreds of children are cared for by her in 
 a summer camp and are given a brief outing where 
 the air is fresh and the flowers grow. A day nursery 
 now occupies a building erected by her friends and 
 many forms of Christian ministry are the result of 
 her thought and prayer. On Tuesday evenings more 
 than two hundred mothers and their children crowd 
 into the lower rooms of the building to repeat pas- 
 sages of the Scripture, to offer prayer, and to tell what 
 the Lord has done for them in times of sickness and 
 distress. 
 
 A man of wide outlook who attended one of these 
 services said that on no single occasion in his life had 
 he heard so many Bible verses repeated as on that eve- 
 ning. Conspicuous among those who testified were 
 several Jewish mothers. No work is done in this settle- 
 ment house on Sunday. It is the rest-day for the 
 workers, for it is the aim of this wise leader to attach 
 every family to a religious congregation. Has this 
 wonderful woman discovered a piece of work that 
 hundreds of others may not also discover and begin 
 and finish? 
 
 A Sane Ambition. A college graduate, who can- 
 not stand the strain of city life, has recently been 
 offered a farm by his uncle. Trained to outdoor work 
 in his boyhood, he intends to establish himself in a 
 rural community, build his life into the church, demon- 
 strate what can be done in the Sunday-school, stand 
 for pKurity in jx)litics, improve as far as possible the 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 91 
 
 educational ideals of the town, develop the library, and 
 do all for which he believes his college education has 
 providentially prepared him. He is to attempt a work 
 which many ill conditioned but brave young men in 
 the cities might well begin in the country. 
 
 A New Way to Do Good. A new form of service 
 has been discovered in the custom that is growing up 
 in factories where large numbers of men and women 
 toil at quiet tasks in a single room. In one of the 
 great cigar factories about six hundred men employ 
 one of their number to sit in the center of the room 
 on a raised platform and to read aloud newspapers, 
 magazines, and books. They listen as they work, 
 and each man makes an extra cigar for his friend, 
 and the six hundred or more cigars give the reader the 
 average wage his friends receive. In this and other 
 shops outside readers and speakers are made welcome. 
 The door of service is wide open, and the hearers are 
 very attentive. One's presence does not sanction the 
 business, and those who hear the speaker may not 
 agree with what he says. Indeed, they may argue 
 with him, and warmly oppose his statements. They 
 love an argument, but will generally conduct it with a 
 stranger in a fair and interesting way. Shall social 
 agitators and rabid iconoclasts alone accept these op- 
 portunities, or will the ministers, their assistants, and 
 their people of culture and energ}?- also embrace the 
 chance to tell the truth to those who are like the Athe- 
 nians in one respect, at least, that they are eager to hear 
 some new thing? Many of these men are not interested 
 
92 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 in gods many, nor in the unknown god, but they are 
 ready to listen, to ask questions, and to argue. 
 
 The Worth of Friendliness. The cultivation of 
 friendliness is imperatively needed. One sees occa- 
 sionally what should be avoided when a conductor on 
 an eastern railroad treats the immigrants rudely. They 
 have paid their fare, and the only word in English 
 they know is the name of the city to which they are 
 journeying. Kindness to workmen and to strangers, 
 and the gentle courtesies of life shown in cars and on 
 the streets, in elevators, offices, and schools, create an 
 atmosphere that corrects a man's selfish tendencies and 
 gives a sense of justice to all human relations. 
 
 The Christian who always has the milk of human 
 kindness in his soul will cultivate a true friendliness 
 with all whom he meets. He need not speak to stran- 
 gers to make them feel its presence in his life. Real 
 friendliness radiates invisibly from him, and its heat 
 rays melt cold hearts and warm the benumbed and 
 helpless hands of discouraged souls. To meet anger 
 with calmness and unjust words with a smile, to be- 
 friend the helpless, to be gentle with the aged, to be 
 thoughtful of the infirm and unfortunate people, to be 
 attentive to little children, to be a strong defender of 
 the depressed, and to be sympathetic with defective, 
 delinquent, and dependent people are some of the secrets 
 of a far-reaching life. Even the animals know the 
 stranger who is fond of them. The deaf are often 
 unhappy because they miss the kind words of their 
 friends. The blind smile habitually because they are 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 93 
 
 always tenderly treated and gently led. An unkind 
 Christian is a contradiction in words. 
 
 Christian Multiples. When the reach of such lives 
 is multiplied in every rural community, town, and city 
 in a nation, we begin to realize how far and fast the 
 kingdom of heaven reaches down into the lives of 
 men to reform, to transform, and to transfigure them. 
 Society becomes Christian in all its parts in so far and 
 as rapidly as Christians build their lives into the lives 
 of others and lay the golden treasure of the gospel 
 along every path, however remote, where their influ- 
 ence goes. 
 
 When Alabaster Boxes Are Broken. When a 
 Christian whose life travels out so widely into the lives 
 of others has a noble plan to spiritualize any human 
 activity, he should propose it even though men think 
 him a dreamer. To him it may never be more than a 
 dream, but to another it may become a vision, to 
 another a solvent of his perplexity, and to another a 
 path to his victory. Perhaps he can only announce 
 the discovery of his new idea, but men who are stran- 
 gers to him may explore its mysteries, discover its 
 wealth, and develop its resources. A man should not 
 stop to get every happy thought copyrighted before he 
 lets the world have it. He should publish it in his 
 next conversation with any man who seems to need its 
 stimulus. He should let the fragrance out of the bottle 
 and spray the world with sweetness. Christianity de- 
 velops a happy heart and smiles. The cheerful laugh 
 of an optimist in the face of difficulty may save a 
 
94 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 church from disbanding, a minister from resigning his 
 pastorate, a business man from giving up the fight to 
 be honest, a youth from abandoning the education that 
 will fit him to save the nation. A man should take off 
 his gloves and lend a hand, yes, two hands, and lift 
 with all his might the burdens from his neighbor's 
 shoulders. He should remember that the grime of 
 honest toil is one of the cleanest things in the world, 
 and that the water of life also runs down hill and seeks 
 its level in the lowest social levels. 
 
 The Christian should not fear to help the down- 
 trodden. The red man has still a burden and should 
 be helped to lift it. The black man's heart may become 
 as white as snow under the treatment of the Savior 
 to whom he introduces him. The yellow face will for 
 him contain no peril if a Christian has the spirit of 
 the Master, the wisdom of the serpent, and the harm- 
 lessness of the dove. 
 
 One Arm Is Not Sufficient. Even the strongest and 
 ablest workmen must have helpers. These are not 
 hod-carriers to bring them the rough material to build 
 into the wall, but equals, to inspire them with fellow- 
 ship. One man cannot labor beyond his individual 
 strength. The evil forces in a community have paved 
 the streets of sin with blocks too heavy for one re- 
 former to lift and cast aside. The saloons can be 
 closed by votes of many men, but not by the words of 
 one man. When earnest souls unite to oppose the evil 
 forces in a city, they first drive them to cover, later out 
 of their retreat; and then the best results follow. 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 95 
 
 In an eastern city a pastor found a member of his 
 church in great trouble. Her husband, a well-to-do 
 farmer, had purchased liquor at a saloon, and in an 
 intoxicated condition had been thrown out of its back 
 door, sustaining serious injuries. The wife wished 
 to have the saloon-keeper punished, but feared he 
 would burn her buildings if she made complaint. Her 
 pastor obtained a warrant for the saloon-keeper's arrest 
 and he was fined in the courts. Other arrests fol- 
 lowed, and the saloon-keepers appealed their cases. 
 The grand jury failed to indict, and the county at- 
 torney had boasted that this would happen. Many of 
 the best people in the city felt that it was a most inop- 
 portune time to press the matter of temperance because 
 the state elections were about to take place, and both 
 of the leading parties greatly feared the results of an 
 agitation. 
 
 The minister could not find many who would join 
 him. He did not make his actions subject of remarks 
 in the pulpit, but he did what he thought was his duty 
 in trying to protect his families from the ravages of 
 the saloons. Several of the most prominent men in 
 this parish privately admired his courage but publicly 
 regretted his action. In his own congregation he found 
 two families involved in the evil business, frankly 
 talked with them and kept their friendship. This man 
 failed in his attempt, and was soon called to a larger 
 church, which, however, found itself defeated in its 
 efforts to change the lawlessness of officials because 
 other churches were lukewarm on the subject. One 
 
96 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 worker or one church among many cannot do reform 
 work alone. 
 
 Workers Must Join Hands. There must be a group 
 of men to grapple with the forces of evil, and it should 
 be composed of those who know full well the value 
 of organization and concerted action. Such is the aim 
 and experience of federations of churches. In a state 
 in the Middle West, a teacher in the public school was 
 wiser, and therefore successful in his reform efforts. 
 He saw the need of opposing the groups of selfish 
 men who were exploiting the city and making before 
 the workers of ©vil a smooth road for the chariot- 
 wheels which were crushing out the lives of the people. 
 After a careful study of the lawlessness of the com- 
 munity, he went to the men's classes in all the Sun- 
 day-schools, explained the shameful conditions in the 
 city, and proposed that all good men and true should 
 quietly organize to cleanse the town of its impurities. 
 At the next election, these determined reformers sur- 
 prised and drove the grafters from office and wrested 
 the control of the city from their hands. Acting alone, 
 this energetic and noble man would have failed. Act- 
 ing with others, he amply succeeded. A single man 
 with even two pails of water cannot extinguish a rag- 
 ing fire, but a department of fire fighters will soon 
 . quench it. The righteous men and women of a com- 
 munity, if united, can put the hosts of wickedness to 
 flight. They can close the holes of vice, break the sin 
 traps, and drive out the darkness of evil before the 
 rays of their bright lives; but men who work singly 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 97 
 
 can do little more than see evil, warn men against it, 
 and condemn those who practise it. 
 
 Continuous Action Necessary. Evil men combine 
 for unholy ends and continue their labors day and 
 night. Self-interest goads them forward. Their finer 
 feelings become stunted, but their coarser natures grow 
 strong and aggressive. They do not work fitfully. 
 Their mines do not give out, and they are constantly 
 inventing high-pressure machines to increase the prod- 
 uct of evil. They find, however, that those opposing 
 them, even in some of the best organized reform move- 
 ments, are so spasmodic in their efforts that they have 
 little to fear of permanent loss to their political and 
 immoral machines. When the good men in a com- 
 munity, inspired by the Christian impulse to carry their 
 influence into every department of life, organize their 
 forces to conquer evil, they should make their machin- 
 ery more powerful, their plans more permanent, and 
 their execution of these more insistent than the social 
 destroyers of the city can possibly match by their 
 submarine methods of warfare. The battle for right- 
 eousness must be waged without ceasing, and when 
 this is done, and reformers are strongly entrenched 
 and are constantly at work, municipal conditions be- 
 come politically sane and morally safe. 
 
 The Normal Christian. The normal Christian who 
 lets his life in all its reaches become spiritualized, 
 breaks every alabaster box and pours the ointment 
 forth. He believes that alabaster boxes are not for 
 shelves but for souls, not for lending but for soend- 
 
98 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ing; and valuable for what is poured from them. He 
 confesses by his daily action that the test of his life 
 is not what it can gather in but what it can give forth, 
 as the medicinal spring is of no value while in the 
 mountain, but only as it rises to the surface and pours 
 forth its healing for those who discover its worth. It 
 is not the amount but the motive that weighs. The 
 woman who went home from church and sent her draft 
 for twenty-five thousand dollars for missions did a 
 noble act, but in proportion to her ability no more 
 than the widow who gave the twelve dollars which she 
 had been saving for a new cloak. The stranger who 
 called at the office of a missionary society in New 
 York and gave a check for fifty thousand dollars, 
 which was honored at the bank, made possible a new 
 step forward in foreign missions; but the young man 
 who left college for a year that he might earn a thou- 
 sand dollars to push forward a Christian enterprise 
 also did well. 
 
 The Threefold Life. The world, however, is not 
 greatly impressed by good words unless they have 
 the right ring, and it cares very little for good works 
 that do not proceed from pure motives. A man whose 
 faith in God is true disarms all criticism and in the 
 end silences his enemies. Such a man is justified by 
 faith before God, and his faith in God he also justifies 
 before his fellow men by its constant expression in 
 good works and in good words. A good faith gives 
 strength to good words and energy to good works. 
 The three make the ideal Christian life, but if one of 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 99 
 
 the three is lacking is not the resultant life abnormal and 
 twisted ? 
 
 Lest We Forget. A certain tree carefully planted 
 near a stream by a skilful hand experienced several 
 accidents. In plowing around the roots a workman 
 nearly destroyed its life. As a result its growth was 
 retarded for nearly three years and it hardly held its 
 own. When it was well again an ox leaned against it 
 and its advance was delayed for two years more. At 
 length, in spite of dangers and accidents, it grew to 
 bear much valuable fruit. Its roots now grip the rocky 
 soil and the branches have grown to a great height. 
 So the Christian, though planted by a river of water, 
 needs to be shielded from evil, and in case of spiritual 
 accident to be healed by the Master. It is not enough 
 to have his life safely planted by loving hands in a 
 favorable place. Many experiences may come to 
 threaten if not to destroy him. The tree in the pasture 
 was at length protected with a fence until it grew not 
 only to be fruitful but to shelter the children at play 
 and give its shade to weary travelers. A Christian's 
 life is best protected by the fences of a Christian 
 church and a Christian home. From what evils do 
 they not preserve him? They have safeguarded his 
 growth and made his life to be a refuge to many dis- 
 couraged souls in hours of darkness and storm. As 
 the tree in the field bears fruit that is sent throughout 
 the town, so his life yields fruitage which may extend 
 his influence to the remotest corners of the commu- 
 nity. 
 
100 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Experience and the Christian Outreach. In medi- 
 cine, men insist that our young doctors shall have hos- 
 pital practise as well as know the theories of their 
 science before they are entrusted with our lives. In 
 great conventions it is generally the physician or sur- 
 geon who has had the widest and most varied expe- 
 rience that is heard with the profoundest interest. If 
 a great specialist announces a discovery he mentions 
 the cases he has had that prove his startling claims. 
 Experience is the basis for the conduct and expansion 
 of all kinds of banking, of every department of farm- 
 ing, of every phase of business. Its worth is realized 
 in the arts and sciences. It is the man with expe- 
 rience alone who can guide the boat down the rapids of 
 the St. Lawrence, navigate a ship among the icebergs, 
 and bring it to port. Experience is everywhere the 
 basis of efficiency. 
 
 When we study the extension of the gospel through 
 the outreach of human lives we must remember that 
 experience is also the test of one's relation to Christ 
 and ability to serve mankind. It is the foundation of 
 a man's personal faith, and on his experience of God's 
 love and forgiveness he builds the superstructure of 
 his life. He discovers also that these lines are the 
 same that others have found safe and sure. Is not 
 the point to be stressed in these days of muddy and 
 careless religious thinking that all men shall have a 
 sure and positive Christian experience? Such an ex- 
 perience is a rock. The sand shifts with the winds and 
 changes with the tides. May not the supreme value of 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 101 
 
 all religions be tested in this crucible? The religions 
 of the East and the West will have their values proved 
 by this trial of fire. All systems of faith will be found 
 wanting which do not acquaint their followers with 
 God and sin and salvation. In sorrow and in death 
 men need a faith that will give confidence and firm 
 reliance on the eternal realities. And who can doubt 
 that the palm of victory will be given to Christianity? 
 
 The Present Popularity of Jesus. The movements 
 of thought that were intended to discredit Christ's 
 teachings have exalted his matchless personality. 
 Men who despise the churches, who hate their min- 
 isters, are friendly to Jesus and regard him as the 
 greatest man of all history. They say he was an ideal- 
 ist, a golden dreamer, and that he died because he 
 taught truth in advance of his age. They insist also 
 that his theories of life are yet to be tried, and their 
 admiration for him is akin to worship. But is it not 
 probable that those who have reverence for his char- 
 acter will soon lose it if they do not obey his teachings? 
 Must we not believe with Professor Cairns that the 
 churches have at the present time in the widespread 
 friendly attitude of the multitudes toward Jesus a 
 chance to press the claims of his teachings upon the 
 hearts of the people as never before ? Is it too much to 
 expect that those who are unfriendly to the Christian 
 churches may be caused to change their feelings toward 
 them if they can be convinced that fellowship with the 
 church is fellowship with the Master? 
 
 Those prejudiced against the churches must be 
 
102 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 reached by the individuals whom the churches inspire 
 and whom they teach to interpret correctly the life and 
 teachings of Jesus. Churches as such are misunder- 
 stood and misjudged by a multitude. Their public 
 religious services occupy only a few scattered hours 
 each week. But the influence of the church crystal- 
 lized in the lives of individuals goes with them every- 
 where, speaks through their words, and convinces and 
 blesses the people whom they touch. 
 
 The Human Arm of the Gospel. The reach of the 
 gospel is first of all to save both the individual and 
 society; and then, through the individual as its new, 
 strong arm, to save the world. The reach of the gospel 
 is therefore the reach of the individual. In propor- 
 tion as the individual touches and thrills other lives 
 with the truth of God will other men be saved. The 
 Christian is the magnet which has responded to the 
 spiritual power in Christ, and he immediately attracts 
 unto himself, and through himself to a church, other 
 lives. As these lives relate themselves to the new 
 Christian society, they in turn become magnets to draw 
 still others, and so the good work goes forward as rap- 
 idly as individuals saved by the gospel reach out to save 
 others. Only a part, however, of the Christian suc- 
 cess in service is registered by membership in the 
 Church and by a confession of loyalty to Christ. Each 
 life that is saved may be saved in any and all its rela- 
 tions. In business, in politics, education, society, the 
 Christian may be a Christian in the fullest meaning 
 of the word. His life is a leaven that permeates the 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 103 
 
 measure of meal which is the grist of all his earthly 
 activities. 
 
 The Method of Jesus Reaches Far. From the days 
 of the apostles to the present and until the kingdom 
 shall fully come, the thrust of the personal life, the 
 power of a smile, a testimony, the outreach of the indi- 
 vidual influence vitalizing every point of contact with 
 every other life, show us how far-reaching was the 
 method of Jesus to save the world by saving individ- 
 uals who should in turn become the saviors of men. 
 But Christianity's work is not done when the souls of 
 men are saved. Indeed, it has but just begun. A soul 
 is saved at the threshold of the kingdom, at the begin- 
 ning of the path, at the foot of the mountain. The test 
 of the service which Christianity inspires in every dis- 
 ciple of the Master is not only to save another from his 
 danger, but to destroy the things that make for danger. 
 To heal the fever in a man's soul or body and to de- 
 stroy the physical or moral cesspool that make either 
 kind of fever possible is the work of the Christian. 
 
 Christianity Condensed into Four Words. A great 
 Englishman made bold to assert that all the teachings 
 of Jesus and his apostles concerning human need and 
 human duty could be condensed into four words. The 
 first was, admit. The man who repents of his sin 
 admits Christ into his heart. Darkness goes out. He 
 sees the renovation that is necessary, the interior 
 changes that must be made, the possibilities of growth, 
 and recognizes his need of the light, as in the sunshine 
 at the window bulbs brought from the cellar unfold. 
 
104 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 blossom, and are fragrant. He has a new guest, even 
 the Lord, in his soul; and all who cross the threshold 
 realize that this guest is Christ. The influence of his 
 life becomes Christian in every way even to the least 
 observed of his business and social activities. 
 
 The Christian submits his will to the will of this 
 Guest who straightway becomes his Master. Hence- 
 forth he does not please himself in his choices, in 
 his use of money, in his habits, in his plans. His one 
 thought is to please his Lord. He learns the joys of 
 obedience. Early and late he sits at the feet of the new 
 Teacher and as his soul grows his heart expands. But 
 obedience means that he must apply to his business the 
 laws of the Kingdom; to his pleasures, the standards 
 of a Christian influence; to his ambitions, the measur- 
 ing-rod of the new Master; to his friendships, the 
 tests of his fresh faith ; and to his enemies, the mantle 
 of forgiveness. 
 
 The Christian next discovers that he must commit 
 to Christ his entire life. As he has committed to him 
 his past to be forgiven and his present to be made 
 strong for service and to be proof against the germs 
 of sin, so he must commit to him the future years, con- 
 secrating his potential influence to the service of the 
 Savior who has taught him the joy of bearing his 
 cross. And all this will enable him to dedicate every 
 energy of body, mind, and spirit, and to make his life 
 in its furthest reaches vibrate with the thrill of Christ's 
 touch. 
 
 Such a Christian immediately and evermore under- 
 
THE REACH OF THE INDIVIDUAL 105 
 
 Stands the good of service. He discovers that its secret 
 is to transmit to every other man and by every proc- 
 ess of Hfe the knowledge of what Christ has done for 
 him, to show what his gospel may do to save humanity 
 in all its needs out of its poverty, its shame, its crime, 
 its suffering, bringing in their stead, the riches, the 
 joy, the forgiveness, and the love of Christ. This love 
 of Christ will evermore constrain the Christian, as he 
 transmits the gospel message to others, to love his fel- 
 low men, whatever may be their color, condition, inher- 
 itance, environment, or sin. He will do well to re- 
 member that the word St. Paul used when he said con- 
 strain means to grip, to fascinate, to imprison, to be- 
 siege. If the love of Christ thus dominates his life, 
 the gospel will help each Christian to be the divine 
 agent to save in every way the entire world in which 
 he lives and moves. 
 
 Contacts, Human and Divine. Human contacts, 
 however fortunate, intimate, and -strong, are not suffi- 
 cient to produce permanent social and spiritual changes. 
 This is equally true whether the contacts are those of 
 an individual or a group. The divine touch energizes 
 the human touch. The effectual, fervent prayer of a 
 righteous man availeth much for himself because it 
 brings him into a personal relation with God and also 
 because it brings him into a spiritual relation with his 
 fellow men. If a Christian has the divine contact 
 alone he is like a trolley-arm touching the live wire but 
 reaching to a car without wheels. But if the wheels 
 of his life are resting on the track of earthly relations, 
 
106 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 he can draw his heavy load with good results and even 
 up a steep grade, if the trolley-arm also touches the 
 wire above it. 
 
 His relation with the Holy Spirit is threefold. Jesus 
 said, "He is with you and shall be in you." This 
 means cooperation through companionship and purifi- 
 cation through indwelling. In the Book of Acts spe- 
 cial visitations of the Spirit giving special power for 
 particular tasks are described, and these experiences 
 are repeated many times. All who expect to help 
 others as their spiritual exigencies require must render 
 the assistance through personal contact, but must also 
 learn not only the secret of the prayer life but also 
 the experience .of the Holy Spirit's fellowship and 
 communion and enjoy his special gifts of spiritual 
 energy for particular tasks. 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 
 

V 
 THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 
 
 Why a Church? Some undeveloped peoples have 
 met in common worship, finding in human compan- 
 ionship and in united endeavor incentives to reverence 
 and to religious thinking. Judaism made much of the 
 individual worshiper, but had a place for the congre- 
 gation in the synagogue. It was natural for the early 
 Christian believers to meet together, and the impulse 
 was so strong that fear of death did not deter them. 
 Community dangers and the highest experiences ac- 
 centuate the tendency to get together for common wor- 
 ship and for the divine blessing. 
 
 The people of a locality also congregate for ends 
 which register their largest results in a social way. 
 The highest aspirations of all classes are strengthened 
 by the direct and reflex influences of the public as- 
 sembly. Human beings are gregarious in their in- 
 stincts, and their intuitions, held in common, strengthen 
 these inclinations to herd together. 
 
 These yearnings for united worship and for mutual 
 social betterment focalize the kingdom of heaven in a 
 visible way among those who believe in God and .in 
 the revelation of his will in Christ. If there were no 
 Scriptural injunction not to forsake the assembling to- 
 
 109 
 
110 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 gether, mutual aims would draw those of like spiritual 
 
 aspiration. . 
 
 Social Tests 
 
 The Christian's Neighbor. The parable of the Good 
 Samaritan shows that a man's neighbor is the person 
 whom he finds in trouble. This unhappy individual 
 may be outside the inner group of the friends who 
 form a neighborhood. He may be a stranger, met for 
 the first and only time. Ships that pass in the night 
 are neighbors if one of them sends up distress signals. 
 To respond to the call for help at any time is to reveal 
 the heart of a neighbor. In all walks of life men are 
 exhibiting this spirit. In numberless ways and to a 
 splendid degree the passion of neighborliness has 
 seized men. 
 
 In fraternal societies it reveals itself in groups' of 
 souls who unite their gifts and benefits far each other 
 in sickness and need. These organizations are noble 
 but self-centered. Persons join them for what they 
 can get as well as for what they can give. Charitable 
 societies, whether acting alone or in association with 
 other groups of welfare workers, direct their efforts to 
 the improvement of the present and outward conditions 
 of unfortunate persons, or in prreventing an environ- 
 ment that creates confusion in social life. These 
 efforts, if effective, are generally directed to help indi- 
 viduals and to improve family life. 
 
 Numerous groups of men and women labor in one 
 or more reform movements without which the moral 
 progress of the world would be retarded. The 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH lU 
 
 churches would have to be engaged officially in these 
 directions if these helpful labors were not conducted 
 by outside organizations. It should never be forgotten, 
 however, that all these activities had their birth in the 
 Christian impulse and have been conspicuously absent 
 in non-Christian lands until Christianity has intro- 
 duced them. 
 
 Neighborhood and Brotherhood. The churches in 
 any community, large or small, are the only organiza- 
 tions that are able to minister to all the needs of the 
 people. They should not only care for the souls of 
 men but be interested in everything that makes their 
 bodies strong and keeps their minds in process of 
 normal development. Their sphere of work combines 
 the neighborhood and the brotherhood ideas, and a 
 church imbued with both of these is ready for its com- 
 munity task. 
 
 Not all the churches grasp even faintly the thought 
 that they have such a task. Their standards of effi- 
 ciency vary, and, in some communities where the phys- 
 ical and intellectual ideals are low, the churches do not 
 accept their duty to meet all the needs of the people. 
 Is the church that strives alone to save the souls of 
 men and bring them into its membership doing its 
 whole duty? Does not the revival that calls converts 
 into the fold end in disaster to many lives, unless the 
 new disciples have unfolded to them that the Christian 
 impulse should prove its presence by its abounding life 
 in the community ? If a church simply shows its power 
 in public services large or small, occasionally or fre- 
 
112 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 quently, and it does not teach its members the joy of 
 private service in revealing Christ in their hves, it is 
 not doing much to make the community Christian. If 
 it finds that its neighborhood in a great city, or in a 
 tOkwn, or in a village neglects its ser\aces and does not 
 care for its help, what may one infer? If a few kin- 
 dred souls near the meeting-house attend the church 
 and maintain it and do not reach out, both far and 
 near, to solve the problem of the community, what may 
 one conclude? Although a church ministers to people 
 scattered far and wide, if it does not solve community 
 difficulties, or try to lift the burdens that oppress men, 
 or prevent conditions that destroy the youth through 
 intemperance and impurity, it only partially expresses 
 the spirit of its Master. 
 
 The Three Dimensions of a Church. A true church 
 has length, breadth, and depth. The length of its arm 
 is often shortened that it does not save, and its hand 
 may become palsied if it fails to do its spiritual work 
 in the community. Its breadth should include within 
 the sphere of its influence every social need, and noth- 
 ing human or divine should be alien to its spirit. The 
 depth of a church is its reach downward, embracing in 
 its largest roots and in its tiniest rootlets a grasp upon 
 the profoundest needs of the entire community. 
 
 Four Kinds of Church Members. The variety in 
 the membership of the churches constitutes the com- 
 munity problem. There are some who are tireless; 
 they are faithful, generous, even, sane, and reliable. 
 They work alone or with others, whether men approve 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 113 
 
 or criticize, and will pull at any load on the steepest 
 hill. 
 
 In contrast with them are the tired members. These 
 are not wearied from much labor, but they are languid 
 while waiting for conditions to improve before they 
 grasp the plow or join in the planting or in the harvest- 
 ing. They sing the song of the glorious past, but al- 
 ways in a minor key. 
 
 Another group that makes any deep work impossible 
 is composed of the retired members who regard their 
 labor as done. They are still diligent in business, but 
 they are not fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. 
 
 The wider ministry of the churches, however, is 
 often almost ruined by certain members who are tire- 
 some to the person whom they must help if they are to 
 minister to more than the elect few who have been 
 reared in a Christian atmosphere. Some of these tire- 
 some people do not stand high in the esteem of those 
 who are sometimes called "the outsiders." A few 
 churches, it is feared, have so much of this deadwood 
 type of members that it is almost hopeless to attack the 
 community tasks and to do them well. 
 
 The Early Molds. The permanent character of a 
 community is nearly always determined by its first 
 settlers. If the leaders were men of Christian ideas, 
 the whole body of citizens felt the influence of their 
 courage and faith. A town whose foundations were 
 laid by persons of atheistic tendencies has always been 
 cursed by the handicap of the visionless men, who with 
 irreligious lives retarded the higher growth. 
 
114 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 In the same way churches have been early strength- 
 ened by the piety and consecration of refined men and 
 women, or have been weakened by the secular and 
 careless persons who were their first members. The 
 plastic clay felt the impress of the first hands that 
 touched it, and before any one realized it set into per- 
 manent forms. The testing time in the former church 
 comes when the first heroic souls die. The latter church 
 n>ay yet be saved in spite of a bad start, if a few souls 
 have the grace and courage to break the early molds 
 and to make new ones in which the spiritual life of the 
 people, melted by the divine love, may find its social 
 and religious setting. 
 
 The strong church, however, may have its life al- 
 most threatened by the presence of persons of influ- 
 ence who have retired from rural or city activities and 
 who are opposed to all new and aggressive methods 
 for community betterment. Another group of persons 
 whom it is difficult to stimulate are those who have 
 business interests elsewhere and who only sleep in 
 the Gommu-nity. And yet, under strong leadership, 
 churches composed of both these classes have been 
 aroused to a forward crusade that has changed the face 
 of the larger parish. 
 
 The Ideal Church. This is not only located in a 
 community, but is also exerting its influence in every 
 part of its life, and is in the community in the truest 
 and deepest sense. As the Rev. Warren H. Wilson 
 says, it is the one institution in v^^hich the community 
 has a home. Such a church always keeps its spiritual 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 115 
 
 aim high and reaches out and down to draw in and lift 
 up. 
 
 A Well-Balanced Ideal. The Rev. Worth M. Tippy 
 speaks of his conception of a "church filled with the 
 spiritual earnestness and living faith of the apostolic 
 church, but planted squarely on the earth with its out- 
 look upon the oncoming Christian civilization ; a church 
 open to truth; a church unselfish, fearless, free; a 
 church sympathetic to the life and achievements of 
 humanity, and organized as a fighting unit of the new 
 social order ; . . . a church with generous sympathies 
 and alert vision, carrying the community in its heart, 
 alive to all that makes for the good and happiness of 
 its city or countryside." ^ 
 
 High Business Standards 
 
 A church in a community must stand for honesty in 
 business. Short weights; seven feet of wood for a 
 cord; poor grade of turkeys in the middle of a crate 
 of good ones ; packing the middle of a barrel of apples 
 with second-grade fruit while first quality and well 
 colored selections are at either end; feeding chickens 
 with meal and sand before they are sold ; filling larger 
 fish with smaller ones before they are sent to market; 
 placing eggs held over from the summer with ship- 
 ments in the winter at highest prices ; introducing more 
 water than is allowed by the law in butter, and selling 
 as fresh butter prints that which was purchased in 
 the summer, placed in cold storage, and worked over 
 
 ^The Church a Community Force, i, 2. 
 
116 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 in the winter; are only a few of the temptations which 
 come to persons living in rural communities when they 
 deal with the outer world. 
 
 A wholesale egg merchant has said that the eggs of 
 a neighboring state bring a much smaller price in the 
 market than eggs collected a thousand miles away 
 and gathered from a region in which a sense of busi- 
 ness honor is much higher. The deadening moral 
 effects upon children- who see their parents resort to 
 these dishonorable methods to increase the family in- 
 comfe is not the least among the evil harvests that come 
 to a community in which such schemes are practised. 
 One son, who drove a milk team for a father standing 
 high in the esteem of all his neighbors, has never re- 
 covered from the moral shock of the years when he 
 distributed to customers his father's milk from which 
 a large part of the cream had already been taken and 
 sold at high prices. 
 
 In urban communities there is constant need that 
 stockholders and trustees be constantly reminded of 
 their responsibility which cannot be evaded, and that 
 while remaining in these honorable positions they must 
 hold themselves personally accountable for the moral 
 acts of their agents, whose decisions and operations 
 and human contacts they do not carefully supervise. 
 
 Dodging Taxes and Fares. The evil of avoiding 
 taxes on the part of people who profess to be not only 
 just but righteous can hardly be overemphasized. To 
 render incorrect reports to the municipal and national 
 authorities is rankly dishonest and should be plainly 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 117 
 
 denounced as an act unworthy of those who profess to 
 model their lives after the teachings of Jesus. The 
 father who entered an electric car with his son taught 
 a boy of twelve years of age a lesson which may later 
 lead him to prison, when he has learned not only to 
 avoid the payment of a five-cent fare but the evasion 
 of taxes and other honest obligations. 
 
 Puncturing Superficial Distinctions. It should hold 
 up to the search-light the inconsistency of the man 
 who is opposed to smoking, but who leases land to a 
 tobacco factory and obtains a high incorne on a farm 
 which he rents to a stranger for raising tobacco which 
 he himself would not plant. 
 
 A church should show the poor logic of the man 
 who condemns drinking, but trades in distillery stocks ; 
 who forbids dancing, but lets a hall for dancing parties ; 
 who denounces liquor selling, but has some excuse for 
 the man who keeps a saloon in a building on which he 
 himself holds a mortgage; who opposes breweries, but 
 feeds malt to his cattle; who will not purchase a Sun- 
 day paper, but who buys ice-cream and soda at a drug 
 store on the Lord's day ; who will not take a stroll 
 through the woods on Sunday, but who always starts 
 on a journey late Saturday night; who criticizes cor- 
 porations for compelling their workmen to labor long 
 hours, but who makes his farm-hands work from sun- 
 rise to sunset. 
 
 Opposing Selfish Advantage. The church should 
 takcthigh ground against any attempts to influence leg- 
 islation for personal enrichment and for corporate 
 
118 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 benefit. The man who returned from the legislature 
 with fifteen hundred dollars in his possession and 
 soon after removed the mortgage from his farm must 
 have had an unquiet conscience during the rest of his 
 life. The church should insist on consistency between 
 one's business ideals and his private acts. The liquor 
 dealers in a great city who live in a suburb and dwell 
 in beautiful homes and constantly vote for no license, 
 pride themselves on the high moral character of the 
 town. For a man who has a business injurious to 
 others and takes an attitude toward residents in the 
 city in proximity to his factory which he would oppose 
 if repeated near his home, is guilty of a selfishness the 
 evil outlines of which should be made plain by teach- 
 ers of religion. 
 
 Philanthropic and Improving Measures 
 
 Care for Defectives. Another feature of the educa- 
 tional work of a church is to care for the moral defec- 
 tives in the community. Many years ago in a rural 
 parish a little girl was presented for membership by 
 the pastor to a committee representing the church. 
 Strong objection was at once raised against encourag- 
 ing the child to be baptized. It was stated that her 
 family were shiftless people and that to introduce her 
 ino the social life of the parish would at once single 
 her out as a defective. The committee insisted that 
 from such unpromising material a Christian character 
 probably would not be developed. The pastor told them 
 that the moral condition of certain families in the 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 119 
 
 community was a standing rebuke to the church, which 
 had never tried in any way to minister to their spir- 
 itual improvement, and bluntly said to them that they 
 would receive the child into membership or have his 
 immediate resignation. The pastor won the battle. 
 
 Thirty-five years after this scene occurred, at the 
 end of an evening preaching service in a city far away, 
 a well-dressed woman introduced herself to this same 
 minister, then an aged man. Something in her face 
 reminded him of an earlier day, for she was once the 
 little girl for whom he had pleaded so long ago. The 
 picture of that early struggle came quickly to his mind, 
 and he was standing again in the village vestry laying 
 down the commandments of God concerning the treat- 
 ment of little children to the timid leaders of his con- 
 gregation. Then she told him the thrilling story of 
 her life, which showed that as a little child she had led 
 her family into the church and then later, well estab- 
 lished in a Christian home of her own, with wealth at 
 her command, and with beautiful children about the 
 family altar, she was bringing forth a splendid harvest 
 of the finest wheat. She had just visited two of her 
 daughters, who were winning honors in college. 
 
 Saves the Delinquents. The local church must also 
 reach after the delinquents among its membership and 
 educate the young people to see the value of its life 
 and teaching. In one rural community, the pastor 
 organized a brigade of boys who were outside the Bible 
 school. Into it as a leaven were introduced a few 
 whose characters were established. A camp near the 
 
120 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ocean was built and was the talk of the town. The 
 extent to which the boys were helped was the surprise 
 of the season and no barriers could later keep them 
 from the meetings of the church. Their parents were 
 also impressed and the grip of the minister on the 
 town was greatly strengthened. 
 
 Another pastor formed a camera club of boys 
 slightly interested in his work and hunted for the pic- 
 tures of birds, which were studied and described in 
 note-books. Incidentally as a result of these outings 
 one boy became a prosperous photographer, another an 
 author, and another an artist. 
 
 Another minister led careless children to study flow- 
 ers, until some learned to identify more than sixty 
 kinds. This field work was joined to a study of the 
 flowers mentioned in the Bible and taught the boys and 
 girls the habit of Scripture reading. 
 
 Helps the Friendless. The right kind of a com- 
 munity church stretches out its hand with an educa- 
 tional impulse to the friendless youth. It must do this 
 through some individual who is filled with the Christ- 
 like spirit. In a city in New York state a business 
 man found a boy whose home was in the street. To 
 take this boy from such an environment and to bring 
 him into the Sunday-school, winning his friendship, 
 improving his social condition, securing work for him, 
 and being his big brother until he became a Christian, 
 was what this good man did. He advised him until 
 he established a home. Later he watched him develop 
 a prosperous business and grow in leadership in the 
 
CIIUIICII UF THE ASCENSION ATHLETIC CLTB. M:\V YoRK 
 MULBERRY BUSH GANG. NEW YORK 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 121 
 
 church by whose helpful ministry he was saved from 
 the street. Such an achievement is only explained by 
 the loving work of a noble man. He who was yester- 
 day a boy in the street is now one of the most generous 
 givers in his church and is becoming a denominational 
 leader. 
 
 Friendly to Public Schools. A natural activity of 
 the church is to safeguard the ideals of the public 
 schools. This should be done by uniting the most pro- 
 gressive citizens of all parties in securing excellent 
 men and women to serve on school boards or com- 
 mittees and in checkmating party politicians in their 
 efforts to upset the moral and intellectual standards of 
 the people. Such a group of self-seeking and evil per- 
 sons once displaced a noble Christian high school prin- 
 cipal, and elected a man who was often under the in- 
 fluence of liquor. More than one opium victim has 
 been shielded as a teacher by the same kind of polit- 
 ical looters. At such times the church must demand 
 changes and encourage its leaders to rescue their chil- 
 dren from such evil influences. 
 
 A League of Helpers. In a New England town, a 
 single church greatly interested the people in its com- 
 munity ideals. A group of ten men who were not at 
 that time in its membership, but whose lives were much 
 enriched by its ministry, formed a league to care for 
 its interests in any way in their power. One of these 
 was chosen the chairman of the school committee and 
 selected as the high school principal a woman of the 
 finest Christian type. 
 
122 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 In applying to a college president for a woman to 
 take the position, he said : "I regret to say that I am 
 not a professing Christian, but our new teacher must 
 be one and become a leader in our church and in its 
 Bible school. We will not permit a person of another 
 type to teach our children. We have had sad expe- 
 riences, and all the best men in our town, whether 
 members of the church or not, feel exactly as I do. 
 
 "Our community church is shortly to be the best 
 repaired building in town and is to have a well-kept 
 lawn about it and flower beds and a village playground 
 for children on one side. Not far away we are making 
 an athletic field. We have begun to see a few miles 
 ahead for the young people. The saloons have gone, 
 and the pleasures that the people almost went mad 
 over are drowned in the sea of forget fulness, and all 
 because a minister who is a human being and a spir- 
 itual giant, and a social enthusiast has come to live 
 among us. Yes, without doubt he will draw us by his 
 hidden silken cords into the church, but just at pres- 
 ent we are trying to Christianize our pagan public 
 schools." 
 
 The Bible in the Schools. The movement to co- 
 ordinate the instruction in the Bible given by a church 
 with instruction in other branches given by a school 
 in a community, allowing Bible study to count as a 
 course in the curriculum, is being studied by educators 
 in order that the literature of the Scriptures, now so 
 painfully neglected, may register its moral values in the 
 lives of the youth of the land. The results of these 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 123 
 
 investigations and the places in which this arrangement 
 has been effected, will be studied with a growing inter- 
 est and may lead to a wider outreach of the spiritual 
 forces of a town. 
 
 An Educational Contrast. A part of the Christian 
 leadership of a church is to discover diamonds in the 
 rough and hidden values in young people who should 
 go to the higher schools and be trained for wider lives 
 in the professional and business world. One of the 
 significant facts is that out of one congregation a 
 steady stream of young people pass to colleges and 
 great spheres of usefulness, while from another church, 
 situated in a similar way, and with the same environ- 
 ment, it is the exception that any one goes to higher 
 institutions of learning. What is the reason for this ? 
 
 Stimulates Industries. A normal result of such 
 education is in the stimulus given to industry in the 
 town. In one community the leading man in the parish 
 established a creamery and with a group of his friends 
 loaned several thousand dollars to farmers with which 
 they might purchase cows, with the agreement that 
 one half of the money paid for the milk and cream 
 should be kept by the company to pay for the advance 
 made on the herds of cattle. In a very short time the 
 farms were well stocked with a fine breed of cows for 
 which full payment had been made. The community 
 at once enjoyed a new prosperity, the single church in 
 the town called a strong man to its pastorate, a revival 
 resulted, the schools were improved and their stand- 
 ard greatly raised, temperance laws were enforced, the 
 
124 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 church edifices and other property took on new fresh- 
 ness, and all because a few men had a vision that the 
 temporal, intellectual, and spiritual success of a com- 
 munity was bound up in the same bundle of life. 
 
 Impartial to Labor and Capital. A church should 
 be absolutely impartial in its attitude toward labor 
 and capital. It has been suggested that labor unions 
 should be invited to hold meetings in its vestry. The 
 people who stand for righteousness should manifest 
 an even fairness to all parties. Fair play should be 
 the watchword. Probably the exceptions where it is 
 not are few, and these should be avoided. 
 
 Democracy as evolved from Christianity simply 
 means that every man must have liberty to work, to 
 live, and to aspire. Organization is natural and is 
 simply the fruitage of recognized leadership. Personal 
 initiative stimulates efficiency. Those of common in- 
 terest flock together. This is true of the employers 
 and the employed. In the churches both groups are 
 represented and will dwell in the Lord's house in 
 peace. The sense of brotherhood debars strife and 
 demands the upward path for all. Contests between 
 units of laborers or capitalists are only temporary and 
 cannot prevail. All differences will soon be arbitrated. 
 Industrial compulsion is as dangerous as coercion in 
 religion. Personal liberty means business liberty and 
 is a sure product of religious liberty. In America no 
 man can say, "You must worship God as I do or you 
 cannot worship him at all." And no man should say, 
 "You must work with me, or as I work, or for a wage 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 125 
 
 which I approve, or you cannot work." In a land of 
 hberty it must be impossible for any one to declare, 
 "You must use my methods and imitate my example 
 and trade with my correspondents or you cannot con- 
 duct business." The axioms of democracy are the 
 corollaries of Christianity. 
 
 A church may well sweeten the industrial life within 
 its reach by affording pleasant Sunday afternoon ser- 
 vices to those to whom the day is a period of temptation 
 and homeless wanderings. It is fortunate if the church 
 can also furnish a place for free discussion of public 
 and industrial questions as is done at the Ford Hall 
 meetings in Boston under the leadership of Mr. George 
 W. Coleman, who is at once a leading factor in a great 
 corporation employing labor and an advocate of impar- 
 tial discussion of all civic, political, and rehgious sub- 
 jects. 
 
 Ethical Investment of Funds. The church ought to 
 insist on an ethical investment of its own endowment 
 funds if it is so fortunate as to have them and teach 
 its members that in their investments they should not 
 directly give their sanction to lines of business and 
 worldly enterprises which constantly disregard the 
 golden rule and occasionally are discovered to have 
 evaded the law. The church may well consider it a 
 part of its divine mission to puncture all superficial 
 distinctions which men and women hold concerning 
 ethical standards. 
 
 The Church. The church should safeguard, sim- 
 plify, and brighten the social life. It is a reproach to 
 
126 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 the Christian people if games, entertainments, clubs, 
 Hterary, art and musical societies cannot be made so 
 attractive that the young people will not feel the lack 
 of the coarser and more careless amusements. Again 
 and again a church has been so ably led that within a 
 single season, by the new and wholesome pleasures it 
 has arranged, the people young and old have lost their 
 appetite for the lesser things which they had pursued 
 because they possessed nothing more satisfying. 
 
 Lifting with Others. A part of the outreach of a 
 church is to assist in standardizing the local charities 
 and to mold and work with all uplift societies. A min- 
 ister naturally has a perfect census of the town and a 
 card catalog containing the names and much life data 
 of the leading key men and women of the community. 
 He has this information in his possession because he 
 easily secures it during his pastoral contacts, for he 
 considers all the people not connected with any church 
 as belonging to his parish, and if his is the only church, 
 he regards all the people as his own and has all of their 
 names. 
 
 The normal church, however, not only emphasizes 
 its spiritual message and its transfiguring power, but 
 reaches out into every kind of community betterment : 
 good roads, safe sidewalks, strong bridges, suitable 
 fire protection, pleasure grounds, censorship for mov- 
 ing picture films, and public improvements which taxa- 
 tion cannot make possible. One man who gave a 
 schoolhouse and a library to his town was completely 
 transformed by the cultural value of his benefaction 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 127 
 
 and by the new friendships formed. When later he 
 lost nearly all of his property, this philanthropist real- 
 ized that his real wealth could not be taken away by 
 fire or flood or a panic in Wall Street. 
 
 Improving the Public Conscience. One of the func- 
 tions of the church that rises to the high task of broadly 
 educating a community is to improve the public con- 
 science by showing officials the sacredness of public 
 office. In one town the fire department was in the 
 hands of a board of fire commissioners, and the en- 
 forcement of the prohibitory law was placed with 
 a board of police commissioners. One night the fire 
 department failed to respond promptly to a call, and 
 many lives were in peril because the firemen would not 
 obey their chief. The people were horrified. At once 
 the board of fire commissioners carefully investigated 
 the scandal and punished the offenders, with the ap- 
 plause of the citizens. But there was also insubordina- 
 tion, or worse, in the police department, because the 
 police commissioners allowed tlie saloons to be open 
 and unmolested, and thereby endangered the morals of 
 the young people while they were helping to destroy 
 the older inhabitants and to degrade personal and 
 family life. In one of the hotels operating a saloon, 
 high school boys and girls were found drinking. 
 
 The minister who asked publicly from his pulpit 
 whether the police commissioners could not learn a 
 lesson from the fire commissioners had at once the at- 
 tention of all right-minded citizens. Soon the police 
 commissioners had to face a storm that quickly burst 
 
128 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 without mercy on their unprotected heads. The people 
 are logical even if for a season they are sometimes 
 blind and deaf and obsessed with commercialism. 
 
 The church should also educate the community to 
 see the iniquity of the saloon, should develop in the 
 young the feeling of kindness to animals, should urge 
 men to build warm and well-ventilated barns and to 
 erect horse-sheds around the church, relieving its mem- 
 bers from the peril of prosecution by the humane 
 societies. 
 
 In Personal Consistency. Some persons insist on 
 social betterments in large cities and in private and 
 public address loudly denounce soulless corporations 
 and selfish capitalists in general for high rentals of 
 poor, ill ventilated tenements in congested urban 
 centers. A closer inspection of the practises of these 
 critics in the towns where they live often shows that 
 they may well improve the sanitation of the houses 
 that they rent and should at once throw their influence 
 with the industrial reformers nearer home. It is easy 
 to blow a trumpet calling attention to the iniquities of 
 others and to make so much noise that one does not 
 hear the still small voice of conscience condemning his 
 own unjust acts. One of the most indignant men one 
 could ever meet was a man from the North who was 
 condemning the people of the South for their treat- 
 ment of Negroes. It was later discovered, however, 
 that this same man owned very cheap unsanitary build- 
 ings which he rented at exorbitant rates to the colored 
 people of a Southern city. These houses, or more 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 129 
 
 accurately speaking cheap shacks, were built through 
 an agent, who collected the rents and made sure of 
 their payment by a process that would not bear inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 The New Protestantism. It is also the privilege of 
 the church in a community to listen to the voices of 
 rich and poor alike who are calling insistently for 
 a Christianization of the social and industrial order. 
 The voices of these who make such complaints are 
 speaking the messages of the new Protestantism. Shall 
 the churches refuse to listen and refuse to adjust as 
 far as possible their aims to the new industrial and 
 social ideals, or will they repeat the mistake of the relig- 
 ious body that failed to hear the warning voices of 
 the reformers four centuries ago? If the social and 
 industrial order after a full and impartial study should 
 he changed in part or to a great extent and if the spirit 
 of individualism should give place to wider coopera- 
 tion and fraternal relationship, the church in a com- 
 munity should be the first to see what justice demands, 
 what honor requires, and what the Christian spirit 
 dictates. It is not a time to put a patch on the old gar- 
 ment but to put new wine into new bottles. A frank, 
 sincere, and impartial study of industrial condi- 
 tions in any community, which brings labor leaders 
 and capitalists together in fraternal conference under 
 the roof of a Christian church, points the way to a 
 happy issue out of many social and industrial perplex- 
 ities. 
 
 The Church and Civic Righteousness. A church 
 
130 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 cannot calmly trust a community to maintain itself 
 without the aid of moral stimulus. Society is a garden, 
 which fills with weeds if not tended carefully, and 
 which yields no crop unless its. soil is enriched. A com- 
 munity will not produce moral dividends unless it is 
 fed with spiritual truth, any more than a cow will give 
 milk if it is not given proper food. There are no 
 virgin soil communities that can be cropped for one or 
 many decades without spiritual renewal. A society 
 that is not canstantly energized by regenerated lives 
 will surely degenerate. The local church must stand 
 for civic righteousness and overcome evil with good 
 by injecting new spiritual life into the community. N 
 religious awakening, that comes when a group of good 
 men take high ground, with hearts filled with the ozone 
 of a true reform of local conditions, always starts 
 a movement that may even save a town in a day when 
 a decision is reached which points to the upward path. 
 In its contests for civic righteousness the final ad- 
 vantage of the battle is always with the forces of good- 
 ness, for sin weakens and destroys men, and righteous 
 citizens outlive the selfish, wicked enemies of purity, 
 temperance, and honor. They who take the sword 
 perish with the sword. Few blackhearted men have 
 white hair. Evil makes impotent its promoters. 
 
 New Religious Cooperation 
 
 The Relation of the Church to Non-Protestants. 
 
 Large numbers of Jews are perplexed not only con- 
 cerning their own attitude toward Christianity but 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 131 
 
 especially concerning the religious instruction which 
 they should give their children. A college professor 
 who instructed his executor to have his son taught both 
 the Hebrew and Christian religions, that he might de- 
 cide for himself, reveals the thought of many modem 
 Israelites. 
 
 The bewilderment of many people who have 
 broken with the Roman Catholic Church and who do 
 not understand the simple and transparent teachings 
 of Protestantism, should call for the compassion of all 
 who have the secret of the Lord's presence in their lives. 
 The local church should make all the people of the 
 community feel that they are welcome to its services. 
 Few Roman Catholics who are loyal to their religious 
 leading will attend, but the perplexed Jews and the 
 bewildered foreigners and many neglected Americans 
 will be found in the Protestant meeting-house, if 
 their presence is desired and encouraged. To interpret 
 by correct living, by industrial saneness, and by social 
 and civic righteousness to those who stand outside the 
 churches the transforming power- of a pure Christian- 
 ity is one of the functions and privileges of a church 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 United Effort for Community Betterment. The ex- 
 tent to which all the religious forces in a community 
 can work together for its moral uplift must be a matter 
 of experiment, but should also be a subject for most 
 careful thought and planning. Memorial day services 
 show that this is possible. The degree to which coop- 
 eration is improving -the mc?ral condition, through the 
 
132 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 enforcement of prohibition and the enactment of pre- 
 ventive legislation in certain states and in narrower 
 regions, suggests the wisdom of united endeavors to 
 check and destroy the social evil and other related 
 forms of wickedness. It is quite within the possibil- 
 ities for the religious forces of a town to extend legis- 
 lation that looks to improvement in industrial condi- 
 tions and to such social changes as uniformity of the 
 divorce laws would bring. In a community in Illinois 
 a peace service was held on Thanksgiving day, at which 
 representatives of several Protestant churches, of the 
 Jewish synagogue, and the Roman Catholic church" 
 joined in the public assembly which emphasized local 
 righteousness and the world-wide freedom from war 
 and other evils. If such a day gave opportunity for 
 religious controversy or in any way compromised the 
 spiritual convictions of any who were present it should 
 not be repeated, but, if it made every one present real- 
 ize the enormity of the social evil, the havoc of divorce 
 legislation, the sin of intemperance, and the terrible 
 ravages of war, who will say that impressions for right- 
 eousness were not received which may awake to con- 
 sciousness the soul of another Lincoln, who in the hour 
 of national or world crisis may point the way of escape 
 from one or more of our social evils ? 
 
 The Relation to other Evangelical Churches. Oc- 
 casional Sunday evening union meetings will do much 
 toward bringing the people to realize the unity of their 
 spiritual aims and their mutual responsibilities in the 
 community. Union evangelistic services, sanely led by 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 133 
 
 some gifted evangelist, by some neighboring pastor, 
 or by the ministers themselves, have in them great pos- 
 sibilities of good and in the future as in the past will 
 yield only blessings to individuals, inspiration to 
 families, and improvement of the social, industrial, and 
 civic conditions within the borders of the town. Dr. 
 Henry L. Morehouse in a recent notable address has 
 said that the local church should have for its motto 
 in its relation with other churches in the community 
 these words : "Work together where we can and apart 
 where we must." These are the words of a Christian 
 statesman who believes strongly in denominational 
 efficiency, loyalty, and initiative. 
 
 By-Products Are Real Products. When men began 
 to manufacture illuminating gas the effort of the com- 
 panies was to produce the largest amount of light from 
 the least amount of coal. One of the substances re- 
 maining was coal tar. Out of this material have since 
 come anilin dyes, medicinal remedies, saccharin, and 
 numberless other invaluable substances. The processes 
 of their manufacture are parts of one great whole 
 which have resulted from the effort to liberate 
 the sunlight stored up in coal. Without doubt many 
 wiho are engaged in what have been called by-products 
 forget that there is any cormectio-n between their busi- 
 ness and the process by which light is liberated from 
 coal. The relation however exists and in the truest 
 sense these by-products are real products and primary 
 products. 
 
 Jesus said to his disciples, "I am the light of the 
 
134 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 world," but he did not explain the full bearing of the 
 message. This cannot be entirely comprehended even 
 to-day. The Master was silent about great philan- 
 thropic enterprises, about education, about certain evils 
 that ate like a canker into the social life of the ancient 
 world. He had nothing to say about pure govern- 
 ment or the rights of woman, but wherever his gospel 
 has gone and the light of his word has penetrated, 
 philanthropy of a thousand kinds, education of count- 
 less varieties, and pure government have been estab- 
 lished. Slavery also and other forms of social wrong 
 have been destroyed or violently attacked, and woman 
 has come to her kingdom. Doubtless many who are 
 devoting their lives to philanthropy and are interested 
 in education or the extension of human liberty, or are 
 giving their lives to civic improvements and normal 
 government and earnestly advocating the rights of 
 woman, have forgotten or perhaps have never realized 
 the immediate connection between their vocations and 
 the gospel of Christ. Their failure to grasp the rela- 
 tionship, however, does not make it less real. The 
 blessings that have followed in the wake of Chris- 
 tianity are considered its social products but are so 
 wrapped up in the bundle of its divine life, that in the 
 truest sense they are its direct and primai-y fruitage. 
 
 The church in a local community comes to its normal 
 development when it seeks first the kingdom of God 
 and its righteousness, laying the emphasis upon the 
 forgiveness of sins, the regeneration of life, and the 
 divine companionship. But, if it stops here, it fails 
 
THE REACH OF THE LOCAL CHURCH 135 
 
 to reach as far as the gospel of Christ stretches out its 
 helpful hand. In the ways enumerated in this chapter 
 and in many other directions which the Christian heart 
 and mind may easily follow, the church in a com- 
 munity must walk with its feet shod with the prepara- 
 tion of the gospel of peace. A local church lives to 
 reflect the glory of the kingdom of God in its com- 
 munity. As light passing through a prism is broken 
 into the various colors of the spectrum, so the grace 
 of God passing through the life of a church must prove 
 its presence by the Christian graces, reflected in the 
 personal, social, industrial, and civic life of its mem- 
 bers. If one grace be lacking in a character, it has 
 not received all that the grace of Grod can give to it, 
 and a church made up of such characters cannot fully 
 reveal the grace of the Master, any more than the 
 colors of the spectrum can be reunited into white light, 
 when one color has been snatched from it. Jesus also 
 said to his disciples, "Ye are the light of the world." 
 These words have in them all the inspiration, entreaty, 
 love, and dynamic which any church can ever need to 
 enable it to fashion an ideal community of the saints 
 of God. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 
 
VI 
 
 THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 
 
 The local church is related to other churches of its 
 denomination in convenient geographical cooperation. 
 At first these churches united for mutual benefit, inspi- 
 ration, and extension of their borders, covering wide 
 areas. As the population has grown more dense, the 
 lines of associations, conferences, conventions, synods, 
 and dioceses have contracted. As the nation has grown 
 and methods of intercommunication have increased the 
 smaller groups of churches found intercommunication 
 easy and very early the mission societies of the various 
 denominations came to embrace in their field of Chris- 
 tian operations the entire country or large sections of it. 
 Many of the smaller churches have contributed leaders 
 with a genius for organization who have become the 
 administrators of these larger missionary societies. 
 With its own great missionary organization the local 
 church is tied up in an intimate connection and assists 
 by its gifts and influence in leavening the larger body 
 while its life is also inspired and strengthened by inti- 
 mate contact with it. 
 
 The Denominational Dynamic. A local church 
 gains a widened vision by its association with the 
 larger missionary organizations, and it does its local 
 
 139 
 
140 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 and its national tasks best when it works with the or- 
 ganized life of the denomination. There is great wis- 
 dom in the words of the Rev. Warren H. Wilson: 
 "Mongrel churches which show a mixture of several 
 denominations in their ways of work belong to no order 
 of religion and are weaker than any. In a wide study 
 of country churches it has been found that, in the 
 greatest number of instances, the churches that are well 
 organized according to the manner and form of their 
 denomination and according to the general plan and 
 proposals of Christian men in our time, prove to be the 
 best churches." 
 
 The Church Is the Center. Each church by its gifts 
 of money, missionaries, sympathetic interest, and 
 prayer contributes its share toward the Christianiza- 
 tion of the nation made possible by work of the larger 
 missionary, education, and church edifice organiza- 
 tions. Its gifts of money should come from the rich 
 and the poor alike, and should be collected in the most 
 approved way in an every member canvass of the en- 
 tire membership. It should constantly hold up before 
 its young people the call to service and the wider spir- 
 itual needs of the nation, and should encourage the 
 most aspiring of its devoted young people to prepare 
 for missionary service by taking thorough courses of 
 study in Christian institutions. If possible a mission- 
 ary should be trained in the denominational colleges 
 and seminaries with whose graduates he will be asso- 
 ciated in his Christian endeavors. A service too often 
 forgotten, but a contribution which will yield the larg- 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 141 
 
 est results, may be made by a church in constantly pray- 
 ing for the men and women who have gone forth from 
 its membership into the wider world of missionary 
 labor. If letters from their former members who are 
 engaged in missionary work can be framed and placed 
 under their pictures in the prayer room of the meeting- 
 house, valuable suggestions will be made to the boys 
 and girls who are peering into the future and wonder- 
 ing if they themselves may not be called of God to 
 happy missionary tasks. 
 
 The numerous smaller missionary groups cooperat- 
 ing with national boards or societies find the burdens 
 of new work increasing rapidly, just as the greater or- 
 ganizations find their missionaries calling for larger 
 appropriations for every part of the widespread field. 
 Many of the missionary organizations embracing areas 
 covered by states or parts thereof now have acute con- 
 ditions caused by the presence of foreigners, and there 
 are dangers ahead which one almost fears to contem- 
 plate. The new frontiers caused by irrigation and 
 multiplied by the national groups which colonize not 
 only in the cities but in rural territory, the reversion 
 of the rural communities in some places almost to pa- 
 ganism, and the perils of commercialism all indicate 
 long tasks and probably centuries of work remaining 
 for the great missionary organizations, whose fields of 
 operations have grown with the nation and whose 
 strength has increased by struggles against evil. 
 
 Household Words. The names of the national mis- 
 sionar}-, education, publication, and Sunday-school or- 
 
142 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ganizations have become household words and are 
 fondly spoken in every local church and Christian 
 home. These names suggest immensity, the wisdom 
 of ripened years, cumulative force, resourcefulness, 
 initiative, religious statesmanship, and the servant who 
 had ten talents. These societies have shared their bless- 
 ings with the poor man at the nation's gate. They 
 have touched the man leprous with sin and have healed 
 him. They have divided their loaf with every needy 
 soul. They have given their cloak to the man who 
 asked for a coat. They have not only walked the 
 second mile, but have passed the milestones of many 
 years with the smaller missionary societies that could 
 not tread the dusty path of service alone. They have 
 never given a stone when asked for bread, and have 
 stood for righteousness in personal, family, and na- 
 tional life. They have been entrusted with the gifts 
 of the wealthy and with the mites of the widows in the 
 local churches. The rich, while living, have been gen- 
 erous to these national boards, and have left their gold 
 to them when they have died. Their friends have hon- 
 ored these organizations with life investments of many 
 millions of dollars in annuity funds. Their constant 
 study is to show a wise economy in the administration 
 of their work, to improve the efficiency of their organ- 
 izations, and yearly to reap the fruit that shall remain. 
 The intimate relations between the smaller and the 
 larger missionary organizations of the nation make 
 them in the truest sense administrative unities, although 
 the wide extent of the territory covered by their Chris- 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 143 
 
 tian labors has naturally evolved the present organiza- 
 tional forms. 
 
 The Thought of the Givers. Theoretically and 
 probably practically the contributors in a given state 
 to the work of a national home mission society do not 
 make their offerings with the thought that any of it 
 will return to them, although in many instances they 
 do receive appropriations for work in the very state 
 from which the offerings are sent. The same amount 
 of gifts, however, could seldom be raised with the 
 single appeal as with the national appeal, and if this 
 were occasionally possible, in only a few instances 
 would the amount given by a state for national mis- 
 sions exactly balance the sum contributed by the so- 
 ciety for the work within the narrower limits. The 
 smaller groups of churches organized in state units, 
 therefore, which give to the national societies more 
 than they receive for their local missions of the state 
 will always need the equalizing and distributing coop- 
 eration of their own national society. 
 
 It would be difficult for the churches of California 
 for example to take an annual offering for home mis- 
 sion work in Connecticut or in Arizona or in any other 
 state. Of course it could be done by using nearly 
 every Sunday in the year for these collections. But 
 the churches of California and every other state now 
 accomplish this by placing their gifts in the hands of 
 the national mission board of their denomination 
 through whose agency each lesser missionary agency 
 helps each one and each is helped by all. 
 
144 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 The Perpetual Need. We may well wonder how 
 any denomination through its lesser missionar)^ aux- 
 iliaries could have grown to such strength had it not 
 been for the marvelous power of its national society 
 in carrying the gospel to the regions beyond, and for 
 its ability to meet every contingency of national life 
 with the resourcefulness made possible by the increas- 
 ing gifts of its trusting and widespread constituency. 
 
 These great national missionary organizations will 
 continue to have an increasing share of responsibility 
 in all the vicissitudes through which the lesser mission- 
 ary agencies may pass. In the future as in the past, 
 its officers and far-flung lines of toilers in every state 
 will note from their watch-towers every emergency, 
 arising in state or national life, and will be prepared 
 for all contingencies. They will warn others of ap- 
 proaching storms and interpret in terms of Christian 
 statesmanship the movements of the foreign peoples 
 within our domain. 
 
 These societies began their work when only a few 
 souls were in the land, and will perchance still be ren- 
 dering their missionary and God-appointed service 
 among two hundred or five hundred million or more 
 inhabitants, who may some day live within our national 
 borders. This means that no needy part of the land, 
 however suddenly overwhelmed by new and painful 
 conditions, shall lack the means to be saved. In the 
 strong and abounding hfe of these great mission boards, 
 made possible by the gifts of the local churches, is 
 wrapped up the success and welfare of all the smaller 
 
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. SAN FRANCISCO, ERECTED 1849 
 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. SAN FRANCISCO. ERECTED 1910 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 145 
 
 societies as is the prosperity of the states and cities of 
 the nation wrapped up in the prosperity of the nation 
 itself. 
 
 Shall the Churches be Prepared? American Chris- 
 tianity must be ready for all contingencies, but impend- 
 ing changes in population will make the states that 
 thought they had solved their larger missionary prob- 
 lems change their methods of work. Some of them, 
 indeed, will need increased missionary appropriations 
 from national societies, that they may meet these new 
 conditions forced upon them by the transformation 
 into foreign colonies of their former American rural 
 communities. During the strain of these years the 
 assistance of the stronger minor missionary societies 
 will be willingly given to other societies, that are face 
 to face with new conditions. This distribution, how- 
 ever, will be made, as in the past, through the agency 
 of the respective national home missionary organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 An Agency Working with God. A ^reat mission 
 society is not, how'ever, a large syphon, receiving and 
 giving the same amount, a mere convenient denomina- 
 tional device to distribute missionary gifts from one 
 part of the country to another and allowing them to 
 mingle and flow blindly without intelligent direction 
 wherever they will. It is not only a reservoir receiv- 
 ing gifts, that naturally flow down the mountainsides, 
 conducting these offerings through carefully con- 
 structed channels to remote possessions. It is also a 
 vast national irrigation project often pushing its waters 
 
146 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 to the highest altitudes. Were it to withdraw its gifts 
 whole states would thirst for the water of life. The 
 national society is a wise distributer of the gifts of the 
 strong for the assistance of the weak. It is a trustee, 
 investing talents of service and money in the souls of 
 needy men. Such a board solicits gifts from all who 
 are strong and prosperous to-day for those who are 
 unexpectedly facing reverses and who see a work which 
 they cannot accomplish without the assistance of others. 
 
 It is the loving parent, equally interested in every 
 member of the large and widely scattered family, as- 
 sisting one son with the gift of another son, and unit- 
 ing all in the education and success of the younger chil- 
 dren, who are coming later to their strength. It sets 
 the growing boy up in business, helps him plan to en- 
 large his noble enterprise, furnishes him capital for his 
 important ventures, stimulating his faith, his industry, 
 and his courage till he is able to face the battle alone. 
 It then lays upon him the obligation, which he long 
 since has felt, of playing the part of the elder brother 
 to the younger members in the family, who are to 
 repeat the process through which he has passed. If, 
 however, calamity suddenly surprises him, the society 
 rushes again to his assistance. 
 
 The national society is the strong bank, with firm 
 lines of credit, maintaining the even distribution of 
 missionary currency that gives stability to all church 
 enterprises. It assists in the day of harvest, and, when 
 the draft is long, it provides for the distress of the 
 workmen. It is a great transcontinental, interstate 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 147 
 
 transportation company, which sends leaders and sup- 
 plies for the opening of new areas and for the inten- 
 sive development of older states. It is a national pro- 
 moter, watching for opportunities hitherto unseen or 
 neglected, rushing into the new sections, and passing 
 through the open doors to Alaska, Cuba, Porto Rico, 
 the Hawaiian Islands, and Mexico, to establish the busi- 
 ness of the Lord on a self-sustaining basis. 
 
 It is a great physician, taking supplies of medicine 
 and food to the regions where the inhabitants are in 
 sudden want because of fire, earthquake, floods, and 
 stonns. It is a distributer of workmen where they are 
 needed in the days of harvest and civil commotion. It 
 is the architect that has drawn many of the plans of 
 a Christian system of education for backward peoples, 
 for church edifice extension, and for the work of those 
 state and city mission societies with which it fruitfully 
 cooperates. 
 
 The national society has been the great builder of 
 the denomination; and has erected or aided in erect- 
 ing Christian structures that line the pathway of the 
 years down which its missionaries have been walk- 
 ing. It has been a great and wise adviser furnishing 
 noble and consecrated guides to those who have been 
 passing through the wilderness of many a new spir- 
 itual adventure. It is an efficiency expert, and its 
 agents have seen the vision of the whole country as they 
 have planned for the work of all the conventions and 
 city mission societies. 
 
 Chains of Gold. Our missionary organizations bind 
 
148 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 US together with chains of gold. We meet at our great 
 denominational gatherings and are conscious of vari- 
 ous tendencies, progressive and conservative. Some 
 are more cautious than others ; a few would rush for- 
 ward where angels fear to tread, but we have so much 
 in common that we do not and cannot break ranks. 
 While we are toiling at our individual tasks, we gaze 
 at one side of the great wide mountain of our work, 
 until we almost come to think that it is the only side 
 that the mountain has. But at stated periods we climb 
 the mountain itself and look down upon all its sides. 
 Then we find that it has denominational and organ- 
 izational unity, and the missionary vision gives us a 
 charity that "suffereth long, and is kind." In that hour 
 each one sees the other's problem in the national labors 
 of his great society through which each part helps 
 every other part to do its work, and each church every 
 other church to realize its ideal for the salvation of the 
 nation and its outlying possessions. 
 
 Visions of Work Accomplished. The first mission- 
 aries of the national societies followed the frontiers 
 westward and pressed forward until the Pacific Ocean 
 was reached. They have since extended their activities 
 to Alaska, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico, El 
 Salvador, and elsewhere. These faithful servants of 
 Christ followed the men into the lumber and mining 
 camps, explained to the souls gathering in lonely places 
 the value of the gold that never faileth, and of the trees 
 planted by the river of God, whose leaves do not fade. 
 These pioneer preachers watched the villages grow 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 149 
 
 into cities and later the first rude meeting-houses give 
 place to stately temples of worship. These brave 
 men and women fought with the wild beasts of atheism 
 and immorality in many a western Ephesus, and saw 
 the forces of evil retreat and the people of the Lord 
 gain the mastery. They have waged long and patient 
 war against Mormonism. They have stood for total 
 abstinence and for the sanctity of the Christian home, 
 and in emphasizing the primary doctrines of grace 
 have seen the social products of Christianity enrich the 
 country with the blessings of a Christian civilization. 
 
 The letters that came to the boards from these noble 
 men early led to the making of annual appropriations 
 for the erection of church buildings. Many thousands 
 of these meeting-houses stand as monuments to diligent 
 and faithful work. The opportunities which the local 
 churches have had in contributing offerings for church 
 extension work have been constant, and the invest- 
 ments which they have made in church edifices beyond 
 their own parishes have bound them by cords of love 
 to the distant missionary churches. 
 
 Gifts for Groups. Very early the work among the 
 North American Indians was begun in a large and vig- 
 orous way. Our missionaries have seen many thou- 
 sands of Indians, from numerous tribes, slowly emerge 
 from heathenism, leaving the war-path and arraying 
 themselves with the peaceful citizens of the land. 
 These Indian converts have shown in their lives Chris- 
 tian virtues deeply implanted in their hearts by the 
 indwelling love of God. 
 
150 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 In the midst of the Civil War faithful men watched 
 for the opportunity to provide a Christian education 
 for the leaders of the Negro race, and for half a cen- 
 tury devoted men and women of the North and South 
 have been laboring to transmute the gifts of the 
 churches into redeemed and efficient Christian char- 
 acters. 
 
 When the representatives of European and Asiatic 
 nations came to the land, the missionaries of these so- 
 cieties stood on the shore eager to explain to them the 
 teachings of the Scriptures and to induct them into the 
 mysteries of faith. 
 
 The Agents of the Church. Hundreds of mission- 
 aries have been trained to preach the gospel to these 
 national groups, meeting-houses have been built, and 
 training-schools established for preparing men and 
 women to serve their own people. In Christianizing 
 these units the churches directly have done much, 
 but through their missionary societies have done more. 
 The national organizations found their missionary 
 work growing. As they built the foundations of a 
 Christian civilization in the newer parts of the country, 
 they saw the necessity of establishing Christian insti- 
 tutions, which have been widely distributed through- 
 out the nation. The education societies have also co- 
 operated as agents of the churches with the missionary 
 organizations in an intimate way. Neither could do its 
 work without the other, and the churches have made 
 possible these advances in education by their helpful 
 connection with their education boards. 
 
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 151 
 
 As the foundations were laid by the missionaries and 
 the superstructures were reared by the educational 
 institutions, it followed that the national Sunday-school 
 organizations, publication societies, Bible societies, and 
 the religious press were also developed through the 
 generous contributions of the churches. It must be 
 constantly remembered that all of these great organ- 
 izations are the agents or organized activities of the 
 churches themselves which could not otherwise have 
 undertaken this wider Christian work. 
 
 As the state universities have developed and the 
 young people of Christian training have naturally at- 
 tended them in larger numbers, the churches, through 
 their education societies, have cooperated in the build- 
 ing of denominational guild houses, where the social 
 and the spiritual lives of their members have been fos- 
 tered and conserved. All these agencies of a national 
 reach are made possible only by the contributions and 
 sympathy and kindly cooperation of the local bodies of 
 Christians who are thus personally connected with these 
 denominational Christian entei"prises. A church that 
 lives unto itself alone and is not interested in extend- 
 ing throughout the nation Christian principles for 
 which it exists is sowing the seeds of its own death. 
 Anti-missionary churches are a misnomer. Their 
 history shows a decline in membership and influence 
 which indicates their final extinction. 
 
 The Restless Procession. Many frontier begin- 
 nings were seeming failures, for the new converts and 
 the Christian leaders moved away so soon that the 
 
152 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 work often declined and sometimes became so weak 
 that it seemed necessary to abandon it. The brave mis- 
 sionaries preached to a procession of restless, west- 
 ward-moving people. The prairie schooners that had 
 brought them were ready at the door, and the men, 
 after harvesting a few crops, often harnessed their 
 horses to their wagons and faced westward again. 
 And yet, in many of these halting beginnings in places 
 where the first foundations were so slowly and pain- 
 fully laid, the walls of a superb Christian community 
 life have later risen. One of the earliest missionaries 
 sent to Illinois wrote to his board that he saw no pros- 
 pect of establishing a church in such a swamp, and yet 
 there Fort Dearborn grew into Chicago. This hero 
 early died at his post, but not before he laid enduring 
 foundations. 
 
 The Discoverers of Men. What became of these 
 restless ones who kept moving west in those early days, 
 leaving the discouraged Christian workers behind? 
 Have they become the apostles of Christ in other 
 places? Did they not drive the first stakes of new 
 church tents that have each year lengthened their 
 cords? Was not their training worth while? Should 
 not the church that discovers and trains a Christian 
 leader, a statesman, an educator, a philanthropist, rank 
 with other pioneers of progress ? Who knows but that 
 the youth saved to wise and useful living may trans- 
 form continents, or discover a cure for cancer, or 
 tuberculosis, and thus bless all men? 
 
 The Tireless Hands that Help. In lumber and min- 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 153 
 
 ing camps the establishment of churches has always 
 been a hard task. In such places the conditions are 
 abnormal. Family life is seldom the rule. Men labor 
 in the forest for gold, and are often there as refugees 
 from society, or because they are discouraged and seek 
 life in the open far from the sights that remind them 
 of earlier prosperity. The Christian help given in 
 mining camps has generally had to come from without, 
 through the agency of missionary societies, but finan- 
 cial aid has often been obtained from local companies 
 or from private gifts. 
 
 When Failure Was Success. The most substantial 
 work has been done by organized forces that have tried 
 to cover the ground as rapidly and as well as possible. 
 They have often shared the fortunes of local enthusi- 
 asm when booms have broken like bubbles. But the 
 expenses of single beginnings were often slight, and 
 frequently the meeting-house was moved across the 
 prairie, or taken apart and rebuilt, when the people 
 passed from an old to a new town site. Sod houses 
 w^ere left to fall. And yet these temporary meeting- 
 places served their good purpose and cheered the 
 people, as did the tabernacle in the wilderness, al- 
 though they, like it, were often moved from place to 
 place. The church in the new community stood for 
 God's presence, and the crude place of religious as- 
 sembly was a reminder of heavenly realities. In these 
 new and simple shelters fine men and women were 
 saved from lives of sin to days of purity and service 
 and started on great spiritual careers. 
 
154 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Many missionary mistakes in settling a new country 
 are made and readjustments are sure to follow. The 
 coming of railroads, the discovery of coal, lime, oil, 
 lead, and other minerals, and the study of soils all re- 
 distribute the population. The churches must follow 
 the people in order to teach them to follow the Lord, 
 and until the worth of a soul can be measured the in- 
 vestment of missionary money under adverse condi- 
 tions should not be condemned. Is it not too soon to 
 pass judgment? 
 
 Where Water Is Wealth. Irrigation projects, the 
 most permanent of which have been financed by state 
 and national help, have converted deserts into gardens. 
 People have followed the stream, and where the supply 
 of water is adequate and regular, the population has in- 
 creased and remained. In such communities the first 
 settlers generally obligated themselves to pay in instal- 
 ments for water rights and for the land. They con- 
 sumed their first crops, and for several years were pur- 
 chasers rather than sellers. Such people generally need 
 assistance from missionary societies until their 
 churches are built and their sources of income are suffi- 
 cient to bring self-support. From such communities, 
 however, immediately begin to flow streams of Chris- 
 tian benevolence into nearer and remoter portions of 
 the earth, and frequently the churches in irrigated com- 
 munities have become the most generous givers for the 
 spread of the gospel. The stream of water from the 
 mountains and the stream of Christian giving from 
 the churches continue without pause ; but the stream of 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 155 
 
 giving to the community soon ceases and will never 
 need to flow again. 
 
 Pioneers and Crusaders. Results in those parts of 
 the country where denominational missionary societies 
 were the agents for establishing churches have been 
 good. The work was carried on independently and in 
 generous rivalry, and in some instances doubtless too 
 many church organizations were established. It should 
 be remembered, however, that this was the natural 
 result in a new country where many places grew with 
 great rapidity, and where it was impossible to tell in 
 the early days which of them would fail and which 
 would flourish. It is easy for men far away from 
 frontier conditions to sit in armchairs in front of an 
 open fire and criticize the results of the missionary 
 zeal and consecration of men who are facing western 
 blizzards. Could these judges say, as do the mission- 
 aries, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, 
 and to accomplish his work" ? The men who built the 
 paths across the prairies and often slept under the open 
 skies had convictions. They were pioneers and cru- 
 saders. They suffered and conquered and died. 
 Others of the same tribe are still undaunted by labor 
 and sacrifice. 
 
 Progress for All Groups. Under the influence of 
 Christianity remarkable progress has been made among 
 the backward races. Negroes are, as a rule, friendly 
 to a profession of faith in Christ. The large number 
 of Indians who have entered the Church as a result of 
 devoted missionary endeavor is one of the finest proofs 
 
156 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 of the adaptation of Christianity to the needs of all 
 peoples. Heroic Indian missionaries, far away among 
 the mountains and on the prairies, have interpreted by 
 their lips and proved by their lives the truth of Christ. 
 They have seen heathen chiefs become the leaders in 
 the Christian churches. Indeed, native leaders in many 
 congregations of believing Christians whose hands are 
 now clean and whose hearts are pure had, within the 
 memory of missionaries now serving them in the 
 gospel, hands red with blood and hearts maddened by 
 revenge. 
 
 Numbers of belated races have been faithfully 
 met on the threshold of the new world and followed to 
 the remotest corners of the land by missionaries who 
 have told to them in their own tongue the wonderful 
 works of God. Already hundreds of these converts 
 among many nationalities have been trained to be the 
 Christian teachers of their people, and the work that 
 has thus far progressed promises still larger results in 
 the future. 
 
 Visions of What Should Be Attempted. Hitherto 
 the work has been done independently. The field was 
 wide. Each denomination through its missionary or- 
 ganizations has often gone along lines of least resis- 
 tance. The regions have been so vast, the need so great, 
 the shifting populations so numerous, and the caHs so 
 many, that there has been plenty of work for all to do. 
 Many open doors waited long before the feet shod with 
 the preparation of the gospel of peace passed over their 
 thresholds. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 157 
 
 The Neglected Fields Survey^ made a careful study 
 of certain western states and found relatively few du- 
 plications, while there are many neglected spots. Their 
 recommendations have been carefully studied by the 
 administrators of the various home mission boards, 
 and whatever adjustments can be made will doubtless 
 be introduced by those denominations whose religious 
 convictions will allow them to modify their present 
 plans in accordance with the principles of cooperation. 
 But the denominations which do not enter into such 
 relations will find that same fine spirit of mutual trust- 
 fulness and consideration which Christianity engenders 
 in the hearts of all Christians. Religious convictions 
 are always respected among spiritual conquerors. 
 
 The Making of Leaders. The training of still larger 
 numbers of the best qualified men and women among 
 the foreign-speaking peoples that they may become 
 missionaries to their own groups scattered throughout 
 the country is a matter that should receive increased 
 attention. Nearly every denomination has already ac- 
 complished much in this direction and is about to 
 undertake more. Several seminaries have annexes 
 where students of one or more nationalities are given 
 special instruction and training to preach the gospel in 
 their own vernacular. 
 
 Lest We Forget. Still more must be attempted, 
 especially in the North, to Christianize the Negroes 
 who are flocking to the cities and coming in consider- 
 
 'Commissioned by the Home Missions Council to make a study 
 of religious conditions in several western states. 
 
158 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 able numbers into smaller communities. What can be 
 done to meet the needs of the wandering bands of 
 Indians who cling tenaciously to their own language 
 and their heathen customs is a question that is con- 
 stantly asked by those who are working for the con- 
 version of the red men. The Indian Committee of 
 the Home Missions Council has recently succeeded in 
 persuading several denominational boards to enlarge 
 their work among these people, and they hope that be- 
 fore many years all Indians not thus cared for may be 
 included in the ministry of Christian agencies that will 
 work for their redemption. 
 
 The Conquest of Superstition. If the Mormons are 
 to be reached with the gospel of Christ, new methods 
 must be determined. The efforts of the Mormons to 
 convert Christians to their faith seem, at the present 
 time, to be stronger than those of the Christians to con- 
 vert the Mormons to their belief. And yet, nearly every 
 missionary and church in Utah and in the several other 
 states where these people are living in large numbers 
 have reported converts from among them. But aggres- 
 sive, continuous work should be attempted, and con- 
 crete, popular literature created in order that the truth 
 of Christ may be realized by those upon whom the 
 darkness of a dense superstition has fallert 
 
 What the Long Future Must Bring. Will there be 
 an amalgamation of the various white races? One 
 hundred years from now is it not possible that a Presi- 
 dent of the United States may have a foreign name? 
 Perhaps it will end in "vitch" and belong to a man 
 
TYPE OF JAPANESE IMMIGRANTS, SEATTLE. WASHINGTON 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 159 
 
 who can trace his ancestry along his maternal and 
 paternal lines through twenty nationalities which have 
 flowed together in the racial interminglings in Amer- 
 ica. And yet, may not this President be an earnest 
 Christian whose mother brought him up to fear the 
 Lord and led him early to the sanctuary ? Such a man 
 will take strong ground as a devoted Christian in 
 Washington and everywhere. In his veins may flow 
 the blood of nearly all the European peoples, each of 
 which has helped to strengthen his life. May not 
 God produce such a man by processes that only Amer- 
 ica can provide? 
 
 St. Paul said at Athens that God "made of one every 
 nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, 
 having determined their appointed seasons, and the 
 bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek God, 
 if haply they might feel after him and find him, though 
 he is not far from each one of us." In America it 
 would seem that the process is reversed and that here 
 God intends to make many nations of the earth into 
 one blood, having to this end determined their ap- 
 pointed seasons and the lines of their migrations in 
 order that they may seek God, if haply they might find 
 him in the new land, and be the divine agents for scat- 
 tering among the peoples of the earth the seed of truth 
 that shall yield a world-wide spiritual harvest. 
 
 The Sure Means of Uplift. The long future must 
 surely witness the uplift of the people through the ser- 
 vice of the Churches. If the Churches fail, the people 
 will soon be without the vision of God. The prac- 
 
160 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 tical application of Christian ethics to organized in- 
 dustry can be brought about, not by forces accidentally 
 at work, but by Christian leaders, who are the product 
 of the Church. The Churches are the channels of in- 
 spiration, as they have been in the past, and although 
 as organizations they have been conservative in insti- 
 tuting new reforms, the leadership for every great re- 
 form has generally been provided by them. Not al- 
 ways have they come from their actual membership, 
 but they have been persons who were under Christian 
 influences in early days when life was formative, and 
 who in mature years have retained in their hearts the 
 spirit of unselfish service. 
 
 The long future under the leadership of the Churches 
 must see industrial peace established through arbitra- 
 tion. Whence will come the pressure for such arbitra- 
 tion, except from the organizations that are inspired 
 by the teachings of Jesus, the Prince of Peace? The 
 long future must see the primacy of the Churches in 
 all race betterment movements, and the confidence of 
 narrow-visioned opponents of Christianity will be won 
 by kindness and by unselfish service. 
 
 The Forces at Work. These Christian forces are 
 the local churches, and their various groups ; the mis- 
 sionary societies ; the Christian associations ; Sunday- 
 schools and their organizations; publication, tract, 
 Bible, educational, and church edifice societies; Chris- 
 tian colleges and Bible vacation schools. To these we 
 add all activities indirectly allied to them, but largely 
 supported and frequently administered by men and 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NATION 161 
 
 women actuated by the Christian spirit, such as : libra- 
 ries, public schools, social settlements, education and 
 peace foundations, sociological and other uplift con- 
 gresses, hospitals, orphanages, associated charities, 
 and fraternal societies. The progress also of the king- 
 dom of God is hastened by organizations which foster 
 science and art, and which stimulate invention, bring- 
 ing the peoples nearer together in every way; for all 
 truth must harmonize and all truth-seekers should find 
 God, and all agencies that lead men to search after the 
 truth and discover it and spread it are important, 
 "for of him, and through him, and unto him are all 
 things." 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 
 
VII 
 THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 
 
 Birds of Passage. In America the peoples of all 
 nations are represented. They are like birds of pas- 
 sage, but most of these strangers halt in the cities for 
 a little while before they hasten to the distant interior 
 regions. Others are like migratory birds in their desire 
 to shun the hardships of their homeland's poverty, 
 and in America enjoy the summer of prosperity. 
 Many of these foreigners pass back and forth with 
 almost the regularity of such birds. With these peoples 
 from other lands, the flight to America is made in 
 good times and their passage homeward is taken in 
 seasons of financial depression. 
 
 But these temporary Americans mostly congregate 
 in cities, creating social conditions and Christian op- 
 portunities unparalleled in the life of any nation, and 
 never before seen in the history of the world. The 
 spiritual conquest of congested centers is the challenge 
 to the churches in all American cities. In the largest 
 of these the situation would be almost hopeless if the 
 Savior had not given his followers the parables of the 
 leaven, of the mustard seed, and of the net. The skies 
 are brightened also when his followers remember that 
 the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation. 
 Mr. Bryce's assertion that America has made its great- 
 
 165 
 
166 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 est failure in its cities may be true, so far as it relates 
 to their government. Is it true, however, of the spir- 
 itual process of their redemption? 
 
 The Allies of the Churches. In the cities as well as 
 in the country the churches must gather up into their 
 activities the various individual spiritual efforts that 
 so many good men and women are making. If one 
 says that the Christian Associations are providing a 
 way of escape for thousands and are accomplishing 
 more than the churches, he should be reminded that 
 these Associations are the churches collectively at 
 work. Their leaders, it is evident, so regard them, 
 and on this ground appeal for their support. 
 
 In a leading church in Washington, District of 
 Columbia, the visitor sees a printed notice in the vesti- 
 bule stating that its institutional work is done by the 
 Young Men's Christian Association of that city. Mem- 
 bers who give much time to the association's activities 
 are told that this labor is in place of other kinds of ser- 
 vice. If the churches in the land should not train men to 
 give and work, the great associational organizations 
 with their national and international labors would col- 
 lapse. The churches are divinely appointed groups of 
 believers who are set for the salvation of the world. 
 All societies within and without the churches, though 
 working with them and supported by their members 
 and imbued with Christ's spirit, are secondary organ- 
 izations, to continue always perhaps if true to their 
 work, but surely to weaken and give place to something 
 better, if possessed with the haughty spirit that for- 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 167 
 
 gets their mother. In these days of freedom and effi- 
 ciency in religious organizations pride always goes 
 before a fall. 
 
 Types of City Churches. The collegiate church, 
 with its congregations for the various groups of mem- 
 bers geographically separated, when strongly organ- 
 ized and evenly financed, has in it greater possibilities 
 than have yet been realized. It is simply one church 
 with several congregations. There is very slight dif- 
 ference, however, between the church with several mis- 
 sions and the church with several congregations. Both 
 are convenient forms of accomplishing the best results 
 in a great city. Whichever one stimulates the wider 
 spiritual vision, calls forth the larger financial response, 
 and places upon the membership the greatest responsi- 
 bilities, proves itself the more capable of doing its 
 difficult task. 
 
 The institutional church, that provides work, feeds 
 the poor, houses the homeless, has rest rooms, recrea- 
 tion halls, clubs, and activities for various ages, teaches 
 men and women to be industrious, maintains a night 
 school and library attachments, has in many instances 
 accomplished wonderful results. Such work, however, 
 will probably be more and more absorbed by the Chris- 
 tian Associations supported generously by the members 
 of the churches. 
 
 A Demonstration in a Western City. The Ep- 
 worth Church of Cleveland has shown how a com- 
 munity task may be accomplished by a congregation 
 in a great city. The pastor, Dr. Worth M. Tippy, has 
 
168 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 modestly told the story in a little volume, The Church 
 a Community Force. He believes that his men can 
 do genuine church work as members of the board of 
 trade and as officers in the city government, and has 
 quietly taught his people the spiritual values of social 
 and public service as an expression of the Christ life. 
 In many reforms the church has been prominent, and 
 in a church structure especially designed for commu- 
 nity work, has led the way which other churches may 
 well follow. In this building with almost perfect 
 social appointments, all groups of people are enter- 
 tained, instructed, and also spiritually enriched. 
 
 The church has attracted to itself many of the social 
 workers of the city, who are organized for mutual 
 benefit, but especially to make the city what it ought 
 to be, in its care for the poor, the wayward, the home- 
 less, and the intemperate. If all the churches of Cleve- 
 land were to follow out the same lines of work, it 
 would be best for the social workers to scatter among 
 the denominations of their choice. But the great task 
 of this wonderful church is to teach about two hundred 
 new members each year the religious ideals of the con- 
 gregation, which combines with the appeal to the indi- 
 vidual to give his heart to the Lord the entreaty to give 
 his brain and hand to save, not only the lost, but to pre- 
 vent conditions that make a man's redemption difficult 
 and that aim to destroy him, body, soul, and spirit. 
 
 The Church as a Saving Center. To reach and lift 
 the neglected and discouraged of many nationalities is 
 the heavy task of many city churches. Some congre- 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 169 
 
 gations have moved away, and, on the profits from the 
 sale of their valuable properties, have built temples of 
 worship adapted to their new fields. Some of these 
 organizations have maintained missions in the districts 
 from which they have migrated. Other churches have 
 created parishes in their new neighborhoods and the 
 results have been baneful to the lives of those left be- 
 hind. These scattered and discouraged people must 
 find their church homes among strangers or in mis- 
 sions used largely for foreign-speaking work. But 
 many instances of splendid devotion to a neighborhood 
 are seen in the decision of certain churches in cities like 
 New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, to 
 remain in their old locations, working with diligence 
 and great wisdom through missions and departmental 
 efforts to solve the difficult problems presented by the 
 changes in the population about them. 
 
 A Group of Uplifters. The University Place Church 
 of New York City is a shining example. It gives very 
 largely for foreign missions, but it does a great amount 
 of foreign mission work in its neighborhood. The 
 First Presbyterian Church not far away has succeeded 
 in safeguarding its future work for the poor of many 
 nations by obtaining a generous endowment for its 
 varied missionary labors. The Church of the Ascen- 
 sion, in the same part of the city, has adapted its eve- 
 ning service and certain of its activities to providing a 
 forum where friends of labor and fraternal organiza- 
 tions may freely discuss religious, social, and eco- 
 nomic questions. In the Emmanuel Church of Brook- 
 
170 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 lyn light refreshments are served Sunday evenings after 
 the preaching service. This is done in the social rooms 
 where the people linger for better acquaintance. It 
 also gives the pastor and members of the church an ex- 
 cellent opportunity for welcoming strangers and mak- 
 ing all feel much at home. 
 
 At Washington Square in New York the Judson 
 Memorial does an excellent institutional work and is 
 seeking a large endowment for its maintenance. A 
 few blocks to the east is the Labor Temple, where the 
 New York Presbytery aids in demonstrating new 
 methods of reaching and saving the people who are 
 neglecting the usual ministries of religion. The 
 Second Avenue Church, largely supported by mis- 
 sionary funds, is trying to solve the problem of mold- 
 ing the people who live near it. A few years ago the 
 district was German; now it is Italian, Jewish, and 
 Hungarian. In the precinct three hundred and eighty 
 thousand people live. The work is attempted on a 
 polyglot basis, by five pastors — American, Italian, 
 Magyar, Polish, and Slovak. The children of foreign 
 parentage are reached by the English language, and 
 are approached by the tactful methods of gymnasium, 
 cooking school, sewing classes, and exercises made in- 
 teresting by motion pictures and stereopticon stories. 
 The aim is to draw the boys and girls into the Sunday- 
 school and to bring them to Christ. Kindergarten 
 work and medical attention for the teeth and eyes are 
 not neglected. Classes also for foreigners who wish 
 to learn English are established, and conversions have 
 
JFDSOX MEMORIAL CHURCH, NEW YORK 
 EI'WORTH MEMORIAL CHURCH. CLEVELAND 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 171 
 
 been traced directly to this instruction. The illumi- 
 nated sign in front of the church is in several languages. 
 Similar work is done in many other churches and mis- 
 sions in New York and Brooklyn, and is an illustra- 
 tion of what may be easily attempted in all congested 
 centers. 
 
 In Atlanta, Georgia, a Presbyterian church has 
 established a church-settlement work among the 
 Negroes of the city, where, in a neglected neighborhood, 
 uplift service of a very high order is carried forward. 
 The same is true of the same denomination in Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky. Numerous instances of work similar 
 to these lines already described, and even perhaps of 
 a more varied type, can be seen in Chicago, St. Louis, 
 Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and 
 indeed in many cities of the continent. 
 
 The Burden of the City. In the first four Christian 
 centuries cities like Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Alex- 
 andria, Rome, and Carthage were greatly changed by 
 the gospel of Christ. So we may expect American 
 cities gradually and perhaps suddenly to be trans- 
 formed by the same divine power. In the earlier time, 
 without organization such as the churches now have, 
 the marvelous results occurred, and they came because 
 individual Christians, who were members of the 
 churches, lived the Christ life under the most distress- 
 ing and difficult conditions. At the present time, if 
 Christians will show the same consistency in all their 
 business, social, and intellectual relations, and as faith- 
 fully witness for Christ, the kingdom of God will 
 
172 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 quickly come even to our American cities. But to live 
 in one of these communities, a selfish, sordid life of 
 ease and pleasure is to retard the coming of the King- 
 dom. 
 
 Looking and Seeing. Many Christians look upon 
 the city's life but never see the needs of its people. A 
 woman who bears the name of Christ has spent her 
 days in such a community. She has never intention- 
 ally beheld its deep, black ruts of social evils. She will 
 not study its seething currents of common life or its 
 pictures of poverty. She will not reach to bless a needy 
 soul with outstretched hands, or to relieve hunger 
 with the crumbs that fall from her table. She lives in 
 pleasure, dead to the vision of reality. 
 
 Her near neighbor, a woman of equal wealth, birth, 
 station, sees it all. She gazes with an aching heart 
 on thctiark stream of life and tries to purify it. She 
 beholds human wretchedness, and labors to relieve it. 
 Hands bruised by suffering, as Christ's were by the 
 nails, she clasps and heals with her touch ; and she sat- 
 isfies not only the hunger of the body, but of the mind 
 and of the soul. It has become a passion with her to 
 lift the helpless to self-respect and self-support. She 
 lives in serving others, and is alive to the vision of God. 
 Her motto is, "Not success, but service." 
 
 The one woman glances superficially here and there, 
 and turns away in disgust. The other sees the sorrow, 
 and forgetting her own life finds it again as she saves 
 the lives of unfortunate women and homeless children. 
 One treasures her life to lose it in the abyss of spirit- 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 173 
 
 ual forgetfulness, the other loses her life to find it 
 again in the blessed valley of service. 
 
 A Study of Two Men. One man looks with amaze- 
 ment on the numerous activities of the church. He 
 notes its outward forms; attends from habit some of 
 its "monotonous services" ; regards every expression 
 of the religious life as a proof of professionalism; 
 listens to sermons much as he would to a phonograph ; 
 and, between the moments of wandering in his thoughts 
 as to how the market will open the next day and recall- 
 ing his glorious afternoon at golf the day before, he 
 finds himself making a determined effort to keep 
 awake, while he is dimly conscious that an appeal is 
 being made to him in behalf of home and foreign mis- 
 sions, both of which seem foolish ways in which to 
 spend one's income in these days of high cost of liv- 
 ing and new taxation. He sees nothing in it all, and 
 goes home to wonder how a minister who plays golf 
 so well can be so obsessed with such vagaries. 
 
 The man across the aisle was his college classmate. 
 His soul has been thrilled with the efforts of the church 
 to meet modem social needs. He attends divine wor- 
 ship to be inspired for work, and especially for his 
 labors in the East Side mission which he leads, super- 
 intends, and supports. He sees the deep meaning of 
 the appeal and is mastered by the restful peace of the 
 day. He beholds a prophet in his pastor, for in his 
 own soul he hears echoes of the call to consecrated 
 service and to generous giving. To him the whole 
 world seems only a little congested neighborhood 
 
174 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 within sight of the Savior's cross, and as he hears his 
 Master's words, "It is finished," he remembers that his 
 own work has just begun. 
 
 When pledges for missions are asked he resolves to 
 drop his membership in a social club to which he sel- 
 dom goes, and recalls then that he will still belong to 
 five other clubs. As the appeal is pressed and a defi- 
 nite request is made for a hospital in China, he decides 
 not to get another automobile in the spring, but to make 
 the one that he has do heavier service. As the deacon 
 passes the offering basket to his pew he drops in. a 
 pledge of $5,000, and goes home with a happy heart. 
 The Lord has opened his eyes to see the spiritual needs 
 of his nation and of all the nations. 
 
 May the tribe of those who see increase! They are 
 the hope of Christianity. They are the heralds of a 
 new era whose sunset shall usher in the day that never 
 ends. 
 
 The Value of Personal Contact. To save the people 
 in the cities who care little for churches of any form, 
 who have drifted far away from earlier religious con- 
 victions and associations, and who have linked their 
 lives socially and politically into the corrupt and debas- 
 ing forces that destroy men and threaten the founda- 
 tions of society is the task of the churches. It can 
 never be done simply by maintaining public worship 
 and through the regular channels of preaching and 
 teaching. If the people whom the churches must reach 
 were attracted to the congregation and Sunday-school 
 the end might be gained. They care, however, for 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 175 
 
 none of these things, and yet must be won by the 
 gospel. 
 
 Highway Helpers. Street preaching is increasingly 
 used by men and women who wish to meet people and 
 persuade them that their theories of life are worthy of 
 acceptance. In England this custom is far more com- 
 mon than in America. The large crowd, which will 
 quickly assemble and listen attentively to thoughtful 
 speakers, are those who dwell in the highways and 
 hedges to which the Savior sent his disciples to compel 
 the people to come into the kingdom of God. A year 
 of ceaseless preaching from thousands of improvised 
 pulpits in all the cities of the land would lift the spirit- 
 ual tide in these communities. Such public meetings, 
 however, must be addressed by thoughtful, earnest, 
 clear-minded men and women who can state a point 
 wisely and drive the nail of truth fast and far. The 
 aim should be, not only to save those who are "down 
 and out," but to interest all who will listen to a candid 
 explanation of the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 The other way, always open, and which stormy 
 days and cold cannot defeat, is for all Christians in 
 touching a life to prove the worth of the gospel and its 
 power to save. The people who are not in the churches 
 and care not for their help are often employed or 
 supervised by Christian men and women who, in the 
 wages paid and in their business and personal contacts, 
 have it in their power to preach sermons of compelling 
 eloquence. 
 
 How Can the Strangers Be Reached? Mr. Mornay 
 
176 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Williams says : "The street is the school where a child's 
 education proceeds fastest, but he learns only evil 
 there." How can the churches overcome and change 
 this? In all communities the pastors are amazed to 
 find how many children of foreign parentage are grow- 
 ing up American heathen, and are not connected with 
 any church. These boys and girls reverting to pagan- 
 ism enjoy no religious restraints; their parents have 
 lost faith in any expression of Christianity, and have 
 ceased to attend church services. In most instances, 
 however, they are willing to allow their children to 
 attend Sunday and vacation Bible schools. The boys 
 and girls themselves are eager to do so, and often this 
 strengthens their acquaintance with American chil- 
 dren whom they meet in the public schools. Each com- 
 munity worker will develop ways of winning these 
 little strangers and holding them; for love, tact, and 
 a desire to save the boys and girls to the Christian faith 
 and to useful lives will accomplish wonderful results. 
 
 In one city an association secretary, who supervises 
 his work with great skill, has discovered a way in 
 which the women of the churches are kept in intimate 
 touch with foreign-speaking families. He has a list 
 of the birthdays of the children who have attended the 
 Sunday and vacation Bible schools, or who have been 
 present at social gatherings. He learns from them the 
 names of their little brothers and sisters, and the 
 street and number of each family. Later the women 
 in the churches, whose hearts are warm toward the 
 mothers of these little foreign children, call at their 
 
DAILY VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL, NEW YORK 
 NEIDRINGHAUS BASKETRY CLASS, ST. LOUIS 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 177 
 
 homes, learn when their birthdays come, and keep in 
 touch with the mothers and their family needs. After 
 a second or third call the foreign-speaking mother will 
 probably, through the lips of an older child acting as 
 an interpreter, speak in a more intimate way of her life 
 and of her family. Soon a point of contact is gained 
 between the two women, so that, in hours of sickness 
 or distress, the caller becomes a sister of mercy to the 
 mother, who is often distracted by conditions from 
 which she cannot escape and by troubles in the midst 
 of which she needs a friend. 
 
 Another Avenue of Approach. Mrs. L. C. Barnes 
 has carefully worked out, in scientific and attractive 
 fonn, a method of teaching English to foreigners. 
 The lessons are in book form and in Scriptural lan- 
 guage, which makes simple conversations on spiritual 
 themes easy. The teaching of such English classes is 
 an open door of opportunity to many men and women, 
 and may be given in the home as well as in church 
 buildings. One group of Russians met four nights 
 in the week at half past seven, and continued until ten 
 o'clock. The teacher found it almost impossible to 
 close the lesson and on several evenings the class con- 
 tinued until midnight. On one such occasion the leader 
 discovered that these men came direct from their work 
 to the place where the class was held, and did not have 
 their supper until they returned home. Such a strong 
 desire to learn the English language places in the hands 
 of the spiritual teacher the tools with which the finest 
 work can be done on the souls of men. 
 
178 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Women Who Were Alert. In one city, where a 
 large Italian colony had slowly grown, the girls and 
 women were asked to exhibit their needlework in the 
 vestry of the church. This deeply interested the mem- 
 bers of the churches, who were surprised at the fruits 
 of such skill and led to their larger interest in the spir- 
 itual welfare of these strangers within their gates. In 
 another city the women of a church provided coffee 
 and simple luncheons for Italians who were excavat- 
 ing in front of their edifice. Several of these work- 
 men were interested in the church, attended its services, 
 and a number became Christians and entered its mem- 
 bership. 
 
 What a Busy Man Did. He was elected superin- 
 tendent of an Italian Sunday-school, and became so 
 interested in its promotion that he persuaded his church 
 to make large gifts for the erection of a building 
 adapted not only for religious services but also for 
 educational and social work. Playground features 
 were later introduced, and now the place is a center for 
 merry groups of the children of foreign-speaking par- 
 ents. The American woman in charge of the work has 
 learned Italian. The accessions to the church have 
 steadily increased, and the mission is on a permanent 
 basis. On summer evenings stereopticon lectures are 
 given in the playground, and large numbers gather to 
 look at the pictures and listen to the talks. Attendance 
 here makes entrance into the chapel easy. The process 
 of Christianizing this community is slowly but surely 
 progressing. It is probable that the superintendent, 
 
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 m 
 
 
 
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 H^^^^^^^^M* 
 
 
 In^raMVSR^RIHL ^^^^HH 
 
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 L^^Bj^i 
 
 
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 ITALIANS STUDYING ENGLISH, GREEN STREET CHURCH, 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 BOYLE CENTER NIGHT SCHOOL. ST. LOUIS 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 179 
 
 who has given largely for this work, would sadly miss 
 out of his life the satisfactions which this service brings 
 to him. 
 
 Ten Righteous Persons. Ten righteous men and 
 women of dominating spiritual personality, if widely 
 influential and determined, can guide the forces of 
 righteousness to save any city and keep it saved. If 
 Sodom could have been saved from destruction by ten 
 righteous souls, what may not ten spiritual persons do 
 for any modern city? In all such communities the 
 task of the churches is to set true ideals, to train such 
 leaders, to provide big men for large tasks who shall 
 be specialists, while others shall be good practitioners. 
 
 These large Christians are the key men, skilled in 
 diagnosis and not hesitating to perform capital oper- 
 ations; they are "the masters of methods." The ideas 
 which these men put into social and personal service 
 are not to be patented or copyrighted for the use of the 
 few, or released on a certain day, like the copy of a 
 political speech. The Christians in the cities cooperat- 
 ing with each other through the various churches have 
 a message that can save men in the future and now. 
 They know the way from sin to safety, and from moral 
 failure to spiritual fulness of life. They hold in their 
 hearts their knowledge of the gospel. If they are just, 
 they will divide their inheritance with all the people 
 and make it so attractive by their lives that men who 
 are prejudiced against the churches and the truth of 
 God will change their attitude toward the Christian ' 
 religion. 
 
180 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Size of the Task. The immensity of the undertak- 
 ing to Christianize the cities in America is reflected in 
 the experience which may come to a man who notes the 
 persons of different nationahties met in one week. 
 
 On Monday morning a Roumanian ash-man cleaned 
 his cellar and a Pole whitewashed its walls. A Hol- 
 lander pruned his vines; a German plumber came to 
 stop a leak in his bathroom and this man's helper was 
 a Dane. He remembered that his cook was a Swede 
 and the waitress was a Norwegian. As he left his 
 home for his office a seamstress entered to help his 
 wife. She was a Belgian, and the man who was paint- 
 ing his fropt fence was from Switzerland. He left 
 his laundry with a Chinaman. Later he visited his 
 Russian tailor, ordered groceries of a Welshman, meat 
 of a Scotchman, and purchased his fish dinner for the 
 next day at a Frenchman's store. As he waited for an 
 electric car an Italian vegetable man passed, while he 
 was talking with an Irish poHceman. The next day 
 he bought some hardware from an Armenian and 
 learned that his milkman was a Lapp, and his cobbler 
 was a Hungarian. That evening a Philippine bell-boy 
 showed him to a room in a hotel and he learned that 
 among its waiters were Slovaks, Greeks, and Servians. 
 
 The next day he lunched in a Turkish restaurant, 
 engaged a Syrian to mend his rugs and purchased two 
 more of an Armenian. In the afternoon he met by 
 accident a college classmate, a Bulgarian, who intro- 
 duced him to a Montenegrin. That evening he learned 
 that the Austrian consul of the city had rented the 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 181 
 
 house opposite. The following Sunday he met a 
 Cuban Protestant at church and found a Mexican, a 
 Brazilian, a Lithuanian, a Peruvian, and a Haitian 
 in a popular Sunday-school class of one hundred men. 
 That evening a Japanese merchant and his family at- 
 tended service and the next day, as chairman of the 
 committee that looked after the repairs of the church, 
 he learned that the Portuguese sexton had died, and he 
 selected a Canadian in his place. The following day 
 the man who washed his office windows proved to be 
 a Spaniard, and a Jew wished him a merry Christmas. 
 Soon after this, in an early train, he counted twenty- 
 eight passengers in the car. Four were reading Ger- 
 man papers, twelve Jewish, six Italian, and he con- 
 cluded that the only American-born man in the car 
 besides himself was a Negro ! 
 
 The Task Is Possible. If the churches in such a 
 city, and if the churches in all the land, can Christian- 
 ize the various national groups, the kingdom of God 
 will extend its rule in many other countries dominated 
 by interpretations of the Christian faith at variance 
 with the simplicity of the gospel of Christ. If America 
 can be thoroughly Christianized, its influence will ex- 
 tend more strongly than hitherto among the heathen 
 nations, and will counteract the evil tendencies of mil- 
 itarism, autocracy, and social degeneracy in so-called 
 Christian nations. In America democracy and the 
 varied results of the Reformation have yielded per;- 
 haps their largest harvests. Democracy has gone from 
 east to west and will doubtless circle the earth. To dis- 
 
182 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 cover its beginnings and to watch its development is 
 almost as interesting as to trace the early Christian 
 springs that have joined their waters in the river of 
 evangelical Christianity. 
 
 International Exchange. Into America ver>' many 
 of the blessings of democracy and Christianity have 
 come. America is the new world in which numerous 
 dreams of freedom have been realized. It may be the 
 arena of the greatest spiritual .conflict between Chris- 
 tianity and paganism which the world has ever seen. 
 America is the smelting caldron into which the silver 
 and gold of many nationalities is being melted, to run 
 into the molds of God's purposes. The most impor- 
 tant international exchange is the exchange of for- 
 eigners fresh from the old world for earlier men and 
 women who came to America and in it have had their 
 lives smelted, purified, and saved. America is the 
 land where the largest plans of Grod for the people of 
 the earth seem to be ripening. 
 
 The Japan Current striking the western shores of 
 North America is a suggestion of the spiritual influ- 
 ence which Asia when Christianized may yet exert 
 upon the new world. The Gulf Stream is an illustra- 
 tion of a hundred currents that floW from America to 
 temper the harsh climate in northwestern Europe. If 
 the Gulf Stream should cease to flow eastward, what 
 would happen? If spiritual influences from America 
 should no longer pour toward Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa, especially in these days of conflicts and na- 
 tional testings, how soon would the loss to the Chris- 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 183 
 
 tian ideals of the world be felt, and what spiritual har- 
 vests would never ripen? Dr. L. C. Barnes has inter- 
 estingly said in his book, Elemental Forces in Home 
 Missions, that America is Messianic, To Christianize 
 certain nations and all the national groups of the earth 
 living in this land is to make the country the Messiah 
 to all the darkened peoples of the world. 
 
 A Providential Preparation. America has enjoyed 
 a providential preparation for exerting a Christian, 
 world-wide, gentle, but predominating influence. It 
 was well born in poverty and in the right zone for 
 rugged growth. Its inheritance and environment have 
 attracted many of the world's best people of achieve- 
 ment and ambition. America had a new and strong 
 start in life. Its driving power has been Christian 
 optimism. In it the ideal man of world-wide sym- 
 pathy is to be developed. America has had plenty of 
 room in which to develop a national laboratory. Its 
 experiment of life in the open air of freedom has 
 attracted many millions of men wearied of national 
 oppression and of religious despotism. America is 
 the crucible in which the national strains are being 
 mixed. The dross is cast aside but the new amalgam 
 is the material out of which wjorld leaders will be 
 fashioned. 
 
 The Cutting Edge of America. If the churches do 
 well their task the cutting edge of America will be that 
 of a Christian nation whose democracy is the foe of 
 despotism, and whose freedom of life and of faith 
 will become increasingly attractive to those in other 
 
184 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 lands now oppressed by religious systems. After the 
 great war now devastating the nations America's influ- 
 ence must be larger than ever. The churches, there- 
 fore, and the missionary organizations uniting to make 
 the nations Christian must be strongly supported and 
 generously maintained in these days, when a civiliza- 
 tion that appeared to be Christian has been almost shat- 
 tered. America reaches out to bless the peoples of the 
 world, daily brought nearer together by science and 
 invention. The hand grasp of the Panama Canal 
 makes the shores of two oceans and two continents into 
 international neighborhoods. The evangelical churches 
 of the United States and Canada have the greatest op- 
 portunities ever entrusted to groups of Christian 
 believers to extend a knowledge of the gospel not only 
 to the incoming millions from other lands, to all in 
 the Latin-American republics of North and South 
 America, and to the peoples living in the West Indies, 
 but also to the backward and non-Christian of all the 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 Human Imports. America is importing through 
 Ellis Island and similar places raw material from all 
 the nations. Some of this human material regarded 
 as contaminated or radically faulty is excluded. The 
 sieve of Ellis Island is supposed to sift out the human 
 chaff, and it is pathetic to think of this blown back by 
 adverse winds to the lands from which it came. 
 
 Some of this raw material of human life is passed 
 through the American picking machine, carder, spin- 
 ning-frame, and in the loom the design of freedom and 
 
THE CHURCH AMONG THE NATIONS 185 
 
 purpose appears in the cloth. In this achievement the 
 pubHc school and the churches have unconsciously 
 v^^orked hand in hand. Some of these unpromising 
 imports are diamonds in the rough. They are uneven 
 and require much cutting and polishing by skilful 
 hands on the. stones of education and religion. But 
 when this is done they flash forth the hidden light and 
 find their proper setting in the social and industrial 
 orders. 
 
 Other imports are so plastic that they need to be 
 mixed v^^ith the stronger materials of faith and love 
 before they can be safely set into the permanent forms 
 of American Christian life. All oi this new human 
 material in the finished state, however, as little re- 
 sembles its first condition as the bronze statue reminds 
 one of the ores from, which it was made. 
 
 Spiritual Exports. America's greatest exports are 
 not her grain and manufactures, but her finished spir- 
 itual products — men and women transformed by edu- 
 cation and freedom and transfigured by the gospel of 
 Christ. These redeemed souls will carry America's 
 business methods, liberty, equality, fraternity, neigh- 
 borliness, community spirit, initiative, brotherhood, 
 evangelistic methods, and the passion for Christian 
 service into all the nations of the world. East, west, 
 north, and south, American men and women trained 
 by the Christian churches will be scattered as the living 
 seed of the kingdom of God, and as residents, mer- 
 chants, travelers, and missionaries will give the world 
 their best. All the nations of the earth want the best 
 
186 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 and without doubt will ultimately have it. Other 
 lands, which have given good heed to the gospel of 
 Christ and have yielded abundant harvests that are 
 imperiled by the devastations of war, will doubtless 
 continue to contribute their full share to the forces 
 and influences striving for the world's redemption. 
 But the fortunate position of America, which, it is 
 hoped, will never become involved in international 
 complications, will combine with all the spiritual forces 
 noted in this volume to enable the evangelical Churches 
 of the new world to give to the backward nations, in 
 large measure and running over, the simple and true 
 gospel of Christ, which alone can save their peoples 
 from their sins and give to them individual, social, 
 national, and international salvation. 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 
 
VIII . 
 
 MASTER WORKMEN 
 
 The Oneness of All Sacrificial Service. An inspiring 
 feature of modern life is the passion for service 
 which has seized the hearts of so many people. A great 
 variety of agencies are at work to help the poor and 
 the unfortunate, and one has only to study the annual 
 report of the associated charities in any city to learn 
 how far-reaching and numerous are the gifts of 
 money and service for human bettennent. Many of 
 those who are helping are inspired by the Christian 
 motive or are intimately connected with the churches 
 to whose charities also they freely give. But a great 
 multitude of men and women of genuine compassion, 
 but partially or fully estranged from the churches, are 
 showing their sympathy and are making sacrificial 
 gifts of lalx)r and gold to help those who are in tempo- 
 rary distress or whose courage and hope have been al- 
 most broken on the wheels of sin and misfortune. 
 
 Better Service Values Needed. It ought not to be 
 hard for those who are toiling with spiritual problems 
 and who are ministering to the endless stream of dis- 
 couraged and broken-hearted human beings, pointing 
 them to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of 
 the world, to realize that those who are devoting their 
 lives to correcting the evils of overcrowded tenement- 
 
 189 
 
190 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 houses, poor sanitation, the saloon system and brothel, 
 are serving the Lord in an equally valid manner. Per- 
 haps ministers of the churches have sometimes had just 
 cause for not regarding social settlement work as con- 
 ducted by certain persons an integral part of Chris- 
 tian service. It is doubtless equally true that many 
 social settlement workers have been strengthened in 
 their misunderstandings of the churches by remarks 
 they have heard concerning the shallowness and nar- 
 rowness of settlement work. Would not frequent con- 
 ferences and intimate acquaintance between the min- 
 isters of the churches and those who minister in the 
 slums make each devoted to every part of the work 
 which the influence of Christ has made possible in the 
 world ? 
 
 Dr. Tippy, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, and many 
 other ministers of Christ are showing their people that 
 all service honestly done in any public office or private 
 trusteeship, in education, in political, social, or eco- 
 nomic relationships, has in it high spiritual values. 
 They have so deeply interested themselves in human 
 welfare tasks that workers in these departments have 
 flocked to enjoy their ministries and to labor with them 
 in their parish undertakings. In some instances those 
 who had been estranged and prejudiced have felt a 
 new loyalty to the Church and its unifying influence. 
 They have seen that Christ spiritualizes all the activ- 
 ities of life and has forever broken down the wall of 
 partition between the secular and the religious. They 
 have come to realize that the cup of cold water may be 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 191 
 
 a cup of salvation if the hand that holds it to parched 
 lips get its strength from a heart beating with love for 
 God and humanity. 
 
 Problem of the Unemployed. A study of typical 
 cases where men and women with the Christian spirit 
 have discovered important pieces of work to do should 
 be an inspiration to others to undertake definite Chris- 
 tian service. Pastors and missionary secretaries are 
 the walking delegates going about among the spirit- 
 ual workmen. They are urging them to work longer 
 hours and to give more money; not to ask for their 
 rights, but to give others the gospel. They tell men to 
 turn the other cheek when they are attacked, and to 
 give the cloak when the coat is demanded, and to go 
 the second mile. 
 
 The men in the Church are not striking ; they simply 
 do not know how to work and where to find opportu- 
 nities to serve their fellow men. They leave a service 
 inspired to do something, but how often do they find 
 the thing to do? The percentage of the unemployed 
 among the skilful trades in New York in good times is 
 considerable; in bad times it is dangerously large. 
 How large is the percentage of the unemployed in the 
 churches? There are no bad times in the kingdom of 
 God. Every day brings its good and wholesome work. 
 The workmen are streaming out of our churches with 
 high purposes. Their tools are in their hands, often 
 burnished bright by culture. How frequently do Chris- 
 tians use these tools and how often do they do their 
 work except in glorious intention ? 
 
192 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 Pastor's New Helpers: Masters of Methods. The 
 
 ministers of the Churches are overwhehned with the 
 multitude of calls for their strength and time. Their 
 pulpit work and regular pastoral duties leave them 
 httle energy or opportunity for much service that must 
 be done, if the local church does its tasks well. 
 
 In a rural community the pastor must be a genius 
 to do as much as is required ; for he must not only do 
 his own work but lay out definite pieces of service for 
 the members of his church. By selecting committees 
 with efficient heads this is done, and it is now possible 
 to perceive conspicuous examples of success on every 
 side. 
 
 These Assistants Guide Others. In the smaller 
 church the pastor must be the master workman, but 
 in larger centers he can devote himself to his own 
 intensive service and have paid assistants, who will 
 be the master workmen whom he inspires and counsels 
 so as to interest the rank and file of the churches to do 
 their separate kinds of Christian service large and 
 small. 
 
 These pastoral assistants discover the work for 
 others and guide them to it, explain how it may be 
 done, keep a record of its execution, and report to the 
 minister, who prays with and counsels his master work- 
 men. Through such suggestions the members of the 
 church discover new ways to serve Christ, by which 
 each one exerts a Christian influence in his business, 
 keeping his promises, taking a part in church benevo- 
 lences, and in those outside philanthropic and spiritual 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 193 
 
 institutions which are the secondary resuhs of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Revision of Methods a Quick Result. Church- 
 members intelligently directed by pastors or by de- 
 partment expert advisers who are masters of methods 
 in Christian work soon get a new vision of service and 
 are filled with a passion whose fires refine their spirit- 
 ual natures. 
 
 The Dynamic of a Vision. A vision of a great op- 
 portunity, with its widened horizon and increase of 
 knowledge, may make one visionary, if he does not 
 put into his life a larger enthusiasm and a greater pur- 
 pose. The value of a vision is in the revision which 
 it brings. The vision which the disciples had in the 
 upper room brought them not only their Pentecost but 
 many revisions of thought, purpose, and method. The 
 vision given to Peter on the housetop caused him to 
 revise his thought concerning preaching to a Gentile 
 family. The vision Paul had on his way to Damascus 
 made him a preacher of a new gospel, although it took 
 him months to think out his gospel and to revise his 
 ideas of j>ersonal religion. The vision of justification 
 by faith for Augustine and later for Luther was the 
 hinge on which swung wide open the door that no 
 group of men and no combination of forces have yet 
 shut. A vision of neglected peoples, of new methods 
 of doing old work and of old methods of doing new 
 work, will always make the discoverers quickly revise 
 their diagnosis of spiritual maladies and their methods 
 of treatment. A vision is the dynamic that deranges 
 
194 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 past thought and rearranges present thinking. The 
 revisions bring freshness of statement, increase of 
 energy, boldness of attack, Christian initiative, heroic 
 undertakings, and fertile plans. 
 
 Speaking the Truth in Clear Words. We find men 
 to-day revising their statements of truth. This does 
 not mean that they do not believe what they formerly 
 did, but they state it in terms of biology rather than 
 in terms of government. They translate legal ideas 
 into life values. They preach the old doctrines of 
 faith in metaphors of peace rather than of war. They 
 explain salvation in words that are scientific rather 
 than philosophic. They find their illustrations of grace 
 and of salvation in the familiar events of every-day 
 life, which forever suggest to the people the teachings 
 of Jesus and the glory of his grace. They build the 
 way of salvation with modern concrete blocks, not with 
 ancient, rut-worn paving-stones. 
 
 New Parables. They believe that if Jesus were here 
 he would take the most familiar objects, which men 
 handle and use and talk about, and from such objects 
 build the parables of his Kingdom. They believe that 
 if he were preaching in America he could not see 
 cement poured into molds and there set firmly with- 
 out teaching men the parable of the cement. They 
 believe that if he were interpreting to-day his gospel 
 to the people of this century he would use the parable 
 of the automobile, the flying machines, the wireless, 
 the telephone, the reaping machine, the plow, the har- 
 row, the cultivator, the sprayer, electricity, the dynamo, 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 195 
 
 the steamboat, the triple expansion engine. To him 
 all the inventions and discoveries in the arts and crafts 
 and sciences, the revelations of the microscope, the 
 telescope, and stethoscope, the spectroscope, the Roent- 
 gen rays, and everything else, would be plastic material 
 out of which he would fashion messages of repentance, 
 forgiveness, love, faith, peace, purity, and the judg- 
 ment day. 
 
 The Opinion of a Judge. To speak to the people in 
 a language which they can understand, and to inter- 
 pret the gospel in the forms of every-day speech, is 
 a great art which an increasing company of persons 
 are learning with delightful results. To use words 
 not understood is to that degree preaching the gospel 
 in an unknown tongue, which St. Paul condemned. In 
 Lincoln Dodge, Layman, Judge Comstock interrupts 
 Dr. Judkins, who is speaking on "Religious Astigmat- 
 ism," with these words : 
 
 "In the country church where I grew up, we had a 
 minister who was a very learned man, and preached 
 what we regarded as good sermons, but nearly all his 
 illustrations were drawn from historical sources about 
 which the people in the church knew next to nothing. 
 By and by, however, after he went away, the deacons 
 talked the matter over, and when a young man, just 
 graduated from the seminary, was about to be called 
 to the pastorate, they wanted to make sure he should 
 know just what kind of preaching the church de- 
 manded. And so, after the Sunday morning service, 
 they asked the candidate to go down into the vestry 
 
196 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 with them to have a httle talk. A moment later, as 
 they were sitting around the old wood stove, Deacon 
 Rideout, who was nearly eighty, said: 
 
 ** 'My young brother, we are willing to call you if 
 you will solemnly promise one thing, and that is, if 
 you come to be our minister you will leave Greece and 
 Rome alone!' The young man solemnly promised, 
 and when he came among us, drew his illustrations 
 from stone walls, planting, plowing, harrowing, har- 
 vests, trees, birds, flowers, rivers, the dew and rain, 
 the tides, and everything else we were seeing or hand- 
 ling every day. It was a tremendous change I can tell 
 you, for in that man's ministry it seemed as if every- 
 thing around us became spiritualized, and I never 
 returned to the old place but that the holy associations, 
 created by his simple sennons, overwhelmed me with a 
 flood of sacred memories." 
 
 A Better Way to Labor. New visions of the work- 
 men and of the fields that need to be intensively culti- 
 vated, call for revisions in methods of work. A society 
 that may have been helpful in past years but is not 
 fitted to changed conditions should give place to an 
 organization charged with spiritual vitality; not be- 
 cause it is new, but because it is adapted to definite 
 and present needs. Souls may be reached through 
 direct or indirect methods, but the approach must 
 always be vital. The attention of the person to be 
 assisted spiritually must be gained, held, and directed 
 to his o\\ai inner needs. 
 
 Working in Clay. The formative period in child 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 197 
 
 life must not be allowed to pass. The large percentage 
 of children in many congregations that later are lost 
 to the Christian life and the church-membership is a 
 sad commentary on the approach to the souls of chil- 
 dren. One church reported 107 boys and girls receiv- 
 ing instruction in the Scriptures, all tending to bring 
 them into a living touch with Christ. These were pres- 
 ent at one meeting on Friday afternoon, after the public 
 schools were closed. In this church nearly all the chil- 
 dren are taught by the assistant pastor, and very few 
 of them, even in the homes which are not religious, 
 are lost to the Sunday-school, to church-membership, 
 and to the kingdom of God. When they are received 
 into membership in the church it is plainly apparent 
 that the instruction received on those afternoons was 
 very helpful, and in the majority of instances led to 
 their spiritual decisions. 
 
 And yet, ten blocks away in the same city another 
 church with still larger numbers of children in the Sun- 
 day-school has no such method of reaching and teach- 
 ing the boys and girls, and when they come into the 
 church-membership, which they do in smaller num- 
 bers, there seems to be no way of instructing them in 
 the doctrines of the faith. They drift away, perplexed, 
 lonely, and ignorant. Without doubt the early Church 
 gave careful instruction before and after converts 
 entered the church. A revision of methods in these 
 respects is one of the crying demands of modern or- 
 ganized Christian activities. 
 
 Conversion and Reversion. There should be a re- 
 
198 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 vision also of our attitude toward converts. Leaks and 
 losses in church-membership can be traced very largely 
 to the widely prevailing thought that one has done 
 his duty by the new member when he has introduced 
 him into the family of the church. The value of con- 
 version is appreciated by all who believe the Savior's 
 words : "Except ye turn, and become as little children, 
 ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 But to see converts revert to careless living and drift 
 away, is to note the losses that should be and can be 
 averted, with watchcare and loving attention. Hands 
 that do not work weaken and at last wither. The 
 changes which have sprung up within and without the 
 churches have shown the urgency of revising our meth- 
 ods in dealing with young people, and especially with 
 young men. The approach must be direct and the 
 method so transparent that no reproach will be brought 
 upon the gospel. The young people in our churches 
 ought not to be satisfied with attendance at prayer- 
 meetings. They must not only receive a blessing but 
 must be a blessing. They must not only be getters but 
 givers. In certain churches where the young people 
 have been organized for aggressive Christian service 
 the results have been marvelous. In other churches 
 the young people have drifted from the church and 
 into the ways of life that brought anxiety to their 
 friends and ruin to their own earlier ideals. 
 
 A church holding its men, organizing them into 
 large classes, developing energy and methods for at- 
 tracting still other men, is an illustration of what 
 

 TYPICAL MOUNTAIXEEK HUME 
 CHURCH FOE MOUNTAINEERS 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 199 
 
 can be done under wise leadership, and when some- 
 thing- definite is attempted. The success of one church 
 is contrasted with another parish where the men are 
 not organized and where old methods which are really 
 no methods are employed. 
 
 Where the Tide Turned. In a city in the Middle 
 West in a church that was regarded as wrongly placed 
 in a down-town section with congregations growing 
 smaller and with a Sunday-school that was rapidly 
 decreasing to a point of utter discouragement, a min- 
 ister who had once served as a secretary of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association was called to begin his 
 work. In a few years the Sunday-school became thor- 
 oughly organized, and good assistants were provided 
 to guide the workers. The tides of spiritual results 
 and members have constantly increased until the 
 church is now filled with worshipers a large part of 
 whom also are earnest workers in extending the influ- 
 ence of the church, the Sunday-school, the Young 
 Men's League, and all other organizations into the 
 remotest parts of the city. This down-town neighbor- 
 hood has been thoroughly worked. The result in this 
 church was brought about by a revision of methods, 
 and is typical of w^hat can be accomplished in a multi- 
 tude of instances where discouragement has seized the 
 people with its paralyzing and benumbing effects. In 
 this church above mentioned, as in the early Church, 
 the number of those who are being added to the Lord 
 is constantly increasing. 
 
 The Calls to Special Service. Out of the member- 
 
200 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ship of the churches should come each year an army 
 of workers to volunteer for various forms of mission- 
 ary service. The call for ministers for the churches 
 in America and for missionaries for the foreign field 
 is heeded by a large number. It is not probably widely 
 known, however, that an ever-increasing variety of 
 workers are required for the various kinds of mis- 
 sionary tasks in this land of complex spiritual needs. 
 Almost every day a new type of service is calling for 
 a consecrated man or woman whose experience and 
 interest in church work has been the telephone wire 
 through which God has spoken his call to a wider labor 
 to which one's entire time and strength can be given. 
 
 Church Specialists. The call for pastors' assistants, 
 is rising from a growing number of churches. Some 
 of these would need a special preparation which resi- 
 dence in a training school would give. Calling on 
 the sick and shut-in people, caring for the poor, find- 
 ing places of employment, specializing in work for 
 boys or for girls, supervising playgrounds, roof- 
 gardens, gymnasiums, and branch Sunday-schools, 
 teaching industrial classes and home-making courses, 
 conducting a social settlement, vacation Bible schools, 
 and summer camps, for various types of children are 
 all calling insistently for special salaried workers. 
 
 Church offices also need accurate stenographers who 
 are trained to use card catalog devices and to keep 
 simple accounts. One pastor has been anxiously 
 searching for a young woman of college training, who 
 can be his secretary, take stenographic notes, as he 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 201 
 
 may wish, conduct his correspondence, keep track of 
 his pastoral calls and the changes in the residences of 
 his parishioners, and between her other duties make 
 herself helpful to young women who have no home 
 life. He would ask her to invite fifteen of these young 
 people to his spacious church study at five o'clock each 
 Sunday afternoon, where before an open fire they 
 can meet the pastor and a few of the church people. 
 Tea will be poured, light refreshments served, and then 
 all will adjourn to the later services of the day, better 
 acquainted and helped in many ways. This pastor 
 almost despairs of finding the right person to do this 
 fascinating work for which the church budget has 
 made ample provision. 
 
 State and City Mission Work. The city and state 
 mission societies also need specially trained men and 
 women to supervise various religious activities. Each 
 secretary needs a trained assistant to care for the de- 
 tails of his office work and others to lead in special 
 forms of service. The larger missionaiy societies also 
 must have a staff of office helpers, who are skilful and 
 conscientious. 
 
 National Mission Work. The Negro schools in the 
 South, the Indian schools in the West, and the schools 
 in Alaska, in the southwestern states where Mexicans 
 live, and in Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and 
 the Philippines, all need hundreds of men and women 
 to teach or be librarians or matrons or bookkeepers 
 and secretaries to the head workers. 
 
 Mission hospitals in the Southwest, and among Span- 
 
202 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 ish-speaking peoples also need physicians, nurses, 
 orderlies, and superintendents. The Bible Societies 
 and Tract Societies must constantly have a new supply 
 of distributing agents. The Publication Societies also 
 need colporteurs, to go on foot or by horse or carriage, 
 in automobile, launch, or chapel-car, to distribute Chris- 
 tian literature in neglected places and to hold simple 
 services in homes, schoolhouses, and neglected regions. 
 The women's mission societies constantly need teachers, 
 and special workers to labor among the various nation- 
 alities and among the poor and friendless. 
 
 Other Calls. In addition to those directly connected 
 with the churches and the mission societies are a great 
 number of places into which many may enter who 
 wish to devote their lives to special service. Among 
 these are the various and growing lines of work in 
 government Indian schools, social settlements, and 
 welfare efforts, conducted by both young men and 
 women throughout the nation, and also teaching in the 
 government schools in Alaska and our island posses- 
 sions. 
 
 The Needs of One Missionary Society. In the 
 southern states this one society employs thirty-eight 
 presidents and principals, twenty-six professors in col- 
 legiate and professional schools, one hundred and fif- 
 teen high school instructors, one hundred and sixty- 
 four grade teachers, forty-one to teach industrial 
 courses for girls, twenty-six to give instruction in 
 mechanical industry, nine agricultural instructors, 
 thirty-eight music teachers, four commercial instruc- 
 
>rrui;rr.\iTv i-mk skkxhi:. sani iai h i. ( i i;.'v 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 203 
 
 tors, forty-nine matrons and preceptresses, and nine- 
 teen treasurers and clerks. 
 
 Among the Indians this board has twenty-two teach- 
 ers in the mission schools, and in Porto Rico three 
 women missionaries and seven teachers are required. 
 Among the Orientals, fifteen white workers and 
 twenty-three native assistants are needed. It should 
 be remembered that there are more than twenty-five 
 home mission societies and related organizations in the 
 United States calling each year for an army of special 
 and trained Christian workers. 
 
 The Passion for Service 
 
 Let the Workers Scatter. It was the theory of Dr. 
 A. J. Gordon that the church through its morning wor- 
 ship should give instruction and inspiration. Then he 
 expected few of his leading members to be present at 
 the Sunday evening service, but encouraged them to 
 go to every place where they could be of help. Some 
 of their outside work was assigned to them by the 
 church and the pastors' assistant, but the most of it 
 was discovered by themselves. They toiled in various 
 parts of greater Boston, in open air services, in mis- 
 sions, in calling on the poor, visiting the jails, render- 
 ing lowly social sennce, and looking for open doors 
 of Christian opportunity. Dr. Gordon taught his 
 people that they must not only be skilful in winning 
 men to the service of the Lord but that they should 
 also correct every social and political institution or 
 custom which wrecks the homes and lives of the people. 
 
204 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 The interesting result of such service, at first directed 
 by others, is that the Church should be resourceful and 
 discover new forms of Christian labor, about which 
 the beginners may advise in their perplexities with their 
 friends the master workmen. The inventiveness and 
 initiative and tact shown by those who have learned a 
 new joy in service is the immediate proof of the worth 
 of specialists in departmental church activities. 
 
 A Modern New World Discovered. An open door 
 of service came many years ago to Mr. Williams in 
 London. He did not give up his business: he simply 
 began a task in his own store among his clerks. This 
 has led to the establishment of the Young Alen's and. 
 Young Women's Christian Associations of the world 
 and to enlisting the devotion and Christian labor of 
 many men and women who have thus learned the joy of 
 unselfish service. Mr. Williams found in his own orig- 
 inal way a new opportunity to do Christian work. 
 
 Saving the Foreign Children. In the center of the 
 mining district of Pennsylvania a young woman 
 looked out with a breaking heart upon the spiritual 
 destitution among the Slovak people that lived in her 
 community. She realized that she could not help them 
 until she could speak to them in their own tongue. 
 So she addressed herself to the study of the language. 
 Since then she has gained an excellent working knowl- 
 edge of Slovak so that she can converse in it fluently, 
 and is thus able to do Christian work with ease and 
 skill. Soon after entering the church she became inter- 
 ested in these foreign children whom she saw on the 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 205 
 
 Streets of the town, and when she discovered how dark 
 and twisted their lives were she longed to help them to 
 know her Savior. 
 
 The path of approach was very hard, and she pon- 
 dered long the problem that at first baffled her solu- 
 tion. Her first step was to seek the acquaintance of 
 three little Slovak girls whom she invited to her home. 
 She showed them pictures, told them several Bible 
 stories, and asked them to come again. They did so, 
 and brought others with them. She soon formed a 
 sewing school, and on the first afternoon eight girls 
 were present. This was several years ago, and the 
 number has grown to twenty-five, and on one occasion 
 thirty-five children were present. 
 
 After beginning this work among the children she 
 saw that if she was to hold them she must win the 
 confidence of the parents, and so she began to call at 
 their homes. She was well received, and found the 
 mothers and fathers to be friendly. They responded 
 quickly to her kindness and soon she had their con- 
 fidence and love. She early learned the art of a lov- 
 ing ministry and her kindness in sickness and distress 
 made her the good Samaritan to an ever-increasing 
 number of Slovak families. 
 
 The ease with which she learned to speak a foreign 
 language suggests that many men and women may get 
 a simple working knowledge of at least one foreign 
 tongue. This would open new doors of Christian ser- 
 vice. These children have not only been taught to sew, 
 to be clean, and to be interested in good books and 
 
206 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 proper games, but they have also been instructed in 
 the way of Christ, and have been taught to pray and 
 to love the Lord. Has not this zealous young woman 
 pointed out a path to Christian work which many 
 others in our churches who have leisure and ability 
 for service might well enter and follow with patience, 
 proving again that the open door of social service is 
 not the heritage of a few choice souls? 
 
 What a Merchant Found. For many years a busi- 
 ness man attended church once a Sunday, served as a 
 trustee of his church, went to an occasional banquet 
 of Christian men, heard the usual advice to do hard 
 work, but did none. Suddenly he found himself in 
 the home of his boyhood in a small city where the for- 
 eign population was a problem of the first magnitude. 
 He whispered to his pastor that he would like to get 
 busy and would be willing to be the superintendent of 
 the Sunday-school if no one else could be found to do 
 the work. The minister could not conceal his surprise 
 at the offer, but he promptly brought about the elec- 
 tion. With the same enthusiasm and ability with 
 which he conducts a national business this man pro- 
 ceeded to organize that Sunday-school. The effect 
 was electric. It is now the largest Bible school in 
 the community and has several branches. Some of 
 them are larger than the central school was when he 
 took it in hand. Every teacher is now a Christian 
 worker, deeply imbued with the same zeal which burns 
 in the heart of the merchant. Conversions are con- 
 stant. 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 207 
 
 Finding that the young men of the community were 
 not properly cared for and that the boys were running 
 the streets evenings and Sundays, he purchased a small 
 business block and transformed it into a Young Men's 
 Christian Association, with gymnasium, moving pic- 
 ture hall, and other features. He maintains this work 
 at his own expense and when friends who are interested 
 in it give him money, he puts it into a thank-offering 
 box and passes it on to help some other Christian enter- 
 prise. On Sunday afternoon he conducts a religious 
 meeting and speaks with great acceptance. These ser- 
 vices have yielded Christian harvests. 
 
 Noticing that the girls and young women of the 
 community had no suitable meeting-place he purchased 
 a home for their improvement, and employs, as 
 in the men's building, one or two special workers. He 
 has communicated to a woman of leisure his own spirit 
 of service and she makes on the average ten calls a day 
 upon poor and friendless people whom she is con- 
 stantly bringing into one of the Sunday-schools or 
 associations. 
 
 When an Italian who was a Christian appeared in 
 one of the meetings, this merchant, who is an expert 
 in reading human nature and judging ability, employed 
 him to visit his countrymen in the community. This 
 led to missionary work yielding excellent results. 
 
 In order to counteract the social evils of the city, 
 a campaign was waged against intemperance. He 
 rented the best vacant store situated in the heart of the ' 
 worst district and employed a man and his wife who 
 
208 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 were especially trained to rescue the intemperate and to 
 bring them to Christ. Reading and simple restaurant 
 features were added, and the work went forward with 
 results that amazed the community. The boys were 
 organized and sent away in a special car for a summer 
 camp, and the annual picnic of the Sunday-school has 
 become a day never to be forgotten. It is said that 
 this merchant knows the names of a thousand boys 
 and girls and men and women into whose homes he 
 frequently goes. In days of sickness and distress, in 
 hours of temptation and sorrow, his presence and 
 words are those of a man of God. 
 
 The amount of money he spends each year on these 
 various forms of Christian work and social service he 
 does not disclose and no one will ever know. How 
 many men and women of wealth might begin and con- 
 tinue similar forms of social service! Such labor is 
 not patented. 
 
 How a Community Was Lifted. In one town a 
 great religious movement has been started in a neg- 
 lected portion where the people were in a pitiful 
 condition of immorality and superstition. A cultured 
 minister has spent his life in this corner of the world. 
 Encouraged by outside assistance he soon developed 
 the giving power of the people, erected a church, built 
 a parsonage, laid out a cemetery, and (Sold the lots. He 
 has seen the community improved beyond his fondest 
 dreams. Houses have been painted, yards have been 
 cleaned, fences built, children properly clothed, and all 
 because he counted no life common or unclean. 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 209 
 
 What a Kite Did. In another community a revival 
 that did much not only to purify family life and lead 
 many souls into the kingdom of God but also to 
 sweeten the atmosphere of the entire town started at 
 the time of a pastor's discouragement, when he desper- 
 ately spent an entire day in making a large kite for the 
 boys of the neighborhood whom he had not thus far 
 been able to influence. Before that kite was finished 
 he was surrounded by a large crowd of boys and men 
 who predicted that it would never fly, but the winds of 
 heaven breathed upon it and it mounted skyward. 
 From that moment the community became responsive 
 to his leadership. 
 
 Master Workmen. The master workmen are the 
 Master's workmen. In their hands are the master keys 
 of faith, hope, and love which can unlock the doors 
 closed to the entrance of the Son of God. When 
 Christ enters a heart darkness goes out, light comes in. 
 At once the "expulsive power of a new affection" impels 
 the heart of the disciple to find his place of labor in the 
 church of his choice, where in fellowship with kindred 
 souls he can exert his largest influence in his home, busi- 
 ness, professional, social, and political life. When all 
 Christians are thus toiling and all churches are thus at 
 work, the spiritual forces in America will overcome 
 evil with good. 
 
 Standing Between the Seas. Standing between 
 Europe and Asia, America has the secrets of liberty 
 which can save the nations from the perils of war and 
 
210 THE CHURCHES AT WORK 
 
 from the jealousies of peace. Her ability to do this 
 will depend on the number of master Christian work- 
 men the evangelical churches can produce, and the 
 degree to which these leaders can guide their churches 
 to save both individuals and society. The aim of Chris- 
 tianity is to lift the world out of its sin and to bring its 
 people into the kingdom of God. 
 
 In the fulness of time America comes to a decisive 
 hour of the world's history. Representatives of all 
 the nations of the earth are crossing her mountains and 
 fields, staying for awhile in her cities, and often fixing 
 upon permanent residence. They are influencing the 
 civilization of the new world and are helping to mold 
 the characters of its leaders and their followers. These 
 foreigners, Americanized and Christianized, are the pre- 
 pared medium through which the gospel can make itself 
 felt in all the earth. 
 
 America faces a profound interest in religion, art, 
 and government, at a time when means of intercom- 
 munication are swift and constantly improving and the 
 avenues of trade and travel are unobstructed. To 
 restate the teachings of Jesus and his disciples in the 
 vital language of science and of personal life is the task 
 of the present-day interpreters and demonstrators of 
 Christianity. The churches at work are privileged to 
 labor in a nation adapted to all races, and with an ability 
 to come into touch through trade and influence with all 
 the tribes of the earth. They pass forth to victory when 
 the avenues of intercommunication are open in every 
 direction, when men are whispering over the seas and 
 
 
MASTER WORKMEN 211 
 
 talking across the continents, and when there is the 
 freest interchange of ideas concerning government and 
 religion. To-day these churches at work find their 
 greatest opportunity to bring in the kingdom of God, 
 when large associations of men can be reached through 
 their leaders, and when organized labor, keen brains, 
 and aspiring hearts are eager for conference and debate 
 in thfeir outreach for the highest individual efficiency, 
 the largest social service, and the supreme leadership of 
 Christ in the world's life. 
 
i 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 General 
 
 Barnes, Lemuel C. Elemental Forces in Home Missions. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Company, New York, 75 cents. 
 
 Douglass, H. P. The New Home Missions. 1914. Missionary 
 Education Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 King, Henry C. The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our 
 Times. Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 McAfee, J. E. World Missions from the Home Base. Fleming 
 H. Revell Company, New York. 75 cents. 
 
 McAfee, J. E. Missions Striking Home. Fleming H. Revell 
 Company, New York. 75 cents. 
 
 McCash, I. N. The Horizon of American Missions. Fleming H, 
 Revell Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Stelzle, Charles. American Social and Religious Conditions. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Strong, Josiah. Our World. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden 
 City, N. Y. $1.00. 
 
 Various People 
 
 Barnes, Mary C. The New America. Fleming H. Revell Com- 
 pany, New York. 50 cents, net. 
 
 Commons, J. R. Races and Immigrants in America. Macmillan 
 Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Grose, Howard B. Advance in the Antilles. Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Helm, Mary. The Upward Path. Missionary Education Move- 
 ment, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Miller, Kelly. Race Adjustmeyit. Neale Publishing Company, 
 New York. $2.00, net. 
 
 Aloffett, Thomas C. The American Indian on the New Trail. 
 1914. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Shriver, W. P. Immigrant Forces. 1913. Missionary Education 
 Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Steiner, E. A. From Alien to Citizen. Fleming H. Revell Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 215 
 
216 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Social 
 
 Batten, S. Z. The Social Task of Christianity. Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Brown, Charles R. The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit. 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Cairns, D. S. Christianity in the Modern World. George H. 
 Doran Company, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Devine, E. T. Misery and Its Causes. Macmillan Company, 
 New York. $1.25. 
 
 Dickinson, Charles H. The Christian Reconstruction of Modern 
 Life. Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 Hall, Thomas C. Social Solutions in the Light of Christian 
 Ethics. Eaton & Mains, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Henderson, C. R. Social Duties from the Christian Point of 
 View. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.25. 
 
 Holmes, J. H. The Revolutionary Function of the Modern 
 Church. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Howerton, J. R. The Church and Social Reforms. Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, New York. 75 cents, net. 
 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Gospel and the Modern Man. Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Social Gospel. Pilgrim Press, Boston. 
 50 cents, net. 
 
 Nearing, Scott. Social Religion. Macmillan Company, New 
 York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Patten, Simon N. The New Basis of Civilisation. Macmillan 
 Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Patten, Simon N. The Social Basis of Religion. Macmillan 
 Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 
 Peabody, Francis G. Jesus Christ and the Social Question. Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Peabody, Francis G. The Approach to the Social Question. 
 Macmillan Company, New York, $1.25. 
 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. 
 Macmillan Company, New York. 50 cents, net. 
 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianizing the Social Order. Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry of tfie Children. Macmillan Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 217 
 
 Stelzle, Charles. The Workingman and Social Problems. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Company, New York. 75 cents, net. 
 
 Taylor, G. Religion in Social Action. Dodd, Mead & Co., New 
 York. $1.25. 
 
 Thompson, C. B. The Churches and the Wage Earners. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 City 
 
 Sears, C. H. The Redemption of the City. Griffith & Rowland 
 Press, Philadelphia. 50 cents. 
 
 Stelzle, Charles. Christianity's Storm Center. Fleming H. Revell 
 Company, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Strong, Josiah. The Challenge of the City. Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Methods 
 
 Butterfield, K. L. The Country Church and the Rural Problem. 
 University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.25. 
 
 Mills, H'arlow S. The Making of a Country Parish. 1914. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Tippy, Worth M. The Church a Community Force. 1914. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Ward, Harry F. Social Creed of the Churches. Eaton & Mains, 
 New York. 50 cents, net. 
 
 Wilson, Warren H. The Church at the Center. 1914. Mission- 
 ary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alabaster boxes, 93-98 
 
 Alaska, 147, 148. 202 
 
 Ambitions, 15, 16, 90 _ 
 
 Antagonism, racial, in labor 
 problem, 28 
 
 Approach to The Social Ques- 
 tion, The, 85 
 
 Asiatic workmen, 28, 30 
 
 Atlanta, Georgia, 171 
 
 B 
 
 Barnes, Dr. L. C, 183 
 Barnes, Mrs. L. C, 177 
 Between-town regions, 55 
 Bible, a Child's Story of the, 
 
 referred to, 70 
 Bible in the schools, 122 
 Big brother work, 87-89, 120 
 Birds migratory and of pass- 
 age as terms for some im- 
 migrants, 165 
 Booms and bubbles, 153 
 Brotherhood, 37-39, 11 1 
 Bryce, James, referred to, 165 
 Business honesty, 9 
 Business men and rural com- 
 munity life, 114 
 By-products of Christianity, 
 133-135 
 
 Cairns, Professor, referred to, 
 
 lOI 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., selectmen, 
 
 Camera club influences boys, 
 120 
 
 Camp life for boys, 120 
 Capital and labor, 31, 32, 37-39 
 Caring for children and con- 
 verts in the church, 196-198 
 Caste system, 30 
 '•Cattle," applied to laborers, 
 
 33, 34 
 
 Cave-dwellers, various, and 
 their foes, the churches, 10, 11 
 
 Century of Dishonor, A, re- 
 ferred to, 24 
 
 Character conquers, 3 
 
 Chicago, 152 
 
 Children, home training for, 70 
 
 Christ. See Jesus Christ 
 
 Christian Associations, 166, 167, 
 204 
 
 Christian, contagion, 86, 87; 
 countries subject to change, 
 29; experience the founda- 
 tion for work, 100 ; lives and 
 influence of, 93, 94, 102 
 
 Christianity affecting our back- 
 ward peoples, races, and 
 sections, 155-157 
 
 Church a Community Force, 
 The, quoted, 115; referred 
 to, 168 
 
 Church and Churches or de- 
 nominations, growth of, 11; 
 work of, 82 
 
 Church and disciples, early, 51 
 
 Church groups, forming, 54, 55 
 
 Church, home, and school, the, 
 4 
 
 Church, local, 109; its genius, 
 iii-liS; its members, 112, 
 113; its task, HI, 115-135, 
 166 
 
 Church, the city, 167 
 
 221 
 
222 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cigar factory, social service in 
 
 a, 91 
 Cities, foreigners in American, 
 
 165 
 City, burden of the, 171-181 
 City churches, types of, 167; 
 
 uplifters, 169-171 
 City social customs, 41 
 Civic righteousness and the 
 
 church, 130 
 Civil War, the, and missionary 
 
 work, 39, 150 
 Cleveland, Ohio, churches, 168 
 Colby College's president in 
 
 Oldtown, Maine, 65-66 
 Community, betterment, 126 ; 
 
 difficulties, 112; first settlers, 
 
 113; home of, 114; lifted, 208 
 Confidence, ground of, 47 
 Connecticut, foreigners in, 44 
 Conquest of Canada and the 
 
 United States, the spiritual, 
 
 47 
 Contagion of health, 85, 86 
 Conversions in revivals, 53 
 Cooperation, the new religious, 
 
 130-133 
 
 Corrective work, 88 
 
 Country home, the, 42 
 
 Courage contagious, 86 
 
 Creamery, a, and community 
 prosperity, 123 
 
 Criticism of the pioneer mis- 
 sionary, 155 
 
 Crop-followers, 42 
 
 Cuba, 147, 148, 201 
 
 D 
 
 Dearborn, Fort, 152 
 
 Decision Day, 71, 72 
 
 Demands of labor, 32 
 
 Democracy, 181 ; America's in- 
 ternational exchange, 182, 
 183 . 
 
 Denommational dynamic, the, 
 .139 
 
 Disease, contagion of, 85 
 
 E 
 
 Early Christian, centuries, 51 ; 
 ways, 69 
 
 Education, higher, 41 
 
 Educational contrast, an, 123 
 
 Efficient workers, 74 
 
 El Salvador, 148 
 
 Elemental Forces in Home 
 Missions, 183 
 
 Emmanuel Church, Brooklyn, 
 New York, 169 
 
 Epworth Church of Cleveland, 
 167, 168 
 
 Ethics and funds, 125 
 
 European war, referred to, 184 
 
 Evangelism, in early church 
 period, 51, 52; in Middle 
 Ages, 52; in modern period, 
 52-54; pastoral interest, 55- 
 60; resourceful lay workers, 
 60-70; training in the home, 
 70, 71 ; wise methods in Sun- 
 day-schools, 71-73; work of 
 young people, 73, 74; worthy 
 message, 74-77 
 
 Evangelization problems, 43-46 
 
 Evil forces, combating the, 94- 
 
 97 
 Experience and efficiency, 100 
 Exports, spiritual, 185 
 
 Fairbairn, Principal, quoted on 
 the value of the unit, 81 
 
 Faith and works related, 98 
 
 Farms and foreigners, 39-43 _ 
 
 Fellowship of the Holy Spirit, 
 the, 106 
 
 Field work and Scripture read- 
 ing, 120 
 
 Follow-up work, 72 
 
 Foreigners, in New York City, 
 27; how to reach the, 176- 
 179; problem, 204; size of 
 the task, 180, 181 
 
 Founders, America's, their foes 
 and their weapons, 3-5 
 
INDEX 
 
 223 
 
 Four, kinds of church-mem- 
 bers, 112; words expressing 
 relation to Christ, 103-105 
 
 Fraternal organization, sug- 
 gestion from a, 61, 62 
 
 Friction, industrial, 31-39; race, 
 23-31 
 
 Friendliness, cultivation and 
 effect of, 92, 120 
 
 From Alien to Citizen, quoted, 
 32-34 
 
 Funeral occasions, prayers on, 
 56,66 
 
 Gifts, values of, 98 
 Golden Rule, the, 30, 38, 39 
 Good motives, words, works, 
 
 98 
 Good Samaritan, the, no 
 Gordon, Dr. A. J., theory of 
 
 service, 203 
 Gospel, simplicity of, yy; the 
 
 human arm, 102 
 Groups, church, 139 
 
 I 
 
 Ideal Americans, 8 
 
 Illinois swamp, an, 152 
 
 Inactivity in a church, 60 
 
 Inconsistencies, a few, 118, 128, 
 129 
 
 Indians, North American, 2;^, 
 24, 149, 155, 158, 201, 202 
 
 Individual, the, 81-85 
 
 Industrial changes, cause of 
 roving, 41 ; study of condi- 
 tions, 129 
 
 Industrial stimulus, one result 
 of an, 123 
 
 Information, the pastor's com- 
 munity, 126 
 
 Institutional church work, 166, 
 167 
 
 Intemperance, cave-dwellers of, 
 10 
 
 Intemperate man's helpers, 62, 
 63 
 
 Irreligion, 44-46 
 
 Irrigation projects, 154 
 
 H 
 
 Happy thoughts, 93 
 Hawaii, 147, 148, 201 
 Health, contagion of, 85 
 Hegel on the individual, 81 
 Helpers, need of, 94, 200 
 Heredity, 84, 85 
 High business standards, 115 
 Holiday celebrations, uses of, 
 
 131, 132 
 Hollanders in Michigan, 44 
 Home Missions Council, 157; 
 
 Indian committee, 158 
 Home, the, 4 
 Home training in religious 
 
 truth, 70 
 Honesty in business, 115 
 Household piety in early church 
 
 times, 52 
 Human imports, 184 
 
 Jesus Christ, methods of, 103 ; 
 present popular reverence 
 for, an opportunity, loi 
 
 Jews, 130, 131 
 
 Judson Memorial Church, New 
 York City, 170 
 
 K 
 
 Kansas, lay leaders in, 64 
 Kingdom of God, the, 15 
 Kite, work of a, 209 
 
 Labor and the church, 124; 
 
 leaders, 31, 32 
 Labor Temple, New York City, 
 
 170 
 Lake Mohonk, 24 
 
224 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lake, Rev. \V. E., report on the 
 Lawrence strike, 34-37 
 
 Lawrence strike, 34-37 
 
 Lay evangelistic leaders and 
 workers, 60-70, 198-21 1 
 
 Leaders in uplift, making, 157 
 
 League of helpers, a, 121 
 
 Liberty, personal, business, and 
 religious, 124, 125 
 
 Lincoln Dodge, Layman, quot- 
 ed, 195 
 
 Looking and seeing, 172 
 
 Losing and finding one's life, 
 172, 173 
 
 Louisville, Ky., social service 
 work in, 171 
 
 Love of Christ, the, 105 
 
 Lumber camps, 152, 153 
 
 M 
 
 Maine, revival in, 61-67 
 Martineau, James, on the value 
 
 of the individual, 81 
 Members, four kinds of church, 
 
 112, 113 
 Message, the, 74-77 
 Messianic, America, 183-186 
 Mexico, 147, 148, 201 
 Michigan, Hollanders in, 44 
 Middle Ages, Christians in the, 
 
 52 
 Mining camps, 152, 153 
 Minister's explorations and the 
 
 results, a, 56, 57 
 Missionary societies, home, 12; 
 
 organization and service, 140- 
 
 150, 154, 200-203 
 Modern evangelists, doctrines 
 
 and methods, 52 
 Mohammedanism and race fric- 
 tion, 29 
 "Mongrel churches," 140 
 Moral defective, a, 118, 119 
 Morehouse, Dr. Henry L., 
 
 quoted, 133 
 Mormonism and Mormons, 14, 
 
 IS8 
 
 N 
 National missionary work, 143- 
 
 148; specialists needed in, 201 
 Neglected Fields Survey, the, 
 
 157 
 Neglected zones, 55-60 
 Negroes, 24-27 ; leaders for, 
 
 150; progress among, 155, 
 
 157; upHft work for, 171, 
 
 201 
 Neighbor, the, no 
 New York City churches in 
 
 uplift work. 169-171 
 New York City social work, 
 
 87-S9 
 Non-Protestants, 130, 131 
 North American Indians. See 
 
 Indians, North American 
 
 O 
 
 Odd-Fellows' Lodge increase 
 
 suggests church advance, 61, 
 
 62 
 Oldtown, Maine, lay work in, 
 
 65-67 
 One girl's social service, 89, 90 
 Organizations developed ty 
 
 church funds, 151 
 Organized labor, 31, 32 
 Organizing church forces, 198- 
 
 200 
 
 Panama Canal, 184 
 
 Parables, encouragement from 
 the New Testament, 165 ; 
 modern life, 194, 196 
 
 Pastors, as leaders, 58-60; en- 
 terprise and vigilance, 40, 
 55-60; new helpers of, 192 
 
 Peabody, Dr. F. G., quoted. 85 
 
 Personal witnessing and work, 
 52, 53 
 
 Philanthropy and the gospel, 
 
 134 
 
 Philippines, the, 201 
 Pittsburgh, lay. workers in, 67, 
 68; steel mill in, 32, 32 
 
INDEX 
 
 225 
 
 Pleasant Sunday afternoons, 
 
 125 
 Pleasure enthroned, 44, 45 
 Polyglot pastoral work, 170 
 Population, foreign, of New 
 
 York City, 170 
 Populations of America, 6, 7, 
 
 18, 19 ; roving, 39-43 
 Porto Rico, 147, 148, 201, 203 
 Positive and negative Christian 
 
 workmen, 18 
 Possibilities, in men, 152; in 
 
 races, 29 
 Poteat, President E. M., quoted 
 
 on Negro conditions, 25, 26 
 Prairie schooner, 152 
 Prayer, 56, 62, 64, 66 
 Presb3^erian social service 
 
 work, 171 
 President, a possible future, 
 
 158, 159 
 Preventive work, 88 
 Protestantism, 5, 6; the new, 
 
 129 
 Public conscience, 127, 130 
 Public school, the, 4, 21 ; 
 
 qualities required in the prin- 
 cipal, 122; teacher starts a 
 
 reform, 96 
 Publication Societies, 202 
 
 R 
 
 Race problems, 23, 25, 28 
 
 Raphael's skill, 151 
 
 Reformation, the, and the in- 
 dividual, 81, 82 
 
 "Religious astigmatism," 195 
 
 Republic, Plato's, social soli- 
 darity and stoics in, 81 
 
 Road building in Cambridge, 
 Massachusetts, 19 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, 131 
 
 Rural community, ideals for a, 
 90, 91 
 
 S 
 Sacrifical service, 189, 190 
 Safeguards, a Christian's, 99 
 
 Saint Paul and the individual, 
 81, 82 ; quoted with comment, 
 
 159 
 Saloon, the, 94, 95 
 Salvation, a church's, 60, 61 
 Sane ambition, a, 90 
 School work of the Churches 
 
 and workers needed, 200, 201 
 Selfishness, 118 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 87 
 Shops, social helpers in, 91 
 Simple lives, 17 
 Sin, 130 
 
 Size impresses, 3 
 Slovak people in Pennsylvania, 
 
 204 
 Social life and the church, 125, 
 
 126 
 Social problems, 81-84 
 Social service, an expert in, 
 
 87-89; in factory life, 91; 
 
 suggestions for, 87-93 
 Social work in New York City, 
 
 87-89; I 69-1 71 
 Society and the individual, 85 
 Special service, opportunities 
 
 for, 200-209 
 Springs of right life, 4 
 Steiner, Dr., quoted, 32-34 
 Street children, 176 
 Strike-breakers, 42 
 Stuckenberg, Dr., referred to, 
 
 85 
 
 Stumbling-blocks and stepping- 
 stones, 23 
 
 Sunday-schools, 65, 71, 7^, 206- 
 208 
 
 Temptations, 115-117 
 
 Three centuries, past and to 
 
 come, 19, 20, 54 
 Three dimensions of a church, 
 
 112 
 Tippy, Dr. Worth M., quoted, 
 
 158; referred to, 168. 190 
 Tools, God's use of, 18 
 Tract Societies, 202 
 
226 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tree, story of a, 99 
 Trolley-arm, the, 105, 106 
 Two churches and two pastors, 
 58, 59 
 
 U 
 
 Unemployed Christians, prob- 
 lem of the, 191 
 
 Union meetings, 132 
 
 Unit, value of the, 81 
 
 Universities, 41, 42 
 
 University Place Church, New 
 York City, 169 
 
 Uplift, forces at work, 160, 
 161; sure means of, 159; 
 workers, 169 
 
 V 
 Vacation habit, the, 40 
 Varied types of social work, 171 
 Vision, value of a, 113, 193 
 Vitality, test of, 14 
 
 W 
 Wages, a skilled workman's, 
 31 
 
 Washington, D. C, and the 
 Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, 166 
 
 Washington Square, Judson 
 Memorial Church, 170 
 
 Water is wealth, 154 
 
 Wealth, possessors of, 9, 127 
 
 Wichita, Kan., gospel teams, 
 64, 65 
 
 Williams, Mr. George, of Lon- 
 don, finds an open door, 204 
 
 Williams, Mr. Mornay, quoted, 
 176 
 
 Wilson, Rev. Warren H., on 
 the ideal church, 114 
 
 Wilcox, W. H., quoted, 140 
 
 Wonders of the age a ground 
 of confidence, 47, 48 
 
 Workmen, early and later, 
 11-16 
 
 Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation, 64, 166, 204, 207 
 Young people's societies, 73 
 
Mission Study Courses 
 
 "Anywhere, provided it be forward." — David Livingstone. 
 
 Prepared under the direction of the 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 Educational Committee: G. F. Sutherland, Chairman; A. 
 E Armstrong, J. I. Armstrong, Frank L. Brown, Hugh L. 
 Burleson, W. W. Cleland, W. E. Doughty, H. Paul Douglass, 
 Arthur R. Gray, R. A. Hutchison, B. Carter Milliken, John 
 M. Moore, John H. Poorman, T. Bronson Ray, Jay S. Stowell. 
 
 The Forward Mission Study Courses are an outgrowth of 
 a conference of leaders in young people's mission work, held 
 in New York City, December, 1901. To meet the need that 
 was manifested at that conference for mission study text- 
 books suitable for young people, two of the delegates, Pro- 
 fessor Amos R. Wells, of the United Society of Christian 
 Endeavor, and Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Chairman of the General 
 Missionary Committee of the Epworth League, projected^ the 
 Mission Study Courses. These courses have been officially 
 adopted by the Missionary Education Movement, and are now 
 under the immediate direction of the Educational Committee 
 of the Movement. The books of the Movement are now being 
 used by more than forty home and foreign mission boards and 
 societies of the United States and Canada. 
 
 The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering the 
 various home and foreign mission fields and problems and 
 written by leading authorities. 
 
The following text-books having a sale of over 1,500,000 have 
 been published : 
 
 1. The Price of Africa. Biographical. By S. Earl Taylor. 
 
 2. Into All the World. A general survey of missions. By 
 Amos R. Wells. 
 
 3. Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom. Biographical. 
 By Harlan P. Beach. 
 
 4. Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom. Revised Edition. A 
 study of Japan. By John H. DeForest. 
 
 5. Heroes of the Cross in America. Home Missions. Bio- 
 graphical. By Don O. Shelton. 
 
 6. Daybreak in the Dark Continent. Revised Edition. A 
 study of Africa. By Wilson S. Naylor. 
 
 7. The Christian Conquest of India. A study of India. 
 By James M. Thoburn. 
 
 8. Aliens or Americans? A study of Immigration. By 
 Howard B. Grose. 
 
 9. The Uplift of China. Revised Edition. A study of 
 China. By Arthur H. Smith. 
 
 10. The Challenge of the City. A study of the City. By 
 Josiah Strong. 
 
 11. The Why and How of Foreign Missions. A study of 
 the relation of the home Church to the foreign missionary enter- 
 prise. By Arthur J. Brown. 
 
 12. The Moslem World. A study of the Mohammedan 
 world. By Samuel M. Zwemer. 
 
 13. The Frontier. A study of the New West. By Ward 
 Piatt. 
 
 14. South America: Its Missionary Problems. A study of 
 South America. By Thomas B. Neely. 
 
 15. The Upward Path : The Evolution of a Race. A study 
 of the Negro. By Mary Helm. 
 
 16. Korea in Transition. A study of Korea. By James S. 
 Gale. 
 
 17. Advance in the Antilles. A study of Cuba and Porto 
 Rico. By Howard B. Grose. 
 
 18. The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions. A study 
 of conditions throughout the non-Christian world. By John R. 
 Mott. 
 
 19. India Awakening. A study of present conditions in 
 India. By Sherwood Eddy. 
 
 20. The Church of the Open Country. A study of the 
 problem of the Rural Church. By Warren H. Wilson. 
 
 21. The Call of the World. A survey of conditions at home 
 and abroad of challenging interest to men. By W. E. Doughty. 
 
 22. TnjE Emergency in China. A study of present-day con- 
 ditions in China. By F. L. Hawks Pott. 
 
 23. Mexico To-day: Social, Political, and Religious Con- 
 ditions. A study of present-day conditions in Mexico. By 
 George B. Winton. 
 
24- Immigrant Forces. A study of the immigrant in his 
 home and American environment. By William P. Shriver. 
 
 25. The New Era in Asia. Contrast of early and present 
 conditions in the Orient. By Sherwood Eddy. 
 
 26. The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions. A study of 
 the social achievements of foreign missions. By W. H. P. 
 Faunce. 
 
 27. The New Home Missions. A study of the social achieve- 
 ments and social program of home missions. By H. Paul 
 Douglass. 
 
 28. The American Indian on the New Trail. A story of 
 the Red Men of the United States and the Christian gospel. By 
 Thomas C. Mofifett. 
 
 29. The Individual and the Social Gospel. A study of the 
 individual in the local church and his relation to the social mes- 
 sage of the gospel. By Shailer Mathews. 
 
 30. Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands. A study of 
 the native Church and its development in the foreign mission 
 field. By Arthur J. Brown. 
 
 31. The Churches at Work. A statement of the work of the 
 churches in the local community in the United States. By 
 Charles L. White. 
 
 32. Efficiency Points. The Bible, Service, Giving, Prayer, 
 — four conditions of efficiency. By W. E. Doughty. 
 
 In addition to the above courses, the following have been pub- 
 lished especially for use among younger persons : 
 
 1. Uganda's White Man of Work. The story of Alexander 
 M. Mackay of Africa. By Sophia Lyon Fahs. 
 
 2. Servants of the King. A series of eleven sketches of 
 famous home and foreign missionaries. By Robert E. Speer. 
 
 3. Under Marching Orders. The story of Mary Porter 
 Gamewell of China. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 
 
 4. Winning the Oregon Country. The story of Marcus 
 Whitman and Jason Lee in the Oregon country. By John T. 
 Faris. 
 
 5. The Black Bearded Barbarian. The story of George 
 Leslie Mackay of Formosa. By Marian Keith. 
 
 6. Livingstone the Pathfinder. The story of David Living- 
 stone. By Basil Mathews. 
 
 7. Ann of Ava. The story of Ann Hasseltine Judson of 
 Burma. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 
 
 8. Comrades in Service. Eleven brief biographies of Chris- 
 tian workers. By Margaret E. Burton. 
 
 These books are published by mutual arrangement among the 
 home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders should be 
 addressed. They are bound uniformly and are sold at 60 cents 
 in cloth, and 40 cents in paper; prepaid. Nos. 21, 29, and ^2 
 are 25 cents in cloth, prepaid. 
 
for 
 
 boys and 
 
 girls 
 
 New 
 
 The Whole World for Its Scope. 
 Promotes World Peace. 
 Cultivates the Missionary Spirit. 
 
 Unique 
 
 Contains True Stories of Life, Ac- 
 tion, and Bravery. 
 
 Develops High Ideals. 
 
 Describes the Customs of Peoples in 
 All Lands. 
 
 Attractive 
 
 Bound in a Beautiful, Appropriate 
 
 Cover in Colors. 
 Abundantly Illustrated with Original 
 
 Draw^ings and Photographs. 
 Printed on Excellent, High-finish 
 Paper. 
 EVERYLAND in the Home. Why not 
 supplement your influence among boys and 
 girls ? 
 
 EVERYLAND in the Sunday-school. A 
 rich source for missionary story material. 
 An excellent award, Christmas, or birthday 
 gift. 
 
 EVERYLAND is issued quarterly, sixty- 
 four pages and cover. Subscription price, 
 50 cents a year, 10 cents extra for Canada, 
 and 20 cents extra for foreign postage. 
 
 EVERYLAND, 156 Fifth Ave., New York Cily 
 
Princeton Theoloqical ,Sem\nf;^,V;^,rf,[i," 
 
 1 1012 01234 8464 
 
 Date Due 
 
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