IC-NRLF SB Eb7 757 CONSERVATION OF NATIONAL IDEALS Home Mission Study Course Each volume 12mo, cloth, 50c. net; paper, 30c. net. 1. Under Our Flag A study of conditions in America from the standpoint of Women s Home Missionary work. By ALICE M. GUERNSEY "A text-book of sifted studies for home mission classes and meetings, with suggestions for various uses of the ma terial it contains." Congregationalist. 2. The Burden of the City By ISABELLE HORTON "Settlement Work, the Modern Church and its Methods, the Deaconess in City Missions, Children s Work, and Co operation. It constitutes a manual of practical philanthropy worthy of study in all churches." Tlie Outlook. 3. Indian and Spanish Neighbors By JULIA H. JOHNSTON 11 Pull of information with which every Christian patriot should be familiar in regard to the Indians ; origin, tribes, characteristics, environment, language, religion, wrongs and rights, etc. ; also of the Spanish-speaking people in New Mexico, Arizona, California, Porto Rico." Olive Trees. 4. The Incoming Millions By HOWARD B. GROSE, D. D. "The result of much study of the Immigrants, the tide of whose coming is ever increasing, and of their spiritual needs and their influence upon America." Westminster. 5. Citizens of To-morrow By ALICE M. GUERNSEY "Takes up the study of childhood and youth from the standpoint of home mission work. It is most thorough, and excellently adapted for both reading and study." Christian Advocate (N. Y.) 6. The Call of the Waters A Study of the Frontier. By KATHERINE R. CROWELL The story of American pioneer life as it followed the waterways of the country, ever moving westward and northwestward, planting a new civilization and calling for continually extending home mission effort. 7. From Darkness to Light A story of Negro Progress. By MARY HELM. A Study showing the processes of the evolution through whfch the race has passed from an African savage to a Christian citizen of America. 8. Conservation of National Ideals Quite apart from its use as a text-book, this volume will be found of large interest to all Americans whose patriotism would conserve what is most worthy in all that America stands for. Issued under the direction of the Council of Women for Home Missions CONSERVATION OF NATIONAL IDEALS By MRS. D. B. WELLS PROF. EDWARD A. STEINER RAY STANNARD BAKER PROF. WALTER C. RAUSCHENBUSCH Miss E. B. VERMILYE REV. CHARLES L. THOMPSON, D. D. NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, 1911, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street From the Editorial Committee Text-books of the Home Mission Study Course " Under Our Flag" - - Alice M. Guernsey. " The Burden of the City " Isabelle Horton. " Indian and Spanish Neighbours " Julia H. Johnston. " The Incoming Millions " Howard B. Grose, D. D. " Citizens of To-morrow " - Alice M. Guernsey. " The Call of the Waters" - Katharine R. Crowell. " FromDarkness to Light " Mary Helm. " Advance in the Antilles " Howard B. Grose, D. D. AT a representative meeting not long since, where restriction of immigration was considered, the greater number of the speakers were men who had themselves emi grated to this country from various European states and were but naturalized citizens. When one considers that the vast majority of the popu lation of the United States is made up of nat uralized immigrants, or citizens whose parents were immigrants, there is great danger that true American ideals will be lost sight of, and that the standards by which our forefathers founded American institutions may be lowered or changed. Therefore, a book dealing with the best methods of conserving these national ideals is timely, and the authors presented in this volume are exceptionally well qualified to treat their re- 5 376879 6 From the Editorial Committee spective topics. The subjects considered will bear much study from books which treat the topic more expansively, and to aid in such re search a leader s supplement has been prepared, containing a bibliography and suggestive ques tions and outlines of the chapters here presented. With the sincere hope that this latest book, " Conservation of National Ideals," may be blessed as an instrument for the preservation of our American standards of equality of right;, freedom of conscience and purity of religion, the Council of Women for Home Missions sends t forth upon its mission. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .11 Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster I A CONSERVING FORCE . . . .15 Mrs. D. B. Wells II WHAT TO Do FOR THE IMMIGRANT . . 47 Prof. Edward A. Steiner III THE PROBLEM OF RACE . . . .71 Ray Stannard Baker IV THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS . 99 Prof. Walter C. Rauschenbusch V NON- CHRISTIAN FAITHS IN AMERICA . .123 Elizabeth B. Vermilye VI CHRISTIAN CONSERVATION . . . .163 Rev. Charles L. Thompson, D. D. ILLUSTRATIONS Sheldon Jackson Industrial School, Sitka, Alaska ...... Frontispiece Missionary Training School, Indianapolis, Ind. . 20 Missionary Training School, Chicago, 111. . . 34 Sibley Hospital and Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School, Washington, D. C. . . 42 Citizens of To-morrow ..... 56 Labor Temple Bulletin ..... 62 Part of the Problem ...... 74 What Shall We Do With Them ? . .88 Only One Corner . . . . . .114 BabaBharati; Buddhist Temple . . .150 Hindu (Vedantic) Temple, San Francisco . . 161 The Pilgrims Going to Church . . . .168 Introduction IN the length and breadth of the Christian church there is not a communicant to whom the subject of Home Missions should not make a personal appeal. Indeed, one may go a step farther, and declare that there is not a reg ular attendant at church or a patriotic member of society who can afford to be indifferent to an enterprise so vital and a cause so important. The ends of the earth have come to America. The tides of immigration have flooded our shores, bringing to us annually disheartened people of Northern and Southern Europe, of Asia and of the islands of the sea. Our own territorial progress has made us responsible in recent years for large foreign populations that are now shel tered under our flag and are rapidly becoming assimilated in one mass in our body politic, and there is to-day in our vast America neither bond nor free. Our own sons and daughters every where meet and mingle with the sons and daugh ters of other lands. Foreign-born children and American-born children of foreigners, not yet able to speak English, every day salute the flag in our public schools. Wherever in this land there is a little mission ii 12 Introduction church, a parsonage, a devoted home missionary daily enduring hardship for the sake of Jesus Christ, wherever in mining camp, mountain set tlement, or mission school there is a teacher or a preacher toiling bravely and fearlessly for the uplifting of the poor, for the conversion of men and for Christian brotherhood, there is scope for the generous support of the church, and need for the sympathetic cooperation of women. The women of the Christian church in Amer ica are called upon at this hour for that which concerns far more than they dream, the perma nence of the republic, the well-being of their children and the continuance among us of the American Sabbath, now threatened as never be fore. The women of the country at large must be fully informed as to the present situation, the present opportunity, and the present responsi bility. They must create a sentiment over whelming and general in favour of keeping this nation true to the principles of its pioneers and loyal to God. The chapters which compose this book have been prepared by experts, and show in condensed form and striking expression the perils which menace us at this time. The only remedy for what must prove a subtle poison, the only safeguard against Mormonism, Hinduism, idol worship and infidelity, is the Gospel. Introduction 13 Let our women be convinced that it is their privilege and duty to send the light of the Gospel into every dark place and they will not be slow in assuming the leadership which is the peculiar prerogative of wives, mothers and sisters in Christian homes. If they are teachers in the Sunday-school they will take pains to interest children and young people in advancing the cause of Home Missions. Unless the boys and girls who are growing up, under training in schools and colleges, shall be thoroughly taught in reference to missions, we shall soon reach a place where Apollyon will rally his forces against religion, and this great country, with its mighty possibilities, will cease to be definitely and posi tively Christian. Materialism even now menaces spirituality at every step. In the pages of this book the baffling prob lems of alien races and opposing creeds are lucidly discussed. The aggressiveness of the Mormon hierarchy is strongly displayed, and the relations between labour and capital are intelligently con sidered. The chapter on immigration sets before the student in bright and hopeful style the ad vantages which must come to us from the brave and forceful toilers who have seen a star in the West and sought it over land and sea. The book will repay thoughtful reading and earnest study in missionary associations, in women s clubs, in the church and at home. 14 Introduction Whatever else we may neglect, whatever else we may foster, we must sustain our missions here at home, lest we fail in the duty we owe to Christ and our country. Jfa aJLfs> ~~ Z. , A CONSERVING FORCE Mrs. D. B. Wells The glow of life around us, The star of Hope before, In sisterhood of service We count our mercies o er. One thought, the love of Jesus, One consecrated aim, We light a torch in darkness, And toil in His dear Name. No lines of caste divide us, No choice of East or West, We leave the place of labour To Him who knoweth best. In little self-denials, In prayer on bended knee, In word and work we answer The Master s " Follow Me." O Master, give Thy blessing, And guide us as we try In sisterhood of service To lift Thy banner high. Let not Thy kingdom tarry. Nor let it suffer loss, Speed on the day of glory, The Conquest of the Cross ! . MARGARET E. SANGSTER, A CONSERVING FORCE IN the heart of every Christian woman ideals have always found a welcome and a home. The character of her ideals has depended upon the time and the place in which she was living. In the earlier days their scope never ex tended beyond the bounds of her own indi viduality and her own home. Heredity and en vironment limited expansion. The life-lines lay along two directions only : to be in the secret places of her own soul what she understood her Saviour asked and permitted her as a woman to become ; and to be in her home an obedient and affectionate daughter, a helpful and dutiful wife, a wise and devoted mother. These ideals our Puritan foremothers brought with them as they came to New England in the early days. With out doubt they formed as valuable and potent a part of the treasures of the good ship, the May flower, as did the aspirations and purposes of our forefathers with whom they sailed. As the years slipped rapidly by, and the limits of our foremother s territorial environment were enlarged, while clinging just as closely to her ideas of personal and home responsibility, she 18 Conservation of National Ideals began to include within the reach of that respon sibility her neighbour and her neighbour s child ; and to find a direct and immediate application of that law of the kingdom, " Look not ever/ man on his own things, but every man also o i the things of others." And so the Sunday- school and the day-school of her own locality became the objects of her continuous interest and fostering care. As the means of intercommuni cation and transportation multiplied, and the newer and more remote parts of the country- were brought into closer touch with the older East, she soon learned of the needs of the frontier for religious instruction. She saw the oppor tunity to help in the development of an intell - gent Christian nation, and gladly put all the power of her splendid energy and enthusiasm into this enlarged service. Soon were included within the scope of this service the " exceptional classes " in our growing nation ; the American Indian, the Negro, the Alaskan, the mountaineer, the Mexican, the im migrant. To-day the Home Mission woman knows that she must also " serve " the Cuban, the Porto Rican, the Filipino, and the Hawaiian. A vicious attack upon the sanctity of her home and upon the integrity of the nation through the rise and growth of Mormonism added a fourth to her group of American ideals, those of the Home, the Church, the School, and the State. A Conserving Force 19 The underlying foundation of all woman s work in Home Missions has been her profound, ineradicable conviction that ignorance is the fruitful mother of degradation ; and that no na tion whose God is not the Lord can long survive or serve the highest needs of the world. This conviction is hers by heredity ; her mothers be lieved it back in the days of John Robinson, Thomas Brewster, Roger Williams and William Penn. It is hers by right of personal experience, clear vision, common sense and intuitive percep tion. It is hers by right of study of the past and present of other nations. It is hers by right of promise for the future : " All thy children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established." And the hosts of Christian women in this new land have united to declare, " Our land shall become the home of intelligence and righteousness ! " As their share of this great enterprise, Home Mission women have contributed three potent forces ; self-sacrifice, organization, accumulation, nor have they stinted the measure of their gifts. The story of their self-sacrificing devotion may not correspond in every particular with that of Paul s. Yet it has truly been " in labours more abundant, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in weariness and pain- 2O Conservation of National Ideals fulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often." To which might be added, misunderstanding, opposition, ridicule, con tumely, ostracism, conditions the workers for and among the Mormons and the Negroes often have had to endure. For the women at the " home base," the busy wives and mothers, it was often no slight under taking to put aside the exacting duties of hon e and to give time and effort and strength in order to extend the knowledge of the importance, the progress, the needs of this work. Yet it was ell done " heartily (the Greek word says " hilari ously " ) as unto the Lord." These women soon saw the need and advan tages of cooperation in this work, and so put the power of their executive ability into definite or ganizations. Sometimes these preceded, some times they followed, sometimes they were coin cident with similar organizations for work in for eign lands, sisters equipped for valiant service in the kingdom. And progress in the coming of that kingdom is made by the uncrippled use of both feet. The story of these organizations, so thorough, so complete, so rich in voluntary service, is best told in connection with the record of each denomination. The treasurer of a large Woman s Board found one year to her surprise that three-fifths of its income for that year had come in sums of less A Conserving Force 21 than ten dollars as an annual contribution. Women long ago learned that ten dimes make a dollar : and that twenty-five women giving a dollar each invest their gift with a power far ex ceeding the twenty-five dollar gift of one woman. Emerson is credited with saying, " An engine of forty-cat power running all the time will accom plish more than one of ten-horse power running only occasionally." " Many women all the time at it " has been the secret of the marvellous growth of their Home Missionary organizations. Yet let it not be forgotten that in these days of prosperity, dollars should, and easily could, be substituted for dimes. The need which first appealed to Home Mis sion women was that of helping the feeble churches in their own vicinity and in a gradually enlarging area. Then they undertook to supply the support of gospel ministration in destitute communities, to open Sunday-schools, and to furnish religious reading matter. These seemed the sensible and proper things for women to do, under the guidance and through the ad ministration of their funds by the Ministerial Associations. The growth of the explored and known territory ; the frequent " moving West " of some neighbour; the development of the great Northwest ; these all constituted a potent appeal to the interest and sympathies of the Christian women " back East." Churches must 22 Conservation of National Ideals be built, Sunday-schools maintained, schools started throughout that vast and needy territory. It was a strategic time in the history of the nation. God s people felt the pressure of the imperative demand to make and to keep it God s country. Up to the period of the Civil War, Home Missionary women concerned themselves chiefly with these pressing and wide-spread needs. But with the close of the war came the realization of a new demand; the need of the Americar Negro, which in its magnitude and immediate urgency seemed at first almost appalling. How could seven millions of people be lifted out o: ignorance, poverty, semi-heathenism into thrift, intelligence, Christian citizenship ; from " dark- ness to light," the marvellous light of the Gospel of His dear Son ? But when did Christian women ever falter before the greatness of the difficulty of a task which they believed to be God-imposed ? Has it not always been a bugle call to stirring activity ? At the summons of the United States govern ment, and of the Home Mission Boards, the women at once assumed the care and develop ment of this great work, in conjunction with the various church boards. Schools were estab lished day and boarding, industrial, normal, and collegiate as the opportunity for usefulness in each line appeared. In the beginning of this work the teachers encountered hardships and A Conserving Force 23 opposition due to misunderstanding of their pur pose and position on the part of both black and white. But they held on their resolute way, and laid lasting foundations. A large work in teaching home-making was needed. Homes must be visited ; women must be trained to sew, to cook, to economize, to nurse and train their children, to become thrifty wives and housekeepers. Young people must be helped to understand that prosperity does not happen, but is the result of hard work, good sense, and righteousness. A teaching force among their own people must be developed, who could become the leaders of their own race ; not only educated, but sane, sweet-spirited and courageous leaders. The bitterness of the past must be helped to vanish before the hope for the future. All must be led to understand that free dom and citizenship means not license but liberty, not laziness but labour, not ignorance but intelligence, not unearned privilege but hard-earned power; and, above all, an ignorant, emotional, irresponsible, one-day-in-the-week re ligion must be changed into the sweet, practical, every-day righteousness of Christianity. No wonder there were many, there are some even to-day who said ; " Who is sufficient for this ? " The women said : " We are not, but God is," and entered upon the task in full assurance of faith, a faith which results have fully justified. 24 Conservation of National Ideals Churches have been built, great schools are maintained : girls are trained to self-support : homes are uplifted : and Jesus Christ is becoming the actual Saviour of eleven millions of souls To a group of negro school children Genera) Howard said : " What message shall I take North?" "Tell em we re a-risin ," was the reply. Quaintly was the present condition stated by one of their own educators : " We ain t what we oughter be: we ain t what we re goin to- be : but we ain t what we was ! " Home Mission women have had a large share in these results. About this time another work claimed atten tion. Mormonism had sprung up, grown, and entrenched itself within the nation so quickly and so insidiously that it was full-grown before its existence was recognized. While antagonistic to the government of the United States, to the Home Missionary women its chief menace lay in its degradation of the home, and its blasphemous falsification of the teachings of Christ. Not to attack such an enemy would be to esteem the sanctity of their own married lives a thing of little value, and to be disloyal to their own Christ. The church rallied to the crisis ; but to the dismay of the workers it was found that no wel come awaited them. Men and women, adher- A Conserving Force 25 ents of the Mormon church, were staunch in that adherence ; women especially so with that fanaticism whereof martyrs are made. But if the adults could not easily be reached, then siege must be laid to the minds and consciences of the children and young people. It had to be done very tactfully, and very unweariedly ; it was, in deed, a siege. The church asked for teachers : the Home Mission women sent them : the schools were opened ; but where were the pupils ? The teacher must live : she sometimes found that no one would sell her food and drink. She lived alone, stones rattled against her windows ; rifle shots in close proximity made her draw the bed ding up over her ears, and shiver with anxiety through the long night. She might have ap pealed for protection ; but that would have been to show the white feather and thereby destroy all future access to the people. She kept on her lonely way, determined to win. Consecrated pluck generally wins. Hers did. One day a child looked shyly through the open door into the room where sat the teacher, who smiled and sang and laughed and beckoned : who angled for that one small child as warily and as long as does the sportsman who plays his re luctant salmon for many a long hour. The sportsman thinks it great fun ; perhaps the teacher did, too ; for each child won meant that others would follow. 26 Conservation of National Ideals But it was a long, hard pull. The time came, though, when strong young men and gracious young women were won for Christ and His serv ice. Their gratitude for the reclamation of their lives from error was profound and enduring. Schools have multiplied, with daily Bible instruc tion in each. Academies and colleges are rising; in response to demand. Nor were the Home Missionary women concerned with the far end of the work only. By diligent and effective work in Washington they helped to procure the dis crediting and unseating of a Mormon congress man, and his return to his constituency without: honour or profit. The Highlanders of the South, of sturdy Scotch-Irish descent, hidden away among their mountain ranges, were left unnoted for years, until a prominent American writer began to lo cate her stories among their homes, and scenery- loving tourists discovered their ignorance and poverty. The Home Mission teacher soon saw their worth of character and keen intellects if only opportunity for education were afforded, and saw, too, in spite of surface evil, an inbred receptivity for spiritual truth. The young men and women, hungry for an education, proved of sturdy stuff, willing to endure hardships and to put forth every possible effort of their own to gain the coveted opportunity. Generous and worthy results have followed the work done in A Conserving Force 27 these schools tucked away in mountain and valley. Following the trail of need and opportunity the Home Mission woman looked from the south land to the far distant north, and her vision rested on the fur-clad Alaskan in his snowy home. At a distance he might be a picturesque object : but at close range grease and filth and seeming stolidity rendered him extremely unat tractive. But the heart of woman has always yearned over the needy ; and a woman said, " There is a soul under this repulsive exterior. Let us find it and win it for Christ." The American trader had carried into the land liquor and vice and crime, teaching the Alaskan only evil. The American Home Mission woman carried in the schoolhouse, the hospital, the gospel of cleanliness, purity, knowledge, sobriety, honesty, salvation. The Alaskan was wise enough to understand which brought the better gift, and to respond to the endeavour for his betterment and education. Slowly, it is true ; but the kingdom of heaven has never moved forward anywhere with rapidity. The real making of a nation, of a community, of a soul, takes time. God makes haste slowly ; but His work never needs to be undone. Meanwhile, and with ever increasing volume, flowed into this land of liberty and promise the tide of those who came because of their poverty, 28 Conservation of National Ideals their oppression, their ignorance ; those to whom, in some vague and undefined way, America stood for the land of milk and honey for every one. As the Home Mission woman stood at the gate way of the nation and watched them pouring through that portal, thousands daily as she noted their poverty, their confusion, their igno rance of American speech and American ways, their pathetic faith in America as the panacea for all ills perhaps for the first time she was " frighted " of the task to be accomplished ; and just at first she called this great and mighty com pany a menace. Some have called them a problem : but are not problems given us to be solved ? So, instead of a menace, the Home Mission women began to think of them as a national asset of great and undeveloped value, brought here under the guid ing Providence of our God that we might make come true for them and for their children the promise of knowledge and prosperity ; only it must be of that divine kind which deals in values, not of dollars and cents, but of character and growth and service. No longer afraid of the vastness and complex ity of this problem, the women have planned and prayed and worked in school, chapel, home, by reading-rooms, mothers meetings, protection and loan societies, shelters and lodging-houses, and in the numberless ways which a woman s heart A Conserving Force 29 and brain could devise. Perhaps one of the most effective and most welcome has been the presence at ports of entry of women who can speak the various languages, thus giving to the frightened foreigner in his own beloved tongue a greeting to this strange land. Nor is it a greet ing only ; it is also guidance through the per plexities of official examination and the details of entrance into the arms of waiting friends or to proper railway stations ; and it is comfort and explanation to those who are refused admittance, and must return to that home-land which has nothing to offer to such returning children. Is there any limit to the extent and variety of ministration which may be comprehended within the scope of Home Missions ! We now number over one hundred millions of people. We are told our country can easily provide a comfortable home for two hundred and fifty millions. Looked at from the standpoint of human strength and ability, it presents almost a heart-breaking aspect; so much of sin, so much of suffering, greed, self ishness, oppression, all apparently increasing at a tremendous rate. Can humanity ever overtake the need, and begin to diminish it ? No, and Chris tian humanity does not expect to. But God can : and His servants see in all this struggling, suffer ing, sinning mass of their fellows a great com pany of those to whom they can minister in His name and by His power with the certainty that 30 Conservation of National Ideals in due time the problem shall be solved. Mean while we are concerned only that every American Christian woman shall recognize and embrace her opportunity for service. No enterprise springs immediately into fur maturity and power. Every woman, waiting for the pot to boil the kitchen is a wonderful lab oratory of spiritual truth knows that the in creasing heat manifests itself in a bubble at a time, one here, one there, till by and by there are so many that they all run together into one big bubble and the pot boils. There were single local societies engaged in various forms of Home Mission work long before the larger and more formal organizations took place. Home Mission societies were formed in Connecticut in 1778; in Massachusetts in 1779; in New Hampshire in 1804 ; in Maine and Ver mont in 1807. Some most interesting facts are gleaned from the Centennial Report, in 1904, of the " New Hampshire Female Cent Institution and Home Mission Union." These facts are doubtless similar to those in the history of other societies of those days ; they are both delight ful and stimulating. The society s rather cum bersome title has in the course of years been abbreviated to " The Cent Union," retaining the flavour of the old and the enterprise of the new. It was formed when stage-coaches were few, railroads not dreamed of, letter postage A Conserving Force 31 was from ten to sixty cents according to the distance the letter was carried, with post-offices in but thirty-five of the two hundred and thir teen towns in New Hampshire. The great West was practically unknown. The women of Massachusetts spoke of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont as " the remote parts of our country," while the New Hampshire women, bravely caring for their own, undertook also to minister to " the uttermost parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio." The brethren of the State Home Mission Society spoke of " their female friends in Zion," and commended their work in the quaint phra seology of the day : " Though in such a sacred enterprise we would not make an appeal to vanity, yet for the encouragement of our female friends we would say that in no state of our country has there probably been so much con tributed by females for the propagation of the Gospel, according to their numbers and their means, as by the females of New Hampshire/ During a hundred years of service they had but four treasurers. How incredible in these days of elaborate organization seems the statement that for eighty-four years this treasurer was their only officer. In the first year the offering was five dollars. The total for the hundred years was nearly two hundred thousand dollars. In the report for 1818 is found the record of 32 Conservation of National Ideals Lavinia Kelly, " one cent a week from her birth, sixteen cents." Lavinia is certainly the pioneer member of the Cradle Roll. We also find tlvi record of one member who lived to the age of ;i hundred and two years and six months, who " could not remember when she was not a mem ber of the Cent Society." When in 1823 a legacy of a hundred dollars was received, its record is followed by this significant note : " Other affluent females, it is hoped, will imitate this worthy example." What did they find to do ? Formed to assi< t the overburdened and discouraged ministers in their work among the destitute communities, they supplied the funds for the support of minis ters, established reading circles, procured, ac cording to the report of 1814, "three hundred Bibles, one hundred and twenty Watts and Se lect hymn-books, thirty-one Scott s Essays, forty- five Scott s Force of Truth, one thousand relig ious tracts, for distribution in new settlements." Be sure whatever they did was well done. The first denomination to form a National Woman s Board of Missions was the Christian, whose organization occurred in 1874. Its object was threefold : missionary education and inspira tion, missionary giving, and world-wide mis sionary work. It is a large and influential Board whose gifts for the thirty-five years of its existence have aggregated more than two and a A Conserving Force 33 quarter millions of dollars. It has a finely equipped Missionary Training-School, housed in a beautiful building, and preparing its workers for service. Its state organization is well de veloped, having field workers in nearly every state, with a membership of over seventy-five thousand women. It carries on a large evangel istic work in thirty-five states ; supports a Bible chair in four large universities and one large Nor mal School ; maintains mountain schools in the South ; many schools for the Negro, and missions for the Chinese and Japanese in California, which include both educational and hospital work. All of this work is in a healthy and prosperous condition and its rapidly growing demands are met by splendid increase in gifts and interest from the constituency. A definite, practical plan for a large advance along the lines of work has been matured, and is being laid before all its auxiliaries. Next into the field came the powerful Woman s Baptist Home Missionary Society, organized in the Central West in 1877, quickly followed in the same year by the organization of the Wom an s American Baptist Home Mission Society, with headquarters in Boston : the two societies working side by side in entire harmony, the province and territory of each society being clearly defined. The time came when in the judgment of all a consolidation seemed wise, and 34 Conservation of National Ideals in 1909 this union was effected under the title of the Eastern Society, with headquarters in Chi cago. This Board had its nucleus in the Woman s Baptist Home Missionary Society of Michigan, organized in 1873, one of the earliest of such state organizations, and was in response to the pathetic appeal of one of its veteran worker* who had wrought alone and unrecognized for many years ; " I have looked and looked for help until my eyes are dim, and called until my voice is weary." The response has been generous and fruitful, although, as one says, " It is difficult to keep within seeing distance of the needs." That an adequate and trained force of workers may be made ready for the work s large de mands, this society early established its own Missionary Training-School. The Board main tains evangelistic and educational work among the Negroes, the immigrant classes, Indians, Chinese and Japanese, the mountaineers, the Alaskans, the Mexicans, the Cubans, and Porto Ricans. A specially unique work has been that of the Fireside School, begun and developed by Miss Joanna P. Moore, among the Negroes. By this, parents are pledged to daily Bible reading and prayer with their children, studying the simple lessons outlined for them by Miss Moore in her little paper, Hope. Presbyterian women found organization for A Conserving Force 35 Home Mission work a foreordained matter, and were not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. Imperative calls from missionaries at work among the Indians, Mexicans, and Mormons, for women to help the women and children among those peoples led to a speedy response. The crying need was for the support of mission teachers to teach and train the children, and through them to enter the homes and hearts of the parents. This educational work the General Board of Home Missions, according to the pro visions of its charter, could not undertake. The formal organization of the women was effected in 1878, national in its constituency and territory of work, with two important functions : to inform and direct the benevolences of its auxiliary so cieties, and to initiate and conduct all the educa tional Home Mission work of the church ; to which has later been added distinctively evangel istic work. The work has developed in its scope until it now includes educational and evangelistic work among Mormons, Mexicans, Indians, moun taineers, foreigners and immigrants in the min ing camps, lumber regions, and city districts, Negroes, Alaskans, Cubans and Porto Ricans. The permanent results of these years of service may be summed up by saying that it has pre pared the way for the organization of one hun dred and ten churches, that it has built over two 36 Conservation of National Ideals hundred chapels and schoolhouses : that it has provided a Christian education for an unnum bered host of young people whose gratitude is finding expression to-day through a large service of loyalty and efficiency in aid of their own people. This finds a striking illustration in the maintenance of schools among the Indians and the Mexicans in which young men are trained for elders and evangelists. Over nine millions of dollars have passed through the hands of this board since its inception. 1 The ever-flowing tide of Lutheran immigrants to America has given to the Lutheran Church ,i responsibility in Home Mission work peculiar to itself, and placed it under obligation to furnisli preachers and churches for those of its own household of faith. In this the women of the church have borne a generous and eager part, working in a number of organizations. One of 1 The Woman s Board of Home Missions of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized at Evansville, Indiana, in 1880, with Mrs. R. B. Ruston as president. It was organized jointly for Home and Foreign missionary work, had auxiliary so cieties wherever there were Cumberland Presbyterian churches, and for twenty-seven years was a great power for righteousness. At the time of the union of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which was consummated at the General Assembly at Columbus, Ohio, in 1907, the support of the Home Mission schools of this Board was assumed by the Woman s Board of Home Missions. This happy union has greatly strengthened all lines of church work. A Conserving Force 37 these, the Woman s Missionary Society of the General Synod of the Lutheran Church, started in 1879 with an appropriation for a travelling missionary for Nebraska. Its missions are now scattered from coast to coast, and include port work among immigrants, and an Italian mission in New York City, the bulk of its work being the support of missionary pastors, and the build ing of churches and manses. The Swedish Augustana Society, belonging to the General Council, has women s missionary organizations from New England to Oregon, to care for the Swedish girls who are becoming Anglicized and Americanized. Homes for young women in Chicago and Minneapolis and deacon ess mother-houses in Omaha and St. Paul render invaluable aid in this work. The Norwegians and Danes have similar in stitutions in Brooklyn and Chicago. Their deaconesses meet the immigrants on their arrival and greet them with a welcoming word. The women s societies in the Lutheran General Coun cil were the first Protestants to send a woman missionary to Porto Rico after its American oc cupation, and they have been doing educational work in the island ever since. The women of the United Synod South are doing Home Mission work in all the states in that section of the country. The providential call to the women of Meth odism to work for the elevation of home in the 38 Conservation of National Ideals home-land came first from the ignorant and neglected classes in the Southern states. Emer son has said: "Civilization is simply the in fluence of good women." How much more the making of a Christian nation ! The story of the preliminary work is a fascinating one ; a few de termined women snatched victory from defeat at the last moment, and brought about the organi zation of the Woman s Home Missionary So ciety of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the year 1880. These elect women had prophetic vision, eloquence, optimism, unbounded enthu siasm, and sublime faith that overcame wha: seemed insurmountable difficulties. While the work at first was mainly for the Negro, they soon saw the needs in the Mormon field, and hastened to meet them. Then came industrial homes and schools for the Indians, Alaskans, Mexicans, mountaineers, the Asiatic people in the United States and the numerous Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands. To all this was added local work and city missions, out of which grew the splendid development of the deaconess work with its training-schools. Following the flag, work in Porto Rico was added to their already long list of activities, and immigrant work in port cities and foreign centres. Next in date of organization, 1882, and in length of service, comes the Women s Board of Domestic Missions of the Reformed Church in A Conserving Force 39 America. Its first work was that which would especially appeal to the hearts of women. The General Board was building churches and paying its missionary pastors such salaries as its treasury would permit. Women, trained to consider the minor details of household economy, wondered how a minister with a family of six and a salary of six hundred dollars could afford to pay rent. " Like an inspiration," says the record, " our work flashed upon us and we said, We will build parsonages for our missionary pastors and their families. Our first appropriations were for two parsonages in South Dakota ; our next for repairing a chapel in New York. The work on church and parsonage thus linked together at the very beginning has ever since been inseparable." To this lovely and loving ministry were added supplies for the needs of missionary families. Then followed a hearty response to the needs of the Indians, the Aliens, the Mountain Americans and the support of student missionary work and missionary pastors. An unusual feature of the work is the Paper Mission which acts as an in termediary for good literature between the mis sionaries and its constituency, having for its motto, " We must do little things as if they were great things, because of the majesty of Christ who does them through us ; and great things as if they were little things because of His almighty power ! " 40 Conservation of National Ideals In 1886 the women of the Methodist Episco pal Church South were called to specific work in the home field because of the need of homes for their preachers in new and undeveloped sections of our country. Woman s fidelity and construct ive ability were being recognized and valued, yet few had any conception of the possibilities of such an organization as they were creating. The opening of educational centres which enrich the personality of a foreign element and cf neglected classes, the social touch with aliens through friendly clubs, the redemption of the cities by the gentle ministry of cultured, trained women who, like their Lord, go about doin^ good to the body, was foreign to the idea of Home Missions, or salvation, a quarter of a century ago. Nothing short of the persistence of the clear vision, of the willingness on the part of women to be laughed at for attempting such work, could ever have prepared the church to do the work of social reconstruction which is rec ognized as a part of her ministry to-day. But the women had the vision and the courage. Their present large and ably handled work demonstrates the wisdom of their convictions. This work is carried forward among the Negroes, the mountaineers, the Japanese and Koreans on the coast, and the Cubans. There are Gospel Settlements in more than twenty of the larger cities and mill towns, with dispensaries, day A Conserving Force 41 nurseries, night-schools, clubs, pure milk stations, housekeeping and cooking classes, etc. Not only is a large force of trained teachers em ployed, but there are many trained city mission aries and deaconesses. When this Board has realized its optimistic aim for an increased mem bership and enlarged revenue, commensurate with the clearness of its vision as to responsibility, still greater things may be expected under its efficient leadership. The year 1886 was rich in another organiza tion, that of the Women s General Missionary Society of the United Presbyterian Church of North America. As with another Board, " Parsonage Work " constituted the first press ing appeal, and it still forms a large part of the activities of this Board, the women now having entire charge of this department of the work of the General Board. They have helped in the building of a hundred and twenty-five parson ages during their years of service. Think how many grateful wives and mothers this work must have made ! Then the evangelistic work among the Indian tribes in Oregon and Iowa, all the Indian work of the church, was committed to their hands. Evidently they proved depend able workmen, for soon was added the educa tional work among the mountaineers, the aliens and the dependent city classes. Surely these women are verifying the words of their own 42 Conservation of National Ideals beloved Psalmist : " The women who publish the tidings are a great host." The Woman s Home Missionary Federation of the Congregational church came into being in 1905. Those first " Female Cent Unions " in the New England states, some of them over a hundred years old, were the foundation stones of this solid structure. Then came tha superstructure of the state organizations in thirty-two of the strongest states. It is not strange that the cap-stone is imposing in appear ance and value. Its Home Mission work is under the jurisdiction of five national societies, in each of which the women sustain a definite part by the establishment and maintenance of Sunday-schools, the building of parsonages, the conduct of educational and evangelistic work among the exceptional and defective classes of our country. It also does city mission work, and is training its workers in a new Missionary Training School. All these various Boards publish their own missionary magazines, besides great quantities of informational and inspirational literature. They all make much of work by the young people of the church, using varying methods to obtain their interest and adherence. In the story of this large work of organization and development certain names spring into prominence, and beloved personalities come to tf] A Conserving Force 43 mind. Would that there were space in which to mention every one and to recount the history of her gracious, capable, self-giving effort. Noth ing could be more inspiring to American women, or more grateful to the historian. Did ever the unsought reward of such service come in larger measure, or in sweeter manner, than in the de votion with which every such consecrated leader has been surrounded by her loyal constituency ! Every woman who reads these pages will in stantly think of some such splendid character to whom her heart still clings in almost adoring appreciation. Their faces rise before us ; we hear the tones of their voices ; we feel the touch of their strong, capable, cordial hands. To name one, or a score even, would be to provoke at once the question: "Why not another?" Having fought a good fight and kept the faith, they have entered into " the rest that remaineth " ; which, after all, is but another form of a better service, since all " His servants shall serve Him." The growth of the spirit of comity, fraternity and unity is one of the blessed " signs of the times " and of the nearer approach of the king dom. This spirit led to the formation of Inter denominational Committees for Home Mission Study and Home Mission Conferences and, later, to the organization of the Council of Women for Home Missions with which the Summer Confer ences are now affiliated. 44 Conservation of National Ideals The initial steps for the formation of the Council were taken at the first Conference of the Interdenominational Committee of Women for Home Mission Conferences for the East at Lake George, New York, in July, 1907, when a Com mittee was appointed to prepare a possible plan of union between that Committee and the Inter denominational Committee on Home Mission Study Course. This Committee reported the following year at Northfield, recommending that an overture be presented to the constituent Boards and Societies represented in these two Commit tees, asking for the appointment of seven mem bers from each Board to organize a Council to carry on all lines of Interdenominational Woman s Home Mission work. These repre sentatives met in New York, November 20, 1908, and organized the Council of Women for Home Missions. The number of representatives from each Board or Society was fixed at nine for the present. The purpose of the Council is to integrate the work of all Home Mission Summer Schools or Conferences, to provide interdenominational text books for Home Mission Study Classes, to pro vide literature for interdenominational use, to arrange a service for an interdenominational Day of Prayer, to care for Home Mission interests among children and in schools and colleges, and, in general, to promote interde- A Conserving Force 45 nominational fellowship and cooperation among Women s Boards and Societies. In the special lines of work in charge of its standing com mittees, and in its relation to other interde nominational bodies and united action in public movements or national problems, this Council is peculiarly needed, and will more and more justify its value. It is believed that it will prove to be a valuable factor in broadening the outlook of Home Mission women, and in making more effective their efforts to extend the Gospel of the kingdom in the home-land. God has given to this nation the leadership of the world. Christian women of America, dare you be indifferent to your duty and your privi lege ? " If this generation is faithful to its trust, America is to become God s right arm in His battle with the world s ignorance and oppression and sin." II WHAT TO DO FOR THE IMMIGRANT Prof. Edward A. Steiner Author of Against the Current," On the Trail of the Immigrant," " The Immigrant Tide," etc. " / have seen wretched Italian children who came from where they make little fairies out of Carrara marble, yet they were crooked without and within / and I have seen them grow tall and beautiful and pure by the grace of God and the passion of som,> noble woman [in this America of ours ]" " Finally, what we teach the immigrant by pre cept or example, he will become. He will bequeath our virtues or our vices, not only to the next genera tion which will spring with virgin strength from h:s loins ; but through thousands of invisible channels he will send these blessings or curses to the ends ef the earth. " The issues of the kingdom of God in this genera tion are with America" STEINER. II WHAT TO DO FOR THE IMMIGRANT EVEN the casual observer of social phe nomena is struck by the prevailing un rest, which is not confined to any coun try, but seems to have affected the whole human race. It manifests itself in the wonderful growth of Social Democracy, through which the disaf fected try to escape their present unsatisfactory condition, or by emigration to less densely popu lated countries. The first movement is restricted to the more educated classes, among the more advanced races ; while the latter has taken hold of the lower classes the world over, even where over crowding is not a contributing cause. This migratory movement is directed almost entirely towards the United States, Canada, and two or three of the larger and more prosperous republics of South America. While there are many influences which have acted as disquieting leaven among the masses, one of its chief causes may be said to be the dis covery of America by Columbus and its redis covery by his latter day countrymen. 49 50 Conservation of National Ideals Prior to the discovery of this continent, both wealth and station in life were regarded as privi leges of certain classes; while poverty and servi tude were accepted as the perpetual burden of the many. When men returned from across the seas with wealth which this open continent yielded to any one who dared, when the poo * man by means of his gold lifted himself abovt; his fellows, the revolutionary virus was intro duced. As the result, for two centuries, village: and peasant have felt its stirring effects, while this continent has received the humble of all nations, who have here sought the way out of hopeles s poverty and servitude. In the discovery of America, humanity discov ered, or at least rediscovered itself; for here it saw that a child born in a log cabin might live and die in the White House, and that wood- choppers and mule drivers were not debarred by their menial tasks from ultimately occupying the highest offices of the state. When one of these millions of humans re turned to his home country, with its barriers of caste and class, the story that he told of democ racy in action became another potent factor in the modern unrest. What do these people seek, who come to us ? If their desires can be classified, they group themselves around two imperative demands : I. The men that come to us ask that, in ex- What to Do for the Immigrant 51 change for energy expended, they may receive a wage which, after satisfying their legitimate needs, should leave them a margin sufficient to satisfy their social desires. This demand, translated into one of the mir acles of the Master, means that these men ought to have plenty of bread to eat and enough frag ments left over to be worth picking up ; for while in the bread is the living, in the fragments is the life. It means that they ought to have a living wage and a little above it a room to sleep in and one or two for the gratification of the family pride ; clothing to cover their bodies and a Sun day suit in which to feel clean ; plenty of fresh air and a playground for the children ; good pub lic schools and a chance to go to college. To them America means economic fragments and their demands mean no more than economic justice. This economic demand is not always ours to grant, but it is the duty of every Christian citizen to labour for it. 2. They come here that they may have an opportunity to develop those latent powers which have been dormant because they never had the time or the money to develop them. While it is true that the vast majority of immi grants ask for no more than an opportunity to labour for a decent wage, it is equally true that in nearly every normal human being there is $2 Conservation of National Ideals another and higher demand which expresses itself in various ways, but which may be stated thus: The awakened human being has a natural de sire to earn the respect of his fellow men, regard less of the race or class to which he belongs. This means that the immigrant, whatever h s nationality or class, does not want to be called " Dago " or " Sheeny " ; and does not want to be judged by the worst characteristics of the lowest type of his group. He does not want to be met by prejudice and suspicion ; he wants the chance to prove himself worthy of the respect of h s neighbours, by what " manner of man " he him self is. If he is to be judged, we must judge him by the witness of history and not by the prejudiced testimony of those who either do not know him at all, or who know him under abnormal con ditions. The first duty which we owe to the im migrant and to ourselves is to know him. Not every one can travel in the byways of Europe and see the immigrant under normal conditions, but all those who have so seen him, and whose testimony is at all unprejudiced, have discovered his value. No one can see these patient toilers in their home villages, their almost hopeless struggle against adverse conditions, without realizing that we do not get the " offscouring of Europe," that What to Do for the Immigrant 53 they are not the material from which paupers are made and that they will undoubtedly become honest neighbours, loyal citizens and brave de fenders of their adopted country. While not all of us can know the immigrant as he is under normal conditions, and by per sonal contact, the literature that deals with him, on his native soil, is rich and varied and much of it is reliable. It is best to read, first, such books as deal with the history of the race concerned, and then those which describe the life of the people ; but one must beware of those interesting books written by tourists who pass into a country and out of it in less than a calendar month. From such a study one ought to carry the pivotal names of the different nationalities, those great personalities which express the yearning of the people and are names to be conjured with now, although centuries have gone since they passed away. For instance ; from the story of the struggle for a United Italy, one ought to carry away, and that as no small treasure, the name of Mazzini, the Christian, philosopher, statesman ; of Cavour, the politician and states man ; and of Garibaldi, the patriot soldier. A study of Hungarian history would strengthen one s faith in the ideals and currents of history through the knowledge of such personalities as Tzecheny and Kossuth ; while even such small 54 Conservation of National Ideals nations as Albania and Montenegro have a Scanderberg or a Czar Duchan to be discovered, great souls whose spirit lives in those wild moun tain regions to-day. The study of the life ard the customs of any of our immigrant groups is full of charm and one will invariably find beneath many surface differences, the underlying human qualities which prove that we are all children of one Father. The books dealing with this problem can be divided into three classes, i. Those which a/e outspokenly antagonistic and consequently pessi mistic. They blame the immigrant for near y all of our social ills. 2. Those which are superficially optimistic, see no peril ahead, and predict as the result of this influx of peoples a new race, virile and strong. The third class of books is without prejudice, pointing out the good and ill of all these new peoples and passing fair judgment upon their race qualities. It is worth while to read one or more books of each class and then draw one s own conclusions. Whatever one s opinion about the desirability of admitting this or that particular class of immi grants, the fact remains that they are here at our doors, and the danger is that because they are so near to us we shall feel them farthest away. For in love of the individual or humanity What to Do for the Immigrant 55 it is true, superficially at least, that " distance lends enchantment." Sociology is the science of the open eye. No microscope, no crucible, is required. In the laboratory, the component elements are at work all that is needed is the open eye. It is not a pleasant picture. There are rows of tenements, saloons, mean-looking stores, ill-kept children ; and yet to the sympathetic observer, the picture is not only unrepellent, but marvellously inter esting. Usually the immigrants are found in large groups, gathering around the church or synagogue ; although often held together by some shrewd leader, a countryman who braved the seas before them, learned our ways and is now showing the newcomers how to walk therein. We see them thus en masse, possessing certain race characteristics in common, but when sepa rated they are like all of us, the possessors of in dividual features which differentiate them one from the other ; with their own evil and good to bless or curse them, and with their own souls striving often blindly after God. Race characteristics that are physical are, of course, due to inheritance from common ances tors and are held in a certain mould by environ ment. The climate, the character of the soil and the food, create a type, and national and relig ious ideals fix it upon face and form. Racial habits, such as mark the gesticulation of the 56 Conservation of National Ideals Italian, the peculiar shrug of the Jew, as well as their degrees of cleanliness and morality, are im itative. Both race characteristics and race habits are under the control of environment and in this fact lies the Christian s duty and the Christian s hope. The millions who have come to us with their peculiar race characteristics and habits are daily undergoing some change. The very air they breathe, with its excess of ozone, the food they eat, enough and to spare, the freedom of move ment, never accorded under autocratic govern ments, tend to create violent changes which one may observe every day a vision more wonder ful than that of the immutable stars. The Slav, attached to our highly geared ma chinery, loses his sluggish ways and becomes, like us, nervous and enterprising. The undersized, spare, dynamic Italian tends to become calm in our atmosphere, in which, in order to survive, one must husband one s nerv ous force. The Jew in the freedom of environment straightens his crooked body, rests his furtive eyes and loses his physical fear all inheritances of age-long oppressions. Many anthropological dogmas have received their death-blow by our experiences with the immigrant ; notably, the theory of the fixed head form. It has been held that, while all racial What to Do for the Immigrant 57 characteristics are liable to change under the force of geographical control, the head form of a race remained fixed at least, that it took ages to make any impression upon it. The anthro pological section of the Committee on Immigra tion, appointed by President Roosevelt, reports that in one generation the head forms of these newcomers change. If, then, this bony structure, which has resisted change in the old world, changes so quickly in the new, may it not be that the whole inner life of these strangers shall be reorganized and that we may help create here out of this flux, new material, a new race, not only the equal of the older race, but its superior ? In the light of these facts, it is primarily our duty to see to it that the environment under which these newcomers live and labour shall be such as to have full control over their bodies and minds. It means a battle for good air, a fight with the viciously crowded tenement. It means war against unsanitary conditions of labour, against long wearying hours in the shops and factories and protection for women and children. The new American race, being shaped before our very eyes, will be in the next generation what we help to make it, outwardly and in wardly, and the conditions under which the masses live will largely contribute towards the inward changes. 58 Conservation of National Ideals I have said that it is our duty to learn to know the immigrant; that is, we must learn to separate the individual from the mass. We must learn to know the souls of men before we can do th^ work which is presented to us by this great op portunity. To the great work in foreign lands we give our choicest men and women. We give them time to prepare through long years of college and the professional school, then time and money for laborious study of the language, and finally time and money to live the Christian life as leaven in the midst of the people. The best young men and women are none too good for work among the immigrants. If en vironment is so vital a factor in shaping the phys ical life of men, the personal element must play a great part in working the inner changes. The Christian is a witness, a type, a model; and it is our business to project into the life of the immi grants the best and most unselfish types which our Christian civilization has produced. The average native worker among the immigrants is hampered by his limited knowledge of our cul ture and civilization, and by the prejudices of his countrymen against one who has changed his religion, who is exalted above them and paid a salary to convert them. The most successful work done among the immigrants has always been done by Americans, who were best What to Do for the Immigrant 59 equipped for the task, even if they knew little or nothing of the language of the people, if they could minister to them through a fine personality and out of a rich inner life. The results of such work have been remark able considering the equipment. There are now in Protestant churches in the United States more Italians, Slavs and Jews than at any other time in our history. But we have only touched the surface. With the violent prejudices which exist among the immigrants, forms of worship and of Christian activities must be modified and ad justed to the needs of the people. The study of English, the teaching of cooking and sewing, showing pictures, and the reading of good litera ture, may have to be used as aids in working for the inner changes while the gathering of results and making columns of religious statistics may have to be deferred. The leaflets for the study of English, published by the national secretaries of the Young Women s Christian Association, which are frankly religious, are to my mind much more effective than those which deal only with material things. They would, however, destroy their high usefulness if the controversial element were permitted to enter. The New Testament is a splendid primer for the study of English, but in the case of Jewish classes the Psalms can be used and the same 60 Conservation of National Ideals ends may be achieved. It is a mistake to sup pose that the religious motive needs to be hidden ; the contrary is the case. The more frankly, openly and truly religious the atmosphere of the mission or the settlement, the better. What needs to be totally excluded is the proselyting element. The church needs to revise her whole Hom<i Missionary program. She needs to inspire her best sons and daughters to yield their whole live. 1 ; to this great and overwhelming task. She mus: call her noblest disciples to her aid. Whether the worker is an immigrant or native born, he needs long, careful training ; for only those should go to break the bread of life whose bodies arc broken to the task and whose blood rushes warm to the sacrificial endeavour. Those who go to do this work must be physic ally, mentally and spiritually fit representatives of the children of the kingdom ; they must know the mighty enginery of the Word of God and be able to use it; they must know the genius and the weaknesses of the people to whom they go to minister in Christ s name, and be endowed with the gift of tongues. A few words in a foreign language, spoken in love, are more elo quent than a whole dictionary in one s head and a stone in one s heart. One noble woman in Pennsylvania, who minis ters to immigrants, a woman of wealth and eul- What to Do for the Immigrant 61 ture, knows only two words of the Slavic tongue. They mean, " It hurts," and " Good," or, " Does it hurt ? It will become good." Simple words ; but with a loving look, a gentle touch, they are a big, big sermon. The bulk of the problem is at the door of the church. There are two ways of meeting it. Either close the doors and substitute picture shows and dance halls or else meet it as the Presbyterian church is doing, through its re cently organized Labour Temple in New York City. The church organization on Fourteenth Street, engulfed by a million-headed throng of Jews, found it wise to move from its down-town location to an up-town neighbourhood. The Home Missionary Board of the Presby terian church, through its Labour Bureau, having faith in the power of the Gospel and in the head of the Labour Bureau, the Rev. Charles Stelzle, moved in as the church moved out, and within a few months, the abandoned quarter in Fourteenth Street became a throbbing hive of Christian activity. Its Labour Temple Bulletin is a church calendar showing that nearly every evening hour of every day is occupied. It is impossible to convey the spirit of rev erence and gratitude in those who come and go, or to name the centres of influence which are created in that most congested region of one city, or to fully appreciate the spirit of devotion 62 Conservation of National Ideals in those who cooperate with Mr. Stelzle to ma ce this work a success. There are many such centres in our great cities, but not too many ; there are enough, however, to prove that it is a sin to abandon a church when and where it is most needed and move it to a region where, while it can receive, it can give but little, and that only to a select few. Of course, the work of the Labour Temple ar d kindred organizations must have the whole church behind it; but in smaller ways individual churches, while maintaining their corporate exist ence, can learn to minister to their new neigh bours. I know of no instance where individual work has been undertaken in the true spirit with out being a success ; while our church life is being enriched by the fresh new spirit of those who come into the kingdom through much tribu lation. It is true that self-sacrificing gifts are needed to make the work among the immigrants possi ble, but what is needed still more is a new atti tude of mind a change of heart on the part of Christian people ; their prejudices and their pride are the great barriers between it and the accom plishment of the greatest opportunity ever offered to the church of God. I. It is essential that every vestige of prejudice arising from a contemplation of the problem itself be removed. Overzealous missionaries JC(ABOR 1ULLETIN A WEEKLY NEWS-LETTER IN THE INTER. EST OFTHE LABOR TEMPLE. FOURTEENTH STREET AND SECOND AVENUE, NEW YORK Address all official communications to Charles Stelzle. 156 Fifth Avenue. New York SATURDAY, MARCH 11. 1911 SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS Week beginning March 12, 1911 Sunday, March 12th 8 OOP M LABOR TEMPLE BROTH ERHOOD 2:30 P.M. BIBLE CLASS Conducted 8 :00 P M REHEARSAL: Temple bv the Rev. H. P Vaughn Chorus 3 :30 P. M. SUNDAY SCHOOL 8:00 P.M. LECTURE "First A.d to 3:30 P.M. ORGAN RECITAL: G. the Injured." by Dr Thoma- Scott Hunter H. Russell 4:00 P. M MUStCAL RECITAL By the Kahn Trio 5:00 P.M. MOTION PICTURES Thursday, March 16th 6 -00 P M. Luncheon and Social Hour 7:30 P M. SONG SERVICE. Mr Hal- 4:30 P.M. BOY SCOUTS, Troop No 31 lam, Temple Orchestra and Chorus; Male. Quartette, Messrs. R. A. Coan, \V. Sel- lars, Alfred Hallam and Con- 8:00 P.M. CLASS IN SIGHT-SING ING. Under auspices of the People s Choral Union 8:00 P.M. ILLUSTRATED LEC stantine Zimin. 8:OOP.M. ADDRESS: "A Day s Work," bv the Rev. Charles Stel/le. TURE: "Rome: the Quick and the- Dead, a New View," by Mr. Arthur Stanley Riggs. 9:00 P.M. MOTION PICTURES. Friday, March 17th Monday, March I3th 4 :00 P. M. CHILDREN S GAME :OOP M. SOCIAL XIGHT. HOUR. 5:00 P.M. CHILDREN S SINGING CLUB. Tuesday, March 14th 7 :30 P. M. GIRL S DIVERSITY CLUB 8 :00 P.M. REHEARSAL: Temple Or 4:00 P.M. PENNY SAVINGS BANK. chestra. 4:00 P.M. BOY SCOUTS. 8:00 P.M. COOKING CLASS: Con 4:30 P.M. BOY SCOUTS, Troop No. ducted by the Associated 34. Clubs of Domestic Science , 8 :00 P. M. YOUNG WOMEN S CLUB. Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Minott 8 :00 P. M. DUNCAN ATHLETIC in charge. CLUB. 8:00 P.M. ADDRESS: "What I mean 8 -.00 P. M. "IMPERATORS." by Personal Religion," by 8:00 P.M. OPEN FORUM: "False Dr. John P. Peters. Weights and Measures," by Dr. Fritz Reichmann. Saturday, March 18th Wednesday, March 15th 4 -30 P.M. CHILDREN S HOUR FOR MOTION PICTURES. 4 -00 P.M. TEMPLE FRIENDLY 7:00 P.M. PENNY SAVINGS BANK. CLUB. 8:00 P:M. PEOPLE S POPULAR 8:00 P.M. LABOR TEMPLE SOCIAL PROGRAM: Music and Mo CLUB. tion Pictures. THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO ALL MEETINGS HELD AT THE LABOR TEMPLE What to Do for the Immigrant 63 have overstimulated our fears until we see in all these people a band of " Black Hands," a seeth ing mass of corruption and ignorance. In an address by an agent of a church organi zation, the immigrant was blamed for every one of our social problems except race suicide and divorce. Such a view is manifestly unfair and injurious to the work itself. Fear is never a good motive for Christian work. But it is much more natural to think of law courts, jails and penitentiaries, when we are gripped by the fear of the immigrant problem, than to think of the Gospel. I know every group of these aliens, as we sometimes call them, and I know them to be human, just plain human ; imperfect, sinful, per haps, with some vices and many virtues all of them with souls more or less touched by the grace of God. To the Christian this is no prob lem, but an opportunity. It will be a problem only if we do not grasp our opportunity. Our minds must be purged of fear. There is nothing so harmful to the good as an attitude of mind heavy from suspicion of ill. It is not true that all Southern Italians are " Black Hands," or all Russian Jews anarchists, or all Slavs vicious and quarrelsome. They are all rough human material, awaiting the touch of the divine grace to be changed, by slow processes through the eternities, into His likeness. 64 Conservation of National Ideals 2. We must believe that the environment created by the Gospel can shape all men into Christ s likeness, and consequently make them fit for social relationship. This is to me the ever new miracle performed by the Christ this shap ing of all human beings whom He touches into His likeness. Among Russian peasants, Italian quarrymen, Chinese coolies, He works His re deeming miracles, when He enters the human heart, when His spirit becomes the motive of life and action ; and whether a man is a Russian mujik, an Italian quarryman or a Slovak miner, the grace of God can shape and lift and fill him so that he will grow into the image of the Son of God. This is the place where ancient barriers, lon^- established dividing lines and walls of separation can be and must be broken down ; for it is true, I mean scientifically true, that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, " they are all one in Him." A Christian democracy, such as we profess to believe in, can be realized only if we believe in the uplifting power of the Gospel, and accept its results in its inner manifestation, even if the outer differences created by race, or class, are left unchanged. 3. We need to have created in us the spirit of reverence for the human soul, no matter how encased in crude flesh. We have talked much about saving souls and have, mentally at least, What to Do for the Immigrant 6$ detached the soul from its tenement. But body and soul are one and he who despises the one despises the other. No matter from where this man whom we touch in the crowd or who faces us has come, appealing for a chance to earn our wages, or our respect, he is entitled to it, for he has travelled far, has braved much, has suffered more. He may be crude, illiterate, ill-kept and unkempt ; yet he is a brother-man struggling up ward, blindly often, not knowing the way, think ing that the crooked is straight and the ill good. Whoever, whatever he is, he deserves our respect, if only for the spark of the divine flame within him smothered though it be by the gray ashes of his half-consumed self. I ask reverence for the human, whether it comes from Italy, North or South, from the mountains of Hungary, or the plains of Russia ; whether it is blackened by hot suns or bleached by bitter cold ; whether gorged by wealth or stunted by poverty, still let us reverence the hu man, for it is made only a little lower than God. This reverence, a sense of respect for the human, we lack, and our children lack it because we do not have it. We shall never win the stranger to us unless we grant him that which is often more precious than our bread or our wage. 4. We need to cultivate the virtue of hu mility. In olden times, the Jews had to dwell in huts every autumn, to remind them of their wan- 66 Conservation of National Ideals derings up and down the wilderness until God, in His goodness, showed the way to the abiding place. We ought all, once a year, at least mentally, to live in the steerage ; for from th s most of us came from the humble places in life ; some of us nearer to our present station in life and some of us farther from it. For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God. Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncir- cumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands ; That at that time ye were without Christ, be ing aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world : But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Let us not forget this, as a people and as indi viduals. Our nation has been enriched by contributions of the best from all the nations of the world, poured out upon her shores. It has achieved much, it has failed in much. We are a su perior people, but not half as superior as we ought to be, considering the opportunities we have had. A sense of humility, mingled with gratitude, What to Do for the Immigrant 67 will enable us to look upon these strangers with different eyes and will give them a warmer place in our affections. Lastly, we need affection love, if you please, without which no redeeming work can be done. Love is the great force with which the Almighty works for the redemption of the human race, and those who work for Him need to learn to love even those outwardly unlovely. This is a hard task, and yet it is a gift which comes with service, which comes with the giv ing. This is the testimony of all those who work for even the most wretched. Love comes through service. Attempt it in the spirit of the Master, and love will not be only a tool with which to work, but it will come as a reward. Recently I walked with a noble Christian woman through a wretched tenement section, clinging like a loathsome tumor to a splendid residential suburb. Syrian silk weavers lived there, earning bitter bread by the gorgeous fab rics their deft fingers created. Their wage for this pomp was clothing enough to cover them and part of a wretched roof in a crowded tene ment. As we walked through this unnecessary misery, little children came running from their haunts and embraced my guide, constantly cry ing: "Miss Mary, come to my house," " Miss Mary, come to my mother ! " Wherever we en tered, love was waiting for Miss Mary, who 68 Conservation of National Ideals works for these Syrians without money wago, and who has learned to love them. But her wage is love, more love, love enough to fill her heart and shine out of her face. I must recapitulate; for my subject seems complicated by many divisions. The immigrant wants the chance to earn bread enough and to spare, and a place in the social schemes of me i, so that he may be able to reach out towards neighbourliness and brotherhood. We are not all employers of labour, but we are all neigh bours ; at present, all neighbours of these immi grants. What shall we do that we may be able to give them their chance and to know them, historically, racially, and, above all, individually ? Work for the maintenance of a virile environ ment, so that their outer life may have its chance. Work for the cleansing of tenements, proper hours of labour, sanitary shops, and pro tection of women and children ; for of them will be the next generation. Work for the inner changes, through the Mis sionary Society. Stimulate it by wise counsel and abundant gifts, by the gift of yourself, to send the best types of Christian men and women to interpret the Gospel and to witness for it by a changed life. Through your church, by adjusting its services to the needs of these immigrants, and so far as possible to their prejudices. Through individual What to Do for the Immigrant 69 effort, by daily ministration and Christian ex ample. A new attitude of mind is needed : Freedom from prejudice. Confidence in the power of the Gospel to work radical changes. Reverence for the human, no matter how en cased. Humility of spirit, and Love Divine which comes through service. All these things we can do and feel for the immigrant ; some of them we must do and feel if we care for the preservation of our national ideals, for the acquisition of the new gifts in the keeping of these different races ; if we care for the coming of Christ s kingdom upon the earth. Ill THE PROBLEM OF RACE Ray Stannard Baker " // is in the South that the Negro is given a man 1 chance in the commercial world" " No race can prosper till it learns that there is a much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem . It is at the bottom of life we must begin , and not a the top. Nor should we permit our grievances ti overshadow our opportunities." " There is no defense or security for any of us ex cept in the highest intelligence and development of ah. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail th, fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him a use ful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so in vested will pay a thousand per cent, interest. Thtst efforts will be twice blessed blessing him that gives and him that takes. " BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. Ill THE PROBLEM OF RACE FROM the beginning of time the greatest of human problems has been the prob lem of race relationships. The greatest wars in the world s history have been wars be tween different races or wars dealing with the status of the so-called superior and inferior races. The Old Testament is a continuous chronicle of racial differences, racial struggles, racial amalga mations. And to-day the problems of race are more acute than ever before in the world s history. The invention of machinery, and improved transportation and communication, have served to make the world smaller, to bring all the peo ples of the earth into closer relationships. It is easier now for Americans to reach the tribes of Central Africa than it was, a hundred years ago, for Englishmen to sail to America. Every nation is confronted by new and very difficult problems of race relationship. As Americans we are now being brought into closer and closer contact with black and yellow people. Fifty years ago the Negro problem convulsed the nation : but to-day we not only have the Negro 73 74 Conservation of National Ideals problem, but on our Pacific coast and islands we have a Japanese and Chinese problem, and in the Philippine Islands we have a tangle of races. Other nations are facing complexities equally various and difficult. England s problem in both South Africa and India is largely racial. The great issue in Australia, where Chinese labour has become a political question, is ex pressed in the campaign slogan : " A white Australia." The world, in short, is becoming a great family where it is impossible for any one member, whether white, or yellow, or black, to keep to himself, or to live his own undisturbed life. New demands are made upon Christian civiliza tion to provide a way of life under which man kind may live in peace and grow in character. In its simplest analysis, what is the problem of race ? The race problem is the problem of living with people who are not like us, whether they are, in our estimation, our " superiors " or " in feriors," whether they have kinky hair or pig tails, whether they are slant-eyed, hook-nosed, or thick-lipped. In its essence it is the same prob lem, magnified, which besets every neighbour hood, even every family. In our own country we have one of the most difficult and illuminating examples of the race problem. We have 10,000,000 Negroes distrib- PART OF THE PROBLEM There are yet 50,000 native Americans who have not heard the Gospel message The Problem of Race 75 uted among some 75,000,000 white people and we are now working out, perhaps in advance of any other people, the difficult questions arising from such a condition. We are finding out with infinite pain and trouble how white and black men may dwell side by side and yet maintain the principles of justice, and progress steadily in civilization. The United States at the present time is thus a vast social laboratory in which various experi ments in race-relationship are being tried out. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for us, we have had to face the most difficult of all the problems, for the very extremes of racial difference are here brought together some of the highest types of the Caucasian with some of the lowest types of the black races. If we can solve that problem, our experience and results should in deed be valuable to all the nations of the earth. As a general problem can best be studied in some one of its specific manifestations, I shall here attempt to present a few of the conclusions arrived at in this country after about two hundred and fifty years of association of the two races. In the first place, any one who considers even superficially the long history of the Negro in America will see at once that we have reached at least one great general conclusion regarding race relationships. We fought a great war which settled that principle forever. 76 Conservation of National Ideals No one race, or any member of that race, is good enough to own even one single being of any other race. In short, we decided that slavery was wrong, and that some other relationship between white and black men must be devised. This new basis is what we have been at work upon for nearly fifty years ; and we have really been discovering some of the principles which should govern race relationships in a modern democ racy. Let us consider some of the conditions which exist to-day in the South. By understanding the reasons for race feeling, we shall be the better able to judge of the remedies proposed. In the first place, no one but ourselves is to blame for the difficulties that we now have to face. Like most troubles, we brought them upon ourselves. The Negroes did not come here originally to invade us, or because they wanted to come. We brought them by force and at a cruel and fearful sacrifice of life. We brought them, not to do them good, but selfishly, that they might be compelled to do the hard work and let us live lazily, eat richly, sleep softly. We treated them as beasts of burden. I say " we," for the North owned slaves too, at first, and emancipated them (by selling them to the South) because it did not pay to keep them. Nor was the anti-slavery movement peculiar to The Problem of Race 77 the North ; voices were raised against the institution of slavery by many Southern states men from Jefferson down men who knew by familiar observation the evil of slavery, especially for the white man. Out of the wrong of slavery grew a war, and out of the war grew the period of reconstruction. The South to-day is still clouded with the bitter memories of that war and of the reconstruction which followed. The North cannot understand how deep and real this feeling is, how it has been woven into the very fabric of even the third generation. The North, victorious, forgot ; but the South, broken and defeated, remembered. Until I had been a good while in the South, and talked with many people, I had no idea what a social cataclysm like the Civil War really means to those who are defeated, how long it echoes in the hearts of men and women. The Negro has indeed suffered suffered on his way upward ; but the better class of white man, with his higher cultivation, his keener sensibilities, his memories of a departed glory, has suffered far more. I have tried, as I have listened to stories of the struggle that only the South knows, to put my self in the place of these Anglo-Saxon men and women, and I think I can understand a little, at least, of what it must have meant to meet defeat, loss of relatives and friends, grinding poverty, the chaos of reconstruction and after all that to 78 Conservation of National Ideals have, always at elbow-touch, the unconscious cause of all their trouble, the millions of inert, largely helpless Negroes who, imbued with ;i sharp sense of their rights, are attaining only slowly a corresponding appreciation of their duties and responsibilities. The ruin of the war left the South poor, and it has provided itself slowly with educational ad vantages. It is a long step behind the North in the average of education among white people as well as coloured. But more than all else, per haps, the South is in the throes of vast economic changes. It is in the transition stage between the old, wasteful, semi-feudal civilization and the sharp, new city and industrial life. It is suffering the common pains of readjustment; and being hurt, it is not wholly conscious of the real reason. For example, troubles between the races that are attributed to the perversity of the Negro are often only the common difficulties which arise out of the relationship of employer and employee. In other words, difficulties which in the North we know as the labour problem, in the South are often attributed to the race problem ; and this is true, indeed, throughout the world wherever the race problem is acute. The South even yet has not fully established itself on the wage system. Payment of Negroes in the country is still often a matter of old clothes, baskets from the white man s kitchen or store, with occasionally a little The Problem of Race 79 money, which is often looked upon as an in dulgence rather than a right. No race has ever sprung directly from slavery into the freedom of a full-fledged wage system, no matter what the laws were. It is not insignificant of progress that the " basket habit " is coming to be looked upon as thievery, that organized charity in the cities is taking the place of indiscriminate per sonal gifts, and that wages are more regularly paid and measure more accurately the value of the service rendered. But the relationships between the races still smack, in no small degree, especially in matters of social contact (always the last to change) of the old feudal character ; they are personal and senti mental. They express themselves in the personal liking for the old " mammies," in the personal contempt for the " smart Negro." Another reason for the feeling in the South is that it has never had any other labouring class of people with which to compare the Negro. All the employers have been white ; most of the workers have been black. The North, on the other hand, has had a constant procession of ignorant working people of various sorts. The North is familiar with the progress of alien peo ple, wherein the working man of to-day becomes the employer of to-morrow and this has not happened in the South. An illustration of the confusion between the 80 Conservation of National Ideals race problem and the labour problem is pre sented in certain Southern neighbourhoods by the influx of European immigrants. Because the Italian does the work of the Negro, a tend ency exists to treat him like a Negro. In Louisi ana on the sugar plantations Italian white worm n sometimes work under Negro foremen and ro objection is made. A movement was actually under way in Mississippi to keep the children of Italian immigrants out of the white schools. In not a few instances white workmen have been held in peonage like Negroes. Here is a dispatch showing how new Italian immigrants were treated in one part of Mississippi only the Italians, un like the negroes, have an active government behind them : Mobile, Ala., October 3, 1910. The Italian Government has taken notice of the situation at Sumrall, Mississippi, where the native whites are endeavouring to keep Italian children out of the schools and where a leader of the Italians was taken to the woods and whipped. The Italian consul at New Orleans, Count G. Morroni, reached Mobile this afternoon and began an investigation of the situation. He to day heard the story of Frank Seaglioni, the leader of the Italian colony at Sumrall, who was a few days ago decoyed from his home at night with a bogus message from New Orleans and unmercifully whipped by a mob of white men. A decided tendency also exists to charge up The Problem of Race 81 to the Negro, because he is a Negro, all the crimes which are commonly committed by any ignorant, poverty-stricken people. I was struck in Philadelphia by a presentment of a grand jury upon the subject of a " crime wave " which read thus : In closing our duties as jurymen, we wish to call to the attention of this court the large pro portion of cases presented to us for action wherein the offenses were charged to either per sons of foreign birth or those of the coloured race, and we feel that some measures should be taken to the end that our city should be relieved of both the burden of the undesirable alien and the irresponsible coloured person. Here, it will be seen, the " undesirable alien " and " irresponsible coloured person " are classed together, although it is significant of the greater prejudice against the coloured man that the newspaper report of the grand jury should be headed " Negro Crime Abnormal," without re ferring to the alien at all. When I inquired at the prosecutor s office about the presentment I was told, " Oh, the Dagoes are just as bad as the Negroes." And both are bad, not because they are Negroes, or Italians, but because they are ig norant, neglected, poverty-stricken. Thus in the dust and confusion of the vast readjustments now going on in the South, the 82 Conservation of National Ideals discomfort of which both races feel but neither quite understands, we have the white man blind. y blaming the Negro and the Negro blindly hating the white. When they both understand that many of the troubles they are having are on y the common gall-spots of the new industrial harness, there will be a better living together. I do not wish to imply, of course, that an i.i- dustrial age, or the wage system, furnishes an ideal condition for race relationships ; for in the North, the Negro s struggle for survival in the competitive field is accompanied by the severest suffering. The condition of Negroes in Indian apolis, New York and Philadelphia is in some ways worse than it is anywhere in the South. But, say what we will, the wage system is one step upward from the old feudalism. The Negro is treated less like a slave and more like a man in the North. It is for this reason that Negroes, no matter what may be their difficulties of mak ing a living in the North, rarely wish to go back to the South. And as the South develops in dustrially it will approximate more nearly to Northern conditions. In Southern cities to-day, because of industrial development, the Negro is treated more like a man than he is in the coun try ; and this is one reason why Negroes crowd into the cities and can rarely be persuaded to go back into the country unless they can own their own land. The Problem of Race 83 But the South is rapidly shaking off the rem nants of the old feudalism. Development of mines and forests, the extension of manufactur ing, the introduction of European immigrants, the inflow of white Northerners, better schools, more railroads and telephones, are all helping to bring the South up to the economic standard of the North. There will be a further breaking up of baronial tenant-farming, the plantation store will disappear, the ruinous credit system will be abolished, and there will be a wide-spread appear ance of independent farm owners, both white and black. This will all tend to remove the personal and sentimental attitude of the old Southern life : the Negro will, of necessity, be judged more and more as a man, not as a slave or dependent. In short, the country, South and North, will become economically more homogeneous. But even when the South reaches the industrial development of the North the Negro problem will not be solved ; it is certainly not solved in New York, or Philadelphia, where industrial de velopment has reached its highest form. The prejudice in those cities has been growing more intense as the Negro population has increased. What, then, will happen? Two elements appear in every race problem : the first, race prejudice, the repulsion of the un like ; second, economic, or competitive, jealousy. Both operate, for example, in the case of the 84 Conservation of National Ideals Irishman, or the Italian, but with the Negro ard the Chinaman race prejudice is greater because the difference is greater. The difficulty of the Negro in this country is the colour of his skin, the symbol of his difference. In China the diffi culty of the white trader is his whiteness, his difference. Race lines, in short, are drawn by white men, not because the other race is inferior, nor because of criminality (certain classes of for eigners are more criminal in our large cities thc.n the Negroes), nor because of laziness, but because of discernible physical differences. Dislike or fear of a different people is more or less instinc tive in all men. A tendency has existed on the part of Northern students, who have no first-hand knowledge of the masses of Negroes, to underestimate the force of race repulsion ; on the other hand, the Southern student, who is confronted with the Negroes themselves, is likely to overestimate racial repul sion and underestimate economic competition as a cause of the difficulty. The profoundest ques tion, indeed, is to decide how much of the so- called problem is due to race repulsion and how much to economic competition. This leads us to the most sinister phase of the race problem. As I have said, we have the two elements of conflict : instinctive race repulsion and competitive jealousy. What is easier for the race in power, the white race in this country The Problem of Race 85 (the yellow race in Asia), than to play upon race instinct in order to serve selfish ends ? How shrewdly the labour union, whether in San Fran cisco or Atlanta, seizes upon that race hatred to keep the black or yellow man out of the union and thereby control all the work for its members ! Race prejudice played upon becomes a tool in clinching the power of the labour monopoly. In several places in this country Negroes have been driven out by mobs, not because they were criminal, or because they were bad citizens, but because they were going into the grocery and drug business, they were becoming doctors, dentists, and the like, and taking away the trade of their white competitors. So the stores and restaurants of highly efficient Japanese have been wrecked in San Francisco. What is easier, or cruder, to use as a weapon for crushing a rival than the instinctive dislike of man for man ? This is not peculiar to the white man. In Africa the black man wastes no time with the different looking white man ; he kills him, if he dares, on the spot. And how ably the Chinaman has employed the instinctive hatred of his countrymen for " foreign devils " in order to fight American trade and traders ! We hate the Chinaman and drive him out, and he hates us and drives us out. And this is one of the dangers of the race problem the fostering of such an instinct in 86 Conservation of National Ideals order to make money or to get political office. Such a basis of personal prosperity is all tins more dangerous because the white man is in undisputed power in this country ; the Negro has no great army behind him ; he is like a child in the house of a harsh parent. All that stands between him and destruction is the ethical sens-i of the white man. Will the white man s sens* of justice and virtue be robust enough to cause him to withhold the hand of unlimited power ? Will he see, as Booker T. Washington says, that if he keeps the Negro in the gutter he must stay there with him? The white man and his civilization, not alone the Negro, will rise, or faU, by that ethical test. So will the civilization cf the whole world rise or fall in accordance witii the treatment bestowed by the higher races upon the lower races. The Negro, on his part, employs the same methods as the white man, for Negro nature is not different from other human nature. He argues, " The white man hates you ; hate him. Trade with Negro storekeepers ; employ Negro doctors ; don t go to white dentists and lawyers." Hate engenders hate ; sympathy engenders sympathy. Out of this condition proceed two tendencies. The first is the natural result of mutual fear and suspicion, and that is a rapid flying apart of the rac^s. The Negroes in this country are being The Problem of Race 87 segregated. So are the Chinese segregated, and the blacks in South Africa, and certain classes in India. Parts of the South are growing blacker. Negroes crowd into " coloured quarters " in the cities. More and more they are becoming a people wholly apart separate in their churches, separate in their schools, separate in cars, con veyances, hotels, restaurants, with separate pro fessional men. In short, we discover tendencies in this country towards the development of a caste system. One of the most striking facts in our recent history is the progress of the former slave. And this finds its world parallel in the progress of people whom the vainglorious Anglo-Saxon once despised the Japanese, Chinese, and East In dians. In forty years the Negro has advanced a distance that would have been surprising in almost any race. In the bare accomplish ments area of land owned, crops raised, profes sional men supported, business enterprises con ducted, books and poetry written, music com posed, pictures painted the slaves of forty years ago have made the most astonishing progress. This leads to the second tendency, which pro ceeds slowly out of the growing conviction that hatred and suspicion and fear as motives in either national or individual progress will not work; that there must be some other way for different people to work side by side in peace and justice. 88 Conservation of National Ideals And thus we discover a tendency towards 11 friendly living together under the new relation ship, in which the negro is not a slave, or a dependent, but a man and a citizen. Booker T. Washington preaches the gospel of this new life. And gradually, as race prejudice becomes incon venient, threatens financial adversity, ruffles the smooth current of comfortable daily existence, the impulse grows to set it aside. Men don t keep on fighting when it is no longer profitable to fight. And thus, side by side, these two impulses exist the one pointing towards the development of a hard caste system which would ultimately petrify our civilization as it has petrified that of India; and the other looking to a reasonable, kindly and honourable working together of the races. So much for conditions ; what of remedies ? I have heard the most extraordinary remedies proposed, as they have been proposed with reference to the Chinese and Japanese. Serious men actually talk of the deportation of the entire Negro population to Africa, not stopping to inquire whether we have any right to deport them, or to calculate the economic revolution and bankruptcy which the deportation of the entire labouring class would cause in the South ; without stopping to think that even if we could find a spot in the world for 10,000,000 Negroes, The Problem of Race 89 and if they all wanted to go, that all the ships flying the American flag, if constantly employed, could probably not transport the natural increase of the Negro population, let alone the millions of present inhabitants. I have heard talk of segregation in reservations, like the Indians segregation out of existence ! I have even heard unspeakable talk of the wholesale extinc tion of the race. All are quack remedies and based upon hatred, not upon justice. There is no sudden, or cut-and-dried, solu tion of the Negro problem, or of any problem. Men are forever demanding formulae which will enable them to progress mechanically. They seek to do quickly by medication what can only be accomplished by deliberate hygiene. A problem that has been growing for two hundred and fifty years in America, and for thousands of years before that in Africa, warping the very lives of the people concerned, changing their currents of thought as well as their conduct, cannot be solved in forty years. Why expect it? And yet there are definite things which can be done, things which, while working no immediate miracles, will set our faces to the light and keep us trudging towards the true goal. Down at the bottom it seems trite but it is eternally true the cause of the race problem, and of most other social problems, is simply lack 90 Conservation of National Ideals of understanding and sympathy between man and man. And the remedy is equally simple -a gradual substitution of understanding and sym pathy for blind repulsion and hatred. Consider, for example, the Atlanta riot of 1906. Increasing misunderstanding and hatred caused a dreadful explosion and bloodshed. What happened ? Instantly the wisest white men in Atlanta invited the wisest coloured men to meet them. They got together; general explanations followed. They found that there had been error on both sides; they found that there were rea sonable human beings on both sides. One of the leading white men said : " I did not know there were any such broad-minded Negroes in the South." In other words, they tried to un derstand and sympathize with each other. Again and again men may be found hating Negroes, or Chinamen or " Dagoes," and yet liking some in dividual Negro, or Chinaman, or " Dago." On broader acquaintance they see that Negroes and Chinamen are human beings like themselves, full of faults, but not devoid of good qualities. As a fundamental proposition, then, it will be found that the solution of the Negro problem lies in treating the Negro more and more as a human being. We must judge him, not by his colour, or by any other outward symbol, but by his worth as a man. Nothing that fails of full honesty and fairness of judgment in the smallest The Problem of Race 91 particular will suffice. We disgrace and injure ourselves more than we do the Negro when we are not willing to admit virtue, or learning, or power, in another human being because his face happens to be yellow, or black. Of the soundness of this fundamental standard of judgment there can be no doubt; the difficulty lies in applying it practically to society as it is to-day. In the suggestions which I offer here I am trying to do two things : to outline the ex pedient present program, and to keep open a clear view to the future goal. Let us approach, then, and without fear, the first of the three groups of problems political, industrial, and social which confront us. Shall the Negro vote ? Thousands of Negroes in this country are fully as well equipped, fully as patriotic, as the average white citizen. Moreover, they are as much con cerned in the real welfare of the country. The principle that our forefathers fought for, " taxa tion only with representation," is as true to-day as it ever was. On the other hand, the vast majority of Negroes (and many foreigners and " poor whites ") are still densely ignorant, and have little or no appreciation of the duties of citizen ship. It seems right that they should be required to wait until they are prepared before being al lowed to vote. A wise parent hedges his son 92 Conservation of National Ideals about with restrictions ; he does not authorize his signature at the bank or allow him to run a loco motive ; and until he is twenty-one years old he is disfranchised and has no part in the govern ment. But the parent restricts his son because it seems the wisest course for him, for the family, and for the state, that he should grow to man hood before he is burdened with grave responsi bilities. So the state limits suffrage ; and rightly limits it, so long as it accompanies that limitation with a determined policy of education. But tie suffrage law is so executed in the South to-diiy as to keep many capable Negroes from the ex ercise of their rights, and to prevent recognition of honest merit; and it is executed unjustly as between white men and coloured. It is no con- donement of the Southern position to-day to say that the North also disfranchises a large part of the Negro vote by bribery, which it does ; it is only saying that the North is also wrong. As for the agitation for the repeal of the fifteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, which gives the right of suffrage to the coloured man, it must be met by every lover of justice and democracy with a face of adamant. If there were only one Negro in the country capable of citizenship, the way for him must, at least, be kept open. No doubt full suffrage was given to the mass of Negroes before they were prepared for it, while yet they were slaves in everything The Problem of Race 93 but bodily shackles, and the result during the reconstruction period was disastrous. But the principle of a free franchise fortunately, as I be lieve, for this country has been forever estab lished. If the white man is not willing to meet the Negro fairly in any contest whatsoever then he is not the superior but the inferior of the Negro. So much for the political relationships of the races. How about the industrial relationships ? The same test of inherent worth must here also apply, and the question will not be settled until it does apply. A carpenter must not be asked, " What colour are you ? " but, " How efficiently can you build a house ? " Of all ab surdities, the judgment of the skill of a surgeon by the kink of his hair will certainly one day be looked upon as the most absurd. The same ob servation applies broadly to the attempt to con fine a whole people, regardless of their capabili ties, to menial occupation because they are dark- coloured. No, the place of the Negro is the place he can fill most efficiently, and the longer we at tempt to draw artificial lines the longer we shall delay the solution of the race problem. On the other hand, the Negro must not clamour for places he cannot yet fill. " The trouble with the Negro," says Booker T. Washington, " is that he is all the time trying to get recognition, whereas what he should do is to get something to recognize." 94 Conservation of National Ideals As a class to-day Negroes are far inferior in education, intelligence, and efficiency to 1:he white people as a class. Here and there an able Negro will develop superior abilities ; but the mass of Negroes for years to come must find their activities most in physical, and more or l^ss menial, labour. Like any race, they must first prove themselves in these simple lines of work before they can expect larger opportunities. There must always be men like Dr. DuBois who agitate for rights ; their service is an impor tant one, but at the present time it seems that the thing most needed is the teaching of such men as Dr. Washington, emphasizing duties and responsibilities, urging the Negro to prepare himself for his rights. We come now, having considered the political and industrial relationships of the races, to the most difficult and perplexing of all the phases of the Negro question that of social contact. Po litical and industrial relationships are more or less outward, but social contact turns upon the delicate and deep questions of home life, per sonal inclinations, and of privileges rather than rights. It is always in the relationships of oldest development, like those that cling around the home, that human nature is slowest to change. Indeed, much of the complexity of the Negro problem has arisen from a confusion in people s minds between rights and privileges. The Problem of Race 95 Social contact is a privilege, not a right ; it is not a subject for legislation or for any other sort of force. " Social questions," as Colonel Wat- terson of Kentucky says, " create their own laws and settle themselves. They cannot be forced." All such relationships will work themselves out gradually, naturally, quietly, in the long course of the years ; and the less they are talked about the better. As for laws against the intermarriage of the races, they do not prevent what they are de signed to prevent the mixing of white and col oured blood. In many parts of the South, de spite the existence of such laws, miscegenation, though decreasing, still continues. On the other hand, in the North, where Negroes and whites may marry, there is actually very little inter marriage and practically no concubinage. The solution of this question, too, lies far more in education than in law. As a matter of fact, the more education both races receive, the less the amalgamation. In the South, as in the North, the present tendency of the educated and pros perous Negroes is to build up a society of their own, entirely apart from and independent of white people. A white woman in the North who marries a Negro is declassed ostracized by both races. The danger of amalgamation lies with ignorant and vicious people, black or white, not with educated and sensitive people. 96 Conservation of National Ideals Separate schools in some sections are expedi ent, and often I believe them to be of great ad vantage to the Negroes themselves. That the pupils in each should be treated with exact jus tice in the matter of expenditures by the state is axiomatic. And the Negro boy should have the same unbounded opportunity for any sort of education he is capable of using as the white boy ; nothing less will suffice. One influence, at present growing rapidly, will have its profound effect on the separation laws. Though a tendency exists towards local segrega tion of Negroes, there is also a counter-tendency towards a scattering of Negroes throughout the entire country. The white population in the South, now 20,000,000 against 9,000,000 Ne groes, is increasing much more rapidly than the Negro population. The death-rate of Negroes is exceedingly high ; and the sharper the condi tions of competition with white workers, the greater, probably, will be the limitation of in crease of the more inefficient Negro population. As for the predictions of " amalgamation," " a mongrel people," " black domination " and other bogies of prophecy, we must not, as I see it, give them any weight whatsoever. We cannot regu late our short lives by the fear of something far in the future that will probably never happen at all. All we can do is to do right at this moment and let the future take care of itself; it will, any- The Problem of Race 97 way. There is no other method of procedure. Much as we may desire it, the future arrange ment of this universe is not in our hands. As to the matter of " superiority," or " inferiority," it is not a subject of argument at all ; nor can we keep, or attain, " superiority " by laws or colour lines, or in any other way, except by being superior. If we are right, absolutely right, in the eternal principles, we can rest in peace that the matter of our superiority will take care of it self. I remember asking a wise Southern man what, in his opinion, were the chief factors in the solu tion of the Negro problem. " Time," he said, " and patience." But time must be occupied with discipline and education more and more education, not less, education that will teach, first of all, the dignity of service, not only for Negroes but for white men. The white man, South and North, needs it quite as much as the coloured man. The wisest Southerners have resolved to forget the discouragements and complexities of the Negro problem, forget even their disagreements, and go to work on present problems the development of education and industry. Whether we like it or not the whole nation (indeed, the whole world) is tied by unbreakable bonds to its Negroes, its Chinamen, its slum- dwellers, its thieves, its murderers, its prostitutes. 98 Conservation of National Ideals We cannot elevate ourselves by driving them back either with hatred or violence or neglect but only by bringing them forward ; by service, by sympathy. For good comes to men, not as they work alone, but as they work together, with that sym pathy and understanding which is the only true democracy. The Great Teacher never preached the flat equality of men, social or otherwise. He gave mankind a working principle by means of which, being so different some white, some black, some yellow, some old, some young, some men, some women, some accomplished, some stupid mankind could, after all, live together in harmony and develop to the utmost possibility. And that principle was the Golden Rule. It is the least sentimental, the most profoundly prac tical teaching, known to men. IV THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL QUES TIONS Prof. Walter C. Rauschenbtisch Author of " Christianity and the Social Crisis," " For God and the People," etc. A PRATER FOR WOMEN WHO TOIL 1 O God, we pray Thee for our sisters who are leavirg the ancient shelter of the home to earn their wage in the factory and the store amid the press of modern life. Sa\>e them from the strain of unremitting toil that would unfit them for the holy duties of home and motherhood which the future may lay upon them. Give them grace to cheri.h under the new surroundings the old sweetness and gentie- ness of womanhood, and in the rough mingling of life to keep their hearts pure and their lives untarnished. Sa-;e them from the terrors of utter want. Teach them to stand loyally by their sisters, that by united action they may bt t- ter their common lot. If it must be so that our women toil like men, help us still to reverence in them the mothers of the future. But make us determined to shield them from unequal burde?. s, that the women of our nation be not drained of strength and hope for the enrichment of a few, lest our homes grow poor in the wifely sweetness and motherly love which have been the saving strength and glory of our country. To such as yearn for the love and sovereign freedom of their own home, grant in due time the fulfilment of their sweet desires. By Mary, the beloved, who bore the world s re demption in her bosom ; by the memory of our own dear mothers who kissed our souls awake ; by the little daughters who must soon go out into the world which we are now fashioning for others, we beseech Thee that we may deal aright by all women. 1 From " For God and the People," by Prof. Walter C. Rausch- enbusch. Published by the Pilgrim Press. Copyright, 1909 and 1910 by the Phillips Publishing Company. Copyright, 1910, by Luther H. Gary. IV THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS THE church is meant to be a fellowship of men and women who have the faith of Jesus Christ in their hearts and are actuated in their lives by His spirit. In a fellow ship of such people the spirit of Jesus ought to find its purest social expression. The great charter of ^the church is the Master s promise that " where two or three " are gathered in His name, He will be " in the midst " of them. That means that even in the smallest community of believers there is a possibility of spiritual bless ing and power transcending the experiences of a solitary religious life. In this fellowship His dis ciples are to learn to think His thoughts, to love what He loves, to impart His mind to others, and to act according to His laws. This has always been the ideal of the church. But, in fact, great Christian churches have often been actuated by motives wholly unlike those of Jesus, by superstition, self-seeking, and bitterness. They have often exerted their full strength only to crush out those who were seeking in some conspicuous way to live according to the mind and law of Christ, so that many chapters of church history are sad reading. 101 1G2 Conservation of National Ideals We may take comfort, however, in remember ing that the sins of the church are the common sins of human institutions ; for instance, the family in its ideal is the purest expression of hu man love. Yet in how many cases it has been a torture chamber where an evil will has had its way in wrecking love ! So the school should be the great institution for awakening young mind;* to creative independence and ability. Yet through long stretches of time it has been the playground of pedantry, in which the free initi ative of the young has been discouraged and a dreary uniformity encouraged. In the same way, the state should be the organization of men for justice. Yet the survival of tyranny in Russia and Turkey reminds us that the state has actually been, to a large extent, the preserver of injustice and the determined opponent of a free and hu mane social life. But the sins of the church in the past need not make us despair of its redemptive power. They should make us all the more determined henceforth to hold it to its Christlike purposes, and to swing its immeasurable moral power to the service of those whom the Master loved and served. Our own American evangelical churches have been nobly faithful in two directions. They have recognized their obligation to create Christian personalities by evangelism and by Christian edu- The Church and Social Questions 103 cation ; and they have felt the responsibility of organizing the social life within the churches ac cording to Christ s law, by making soberness, purity, gentleness, equality, love and helpfulness real within their own walls. These two aims must always remain among the fundamental tasks of the churches, and of Home Mission work, and nothing that will be said in this dis cussion should be understood as in the least be littling these accepted duties. But to-day the conscience of the church is dis quieted with an increasing sense of a vaster obli gation. It feels that the mighty spirit of Christ must not only shape the life within the church, but must go out from it as a centre of power to transform the social life about it. It can never again rest content until it has created a truly human and normal life in humanity. The recog nition of this duty is swiftly penetrating all really awakened hearts in our country. Within recent years we have witnessed a strange revival of Christianity, a social awakening of the church. This awakening has come largely through a new sense of sin. We have been appalled by sins on a gigantic scale which pervade our whole nation, and by their bitter fruit. " Conservation " has suddenly become a popular cry. It ex presses the feeling that cherished possessions of our nation are in danger, and that all moral forces must be rallied to preserve even what we 104 Conservation of National Ideals now have. In fact, the wisest observers of our national life agree that the ideals of American Christianity are in danger of rapid disintegration, and that the vast latent forces of the church of Christ must be summoned to the rescue. The title of this book expresses this feeling. But neither Christianity nor America should be content merely to conserve the ideals of o jr country as they were held in the past. We should extend their scope and deepen their ap plication. As the human body grows, the heart, which is to send the warm and nourishing blood through all its organs, must grow with it. A.ll the organizations of our social body are takir g on a vaster size and they need a more powerful injection of the vital forces of Christianity. This task of Christianizing our national life is the special task of the Home Mission organiza tions in the churches, for they represent the com bined and intelligent purpose of the church for all Christian work within our nation. The gen eral comprehension of what is involved in the work of Foreign Missions and in the work of Christian education has passed through a marvel lous expansion in recent years. Our conception of what is involved in Home Missions should likewise expand with our increasing scientific comprehension of human life and with our en larging means. It has been forcibly brought home to us that The Church and Social Questions 105 the forces which are disintegrating our social life, our morality and our religious ideals have their chief source in our industrial and commer cial life. Our industry and commerce, splendid as their external achievements have been, are the realm of human life which has been least effected by the law of Christ. It is here that the regen erating and constructive forces of the Christian spirit are most urgently needed. The following discussion is to offer some suggestion in this di rection. I shall enumerate a few of the ideals which have in the past been generally accepted by our Christian people as the common and self-evident ideals of American life. All of these are now in danger. All of them have religious significance. In the conservation of all of them, therefore, the church should take a profound interest. I. One of the finest ideals of American life has been its democracy. The democratic ideal has been embodied in the political organization of our Republic. The constitutions of our states and of the Union seek to safeguard it. But our political democracy is only one expression of our pervasive democratic ideal. It comes even closer home to us in ordinary daily intercourse. It has been an accepted principle in our country that we have no social classes. None is to cringe to those above ; none is to step on the back of those 106 Conservation of National Ideals below. And, in fact, in our best American com munities there has been a fine sense of equal ty among men, a consciousness of personal worth that dignified even the poorest and humblest. On the other hand, in European life, the exist ence of social classes is accepted as a matter of course. Great churches and political parties in sist on the maintenance of class divisions a^ a sacred principle. The problems created by ck.ss barriers and class feeling are an unfailing theme of literature. But in this matter Jesus is on the side of America. One of the fundamental la vs He laid down for His followers is that they mi.st seek for no greatness that lords it over othe /s, and that they shall call no man master, but shall regard all men as brothers. There is no denying the fact that our democ racy has been weakened in recent years, both in our political life and in our social intercourse. In politics the will of the people has been so per sistently frustrated that every successful assertion of it has been hailed as a great triumph. In social life the extremes of wealth and poverty have grown wider and wider apart, and the sense of equality has been put to an ever greater strain by the solid facts of life. Social classes have been formed, and have become so different in habits of mind and point of view, that social explorers dive down for months among the working people and come back to write books about this unknown The Church and Social Questions 107 race that lives in the next block. Thus our democracy, which is an essential part of our Chris tian and our American ideals, is disintegrating, and we are all in danger of hypocrisy when we pro fess it with our lips and contradict it in our lives. In view of this encroachment on one of our finest ideals, the church should strike with enthusiasm on behalf of democracy. It should, first of all, set its own house in order, so that class differences are not allowed in the churches. It is a wholesome symptom that the pew system, which we inherited from aristocratic times, has either been abolished or largely stripped of its undemocratic features. An eminent minister in Hamburg, Germany, tells of his early attempts to reach the people by social church gatherings. The class differences proved insuperable ; each social class had to meet by itself. So there were three kinds of teas ; in the first the tea was served in thick cups ; in the second in thin cups ; and in the third from a silver tea-urn. Imagine Jesus being invited ! In its teachings, too, the church should in culcate democracy as a distinctly Christian virtue. In fact, no person is a mature Christian whose soul still bows in unquestioning consent to the class spirit. We may have to conform to social usages, but we should at least be inwardly eman cipated, and lodge our protest when it can be done effectively. io8 Conservation of National Ideals The duty of democratizing social intercourse lies chiefly at the door of the women of our country, for all social customs are almost wholly in their control. If our ideals fail at this point, the women will be responsible. And they need awakening. Women excel men in some of the virtues, but they seem to take more naturally than men to class pride and class distinctions. To that extent they are still living in a feudal age and have not yet become modern and Chi is- tian. The church should also set itself against ar y- thing in our industrial organization which cows the workers or weakens their sense of worth, and it should favour every step in our industrial evo u- tion that will render the workers more self- reliant and capable. One chief means for this is their trade organizations. There will be no full application of the democratic ideal to our modern industrial relations until the workers can control their own affairs through their own organiza tions. If they are wholly dependent on the will of their employers, even if that will is wise and benevolent, it is not American democracy. It is recognized by all impartial students of the question that the trades unions have been one of the most important means of securing better wages, shorter hours, and better shop condi tions. But perhaps an even greater benefit is this, that in and through the organizations the The Church and Social Questions 109 men have learned self-reliance, obedience to discipline, mutual helpfulness, and an intelligent comprehension of their own class problems. 2. It has been one of our American ideals that every family shall be able to acquire property to shelter it and to aid in winning the livelihood of the family. The early American ideal was that a farmer should till his own farm, and the mechanic work in his own shop and with his own tools. Every capable young man used to work with that end in full view. The Homestead Law was prompted by the concep tion that every citizen could claim a share of the national domain, from which he might win sustenance for his family and thus rise to com fort. That ideal, too, has drifted out of sight. There has been a tremendous absorption of the natural means of production by a limited class of men. Some individuals have acquired so much that they break down physically in the work of managing it. Their nobler traits become barren " by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches," and their families are often weakened by idleness and luxury. But the necessary counterpart of this unhealth- ful wealth on one side is the unwholesome poverty on the other side. The percentage of farmers who are simply tenants is increasing no Conservation of National Ideals rapidly, and will henceforth increase steadily. In the cities the great majority of families live in rented houses, or tenements, and have no hope of ever owning their own homes. In our factories the mechanics are no longer working \vith their own tools, but with huge machines which they can never own. This growing inequality in the distribution of property is a most serious menace to Christ an and American ideals of a sound and wholesome life. We have given our citizens political liberty. But liberty without some property to back it is an illusion. Men are not free who are in abject dependence for the very chance to work. Every child in our community should be born with some right to the wealth of the community as well as to the freedom of the community, just as in our families. It is not in accordance with American ideals that of two babes born in the same hour one should be born in poverty and destined to poverty, while the other is dowered at birth with unearned wealth sufficient to edu cate and develop hundreds of other children who must remain in poverty and ignorance while that babe is corrupted by its excess. Justice is obedience to God s will ; the sternest words of the Old Testament prophets were directed against injustice and the oppression of the poor. No sin except hypocrisy received so much attention in the teachings of Jesus. To- The Church and Social Questions ill day there is an earnest will to remedy the most serious forms of injustice in the distribution of the common wealth of the nation, and the church of Christ should reenforce that will by her intelli gent sympathy and aid. 3. It has been one of the proudest ideals of American life that here every man shall have a chance to " rise in life." The relish of life comes not so much from what we are and have, but from what we are coming to be and have. To have a sense of enlarging powers and tasks, to feel our personality and its influence growing and rising, to have a big hope that leads us on, and to see it attained bit by bit, that makes up the satisfac tion of a real life. That chance for the expan sion of life is also a Christian ideal, for the salva tion and sanctification of a man mean that he shall become a real man, with an unending ca pacity for real growth within him. But it is felt by a large class of our population that the chance to rise in life is more and more rare. Clerks and artisans early reach the limit of the wages which they are likely to earn, un less they have unusual managing ability. Fac tory workers often reach the maximum early in youth, while their muscles are most supple and dexterous, and after that they can look forward only to a decline, and perhaps to the loss of their job when they are still in middle life. 1 1 2 Conservation of National Ideals Such a condition paralyzes the hopefulness and vigour of the individual, and if it becomes the permanent condition of large classes it v/ill mean the failure of one of our American ideals.. 4. The enthusiasm for education has been one of the marked features of American Chi is- tianity. It was implanted in our national tradi tions by the great Puritan community in N-w England, which numbered a most unusual per centage of educated men, who appreciated the value of the intellectual life. Our communities spend more for the education of the young than for any other item of their housekeeping. The great gifts of wealthy men and women for ecu- cation prove that they regard education as one of the best forms of public service. And the great sacrifices brought by the American churches for the founding of institutions of higher education show that the educational pas sion in America has been at the same time a religious ideal. It is not enough to-day if we simply maintain the traditional school age. Our national wealth has increased immensely. We have inherited school buildings, libraries, and intellectual re sources from our fathers, which make the task of education relatively far easier for us. We should steadily lengthen the time of education and increase the free opportunities for it. Suppose The Church and Social Questions 113 that the descendants of some settler in the West had gradually risen out of the early poverty of their grandparents and were indulging them selves in Brussels carpet, a piano, and an auto car. Would they have a right to feel that they were conserving the old educational ideals of the family if they simply continued to send their children to the district school, as the grandpar ents did in the early, toilsome days ? Yet that is the position of our nation if we allow education to cease for the great majority of children at fourteen, or even at twelve. Of course " education " is not synonymous with bookishness. As the child matures, educa tion should become more and more practical and specialized. The school must establish friendly cooperation with the workshop. But if we want to be true to the ancient American ideals under modern conditions, we must give our children an increasing period for unhampered growth of body and mind. The most serious competitor of the school to day is our industry. The school tries to hold the child, but the shop wants it. Competitive industry is always seeking to cheapen produc tion. It craves cheaper labour. Children are cheap. Our great iron, slaves are able to run with only a child to tend them. The poverty and ignorance of parents on the one side, and the demand for cheap labour on the other side, 114 Conservation of National Ideals create a condition that always menaces the child and the American ideal of education. Unless the community throws its protecting arm abo at the child, it will be devoured. Here is a matter in which the selfish instincts of our industrial life need especially to be counter acted by the humane and far-sighted impulses created by our religion. The churches should join the trades unions and the schools in forcing back child labour. It should be part of tiie settled policy of Home Missions to save the child, not only from private vice and parental ignorance, but also from the demands of a busi ness system, the very soul of which is the desire for gain. Moreover, this object comes home to women above all. The mother instinct is but a narrow thing if a woman forgets all other children and loves only her own. Her experiences as a mother have done their work on her soul only if they have broadened her intelligence and sympathy for all child-life. When a woman is through raising her own brood, she should graduate to the high school of motherhood and care for all children within her reach. And if she has never carried the heavy burdens of maternity, she is under bonds to God and humanity to pay her share of work and suffering in some other way. 5. It has been one of the established Ameii- The Church and Social Questions 115 can ideals that our people shall have leisure for the higher life. The American Sabbath has given us leisure to consider the higher problems of life, to meditate, to enjoy the quietness of our homes, and to become acquainted with our own souls. The Puritan Sabbath may have been narrow, and based often on a somewhat servile obedience to written precepts, but it has left to our nation a legacy of inestimable value. If we had not inherited the rest-day from religion it would be almost impossible to wrest it now from the terri ble pace of business life. In giving us Sunday rest, religion has thrown its shield about one of the fundamental social needs of man, and about the whole army of toilers. But this day, too, is threatened by the en croachments of profit-making. The loud amuse ments of Sunday resorts are not solely due to the popular love of pleasure ; there is capital be hind the resorts and transportation companies are eager for dividends. Moreover, the general tendency of industry to utilize its plant and its workers to the utmost will always make Sunday work tempting to it. The church should cooperate with organized labour in protecting the rest-day. Both have an interest in its preservation ; each should learn to understand and value the point of view of the other, li6 Conservation of National Ideals To-day there is need for extending the princi ple of leisure that is embodied in the Sabbath. As the community grows in wealth, it should afford more leisure to its members for the real enjoyment and culture of their lives. As indus trial labour becomes intenser in speed, and makes higher demands on the physical and mental en durance of the workers, more leisure is needed to offset the increased strain. Factory workers should not work as many hours as those who work in the open air. The Saturday half-holiday in the heated season is an extension of the Sab bath rest. The eight-hour day, towards which organized labour is striving, comes under the same point of view, for the Sabbath in the be ginning was not instituted that people might go to worship, but that they might rest from labour. The church has a splendid obligation in regard to the holidays which she herself has created. Christmas was meant for a day of holy joy. The solicitations of our commerce have corrupted it and turned it into a time of frantic buying and selling, which drives all workers at terrible pres sure. Cannot the church save the day from degradation and the people from cruel over work? When the workers try to secure more leisure for enjoying their families and the opportunities of social intercourse and artistic stimulus, they are striving for an old American ideal under non- The Church and Social Questions 117 religious forms. If the church can persuade them that the highest culture demands the de velopment of the religious life, and that no rest is complete without the peace of God, it will be the great educator and friend of the workers. But even if they refuse to come to church, we should recognize their desires as legitimate and good, and we should aid them, even if they will not aid us. The fact that some of them will mis use their leisure for drink or frivolity does not alter the obligation. Our children, too, misuse their opportunities, but we continue to give them. 6. One of the great ideals of American life is the American home. We have had a deep-seated feeling that no life was complete and normal until it was rounded out in the group of man, woman, and child. To-day we witness all about us the disintegra tion of that ideal. In every industrial com munity there are great numbers of permanently unmarried people. Men and women well fitted for family life are restrained by prudence from undertaking the burdens. Many couples are purposely childless. The increase of divorces is partly due to the strain of worry and insecurity. The entrance of women into industrial employ ments has increased the free mingling of the sexes and diminished the protection of the home. The results are very serious. li8 Conservation of National Ideals Even when the home is stable and happy, high rent cuts down the space needful for an American home. Long hours of work, increased by travel back and forth in the morning and evening, de crease the time which parents can spend with their children. The luxury of modern life also undermines the higher life of the home. Here, again, the re sponsibility lies chiefly with the women of our nation. Men in the main direct the productior of economic goods, but women direct their con sumption. The style of living is, on the whole determined by them. The women of the uppei classes set the pace in display and other women have to follow in order to maintain appearances and " be in style." The conscience of women is still torpid as to the effect which their very re spectable luxury has upon other lives. In count less homes the higher joys of home life are cramped, or sacrificed to the need of keeping up with a rush that leads to very little solid good. Women have too long lent themselves as thoughtless tools to commercial interests that always lure them on to buy something new. The church has ever been the great defender of the purity and nobility of the home. Its single- handed fight against the liquor traffic has largely been a defense of home life. It should now face with equal insight and courage the dangers that The Church and Social Questions 1 19 arise from modern industry and commerce, from high rents, high prices, false systems of taxation, and the social luxury created by unearned wealth and " the lust of the eye." 7. Finally, one of the ideal elements that especially characterize American life is the chivalry of the strong towards the weak. It is probably fair to say that American men are more considerate and reverent towards women than the men of any other nation. Women in other countries feel that ours is the paradise of woman. In the same way there is a remarkable tenderness for the child. All this is the expression of the saving spirit of Christ, which has sweetened and ennobled our national customs. It is a part of Home Mission work to foster this product of American Christianity among all the sections of our population which have not yet assimilated it, especially the lower races of our continent, and the immigrants who have brought other traditions with them. But this old idea of American chivalry is threatened among us by the strain of industrial city life, where men are often so pressed that they learn to be inconsiderate. When women are worked in industry without regard to their womanly needs, when they are exploited and browbeaten by foremen or employers who are in turn urged on by others, when they are 12O Conservation of National Ideals roughly handled and unjustly sentenced by police and courts (as in the New York shirt waist strike of 1909), we have a breakdown o.i a large scale of the fine ideals of America.i chivalry. The same thing holds when the tender flower of childhood is used up to make swift profits. We have enumerated some of the ideals o~ American Christianity that need to be conserved against the pressure of industrial and commercial life. This duty lies upon all citizens. But it rests especially with the church. How shall tho church perform that duty ? The great function of the church is to preacli the Word of God. But " the Word of God " is no narrow and traditional thing. It touches all life and is quick and piercing like a sword. Wherever wrong is done to the weak, wherever organized selfishness threatens the nobler stand ards of life, wherever an opportunity offers to advance Christian principles in modern civiliza tion, the church has a word of the Lord to men. But the perpetual competitor of God is Mammon. There should be more discussion in the social meetings of the churches on the larger, social applications of Christianity. Industrial wrongs should be faced as frankly as the liquor question. The leaders in church life owe it to the people to The Church and Social Questions 121 inform them wisely on the actual conditions and the remedies proposed for them. 1 Why should not Christian people who believe in the power of prayer pray together for those who labour and are heavy laden, and for the men of good will, the employers and social workers of every kind, who are so honestly seeking to ease their burdens ? Why should not the con stant slaughter of industrial accidents move Christian women to prayer, as well as the smaller slaughter of war ? Prayer transforms mere in formation into will and conviction, and deepens the sense of duty. Should the church ever exert its influence in politics ? We have a well-grounded dread of ecclesiastical influence in politics. But that is due to the fact that, in the past, great churches have gone into politics to defend or acquire privileges for themselves. It is an entirely dif ferent matter when the churches ask nothing for 1 For the purpose of such study the writer would commend the simple lessons published monthly by the American Institute of Social Service in "The Gospel of the Kingdom" (Bible House, Astor Place, New York) ; or " Studies in American So cial Conditions," edited by Rev. Richard Henry Edwards of the University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.), a series of pam phlets of high value ; or the book, " Social Solutions," by Prof. Thomas C. Hall of Union Theological Seminary (Eaton & Mains, New York City, Publishers). He also ventures to mention his own book, " Christianity and the Social Crisis" (Macmillan Company, New York City, Publishers). 122 Conservation of National Ideals themselves, but demand protection for the moral safety of the people. Then they are not one more selfish interest going into politics, but ire the champions of the people and prophets of God. Our churches have long learned to tak? a hand in the political fight against the liquor traffic. If they took an equally intelligent and active interest in the well-known evils created by industrial life, they would have great power in conserving the past ideals of American life and in reenforcing the influences that are bringing on a better day. NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS IN AMERICA Elisabeth B. Vermilye Be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines. HEB. xin. 9. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil ; th.it put darkness for light and light for darkness / that put bitter for sweety and sweet for bitter. ISA. v. 20. And thou shah not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right or to the left, to ^o after other gods to serve them DEUT. xxvm. 14. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all na tions of the earth.-*- DEUT. xxvm. i. NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS IN AMERICA BACK of Home Missions must stand that which gives them reason for being, as well as incentive and inspiration the re ligion of Jesus Christ. Back of our national problems must ever be the question whether they shall be solved by a Christian or a non-Christian nation. Prominent among American ideals has always been the desire for complete religious freedom, but certainly in the hearts of those who founded this nation it was assumed and expected that it was, and would remain, freedom to be Christian. It was their purpose to establish a government over which should always rule Jesus the Christ ; however we may differ from them in some par ticulars we cannot fail to acknowledge that this Republic had its roots in prayer ; was founded upon the Word of God ; was cradled in the sanctity of the Christian home; and took its growth and strength from unswerving principle. Upon us devolves the problem and the task of upholding and advancing the ideals so committed to us. Not only to upbuild the kingdom of Christ but to hold what we have inherited, or "5 126 Conservation of National Ideals gained, that is the serious problem which con fronts us ! All signs show that this is a period of unrest in religious, as in social, economic, and govern mental concerns. A tendency to turn away frcm Christianity to follow alien, or often antagonistic, faiths is everywhere evident; or even if adher ence is not entirely withdrawn there is increasing readiness to admit that the religion of Jesus is only one among many, with no especial right to interpret God and man in their right relations. Statistics show nowhere in the world such an infinite variety of divided and subdivided sect; ; of independent leaders and cults ; of erratic " isms," as in this land of ours. Forty-eight new sects have been added in the decade since 1900. This is somewhat to be expected among a population comprising so many nations and peoples and tongues entirely unrestricted relig iously by law or public sentiment. Unnumbered teachers are proclaiming new ideas in religious as in all other branches of thought ; each day records some new doctrine which claims to hold ultimate truth. It is claimed that any leader, or new cult, however extreme, can win a following here at this time if properly advertised. Each year sees thousands of men and women drawing away from the religion of Jesus Christ as inter preted by the church, to follow other leaders and lords. Non-Christian Faiths in America 127 We cannot shut our eyes to these facts ; it is better to face and carefully consider what it is which is promising rest of soul to weary seekers, and satisfaction to hungry hearts ; for that this wide-spread religious unrest really indicates long ing for the unseen and hunger for spiritual food cannot be doubted. The subject of this chapter requires definition. Several of the faiths now gaining adherents make their appeal in the name of a higher, purer Christianity. Only careful study reveals that they differ essentially from the teaching of Christ as to the being and nature of God, the reality of sin, and the place and mission of Himself. Many of these faiths teach pure ethics and high moral ity. Some of them place an emphasis on the reality of the unseen and the supreme claim of the spiritual which is greatly needed and most helpful in this materialistic age. Christianity stands for the revelation of a Father God, revealed in the Son, and drawing together all men in brotherhood, but yet more it stands for the leadership of a living Christ and complete redemption through and in Him. In using the term non-Christian, therefore, let us understand it to mean those forms of religious faiths which do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as supreme leader, authoritative teacher, and Re deemer from sin. But let us remember that in such a study we are dealing entirely with systems 1 28 Conservation of National Ideals of belief, and formulated interpretations of truth, not with the lives or characters of those who intelligently, or otherwise, accept these interpre tations and adhere to these systems. Those forms of belief which do not agree whh Christianity as embodied in, and interpreted by, the ancient and historic Christian church, while included under the general head of non-Christian faiths, may be divided into three classes u i- Christian, anti-Christian, and non-Christian. Un-Christian includes : 1 . The large proportion of the population who acknowledge no religious affiliations whatever. 2. The orthodox Hebrew communion whicci, while composed of valuable citizens and usually a force for righteousness, does not acknowledge Christ as Lord or authoritative teacher, or yieid to Him honour as a divine Saviour. Judaism has, according to the census, 1,769 reported organiza tions, 101,457 members, all heads of families. 3. The Mormon hierarchy which, while of ficially calling itself " Church of Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ," places far above Him in its councils Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, or any present day apostle ; looks to forms and ceremonies of its own instituting for redemption and healing ; and follows practices contrary to the moral sense, not only of the Christian church but also of the community at large outside the Mormon church. Non-Christian Faiths in America 129 4. Christian Science which, while emphasiz ing many vital and helpful truths, is in its philos ophy Hinduism. Its teaching denies the reality of sin or the need of a Saviour, and places its founder, Mary Baker G. Eddy, whom it calls " the second incarnation of God," as a religious leader and authoritative teacher, above the Christ, who is reduced in His personal relations to " the Christ Idea." 5. Spiritualism, a moral and naturalistic sys tem, inclined to follow oriental philosophy, be lieving in continuity of existence and power of intercommunication with the other world. The anti-Christian forces include : 1. Some forms of Socialism. 2. Labour Temples of extreme type which exact from their members oaths of antagonism to all religious bodies, and abstention from any and all religious practices. 3. Those who follow, or sympathize with, the teachings of Voltaire, Strauss, Renan, Ingersoll or those others who claim to be altruistic in be lief, iconoclastic in intention, and antagonistic in effort to all forms of religious belief or observ ance. Of this latter class there is, alas, a large and increasing company in this land, threatening its future continuance as a Christian nation, crip pling its present day efforts for the triumph of the Christ; training the children, to whom be- 130 Conservation of National Ideals longs the future, in indifference or antagonism to the religion and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Of the " ten great religions of the world " Confucianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Parsee- ism, Mohammedanism, Judaism, the religion of Egypt, the religion of Greece, the religion of Rome, and Christianity, three only have been missionary Mohammedanism, Buddhism and Christianity ; six only are still vital or aggressive Mohammedanism, Confucianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity. All of these six we find in America to-day in ancient or modern form, or in both. Nor are the non-Christian faiths failing to gain adher ents, for statistics show a yearly increase in numbers and strength, as well as influence and wealth. No available statistics give the exact amount of such increase, but many things indi cate its general spread. The non-Christian division includes : Buddhism, which in its ancient form holds most of those who come to us from China and Japan ; its temples and "joss-houses " dot several sections of the country and large cities. It issues a news paper with wide circulation from our Pacific coast. Buddhism finds its modern exponent in Theosophy, which is drawing to itself large numbers of religiously restless people. Mohammedanism is gaining a footing through Non-Christian Faiths in America 131 its reform movement, " Babism," or " Bahaism," and the Mormon church, in its practice of po lygamy, follows the teaching and example of Is lam. Brahmanism is making its way in one of its very vital forms, Vedantism ; and in its modern form, Christian Science. Confucianism, in its ancient form, holds many Chinese and is being acceptably presented by its own adherents as a perfect system of morals and ethics. With its stress on morals, and its ancestor worship it finds its modern equivalent in Positiv ism, and in Ethical Culture with its emphasis on ethics and its non-emphasis on a God. Parseeism is being revived in a Sun worship with headquarters in Chicago, to which there have been a number of recent converts. Even the old worship of Isis, so long neg lected in its home in Egypt, has been recently transplanted by a little company of its priests, and is finding a new home on our hospitable shores. The latest religious census, begun in 1906, is sued in 1910, shows three-fifths of the entire pop ulation, amounting to 50,000,000 people, with out church-membership of any kind. In the period between 1890 and 1906, there was a gain in those within the ranks of church-membership of six and four-tenths per cent, of the entire pop ulation ; one and eight-tenths per cent, of this gain was Protestant, four and four-tenths per cent. 132 Conservation of National Ideals was Roman Catholic, one-tenth of one per cert, was in" un-Christian " or" non-Christian " organi zations. This is of some encouragement to the Christian church, but what small inroads does it show on the mass of the unchurched and unr<*- ligious millions ! Truly, Home Missions finds here a field for all its combined forces and united efforts ! MORMONISM The only one of the un-Christian faiths which constitutes a menace to our nation is tie " Church of Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ " known as the Mormon hierarchy. The increase in membership in this communion since 1890 has been over 90,000, equalling thirty-eight per cent, of the religious growth in the entire popu lation, against twenty-eight per cent, in the Protestant denominations and twenty-one per cent, in the Roman Catholic bodies. The Mor mon organizations have increased from 856 in 1890 to 1,184 i 11 1906, and are still increasing rapidly. There are now two divisions, called " the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints " and the " Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." The value of church prop erty is now placed at $3,168,548. The chief danger of the Mormon church to the nation lies in its political and governmental Non-Christian Faiths in America 133 aspirations ; in the supreme allegiance of its members to the church rather than the nation ; and in their absolute obedience to the commands of the church in voting, colonizing, and every other detail of their lives. The political designs of the hierarchy are clearly set forth in their articles of faith in which it is stated that " all merely human, religious, or political institutions, all republics, states, kingdoms and empires, must be dissolved ; the dross of ignorance and false hood be separated and the golden principles of unalloyed truth be preserved and blended forever in the one consolidated, universal, eternal govern ment of the Saints of the Most High." Towards this goal the government of this country and the world they are steadily but silently working. Towards the accomplishment of this ambition they claim control, or balance of power, in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma and New Mexico. The religious census shows the Mormon pro portion of the population religiously affiliated to be as follows : Utah - 92 per cent. Idaho - 62 " " Wyoming - 1 1 " Arizona - 24 " " Nevada - - 8 " Colorado- 3 < " 134 Conservation of National Ideals In addition to the states unquestionably under strong Mormon influence, the hierarchy has to be reckoned with politically in many other states closely divided between the dominant parties. The practice of polygamy, growing each year more open, is so fundamental in the constitution and creed of the church that it can be intermitted only during the storms caused by aroused pubic opinion. It can never be permanently discontin ued without setting at naught the very founda tion principles of Mormonism. This practice, so contrary to all decency and morality, renders this church a menace to the moral life of the community, and the nation. In its religious tenets the Mormon church can never be a source of pure religion and undefiled for the uplift of the people. The Mormon con ception of God is the lowest found in any relig ious system, except that of devil worship. The creed affirms, " We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." With this profession of orthodox belief, denying polygamy, and proclaiming a beautiful spirit of religious harmony and brotherly love, together with promises of material gain, they draw to themselves thousands of converts each year from all parts of the earth. In 1910 they claimed to have made in all 600,000 converts and the religious census showed in America 256,647 Mormons, although their estimate was 375,000. Non-Christian Faiths in America 135 According to Mormon interpretation the above article of faith declares that " God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man ; He was once a man like us and dwelt on earth. The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man s. Adam is our Father and our God." Nor is there only one god in the Mormon faith. " In the beginning the head of the gods called a council of the gods and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it." And still is this company being added to. " You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, the same as all gods have done before you," that is, by the practice of polygamy. Jesus is declared to be " Son of God " as Hyrum Smith was a " son of God," and to have entered the " divine order of plural marriage " by mar riage with the two Marys and Martha at Cana of Galilee. Apostle Kimball defines the Holy Ghost as " a man, one of the sons of our Father and our God ; that man who stood next to Jesus Christ as I stand by Brigham Young. You think our father and our God is not a lively, sociable and cheerful man ; He is one of the most lively men that ever lived. " As the Mormon church teaches that " the divine order of plural marriage " is the God- ordered and God-practiced order of heaven ; 136 Conservation of National Ideals that with it any man can become a god; that without it no woman can be saved ; that it was given to Joseph Smith by a divine revelation which can never be abrogated ; and that only as its members conform to it when so ordered by the church can they be in good and regular standing, it is clear that no profession of change under stress of pressure from without, or desire from within to secure some benefit can be lasting or sincere. " We did not reveal celestial mar riage, " said President Smith before the Con gressional Committee ; " we cannot withdraw or renounce it. God revealed it and He has prom ised to maintain it and to bless those who obey it. Forty years ago the Lord revealed to His church this principle and said, For, behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant, and if ye abide not in that covenant then are ye damned and cannot be permitted to enter into My glory. " Believing this law how can the Mormon church abolish polygamy ? The missionary forces of the Mormon church are the most devoted, aggressive, and well organized in the world ! They serve absolutely without pay or reward, and yield unquestioning obedience to any command of the church what ever of sacrifice or effort it may entail. Over two thousand missionaries are sent out each year to visit " every city, town, hamlet and house, and to talk with each person if possible at least Non-Christian Faiths in America 137 twice." " Two by two " they go forth through this and all foreign lands, even to Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Samoa, and Australia. By systematically " being all things to all men," offending none by harsh or repellent doctrine until securely drawn into the church, they are adding to their numbers at the rate of thirty-eight per cent, of the religious growth of the entire population. Surely these are facts deserving deepest consideration from the view-point of Home Missions and the welfare of our nation. BABISM The other expression of Mohammedanism, Babism, or Bahaism, has twenty-four organiza tions and is distributed through thirteen states and the District of Columbia. It reports 1,280 open adherents, taught by instructed leaders. A central temple, in Chicago, will soon be com pleted. Babism was a schism from Islam in 1844, being founded by Mirza AH Mahommed, who claimed to be the " bab " or " door " of communication between the twelfth Imam and his people. At first, however, Mirza claimed to be only the forerunner of One greater, but later believed himself to be the incarnation of divine wisdom. He died under persecution in Persia and his disciples called themselves Babists. The successor of Mirza Ali was Baha Ullah, or " Splendour of God." He also claimed divine 138 Conservation of National Ideals wisdom and met with persecution, but his follow ers formed a sect now called Bahais, which is very powerful in Persia. Its motive claims to be a desire to conform the law and teaching of Islam to modern conditions, and to attain a more vital union with God than can be won through that law alone. Otherwise it diffeis little from Mohammedanism. The present " bab " is Abdul Baha Abbas, son of Baha Ullah. He teaches love, tolerance and charity, and strives for the spiritual unity of mankind. He acknowledges Christianity as a phase of true religion and gives reverence to the Christ, but claims for himself a higher place as head of the faith which is the supreme fulfill ment of truth. Many American women have gone to Acre, his place of banishment on the Syrian coast, to sit at his feet ; the faith is pre sented year by year at Green Acre, Maine. TEACHINGS OF NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS A study of non-Christian faiths in America may properly include a condensed outline of their general religious teachings and practices. The exoteric in a religion represents the out ward form the ceremonies, ritual, expressions and practices with which it makes its open ap peal to its followers and the world. The esoteric represents its inner meaning, the hidden secret to which only those penetrate and which only Non-Christian Faiths in America 139 those understand who give heart devotion and deep study. All religious faiths have a greater or less degree of both these elements. The most wide-spread and popular of the non- Christian faiths is Buddhism in its original form, and also in its modern phase of Theosophy. Buddhism originally was especially a revolt against idolatry, the elaborate and oppressive caste system, and the immoral life which Brah- manism had fostered. Theosophy -from Greek words meaning divine wisdom while claiming to have a place for any who seek that end, with out regard to religious affiliation or form of wor ship, none the less confesses itself in its essence to be esoteric Buddhism. Buddhism and Theosophy make special claim to these distinctions. Outwardly Buddhism is a system of elaborate forms and ceremonies. At its heart it is a life of meditation and constant contemplation of the things of the spirit world. Originally it sharply condemned all outward expression and, especially, idolatrous practices. It has been beautifully presented to this genera tion by Edwin Arnold as " the Light of Asia." Its teachings are favourably compared with those of Christ ; its spirit is extolled as superior to that shown by Christians. It is even claimed that Christianity owes much of its tradition and teaching to the Buddha ; that in a true sense he was the parent of the religion of Jesus. 140 Conservation of National Ideals But while there are some resemblances, more especially in religious observances, with those of Catholic Christianity, the differences are so fundamental and vital that no true student of history or religion can for a moment believe that the religion of Jesus Christ owes anything *:o the faith of Gautama, the Buddha. Its spirit of chanty, self-sacrifice, justice and purity, and its high morality as exemplified in the life and teach ings of its founder, put Buddhism on a higher level of purity and truth than any other non- Christian religion. But Buddhism has little place for a God. Its key-note is the worship of death, and yet it denies to man all hope of a personal immortality. 1 1 In the form of final self-extinction after innumerable rein carnations loss and annihilation of self in Nirvana, the final absorption and extinction, which is its heaven Buddha incites his followers to a love of death. Many lives in many forms must be lived, but the highest aspiration in each must be to escape the wretchedness and curse inevitable to a life on earth, by the extermination of all desire, feeling and affection. Only in negation of true living can peace be secured. This is termed by the Buddha " the perfect way " and eight infallible steps are given for its attainment. 1. Right belief, or the correct faith. 2. Right judgment, or a wise application of that faith to life. 3. Right utterance, or perfect truth in all we say or do. 4. Right motives, or proposing always proper end and aim. 5. Right occupation, or outward life not involving sin. 6. Right obedience, or faithful observance of known duty. 7. Right memory, or proper recollection of past conduct. Non-Christian Faiths in America 141 The conquests of Buddhism have been greater, more extended and more lasting than those of any other religion, not excepting Christianity and except Christianity no system has so sharply emphasized morality and duty as a vital part of religion. But its results as shown in the present, and where it has had complete sway, as in Ceylon, are " grossest idolatry, and revolting practices." Its fruits indicate that it is impotent to produce the pure, unselfish, and holy lives which its pre cepts so forcibly portray. The Buddha viewed life only as a snare and a curse. The Christ speaks of its noble purposes, its splendid op portunities, its eternal possibilities, as bound up with His own life, work, and future. Where Buddha taught the morality of renunciation, Christ presents also the ideal of a life no longer to self, of one sacrificed and surrendered, but only as a preliminary to resurrection to higher being, found again in a holier personality. Where Buddhism presents as its highest con ception separation from the affairs of life, Chris- 8. Right meditation, or keeping the mind fixed on perma nent truth. All these are good objects for the strivings of men. The Buddha did not deny the reality of sin, or the gulf fixed be tween man while he wilfully chooses the evil, and the holy God who is altogether good, if there be a God. He offers these eight steps over the chasm of separation, but he claims no power to help the longing soul in its faltering passage other than by his example and his precepts. 142 Conservation of National Ideals tianity seeks to permeate and sanctify the lowliest tasks by the spirit and power of a God who is Redeemer, Helper and Father. THEOSOPHY Theosophy, which is, in essence, and as far as it is a religion, " esoteric Buddhism," is not a system afar off, with which only foreign mission aries have to deal; in its ancient form it has come to us with its Chinese and Japanese adherents, in its modern it is spreading rapid y throughout our land. Theosophy was introduced into America in 1875 by Madame H. P. Blavat- sky, who founded a society in New York in that year, and, later, one in Boston. " Realizing the limited time she had in this one incarnation," writes a friend, "and the awful need of the world, the spiritual pride and darkness, the people cry ing for a light to guide them, she sacrificed her self at times almost recklessly " in her effort " to bring Theosophy to the attention of all people and make it a telling power in the world." She found a devoted adherent and helper in William Q. Judge, first a student, later a col league, finally her successor in carrying on the work. Col. H. S. Olcott was also an associate in the early movement but not so trusted or helpful. In 1888 Mr. Judge formed a society for students called " The Esoteric School of Theosophy." Madame Blavatsky died in 1893, chiefly, her Non-Christian Faiths in America 143 friends claim, from the strain of overwork and the fierce opposition directed against her and her movement. Shortly before Madame Blavatsky s death, Mrs. Annie Besant came to her for instruction. Later, she became a professedly ardent member of the society. After the death of its founder a contest arose as to whether William Judge, chosen by Madame Blavatsky, or Mrs. Besant, chosen by herself, should be leader in America. The action of the Aryan Society of New York and the Bos ton Society caused the choice for president for life to fall upon Mr. Judge, and Mrs. Besant and her associates were repudiated by the original society. It is due to this event that the census shows four Theosophical Societies in 1906, in stead of one, as in 1890.* Mr. Judge died in 1896 and was succeeded by Mrs. Katharine Tingley, the present head of the organization at Point Loma, in Southern California. The original objects of Madame Blavatsky s society were " I. To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, colour, or creed. 1 Theosophical Society in America; Theosophical Society, New York; Theosophical Society, American Section ; Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society (situated at Point Loma, California) with a branch called the Aryan Society. Available statistics for this division (1906) show eighty-five or ganizations, with over twenty-five hundred adherents. 144 Conservation of National Ideals " 2. To promote the study of Aryan a:id other Scriptures of the world s religions and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of old Asiatic literature, the Brahmanical, Buddhist and Zoroastrian philosophies. " 3. To investigate the hidden mysteries of nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man es pecially." It is this third section which opens the door to the esoteric mysteries and occult practices of the cult. " The Universal Brotherhood " always refuses to give statistics ; it claims a vast number of members at large who, although they may siill retain affiliation with other religious bodies, are in entire sympathy with the movement in both belief and object." Mrs. Tingley claims that the number of adherents was trebled in the first two years of her leadership, and was increased fivefold during 1910. This division is certainly the most active and aggressive in the country. As it pro claims itself to be the only real exponent of a true " wisdom religion," an account of its work as drawn from its own published statements will give us the clearest understanding of Theosophy in America. The organization at Point Loma consists of the School of Antiquity, which numbers among those who sit at the feet of Katharine Tingley to Non-Christian Faiths in America 145 learn from her the way of life, " men and women from all walks of life and every profession ; musi cians, artists, writers, physicians, ministers, lawyers, engineers, business men, craftsmen and artisans." A School of Antiquity Temple is to be erected for classes and religious rites. The Aryan branch has a press which with ever- increasing facilities is utterly unable to keep pace with the enormous demand for Theosophical literature. Both this Aryan Society, and the School of Antiquity have large libraries of rare and valuable books. It is said that " Point Loma is destined to be, and has already become a great seat of learning where are being studied the deeper and inner teachings of the great science of Life, Theosophy," and " that its students are en gaged in many lines of deeper research that have a profound significance in regard to the future welfare of humanity." Indeed, the chief significance of Point Loma as a religious and social factor lies in this student life. In addition to her adult students, Mrs. Tingley is bringing into the home hundreds of children chiefly orphans but sometimes given by their parents, or parent. These are gathered largely from Cuba or distant places. She is educating and training them to carry the gospel of the " Wisdom Religion " through this and all other lands. " From this world centre and inter national headquarters the work of this vast or- 146 Conservation of National Ideals ganization is carried on in all parts of the world," say the official reports of Point Loma. At the Edinburgh Conference it was stated that " Theosophy, with its subtle ingenuity ard plausible casuistry, is a great hindrance to the acceptance of Christianity in India." As it is largely spreading in America, let us look at the real teachings of this " Wisdom of the Ancients." Madame Blavatsky, in her " Key to Theos ophy," denies that Theosophy, in its essence, is the same as the religion instituted by Gautama Buddha. She claimed more Hindus and Chris tian-born Europeans and Americans among hor followers than native, or converted, Buddhists. The present leaders in the cult state that it is not, strictly speaking, a religious system at all except as it embodies the " Ancient Wisdom Religion." They assert that this " wisdom " has its source in holy Ancients who still live, although un numbered centuries old, in isolated mountains in India, and who have transmitted the truth by word of mouth from one to another capable of receiving and teaching it. Madame Blavatsky claimed that she and Mr. Judge had received this truth direct from its source. But Madame Blavatsky, in her " Key to Theos ophy," does not deny that the ethical teaching of Theosophy is identical with that of Buddhism ; that she herself is a Buddhist ; and that the Buddha received the religious philosophy and esoteric be- Non-Christian Faiths in America 147 liefs which underlay his teaching from the same sources as this " Wisdom Religion," or Theos ophy. 1 In a broad sense Theosophy may not be a re ligion, but in its deeper relations, as clearly shown at Point Loma, it has a system of religious wor ship, makes distinct claims to power to " remove sorrow and heartache from the world " and to " serve and save humanity." It also opposes it self to Christianity and all other religious systems as " far grander, and more noble, more philosoph ical and scientific than any other church or re ligion." Mrs. Tingley distinctly places it as a standard of comparison " whereby all faiths are tried ; all systems of religion, philosophy or gov ernment shall abide or fall ; the basis of every world-faith." She declares " the destruction of Christianity as so complete that the onlooker may be excused for perplexity in trying to dis tinguish between the thing itself and the sepa rated fragments." We are therefore justified in regarding this " Ancient Wisdom " known as Theosophy as a rival of the religion of Christ ; and even while claiming to interfere with no re ligious belief or profession of those who accept 1 One distinction Madame Blavatsky emphasizes between the teaching of Theosophy and that of Esoteric Buddhism. The latter seems to deny the existence of any Diety ; any conscious life after death ; or any individuality in man which could have self-conscious continuance. These things Theosophy does not deny even if not positively affirming them. 148 Conservation of National Ideals its teachings, in reality it sooner or later dra .vs them away from such beliefs or professions into its own ranks. The crucial test of all religions is found in their conception of God. The first question may be, " What kind of a God does this religion present J " Theosophy presents a God who is " the One Li r e, the Eternal Essence, the same in every manifes tation, in stone, or plant, or animal, or shines glorified from the brain of man." In common with Brahmanism that " Eternal Essence " is not a personal but a pantheistic God. It is claimed that Theosophy can " serve and save humanity," and the means of this salvation are found in " karma and reincarnation, the tv/o great truths which the world especially needs for its salvation." " Karma " is the law of nature which corresponds to the law of cause and effect. But Theosophy really looks to the power behind that law as its all-powerful but entirely impersonal God. All forms of Brahmanism and Buddhism have as an integral part a belief in reincarnation, or successive rebirths in different forms, conditioned by the kind of life lived in the preceding incar nation. The expounders of Theosophy say, " Reincarnation is the promise of human perfec tion, or human advance to the status of gods." " To think out and fashion one s life according to this great fact and all that it implies is the way Non-Christian Faiths in America 149 to find the soul, that divine thing which appears to act so undivinely when its purity is veiled by the impulses of the body it enters. The law of reincarnation or rebirth is a necessary part of the scheme of the universe; the problems of man s nature and life cannot be understood with out it." Theosophy agrees with our Bible in its under standing of the body as " the clothing, or home, and instrument of the soul." " It is because he is higher than the body, higher than the mind, higher than the emotions, that man the soul can control them all, though ordinarily he is content to be controlled by them." But in Theosophy man works out his own salvation without aid from without. " Man s only way to win his great hope and to know the truth is to seize hold on himself, assert and realize his po tentially all-dominating soul-existence." It is through this understanding of the power of the soul over the body that Theosophy has built up its system of an " astral " life and the ca pacity of the soul to entirely free itself for longer or shorter periods, as it wills, from the limitations of the body. The law of Fraternity is stated to be " the one law by which man breaks away the web of self, knowing and becoming all that is." Theosophy claims to be " the knowledge of the laws that govern the evolution of the physical, astral, psy- 150 Conservation of National Ideals chical, and intellectual constituents of nature and of man, the key to all questions and problems, an open door to all that the heart of man desires." But " by their fruits ye shall know them." Mrs. Besant, perhaps the best known exponent of the system, says, " It does not matter what the name is, so long as a person is proclaiming the truths of reincarnation and karma, and the possi bilities of the spiritual. This is the great work of Theosophy." Mrs. Tingley, however, affirms that " the spread of Theosophy depends first of all on the life and character of those who profess it," and she strives with varying success to hold those who yield to her as leader and guide " to pure life and right conduct, carrying out the truths of Theosophy in every-day life." These truths, as we have seen, have no place for a per sonal God who redeems men ; for sinful men needing a Saviour ; or for a " place prepared " to receive the released soul. Yet Theosophy with its gospel of salvation by perpetual rebirth is ap pealing to increasing thousands as the Wisdom of the Ancients by which all truth must stand or fall. HINDUISM The Vedantic philosophy also has its head quarters in California (at Los Angeles), where dwells its chief expounder, Baba Bharati, an Eastern " holy man." It holds sessions each BABA BHARATI BUDDHIST TEMPLE, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Non-Christian Faiths in America 151 year for teaching and propagation at the Sum mer School at Green Acre, Maine. It was in troduced into America at the Parliament of Re ligions held at the World s Fair at Chicago in 1893 by Svvami Vivekananda, but no organiza tion was formed until about 1898. At that par liament many of the religious conceptions of the East were so beautifully presented by devout ex pounders of fascinating personality, that many were led not only to wider sympathies and broader understanding of non-Christian faiths, but also to accept them as equal with, or superior to, the teachings of Jesus Christ. Human nature is essentially religious. All history and tradition has shown that the primal instinct of man has always been to reach out towards the unseen ; to seek a power higher, stronger, and more abiding than himself, whom he can worship and adore. All Eastern religious thinking is founded on this inherent need and demand of the human soul and presents some of the profoundest responses to that need found outside the revelations of Jesus Christ. The Vedanta philosophy is founded on and embodies the teachings of the Upanishads the last book of the Vedas, the most ancient writings of India. These are generally recognized by all Hindus as the highest authority on all re ligious questions. "Veda" in its widest sense means knowledge. The Vedas, which constitute 152 Conservation of National Ideals the Bible of the Brahmans.are divided into three sections (a) a collection of poems and metrical prayers for ritual use ; (fy prose writings on the forms of sacrifice; (c) books intended for quiet study and deep thinking. Of this last section the Upanishads are the climax and most impor tant. These constitute a series of philosophical treatises in which the ancient gods of India taught in the Vedas are set at naught, and the entire ritual and sacrificial system is denounced as useless, or mischievous. These Upanishads are also in poetic form, and mark for the Hind a the last stage of religious thinking, in which the external forms and teachings suitable for the child are replaced for the grown man by the very essence of the truth divinely revealed which he has been prepared to receive and understand. Brahmanism teaches three stages of life. The first is one of discipline, when the child and youth is under tutelage and instruction, and must im plicitly obey. In the second the youth becomes a man, and as husband, father, and householder, must perform all duties in accordance with the teachings of the Vedas and law books, in which he has been thoroughly instructed. In the third period, that of old age, a Hindu is permitted to leave wife and children, and all active life, and to be absolved from all religious outward observ ances, that he may find with self-denials and penances, in retirement and meditation, the solu- Non-Christian Faiths in America 153 tion of the supreme problems of life and death, and the answer to the greatest of all mysteries the organization of the universe out of nothing. In this period of concentrated thought, he studies only the Upanishads and Vedantic philosophy, and, rejecting all the gods to whom he has prayed in former periods, he makes room for the one Supreme Being whom he knows as Brahman or Brahm. Vedantism is one of six orthodox systems of Hindu thought. The avowed object of the Upanishads and Vedantism is a search for the one Supreme God, with the end of liberating the soul of man from all which separates it from complete union with the Eternal Brahman. Brahman originally meant the power of devotion as expressed in prayer, and especially in sacri fice ; later it became the power on which even the gods depended that is, the power behind both gods and the world, the eternal principle of All Being. Brahm is in no sense a personality. Brahmanism is fundamentally pantheistic. By the ignorant to whom the Upanishads is a for bidden book Brahm may be worshipped as a conditioned personal God, without harm or loss to the worshipper ; but by the wise he is known to be high above all conditions and limits in personality. The Universe is but the great effect of which he is the great cause. In Vedantic thought that which we call " the 154 Conservation of National Ideals world" is of our own making, with no existence apart from ourselves ; " a dream " the Vedant st loves to call it, with reality only as it and we be come absorbed in, and a part of Brahm. The soul of man, or " the living self," has no existence or reality apart from Brahm ; its salvation con sists in recognition of this fact, and consequent freedom from the evil of rebirth. This differs essentially from Theosophy, which conceives of constant rebirth on earth as the only means :>f salvation. How much higher than either is the teaching of Jesus concerning that new birth to a truer life which is the door into the life hid with Him in God, in the service of humanity. The only immortality for the Vedantist con sists in " atman the self knowing itself and becoming assimilated with Brahm." The way to attain to this is to renounce all the activities of life and to remain while here in a state of per petual meditation. Gautama Buddha carried this farther, into the renunciation of all desire. There is much in the message of Brahmanism which makes for other- worldliness in the lives of its adherents. But how can it reach the heart and the need of men as does the revelation of the Christ of the Father God the Eternal Personality in whom alone our personalities find their real completion and being ? How different the attitude of the teachers of Brahmanism towards those of lower caste to whom they close the sacred books from Non-Christian Faiths in America 155 that of Jesus whom the " common people heard gladly " ! How different the road of salvation finding its highest goal in total extinction, to the way through truth to fullness of life which He opened for all who would come to God by Him ! Vedantism claims to be a religion as well as a philosophy, and in this it differs from all other philosophies. As a religion it is best studied in its present home in Los Angeles under Baba Bharati. But because it is stretching out from that home to draw to itself from all sections of the land, it becomes an important subject of study to us. The leading exponent of Vedantism in America is Baba Bharati. In 1902 the New York Herald announced that " a holy man from India has come to New York to make converts to his faith," which is " Love for all men." This " holy man " was Baba Bharati, a " lama," or hill hermit, from Thibet. For two years after this announcement the Baba taught and lectured, and in 1904 he was chosen vice- president for India at the Peace Congress held in Boston. At the Congress his eloquent plea for peace made a deep impression, but that was only an incident of his mission to America. He had " come to make converts to his faith." This faith he declared to be " the knowledge and worship of the Lord Sni Krishna," " the best calculated," he declared, " to satisfy the deep craving of human 156 Conservation of National Ideals nature for a high and personal conception of the Deity." In his teaching the Baba refused to " fit his truths to Western minds, but held unswerv ingly to eternal, unadulterated Hinduism." " I have come," he said in response to criticism cf this course, " not to make money, but on a mis sion. I have come to teach Hinduism by the halo of its own brilliancy, and not to westernize il . Those who want the wisdom of the East will have that as it is." And for just that pupils came in increasing numbers. He opened a class in New York ol "a few souls hungry for the truths the Ancients have tried and not found wanting, and which the fortunate Hindus have embraced and absorbed in their daily living." " Doctors and artists, writers of note, teachers and clergymen, followers of dif ferent creeds and students of the higher life, came to him to learn of the truth of the Ancients," and went away claiming to have " a better under standing of their own beliefs," but also a firm be lief that " his thought is the Science of God and man." They felt that it brought to them an " il lumination that bound them heart and soul for ever to the spiritual saint who was giving to them a wisdom as deep as the ocean and limitless as space." This wisdom largely consists, besides the gen eral Vedantic philosophy, of the religion of the Lord Krishna. His pupils testify that the Baba Non-Christian Faiths in America 157 lived only to give " the love of his Lord Krishna, the sayings of Krishna in the Geeta the stories of the immortals and last, not least, the wonderful life of Chaitanye to the Western world." Every class opened and closed its sessions with a chant to the name of this Lord, and it was noted as " a rare and unique thing to hear Americans chant ing the Sanscrit mantras and praising the name of a god who, until Baba s coming, was almost unknown here." In addition to these classes he began lecturing at Green Acre in the third year of his residence in America, and the " fervour of his oratory, the wisdom of his impassioned sentiments, and the great throbbing love that clothed each appeal and criticism," secured for him plaudits of the press and the public, and opened to him platforms and halls in all directions. After the Congress he settled in Boston, where he formed classes and delivered lectures for over a year attended by representative men and women. He also pro mulgated his teachings widely through magazines and books, notably one on " Krishna, Lord of Love," which many of his followers call the " Bible of the Twentieth Century," others, the " History of God and Man," and others, the " in spired and beloved Book." His students claim that never a day is allowed to pass without read ing a portion of this book in which is found "just the supply to fill the need of that day." 158 Conservation of National Ideals In 1906 the Baba was called to the " Venice Assembly" the Religious Parliament, held n Los Angeles the city which is announced t;o be " the most ready and ripe for a spiritual up heaval." When the Parliament dispersed, the Baba decided that Los Angeles offered the best field for the establishment of the Krishna worship and there he took up his abode. He soon started his publication, the " Light of India," which it is claimed is a " power in the world of thought from one end of the world to the other." Here he opened his Krishna Home, in which the in mates form a community, living as close to the ascetic life as possible. The food is in accord with Hindu vegetarianism ; the rules and regula tions are those of Hindu monasteries ; the atmos phere is " alive with vibrations of love, and none who enters there fails to go away blessed, and a lover of Krishna." In addition to this home he has made a temple in which are enshrined Radha, Krishna and Chaitanye, gods of India, and to which crowds are still coming daily to hear his lectures and to sing the " Song to the Lord." Here each morning gathers a circle of devotees of Krishna, and each evening these go into spiritual ecstasy at the name of Krishna, as the evening song of adora tion, called the " Arati," is sung with ceremonies of waving lights as millions sing it in India. After five years in America Baba Bharati re turned to his native land, carrying with him a Non-Christian Faiths in America 159 devoted band of his disciples to learn more of Hindu religion at the fountainhead. It was claimed that he left behind him five thousand converts to his faith, drawn from among the most cultured and educated of America. One writes, " Whatever may be the views of the majority regarding his philosophy, the Baba s teachings have left an indelible impression in America. The world-old religion, from which he claims all religions have sprung, has spread like the banyan and become firmly rooted in Western soil." Baba Bharati did not intend to return to America. In the meeting arranged to give him farewell, which was presided over by a former prominent minister of the Gospel, the "holy man" said, " It has been my privilege to preach to you your own Christ Jesus, even more than I preached my Krishna. I came not to thrust my own religion and God upon you, but to help you to understand your own God and your own re ligion ; if I have talked of Krishna and exposed to you the truths of our Bible the Vedas and the Hindu philosophies, it was only to illuminate the teachings of your own Christ, to present Him before you in the lime-light of the Vedas, and the X-ray of our scientific philosophies." The Baba did not intend to return, but the cries of his bereft disciples were too loud and in sistent and a second time, in 1910, he left his 160 Conservation of National Ideals own land to spend the rest of his days in the land of his adoption, and the Home of his founding, to which he will strive to draw all those who wish there to serve and worship the God of his love. At this second parting prob ably for his life many noted countrymen gathered in Madras to bid him farewell. In the farewell addresses the statement was made, in explanation of the Baba s decision to work in America instead of among his own countrymen, that " the thought of the West was so tinged with deep materialism that the East, having learned that spirituality which alone suffices to preserve a nation, and the West having learned that there are truths to be gleaned from study of the philosophy and religion of the East it was fitting that this holy man should go to offer to America the knowledge of this religion of Asia. It was hoped that in this way India would more surely retain its own faith, as the acceptance and endorsement of the Hindu faith by the Western world would serve to give it new power and impetus among the young people of India." This was in itself a new departure on the part of Brahmanism. Until this emphasis on its Vedantic form it has never been a missionary religion, never tried to be a world religion. As an incoherent system of philosophy, it has made its exoteric appeal to the common people, but tried to reveal its deeper truths only to those of Non-Christian Faiths in America 161 education and high caste. Its claim in America is based on the same distinction that it draws to itself of the cultured and refined. So Foreign Missions come to us. The old world faiths sometimes tottering to their fall on their native soil are invading our land in new forms and with renewed vitality. Borrowing the methods of Christianity ; bowing to Jesus Christ as a teacher of truth, pure life and high ideals, though always claiming Him to be inferior to their own founders and teachers ; interpreting His teaching and claims in the light of Eastern religious thought, they draw to themselves thou sands with the assurance that the new need not displace the old. Gradually, however, subtle distinctions, or open contrasts, weaken the hold of Christianity, until it is openly avowed that " those who have recog nized in the old Vedic (or Theosophic, or Babist) religion the very essence of what our own Oriental Christ came on earth to teach, have frankly broken away from creed limitations and are boldly preaching under a more liberal banner, the new, or the original, Vedanta (the Wisdom Religion), in all its subtle, glorious and ancient philosophy." These then are the substitutes offered for the religion of Jesus, who came to seek and to save not only the cultured and refined, but the stray- 162 Conservation of National Ideals ing and struggling of any nation or class. The day is past when those who do not follow the religion of Christ can be wholly condemned as " idolaters and heathen." Missionaries of the Cross no longer go to foreign people with a mes sage of reproof whose chief burden is condemna tion, and whose aim is to destroy rather than to conserve and emphasize the truth they find in other religions. Christian students and thinkers recognize that any religious system which survives for centuries under storm and stress, meeting in greater or less degree the religious needs of the human heart, must have at its core something of the truth of God, and embody some message which He has never failed to give to all those created by His hand. But if we comprehend at all the meaning of Christianity and the claims of the Christ we must hold always to Him as su preme leader ; authoritative teacher ; true revealer of God, and His incarnated power for the re demption of men. Only as America holds true to her Christian ideals in prayerful dependence on the Most High, and seeks from His word light on her path to national honour and place among the nations, can she have the truth and power with which to win the nations for our Christ. VI CHRISTIAN CONSERVATION Rev. Charles L. Thompson^ D. D. The Christian church serves the best and highest interests of the American Republic. First, because it protects a.id fosters those institutions which have proved a blessing to the Republic. Second, because it keeps before the people the true idea with regard to national greatness and national strength. DAVID GREGG, D. D. VI CHRISTIAN CONSERVATION THE preceding chapters have dealt with the conservation of various American ideals. It is the aim of this closing chapter to trace the development of those ideals in our national life and to show how far our history has made for their conservation. To be true to one s ideals, that, for a man or a people, is the condition of progress. The well-worn aphorism of hitching one s wagon to a star sug gests the value of trying to realize one s best visions. If they lose their hold upon us, if they cease to have power to command us, we become the easy prey of whatever adverse influences may beset us. This, so true of the individual, is equally true of the nation. What, now, have been our national stars ? What principles, or ideals, may we discover in the beginnings of our history which it is worth our while, as a people, to guard and transmit ? We shall best learn by glancing for a moment at the nerve ideas which we have as a national heritage. Whence did we come, and what freighted our ships besides the pioneer men and women ? 165 l66 Conservation of National Ideals Unless principles enter into a nation s life it remains a wilderness. And these principles ar* easily discerned. The one great reason for ,i nation on these shores expressed in most general terms is civil and religious liberty. That is a foundation granite enough for any superstructure. Since the Hebrew Common wealth no other people has had so distinct aa origin. The underlying principles came to us from European battle-fields for intellectual and religious freedom. They came from Holland, France and Great Britain. They are trace able farther back to Geneva the fertile source of modern ideas of popular education and democratic government. Those principles be came the groundwork of our national life and they are mighty enough to shape to noble ends every phase and reach of that life. The seeds brought in the Mayflower have germinal power enough to produce a harvest of noble conduct to the end of time. Ideals imply personality. We shall under stand them better if we glance at the type of manhood in which our early history was ex pressed. The colonial stock was the winnowing of the best life of Europe men not unworthy to claim Calvin and Knox and their compeers as their intellectual and spiritual fathers. It is much the fashion in these broad days to sneer at men of the Calvin type. In our liberal mental Christian Conservation 167 latitudes we conceive of the Puritan as narrow and intolerant. But as the Genevese reformer, in that vigour of manhood which our easy-going days can scarcely comprehend, made new channels for a world s thinking, so the Puritans by a fine severity smote rocks in the wilderness, that life-giving streams might fertilize the land. But we shall mistake if, in our appreciation of Puritan character, we fail to recognize the other elements which entered into our composite nationality. The Dutch, the Huguenots, the Germans, the Scotch and the Irish gave us leaders worthy of their sires who on Holland flats, on French fields, on German hills and Scottish moors fought for those eternal principles we cherish to-day. We speak of the strain that is put on our country now by the diversity of our population. But diversity has characterized us ever has made us what we are and may be trusted to make us what we should be. What, now, are some of the ideals brought hither and cherished here by the strong characters to which we look back as our most precious heritage ? i. The ideal of a theocratic government a government which should recognize God only as the supreme head of the nation. The sovereign personality of God was stamped on our begin nings. Though sometimes denied, the records of it are abundant and explicit. We read it not 168 Conservation of National Ideals only in the prayers of the Mayflower and the religion of the Jamestown colonists, but emphatic ally in public documents and addresses in early colonial history. John Adams, when the fate of the Declaration of Independence hung in the balance of debate, declared : " It is the will of heaven that Britain and America should be sundered forever." Jefferson writing the Declara tion traced American destiny to " the laws of Nature and Nature s God," and the "pledge of life, fortune and sacred honour " is made sacred by " firm reliance on Divine Providence." More distinctly still, the Constitution of the thirteen states made the idea of God the corner-stone, some of them declaring essential " a belief in God, the Creator and Governor of the universe." If ever shall come the time when the idea of God shall be dim in the popular thought, when the tonic of it shall be less in our theology, and the reason for it fade from our philosophy, we shall need only to uncover colonial history to see it shine again the one supreme conception in our early national thinking. Perhaps we are coming on times when this ideal of the government of God in human affairs needs to be conserved. We are in these days writing man so large his capacity and his achievements that we are in danger of losing the nerve thought of a divine presence, which alone gives highest potency to man s thinking or Christian Conservation 169 doing. We can afford, as a people, to be wholly tolerant of philosophic and theological vagaries that do not touch this nerve. Indeed, we cannot afford not to be thus tolerant. But if we would keep the stream of our national life clear for highest thinking and noblest action, there must be no shading of the idea of God as the source of our life, and our only sufficient guide in all that concerns national well-being. We shall lose our wisdom if we leave God out of our counsels. We shall lose our victories of every sort if we dethrone Him from His place in our affairs. What God was to Israel when He flamed before their armies what He has been in every great march of human progress that must He be to us, if we are to keep any leadership in the move ments of the world. Let us hold the vigour of that theocratic ideal. A system of philosophy, a cult, must never be allowed to take the place of the august conception of a personal God living, ruling, inspiring, in the whole range of a nation s life. 2. Another original ideal which we must conserve is that of a pure democracy. Any reading of colonial history makes plain the fact that the people coming hither from whatever monarchical and aristocratic phase of European life, came hither to establish government on the basis of human brotherhood. This broad re publicanism was indeed truer in some parts of 1 70 Conservation of National Ideals the country than others, but at least it was every where theoretically recognized. In New Eng land it was absolutely acknowledged. Rank was " but the guinea s stamp," and that stamp counted for little. The Puritans, the Quakers, and the Scotch pretty nearly justified Tennyson s lines : " Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood." For a hundred years the early simplicity of life remained ; masters and servants sat at the same table. Now we have great corporations and masses, and the personal element is lost in the or ganization. Common dangers and hopes bound the early settlers in bonds which nothing could break ; differences of character, not of position, were the separating factors of life. And that fact was the corner-stone of free government ; that made possible the Declaration of Independ ence and all that it implied. That sense of a common brotherhood, inde pendent of position or outward circumstances, was the lesson the early colonists learned, not from their life in the lands whence they came, but from the gospel which was their most precious heritage. Sociology is the hackneyed word of to-day. But it is no new science. It is as old as the New Testament, as old as the teach ings of Jesus, as old as the Ten Commandments. Christian Conservation 171 The social ideal, founded on a pure democracy, was held not indeed as a science, but as a work ing basis of life by the early settlers. In the stratifications of modern life we have gone away from that ideal. It is this fact forced upon us by our social and economic conditions that makes the call for socialism. The times are out of joint. The people are not having their full chance. Greed and social ambition are opening chasms between classes, and something must be done to fill them or bridge them. This is the cry that fills the air. It is idle to ignore or to minimize it. Nor, on the other hand, is it necessary to maintain that only a social and economic revolution can cure these ills. It is possible to recover and conserve the idea we have partly lost. And we may do it by going back to the same democratic Book which was the guide of our fathers and furnished for them the true philosophy of life. The church even when most democratic has not realized her sociological mission. For several reasons her ear has not been acute to the call of the humanities. In the early centuries asceticism shut men away from each other. Ceremonialism in the Middle Ages smothered the higher ethical sentiments. Later, dogmatism that laid supreme stress on technical definitions of doctrine was hostile to a fair view of society and its claims. Biblical sciences were not far 172 Conservation of National Ideals enough advanced to give us a true view of the Bible as largely a sociological book, meant to teach us our duty to our brother. And because the church has not rightly conceived that broad mission, other cults have risen to hear the call of humanity and to do for mankind what the church was ordained to do. Socialism is the blind giant feeling around for temple pillars whereby to pull down society and bring in a new day of brotherhood. But it will not come that way. It will come on the old road that has been opened for all reforms. Along that path the Christian church in these days is making rapid progress. An intense and unbiblical individualism came in with the Middle Ages and the rise of monasticism. Then the most serious endeavour of pious souls was to get away from the world. The world was bad. Individual salvation must come by renouncing it. And the reformation theology did not wholly free itself from this false conception. Individual ism still reigned even after Luther and Calvin had set the world free from the trammels of monastic doctrine. But in these latter days we are witnessing a marked return to Christ s ideal of a kingdom on earth and to such inter-rela tions of people as will bring that kingdom. We are beginning to realize that individual salvation can come completely only through social regener ation, that there is no true keeping of the first Christian Conservation 173 table of the law, love of God, without keeping also the second table, which is love to our brother and that not merely from the altruistic motive of helping our brother, but from a con- ception of the profound truth that our own progress towards heaven is somewhat conditioned on our taking another with us. Into the higher ranges of life, here or elsewhere, there is no such thing as going alone. This democratic ideal of the social mission of the church is now seriously challenging the attention of all thoughtful people. This is evidenced by the number of books bear ing on the social message and the social program of Christianity, that are coming from the presses of all Christian lands, and by the organizations, inside and outside the Christian church, whose stress is on this fundamental obligation of brother hood. The World Congress of Races, held in London to consider in its world-wide bearing this democratic principle, is one of the largest and most philosophic movements, and the most significant of the trend of the times. In the same direction, and with programs for definite results, are the missionary plans of many denominations to abolish class distinctions in the church, and to bring classes of people now widely separated by social or economic barriers, into the fellowship of a common brotherhood. More de pends on the success of these movements than we readily recognize. The democratic ideal of 174 Conservation of National Ideals the Bible, more or less reflected in our earl/ national history, must come back and become the guiding star of the Christian church. The Gospel has the only branch that sweetens the waters of a bitter popular discontent. If the church fails in her mission here, she fails at the most critical point in her history. 3. Another ideal of colonial history is that of a broad base for the national life. It is expressed not in any science, or philosophy, but in the com position of the early population. It is often said that our colonial life was single, that a purs Anglo-Saxon stock first settled the country, and in confirmation we are pointed to New England. Those who deplore, or antagonize, the immigra tion of to-day lay stress on what is supposed to have been the purity of our original stock. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Our first experiment of republican government was an experiment of a mixture of people. Our earliest settlements, made indeed for conquest more than for permanence, beginning in Florida and extend ing westward to the Pacific, were of Spanish origin. The first attempt at permanent settle ment was that of the French Huguenots, in Florida. Then came French colonists along the St. Lawrence, and pushing west to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. At the same time the English came in at the mouth of the James River and established the first Christian Conservation 175 permanent Protestant mission in America. Im mediately after, the Pilgrims another strain of English stock made Plymouth Bay immortal. Later in the seventeenth century, the Irish came into the Chesapeake and settled Maryland. The Swedes made homes in Delaware. The Germans came up the Delaware. The Dutch came up the Hudson. It is said that as early as 1664 eighteen languages were represented among the few colonists on Manhattan Island. Indeed, the multiplying of languages on that island has not kept pace with the growth of the popu lation. There were more languages spoken in 1664, in proportion to the number of people, than now in 1911. Those, then, who oppose immigration cannot base their argument on colonial times. The history of the country is a history of immigrations. In the whole story of the world there has been nothing like it. Immi gration varies in the passing of time only in its volume and breadth. And, in either, in itself considered, there is no occasion for great alarm. More nations have gone to pieces on the rock of their homogeneity than on any other. Her bert Spencer long ago said, " It may be reason ably held that both because of its size and the heterogeneity of its components, the American nation will be a long time in evolving its ultimate form, but that its ultimate form will be high." 176 Conservation of National Ideals He adds that the mixture of populations will pro duce a more powerful type of man than has hitherto existed. His conclusion rests on " bio logical truth." The great European nations have grown out of varieties. But biological truth must not be trusted for too much. The mere mingling of races has not al ways been salutary. The incursions of Asiatic hordes into Eastern Europe had little educational and no moral effect. The people of China, with their immense eastward immigration far back in the twilight of history, remained stationary for ages. The barbarians who invaded Rome were not saved by its culture, but, later, by the mis sionary activity of the church ; and even Great Britain, so far as one can see, had to this day been a battle-field of mutually destructive clans if St. Augustine and his followers had not crossed the Channel. In the light of history the regenera tion of America cannot be trusted to social evo lution. Nor is it wise to ignore the peril which comes with the fine possibility. It is that of which not the politician, but the Christian, should take note. The church is the great harmonizer because it supplants the superstitions and negations of peo ple with the religion which alone has divine authority and power fitted to all human condi tions. In this view, the Home Missionary prob lems become intensely interesting alike to the Christian Conservation 177 Christian and the patriot. Most of these people coming to us bring with them either a religion, or a denial of religion, which must be modified or overcome by the Gospel. How various are the forms and how wise must be the teachings and plans by which they are met ! And here comes the question raised by the important difference between earlier and present immigration. The early was mainly Protestant, almost wholly Christian, at least in name. To found a pure faith and to enjoy freedom of con science in devotion to it, this was the reason for nearly all colonial immigration. The reasons now are different and various. In some measure our incoming aliens are fleeing from persecution. But as a broad statement, the people who come to us come for political or economic reasons. There is, as a rule, an economic push on the other side of the sea and an economic pull on this side. When there are hard times in Europe the people are loosened and ready to move. When there are good times here, the pull becomes determina tive. The amount of immigration is thus deter mined by conditions abroad and at home. A study of immigration charts for past decades re veals the fact that good times here have swelled the stream, while hard times here have at once checked its flow. And as such hard times have recently been felt not so much in Great Britain and Germany as in 178 Conservation of National Ideals Eastern and Southern Europe, the character of our immigration has radically changed. This fact constitutes the new challenge to the Christian church. The immigration from Italy was practically nothing a half century ago. Last year it reached the total of 223,453. The immi gration from Hungary, begun fifty years ago, was a negligible quantity for decades. Last year it reached the total of 123,5 19. The incoming from Russia was practically nothing fifty years ago. Last year it amounted to 189,377. These figures preach their own loud sermon. These three coun tries alone sent us last year 536,349. It would be both un-American and un-Christian to prohibit these people from coming to us : un-American be cause against the whole trend of our history and against our fundamental national principles ; un- Christian because God is thus giving us a great chance to do foreign missionary work on our own soil. The " open door " and the " adversaries " (or difficulties) were alike alluring to Paul when he went to Ephesus. They should be to us. The state here has a great and grave problem. It is to distribute (so far as the state can do it) this vast mass, that assimilation shall be swifter and more complete. It is to provide adequate school facilities that illiteracy may disappear. It is to provide employment that abject and de pressing poverty may disappear. It is to guard our gates against the entrance of people who, in Christian Conservation ] 79 spite of all the country could do, would be a menace to our peace and prosperity. And here comes the opportunity of the Chris tian church. It is true that vast numbers of our aliens are not from the lands which made our greatness. They are a wholly different stock. They are loaded down with inheritances that are strangers to the best things among us. But the church has been mightiest when she has taken account, not of her fears, but of the Gospel that is the power of God. Nor is the field a wholly discouraging one. The labours of the last decade in this difficult field have yielded often surprising harvests. Many of those who come to us are as glad to be freed from ecclesiastical as from political tyranny. They are not the " offscouring of the earth." Many of them cherish noble aspirations for themselves and their children. They will re spond to the hand of help and to the voice of Christian love. Let us have a dignified confi dence in the power of the Gospel and in the force of American institutions. Neither has failed in the past, nor will in the future. A great financier has made us familiar with the phrase, " undigested securities." These foreigners are our " undigested securities." On our ability to digest them depend the health and moral action of a large part of the body politic. What we is not more bars to keep foreigners out of 180 Conservation of National Ideals our land, but more labourers to work with them and teach them how to gather the harvest of American and Christian liberty. 4. Another ideal that pleads for conservation is the ideal of country life and the country church. Centres of population are the nation s second thought. The original is the country community, and in many ways it is the nation s best estate. How beautiful, notwithstanding the perils that often beset it, was the rural life of New England or Virginia communities ! The stories based on that life constitute some of our most alluring romances. The simplicity, sin cerity, neighbourliness and friendliness of it fur nish continual themes for novelist and poet. Of that life the church was the centre. It was the vivific force that gave meaning and beauty to all the transactions of the community. It supplied the standard of civic as well as personal virtue, of corporate as well as individual enterprise. But that ideal has lost some of its power. The measure and meaning of life are now taken from the city. There are erected the standards that govern men. There is the race, and there are the awards. As a result, the country commu nity is decimated. The vigour of it has gone away. The church is left desolate, or depleted and dispirited. Though it is still true that most of the successful men in business, or in the pro fessions, were country boys, they cannot now Christian Conservation 181 have the kind of a start they had in the country during the last century. Lacking the start, they may not make their race on so high a level. But one of the good signs of the times is the return to country ideals. True, the last census discloses the fact that the trend is still city-ward. But there is a reaction, though at present it shows but as a small eddy on the margin of the river s current. At last the attention of the church is drawn to the importance of the little church among the hills. Modern science has in vested the country with a new charm. It has taken away its loneliness. It has brought it into the neighbourhood of the world. The trolley and the automobile, the telephone and the free delivery go everywhere ; and the village and the town are side by side. To fit the country for this new day which is surely coming, certain agencies that the church can furnish, or stimulate, are the immediate de mand. Rural life must be made rich and strong, and the country church, more than any other force, can achieve this result. The church should be the community s best intellectual stimulus. She has not always been so. But she has the character of intellectual freedom. Free to seek truth in every realm, she touches the loftiest themes and represents the highest intellectual progress of the world. Let her take her place in 182 Conservation of National Ideals this kind of leadership. It is her privilege to open the library, establish reading circles, and organize clubs for periodical literature that tlu: best of current thinking may be in every home. In the quaint little town of Wimbourne, in the south of England, there is a venerable abbey, one of whose treasures is a chained library Every book is chain-bound to its case, mute wit ness of the time when learning was not free There are no chained libraries now. No com munity should be bookless that has a Christian church. The city need no longer have a great advantage in this regard. So, also, in the matter of schools. With all our pedagogical advantages, country schools have not advanced in proportion. In many regions they have so lamentably declined that illiteracy is on the increase. Little money and few pupils in " the little red schoolhouse " result in underpaid and incompetent teachers, short terms and poor schooling. These things have brought the ignorance and demoralization that exist in some of our mountain regions. It is for the church to help us to get back to the ideals of that day when men fit to be university professors taught the country, or village, schools. The church must take a hand in Christianizing the social life of the country. Its moral level is often of the worst. The social conditions often minister to the things that are debasing. In the Christian Conservation 183 smaller communities the church has a special chance to recover some of the lost ideals. There life is less artificial and more democratic. Neighbourliness is not abolished, as it is in the city. The church can become the centre of the social life, as once she was. She can hold out a social appeal for all ages and conditions. A country church properly equipped and in spired with a genuine spirit of Christian democ racy will be the mightiest enemy to the saloon and the lounging place, and to that emptiness and stupidity of life which is almost as bad. By all the pull of our material life the country com munity tends to be heavy, inert, and content with low, or commonplace, ideas. Multitudes never get much above the question, " What shall we eat and drink ? " There is no fine living on that level. What shall give the community a push towards better things, towards charity and kindness and purity and sacrifice? Not busi ness ; that pulls only on its own level. Not so ciety ; that often pulls down. The church is the best agency to draw men away from trifling and unworthy pursuits into the realm of high moral endeavour and enjoyment. Is life in many rural communities commonplace and heavy and unin spiring ? There is no sufficient reason for it in any neighbourhood no matter how remote where God has a company of His people who have in their keeping the secret of high ideals 184 Conservation of National Ideals and fine aspirations, who have the standards and hopes and joys of the kingdom of God. 5. Another of the ideals that were the glory of our colonial history was that of the free school system. Without it, the Republic could not long exist, since intelligence lies at the basis of self- government. Its origin was significant. The historian says : " The common school system was derived from Geneva, the work of John Calvin ; was carried by John Knox into Scotland, and so be came the property of the English-speaking na tions." The historian might have added that it was taken from Geneva to Holland and Sweden. In Sweden, in 1637, it is said that not a single peasant child was unable to read and write. At the outbreak of its war with Spain, the peasants of Holland could read and write well, and in the first Synod of Dort, 1574, it was directed that " the servants of the church obtain from trustees in every locality permission for the appointment of schoolmasters, and an order for their com pensation as in the past." Holland probably held preeminence for schools supported by the government. " A land," says Motley, " where every child went to school, where almost every individual inhabitant could read and write; where even the middle classes were proficient in mathematics and the classics, and could speak two or more modern languages." Christian Conservation From this it would follow, almost as a matter of course, that among the first free schools sup ported by the government in this country were those established by the Dutch settlers of New York. In 1642 it was the law of Puritan New Eng land that " none of the brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them to perfectly read the Eng lish tongue." And in 1647 it was ordered in all Puritan colonies " to the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, that every township, after the Lord has increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all children to read and write, and when they shall have increased to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct the youths so far as they may be fitted for the university." The eminence of New England lies originally, not in her great colleges (though her liberality to higher education has always been conspicuous), but in her common schools. Connecticut, under the lead of Hooker, has the honour of first securing free schools supported by government. We cannot be said to have failed in this ideal. And yet, it has not been fully realized. The common school system is everywhere recognized. l86 Conservation of National Ideals Finely equipped schools, academies, colleges ar d universities abound, yet in certain parts of the country the percentage of illiteracy is large, ard all over the land it is far above that of sone European countries. Thus the illiteracy of Ge;- many, as of Sweden, is only one one-hundredth per cent. That of the United States, in the census of 1900, was ten and seven-tenths per cent. The largest percentage of illiteracy is in the Southern states, accounted for in part by the large Negro population; the smallest is in the Central West Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas, in the order named, having the least. That the New England states and New York and Pennsylvania, after their centuries of education, should still show large illiteracy, is due, in large measure per haps entirely to the large immigration into those states. But the general fact remains that our educa tional ideals need to be extended. In certain Southern and Western states the percentage of illiteracy is large among the native white popula tion, in North Carolina nearly twenty per cent., in Tennessee and South Carolina, nearly fifteen per cent. With the Negro population it ranges from thirty-nine to sixty per cent. Until our illiteracy approaches somewhat the percentage of the best European countries we cannot count ourselves free from the dangers which in a re public, even more than in a monarchy, are invited Christian Conservation 187 by popular ignorance. Important, therefore, among the American ideals to be conserved is that of a universal education, sufficient to enable all the people to have an intelligent share in the affairs of government. 6. One more ideal, and the most important, can only be touched. It is that without which all others will fail of their best effect the higher moral and spiritual life. Christian principles and ideals come to their potency only when they are incarnate in Chris tian service. The church, at last, will conserve her ideals only by living them. There is no " cold storage " for ideals. Their place is in the markets of the world. So shall they be conserved. MISSIONS AT HOME JOHN W. ARCTANDER The Apostle of Alaska The Story of WILLIAM DUNCAN OP METLAKAHTtA. Illus trated, i2mo, Cloth, net $1.50. "An important historical document as well as a story of absorbing interest and an heroic record that will thrill the hearts of all lovers of golden deeds. It tells the story of William Duncan the missionary among the great detached section of the United States. Nothing could be more ro mantic, more thrilling, more redolent of patience and high courage, than this story of his life work a thorough and absorbing record." Minneapolis Tribune. MARY HELM From Darkness to Light A Story of Negro Progress. Home Mission Study Course. i6mo, Paper, net 3oc. ; Cloth, net soc. "Of inestimable help in forming a true estimate of the racial differences that have rendered difficult the processes of civil izing the African. No one is better fitted to present the problem impartially. The reader must be struck with Miss Helm s impartiality as well as with her intimate knowledge of her subject." Louisville Courier-Journal. ARCHIBALD McLEAN Alexander Campbell as a Preacher i6mo, Art boards, net 3oc. "Brother McLean has put the whole brotherhood under new obligation. Every family in our ranks ought to read it, and if tens of thousands of preachers and leaders in other religious bodies should do the same, it would help to place this great, but poorly understood man, in his proper place among the few truly great preachers in the history of the Church." American Home Missionary. IMMIGRATION EDWARD A. STEINER The Immigrant Tide Its Ebb and Flow Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $1.30. Perhaps the greatest living authority on the immigrant to-day is the author of "On the Trail of the Immigrant," now in its fifth edition. Certain it is that no man has so thoroughly absorbed the subject or writes more entertain ingly about it than this profession in Iowa College who twenty-eight years ago came to this country himself an im migrant. His latest work is divided into two interesting sections. Under "The Out-going Tide" he shows us the influence of the returned immigrant upon his p. .sant home, his social and national life, etc. Under the division of "The Incoming Tide" he interprets the relation of the various races to our institutions, their attitude toward them asd their influence upon then:. MISSIONS, HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC 077^ GARY A History of Christianity in Japan Vo. I. A History of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Missions in Japan. Vol. II. A History of Protestant Missions in Japan. Each 8vo, Cloth, $2.50 net; 2 vols. boxed $5.00 net. Prof. Harlan P. Beach, of \ale University, says "This work will be recognized as a standard. Dr. Gary is one 01 the most scholarly among the entire Japanese Missionarj force and his thoroughness and intimate knowledge are de rived from more than thirty years residence in Japan." JULIUS RICHTER The History of Protestant Missions in India 8v cioth, net $2.50. "There is hardly a single matter connected with mis sions in India upon which Dr. Richter s book may not be consulted with the certainty of finding reliable and accurate information and sound and wise judgment. Chronicle of the London Missionary Society. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN The Missionary Manifesto Being a Study of the Great Commission. i6mo, Cloth, net 75c. Dr. Morgan s forceful and illuminating studies find ready welcome among thoughtful readers and students. His work emphasizes the imperative character of our Lord s commands and its accompanying equipment for the service. ROBERT SLOAN LA TIMER Liberty of Conscience Under Three Tsars A Study of Evangelical Effort in Russia 1856-1909. I2mo, * Cloth, net $1.50. This struggle for liberty of conscience, marked by in tense devotion and sacrifice, during which men, women and children have suffered the keenest persecution, counting not their lives dear unto themselves, is replete with incidents that awaken the largest sympathy and admiration of those who have sought to be true to conscience. The record is often most tragic, and can but awaken sympathy for the new movement now in progress in that lanol so long barred against the light of the open Bible. MISSIONS, BIOGRAPHICAL DR. GEORGE BROWN The Life of Dr. George Brown Pioneer, Explorer and Missionary. An Autobiography, with in illustrations and map. 8vo, Cloth, net $3.50. "Since the appearance of John G. Paton s Autobiography we have read no work of such entrancing interest. It is a narrative of this pioneer missionary s forty-eight years of residence and travel in Samoa, New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands." British Weekly. JESSE PAGE, F. R, G. S. The Black Bishop . Preface by Eugene Stock, D. C. L-, with frontispiece, sixteen illustrations and map. 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. "The simple life-story, told mainly by himself, of a West African who was a kidnapped slave when a boy of fif teen and forty-three years later became the first negro bishop of the Church of England. Much information is given be side the biographical details, about the problems presented by the Nigerian peoples to their white rulers and particularly of the extent, influence and probable future of the Moham medan invasion." Nation. W. H. T. GAIRDNER, B. A. D.M. Thornton Nine illustrations, i2mo, Cloth, net $1.25. "The Student Movement" says: "It is likely to dominate the thoughts of the missionary thinker for many years." Devoted largely to experiences in Egypt and lessons gath ered on this field it tells of a man who devoted his intel lectual powers to thinking out the wider problems of the evangelization of the world and the spread of Christian in stitutions in Mission lands. GEORGE HAWKER The Life of George Grenfell, Congo Missionary and Explorer Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. "This may be regarded as a companion volume to Sir Harry Johnston s George Grenfell and the Congo it was, indeed, originally arranged that Sir Harry Johnston and Mr. Hawker should collaborate in a single volume as a memorial to one of the greatest names in the annals of equatorial Africa." London Times. REV. JAMES WELLS, D. D. Stewart of Lovedale The Romance of Missions in Africa told in the Lite of James Stewart, D. A., M. D., F. R. G. S. With forty-two illustrations and two maps. 8vo, Cloth, net $1.50. "We may heartily congratulate Dr. Wells on having written a book that will live, and more than that, a book that will create life wherever it is read." Dr. Robertson Nicoll. in the British Weekly. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF MISSIONARY LIFE HELEN E. SPRINGER Snap Shots from Sunny Africa Introduction by Bishop Hartzler. Illustrated, i2mo, Cloth net $1.00. A singularly interesting 1 collection of incidents of mis sion life among the African natives, &ach as "Attending a Native Dance," "An African Vanity Fair," "The Glorious Fourth in Africa," "Watapo s Wedding," "Bicycling in Cen tral Africa," and many other subjects of equal fascination ANNIE L A. BAIRD Daybreak in Korea Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, net 6oc. "A keen, incisive story, which depicts the life of th< Korean woman in a most revealing way. It is just the book for those who would quickly penetrate beyond outward ap- pearances and see what moves the Korean mind. It is full of snap and vim with a true insight into reality." Wm. Elliot Griffis. MARY CULLER WHITE The Days of June The L,ife Story of June Nicholson, i6mo, Cloth, net 500. In this little transcript from actual life may be seen clearly the "stuff of which missionaries are made." W. R. t,ambreth, General Secretary of the Board of Missions M. E. Church, South) says: "Such books help us to realize the potentiality of a life given to a life mission The spright- liness of the author s style, the pathos, the insight and the deep currents of thought are almost inimitable." ISABELLA RIGGS WILLIAMS By the Great Wall Selected Correspondence of Isabella Riggs Williams, Mis sionary of the American Board to China, 1866-1897. With an introduction by Arthur H. Smith. Illustrated, I2mo, cloth, net $1.50. "This volume is a little window opened into the life and work of an exceptionally equipped missionary. Mrs. Wil liams won the hearts of Chinese women and girls; showed what a Christian home may be, and how the children of such a home can be trained for wide and unselfish useful ness wherever their lot is cast." Arthur H, Smith, Author of Chinese Characteristics, Etc. 14 DAY USE ElETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. RENEWALS ONLY TEL NO. 642-3405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. JflN 1 6 1970 a "^ - il-^jtOi 1Ctf f BECTD LP JAN 1_5- UCIA INTERL1BRARY LD2lA-60m-6, 69 (J9096slO)476-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley