At our own door : a study of home missions with special reference to the South and West

//Jlf,, oS~.

PRINCETON, N. J. ^

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund,

BV 2775 .M8 1904

Morris, Samuel Leslie, 1854-

At our own door

At Our Own Door

A Study of Home Mis-
sions with Special Reference
to the South and West

v^By

S. L. MORRIS, D.D.

Secretary of the General Assembly's Home Missions Presby-
terian Church in the U. S.

"And that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His Name among all Na-
tions, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM." — Luke 24 : 4y.

"And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost part of the earth." — Acts i : 8.

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1904, by

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

(^March)

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 6-^ Washington Street
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street

To the memory of my

Sainted Father

who laid down his life at the call of his country^

whose example has been my constant inspiration in life^

and to my

Aged Mother

who early impressed me for Christ and the Churchy

and who still lingers as a benign benediction in my home

this volume is most affectionately

Dedicated,

Preface

" Oh ! that mine adversary had written a book."
The secretary of home missions recognizes the risk
of authorship ; but necessity compels the venture.
The Southern Presbyterian Church in less than a
decade will celebrate its Semi-Centennial ; and yet
whilst it has been engaged largely in home mis-
sionary efforts, it has never produced a book on
home missions. The demands for literature on
this subject are numerous, widespread and urgent.
The Chattanooga Conference of Young People on
Missions, held on Lookout Mountain, July 1-8,
1903, challenged the secretary to prepare such a
manual of home missions, as would provide the
young people of the church a text-book for sys-
tematic study of this great department of Chris-
tian work. The succeeding volume is the answer
to that challenge. The author indulges the hope
that it will furnish an array of facts, which will
not only instruct the young people, but stimu-
late their organizations, ladies' societies. Christian
workers, churches, and ministers of the Gospel to
greater usefulness in the Master's vineyard.

The writer places on record his indebtedness to
the following books and pamphlets : " The His-
tory of the Southern Presbyterian Church," by
Rev. Prof. T. C. Johnson, D. D. ; " Presbyterian

5

6 Preface

Home Missions," by Kev. Sherman H, Doyle,
D. D. ; " Under Our Flag," by Miss Alice Guernsey ;
" Leavening the Nation," by Kev. Jos. B. Clark,
D. D. ; "The Minute Man on the Frontier," by
Kev. W. C. Puddefoot ; " Our Country " and " The
Twentieth Century City," by Kev. Josiah Strong,
D. D. ; " Our Forty Years in the Home Field," by
Rev. P. H. Gwinn ; " A Brief History of the Gen-
eral Assembly's Home Missions," by Kev. J. N.
Craig, D. D. ; "Keview and Outlook," by Kev.
Charles L. Thompson, D. D., secretary ; the relig-
ious papers of the church, and especially the Union
Seminary Magazine and the Home Mission num-
ber of the Christian Observer. Quotations from
these are acknowledged in each instance at the
proper place ; and the list of books is given above
for the information of those who desire further
study of the subject.

"Written amid the pressure of office duties, inter-
rupted by absences in attending church courts
and other engagements, marred by many vexatious
causes, known only to those similarly situated, no
one can be more conscious of its defects than the
author himself; yet he offers it as an humble
tribute of service to the church which holds his
loyalty, and to the Master he delights to serve,
with the prayer that it may fill some useful sphere
in advancing the Kingdom of God on earth.

S. L. MoREis.

Ailania, Ghorgia.

Contents

I. Historical - - - - - -ii

II. The Program of Missions - - - - 48

III. City Missions ------ 63

IV. Mountaineers ------ 50

V. The White Man's Burden - - - - 112

VI. The Mexicans in Texas - - - - 130

VII. Indians and Their Territory - - " *39

VIII. The Great West - - - - - 163

IX. The Problem of Missions — Foes - - - 185

X. Woman's Work — Friends - - - - 201

XI. Synodical Evangelization - - - - 218

XII. Argument and Appeal - - - _ 239
Index ------- 255

At Our Own Door

HISTORICAL

As the oak strikes its roots into the virgin soil,
penetrating into the crevices of granite rock, forc-
ing entrance into the hard clay, or expanding into
the more inviting richer mold, drawing sustenance
and strength from all sources; so the Presby-
terian Church of the United States has drawn its
life and strength from almost all the States of
Europe. Puritans from England, Huguenots from
France, Scotch-Irish from Ireland, Dutch from
Holland, Scotch, Germans, Swedes, Swiss, etc.,
mingle their blood and religious life to form on
this "Western Continent the staunchest and sturdi-
est, the purest and most aggressive Presbyterian
Church on earth.

Persecution that scattered the infant church in
the early days of Christianity, sending its mem-
bership " everywhere preaching the word," has on
more than one occasion been a blessing in disguise,
God's method of propagating the faith. As the
massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day and the Kevo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes sent some of the
best blood of France into exile, and the Nemesis
II

12 At Our Own Door

of history was avenged when their descendants
returned as officers in the German army that con-
quered and humiliated France ; so the misguided
Stuart dynasty forced the flower of England into
the wilderness of America, where their sons founded
the greatest of Kepublics, and dealt to England the
severest blow in all her history. The Presbyterian
Church of America was born of persecution ; and
men who were willing to suffer for conscience' sake
and satisfied to exile themselves amidst the wild
forests and wilder savages for religious liberty are
not bad material out of which to build an enduring
church.

The gigantic failure of Spain to establish a
great Empire in America, as she entered by the
Southern gate through the Gulf of Mexico, and
the equally disastrous failure of France by the
northern gate through the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
can be explained only by those who see the finger
of God in history, preserving America for the
Anglo-Saxon and Protestantism. Driven from the
older countries of Europe by persecution, their set-
tlement of a new Continent was not so much in
the hope of commercial gain as the establishment
of an asylum of religious liberty.

" Perhaps no other nation in history, unless it
were God's chosen people, was ever more distinctly
religious and missionary in the character of its
early settlers. The official charter and commis-
sions granted by foreign courts to these emigrants
contain, almost without exception, an explicit rec-
ognition of the divine claim. 'The thing is of

Historical

13

God,' said the London Trading Company in its
letter patent to the Plymouth pilgrims. ' In the
name of God, Amen' are the opening words of
the Mayflower compact, and the full spirit and
meaning of that document are summed up in
phrase as follows : ' For the glory of God and the
advancement of the Christian faith.' The signers
of this immortal compact paused on the threshold
of their great enterprise ' at a time,' says Bancroft,
'when everything demanded haste,' and kept a
Sabbath of prayer and praise on Clark's Island.
. . . Nor was New England the only spot,
settled by Christian emigrants 'for the glory of
God.' The Dutch of New York were children of
the Eeformation, and however eager for trade,
brought their religion with them, and it is claimed
set up their first church in New Amsterdam a full
year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
. . . The early settlers of North and South
Carolina declared themselves to be actuated by ' a
laudable zeal for the propagation of the gospel,'
while Georgia, the last of the colonies to be settled,
was a philanthropic enterprise from the start,
dominated by godly Moravians from Germany and
Presbyterians from the Highlands of Scotland"
(" Leavening the Nation," pp. 16, 17).

The Puritans transplanted their Calvinistic faith
and austere life to Plymouth Kock, Mass. ; Eng-
lish Presbyterians entered Yirginia through James-
town; the Dutch settled New York, Maryland,
and some as far south as Charleston, S. C; and
the exiled Huguenots found a home in South

14 At Our Own Door

Carolina. But the most important factor in the
Presbyterianism of the United States was the com-
ing of large colonies of Scotch-Irish, who entered
chiefly at Philadelphia and Charleston. It is due
to this fact that Pennsylvania and the Carolinas
have been the strongholds of Presbyterianism re-
spectively for the Korth and South. These two
streams afterwards met and flowed together,
those from Pennsylvania emigrating westward
and southward through Virginia and North Caro-
lina, meeting the South Carolina contingent,
making the Atlantic slope from New York to
South Carolina the nursery of Presbyterianism for
the continent.

From meagre historical data we learn that as early
as 1700 A. D., there were congregations at Charles-
ton and Wilton, S. C, on Elizabeth River in
Virginia, near the present site of Norfolk, at
Pocomoke and other communities in Maryland, at
Philadelphia, in New Jersey and North Carolina,
and perhaps at other places where the records are
lost.

, Francis Makemie is venerated as the father of
Presbyterianism in America. Licensed about 1681,
he landed in Maryland in 1683. Having decided
for Ashley River, S. C, he vainly tried to reach his
destination, but was compelled by a storm to re-
turn to the neighborhood of Norfolk, Virginia,
where he ministered to a company of English
Puritans. About 1689, he settled to his life-work
in Maryland. " As the Greek cities vie for the
honor of Homer's birth, so do the Eastern Shore

Historical 15

churches vie with one another in their claims upon
Makemie as founder or minister." The continuity
of his ministry was broken by a visit to the Brit-
ish Isles in 1691, and a ministry in the Barbadoes
for several years. In 1704 he went abroad to
secure ministers and returned with John Hampton
of Ireland and George NcNish of Scotland. It
was largely through his instrumentality that the
first presbytery in America was founded at
Philadelphia about 1705, he being probably first
moderator, and the other ministers being Hampton,
McNish, "Wilson, Davis, Taylor, and Andrews.
In 1707 he visited New York, and being refused
permission to speak in a church, he preached in a
private house ; and for this offense was imprisoned
by the governor. Lord Cornbury, for six weeks.
Being an inconvenient prisoner to hold, he was
soon set at liberty, and died the next year at Po-
comoke, Maryland, only fifty years of age.

This gives an account of the organization of the
Church in the United States; but there were
others too widely scattered to enter the organiza-
tion, Kev. John Cotton and Archibald Stobo,
near Charleston, several in IS'orth Carolina, New
Jersey and New York, might be enumerated
among the beginnings of Presbyterianism. These
scattered pastors and flocks, together with the
growth of the work, justified the organization of
the Synod of Philadelphia in 1716, and the com-
pletion of the organization of the Church in a
General Assembly in 1789, the same year the
Constitution of the United States was adopted.

-^

16 At Our Own Door

At this time the country had a population of five
millions, and the Presbyterian strength was 288
ministers and licentiates, 419 churches (one-half
being vacant), and about twenty thousand com-
municants. Such was the humble beginning of
Presbyterianism on this Continent. It was as
"an handful of corn in the earth upon the top
of the mountains," but its fruit " as the shaking of
Lebanon," bearing thirty, sixty, and a hundred-
fold, now facing the twentieth century with a
phalanx of twelve Presbyterian denominations in
the United States, aggregating twelve thousand
ministers, fifteen thousand churches, and nearly
two millions of communicants.

It is interesting and instructive to know that the
first recorded grant of missionary money in this
country was made to the First Presbyterian
Church of New York in 1719, "to enable it to
support the gospel." Did the Church ever make
in this world a better investment from a financial
standpoint ? Does any outlay of funds ever pay
better than home missions ?

Burdened with their growing spiritual wants,
the presbytery, and afterwards the synod, sent
frequent and urgent " supplications " to the Synods
of Scotland and Ireland and to the evangelical
ministers of London and Dublin for ministers and
money to aid in their maintenance. Eight nobly
did the Mother Church respond to this Macedonian
cry from the wilderness of America. So the
Presbyterian Church of the United States is the
child of home missions, now grown stronger than

Historical 17

the parent, upon whose shoulders has fallen as a
mantle the spirit of home missions.

Ours has been a home mission Church from the
beginning. Before there was any organized
presbytery, its ministers were missionaries among
the Indian tribes, and were gathering the scattered
settlers and more recent emigrants into folds and
organizations for future presbyteries. "They
maintained their religious life in their wilderness
homes by closet and family worship, by catechet-
ical instruction, by meeting on the Sabbath for
social worship, prayer, reading the Scriptures,
singing, conference and exhortation. Sometimes
their Sabbaths were gladdened by the missionary
preaching the gospel, administering the Sacra-
ments, and in various ways animating them to
devout and holy living and the godly training of
their children. . . . They preached the gospel
first to the people along or near the Atlantic
coast ; then advanced with the settlements to the
foot of the Alleghanies ; then through the gaps in
the mountains to the new lands beyond where now
are Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Nashville, Lexington,
Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis, Columbus,
Indianapolis ; and earlier farther north to Albany,
Troy, Schenectady, Utica, Eome, Syracuse, Au-
burn, Geneva, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleve-
land, Detroit, Chicago, and so on to the Mississippi,
the Missouri, and eventually to the Rocky Moun-
tains, and to the shores of the great ocean beyond.
They established missions among the negroes and
the Indians ; sending Occum to the tribes on

^

l8 At Our Own Door

Long Island, and later to the Oneidas, Mohawks,
Senecas, Cayugas, and other families of the
Iroquois ; and David Brainard, and afterwards his
brother John, to the Indian tribes of ISTew Jersey
and Pennsylvania — the Delawares, the Shawnees,
and Tuscaroras : and later still, missionaries like
Gideon Blackburn to the Cherokees, Choctaws,
Sanduskies, and other tribes."

It is interesting to note that at the very first
meeting of the General Assembly, the Presby-
terian Church signalized its organized life by lay-
ing hold of the great problem of home missions. '^
The Committee on Bills and Overtures recom-
mended " that the state of the frontier settlements
should be taken into consideration, and mission-
aries should be sent to them" (Minutes, 1789, p.
10). A committee of two was appointed to " de-
vise such measures as might be calculated to carry
the mission into execution." The committee re-
ported asking that each of the synods be requested
to recommend to the General Assembly at their
next meeting two members well qualified to be em-
ployed in missions on the frontier ; and the pres-
byteries were strictly enjoined to take special col-
lections during the year for defraying the neces-
sary expenses of the missions.

In obedience to the order of the General As-
sembly, the Synod of New York and New Jersey
recommended to the Assembly of 1790 Kev. Nathan
Her and Joseph Hart. The Synod of Philadel-
phia nominated Kev. Dr. George Dufiield, but his
untimely death prevented his entering upon the

Historical

19

work. The Synod of Yirginia reported that it did
not have an account of the proceedings of the As-
sembly, but " substantially complied with the de-
sign of that mission with an arrangement of their
own at the last meeting " (Mins., pp. 23, 25). In-
formation was received by the Assembly that the
Synod of the Carolinas was supporting its own
missionaries. Eeturns from that first collection for
home missions ordered by the Assembly showed
an aggregate of about $400. The Assembly
adopted a form of commission for the missionary
and required him " to keep a distinct journal of his
progress, and to make report to the next General
Assembly." The effect of this movement can be
but slightly estimated, considering the fact that
nearly a hundred thousand missionaries have
served in this capacity under the commission.

The minutes of the Assembly show that the sub-
ject of home missions came in for a full share of
consideration at each meeting of the Assembly.

In 1798 it took particular action regarding the
character of the men to be commissioned, and the
tenor of their preaching and other services. It
declared that " the missionaries should be men of
ability, piety, zeal, prudence, and popular talents."
They were also to preach the important doctrines
of grace, to organize churches where opportunity
offered, and administer the ordinances and instruct
the people from house to house and with the self-de-
nial of their Master be wholly devoted to their min-
istry (Minutes, p. 113).

In 1801 the General Assembly took the im-

20 At Our Own Door

portant step resulting in the " Plan of Union " with
the Congregational Church, " to promote the spirit
of accommodation between those inhabitants of
the new settlements who hold the Presbyterian
and those who hold the Congregational form of
Government," providing that Presbyterian congre-
gations might settle Congregational pastors and
vice versa. It seems to have originated in a spirit
of brotherly love and the exigencies of scattered
communities ; but it has since been repudiated and
repented by both churches. From the Congrega-
tional standpoint the author of "Leavening the
Nation " asserts : " It was a plan without thought,
hope or faith as to the future of America ; a hitch-
ing of her home-missionary wagon to a stake in-
stead of a star. . . . Presbyterianism had
never proved indigenous to the soil east of the
Hudson, and by an illogical parity of reasoning,
Congregationalism was assumed to be equally
foreign to soil west of that river. Hence it was
not uncommon for New England pastors to advise
their emigrating members ' to be loyal Presbyte-
rians at the west.' Students in the seminary were
taught that ' Congregationalism is a river rising in
New England and emptying itself south and west
into Presbyterianism ' " (p. 40), From the Presby-
terian standpoint it was the means of introducing
into its harmonious fold a new theology and a dis-
cordant element, which finally rent the Presby-
terian Church asunder in the great schism of 1837,
which was not healed till 1870 ; and which has
again brought into one fold at least of the Presby-

Historical 21

terian Church men of widely divergent views,
making always imminent the possibility of another
great schism.

One hundred years ago the Assembly of 1802
took a step in advance by appointing a Standing
Committee on Home Missions, consisting of seven
members, four ministers and three elders, whose
duty it should be to collect information rela-
tive to missions and missionaries, designate the
places where missionaries should be employed, to
nominate missionaries to the Assembly, and gen-
erally to transact under the direction of the As-
sembly the missionary business (Minutes, pp. 25Y,
258, 259). This was the beginning of the organ-
ized home mission work of the Presbyterian
Church. Heretofore it had been conducted directly
by the action of the Assembly. Henceforth the
work would be conducted by a permanent com-
mittee making annual reports to the Assembly of
its sessions.

Among the earliest appointments were Rev.
Gideon Blackburn to the Cherokee Indians of
Tennessee, and Licentiate Jas. Hoge, of Lexington
Presbytery, " to serve for six months in the State
of Ohio and the Natchez district." Who can esti-
mate the influence of these remarkable men upon
the destiny of the church and the evangelization
of the country ! In the spirit of Abraham many
such men " called of God " have gone out by faith,
" not knowing whither," but in the providence of
God to inaugurate some new and important de-
parture for the enlargement of the kingdom of

22 At Our Own Door

God. " "When the historian writes the history of
national progress in the nineteenth century, he will
first of all take account of the home missionary.
The march of our civilization is to the music of our
religion. This gave the inspiration. "Without that
music the pioneer had not marched to such victory "
(Dr. C. L. Thompson). To the fidelity of these
home missionaries and the character of their work,
Dr. H. C. Minton bears testimony : " They need
no mead of praise, no word of cheer — and too
often they get none. The foreign missionary gets
his ' year off ' now and then, but our solitary home
missionary, plodding on year after year, never. I
have seen something of the life and work of our
home missionaries in the west, and I believe that,
for hard work and poor pay, and small stint of
appreciation, and all else which the world and
the flesh eschew and fain would avoid, the home
missionary in our western states and territories is
the peer of many of those who are carrying the
gospel to the far away heathen. There is a
romance of the work in either case. They are all
empire-builders alike. They bring to their work
richer tribute than even Cecil Khodes could com-
mand. They build themselves into their work;
and this is just as true of the missionaries of Iowa
and Dakota and California as it is of those of
Japan and China and the islands of the sea. It is
the romance of faith and heroism, and trial and
self-sacrifice, but it is also the romance of promise
and patriotism and service and of the crown at
last."

Historical 23

The increase of population necessitated a still
further advance of the work, and so the Assembly
of 1809 gives authority to the presbyteries to em-
ploy missionaries in their own bounds at such
places as seemed to them to have the greatest
need of missionary labor ; and the next Assembly
in 1810 authorizes the publication of the first mis-
sionary periodical by the Committee of Missions,
to be entitled Missionary Intelligence.

The year 1816 marks a great change in the ad-
ministration of the work, when the Assembly
considered it necessary to make larger plans for
carrying on the work, and erected the Committee
of Missions into a Board, "with full power to
transact all the business of the missionary cause,
only requiring the Board to report annually to
the General Assembly." It was entitled " The
Board of Missions, acting under authority of the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States" ; and was authorized to appoint
missionaries whenever they may deem it proper ;
to make such advances to missionaries as may be
judged necessary ; to take such measures for
establishing throughout our churches auxiliary
missionary societies, and generally to conduct the
work of home missions in all its phases.

It would be impossible in this brief sketch to
follow in detail all of the home missionary opera-
tions of the Church ; for the history of the Church
is largely a history of missions. Before we begin
to follow the separate fortunes of the Southern
branch of the Church, we can quote in passing

24 At Our Own Door

only the famous overture to the Assembly of 1831,
offered by Dr. John H. Rice, founder of Union
Theological Seminary in Virginia, in which he
asks the Assembly to recognize more emphatically
the mission of the Church : " First, That the Pres-
byterian Church in the United States is a mis-
sionary society, the object of which is to aid in the
conversion of the world ; and that every mem-
ber of the Church is a member for life of the
said society, and bound in the maintenance of
his Christian character to do all in his power
for the accomplishment of this object. Second,
Ministers of the gospel in connection with the
Presbyterian Church are most solemnly required
to present this subject to the members of their
respective congregations, using every effort to
make them feel their obligations and to induce
them to contribute according to their ability."
It is said by Dr. T. C. Johnson in his history, that
"this paper stirred the Church." It were "a
consummation devoutly to be wished" if the
great truth of this overture could find a per-
manent abode in the consciousness of the Churchy
and arouse her to a higher appreciation of her
great and chief mission among men.

The Southern Presbyterian Church " was born
amid the awful throes of Civil War. The growth
of conflicting social and political opinions in the
great commonwealth had caused a rupture be-
tween the North and South, across whose ever-
widening chasm the arms of the Church could not
reach.

Historical 25

" The smoke of battle around Fort Sumter had
scarcely cleared away, and the whole country was
swept by a wave of tragic emotion, when the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
met in the city of Philadelphia, May, 1861. Under
stress of an excitement that carried many of the
commissioners off their feet, the famous * Spring
Resolutions ' were passed, which effectually severed
the ecclesiastical bonds between North and
South.

"The paper embodying these resolutions was
considered by the Southern Commissioners as * a
writ of ejectment ' of all that part of the Church
in the bounds of the territory that had seceded
from the Union ; and it became the occasion of
the withdrawal of forty-seven presbyteries from
the old Church. These presbyteries through
their commissioners met in the fair city of
Augusta, Georgia, December 4, 1861, and or-
ganized the General Assembly of the Confederate
States, now popularly known as the Southern
General Assembly.

" The conduct of this Assembly at the first meet-
ing presents to the world a sublime spectacle of
faith. With dismal and bloody civil strife abroad
in the land, the roar of cannon borne upon every
breeze, sectional feeling running high, and com-
pelling brethren of like religious faith to go apart,
that memorable gathering of God's servants rose
sheer above the surroundings to the contemplation
of the Saviour's farewell command, and looking
out upon the whole world as their field of opera-

26 At Our Own Door

tion, accepted the divine charge in the following
beautiful words : ' The General Assembly desires
distinctly and deliberately to inscribe on our
Church's banner as she now first unfolds it to the
world, in immediate connection with the headship
of her Lord, His last command, " Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to every creature,"
regarding this as the great end of her organiza-
tion'" (Rev. P. H. Gwinn).

Concerning the elements which made up the
constituency of the Southern Church, Dr. Moses
D. Hoge testifies that these several strains of
European Presbyterianism were so blended as to
make " a body of Christians singularly homogene-
ous, conservative, truth-loving, and ardently de-
voted to right and liberty. The courtly and
cultivated Huguenot, the stern and simple-hearted
Highlander, the strong earnest faithful Scotch-
Irish, the conscientious Puritan, and the frank,
honest Teuton, contributed of the wealth of their
character and the glory of their history. Devo-
tion to principle was the guiding star of their
action."

In 1859, two years before the separation, the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
having its office of home missions in I^ew York
established a Southwestern Advisory Committee
of Domestic Missions in New Orleans. In the
division of the Church this committee had left to
it no other course than that of independent
action. It reported to the first General Assembly
of the Southern Church in Augusta, Ga., De-

Historical 27

cember 4, 1861, and turned over by request its
records, work, and funds to that Assembly.

Instead of a Board of Missions, the Southern
Assembly adopted the principles of Dr. J. H.
Thornwell in his contention against Boards, and
appointed " An Executive Committee of Domestic
Missions," located at New Orleans, La., with Rev.
John Leyburn, D. D., as Secretary. The Execu-
tive Committee differs from the Board in that it is
more directly amenable to the Assembly, and is
reappointed at each meeting of the Assembly.

Under the exigencies of the war, the location
of the Committee was changed from Xew Orleans
to Athens, Ga., then to Montgomery, Ala., and
finally combined with that of foreign missions at
Columbia, S. C, with Dr. John Leighton Wilson
as Secretary. " During the war the principal work
of the Committee was that of providing chaplains
for the army. About one hundred chaplains were
supported from this treasury. It will never be
possible in this world to estimate the value of that
camp ministry. Religious interest was frequently
profound, with many professions of faith. Many
brave soldiers went directly from religious worship
to death. Many received the ministrations of
these chaplains in hospitals, and many survived
the awful conflict and date their religious life and
Christian character to the faithful work of these
godly and noble servants of God " (Dr. J. N.
Craig).

" The Advisory Committee had been created by
an order of the General Assembly of 1859, and

28 At Our Own Door

had gone into active operation in November of
that year. It had presented two annual reports to
the old Assembly through the parent Board. On
March 1, 1861, it had a balance in its treasury of
$7,Y29.55 ; it had received between March and
E'ovember $4,490.37, having thus during those
eight months $12,219.92. About forty mission-
aries were on November 1st in commission, which
was about the number in commission at the meet-
ing of the Philadelphia Assembly. Through the
good providence of the blessed Master and Head
amidst the terrible convulsions of the times, the
work of missions had moved on without a jar.
One cannot fail to notice the wonderful manner in
which God had prepared the Southern Presby-
terian Church for the storm, in the creation of this
agency, without which domestic missions upon her
extended frontier must have been brought ab-
ruptly to a close, and many faithful laborers with-
out a warning cast loose upon the world without
visible prospect of support for themselves and their
families " (Dr. T. C. Johnson).

At this first meeting of the Assembly, the duties
of the Church Extension Committee as organized
under the old Assembly were assigned to this
Committee of Domestic Missions ; but a still
heavier responsibility was laid upon its shoulders
when the Assembly gave it as wards the 4,000,000
of negroes in the South, by passing the following
resolution :

"That the great field of missionary operation
among our colored population falls more imme-

Historical 29

diately under the care of the [Committee of Do-
mestic Missions ; and that the committee be urged
to give it serious and constant attention, and the
presbyteries to cooperate with the committee in
securing pastors and missionaries for this field "
(Minutes, p. 20). That the spiritual interests of
these wards were not neglected is evident from the
fact that such men (than whom none were greater)
as Kevs. Joseph Stiles, D. D., Flinn Dickson, D.
D., John B. Adger, D. D., John L. Girardeau, D.
D., and Charles A. Stillman, D. D., devoted a large
part of their ministerial life as pastors and shep-
herds of the colored people. This department of
home missions finally developed into an Executive
Committee of Colored Evangelization, with Rev.
Dr. A. L. Phillips as efficient Secretary, and now
ably managed by Rev. Dr. J. G. Snedecor, Secre-
tary. Tuscaloosa Institute was erected to train
for their needs a colored ministry, which has al-
ready done a noble work in this sphere.

One more special item of our first Assembly
calls for distinct notice, its characteristic action in
regard to the work among the Indians. It was
the first foreign mission work attempted by the
Southern Church, and would not be noticed in this
sketch of home missions but for the fact that in
1889 the Indian work was transferred to the Ex-
ecutive Committee of home missions, and is now
an important factor in this department. It illus-
trates also the fact that home and foreign missions
are essentially one, and so often overlap that it is
impossible to distinguish between them.

30

At Our Own Door

The Indians of the Territory chose to cast in
their lot with the South, and it is estimated that
the Choctaw nation furnished fully 3,000 soldiers
for service, and the Cherokees nearly 2,000. Eev.
J. Leighton "Wilson, whom Dr. R. L. Dabney char-
acterized as one who " wielded more real power in
the Southern Presbyterian Church than any other
man in it," interested the Church in these Indian
tribes, raised and expended about $20,000 among
them in missions during 1861. Having made a
personal visit to the Indian Territory, he made a
report to the Assembly as provisional Secretary,
whereupon the Assembly passed the following
resolution, in which Dr. T. C. Johnson says, " it
betrayed a glorious missionary zeal."

" Resolved, 2. That the Assembly accepts with
joyful gratitude to God the care of these missions
among our southwestern Indian tribes, the Choc-
taws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Chero-
kees, thus thrown upon them by His providence :
missions whose whole history has been signalized
by a degree of success attending few other modern
missions ; to a people comprising nearly seventy
thousand souls, to whom we are bound by obliga-
tions of special tenderness and strength, and whose
spiritual interests must ever be dear to the Chris-
tians of this land.

" And the Assembly assures these people and the
beloved missionaries who have so long and success-
fully labored among them of our fixed purpose
under God to sustain and carry forward the blessed
work, whose foundations have been so nobly and

Historical 31

deeply laid. We, therefore, decidedly approve of
the recommendations of the report, that six new
missionaries be sent to this field speedily, two of
them to commence in new missions among the
Cherokees, and that a few small boarding-schools
be established with the special design of raising up
a native ministry.

" 3. That in the striking fact that the same up-
heaving and overturning that have called us into ex-
istence as a distinct organization and shut us out
from present access to distant nations have also laid
thus upon our hearts and hands these interesting
missions with their fifteen stations, twelve or-
dained missionaries, and sixteen hundred com-
municants, so at the very moment of commencing
our separate existence we find them forming in
fact an organized part of our body ; and also in
the gratifying promptitude with which our Church
has advanced to their support — the Assembly recog-
nizes most gratefully the clear foreshadowing of the
Divine purpose to make our beloved Church an
eminently missionary Church ; and a heart-stirring
call upon all her people to engage in this blessed
work with new zeal and self-denial " (Minutes,
pp. 16, 17).

Keports from the Indian Presbytery have been
irregular and very unsatisfactor}'^, but statistics
show that about 2,100 have been received on pro-
fession of faith, and about 300 by certificate, mak-
ing an average of about sixty a year. It is true
that our roll now contains scarcely a thousand
communicants among them, but it can be partly

32 At Our Own Door

accounted for by the fact that owing to the scarcity
of funds to prosecute the work the whole northern
section of the Indian Territory was transferred
to the Northern Church. Death explains the
remainder.

Eecently at a meeting of the Indian Presbytery,
Rev. Silas Bacon, a full-blood Choctaw preacher
said : " It is often asked what has become of the
money spent on Indian missions. If you will come
with me to yon cemetery, I will show you the
graves of hundreds of the sainted dead. Is the
money wasted that filled these graves with Chris-
tians instead of heathen ? " Let the Church hear
and answer that question. If Indian Presbytery
cannot account to the Church on earth in num-
bers for the money expended, she can render good
account to the Church in glor}'^ ! " The Lord shall
count, when He writeth up the people, that this
man was born there."

Rev. John Ley burn served the Church accept-
ably as Secretary of domestic missions for two
years; and then foreign and domestic missions
were united under the wise management of Dr.
John Leighton Wilson, who for fourteen years
had been missionary in Africa, a man of eminent
piety, great prudence, and forethought well nigh
inspired, raised up of God to serve the Church in
time of greatest peril. These were dark days of
disaster, ruin, bloodshed and agony. " The ma-
jority of the male membership entered the army
of the Confederacy, and consecrated their lives and
property to the cause of their country. Ministers

Historical

33

left their churches and joined the army as chap-
lains. The treasury of domestic missions was ex-
hausted to keep religion alive within the camp.
These were not years of gospel expansion, but of
gracious ministry to a noble army whose ranks
were constantly thinning, to brave soldiers, many
of whom went straight from religious worship to
death.

" And after the war what ? The horrors of re-
construction; the tattered remnants of a once
glorious army, broken in fortune and spirit;
smoking ruins and barren fields; thousands and
thousands of negroes invested with the elective
franchise, and through the aid of carpet-baggers,
become the dominant force in political life ; once
prosperous churches reduced to poverty, and va-
cant because their pastors had perished in battle,
or were compelled to betake themselves to bread-
winning ; colleges robbed of their endowments,
and theological seminaries closed ; a generation of
noble men fallen asleep, with few or none to take
their places ; the walls of Zion broken down, and
the Southern Presbyterian Church but ' a shell of
an organization, with a thin clerical roll and a
long list of vacant churches.'

" Crushed to the dust by the terrible events of
war, and chastened by many sorrows, the brave
people of the South possessed still the faith of
their fathers. In the face of a stern military
despotism, they began to build with strenuous
hand upon the ruins of better days almost before
the camp-fires had died away. In church matters,

34 At Our Own Door

as in everything else, it was like starting afresh.
There was much to be done — a ministry educated,
houses of worship rebuilt, broken down churches
revived, officers found and elected, and ministerial
support secured " (Rev. P. H. Gwinn).

Yet in these adverse and forbidding circum-
stances the record of the Committee shows that it
aided in the support of 220 ministers. At the
same time it assisted in erecting and repairing
thirty churches at a cost of $8,000. The faith of
the Church during her baptism of fire, her courage
in supreme danger, her patient suffering in defeat,
her determined resolution in great poverty to arise
and rebuild her broken walls, her steadfast pur-
pose turning defeat into victory, make her worthy
of a place in history by the side of Nehemiah, and
are the admiration alike of friend and foe.

In 1866 under the weighty influence of the
memorial of Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, the Assembly
converted the Committee of Domestic Missions
into the Committee of Sustentation. The time
had not come for advancing " into the regions be-
yond." The Church felt the need of sustaining
the organizations already established, and rehabil-
itating that which had fallen into decay. That
were work enough at present to occupy hand and
head and heart.

The newly organized Committee of Sustentation
girded itself to the task, and announced as its
mission a fourfold purpose : " 1. To aid feeble
churches in the support of their pastors and sup-
plies. 2. To aid in the support of missionaries

Historical 35

and evangelists wherever such aid is asked. 3. To
assist in rebuilding and repairing church edifices
wherever the people have not the means of them-
selves to do it. 4. To assist missionaries or min-
isterial laborers in getting from one field to an-
other where they are without the means of doing
this themselves " (Minutes, 1867, pp. 155, 156).

Ail funds went into a common treasury, and
each presbytery drew upon that fund according
to its particular needs and the resources of the
treasury. This plan modeled after the sustenta-
tion plan of the Free Church of Scotland would
give unity to the whole Church. Carrying out the
injunction of Scripture, "Bear ye one another's
burdens," it transformed the Church into one
great Presbyterian Brotherhood, by which the
stronger presbyteries rallied to the support of the
weaker ; and it was hoped a fund would be left
always as a surplus to push the work " into the
regions beyond."

The Committee did noble service to the Church
and the cause of Christ. Many weak churches
became self-supporting, and the Church grew and
prospered. However, no machinery is perfect,
and various difficulties were raised. Whatever of
failure resulted, was due, not so much to defective
plan as to the lack of hearty cooperation. Some
presbyteries refused their cooperation altogether ;
others promised to give the Committee a per cent,
of collections, which was carelessly performed ;
many zigzagged back and forth from cooperation
to non-cooperation, cultivating unwittingly the

36 At Our Own Door

spirit of independence and sadly marring the unity
of the spirit and the unity of the cause. Still the
work grew, and the duties of the combined offices
of foreign missions and sustentation became too
burdensome for even such strong shoulders as
those of Dr. Wilson ; consequently, " in 1872 the
General Assembly elected as coordinate Secretary
the Eev. Kichard Mcllwain, D. D., now president
of Hampden-Sydney College, into whose hands
principally the home mission department fell, and
by whose wise, popular, and energetic administra-
tion the sustentation and evangelistic work was
pushed forward throughout our Church," the year
previous to his election, the Assembly having added
the evangelistic arm for more aggressive work.

In 18Y5, the offices were transferred from Co-
lumbia, S. C, to Baltimore, Md. In 1879, the name
of the Committee was changed to "Home Mis-
sions, including Sustentation, Church Erection, and
Evangelistic Departments." In 1882 the offices of
home and foreign missions were separated, and
Rev. Richard Mcllwain, D. D., became Secretary
of home missions. In 1883 Dr. Mcllwain resigned
to accept the presidency of Hampden-Sydney Col-
lege, Virginia, and Rev. J. IST. Craig, D. D., pastor
of Holly Springs, Miss., was elected. In 1886 the
office of home missions was transferred to At-
lanta, Ga.

The administration of Dr. Craig lasted seven-
teen years, and was characterized by great fidelity
to the cause and loyalty to the Church ; and he
literally died in the harness. " His tragic but tri-

Historical 37

umphant death is fresh in the minds of the mem-
bers of the synod of Virginia. He had just fin-
ished an address of exceptional ability before the
synod at its recent meeting in Newport News,
when his spirit fled to join ' the spirits of the just
men made perfect ' ; and his body was left on the
rostrum majestic in death. Not till our dying
day will we forget that scene where time and
eternity seemed to crowd each other, and heaven
and earth were but an inch apart. As the pros-
trate form of the venerable Secretary rested upon
the rostrum before a large assembly of God's serv-
ants, sad of heart, and hushed into silence in the
presence of death, he appeared still to be mutely
appealing for a more hearty, united, and harmoni-
ous support of the greatest cause of the Church.
* Though dead, he yet speaketh ' " (Kev. P. H,
Gwinn).

This was October, 1900, and the Executive Com-
mittee met in Atlanta during November, and
elected Kev. Dr. T, P. Cleveland to serve as Secre-
tary till the meeting of the Assembly at Little
Kock, Ark.; at which time, feeling the grave re-
sponsibility of selecting a successor, the Assembly
appointed a special hour for the election to be pre-
ceded by a season of special prayer for divine
guidance. The choice fell on Eev. S. L. Morris,
D. D., pastor of Tattnall Square Church, Macon,
Ga., who, by reason of the remarkable circum-
stances attending the election, regarded it as the
call of God, and entered upon the duties of office
July 1, 1901.

38 At Our Own Door

During the administration of Dr. Craig in 1893,
the Assembly made the most important change in
the plan of home missions in all its history by
separating it into Local and Assembly's Home
Missions. Each presbytery was expected to carry
on its own work by taking collections in February,
June, and August for this purpose. This made the
Executive Committee of home missions almost ex-
clusively an aggressive agency of the Church for
evangelizing " the regions beyond." The Church
was directed to give January and September of-
ferings for this object, and the Committee was
" instructed ordinarily to apply its funds to the
development of the work in the weaker portions
of the Church which lie in the southern, south-
western, and western portions of our territory, in-
cluding Indian Territory, New Mexico, Arizona,
and Southern California" (Minutes, 1893), For
ten years the Committee has operated under these
instructions, doing its work almost exclusively in
Arkansas, Florida, Indian Territory, and Texas.

The bane of home mission work in the
Southern Church has been the ceaseless and need-
less changing of machinery and plans of opera-
tion. Compared with the Northern Presbyterian
Church, which has made only one change in the
location of its Board in a hundred years, and
scarcely any in its plan of operation, steadily
and persistently pursuing its clearly defined pur-
pose onward to ever- widening success, the Southern
Church has carried its Committee from New
Orleans to Athens, Ga., to Montgomery, Ala., to

Historical

39

Columbia, S. C, to Baltimore, Md., and to Atlanta,
Ga., and listens at every Assembly to some
" overture " for changing the machinery.

In consequence of this restlessness of the
Church, the Assembly at Little Rock, Ark., in
1901 appointed an Ad-Interim Committee to find if
possible some better plan of carrying on its home
mission work. After studying the problem for
two years, this committee composed of one repre-
sentative from each synod made its report to the
Assembly at Lexington, Va., 1903. The Assembly
in adopting it, so modified the report as to make
it a compromise between the old plan operated for
twenty-seven years and the one in operation for
the past ten years.

The new plan adopted and now in operation is
as follows :

" 1. The home missionary work of the Church
is a unit, but for its better administration, it is
divided into two departments, Local and General.
" 2. The Assembly urges upon all its synods and
presbyteries to prosecute the work of local home
missions within their own bounds to the extent of
their ability, and reserves for the use of these courts,
the months of February, June, and August to
defray the expenses of their local work.

"3. The Assembly's home mission work em-
braces the whole Church for the purpose of aiding
the weaker presbyteries and frontier districts in
the various synods, but more especially in new
territory and unorganized sections of the West.
" 4. The Executive Committee shall aid within

40 At Our Own Door

its ability the work in any presb3'^tery where it is
shown to the satisfaction of the Committee, that
said presbytery is unable to compass the work ;
and in all cases the presbyteries shall secure offer-
ings for this cause from their churches during the
months designated for this purpose.

" 5. The General Assembly appoints two annual
collections for Assembly's home missions, includ-
ing the causes formerly known as Sustentation,
Evangelistic, and Church Erection, and appoints
the months of January and September for the
presentation of this work, and urges upon all its
synods and presbyteries to endeavor to have this
department of the work presented to the
churches distinctly upon its own merits and to
secure liberal collections from the churches in
their bounds" (Minutes, 1903).

At first glance there seems but little difference
between this and the plan adopted in 1893, but a
careful study of the two will reveal the fact that
the previous plan was largely local, whilst the new
plan makes the Assembly's home missions stand
for all the destitutions of the Church, the prefer-
ence being given to the weaker presbyteries and
unorganized sections of the "West. It may not be
perfect ; possibly nothing could be devised which
would give satisfaction to all sections with their
conflicting interests and diverse methods of work ;
but the success of the work will not depend on the
perfection of the machinery so much as on the
hearty and harmonious cooperation of every
presbytery, and the aggressive policy and wise

Historical 41

management of the Committee under the blessing
of God.

Is it possible to place the matter in stronger
light than has been done by Rev. P. H. Gwinn in
his able and timely article, " Our forty years in
the Home Field," in which he challenges the
loyalty of Presbyterianism : " Has the Southern
General Assembly become a corporation that her
inferior courts should be found in a state of insub-
ordination ? Certain it is that for years many of
the inferior ecclesiastical bodies have rebelled
against the Assembly's scheme of home missions.
The presbyteries have been designated as ' co-
operating ' and ' non-cooperating.' No matter what
scheme the Assembly adopted, it was ignored by
certain presbyteries with a nonchalance that is
simply appalling. This has gone on till lax ob-
servance of ecclesiastical authority has become
common, and threatens to seriously disturb the
continuity of our Church. Perhaps the last public
utterance of the venerable Dr. Dabney was to lift
his voice in timely warning against the growth of
this spirit. No cause of the Church has suffered
more from insubordination of church courts than
home missions. The wonder is that so much has
been accomplished with such a guerilla system.

" Now, we would not diminish by one iota the
corporate power of the Church ; only adjust and
apply it through cooperation. We might show in
various ways that the existence of a corporation is
often due more to mechanical device than to or-
ganic connection, smothering the individual life of

42 At Our Own Door

its members. On the other hand, the element of
corporate power ' may also be kept so much in
abeyance as to lose its legitimate force and give
an exaggerated development of the principle of in-
dividualism, tending to schism, contention, and
paralysis of the corporate action.' The effectual
antidote to either extreme is cooperation, a splendid
mutualism which neither suppresses the individual
nor creates rebellion. As applied to a religious
body, it is a grand brotherhood of believers, moved
by the love of Jesus to daily warfare with sin, and
to constant and united effort to give energy and
eflBlciency to every enterprise of the Church. This
is a body whose members obey the spirit of Jesus,
in which it is the glory of the strong to help the
weak, and where regularly constituted authority
finds becoming reverence and loyalty. . . .
One needs not the prophetic vision to see the dis-
astrous tendency of the growing independence of
synods, presbyteries and sessions of our Church.
It is clear that some way must be found to check
this tendency and to elicit, combine and direct the
energies of the whole Church in one sacred effort
for the propagation of the Gospel throughout the
destitute regions of our country. If the General
Assembly possess the power neither to persuade
nor to compel the inferior courts to regard her
mandates in matters involving such momentous
issues, then let the Church surrender her boasted
theory of a ' Jure divino form of Government.' "

" If we do not hang together," said Benjamin
Franklin in the American Kevolution, " we will

Historical 43

all hang separately." If the presbyteries do not
cooperate together under the leadership and con-
trol of the Assembly, the cause of missions will
retrograde, and the Church disintegrate. The
Church seems to be awakened to its dereliction in
the past, and there are blessed tokens of a new
spirit of fellowship and loyalty on all sides. It is
said that Edison on board an ocean steamer, gazing
upon the waves rolling and dashing themselves
into spray, in their wild, restless motion, ex-
claimed : " It makes me perfectly wild to see all
of this power going to waste." According to Dr.
Strong : " The sun's heat which falls on the sur-
face of Manhattan Island is sufficient, we are told,
to drive all the steam engines of the world. The
force of atomic motion is alike irresistible and im-
measurable. Our present knowledge of electricity
assures us of its boundless possibilities ; and Na-
ture is now whispering in the ear of Science some
of her secrets, which suggest the possibility of
giving to material civilization, within a few years,
an impetus greater even than that resulting from
the application of steam." In like manner there
is latent power enough in the Presbyterian Church
now going to waste to propagate its faith in every
nook and corner of our great Southland, if it could
be properly directed and utilized. God speed the
day !

This historical sketch of the growth of home
Missions cannot be more fittingly closed than by a
glance at results. The organic life of the Southern
Church began with ten synods and forty-seven

44 At Our Own Door

presbyteries, containing about 700 ministers, 1,000
churches, and 75,000 communicants, increased by
the addition after the war of the Synods of Missouri
and Kentucky, and the erection of the Synod of
Florida. It now numbers, after the lapse of forty
years, thirteen synods, eighty-two presbyteries,
1,517 ministers, 3,044 churches, and 235,142 com-
municants. Presbyteries and ministers have in-
creased about one hundred per cent.; whilst
churches and communicants have increased two
hundred per cent. It was not until 1870 that the
Southern Church was in a position to enter upon
aggressive home missions, so that its real progress
ought to be estimated for only thirty years. The
white population of our mission field (Arkansas,
Florida, Texas, and Indian Territory) has increased
in thirty years 240 per cent., whilst our church mem-
bership in that section has increased 410 per cent.

In these thirty years the Committee of home
missions has aided in erection of about eight
hundred churches at a cost of about $100,000, mak-
ing the property worth about $1,000,000, and pro-
viding 15,000 persons with church homes.

At least 2,000 Indian youth have been educated
in our mission schools, including the majority of
our Indian preachers, and about 2,400 Indians have
been received into communion in the church. Five
missionaries are maintained among the Mexicans in
Texas, and thirteen Mexican churches have been or-
ganized among them having a membership at pres-
ent of 680, and church buildings erected, valued at
present at $7,500.

Historical 45

About 250 home missionaries have been supported
annually, supplying on an average about 600
churches and preaching to more than 100,000 people
year by year.

The sum total of funds raised by the Southern
Church and expended in home mission work is
estimated at nearly $4,000,000. Twenty-three
millions raised by the Northern Presbyterian
Church in a century of Missions and nearly four
millions raised by her younger sister in less than a
half century, is not a bad showing for either church.

" But figures are dumb. Statistics are cold, de-
ceptive things, when used to compete the growth
of an invisible kingdom. ' Numericals do not voice
the strong things of religion.' The sum total of
S3'^mpathy, self-denial and sacrifice cannot be found.
There is no way to compute the unspeakable joy
brought to thousands of homes, through the min-
istry of the word ; no way to measure the growth
of a community in moral excellence ; no symbols
to express the length and breadth and height of
faith, mercy, love. Undoubtedly the grandest re-
sults of our home mission work has been the crea-
tion of a current of beneficent influence, like the
Gulf Stream, deep, strong, immeasurable, which
will increase in volume till it sweeps upon the
shore of Eternity " (Rev. P. H. Gwinn).

Now, we face the future, dim, unknown, great
with possibilities. The achievements of the nine-
teenth century in science, statecraft, missions,
scarcely allow the most vivid imagination to hazard
a guess in outlining the horizon of the new century.

46 At Our Own Door

No wonder Dr. C. L. Thompson, the eloquent Sec-
retary of home missions of the Northern Church,
with delicate skill touches but the outer garment
of the future in the fascinating vision :

" Years ago I had a vision from the summit of
Pike's Peak. Through the lifting gates of the
morning mist the landscape to the east lay re-
vealed and splendid ; town, villages, farms, plains
stretching to the eastern horizon — startlingly
distinct in the dry, morning air. It was a vision
of civilization. Then turning about to the west,
the mountains rose in frozen billows to the skies.
The snowy ridges suggested valleys that could
not be seen. The vision ended in a teasing haze,
through which to the south the Spanish peaks
towered distantly, dim and concealing. It was a
vision of the unknown. It comes back to me to-
day. We stand upon the ridge of the century.
Behind us distinct and splendid a hundred years
of home missions unroll to the horizon. Before
us, vistas of opportunity sentineled and concealed
by great events, whose white foreheads rise to-
wards heaven, as if owning allegiance to Him
who shapes the future."

Presbyterianism began the last century in this
country a little band, and now " by the good hand
of our God upon us " it stands upon the threshold
of the twentieth century in its aggregate strength
in the United States of twelve denominations,
12,000 ministers, 15,000 churches and 2,000,000
communicants, with its missions stretching around
the globe.

Historical 47

Let not hers be the spirit of Laodicea, " I am
rich and increased with goods and have need of
nothing ; " but rather that of the chiefest of the
Apostles, " I count not myself to have ap-
prehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before, I press to-
wards the mark " — " attempting greater things
for God and expecting greater things from God."

II

THE PROGRAM OF MISSIONS

The blood stained Cross was possibly still
standing on the brow of Calvary, overlooking the
City of Jerusalem, but the Kesurrection was now
a glorious fact. The risen Christ, Lord and Head
of the Church, stood on the summit of Olivet,
with the eleven disciples. On the eve of the
Ascension, Jesus speaks His very last recorded
words to the Church : " And ye shall be witnesses
unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth." Having already given His "Marching
Orders" to the Church, "Go ye into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature,"
the Captain of the Eedeemed Host now prescribes
very definitely the order of the March in His last
words to the Church.

1. In these words we have Christ's own pro-
gram of missions; "And ye shall be witnesses
unto Me both in Jerusalem " — city missions ; " and
in all Judea " — local home missions ; " and in
Samaria" — General Assembly's missions; "and
unto the uttermost part of the earth" — foreign
missions. According to the orders of Christ, the
Church is not to begin at the circumference and
work towards the centre, but " Beginning at

48

The Program of Missions 49

Jerusalem," the centre, she is to work towards the
circumference till the Gospel is " preached among
all nations." Just as a stone dropped into a
placid lake starts ripples, moving outward in ever
widening concentric circles, so the Church, start-
ing at any home centre must travel to the out-
most circumference.

The Church may assume any one of four
attitudes towards missions :

{a) All the emphasis may be placed on foreign
missions, as has been the policy of the Moravian
Church. A bishop of that grand, missionary
Church, travelling recently on the train with a
Baptist minister, admitted that it had been the
great mistake of his church. As a consequence,
it has transferred itself to foreign fields and com-
paratively lost its grip at home, a tremendous
factor in the world's evangelization abroad, but
an unimportant element in the great struggle of
spiritual forces for the conquest of this land for
Christ. Q>) It may array itself against missions,
as has been done by the Primitive Baptist Church ;
and as a consequence, although containing many
most excellent Christian people, it is shrivelling
into smaller proportions and retiring to mountain
regions and backwoods settlements, (c) The
emphasis may be placed largely on home missions,
as in the case of the Methodist Church. As a
consequence, it leads all denominations in its
growth and aggressive work in the home field.
{d) The emphasis may be placed on home and
foreign missions alike, as in the case of the

^o At Our Own Door

Northern Presbyterian Church. As a con-
sequence, it is a great spiritual force in the great
West and throughout the entire world.

There is never any conflict between home and
foreign missions, where they are each assigned
their proper proportions. Each is a stimulus to the
other. The work of local home missions is to
' strengthen thy stakes " ; the purpose of the As-
sembly's missions makes it the aggressive work of
the Church to " lengthen thy cords " ; whilst the
sphere of foreign missions stretches "unto the
uttermost parts of the earth." Increase the home
mission resources, and the larger will be the income
for foreign missions. This is following Christ's
program for missions in Christ's own order of the
march.

2. The scope of home missions, as operated by
the General Assembly through its Executive Com-
mittee at Atlanta, embraces four departments :

{a) First, in every sense of the word, is the Evan-
gelistic sphere. The evangelist is a pioneer who
blazes the way for the future path of the
Church, in her onward march. The evangelist is the
advance guard that reconnoitres for the army, that
" goes forth conquering and to conquer " in the
name of Christ. The evangelist sows the precious
seed of divine truth, that others may reap the
harvest in accordance with the saying of Christ :
" Other men labored, and ye are entered into their
labors." The evangelist lays the foundation that
others may rear the superstructure in accord with
the principle announced by the chiefest of all

The Program of Missions ^i

evangelists : " According to the grace of God,
which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder,
I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth
thereon."

There can be no real aggressive work without
the aid of the evangelist. This department of the
work includes, not only the evangelists of our fron-
tier presbyteries, but our operations among the
Mexicans of western Texas. As they come across
the Eio Grande, in numbers 100,000 strong, we meet
them with the Gospel in a line of out-posts along
our border. One of these evangelists, Kev. "W. S.
Scott, preaching in an unknown tongue, has for
several years received on an average 100 of these
Mexicans annually into the Presbyterian Church.
Can any man, even with better opportunities, ex-
hibit a grander record ? Is not this the manifest
approval of the Master ? In addition to this, we
have our missionaries among the Indians, and our
evangelists in the new territory opening up " in the
regions beyond " the pale of the church, and ad-
vancing into Oklahoma.

(h) Following closely upon the heels of the evan-
gelists, comes the settled pastor, bringing us into
the sphere of Sustentation. As fast as new churches
are organized, it is our plan to group them and
place over them the under shepherd. No men are
ever called to any greater task, requiring them to
" endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ," than
these hard worked, poorly paid, self-sacrificing
home missionaries of the Church. Only the small-
est percentage of the Church knows anything of

52 At Our Own Door

the privations, difllculties, discouragementSj etc., of
these noble men, called to nurse infant churches in
the midst of adverse circumstances. Many of them
would succumb but for the comforting thought,
God hnows y and so they " endure as seeing Him
who is invisible."

These two departments of home missions may be
illustrated from the analogy of nature. In nature
God has two methods of propagating a forest.
One is by wind-wafted seed, scattered by the
breezes of heaven ; some falling upon the rocks to
die, some choked in preoccupied ground, and others
falling into good and fertile soil to produce rich
harvests. In the Kingdom of Grace this corre-
sponds to the evangelistic principle, by which the
precious seed of divine truth is scattered beside all
waters. " In the morning sow thy seed, and in the
evening withhold not thy hand." God has another
method still of propagating a forest. The banyan
tree stretches out a branch, and then drops to the
earth a tender shoot to take fresh hold on the soil.
The mother plant does not leave this offspring to
shift for itself, and live or die, as it may chance.
The organic life of parent and offspring is one.
They share a common life. The parent maintains
the feeble shoot until it grows strong, and then
uses it to stretch out its branches still farther, and
again take hold on the soil, and thus a forest
spreads. In the Kingdom of Grace this corre-
sponds to the sustentation principle, by which the
church nourishes its offspring till the weak church
becomes self-supporting, and in turn nourishes other

The Program of Missions 53

churches. By the evangelistic principle she
" lengthens her cords " ; by the sustentation depart-
ment she " strengthens her stakes."

(c) The very first thing the pastor is called upon
to meet is the problem of a new church ; and this
brings us into the department of Church Erection.
In the very first conception of a church building is
the inquiry always raised, " Can we secure any as-
sistance ? " In almost every instance the pastor
stimulates them to the herculean task by the sug-
gestion of a donation from the Assembly's Com-
mittee. So the applications for help pour in and
confront every meeting of the Committee. Yet
such a small per cent, of our funds can be given to
this object, that we are compelled to select a few of
the neediest or most importunate, and decline all
others ; and it is most diflficult to convince those
refused that theirs are not the neediest cases of all.
This is very discouraging to the churches and very
embarrassing to the Committee. It is unfortunate
that the church does not realize, that when any ap-
plication is denied, it is not the Committee in At-
lanta, but the Presbyterian Church that declines,
by withholding the funds ; for " we cannot make
brick without straw."

{d) The last department of home missions is
perhaps the most profitable of all, in proportion to
the money expended ; for " Mission Schools " of
the Indian Territory cost only about three per
cent, of the funds raised annually. Contrary to
public opinion, let it be understood, that the
Indian children are not the neediest cases, for they

54 At Our Own Door

receive some help from the government ; but the
Commissioner of Indian affairs recently reported
to the Department of the Interior, that the Terri-
tory contains 119,000 white school children, for
whose education there is not the slightest provision
whatever. To reach even a percentage of these
our " Mission Schools " have increased to about a
dozen. Recognizing that secular education with-
out religious training is often a delusion and a
curse, we are not only teaching the secular
branches of the common school system, but mak-
ing the Shorter Catechism one of the text-books ;
and if the Shorter Catechism be the seed sown,
" What shall the harvest be ? "

Time and space forbid at this point any account
of these schools. Durant College has grown out
of one, which now has a $15,000 pressed brick
building, seven teachers and over 300 scholars.
At its first opening pupils came from every nook
and corner of the Indian Territory, every seat and
desk being taken within two weeks ; and there are
always those in waiting for the first vacancy.
The government sends us 100 of its wards, paying
their board and tuition. Who can estimate the
sphere of its influence, as these young minds are
being trained to go out into every section of this
great future state, and become the leaders of
thought and builders of the Republic ! Long may
this " River " send out its streams to " make glad
the city of God."

3. As to the relation of home missions to the
other Schemes of the Church, if space permitted,

The Program of Missions 5^

it would be an easy task to show that our home
mission work is the basis of all other operations ;
and to develop it is to equip the Church more fully
for every phase of her work.

(a) No more serious problem confronts the
Church than the decrease in her candidates for the
ministry. Many explanations are attempted. Is
not this one potent cause, at least? Candidates
for the ministry come from small towns and coun-
try churches, and very seldom from the cities. If
the Church had pushed her home mission work into
more of the small towns and country places,
would not these have more than repaid the ex-
penditure of money, by furnishing the candidates
she so sorely needs to-day, to fill the pulpits left
vacant, as new places open up, and one by one the
fathers fall asleep ?

(b) Home missions, beyond all question, is the
basis of foreign missions. If an army is to ad-
vance into the country of the enemy, it needs a
strong base of supply to sustain its operation. If
the Church had been spreading itself more sys-
tematically at home, it would be supporting a far
larger number on the foreign field. The Church
has lost rich, valuable territory enough in the west
to support a dozen men in China or Japan. Texas
gives as much to foreign missions to-day as she
draws from the home treasury. Money must be
spent in the home field as a basis of operation for
the foreign.

" The immediate and continuous need of foreign
missions is a base of supply, both of money and of

56 At Our Own Door

men. That base has not yet been found on its own
missionary ground, although self-support in foreign
missions is beginning to be tentatively discussed.
But for sometime to come, as in the ninety years
past, that all important base must be found in
America, and among the churches planted and yet
to be planted by home missions. Dry up this
source of supply for a single year, and missions in
Africa, China, India, Turkey, and the Islands will
droop like willows cut off from their water
courses. And what is true of money is equally
true of men. Native pastors have been raised up
in considerable numbers, but the need of American
trained missionaries continues and increases.
Already twenty-five per cent, of our foreign mis-
sionaries have been drawn from home missionary
soil. . . . Certain forms of speech, which are
found convenient and even necessary to distin-
guish their operations, have sometimes obscured
this truth. It is well to remind ourselves that in
the last command of Christ there was no ' home,'
there was no ' foreign ' ; 'all the world ' was
the field : and the Christian who believes in home
missions but not in the foreign is as far from the
mind of Christ, as he who believes in foreign mis-
sions and not in home. The two are one, and as
seamless as the Master's robe.

" Broad minded men have emphasized this truth in
many striking utterances. It was this interdepend-
ence of home and foreign missions that moved
Austin Phelps to exclaim in that intense style so
peculiarly his own : ' If I were a missionary in

The Program of Missions 57

Canton, China, my first prayer every morning
would be for the success of American home mis-
sions, for the sake of Canton, China.' It was
this that led Dr. R. S. Storrs more than twenty
years ago, to write from Florence, Italy : ' The
future of the world is pivoted on the question
whether the Protestant churches of America
can hold, enlighten, purify, the peoples born or
gathered into its great compass.' Marcus "Whit-
man Montgomery, an intense home missionary
worker, gave expression to the same sentiment
at Saratoga ten years ago : ' The United States
of to-day is the mountain top of the hopes of
many nations ' " (Leavening the JSTation).

In seeking to arouse the church to the necessity
of occupying this land for Christ by pushing home
missions after the example of our Methodist and
Baptist brethren, we have excused ourselves by
saying, " Ah ! but we are a foreign mission church.
See how much more we are doing in proportion
on that line." In the meanwhile, these denomina-
tions have been actively spreading themselves in
this country and hedging us in at home, until the
time is not far distant when they will sweep by us
in their foreign mission work from sheer force of
numbers. One hundred members, giving twenty-
five cents apiece to foreign missions, will count
more in the aggregate than ten giving a dollar
each. The great disparity between home and
foreign missions in our Church is not to be reme-
died by relaxing our foreign mission zeal, in order
to retrieve our lost territory at home. Perish the

58 At Our Own Door

thought ! On the contrary, lifting our standard
of foreign mission efforts ever higher, at the same
time let the Church emphasize her home mission
work, as equally important, and by strengthening
her stakes at home, she will be more able to
lengthen her cords abroad. Money spent on home
missions to-day will yield abundant fruit for for-
eign missions in the future.

4. The costliest mistake of the Southern Pres-
byterian Church has been the neglect of its home
mission work. An empire has been lost in the
West. In some sections weak churches have been
allowed to die, and the fields abandoned. In other
cases the effort was never made until the tide had
ebbed and gone out forever.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men (and
churches) which taken at its flood leads on to for-
tune, but omitted ! "

It may not be possible to recover all of the
ground that has been lost, but " there remaineth
very much land yet to be possessed " ; and our ob-
ject now is to arouse the Church to her opportu-
nity and responsibility in this great and aggressive
work.

Upon entering the work, the present Secretary
first faithfully informed the Church of its lost
empire in the West, and then turning his face to-
wards a hopeful future, began to sound the call
to advance, in what he termed " A Forward Move-
ment," even in the face of the debt left as a legacy
of the former administration. Backing up his
call such churches as Memphis First, Sherman

The Program of Missions 59

First, Knoxville Third, Athens, Ga., Central and
North Avenue Atlanta, and some generous friends,
came forward and offered to support each an in-
dividual missionary. May their generation in-
crease ! Encouraged by these the Committee sent
an evangelist to Oklahoma and occupied new
towns in the Indian Territory. Then came pro-
tests from certain quarters against any " forward
movement," and in favor of simply " holding our
own," and giving better support to places already
occupied. To which the reply was : " Whenever
the Presbyterian Church shall fold its arms and
call a halt, it will dry up the fountains of its lib-
erality and sound its own death knell ; while on
the contrary, the best method of supporting the
work already in hand is to convince the Church
that an aggressive movement is being undertaken,
which means progress."

Now what are the results ? Rev. H. S. David-
son, after laboring only a few months in Oklahoma
as an evangelist, gathered in Mangum, Greer
County, about twenty Presbyterians, and organized
the First Presbyterian Church in all the southern
section of that great country. Rev. W. E. Mcllwain
entered upon his work in September as superin-
tendent of the Indian Territory and evangelist,
where in seven months besides holding meetings
in various places he settled pastors over seven
churches and organized six others. His successor,
Rev. W. T. Matthews, is meeting with great suc-
cess in every quarter. The opportunity challenges
the Church I

6o At Our Own Door

As the result of this " Forward Movement," a
petition was sent to the next meeting of the Synod
of Texas for the erection of a new presbytery in
the Indian Territory, called " The Presbytery of
Durant," which petition being granted, the pres-
bytery met and organized with eight ministers
and twenty churches. It is remarkable that of
these eight ministers, every one had entered the
Territory during the previous twelve months, and
of the churches more than half had been organized
in the same period of time. Can any section of
the Church show better results for the means ex-
pended ? Does the Church ever receive better re-
sults from the funds expended than in aggressive
home mission work ?

5. In carrying out the program of missions the
Assembly's work does not ask for itself the whole
resources of the Church but a wise cooperation of
the whole Church, and a profitable adjustment of
funds. In every presbytery and synod there is
doubtless enough destitution to demand all of its
home mission funds in local work. " 'Tis true, 'tis
pity ; pity 'tis, 'tis true."

Each presbytery and synod must supply its own
waste places, and go to these neglected moun-
taineers and unevangelized suburbs of the city for
humanity's sake and for Christ's sake.

Yet if there are other localities still more desti-
tute beyond their bounds, where the population is
greater and the money expended brings in better
returns, then must synod or presbytery leave the
destitute of their own bounds /o/* humanity^ s sake

The Program of Missions 6l

cmd for Christ^s sakcy until the Church lays its
hands on the more needy and more promising
fields. Every man making an investment of cap-
ital wants to place it where it will bring him the
largest returns. If the aggressive work of the
General Assembly is doing more, relatively for
the spread of our beloved Church, let no local nor
selfish motive hinder us from giving it our largest
support. Localities in the older synods have
waited, can still wait, will wait, Tnust wait, till the
Church lays her hand on the inviting field and
destitute sections that have never yet been occu-
pied and possessed by any denomination.

The Church must give the gospel to these
great centres of population in the west for her
own sake. The tide of population rolling west-
wards is filling all of that section rapidly. All the
public lands are now being thrown open. There is
no new territory to be opened. The wave of
population will soon reach the Pacific Ocean, and
then necessarily roll backwards towards the east,
and flow into our own wonderful Southland.
Woe be to the Church if it rolls back on her a
flood of ungodly men and women ! The battle
ground of this country is the west. Whoever
organizes the west — Christ or Satan — will largely
control the United States. The east must evan-
gelize the west, or else the west will paganize the
east. It will cost the Church less to evangelize
the west now than in the future, and she must do
it for Chrisfs sake and for her own sake.

In pursuing her foreign mission work, the

62 At Our Own Door

Church is obeying the "Marching Orders" of
Christ, in fidelity and loyalty to Him. Is she
observing " The Order of the March " in aggressive
home mission work, according to Christ's own
program of missions ?

Ill

CITY MISSIONS

One of the most pathetic incidents in the life of
Christ occurred during the only triumphal proces-
sion accorded Him on earth. Some were waving
palm branches and paving His path to Jerusalem
with their garments ; others were shouting " Ho-
sannas," and singing " Glory to God in the high-
est " ; the whole city was moved at the demon-
stration, intended as an ovation to the possible
future King. In the midst of the jubilee, it is
said, " And when He was come near. He beheld
the city and wept over it." If tears could be shed
in heaven, possibly nothing of earth would sooner
provoke those tears to-day than the city in its
degradation, distresses, destitution, sorrow and
sin. It is in the city that human nature sinks to
its lowest level. If there is a hell on earth, it is
the city, sometimes called " The scab on the body
of humanity," and designated by Dr. A. J. McKel-
way as " the plague spot of Nature." After ex-
ploring the wilds of Africa, Henry M. Stanley
sought to fire the hearts of mankind by writing
" In Darkest Africa," but General Booth paralleled
it in " Darkest England." The darker side of the
dark continent is not more repulsive than the
darker side of London, Paris, New York or Chi-

63

64 At Our Own Door

cago, and many lesser cities. In the spirit of
Christ, philanthropists are still weeping over the
needs, sufferings and sorrows of the cities ; philoso-
phers are weeping over city problems ; Christians
are weeping over the wretchedness, shame and sin
of the city.

There is always sorrow in the city. Advancing
civilization, progress of science, institutions of
learning, have not banished from the city its
woes, nor diminished its shame. " The Twentieth
Century City " shows but little change in condi-
tions, since the Psalmist testified 3,000 years ago :
" I have seen violence and strife in the city. Day
and night they go about it upon the walls thereof :
mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.
Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and
guile depart not from her streets.'* Here extremes
meet ; " Dives and Lazarus are brought face to face : "
"the rich and the poor meet together," and ap-
peal equally to the compassion of " The Lord the
Maker of both." The wretched tenement house
and the squalid hut contain no monopoly of suffer-
ing. The brown-stone front, and brilliantly il-
lumined palace have each its hidden skeleton.

1. It has been said, "The city is the nerve
centre of our civilization. It is also the storm
centre." Population is becoming more and more
congested in the city, rendering it not simply a
menace to good government, but a greater problem
to the Church. A comparative study of statistics
shows that the growth of the city is abnormal.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, only one-

City Missions 65

twenty-fifth of the population of our country be-
longed to the city ; by the middle of the century
it had increased to one-eighth; whilst "the
twentieth century city" contains at least one-
third. If we include in the estimate the large
towns, fully one-half of the people are now con-
gregated in the city. The increase in the popula-
tion of the country, during the last century, multi-
plied itself twelvefold, whilst in the same period the
city population increased nearly an hundredfold.
Immigration, which threatens the purity of our
Anglo-Saxon stock, as well as the morality of our
citizenship, makes its chief attack on the city. If
the worst elements of European governments,
which drift to our shores, could be scattered and
distributed in the rural districts, their assimilation
would be easier and less dangerous to the body
politic; but instead, they swarm into our great
cities. While only one-third of the population of
the United States is foreign by birth or parentage,
eighty per cent, of New York is foreign and
ninety per cent, of Chicago.

" Two things, with respect to immigration are
alarming to American Christians and patriots ; its
magnitude and its quality. Think of a single ship,
the Bavaria, bringing in one voyage 2,854 steer-
age passengers, and of a total record, of immi-
grants for the year ending April, 1903, of 803,272!
Seventeen states of the Union have each less popu-
lation. Whereas formerly the influx was almost
entirely of the Teutonic race, Irish and German,
now the Slavonic strain preponderates, and the

66 At Our Own Door

flood is largely composed of illiterate Italians"
{Central Preshyterian).

The Christian Herald startles us in its array of
statistics : " The present population of Chicago is
over 2,000,000. About ninety per cent, of the
people are foreign by birth or parentage. Every
continent, and some of the islands of the earth,
are represented. Sixty languages are spoken.
Different nationalities colonize in different parts
of the city, until one can visit Bohemia, Poland,
Italy, and other lands, without leaving the city
limits.

" There are more Germans than in any city of
Germany, except Berlin, and more Poles than in
any city in Poland, One city missionary visiting
from house to house, during the afternoon of a
single week, offered the Gospel to fifteen nation-
alities. In one section, not two miles square,
eighteen languages are spoken. Many of these
people do not understand English. Most of them
are nominally Eomanists, and these things greatly
increase the difficulty of reaching them with the
Gospel. But a glance at the city shows how much
the Gospel is needed. About 6,000 saloons are
doing business in Chicago. These employ 31,600
persons, and have a daily income of $316,000. In
a single saloon, on a certain ordinary Sabbath
evening, at seven o'clock, there were counted 524
men. Within the next two hours 480 more en-
tered, until men were standing six deep around
the gambling tables. There are 3,000 billiard
and pool rooms. Houses of impurity abound. In

City Missions 67

one ward were counted 312, in which were found
1,708 inmates. A thousand men are engaged in
alluring other men into these dens.

"The religious and moral destitution of the
masses is startling. Some years ago a section was
canvassed, and it was found out of 1,280 families
visited, 1,220 did not possess God's word, neither
were they willing to receive it. The canvas of
another section, revealed 1,140 families with no
Bible, with 1,823 families neglecting public wor-
ship, and nearly 2,000 children in no Sunday-
schools. It is not uncommon to find people who
never saAv a Bible, and do not know it when shown
to them. One woman produced on invitation
what she thought was her Bible : when, on her
failing to find the Gospel of John, the visitor
came to her assistance, it was to discover that she
had "Webster's Dictionary in her hand. 'Well,'
said she, ' if that is not a Bible, then we do not
have one.' There are said to be twelve Atheistic
Sunday-schools in operation in the city, the mem-
bers of which are indoctrinated by means of a
catechism whose summary states that there is no
God, no Christ, no Holy Ghost, no heaven, no
hell, no virtue in Christianity and no integrity in
its ministers."

In addition to immigration, which is swelling
the size of our cities. Dr. Strong in " The Twentieth
Century City " undertakes to account for the in-
crease of urban population in three ways : (1)
The application of machinery to agriculture, by
which one man can now do the work of four men

68 At Our Own Door

formerly. The overproduction of farm products
drives the other three men out of the agricultural
business and inevitably to the city. (2) The sub-
stitution of mechanical for muscular power, and
its application to manufacturers. The world's
work was formerly done by muscle, and the word
" manufacturer " meant something made by hand.
The word has lost its meaning. The springing up
of factories in the city to produce agricultural im-
plements and a thousand other things, created a
demand for mechanical labor, and attracted to the
city laborers, who were being driven from the
farm. (3) The increase of railroad facilities,
which renders it easy to transport population from
country to city, and easy to transport food, mak-
ing it possible to feed millions at any one point,
without danger of famine.

It would be easy to enumerate other causes.
The concentration of wealth in the city means as
well the concentration of business. The city does
not produce, but it does manufacture the products
of a thousand communities. It becomes the depot
for accumulating, and then for redistribution of
the surplus and the manufactured product. This
makes the city a magnate for attracting to itself
the executive ability of the whole country. The
development of business ability lands one in the
city as one effect of the law of supply and demand.

Then, the city has its educational and social ad-
vantages. The high character of the graded
school system, the advantage of technological in-
stitutions and great universities compel many fam-

City Missions 69

ilies to locate in cities, whilst the social attractions
are equally potent. In addition to all other con-
siderations, there is always the vast army of the
unemployed, always moving on the city, in the
hope of finding work, or, more frequently, an
easier, and comparatively idle, life. Sooner or
later, this vast horde finds its way to, and its level
in, the slums.

Philanthropists have thought to relieve the con-
gestion of the city by transporting many of the
families of overcrowded suburbs and slums to the
unoccupied lands of the country. But the remedy
must prove superficial since the idle life of cities,
being more to their taste, than hard agricultural
conditions, they will soon give up the struggle and
drift back again. Instead of relief to the over-
crowded city, the probability is, that the exhaus-
tion of the public lands will soon close the safety
valve in that direction, and the congestion is likely / -r^fy
to become more pronounced. / ^

2. Overcrowding in the city breeds suffering.
Tenement houses, compared with which the aver-
age prison is a palace, swarm with wretched
humanity. Damp cellars and dark attics, where a
ray of sunshine seldom strays, are infested with
what, we hesitate to call, " human vermin." Large
families live, eat and sleep in one room in such
condition as to render the decencies of life impos-
sible. Dr. Strong quotes from, " The Bitter Cry
of Outcast London " : " Few who will read these
pages have any conception of what these pesti-
lential human rookeries are, where tens of thou-

7© At Our Own Door

sands are crowded together amidst horrors which
call to mind what we have heard of the middle
passages of the slave ships. To get into them,
you have to penetrate courts, reeking with poison-
ous and malodorous gases, arising from accumula-
tions of sewerage and refuse scattered in all direc-
tions, and often flowing beneath your feet ; courts,
many of which the sun never penetrates, which are
never visited by a breath of fresh air. You have
to ascend rotten staircases, grope your way along
dark and filthy passages, swarming with vermin.
Then if you are not driven back by the intolerable
stench, you may gain admittance to these dens in
which these thousands of beings herd together.
Eight feet square ! That is about the average size
of very many of these rooms. Walls and ceiling
are black with secretions of filth, which has gath-
ered upon them through long years of neglect.
It is exuding through cracks in the boards ; it's
everywhere ! . . .

" Every room in these rotten and reeking tene-
ments houses a family, often two. In one cellar, a
sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother ^
three children, and four pigs ! . . . Here are
seven people living in one underground kitchen and
a little dead child lying in the same room. Else-
where there is a poor widow, her three children,
and a child who had been dead thirteen days.
Her husband, who was a cab man, had shortly
before committed suicide. ... In another
apartment, nine brothers and sisters, from twenty-
nine years of age downward, live, eat, and sleep

City Missions 71

together. Here is a mother, who turns her chil-
dren in the streets in the early evening, because
she lets her room for immoral purposes until long
after midnight, when the poor little w^retches
creep back again, if they have not found some
miserable shelter elsewhere. "Where there are
beds, they are simply heaps of dirty rags, shav-
ings, or straw : but for the most part, these
miserable beings find rest only upon the filthy
boards. . . . There are men and women who
lie and die day by day, in their single wretched
room, sharing all the family troubles, enduring
the hunger and the cold, and waiting, without
hope, without a single ray of comfort, until God
curtains their staring eyes with the merciful film
of death." The comment of Dr. Strong is just :
" As the greatest wickedness in the world is to be
found, not among the cannibals of some far off
coast, but in Christian land, where the light of
truth is diffused and rejected, so the uttermost
depth of wretchedness exists not among savages,
who have few wants, but in the great cities,
where in the presence of plenty and of every /^
luxury men starve." ^ The Health Department
of New York, made a canvas in 1888 of the
city, which revealed the fact that there were
32,390 tenement houses, occupied by 237,972
families, and 1,093,701 souls! As Hazael was
startled into abhorrence at the revelation of his
future self, exclaiming : " Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this thing?" so Baltimore,
Kichmond, Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis and New

72 At Our Own Door

Orleans may see and abhor in London and New
York their own awful future !

3. This congestion in the city multiplies
wickedness, by increasing the facilities and oppor-
tunities for crime. Association is universally
recognized as a tremendous power for good ; but
it is a still greater power for evil. The advan-
tages of city life are more than offset by its
terrors. Brilliantly illuminated saloons, seductive
gambling clubs, houses of ill fame, bucket shops
and euchre parties, etc., constitute a variety of
mantraps, alluring their thousands of the better
class to ruin ; whilst low dives and nameless dens
of infamy are the antechamber to hell for tens of
thousands of the lower classes. "Philadelphia
and Pittsburg are exceptionally good cities, but in
Philadelphia there are seven and a half times as
much crime to a given population, and in Pitts-
burg and Allegheny City nearly nine times as
much, as in the average rural county of Pennsyl-
vania. ... As the saloon sustains important
relation to the law, it desires to control both those
who make the laws and those whose duty it is to
enforce them. It has already become a political
institution of power. Politicians are careful not to
antagonize it. Its political support or opposition
is apt to be decisive ; for saloon keepers are liquor
men first, and Democrats or Kepublicans after-
wards. When this, their craft, therefore, by
which they have their wealth, is in danger, it is
easy for them to drop their political differences,
and by uniting hold the balance of power, and

City Missions 73

wield it in the interests of their business. An
astute politician in New York, reputed to be a
total abstainer and a church member, said he
would rather have the support of the saloons
than the churches. . . . The rottenest politics
on earth are city politics. The most corrupt
oflacer that is elevated to power ordinarily is the
city oflacial. The larger the city the more apt is
it to be ruled by a boss, ward politicians and the
saloon " (Twentieth Century City).

The spirit of commercialism makes residence in
the city as great a peril to moral health as con-
tagion is to physical health. Business competi-
tion is a terrible strain on the man who is com-
pelled to keep abreast with his unscrupulous
competitor. The mad rush for wealth is evident
not only in legitimate trade but in the wildest
speculation, in stocks, grain, and cotton futures.
Great corporations are grinding their employees
and lading them as beasts of burden, till they
practically allow no Sabbath of rest, from the
terrible treadmill of life. It is said that " Society
is rotten at both ends." If the lowest strata is
crushed by poverty and vice, many of the upper
classes are so occupied with fashionable society
clubs, card parties, balls, theatres, etc., as to leave
no heart and taste for any religion, except the
formal, fashionable, sentimental, asthetic type,
which does not rudely shock their taste, seriously
interfere with their sins, nor require any self-
denial of their questionable pleasures and amuse-
ments. On the other hand, the low vaudeville

74 At Our Own Door

shows, immoral performances, Sunday baseball,
and so-called religious concerts, given in the in-
terest of the working people, are demoralizing and
excluding the Gospel from the masses of the peo-
ple. But it is not the province of this chapter to
enter into any of the details of city life, where
humanity festers and rots, being content to give
merely a passing glance at the darker side of the
problem.

4. This congestion makes the city a constant
menace to itself, to society and to the nation. It
has been said that our enemies were once far away
in the great lawless west ; but now, they camp in
solid city wards ; they are entrenched behind the
endless rows of tenement houses. Socialism, in the
guise of love for the working classes, is sowing the
seed of its spurious gospel in sympathetic soil,
ready to germinate as in a hot bed, showing its
fruitage in disastrous "strikes," and in the mutter-
ings of irresponsible mobs, shaking their threaten-
ing fists in the direction of property and hurling
their curses at the church. " Saltpetre, sulphur
and charcoal, are each one non-explosive, but
brought together, they make gunpowder. Neither
ignorance nor vice is revolutionary when quite
comfortable, nor is wretchedness, when controlled
by intelligence and conscience. But ignorance,
vice and wretchedness comhined, constitute social
dynamite, of which the city slum is a magazine,
awaiting only a casual spark to burst into terrific
destruction. . . . Most of our great cities have
at some time been in the hands of a mob. In the

City Missions 75

summer of 1892, within a few days of each other,
New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee ordered
out their militia, and Idaho called on the United
States government for troops to suppress labor
riots. More recent instances are fresh in mind.
That is not self-government, but government by
military force. There is peril when the Statue of
Liberty is compelled to lean on the point of a bayo-
net for support. Sooner or later it will pierce her
hand. The city, in a position to dictate to state and
nation, and yet incapable of self-government, is like
Nero on the throne " (Twentieth Century City).

" The president of the Mormon Church casts 60,-
000 votes. The Jesuits, it is said, are all under
command of one man in Washington. The Eoman
Catholic vote is more or less perfectly controlled
by the priests. That means that the pope can dic-
tate 100,000 of votes in the United States. . . .
The result of a national election may depend on
a single State ; the vote of the State may depend
on a single city ; the vote of that city may depend
on a boss, or a capitalist or a corporation ; or the
election may be decided and the policy of the gov-
ernment may be reversed, by the Socialist or
liquor, or Eoman Catholic, or immigrant vote. It
matters not by what name we call this man who
wields this centralized power — whether king, czar,
pope, president, capitalist, or boss. Just so far as
it is absolute and irresponsible, it is dangerous "
(Our Country).

In the language of James Freeman Clark : " A
time comes in the downfall and corruption of com-

76 At Our Own Door

munities, when good men struggle ineffectually
against the tendencies of ruin. Hannibal could
not save Carthage ; Marcus Antoninus could not
save the Roman Empire ; Demosthenes could not
save Greece, and Jesus Christ Himself could not
save Jerusalem from decay and destruction."

Are the dangerous elements netted together in a
web of evil, also drawing their lines closer around
our Anglo-Saxon civilization ? Will history repeat
itself ?

" "When some commercial crisis has closed fac-
tories by the thousands, and wage- workers have
been thrown out of employment by the million ;
when the public lands, which hitherto at such
times have afforded relief, are all exhausted ; when
our urban population has been multiplied several
fold, and our Cincinnatis have become Chicagos,
our Chicagos New Yorks, and our !N"ew Yorks
Londons ; when class antipathies are deepened ;
when socialistic organizations, armed and drilled,
are in every city, and the ignorant, vicious power
of crowded population, has fully found itself ; when
the corruption of city governments has grown
apace ; when crops fail, or some gigantic ' corner '
doubles the price of bread ; with starvation in the
home ; with idle workmen gathered, sullen and
desperate, in the saloons ; with unprotected wealth
at hand ; with the tremendous forces of chemistry
within easy reach ; then, with the opportunity, the
means f the fit agents, the motive, the temptation to
destroy, all brought into evil conjunction, then,
will come the real test of our institutions, then will

City Missions 77

appear whether we are capable of self-government "
(Our Country).

These quotations are given in order that the evil
which exists and the perils which confront may be
portrayed mainly in the language of others. Now,
arises the question, Is there any remedy ? If so,
what ? Without any hesitation it may be stated
that the remedy is not radical enough, which is
trying to " purify politics " by means of " good
government clubs," by education of the masses, by
moral reform, by prohibition crusades, or by social-
istic schemes. The very best of these is " healing
but slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people."
All human means are foredestined to fail. The
divine remedy is the gosj)el. The only power that
can save the city is the power that can save the
soul ; it is the power of Jesus Christ. If moral
reformation will not save a soul, neither will it re-
deem the city. Two men were walking in the
slums of a great city. The skeptic said to the
Christian : " Here at least, you must admit that
the religion of Jesus Christ has failed." "By no
means," replied the other, " it has never been tried."
If Christ fails, it is the height of presumption, the
supremest human conceit, to attempt the quackery
of human philosophy. The church has experi-
mented with city missions. The most ardent ad-
vocate could scarcely claim brilliant success ; but
has the gospel failed ?

5. This raises the problem of city missions.
Beyond all question, it is the greatest problem
which taxes the thought and exercises the heart of

yS At Our Own Door

the church to-day. The man who finds the solu-
tion, will win immortality, as the greatest of
human benefactors. The Negro Problem, The
Eastern Question, the profoundest Enigma, which
taxes the mind of political economists are insig-
nificant in comparison. They concern the welfare
of the kingdoms of this world. The Christian
philosopher, who solves the problem of city mis-
sions, will serve the kingdom of heaven. Whilst
denying the failure of the Gospel, we are none the
less ready to admit the failure to a large extent of
the Church. It is said that the masses are drift-
ing away from the Church. It is a mistake. They
are not drifting; they have already drifted!
They are already beyond reach, humanly speak-
ing. People in the city nearest the church, are
often farthest from Christ. In spite of the fact
that all denominations are building up great
churches in the city, thoroughly alive seemingly
to the wants of humanity, and the interests of the
kingdom of Christ, it yet remains an awful fact
which we cannot ignore, that the great masses
have drifted away, and are dying without Christ,
under the very shadow of the Church. Is it not
equally true — perhaps the explanation of it all —
that the Church has drifted away from the
masses? To what extent has the church also
drifted away from Christ ? " Back to Christ," as
a theology may be a delusion ; but " Back to
Christ " as a model of life and character, may be a
necessity. Is there any significance in the fact
that an audience of these " drifted masses " will

City Missions 79

sometimes cheer the name of Christ and hiss the
Church ? Many a church to-day, is seeking mem-
bers, chiefly to save itself and not so much to save
the souls. If the Church has not drifted away
from the people, why is it drifting away from
" down town," where the people multiply in ever
increasing numbers ?

" In the fourth and seventh wards of New York
City, there are T0,000 people, and seven Protestant
churches and chapels, or one place of worship to
every ten thousand of the population. In the
tenth ward there is a population of 47,000 and two
churches and chapels. South of 14th Street, there
was in 1880 a population of 541,726, for whom
there were 109 Protestant churches and missions, or
about one to every 5,000 souls. In 1890 according
to the police census, there was in the same quar-
ter a population of 596,878, an increase of 50,000,
while of churches and missions there was an in-
crease of one. Indeed, the Christian force is not
so large now as it was ten or even twenty years ago,
because churches have moved out and been re-
placed by missions. It was stated by Dr. Schauffler
in 1888, that during the preceding twenty years,
nearly 200,000 people had moved in below 14th
Street, and seventeen Protestant churches had
moved out. One Jewish Synagogue and two
Eoman Catholic Churches had been added. So
that counting churches of every kind, there were
fourteen less than there were twenty years before,
notwithstanding the great increase of population "
(Our Country).

8o At Our Own Door

City missions are the most difficult of all work.
" Said a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, in the early days of organized home mis-
sionary eifort by its women, ' You have two fields
before you — the frontiers and the cities. The lat-
ter is the largest and most important, and will
eventually claim the largest share of the attention
of your societies. But you cannot touch cities
with systematic effort until you have a strong or-
ganization. You must begin with the frontiers.' "

It has been said that city missions have had
money enough expended on them to convert the
world, if it had been wisely distributed. More
money can be raised for city work than for
any other cause. The rich, benevolent people of
our city churches, see the needs of the slums, and are
willing to give of their abundance for the needy,
whom alas ! their money can seldom reach. Mul-
titudes will give money. They need to give some-
thing Qnore valuable than this ! More good, ear-
nest, consecrated men have broken their very
hearts on city missions than perhaps over any
other matter. Numbers of young ministers
"jump at the suggestion" of a city mission,
imagining they will soon be pastor of a city
church, with all the advantages such a position
brings. Not knowing the difficulties, and not
seeking always the welfare of souls, as their sole
aim, but actuated by a desire to "build up a
church " for their own advancement, they soon be-
come discouraged, break their hearts over the
failure of the mission and the failure of their

City Missions 8l

ministry and are too ready to " make a change "
for something easier and "more promising."
"Who can blame them? They never undei'took
it with the expectation of sacrificing their whole
life to an idea, but rather as a stepping stone to
something higher. Many city missions thus fail,
because the promoters are compelled to change the
minister so frequently and carry on the work so
irregularly.

City missions fail also because they do not de-
velop as rapidly as the promoters had hoped, and
the mission is prematurely abandoned, " because it
does not pay." The church which undertakes a
mission must do it for Christ's sake and be willing
to receive no returns, if need be. " A pawn broker
with a heart chipped out of flint would cheerfully
give on the same inviting terms — one dollar for
the return of a thousand. To give in order to get,
is not giving at all ; it is only investing. That is
not Christianity, but business as now conducted.
Oh, when shall we get rid of this commercialism
in religion ? Love is not commercial ; it calcu-
lates no returns. It breaks the alabaster box of
self -concern and pours out the precious ointment
of devotion without measure and without price "
(Twentieth Century City).

If the desperate wickedness of the city has been
portrayed, neither has there been any effort made
to conceal the difficulties and discouragements
awaiting those who enter the uninviting field of
city missions. Correct diagnosis is essential be-
fore undertaking to apply remedies. Already the

82 At Our Own Door

remedy for the slums, as well as the brown-stone
fronts, has been stated as the Gospel. But the
practical question is, How to bring the gospel in
contact with the masses ? By all odds, the most
widely employed means has been the mission Sab-
bath-school. These have done a noble work for
Christ and humanity. Many have developed
under favorable circumstances into self-supporting
churches. Many more have produced results
which can be estimated only in the great here-
after. Failures from a human standpoint are
often successes from the divine. " The Lord seeth
not as man seeth." Real failure is sometimes due
to the fact that the workers do not live among
their proteges, and fail to enlist assistant laborers
in the vicinity. Often the fruit cultivated so as-
siduously is not gathered into any permanent fold,
and is practically lost to the church. Even in the
face of these disadvantages, we bid Godspeed to
all such Sabbath-school workers. Eternity alone
can answer the question, " What shall the harvest
be?"

Next to Sabbath-school, stands " The Mission,"
whether " Chapel " or infant church. Success
or failure is often determined by location. If
in a section that develops into good homes, the
probability of success is assured. Failure is often
due to the fact that Christian workers will pat-
ronize the " mission " and hold their membership
in an up-town church. The better classes living in
a stone's throw of the chapel will take the street
cars for a " First " church, where they can hear

City Missions 83

up-to-date sermons, and good choirs and enjoy
social advantages. Mission churches are offended
at the patronage of such Christians, and the
masses find to their chagrin that the distinctions
of society are rigidly enforced in church circles,
and so become prejudiced against the church and
let the " mission " severely alone. Above all other
considerations, the minister who undertakes mis-
sion work, ought not to be actuated by a desire to
train himself for some higher position. Many men
fail because they are giving themselves to " study "
and visiting the people only in a professional way.
Men " volunteer " for foreign missions, and expect
to make it a life-work. Who volunteers for city
mission work, with the expectation of " enlisting
for the war " ? Men in estimating the attractions
of Christ for sinners, quote as an explanation,
" This man receiveth sinners ; " but they omit and
overlook the most important additional clause,
"And eateth with them." Men like Jerry Mc-
Auley and Hadley, who will enter into the social
life of the masses and sacrifice their whole life to
such high purpose will find, that " He that loseth
his life for My sake (by voluntary exile in the
slums) will find it " (in the highest sphere of use-
fulness). The slums can only be reached in the
spirit of Christ. Not many such experiments have
been made.

However questionable an Institutional Church
may be, in some respects and in some quarters,
may it not be possible, that it may be the remedy
for the slums ; provided always that the Institu-

84 At Our Own Door

tional features are subservient to and not substi-
tuted for, the Gospel. Its " organized charities,"
" sheltering arms," " rescue work," " door of hope,"
"trained nurses for the sick," "night schools,"
" kindergarten," etc., ought not to be ends in them-
selves but means always to the one end of bring-
ing the Gospel to bear on heart and conscience and
life. Many illustrations of the success of such ef-
forts have been published. One notable instance
stands out prominently in Atlanta, The Baptist
Tabernacle of Dr. L. G, Broughton.

In 1899, Dr. Broughton conceived the idea of
establishing a church which would touch humanity
at every point, ministering unto the needs of men
foursquare, physical, mental, moral and spiritual.
Beginning with about 300 communicants it has
grown in less than five years to over 1,500. Com-
posed almost exclusively of poor people, they raise
for current expenses, annually, an enormous sum.
Recently, to enlarge their plant, they raised on
one Sabbath $15,000. The Institutional features
have grown with the growth of the church. Some
of the special features are as follows : An in-
firmary for the sick ; a home for helpless women ;
a training school for Christian nurses ; a school in
domestic science ; a Christian dormitory for young
women ; seven missions and night schools ; a Sab-
bath-school with ordinary classes and special fea-
tures in the way of primary department, young
men's class and society, young woman's, mothers'
class, etc. ; a lecture course, including many of the
most prominent lecturers of the country ; a Bible

City Missions 85

conference modelled after Northfield taught by
such men as Campbell Morgan, etc.

The Tabernacle has a seating capacity of 3,500
and is ordinarily filled and often packed at the
regular Sabbath services. As all roads lead to
Rome and all Scriptures to Christ ; so, as far as
the writer has been able to judge, all these Insti-
tutional features are made subservient to the great
object of preaching " Christ and Him Crucified."

It may be said his success is due to sensational
methods. That would only partially account for
the results. The writer among others supplied
the Tabernacle during the absence of Dr. Brough-
ton in Europe in the spring of 1903. With
no " sensational Broughton " to draw, at night in
addition to a vast auditorium packed, there were
more people in the gallery than the average At-
lanta preacher has in his audience.

The time is not far distant when the Church is
destined to awake to the great need of this par-
ticular home field. She has heard, and has nobly
responded to, the Macedonian cry of countless
heathen on foreign shores. Does she hear the
dumb appeal of " the heathen nearer," the more
pitiable and pathetic, because dumb ? Thank
God the day is not far distant. " The morning
light is breaking," not simply in China and Africa
but in the slums of London, New York and Chi-
cago. The Salvation Army was the first ray of
hope to a despairing cry, " Watchmen, what of the
night ? "

" The distinct office of organized home missions

86 At Our Own Door

is to plant churches ; and where are churches more
in demand than in the reeking city slums ? Is it
asked ' Where are members to be found ? ' They
can be imported. Our social settlements are made
up of consecrated men and women, who import
the home, in their own persons, into the very cen-
tres of slumdom. Are there none to carry the
Church ? ' But how are such churches to be
equipped and supported ? ' As hospitals are built,
as asylums are supported, as libraries are equipped,
as colleges are endowed. Shall millions be poured
out for the suffering bodies and darkened minds
of the poor and unprivileged, and must the Church,
with its diviner gifts of healing, be denied for the
want of a few thousand dollars ?

" The author makes no claim to prophetic gifts,
but he believes that organized home missions will
not always turn a deaf ear to the bitter cry of the
city, and pass by on the other side. The boast
has been that for a hundred years it has followed
the people ; then it must seek them within the
city gates. To do so will be the truest economy
as well as the highest strategy. The wise general
masses his army where the enemy is densest"
(Leavening the Nation).

Let the Church begin to gird herself for a tre-
mendous and thoroughly organized effort. Let
the best young men " volunteer " for a living
death to all the luxuries and social advantages
among men, for a work more difficult, and in con-
sequence more heroic and glorious, than even the
foreign field. Let the ancient order of " Deacon-

City Missions 87

ess " be revived in the class of devoted women,
who are willing to surrender everything else for
the service of Christ, in Bible readings, in the
homes of the poor, distributing alms, nursing the
sick, " helpers " in the same sense as those com-
mended by Paul as laboring with him in the gos-
pel. The time for experiments has passed, the
Church must get down to the business of her great
mission.

Kow, let us consider why other denominations
are frequently more successful than Presbyterians
in city mission work.

{a) Presbyterians do not readily degenerate into
such material as compose the slums. The writer
has labored in the slums, alms houses, prisons, etc.,
and has seldom found any Presbyterians among
such as abound in those places. Consequently,
other denominations find more of their material
in the slums, and more people in sympathy with
their system.

{b) If this is at all gratifying to our denomina-
tional pride, a second consideration will counterbal-
ance it and take all of the pride out of us, Presby-
terians have neglected the country till other denomi-
nations have practically taken it ; and so the streams
which flow into the city are not Presbyterian
streams. These make the great city churches among
the better classes and the mission churches among:
the poor ; therefore others build up city missions,
where we fail. In order to keep pure the water
of the city, supplied by the great Croton Aque-
duct, it is necessary to give strict sanitary inspec-

88 At Our Own Door

tion to the small streams which feed it forty miles
away. If Presbyterians expect to evangelize
properly the city, they must begin on the country,
which is furnishing the streams flowing into the
city.

(c) Other denominations adopt sensational
methods which appeal often to one's lower nature
and frequently are content to entertain the people
in order to collect a crowd, whilst Presbyterians
are charged sometimes with being more concerned
about " orthodoxy " and " right methods " than
" reaching the masses." Is this testimony true ?
If so, let a commendable zeal atone for the past.

If the Church would take into consideration the
value of the time factor as an element in saving
the cities, she must begin now on Birmingham,
Atlanta, Dallas, etc., before they become the New
Yorks and Chicagos of the South. Money and
effort spent now will save greater expenditures in
the future. " One man now is worth a hundred
fifty years hence. One dollar is worth a thousand
then. Now, is the nick of time." The time to
save these younger cities is before they are lost !

If every great city to-day in its wickedness is a
veritable hell on earth, yet purified and trans-
formed, the city is a type of heaven, " the city
which hath foundation, whose builder and maker
is God," " the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem." " And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls ; and the streets of the city were pure gold,
as it were transparent glass." ..." And the
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon

City Missions 89

to shine in it ; for the glory of God did lighten
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . .
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day ;
for there shall be no night there."

IV

MOUNTAINEERS

As the Kocky Mountains stretch across our
western country, from extreme north to south,
parallel with the Pacific, so the east has the
Appalachian range that parallels the Atlantic.
Its southern extremity expands into the Blue
Ridge and Cumberland Mountains, forming a
unique section, embracing large parts of West
Yirginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina
and Georgia, which is known as " The Land of the
Sky." Its picturesque scenery and marvellous
beauty entitle it to the name by which it is often
designated, "The Switzerland of America." Its
bracing climate, pure crystal streams, mineral
waters and famous health resorts annually attract
multitudes of tourists from every section of our
country. Its hills are rich in minerals and rare
stones, which will at some time in the future
possibly greatly enrich multitudes whose only
worldly possessions at present are barren hills and
rugged cliffs. More than forty of its mountain
peaks reach an elevation of 6,000 feet, whilst
Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, supposed to be
the highest east of the Mississippi, lifts its head
8,000 feet above the level of the sea.

"The highest perpendicular face east of the
90

Mountaineers 91

Mississippi is to be found on "Whiteside Moun-
tain, where is a wall two miles in length with a
sheer drop of 1,800 feet. Precipices hundreds of
feet deep are not uncommon. As we stand on the
edge of one of these precipices, just above the
rocky cavern 1,000 feet below us, the mighty
forest trees in the valley appear as mere bushes,
the valley extends for miles to one side ; in front
hill rises above hill, range after range, peer up be-
hind one another, mountain rises above mountain,
and the landscape stretches out in awful majesty
for scores of miles, until it fades away in a misty
horizon. The solemn silence that prevails empha-
sizes the grandeur of the scene."

The whole mountain region is estimated at 500
miles long and 300 miles wide, and contains a
population a little in excess of 2,000,000 of souls.

In North Georgia, where this section terminates,
there is one mountain isolated and separated from
its fellows and for this reason called " Lost Moun-
tain." As an allegory, it may aptly represent the
people of the mountain regions. Separated and
isolated from the mass they are the lost tribe of
America, whom Walter A. Page calls " The For-
gotten Man." One hundred years ago, the moun-
taineer retreated to the hill country, whilst
advancing civilization passed him by in its onward
march. About the time he lost himself in the
mountains, railroads began to penetrate forests
and cross the plains ; steamboats began to ply
rivers and lakes. The mountaineer is ignorant of
their existence. The telegraph brought all the

92 At Our Own Door

rest of the world in close contact. The moun-
taineer was excluded from, the universal bond.
The nineteenth century exceeds all past ages in its
discoveries and went forward by leaps and bounds
in advancing civilization. For the mountaineer,
the world has stood absolutely still. "The sub-
merged tenth" in our cities is not more com-
pletely buried in its living grave of the slums
than our "Highlanders" lost among the moun-
tains 2,000,000 strong. The world which had for-
gotten its lost brother-man, is beginning now to
think of the " one out on the hills away, far off
from the gates of gold." The search is now on
by philanthropists and churchmen, and soon may
the time come

, " When all through the mountains thunder riven,
And up from the rocky steep,
There will rise the glad shout to the gate of heaven,
' Eejoice, for I have found my sheep.' "

Who are they and whence came they? The
historian traces their ancestry back to Antrim and
Ulster in North Ireland; and yet they are not
natives of Ireland. By reason of their Eomish
sympathies in the great English struggle for free-
dom and Protestantism, the Earls of Tyrone and
Tyrconnel forfeited their great landed estates in all
that region, where Belfast now towers in her
morality and Christianity above Dublin and Cork.
These forfeited lands were settled by colonists
from Scotland, and are now known in history as
Scotch-Irish. All the world knows their proud

Mountaineers 93

record and great moral influence among men.
Books have been written to commemorate their
influence in the making of this great American Re-
public, and of the Presbyterian Church in these
United States. These streams of Scotch-Irish
flowed in chiefly through the port at Philadelphia,
driven from home by the Test oath, which re-
quired every one to subscribe to English prelacy.
James Anthony Froude says : " In the two years
which followed the Antrim election, 30,000 left
Ulster for a land, where there was no legal
robbery, and where those who sowed the seed
could reap the harvest." By this means, Pennsyl-
vania and Virginia acquired some of the best class
of colonists that ever emigrated to a new country.
These streams continued to flow westward and
southward till they had preempted for themselves
and their posterity the mountains of Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee. Undaunted by the
hardships of life, environed by trackless forests
and treacherous savages, they pushed on into the
very heart of the wilderness, to carve out for
themselves a home of their own making, under
conditions of their own choosing. Said President
Roosevelt recently : " They were the first and
last set of immigrants to do this. All others
merely followed in the wake of their predecessors.
But indeed they were fitted from the very start
to be Americans; they were kinsfolks of the
Covenanters ; they deemed it a religious duty to
interpret their own Bibles, and held for a divine
right the election of their clergy. For genera-

94 At Our Own Door

tions their whole ecclesiastic and scholastic sys-
tems had been fundamentally democratic. In the
hard life of the frontier they lost much of their
religion, and they had but scant opportunities to
give their children the schooling in which they be-
lieved ; but what schoolhouses and meeting-houses
there were on the frontier, were theirs. The
Creed of the backwoodsman, who had a creed at
all, was Presbyterian ; for the Episcopacy of the
tide water lands obtained no fasthold in the
mountains to the north, and the Baptists were
just beginning in the west when the Ke volution
broke out."

To this Scotch-Irish contingent, is largely due
American liberty and independence. The Mech-
lenburg declaration was drafted by these Scotch-
Irish Presbyterians more than a year (May
20, 17Y4) before the American Declaration which
was modelled by Thomas Jefferson after Mechlen-
burg. The section which gave birth to this Scotch-
Irish declaration was known and dreaded by the
British as " the hornet's nest." Thomas "Watson,
the new and brilliant historian of the South, ar-
gues adroitly and forcibly that the battle of King's
Mountain, fought by these same Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians, was the decisive battle of the
Revolution.

Their descendants still occupy their mountain
home, and like the gulf stream, a distinct river in
the midst of the sea, these Highlanders have kept
themselves aloof from the rest of the country, a
distinct race of people. Immigration flowing in

Mountaineers 95

from all nationalities has corrupted the purity of
our Anglo-Saxon stock, but immigration has never
touched the life of the mountaineer. These iso-
lated mountaineers are the best Anglo-Saxon stock,
of the blood and tradition of heroes, " the only
portion of our population that retains pure and un-
defiled the Americanism of Colonial times." At
the present time they are divided into two sepa-
rate classes as distinct from each other as they are
from Americans. The higher type occupy the
fertile valleys along the banks of beautiful streams
and broad rivers. These are the intelligent, culti-
vated and educated people who will compare fa-
vorably with any section of the world. Abraham
Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Zeb. Yance are
often classified among mountaineers as indicating
the possibility of our mountain boys, but they
were not typical mountaineers. They are but
specimens of a large class who have risen to emi-
nence from the mountain region. The typical
mountaineer occupies his rude cabin on mountain-
side or sequestered cove without associations with
the outside world, with no advantages of learning
and no opportunities of improvement, without
ambition in life, leading an aimless, careless, thrift-
less existence, in attainments and character on a
level with the cracker of the backwoods, and the
factory element of towns.

His home is a one-room log hut, fifteen by
twenty feet, with a door and no windows. His
family is usually large but accommodates itself to
circumstances, living, cooking, eating, sleeping in

96 At Our Own Door

this room which serves as kitchen, parlor and bed-
room. Extreme poverty is manifested everywhere,
due to hard conditions, barren soil and innate lazi-
ness. The family wants are but few and their
taste simple. They literally " take no thought for
the morrow " — or anything else. Their garments
are scarce in number and coarse in fabric, the
product of their own rude looms. Their furniture,
consisting of stools, chairs, table and bed, is
carved out of the forest by their rude implements.
They cultivate no land except small patches of
corn and raise ordinarily fine apples from their
small orchards. If they could produce larger
crops, they would be confronted by the further
difficulty of inaccessible markets. They have no
means of transportation, except the ox-cart. By
reason of these hard conditions, they justify them-
selves in illicit distilling, which necessitates a large
force of revenue officers for raiding these stills,
and breaking up their miserable means of turning
their corn and apples into a little cash. These
mountain " moonshiners " and the government are
always at war. A revenue officer's life is not as
safe among them as a wild beast ; and they shoot
one with as little compunction of conscience as the
other. They pride themselves upon their honesty,
locks and bars having no place among them ; but
they have but little regard for the marriage tie,
and illegitimacy is not considered a special dis-
grace. Family feuds are a legacy from sire to
son, and blood is the only atonement for blood.
"Bloody Breathitt" County, Kentucky, presents

Mountaineers 97

the world with the spectacle, at this writing, of
soldiers guarding a witness, while he gives his
testimony ; and the feuds of the Hatfields and the
McCoys have lasted more than a quarter of a cen-
tury, resulting in dozens of murders, and have now
attained a national reputation.

Eev. E. Mac Davis, who boasts of being " one
of them " writes graphically and interestingly of
these people : " There has taken place in the re-
mote mountains of the South what takes place in
remote mountains everywhere, always — a dam-
ming up of the stream of humanity and the gath-
ering of that stream into pools. These pools, be-
cause they have no outlet, give off their freshness
and precipitate their salts. The remote moun-
taineers are but the Flotsam and Jetsam on the
stream of society ; rather they are chips and bub-
bles on the surface of a great inland dead sea of
salt. Like chips and bubbles they float round and
round in slow circles, narrow and yet more nar-
row, moving, but never advancing. . . .

They are in a deeper sleep than ever Kip Van
Winkle was. They have bathed themselves in the
river Lethe, and are unmindful of the progress of
civilization. . . . Their minds are as unruffled
as a millpond — as stagnant, too. They have
neither envy nor ambition. Their case is one of
arrested development.

In the great cities one-tenth of the people is said
to be submerged ; in the mountain coves, nine-
tenths of the people have not yet emerged. They
are not submerged in the sediment of the stream of

98 At Our Own Door

civilization, as the "Eastside Whitechapel Folk
are." On the contrary, their vices are not ab-
normal, their virtues are not exotic. They have
not deteriorated, nor degenerated. They have not
reverted to original types. They are the original
types ; somewhat worn and defaced, but the original
types ; they are neither Liliputians nor Brobding-
nagians; they are nature's undeveloped chil-
dren. . . .

'Sons and Daughters of the Revolution,' they
have lost their family record and know not to boast.
They are blind to their glorious inheritance of
truth. They have lost their inheritance of char-
acter. Themselves white men, they too have be-
come the White Man's Burden — the element in the
south most important to be reached. They need
to be reached. They can be reached by multiplied
schools and added churches — by an influx of disci-
plined teachers and of educated preachers.

The mountaineer lives at home, seldom ventur-
ing beyond his native vale, and has but little busi-
ness with the outside world. One county has but
little more communication with its next neighbor
than the Congo Free State has with Uganda. One
reason of this is the fact that no school exists to
train the mind and inspire any desire for knowledge
of that which lies beyond the next mountain
ridge.

The poverty of the country allows little pro-
vision for a public school system. A school levy
on the taxable property of the mountain region
would not bring suJQBcient funds to keep the school

Mountaineers 99

in operation even with indifferent and poorly paid
teachers for more than two months in the year.
The war impoverished the South, and whilst it has
now recovered and is building up a school system
in most places, nothing in comparison has been
done to alleviate the ignorance of the mountaineer.
According to President Dabney, "The average
child, whites and blacks together, who attend
school at all stops with the third grade. This
means that the average citizen in the South gets
only three years of schooling in his whole life.

AVEEAGES.

Years in
school

Value school
property

Salary of
teacher

Days in
school year

Ami.
expended
perpupil

N. C.

2.6

$180

$23.36

70.8

$4.34

s. c.

2.5

178

23,20

88.4

4.44

Ala.

2.4

212

27.50

78.3

3.10

Ga.

525

27.00

112.0

6.64

" In other words, in these states, in schoolhouses
costing an average of $276 each, under teachers
receiving the average salary of $25 per month, we
are giving the children in actual attendance five
cents worth of schooling a day for eighty-seven
days in the year."

If this is the average for the Carolinas, Georgia
and Alabama as States, who can estimate the edu-
cational disadvantages of the mountain region ?
Northern people have poured out their money into
the South for the education of the negro, and he
is allowed to share in the funds raised by the white
people of the South as they have taxed their prop-
erty for public schools. Ko money in comparison

lOO At Our Own Door

comes South for the education of the mountain
whites, and no taxable property in the South pro-
vides more than a pittance for his education. As
a consequence, the average negro in the country
enjoys quadruple advantages from an educational
standpoint over the descendants of the Scotch-Irish
in the mountains. Even this does not fully enum-
erate and reveal the disadvantages of the " child
of the mountains," who has also to contend with
Ignorant parents, ready to take the child out of
school on any pretext or send him to the field to
assist in the family support.

" It were easy to picture homes that would make
the heart of Christian womanhood ache with un-
utterable sorrow and pity ; schools that are little
more than the name might be described in truthful
detail ; communities where the homely virtues that
are the part of the Anglo-Saxon's birthright have
been overgrown by lust and sin, are not unknown
in the Southern Mountains — or anywhere else on
this broad continent of ours. But all that is re-
quired to show the absolute necessity for help from
outside sources, given in the spirit of Christian love
and brotherly kindness, can easily be imagined by
those whose hearts are tuned to the cry of the
helpless. The free-handed, open-hearted South, the
fortunate, prosperous North — each must help ac-
cording to his ability, until the glad day dawns
when ' the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established in the top of the mountains ' " (Under

yOur Flag).
Many of these mountain children are most eager

Mountaineers loi

to learn. It is not uncommon for a boy to walk
from five to seven miles daily to school, and others
will go barefoot through snow and ice. Miss
Guernsey quotes from The Christian Endeavor
World the following pathetic incident of one of
nature's children :

" A young man entered a college oflBce, and,
touching the president's arm, asked in a peculiar
mountain brogue, 'Be ye the man who sells
larnin'?' Before the president could reply, he
asked again, ' Look here, mister, do you uns run
this here thing ? '

" The president replied, * Yes, when the thing is
not running me. What can I do for you ? '

"'Heaps,' was the only reply. Then, after a
pause, the lad said : ' I has hearn that you uns
educate poor boys here, and bein' as I am poor,
thought I'd come and see if it wus so. Do ye ? '

" The president replied that poor boys attended
the college, but that it took money to provide for
them ; that they were expected to pay something.
The boy was greatly troubled.

" ' Have you anything to pay for your food and
lodging ? ' asked the president.

" ' Yas, sir,' was the reply, ' I has a little spotted
steer ; and if you uns will let me, I'll stay wid ye
till I lam him up.'

" Such persistence generally carries its point, and
the lad remained, and the little steer lasted for
years. The president's closing comment upon the
incident is this : ' I have had the pleasure of sit-
ting in the pew while I listened to my boy, now a

102 At Our Own Door

young man, as he preached the glad tidings of
salvation. Does it pay to help such boys ? ' "

If these people were originally Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians, has the Presbyterian Church no re-
sponsibility for their condition to-day ? Is the
Presbyterian Church under any special obligation
to their descendants? Is there any remedy for
these neglected people, who are stranded among
the mountains ? " Is there no balm in Gilead ? "

Dr. Guerrant says : " Here is our Jerusalem :
Americans, Virginians, Kentuckians, Tennesseans
and North Carolinians, the children of the hills ; our
neighbors / our kith and kin. Begin with them,
and save them, and let them help us save the
world. We believe in foreign missions, but we
also believe in beginning at Jerusalem. These are
* heathen at our doors.' Their souls are worth as
much as others. They are more easily reached.
It costs less than half to reach them. The results
are quicker, because their language is our own ;
their history, tradition, ancestry, the same as our
own. The consequences of their conversion are
greater. They will furnish the teachers, ministers
and missionaries to the heathen abroad."

They are as truly without the Gospel, as if they
lived in the heart of the dark continent.

" If you cannot cross the ocean and the heathen lands explore,
You can find the heathen nearer, you can help them at your
door " —

in the slums of the city and in the cabins of the
mountains.

/

Mountaineers 103

Some noble philanthropists are already at work
on the problem of the mountains, and their remedy-
is education ; and the " Soul winner's Association "
has entered the field. It may be from lack of
ample funds, but nothing yet has been projected
on a sufficient scale to do more than touch the
outer edges of the problem. Education will re-
lieve ignorance and elevate in the scale of intelli-
gence, but it will not regenerate society. It is a
debatable question whether mere literary educa-
tion improves morality. The colored population
is far better educated to-day than at the close of
the war, but Ex-President Cleveland in a recent
address expresses scepticism as to its improvement
in morality. Thoughtful people in the South, who
are in position to know, fully endorse his con-
clusions. Summer schools will not even meet the
case of the mountaineer from an educational stand-
point. Noble Christian people may educate and
even teach these children the Bible and funda-
mental principles of morality and religion, which
is a step in the right direction, but unless the or-
ganized church is planted and maintained near by,
most of the fish gathered in the school-net will
escape again to the great sea of unregenerate hu-
manity.

If success is ever to crown our efforts in win-
ning these souls and reclaiming these people lost
among the mountains, it will be along the lines of
industrial and Christian schools, alwaijs in connec-
tion with the Church.

Money is wasted from a Christian standpoint,

104 A^ ^^i" ^wn Door

that does not ally itself with the Gospel ; and the
Gospel, according to the appointment of Christ,
needs always a church to propagate it.

The Northern Presbyterian Church is doing
noble work in this section, as appears from Doyle's
" Presbyterian Home Missions " : " Presbyterian
missionary work among the mountain people of
the South was begun in 1879. The first mission
school was ' Whitehall Seminary.' It was estab-
lished near Concord, N. C, and Miss Frances E.
Ufford was the first teacher.

" From that beginning the work has grown until
it extends over the mountain regions of the four
States of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky
and West Virginia. There are to-day, as a result
of the Home Board's work, thirty-one churches,
1,378 church members, seventy-six Sunday-schools,
6,172 Sunday-school scholars, thirty-seven mission
schools, one hundred and eight mission school-teach-
ers, 3,000 pupils, twenty-one ministers and sixteen
Bible readers. The principal agencies in advanc-
ing missions have been churches, mission schools.
Sabbath-schools and Bible readers. The churches
with attendant ministers, have been established as
rapidly as the means would allow."

The Southern Presbyterian Church is also doing
good work in this field. It exceeds the Northern
Church in number of churches and members, but
is behind in Christian schools. It is impossible to
give detail of statistics, because the work of the
Southern Church is not directly under the Execu-
tive Committee, but is done by various presby-

Mountaineers 105

teries and synods, but principally by the " Synod-
ical Evangelistic Committee of Kentucky," Rev. W.
C. Clark, D. D., chairman, Augusta, Kentucky ;
and that of North Carolina, Rev. E. E. Gillespie,
superintendent, Greensboro, N. C.

The Assembly's Committee of Home Missions
is just entering this field, having recently ap-
propriated about $5,000 to begin the work of
Christian and industrial schools, among the moun-
taineers.

Among our institutions. King College at Bristol,
Tennessee, has done grand v^ork among those de-
scribed as the better class. For its means, no
college ever did better work, as may be judged by
the fact that it gave to the Church such men as
Dr. R. C. Reed, Dr. T. M. McConnell, Dr. S. R.
Preston, Dr. J. W. Rogan, Dr. J. I. Vance and
others equally useful, under the instruction of such
able teachers as Dr. J. D. Tadlock and Dr. Jas.
Albert Wallace.

Among schools doing splendid service for the
more typical mountaineer is Lees-McRae Institute,
described by Rev. F. B. Converse, D. D. :

" It was our privilege to visit the Lees-McRae
Institute, and we were surprised and gratified at
what has been and is being accomplished at this
point. It is located at Banner Elk, in one of the
most beautiful and most elevated valleys, having
an altitude of about 4,300 feet, and partly sur-
rounded by mountain ranges one or two thousand
feet higher. The importance of a good school was
appreciated by the evangelists, and an excellent

io6 At Our Own Door

boarding and day school, under the control of the
Presbytery of Concord, has been built up within
the last three or four years by Rev. Edgar Tufts
and Rev. J. P. Hall. The work that has been ac-
complished with the limited means at their
command is simply marvellous. Commenced in a
small way, it has gradually grown until at the last
session there were thirty boarders and fifty-five
day scholars — eighty-five in all. Some of the girls
came forty miles across the mountains in road
wagons — a two days' journey for their fathers to
bring them, and another two days' drive returning
home. It is a banner school in reference to the
Shorter Catechism. Last year the Christian Oh-
server sent diplomas to twenty-one of those
children who had memorized the Shorter Cate-
chism, and sixteen the previous year, besides
certificates to those who had committed to memory
the Child's Catechisna.

" It is a mistake to picture the mountain children
as an inferior class. Some of them are remark-
ably bright. A prize was offered to the one who
should first learn the "Westminster Catechism per-
fectly. Two of the girls set resolutely to work
and recited it without a mistake within a week —
one of them on the fifth day after she had com-
menced it. A girl who can and will, in addition
to her school studies and household duties — for
the girls here are industrially trained as well as in
books — learn the 104 answers in the catechism
within a week, is not deficient either in intellectual
power or ambition, or pluck. It is a good school,

Mountaineers 107

fitting the boys for college and giving the girls
equal training. One of its students is now in col-
lege with the ministry in view. Board and tuition
are furnished to the mountain children who are
able to pay, at a price lower than we would sup-
pose was possible ; to others board and tuition have
been given free.

" While this was being done, it was necessary to
erect buildings for the accommodation of the in-
creasing numbers. Twenty acres of land, a most
beautiful site for such an institution, was secured.
A dormitory for the girls, a three story building,
containing twenty-two rooms, has been erected.
The view from the observatory on top of this
building, is one of surpassing beauty. A school
building equally large stands on one side, and the
Presbyterian church on the other. Besides this,
there is a fourth building of two rooms, for class
rooms. The amount of money which has been
contributed by Presbyterians for this work is ex-
ceedingly small, out of all proportion to the work
accomplished. The total amount of cash that has
passed through Mr. Tuft's hands during the last
three years, is only about $5,000. . . .

" This institution has been co-educational. But
the two departments are to be separated, and the
school for boys located in an adjoining county —
that at Banner Elk being for girls only."

Space forbids an account of other institutions.
These two are given as specimens of what has
been done by Presbyterians, and what ought to be
carried on more earnestly on a still larger scale.

io8 At Our Own Door

In the mountains the Presbyterian church has a
magnificent field for benevolent and missionary
operation, but it is not without its difficulties.
Entrenched among the mountains, almost inac-
cessible, these unfortunate people are fortified
behind more formidable mountains of ignorance
and prejudice. These obstacles will not easily
yield, nor at once. The uneducated preacher of
the " rarin' and rantin' "type watches jealously his
own peculiar province. He appeals to the preju-
dice of the ignorant and makes it difficult for an
educated minister to get the ear of the people in
many communities. Mormon elders get in some
of their best work among the mountaineers, induc^
ing many to emigrate to Utah, and in some
instances they have established churches. They
have recently established their headquarters at
Chattanooga, Tenn., and have sent into these
mountains hundreds of their trained emissaries to
" lead captive silly women " and these simple peo-
ple. If these people are to be reached by the
gospel to any extent, it must be by means of earnest
consecrated men, giving themselves to it as their
life-work. If they volunteer to live among the
filth and abominations of loathsome, heathen
cities, why should not some be willing to give a
whole life to our own heathen ?

It is sometimes said that the Church in the early
days of Christianity was " accredited " b}'^ ability
to work miracles. Some go so far as to affirm
that the Church again needs to be accredited
among men, and prove her divine character by

Mountaineers 1 09

healing the sick, etc. Believers in faith cures are
constantly asking, " who said the days of miracles
are past ? " Men are " still seeking after a sign."
" Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not be-
lieve."

The Church must accredit herself ! Christ and
the Apostles, by their miracles, accredited them-
selves. They demonstrated their divine commis-
sions. So must the Church to-day. What was,
in His own judgment, the climax of Christ's grand-
est works ? If John the Baptist asked for proofs
of His Messiahship, His response was, " Go tell
John the sick are healed." If that is not sufficient,
tell him, " The blind receive their sight." Give
even a greater sign, "The dead are raised up."
But the climax of all is, " The poor have the gospel
preached unto them." This is the only one of
His greatest works which remains to-day literally
unchanged. The Church can no longer raise the
dead. But she can reproduce still the greatest of
Christ's works on a grander scale. The Church
can prove her divinity, to the world, by " preach-
ing the gospel to the poor."

Is this evidence of Christliness and Christianity
sufficient ? If she will give this " sign " to the
world, it will be more potent than healing the
sick or raising the dead ! Kaising the dead might
startle one community, and the fact would be dis-
puted in the next community. Unbelief is not
cured by raising the dead. "If they hear not
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per-
suaded, though one rose from the dead."

no At Our Own Door

If the Church wants to cure the world's scepti-
cism and allay her own misgivings, let her engage
in a great campaign of home missions before the
eyes of men. Let earnest consecrated men and
women in the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ go in
great numbers to reclaim the slums, and scatter
themselves in force throughout the mountain
regions. Let the Church cease " Playing at Mis-
sions," but get down to work. Let wealthy Chris-
tians furnish the means as in the early days of
Christianity when whole fortunes were laid at the
apostles' feet. Let the Church reproduce the
spirit of Christ ; and the world will accept such
testimony in evidence of Christianity. What the
world demands to-day is more home missionary
enterprise and effort. Men of the world believe
foreign mission work is the result of sentiment ; it
does not appeal to their judgment. They are ask-
ing why men and money are lavished on Africa
whilst millions of negroes are neglected at our very
doors ; why such zeal for China, Japan and India,
whilst the slums and mountains are forgotten.
The Church is rich enough to accept this challenge
of the world. Without withholding a dollar or
withdrawing a man from the foreign field, she can
take hold of the Avork at home on an immense
scale. A great home mission revival of " Preach-
ing the Gospel to the poor " would meet the ob-
jection to foreign missions, and at the same time,
cure the world's scepticism. By her great organ-
ized charities, the Church proves herself humane.
Now, by her great missionary effort in " Preach-

Mountaineers 1 1 1

ing the gospel to the poor," let her prove herself
divine !

The slums, the mountains and the great desti-
tute West invite the experiment, and await the
demonstration !

V

THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

By Rev, D. Clay Lilly, D. D., former Secretary of Colored
Evangelization.'

In this brief account of the negro, as we have
known him in the South, let it be understood that
when I use the term, negro, it does not stand for
every individual of the race — but only for the race
considered in a general way.

There are as many kinds of negroes as there are
of other races — " good, bad and indifferent " is a
classification that befits them as it does other peo-
ples. The fact which calls for our sympathy and
assistance is, that the good class is relatively
small — and the bad and indifferent largely in the
majority.

This good class is intelligent, progressive and
resourceful. Its religion is not a sham. Its edu-
cation has not spoiled it, and its devotion to duty
is not inspired by the " loaves and fishes." Its
ideals are good — its social standards high, and its
life wholesome and elevating. It has been lifted
from heathen darkness to its present attainments
by the power of the grace of God. If all Amer-
ican negroes were of this class, there would be no
" Negro Problem " and no reason for this chapter

' Written at the request of the author.

112

The White Man's Burden 1 13

in a volume on home missions. But this class is
small, as all Southern people know, and the eight
or nine millions of them in the Southern States
are principally indifferent or bad. It is not that
they have suddenly or recently become so. Nor
that the experience of their ancestors in American
slavery, is the source of their shortcomings, indus-
trially, intellectually, morally and spiritually.
But if any evolutionary process is responsible for
it, it is the long, long downward course in sin and
degradation during the unnumbered centuries of
their separation from the rest of the world and
their isolation in the jungle. It does not require
a long period for a family to deteriorate, if left to
itself under conditions which cut it off from all
the light and progress of the world — and perhaps
that branch of the human race which retired into
the wilds of the Dark Continent and shut itself
out from the light of civilization, went constantly
from bad to worse, being for centuries practically
untouched by explorer, merchant or missionary.
And strange as it may seem, it was the cruel lash
of the slave trader, which touched him for good,
and the overcrowded slave ships, which bore him
out from intellectual and moral stupefaction, to
touch again the life and onward go of the throb-
bing, stressful world. I am no apologist for slav-
ery. It was the overruling providence of God
bringing good from evil. Later, emancipation
clothed him with citizenship and threw him on his
own resources. And now behold the man, become
a weakling in all the elements of manhood, except

114 ^^ ^^^ Own Door

the physical, brought back into the arena to con-
tend with those who through the ages have waxed
strong by the use of all their strength.

Slavery was the only door which could have
ever admitted him into the place where he should
find use for his powers, and by no other way
could he have entered progressive America
There was but one way in — there is no way out.
He is here to stay. Deportation, colonization,
reservation have all been advocated by sensible
men, but never seriously considered by the south-
ern people, white or black.

It will be best for all parties if the white
man, strong and dominant, will look seriously and
sympathetically at the weaker and dependent
colored man, and seeing him just as he is, intel-
ligently set about aiding him.

Those best acquainted with the negro, see him
to be possessed with the following characteristics :

Physically :

He is possessed with a constitutional languor.
He is naturally sedentary and inactive. He works
from necessity and not from inspiration. Karely
does anything else than daily bread hold him to
his work; also is he below par as to physical
accuracy and finish. He will " round off the
corners " of any task he performs. He will find
the easy way. If it is plowing, he will skim the
ground ; if it is building, ends will not be square
— joints will not be flush, uprights will not be
plumb. If it is whitewashing he will "splash

The White Man's Burden 115

around " working as if the house were on fire to
get through quickly and when he is through, not
only will the desired object be whitened, but
everything within a reasonable radius will have
received a generous portion of the wash.

You may set it down as a pretty general rule,
that if a man is too languid to articulate cor-
rectly, he will do everything else in the same
slovenly way.

Judged from the standpoint of efficiency, he is
the poorest quality of labor in this country.
From an economical standpoint, he is the most
expensive laborer one can employ. I know land
which will produce cotton, corn, cane and tobacco
— four of the most profitable crops of the farm —
which can be bought for five dollars per acre,
simply because negro labor will not make it yield
up its treasures. If the negroes were suddenly
withdrawn from the South and colonized by them-
selves elsewhere, they could not make a living for
themselves, which would compare in comfort with
what they enjoy at present. If the white people
should suddenly withdraw from the South to live
elsewhere, the negroes could not manage success-
fully the country left to them — and it would de-
crease in value from the first.

Had white labor been employed in the South
exclusively from the first, our cotton would never
have been manufactured in England — new or
old.

The negro has been the " White Man's Burden "
here as elsewhere — he has enjoyed a tutelage under

ii6 At Our Own Door

the white man. He has been a dull and costly
pupil to his teacher. It is, of course, true that
the negroes have made much of the wealth of the
South — but primary labor does this everywhere
— and it was during the days of slavery when
negro labor was organized, controlled and di-
rected in such a way as to make it efficient and
remunerative, that this was true in the South. It
is only true in a very limited way to-day. It is no
longer possible to organize, control or direct
negro labor so as to make it of good profit to the
farmer or planter. It requires great patience and
forbearance to employ it at all. His redeeming
traits as a laborer (and I most cheerfully and
freely speak of them) are his patience and
tractabilit}', his general good humor, his strength
of body, and his willingness to work long hours.
These are good qualities, and they go far towards
relieving conditions which otherwise would be in-
tolerable.

Mentally :

He is not the equal of the white man. I sup-
pose ages of disuse of the high powers of the mind
may account for the atrophied condition of his
judgment and power of analysis and synthesis.

In early life the negro gives evidence of good
mental power — the negro child will learn about as
rapidly as the white child. But as they advance
in life the white intelligence will continue to ex-
pand, while the negro will show a case of
" arrested development." It is next to impossible

The White Man's Burden 1 1 7

to teach the negro to reason or judge or to ob-
serve inductively or to investigate. And this is
true, not because he was for a little while a slave
in this country, but because for long ages he had
lived under conditions which made no demand
upon him for such mental exercises.

Likewise, he is deficient morally. The negro
population of the Southern States is, as far as I
know, the most criminal population living in any
civilized land — the negroes in the IS^orthern States
alone being excepted. Being one-third of our
population, they commit three-fourths of our
crimes. That this is not due to any treatment
accorded him by Southern people is amply proven
by the fact that he is more criminal in the North
than in the South. His moral character is defi-
cient. That which deters men from crime is their
repugnance to it, rather than the fear of the
penalty attached to it. The white man is deterred
both by repugnance and penalty. The negro has
little but the fear of penalty to restrain him.
Any one acquainted with the negro either in
America or Africa, knows that he is not troubled
with a quick conscience. To be caught stealing,
or proven a liar, will fill most white men of any
country with shame and confusion. But it does
not so eflfect the average negro — it does not ap-
pear to him much out of the way. A grin, a duck
of the head, and he scuds away — to repeat the
break at the first opportunity.

ii8 At Our Own Door

Social impurity is a rottenness found in all races,
but the sickening prevalence of it among the
negroes of all countries is testified to b}'' wit-
nesses who are intelligent, unbiased and well
informed.

To one who has not lived in the South, nor
known much of the negro elsewhere, it is surpris-
ing to hear a Christian physician who has practiced
among them for forty years, say that " ninety per
cent, of the negro population is impure." But to
those who know the conditions as they are, the
statement is not at all strange. I once asked a man
of the world what per cent, of the negroes he
thought was impure, and he responded promptly
and emphatically : " All of them, sir, all." I pro-
test against this — it is not true. I do not pretend
to name any per cent. I know though, that their
immorality is terrible in itself, wasting their en-
ergies, shocking civilization and discouraging their
best friends and helpers. His racial conscience has
not been aroused to abhor such a condition. It is
numbed, it is stupefied. Ages of wanton license
have delivered him over to a shameless mind. He
is a deficient. I speak of the race in general — I
have already excepted that class which has been
rescued by God's grace, and lifted out of the
mire.

And, now, how is this weakened man circum-
stanced ?

Commercially, he is in competition with the
white man — ordinarily this is a dangerous position
for any race to occupy — as the world's history

The White Man's Burden 119

abundantly testifies. But it has been a safe and
fortunate place for him in this case. He is well
adapted to the Southern climate — here he multi-
plies— here he enjoys life. His labor is always
marketable at a fair price — and he has a good
chance to make a living. There is little or no com-
mercial antagonism between the two races in the
South — and you could not with a search warrant
find a negro who wants to work six days in the
week and is willing to behave himself, who is do-
ing anything less than making a living for himself
and family. There is very much less danger of
race conflicts than is commonly supposed by per-
sons unacquainted with the actual conditions.
"When it is remembered that there are 25,000,000
of people — one-third colored and two-thirds white
— coming into continual contact 365 days each
year, it is only to be expected that difiiculties will
arise. But these are not often serious and are as
infrequent as one can reasonably expect. Econom-
ically, the negro is as well and safely circumstanced
as he could be anywhere else in the world. But
he exhibits deficiencies of the most serious kind in
the secure haven where the providence of God has
sheltered him — he has not raised a standard of liv-
ing in keeping with his opportunities. He has
lived among a people who are relatively pure in
life — who are quiet and well-behaved. He has not
been largely influenced by this wholesome environ-
ment. Negro morals, negro thought, and negro
character have not been lifted up to any great de-
gree. The negro quarter in every city and town

120 At Our Own Door

is the place of shame and violence. The Southern
white people are glad to show respect to good
character among the negroes, and do show it
whenever it is manifested among them. There is
so great a preponderance of the bad that we do not
often have an opportunity to evince it. There is
more in the " N^egro Problem " than a mere ques-
tion of color. It is a question of character also.
The inequality of character must disappear before
the setting aside of the color question can be even
remotely considered. The only thing for the
colored people now is to arise and set up their
social standards — standards which articulate with
the decalogue and then lift up their life to these
standards. They have not yet erected their stand-
ards— except in the case of the small class which is
excepted in all these general statements.

Religiously :

His religious life has shown an interesting and
curious development. Without any but the simplest
forms of religious worship, he has yet made his
religion a formal thing — Church membership has
had a kind of social significance, and has so been
sought by the many. Church services are punctil-
iously attended. The whole outward form of re-
ligion has had a rapid and showy development.
Proportionally, there are probably as many preach-
ers, churches and church members among them as
among the white people. Since the whites have
been centuries attaining their present religious
condition, and the negroes only a few decades,

The White Man's Burden 121

this extraordinary growth must be due either to
great pentecostal showers or else to great laxity in
church life. Those familiar with the case have no
difficulty in deciding which of these two conditions
has prevailed. Their growth has been too rapid
and their standards too low, so that religion does
not have its true meaning among them. Their
leaders are too often as blind leaders of the blind.
And yet the negroes are exceedingly dependent
upon leadership — as all ignorant people are. The
most disheartening part of this matter is that they
seem to be satisfied with the present sad condition
of religious life. Their conception seems to be
largely erroneous as to what a Christian should be
and do.

These strictures are severe, but I do not want to
be severe — I am trying to tell just what I believe
to be the truth about the American negro. I
recognize him as my fellow-man and have always
tried to be his friend and helper — I am trying to
show that he is in need of help, that this help must
be given graciously, patiently and perseveringly.
He needs to be helped up to a better life. There
are many steps of progress ahead of him — if he
cares to take them. But no matter how many he
assays or few may content him, he will have to
take the first step first.

The First Step of Progress

He is in the laboring class of this country. He
cannot be advanced to any higher class until he
has shown himself master of the one he is now in.

122 At Our Own Door

The great University of Life passes none of her
pupils to higher grades until they have proven
their proficiency in their present standing. So
that whatever exhortation may be addressed to
him, or whatever laws passed to advance him, or
money spent to elevate him, he can never reach
any higher plane, until he first fills acceptably the
place he now occupies. Not until he has become
a Christian, reliable and efficient laboring class,
can he ever become anything more. He consti-
tutes our primary labor supply, but it is in too
large a measure a malingering, unreliable, criminal
supply — to say nothing of its inefficiency and
wastefulness. Until these blemishes are removed,
and the negro fills acceptably this position of pri-
mary laborer, he need not hope for any real promo-
tion to higher things. His first step of progress
must be to make conquest of the domain com-
mitted to him for the present. This is the history
of all development, whether of the individual or
family or nation.

The First Great Need

But to accomplish this first stage of progress —
we must strike at the very centre of the matter,
viz.: the spiritual life of the negro. A great
moral reformation, such as has from time to time
swept over lands peopled by white races, must
reach the negroes of this land. If asked the
greatest need of the American negro to-day, I
would say : " Preachers of the right kind." I do
not fail to appreciate the work of the large num-

The White Man's Burden 123

ber of faithful ministers who occupy so many of
their pulpits to-day. All honor to them. But
they, themselves, are keenly aware of the failings
of a great part of their ministry and know that,
too often, the so-called shepherd is a destroyer
and not a helper. The most direct approach to
the spring of life of a people is through their
preachers of the gospel. If these can be made
what they should be, and the gospel message is
sounded out by them, the reforms — moral, social
and economic — will surely follow. None but
those who have sinned away their day of grace
can listen to the preaching of the gospel and not
become better men and women. And to become
better men and women, is to become better cooks,
laundresses, wagoners and ploughmen, as well as
better fathers and mothers, and thinkers and
teachers. Here is the point of attack. If the
fight is made persistently on this line, the victory
is assured. If every pulpit among this people
should be filled with a pure, intelligent, scriptural
preacher they would speedily show great moral
advances. All this terrible past can be undone
by the power of the grace of God. Suppose that
this ministry should banish the emotionalism,
pregnant in their worship, and be quick to correct
errors of life by admonition, suspension and excom-
munication, and raise up the standard of the cross,
as the standard of daily life ; can any one doubt
the saving effect of such a course, or its ultimate
triumph ? If the Christian home should become a
prominent feature of their life, and the children

124 ^^ ^"^ Own Door

be trained in the love of the Lord and encouraged
to fill their place in life well, however humble it
may be, does any one doubt the improvement
which would follow ?

The Second Great Need

The negro religious and domestic life has been
largely developed from its emotional side alone.
It should have its intellectual side awakened. But
it is difficult to do this in their present illiterate
condition. And again: it is difficult to make
mere book learning of advantage to them, so long
as they are content with their present moral and
spiritual condition. So that I would say that
these two great forces must move together. The
second great need of the negro is for a larger
supply of faithful and godly school-teachers.
Much has been said, pro and con, on the subject of
negro education. I think opposition to it arises
largely from opposition to the methods of some
who have undertaken to give help along this line.
Not every kind of education is good for every kind
of person. To conceive of educating the whole
negro race in the higher branches of learning is as
foolish as it is economically impracticable. There
is no race with such endowment that all of its
people can be highly educated. At present only
a small per cent, of the colored population need
the higher education. I would say give the whole
race, as soon as possible, an elementary education.
Any life should be better and more serviceable for
knowing this. Then, give those who have the

The White Man's Burden 125

aptitude, a higher grade of education, expanding
and enlarging their life and preparing them to fill
acceptably positions as preachers, teachers, physi-
cians, etc. Finally, give to those who can re-
ceive and use it, the very highest kind of training.
The negro race must have leaders from its own
race — these can be developed only by the best
training. But let it be emphasized in all these
kinds of training that education prepares for more
and better work, and not that it ennobles or en-
titles one to live without work. It will not do to
take a weak people and merely educate them in
books — no quicker way of their undoing could be
devised.

A school for negro children and youth should
never lose sight of the idea of discipline — the mak-
ing of moral fibre, the lifting up of ideals and the
strengthening of purpose are worth vastly more
than the information gained from books. Cleanli-
ness, immediate and perfect obedience, unfailing
promptness and the utmost thoroughness in detail
— these should be the A B C of the school for ne-
groes. A school that develops these is a good
place for any child to be, but is especially needed
by the negro child, because he has small oppor-
tunity to learn them elsewhere.

Industrial education, where faithfully and hon-
estly done, is of the highest value in developing
all these qualities and has a higher value, in that
it prepares the child for its place in life. A school
which would embody these characteristics would
be an ideal school for negro youth.

126 At Our Own Door

Other Needs

So much he should learn from church and school.
And from church and school — and the great school
of life — he should learn to have a greater self-re-
spect. A man with no character to maintain is in
a deplorable condition — he is a moral bankrupt.
The negro must awake to the possibilities of his
life. If he holds himself up, no right thinking
man will hold him down.

Also he must learn the invaluable lesson of
self-help. He has employed the patronage of
philanthropy to such extent that he is in danger
of coming to depend upon the assistance of others
rather than the efforts of self. But no one can
give him any gift comparable with a noble spirit
of independence, which seeks help only when its
last resource has been expended in the effort to be
its own helper. Every man should be his own
best friend. In life there are no gratuities — char-
acter cannot be bestowed with the alms, and he is
best helped who is helped to help himself. Self-
help should be a large article in the creed of the
negro, who desires progress and success.

Again, he should learn self -direction, etc., to
work and not merely to he worked. The negro
population drudge. Work is a necessity but
drudging is the poorest quality of work both for
employer and employed. There should be an in-
spiration for every day's toil. He should work as
one with an intelligent purpose and as one who
strives to accomplish something. To toil aimlessly
and hopelessly, even though it be laboriously, is

The White Man's Burden 127

not to do one's best. Unless thought and purpose
be put into it, work becomes an unbearable bur-
den and the yoke its fitting symbol. But to plan,
to hope, to achieve — this is to make work a pleas-
ure and the laborer a man^ and not " a brother to
the ox."

All this he must learn, all this he must do.
After he has done this he can and will do more,
but this must come first.

Our Part in the Work

I have thus far said nothing directly about our
own work for the colored people — but all I have
said is pertinent to it.

The characteristics I have named are those
recognized by us all as belonging to the colored
people. The economic dependence of the colored
man upon the white is known to us all.

The commercial, social and religious defects of
the weaker people are known to every one of us.
The principles I have laid down are those to which
we subscribe. It only remains I should indicate
how the work of the Executive Committee of Col-
ored Evangelization in the Presbyterian Church
corresponds with these facts.

This committee seeks by means of Stillman In-
stitute at Tuscaloosa, Ala., to train a ministry of
the kind mentioned above as the first great need
of the American negro.

It insists upon moral uprightness in the students
at Stillman Institute, and the superintendent and

128 At Our Own Door

faculty at Tuscaloosa do all they can to help the
life of the student body on a high plane.

The committee will not employ among the col-
ored ministers a man whose character it has reason
to doubt, and exercises what vigilance it can to
keep the body of its workers as a band above re-
proach.

The Still man Institute insists upon the student
doing what he can for himself, and reduces the
help given him to a minimum. It advises him
continually to be his own dependence. It de-
mands from him labor which it seeks to direct so
as to make it profitable to the student — teaching
him skill and economy, and exhorting him to dili-
gence and fidelity.

It does what it can for him intellectually and
encourages him to go slowly and thoroughly.

It teaches him to be a practical teacher and pas-
tor, and prepares him for usefulness to his people
by teaching him their present condition and needs.
It seeks to make strong men who shall bear their
part in the great work to be done for that race by
her own sons.

In addition to the work of preparing preachers,
the institute fits a young man for the position of
Christian teacher. Also the committee encourages
the ministers in its employ to conduct such schools
as are mentioned above under the second great
need of the negroes.

The committee also endeavors to enlist white
Christians in the work of the mission Sunday-
schools for colored children. These schools have

The White Man's Burden 129

done a good work wherever they have been given
a faithful trial, and God's blessing rests upon
them.

After five years' experience as the executive
Secretary of this work for our Church, I am per-
suaded that our work for the colored people is a
good work. It is well thought out. It rests on a
solid foundation. It is as successful as we may
reasonably expect. It is in every way worthy of
the contributions of our people to it.

I have severed my connection with the work,
but not because of disappointment with it, nor
discouragement because of lack of support from
the white churches. I believe the colored people
need our help — that our way of giving it is the
right way, and that we do not need to alter our
principles but to endorse them with our gifts and
with our personal efforts.

VI

THE MEXICANS IN TEXAS
By Eev. Walter S. Scofct, Evangelist. ^

The presbytery of Western Texas embraces
fifty large counties covering an area of T0,740
square miles, and containing a population of 390,-
000. It is one of the largest presbyteries in the
empire synod of our Assembly. It is as large in
area as the States of Virginia and West Virginia
together. Koughly estimated, it measures in
straight lines 300 miles north and south, and 500
miles from northwest to southeast. In fact, it can
be said that it has no western boundary — it can
take in the entire republic of Mexico.

Bordering on a foreign country for the length
of seven hundred miles, situated as it is at " the
meeting of the waters," and with a heterogeneous
population, the difficulties and the importance of
its home missionary work cannot be exaggerated.

1. It is this unique presbytery, which stands
high in its contributions to foreign missions and
to the cause of education, and has furnished its no
small quota of ministerial candidates, which, with-
out in any way neglecting its American work, is
undertaking, with the aid of the Central Com-

• Written at the request of the author.
130

The Mexicans in Texas 131

mittee of Home Missions, the evangelization of the
90,000 Mexicans within its bounds.

Whether for our weal or woe, certainly for their
intellectual betterment and temporal well-being,
the Mexicans are coming into the State in ever-
increasing numbers. One hundred and fifty
thousand is a small estimate of the number in the
State.

"We have nothing to do directly with the indus-
trial and the international phases of the question,
nor are we to quarrel with the condition ; it is for
us, as a people charged with the high commission
to evangelize the world, to meet it calmly and
resolutely and discharge our Christian obligation
to this influx of aliens ; rejoicing that, in the
Providence of God, they have come within this
free, Christian land of ours, where, comparatively,
they can be reached with the gospel more easily
and more effectively.

There are towns on the border where the Eng-
lish language is rarely spoken ; there are county
schools where the children learn more Spanish
than English. There are some twelve newspapers
published in Spanish in the State. In San An-
tonio, the metropolis of Texas, there are 12,000
Mexicans, with 5,000 more in the county out of
the city. In one of the largest public schools of
the city, there are more Mexican pupils than
American. I once saw seven hundred convicts
assembled in the Hunts ville penitentiary, one
hundred of whom were Mexicans.

2. The Mexicans are nominally Koman Cath-

132 At Our Own Door

olics. To those who question our policy of evan-
gelization, I would say that the glory of our
Protestant Church is that it frees men from relig-
ious thraldom. In our country every one is free
to worship God according to the dictates of his
conscience, and to believe according to the best
light he has. We do not owe this freedom to the
Eomish Church ; it is not a product of its system.
So long as we do not proselyte with firebrand and
sword, and do not compel people to our faith with
cruel persecutions, as the French Catholics have
done with Protestants in Madagascar, no one
should complain. Is not the Catholic Church
proselyting Protestants to-day on the Hawaiian
Islands ? Did she not but recently proselyte four
hundred Protestants at one time on the Fiji Is-
lands ? Is she not by her " special missions to
non-Catholics," carrying on in this country a cam-
paign of proselyting as she has never done before ?

But we are not proselyting. The common peo-
ple of Eoman Catholic countries — the Mexicans
among them — are sick and tired of that Church's
spiritual dominion, and of the emptiness of its
worship and teachings ; their hungry souls are
crying out for the Living Bread. They are with-
out the gospel, which " is the power of God unto
salvation " ; they are ignorant of the truth as it is
in Jesus, therefore, they cannot possess the saving
faith which cometh by the word of God.

Then, they do not pray ; they do not come unto
God by Christ ; they know not the joy of draw-
ing near with boldness unto a throne of grace^

The Mexicans in Texas 133

They have a pagan's idea of sin and repentance ;
they know nothing of regeneration, nor of the in-
dispensable work of the Spirit. In a word, they
are without God, and without hope in the world.

Woe unto us if we preach not the Gospel unto
them !

In giving the Gospel to these people we are not
only obeying our risen Lord's command to make
disciples of all the nations, but we are rendering
an inestimable service to our country as well, by
teaching them to be law-abiding, industrious and
thrifty citizens. We are establishing Christian
homes among them where the Lord's day is kept,
where prayer and praise are heard, where the young
are being taught to fear God and keep His com-
mandments, and where the marriage relation is
held in honor.

It should be also borne in mind that by evangel-
izing the Mexicans in Texas we are indirectly
contributing to the evangelization of Mexico.
The people are going and coming constantly and
the Gospel leaven is being carried to their native
land where it has borne fruit in a number of in-
stances. Dr. A. T. Graybill has said that the
beginning of his church at Linares, Mex., was
largely due to a man who had been converted in
Texas.

We have seen too many instances of the efficacy
of the precious word of God and of the work of
the Holy Spirit among them to doubt for a mo-
ment their need of the Gospel and our duty to give
it to them. The hundreds of Mexican brethren

134 At Our Own Door

who have been given to us as trophies of our work
are so many incentives for us to redouble our
efforts in behalf of the many thousands who are
yet groping in the dark, professing to know God,
but in their works denying Him.

Our members would not give up the Bible nor
their evangelical faith and go back to what they
were before without a great struggle; many
would die first ; for they well know it would mean
going hack to the world.

Taking everything into consideration I can
truthfully testify to the stability of our converts.
The few that have gone back to the priest during
the eleven and a half years of my ministry, were not
living above reproach when they left us, and have
since become extremely worldly and licentious.

3. To form a just estimate of our success we
must not, on the one hand, doubt the efficacy of
the Gospel nor the power of the Spirit to con-
vict and convert the Mexicans ; and on the other,
we should not expect to succeed better, or even as
well, in our Mexican work, considering the besotted
ignorance and gross superstitiousness of the people,
and the men and means at our command, as in
the regular work of the Church among Americans.

The Mexican work was organized when the
Presbytery of Western Texas ordained an evangel-
ist and put him in charge of it in April of 1892.
We then had but one church with fifty-nine mem-
bers, and no property to speak of.

In April of this year (1903) — after eleven and a
half years, we reported thirteen organized churches,

The Mexicans in Texas 135

680 members, twenty-one elders and seventeen
deacons. There were eleven Sunday-schools with
forty teachers and officers and 415 scholars.
Owing to the migratory character of the people
we lose a number of members every year. I have
estimated that we have lost, in one way and
another, some three hundred members, in ten
years. This should be taken into account in order
to get a correct idea of the growth of the work as
regards the number of members received. We
have two evangelists and three Mexican ordained
preachers, and a day school at Laredo with two
teachers. Seven of our churches have their own
houses of worship.

Last year 103 members were received on ex-
amination, and fifty-five adults and fifty-eight
children were baptized. The Mexicans contrib-
uted $450.00 for all purposes.

For this great work we are receiving but $2,000
a year from the Central Committee of Home Mis-
sions ; the rest of the expense is borne by the
presbytery. Last year, the cost per new member
received was $27.00. "While in our American
work at large it cost over $100.00 per new mem-
ber, it cost the Mexican work less than $30.00 ;
and while in the whole Church it took one hun-
dred to win five members on profession, in the
Mexican work one hundred members won sixteen.
Every one interested in this work should be satisfied
with such success.

The original church here at San Marcos has in-
creased to four churches and a membership of 350.

136 At Our Own Door

Each church has its Sabbath-school ; three of them
have a Young People's Society and a Woman's
Missionary Society. Services are held every Sun-
day, the weather permitting, conducted by the
elders in my absence. Each church has its own
house of worship, the members themselves doing
most of the work in their construction. The mem-
bers of the four churches have helped each other
in the erection of their chapels, furnishing labor,
tools and teams.

The elders and deacons of these four churches
have an association regularly organized, which
meets once a month, for mutual improvement and
for mutual incentive and cooperation in the work.

I feel that if nothing more had been given us to
reward the work of eleven and a half years, the
success that has attended the work in the San
Marcos field amply justifies the labor and money
expended. One of the three preachers we have,
came from these churches. Three other young
men are studying for the ministry and a fourth
will soon begin.

'r As instances of the zeal and consecration of our
Mexican elders, I will mention one who goes
nearly every Sunday, when the weather will per-
mit, sixteen miles on horseback from his farm to
church to conduct Sunday-school and service.
Another is going once a month some seventy-five
or eighty miles in his own conveyance, at his own
expense and without any pecuniary remuneration,
to hold services for a week or ten days.

Surely there is a good foundation in the char-

The Mexicans in Texas 137

acter of these people upon which we can build up,
with the blessing of God, a strong, self-propagat-
ing and self-sustaining church in the future.

4. We could greatly enlarge our work if we
had the means. "We would like to take our place
and do our modest share in the great forward
movement in home missions.

We need right now $1,200, with what we can
raise on the ground, to build three chapels where
they are greatly needed.

The Committee of Education has signified its
willingness to aid us in the support of our Mexican
students while pursuing their theological studies
in some accredited seminary of our Church, but
we need help to put them through their prepara-
tory course at some suitable school.

Means should be given us to establish a theolog-
ical school, where men with a good literary and
scientific foundation can be prepared for the Gos-
pel ministry.

The longer I work in this field the more im-
pressed I am with the need of a seminary for our
Mexican girls where the future wives and mothers
of our mission can receive a practical training
and a Christian education fitting them to dis-
charge their important and peculiar duties in the
home and church.

Would that some one endowed with means
would give us the money with which to establish
this much needed girls' school, whose influence in
propagating the faith and building up Christ's
kingdom among this people would be incalculable.

138 At Our Own Door

"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord
Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit,
that ye strive together with me in your prayers to
God," for this work.

VII
INDIANS AND THEIR TERRITORY

1. In his discovery of America, Columbus im-
agined that he had sailed around the world and
touched the shores of India ; and so the strange
people inhabiting America were called " Indians."
Four hundred years of contact with these " origi-
nal inhabitants " and study of the problem of their
nationality leave us as ignorant of their origin as
at first. They have been supposed by some to be
" the lost ten tribes of Israel," a theory as fanciful
and with as little foundation as Professor Tot-
ten's Anglo-Israel speculation. Others have ex-
plained how they drifted across Behring's Strait,
where the old and the new world almost touch.
The mystery perhaps will never find solution. The
North American tribes are known in history as
" savages," a well earned title ; but in Mexico the
Astecs and in South America the Incas dwelt in
cities, exhibiting a high type of civilization and
leaving relics and ruins which still perplex the
scientist.

The aborigines of !N"orth America were sepa-
rated into distinct tribes, speaking at least two hun-
dred languages, roaming the forests, living in tem-
porary wigwams, cultivating none of the soil except
a little patch of Indian corn, the work of the

139

140 At Our Own Door

" squaw," whilst the " braves " spent their time in
hunting wild game and in scalping the prisoners
captured from neighboring tribes. Still with all
their savagery, brutality and degradation, they
have established their claim to recognition in the
" Unity of the Human Race " by the possession of
many traits of nobility of character and by some
rude knowledge of the Deity. " Lo, the poor
Indian, whose untutored mind saw God in the
cloud and heard Him in the wind," demonstrates
his religious nature, and his childlike faith in " the
Great Spirit," and his right to recognition in the
Brotherhood of Man.

"The character of the American Indian has
been variously estimated. James Fennimore
Cooper, in his matchless Indian stories, has ideal-
ized him and has described him as capable of being
inspired by lofty motives and of performing heroic
and self-sacrificing deeds. On the other hand, there
have been those who have scarcely found language
in which to express their opinion of the cruelty
and treachery of the Indian character. The golden
mean is perhaps the better estimate. Like all other
races, the Indian was a mixture of good and evil,
and was capable of performing both heroic and
diabolical deeds " (Dr. Sherman Doyle).
— " There is no good Indian but a dead Indian,"
has grown into a proverb, which contains about as
much truth as the slander that " the Pilgrims upon
landing at Plymouth Rock fell first upon their
knees and then upon the aborigines." The first
is a slander of the Indian, which seeks to justify

Indians and Their Territory 141

our national treatment of him ; the latter is a criti-
cism which arraigns the government as a mur-
derer of the innocent and a robber of his lands.
It is doubtful whether there was ever a quarrel in
which the wrong was all on one side and the right
on the other. It matters little how the enmity
between the races originated, the United States and
its people are not wholly innocent in their dealings
with him, but neither is the Indian himself blame-
less. If there have been broken treaties on
one side, there have been treachery and toma-
hawks on the other. If the Indian has been
driven from his " hunting ground," he has received
other lands more than his needs require ; and he
has been given "rations," civilization, education
and Christianity. If the French employed his
tomahawk and scalping knife against the English,
the English and the American have used him as a
tool against the French and against each other.
But there can be no questioning the fact that in
the balances of compensation, he has received more
of good than evil at the hands of the white
man.

The charge of exterminating the Indians contains
more or less of truth, but is certainly not proven.
"Whilst many have estimated their number in
North America in the settlement of the country,
at several millions, it is at best a guess without any
basis of data. Many conservative estimates equally
worthy of consideration place the number at much
less than half a million. In that view of the case
" extermination " has only reduced him to 266,000

142 At Our Own Door

according to the latest census. If civilization is
exterminating him, it must be admitted that the
process has been slower than his own internecine
method of warfare, by which he was exterminat-
ing himself, and certainly much more humane.

Hon. T. J. Morgan, ex-commissioner of Indian
Affairs, and for ten years corresponding Secretary
of missions in the Baptist Church, furnishes the
most exhaustive and just summary of our relations
to the Indians ever attempted, which may be
abridged as follows :

They were our Forerunners^ who preceded us
and had the oldest claim upon the American Con-
tinent ; our Hosts, who welcomed our pilgrim fore-
fathers when they landed at Plymouth Rock ; our
Landlords, from whom we first rented and ac-
quired land; our Rival Nation, with whom we
made treaties and traded ; at times our Savage
Foes, burning our homes and cruelly tomahawk-
ing alike defenseless women and little children ;
afterwards our Friendly Allies, who helped us to
fight our battles against our enemies; gradually
overcome by the white people they became Con-
quered Subjects / now the Wards of the nation
receiving constant help from the government ; as
lands are being allotted them in the Indian Terri-
tory, they are becoming our Fellow Citizens / many
of them are still Savages and Heathen, who must be
evangelized and led to Jesus ; and numbers are now
converted and are our Fellow Christians and Breth-
ren in Christ, assisting in the great work of giving
the Gospel to others.

Indians and Their Territory 143

Others have divided our treatment of the Indian
into three periods :

{a) The Colonial^ characterized by war, blood-
shed, treachery on both sides and rapine — a perfect
reign of terror. The farmer returned from his
fields to find his wife scalped and his children car-
ried away into the trackless forests to a living
death. The villager was awakened at midnight
by the yells of savages or the lurid flames that
laid in ashes the town. The congregation carried
their muskets to church and stacked them outside
the door. Indians were cheated and maltreated
by the settlers ; often enticed by fair promises to
their death.

(J) The National Period, designated by Helen
Hunt Jackson, " The Century of Dishonor," in
which there were constant wars between the races,
the Seminoles driven from Florida, the Cherokees
from Georgia and the Creeks from Alabama —
driven by soldiers ever westward — in which multi-
tudes perished during the long overland route.
New treaties were made giving lands to the
Indians " while water ran and grass grew," only
to be violated before the ink in which the treaty
was written had scarcely dried. This was the
period of the "Indian Agent," "rations," and
government guardianship. Corrupt men grew
fat by robbing the Indian of his supplies, etc. ; but
it was not worse than the average " spoils politi-
cian system " ; and which we may expect to have
repeated in Porto Kico, the Philippines, etc., where

144 -^t ^"^ ^^'^ Door

bad men are confronted with temptation and the
opportunity.

(c) The third period is known as " The Peace
Policy, ^^ beginning in 1870, when President Grant
announced his intention of dealing with the Indians
in a more friendly and righteous manner. Civili-
zation and education were invoked to ameliorate
his condition. Industrial schools and colleges were
established ; and Christian people invited to send
missionaries to instruct them in the way of right-
eousness, etc. This is beginning to bear fruit ; and
the Indian is fast coming to the privilege of citizen-
ship and into the possession of property and lands.

In the Capitol at Washington are four histor-
ical pictures, which are striking object lessons of
the treatment which the Indians have received.
The first is the landing of white men, and the
offering of corn to them by the Indians, The
second is the signing of the treaty ceding Pennsyl-
vania to the white man. The third shows Poca-
hontas in the act of defending Capt. John Smith.
The fourth represents an engagement between the
whites and the Indians, in which the latter are
being killed. An Indian, to whom the Capitol
was being shown, stood thoughtfully before the
pictures described and summed up the history of
his people in a few simple words : " Indian give
.white man corn. Indian give white man land.
Indian save white man. White man kill Indian."
Admitting this simple indictment as the truth of
history, is there anything to be said in extenua-
tion besides the law of self-preservation, which

Indians and Their Territory 145

often required the white man to fight for his life ?
In other words, has the Indian received any proper
compensation for his ill treatment ? Passing by
the thousands of dollars spent in " rations " and
education by the Government in the effort to civi-
lize him for citizenship — amounting to $140,000,000
in the last thirty years — let us glance at the work
of the Church in Christianizing him and preparing
him for the citizenship of heaven.

The Indian suffered much at the hands of the
Spaniard, but to him belongs the honor of making
the first attempt to establish missions among the
North American tribes. Many Franciscan Monks
perished in the attempt, but finally succeeded in
establishing a successful mission at St. Augustine,
Fla. Many converts at different times blessed
their labors. The first Protestant mission for
Indians was established at Martha's Vineyard.
Thomas Mayhew, father and son, devoted them-
selves to the work of Christianizing the Indians. It
is said the first convert, " Hiacoomes," became a
preacher of the Gospel among his own people. In
1650 Mayhew reported 190 conversions among this
people.

"Most conspicuous among the early successful
missionaries to the Indians stands John Eliot, 'the
apostle to the Indians.' The field of his labors
was among the Pequots and other tribes of East-
ern Massachusetts. He began his work in 1646
while pastor of the church at Roxbury, Mass. He
labored incessantly and his efforts were crowned
with success. He gathered converts into towns

146 At Our Own Door

and established schools and civilized industries
among them. These towns were known as * pray-
ing bands,' or ' Indian praying towns.' He framed
two catechisms for Indian use and translated the
Bible into their language, which was his greatest
work. The translation of the entire Bible was com-
pleted in December, 1658. Two years later the
printing of it was finished. This was theji/rst Bible
prinied on the American Continent.

" What a providence that it should have heen in
the Indian tongue ! Eliot's motto, written at the
end of his Indian Grammar, was,

" ' Prayer and pains^
Through Faith in Jesus Christy
Will do anything.^

He labored for thirty years among his people
teaching them to work, to read and to pray. ' He
gave them a Bible in their own tongue and from
those hunting and fighting savages six Indian
churches were gathered, whose more than a thou-
sand " Praying Indians," once and again stood firm
against fearful odds, and became a bulwark of
safety to their pale face neighbors.'
\ "The Quakers began their Indian missionary
work in Pennsylvania in 1685. Penn's famous
treaty with the Delawares, which was unbroken
for seventy years by either party, has been called
' the brightest spot in all our dark dealings with
the Indian tribes.' The Moravians early estab-
lished successful Indian missions. They began
their work in western Connecticut in 1742, but

Indians and Their Territory 147

labored most extensively in Pennsylvania, Georgia
and Ohio. . . . Kev. Jonathan Edwards, the
great New England divine, was also a successful
missionary among the Indians. . . .

" The Presbyterian Church has always been in-
terested in the conversion of the American Indians.
The history of Presbyterian missions among the
Indians ' is a long and inspiring story from early
Colonial efforts beginning with Long Island Indians
to this opening of the twentieth century, when at
least thirty-five tribes have been reached and 120
missions and schools are in successful operation in
the great "West.' The first Presbyterian missionary
among the American Indians was Kev. Asariah
Horton. He began his work on Long Island
in 1741. His salary was £40 per annum. . . .

" Eev. David Brainerd, the biography of whose
consecrated life was written by Jonathan Ed-
wards, was the second Presbyterian missionary to
the Indians. . . . Dr. Ashbell Green says his
* success here was perhaps without a parallel in
heathen missions since the days of the apostles ' "
(Presbyterian Home Missions).

The Presbyterian Church carried on successful
missions among many tribes and did a great work
for Christ among these children of the forest. In
addition to the great number of converts won in
many quarters, it can point to the Choctaws,
Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Seminoles of
the Indian Territory, to-day numbered among
Christian people, as the " Five Civilized Nations,"
largely due to the work and influence of the mis-

148 At Our Own Door

sionary. At the beginning of the Civil "War these
cast in their lot with the Southern States, and were
ministered to by the Southern Church, which spent
$20,000 on them the first year of the war. The
strain of the war which reduced the Southern peo-
ple to extreme poverty was a hindrance to suc-
cessful prosecution of the work ; and yet few mis-
sions have been more creditable alike to benefactors
and beneficiaries. The war ruined the South finan-
,x cially, and being unable to meet the needs of the
work, with unselfish generosity the Southern
Church transferred all the Northern section of the
Indian Territory to the Northern Presbyterian
Church, confining its own operations to the two
tribes of Choctaws and Chickasaws. By this act
it lost the results of its large outlay of funds and
self-sacrificing effort, but gave to our sister church
one of the brightest fields of missionary enter-
prise, which to their credit let it be said has been
faithfully cultivated. During the forty years of
its separate existence, the Southern Church has re-
ceived about 2,500 Indians into the fold of Christ
and expended perhaps a quarter of a million dol-
lars on their evangelization. After transferring
many of their converts to the Northern Church,
and contributing numbers to the Church Trium-
phant, it still has forty churches and about 1,000
communicants among them. Of these, eighteen
have been organized within the past two years,
many of them containing white people so rapidly
settling the Indian Territory. One new presby-
tery has recently been formed of eight ministers

Indians and Their Territory 149

and twenty churches, which marks the more re-
cent growth of revived work in this field.

One of our missionaries, Mrs. Bella McCallum
Gibbons, a cultured and refined Christian woman,
who is giving her life and heart to this work and
rendering noble service to Christ and the Church
in this field, is best entitled to testify to the charac-
ter of this people, and the work under present con-
ditions :

" As the Indian was 400 years ago, he is in many
respects the same to-day. Although they have
adopted the dress, and many of the customs of
our race, still to a great extent they are children
of Nature, simple in their habits, reverent in their
devotions, given to hospitality to friend or to foe.

" It is generally believed that as a race they are
indolent, but that is a mistake. It is true that many
of them are very poor, hundreds of them without
the necessities of life, much less the comforts, still
when we remember the life of their ancestry, we
must not be too harsh in our judgment.

" When living here unmolested, their wants were
simple, their little patches made them bread, the
game in the forest furnished their meat, while the
skins of animals were used for bedding and shelter.
They did not know how to till their land, to build
their homes, but many of them have learned, more
are learning all the time ; and although to the out-
side world their advancement has been slow on those
lines, when we consider their opportunities for an
education that would teach them to be energetic,
self-sustaining, providing for the future, we must

150 At Our Own Door

again throw the veil of charity over them, because
they have never been taught how to best apply
their latent energy in the right way.

" By nature Indians are of a reverent disposition,
and when they profess Christianity at all, theirs is
religion in all simplicity and purity. They are not
bothered in their belief with either creeds or dog-
mas, the simple story of ' the Cross ' is sufficient
for them in this life, as well for the one which
holds so much promise to them when they pass to
the one beyond. All their worship is sacred to
them, and their church hymns, sung in their own
language, mostly written in minor keys are touching
in the extreme. Not many of our race can hear
them sing for the first time with dry eyes. Their
consciences are so tender that if they do the least
thing they think sinful, it becomes such a burden
to them that they will take no part nor parcel in
any form of divine worship until confession is
made to the Church ; then assured of forgiveness,
they are ready for work in the Master's vineyard
again.

" Before the Indians left their homes in the East,
Presbyterian missionaries were at work among
them. Rev. Messrs. Copeland, Byington and
Hotchkin came here with the Choctaws to this
weird, lonely, desolate looking country, burying
themselves with these people in these unbroken
forests in order to teach them that Christ died for
them, to lead them to believe that the white man's
God would also be a loving, merciful Father to
them if they would accept His teachings — which

Indians and Their Territory 151

numbers have done. More missionaries followed
those early pioneers ; some have entered into their
rest beyond, others are still here, laboring under
many trials, telling and teaching of God's love
and mercy."

The present Secretary made a visit to the Terri-
tory almost immediately upon his election, and in
his first published report gave this testimony,
which has not been changed by any of his subse-
quent visits and closer scrutiny of the case : " The
Indian people are as true and genuine Presbyteri-
ans as can be found anywhere on earth. The visit
of the home mission Secretary to the Indian Pres-
bytery will always be remembered as a joy for-
ever. Leaving their homes, the entire Indian com-
munity was encamped around the church. Each
Indian Church sends not only an elder to presby-
tery, but entire families, men, women and children.
At daybreak the bell rings for sunrise prayer meet-
ing, conducted by the Indians themselves in the
Choctaw language. At 9 and 11 a. m., and at 3
and 7 p. m., they have preaching by a Choctaw
Indian or by a missionary through an interpreter.
After the last service, at night, the Indian popula-
tion remains to sing, which they keep up till late
in the night, and it thrills one's soul to hear their
earnest singing of the good old tunes. Most of
the Indian Churches have service every Sabbath.
If no minister is present, an elder conducts the
worship, and they sing and pray with as much en-
joyment as if a minister were present to preach
the Gospel."

152 At Our Own Door

In addition to its churches and Sabbath-schools,
the Southern Church ten years ago began to estab-
lish Christian schools among the Indians, not only
to teach ordinary branches of secular education but
the catechisms of the Church, and the principles of
the Christian religion. This work has prospered
and grown from a " day of small things " to large
proportions, sustained entirely by the gifts of the
Sabbath-school children in their fifth Sabbath col-
lections. Out of this work has grown Durant
Presbyterian College, a beautiful pressed brick
building costing $15,000, employing seven teachers
and having annually 300 students. It is nearly
self-supporting, but sadly in need of more dormi-
tories and furniture, being unable to accommodate
the students proposing to enter its walls, and com-
pelled each year to turn away many applicants for
places among its student body. President E.
Hotchkin deserves the lasting gratitude of the
Church for his self-denying labors and his indomi-
table perseverance, which have made this institu-
tion a success and an honor to the Presbyterian
Church. It has more students than Henry Ken-
dall College in the Cherokee Nation, which costs
the Northern Presbyterian Church $16,000 an-
nually ; and it does not cost the Southern Church
$500.

At Antlers we have a high school of two
teachers and 215 scholars ; at Cameron, three
teachers and 135 scholars ; at Wapanucka, two
teachers and 112 scholars. Besides these high
schools, we have common schools at Goodland,

Indians and Their Territory 153

Hugo, Chish Ok'tock, Bennington, Cold Spring,
Hamden, Tulia Hikia, and Shady Point. More than
1,200 pupils annually receive instruction at our
hands, those unable to pay being taught absolutely
free. Dr. Adoniram Judson passing a Christian in-
stitution said, " I wish I had a million dollars."
A friend remarked, " If you had it would soon all
go into foreign missions." " No, it would not," he
replied ; " I would establish just such a Christian
institution as this ; for such furnish the seed corn
of the world." If any philanthropist agrees with
this estimate of Christian education, will he heed
and help the effort to establish a Christian indus-
trial school at Goodland Church where the Indians
in receiving their allotments are donating a part
of their land for this purpose ; and Mrs. Gibbons
is appealing for a modest sum to inaugurate the
movement in this strong recital of facts :

" Eight years ago, the Southern Board of Home
Missions reopened the school here, and it has
steadily grown in numbers until now the enroll-
ment for this term is 104, sixty-eight being Indian
children. For several years it has been the desire
of the church to establish an industrial school
here, one in which these boys and girls can be
taught to fit themselves for positions of useful-
ness, to apply their energies in the right direction.
Children from other places have been boarded by
these Christian people, some of them denying
themselves the comfort of life to give some orphan
child the benefits of a Christian school.

" Five years ago, we asked the Indian Council to

154 At Our Own Door

appropriate money to board a limited number of
pupils, and through the influence of Dr. Craig, the
Home Mission Board promised money to build a
home for the children, but the council never made
the appropriation for us until this year, and they
only allow us seven dollars per month, not more
than enough to feed them. We have forty Choc-
taw children boarded by the government, and at
least a dozen more kept in private homes.

" Now, we have the children, but no boarding-
house. Our schoolroom is very small, devoid of
furniture, with the exception of some straight
pine benches. In our church we teach five grades ;
this building is old, out of repair, very uncomfort-
able in cold weather. Our boarding-house can
keep only fifteen, the rest are scattered around in
different homes ; twenty-three are now in the
home of our good Indian preacher, Silas Bacon.
Both he and his good wife are giving all their time,
their talents and their lives, to these children, and
they keep several orphans that will receive no
board money, as they came in after the contract
was full, and Mr. Bacon would not send them
away.

" Among our children, the Indian pupils, we have
thirteen without either parent, twenty-eight with
only one parent living. Many of these children
come to us homeless, clothesless, and to a great ex-
tent, Christless ; coming to us from isolated places,
where Sunday-schools are unknown. We have
grown boys and girls who never attended a Sun-
day-school, never knew a prayer before they came

Indians and Their Territory 155

here. But they are noble children, obedient, studi-
ous and quiet at all times, ever ready to listen to
our Bible teaching, to be taught our catechisms
and to sing our religious songs. Many of them
have bright minds, all they need is proper training.
As a rule the full blood Indian child is easy to
control, and if one wins their affection they are
easily led ; — not much trouble to instruct them
after they learn our language, which they usually
do in from one to two years.

" We are striving to get the Industrial School
started, and by the advice of Dr. Morris we make
this appeal to the churches, aid societies, the Sun-
day-schools and the Christian people of our coun-
try to help us start it. The land has been promised
to us by the Indians themselves, if we can get the
building."

Who will hear and respond to this earnest,
pathetic appeal ?

This brief sketch would be incomplete without
an account of the Territory itself, its conditions
and prospects :

2. The Indian Tekritory

No section of the United States has been so gen-
erally misunderstood as the Indian Territory. Many
geographies are still in existence which describe
the Western section (now Oklahoma) as a part of
" The Great American Desert." This quondam
" desert " is now covered with golden grain, and
its rich pasture lands are feeding " the cattle upon
a thousand hills." These prairie lands are in-

156 At Our Own Door

exhaustible in fertility, and the most thoroughly
improved section of the country, making Okla-
homa and the Indian Territory the paradise of the
"West. It is by no means all prairie. Great forests
skirt the plains, composed largely of post-oak groves,
interspersed with pecans. Kivers and mountains,
valleys and hills, cultivated fields and primeval
forests, mingle together in such proportions not
only to relieve the monotony, but furnish as beauti-
ful landscapes as can be found anywhere in our
country, marvellously rich in rare scenery. The
traveller crosses the border of the Indian Terri-
tory, expecting to see the line of demarkation
very plain between civilization and the land of the
untutored savage. As the train dashes along, he
keeps his eye on the window for the first sight of
" the red man " ; but he looks in vain. Where he
expects to see the Indian hut or little patch of the
barbarian, he sees broad, cultivated fields, as rich
in many places as the valley of the Mississippi.
Where he expects the Indian wigwam, he discovers
great cities with brick stores and stone banks. One
can live ten years in the Indian Territory without
seeing an Indian. They do not haunt the villages
and have no special yearning for railroads.
Along the streams and out in the forests there are
Indians ; but they are such a small per cent, of the
population as to make the Indian Territory a mis-
nomer. There is no Indian Territory except on the
map ; and it is almost as great a myth " as the Great
American Desert." It is true there are fifty thou-
sand Indians in the Territory ; but, according to

Indians and Their Territory 157

the United States census, it contains nearly five
hundred thousand inhabitants, making ten whites
to every Indian. It is the whitest section of the
South ! No other Southern State contains ten
whites to any other citizen ! It may surprise many
people to learn that Arizona contains almost as
many Indians as the Indian Territory. Many
other " reservations " contain even more ; for of
the 250,000 Indians in the United States, only one-
fifth are in the Territory. Even of these 50,000,
very few are full bloods. The great majority are
descendants of " half breeds " and as white as the
average Caucasian. They would scarcely be enu-
merated as Indians, but for the fact that it gives
them a claim upon the fine lands that are now
being allotted to the Indians by the government.
Intermarriage will soon solve the Indian problem
in the Indian Territory.

It is said that an Irish historian devoted a chap-
ter in his History of Ireland to " Snakes." The
entire chapter reads, " There are no snakes in Ire-
land." The time is not far distant when the his-
torian will write his chapter on the Indian
Territory in these words, " There are no Indians
in the Indian Territory."

It has been said that " the Indians are the rich-
est nation and the poorest people on earth." The
strange paradox is true. In their homes they have
but few of the comforts of life which the indi-
vidual can enjoy. And yet the vast revenues
accumulating to their credit and for their benefit
are enormous and increasing with each passing

158 At Our Own Door

year. The sources of these revenues are various.
The royalty on the coal mines of the Choctaw
nation amounts to $200,000 yearly. Every white
man in the Territory is required to pay a " permit "
of five dollars a year for the privilege of living in
the reservation. These are just specimens of their
enormous income. This money cannot be dis-
tributed to the individual. It would be a curse to
most. But it can be used for the benefit of the
nation. Consequently, any Indian child who is
willing can be educated at the public expense.
Board, tuition, and in many instances clothing and
all the necessaries of life, are furnished for their
education and equipment of the children for the
duties of citizenship. The United States govern-
ment has schools distributed throughout the coun-
try, where they are taught ; and many religious
organizations, recognizing that secular education
without moral training is a curse to them, have
founded denominational schools for their religious
instruction.

The policy of the government in the past, how-
ever good in intention and worthy in effort to
discharge its obligations to these wards of the
nation, has not always been wise, judged by re-
sults. The system of distributing "rations" in-
discriminately to needy and otherwise alike, has
reared a race of paupers, thriftless, idle, and a
menace to the peace and morality of the country.
The plan of inducing a child, accustomed to the
hardships of poverty, to leave a home of wretch-
edness and enter a government school, where

Indians and Their Territory 159

every comfort is provided and every want antici-
pated, translated suddenly from squalor to com-
parative luxury, is not calculated to produce the
highest type of citizen. Education is not in itself
a panacea for all the ills of life. It is very ques-
tionable whether it is a blessing in any sense,
unless carried on along moral and religious as well
as secular lines. Many of these Indian children
after several years of luxury and education, re-
turn to their wretched homes and savage life.

Under the Dawes Commission, the government
is pursuing a wiser policy, and will probably solve
the Indian problem in the near future. This
commission is allotting the lands now held in com-
mon, so that each individual will soon come into
possession of his inheritance and can use it or
abuse it, according to his inclination. It is esti-
mated that each Indian, man, woman (and child
yet unborn and until the registration books are
closed), will receive in the allotment over five
hundred acres (according to value in different sec-
tions), and can sell all except one hundred and
sixty acres, which the government requires him to
keep for twenty-one years as a homestead. As
soon as this is done, most of the lands will pass
into the hands of the white people, the Indians
retaining only their homestead, which will be
ample for the needs of most of them. It is often
asked why the government delays this allotment
year after year, and thus retards the development
of the country. Several reasons might be as-
signed : The Indians themselves are allowed the

i6o At Our Own Door

privilege of ratifying the terms of the treaties,
and these must be submitted back and forth be-
tween Congress and the Indian tribal legislatures.
A still more potent reason, perhaps, lies in the fact
that a few influential individuals are enriching
themselves at the expense of the rest, and have
sufficient influence to delay the matter. Accord-
ing to the present system any Indian (or white
man married to an Indian) may cultivate or use
all the land fenced or improved by him, and until
the lands are allotted in severalty. The full blood
Indian takes little or no advantage of this pro-
vision. But the mixed breed and white men with
Indian wives fence in large areas, and are getting
rich from its use. It is said that one man alone
has a revenue of $50,000 annually from his " im-
proved lands." Just as soon as the allotment is
made, it can readily be seen that his share will be
reduced to five hundred acres. These men are
very naturally opposed to the allotment, and are
opposing by all means in their power. The value
of their lands offers a temptation to adventurers
to marry these Indian girls for the sake of their in-
heritance. In order to prevent such matrimonial
investments, the Choctaw Legislature has placed
the license fee at one thousand dollars for a white
man to marry an Indian and share the allotment.
Another law passed by the tribal legislature im-
poses the penalty of death upon any Indian who
sells any part of his land to a white man. While
it is impossible to acquire lands at present, yet the
United States government has made provision that

Indians and Their Territory 161

lots in any incorporated town may be sold to
aliens. This, however, is only a " quit claim "
which the purchaser obtains from a citizen ; and
when the commission appears to make titles from
the United States government, it is necessary to
pay a small amount to the government and obtain
the property by " letters patent."

The material development of the country is mar-
vellous. New railroads are not simply being pro-
jected but are being built, in every direction.
Coal deposits and oil fields are being discovered,
and options are being sought by great corporations
from the tribal legislatures for developing these
natural resources. This is causing population to
pour into the Territory from every part of the
United States.

It is said that Henry Clay once climbed the Al-
leghanies and put himself in the attitude of one
listening, and exclaimed, "I hear the tramp of
millions ; they are the myriads who are to occupy
and populate our great Western country ! " Great,
prophetic soul, who saw the future glory and de-
velopment of our country ; and yet it has gone far
beyond his vivid imagination ! The human fancy
can scarcely forecast the future of the Indian
Territory ! The next United States census will
show fully two millions of people in that great
section ! There are perhaps one hundred towns
and cities in the Territory to-day, containing, on
an average more than one thousand inhabitants
each. They spring into existence under our very
eyes! Between the visits of the Secretary of

i62 At Our Own Door

home missions (six months apart), towns had
sprung up which had no existence in thought at
the time of the first visit. They are not mush-
room growths, as one might imagine. They are
buildings of brick and stone, and, in many in-
stances, of rare architectural designs.

It furnishes the Presbyterian church the greatest
opportunity, perhaps, which will ever come to her
in the twentieth century. The country is preju-
diced in favor of the Presbyterian church in many
sections by reason of the splendid work done in
behalf of the Indians. Nearly all of these towns
contain a fair proportion of Presbyterians. It is
true there are difficulties, and salaries are small ;
but where is the man, called of God to preach the
Gospel, who would not choose to spend his ener-
gies in the midst of the living masses of unevan-
gelized people at a sacrifice, amid self-denials,
rather than in a well feathered nest, and preach to
empty pews ? The writer has stated, again and
again that if he were at the beginning of his min-
istry, with his present knowledge of conditions, he
could not be chained on this side of the Mississippi.
If the young men will give " the dew of their
youth " to the work, and the church will furnish
the means, we may confidently expect, within a
few years, that the Synod of the Indian Territory
will not only be a possibility, but one of the im-
portant factors in the development of the church,
and not by any means the least in the sisterhood
of synods.

vm

THE GREAT WEST

The fictitious boundaries of America invented
to impress the imagination with the idea of vast-
ness might with better propriety be employed to
mark the limitations of the West : " Bounded on
the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the east by the
rising sun, on the south by the Equator, and on the
west by the Day of Judgment'* The public
speaker cannot bring himself in his addresses to
say tamely " the "West " ; it is invariably " the
great West." No man has succeeded better in im-
pressing the public with a sense of its greatness
and importance than Dr. Josiah Strong : " The
"West is characterized by largeness. Mountains,
rivers, railways, ranches, herds, crops, business
transactions, ideas ; even men's virtues and vices
are cyclopean. All seem to have taken a touch of
vastness from the mighty horizon. "Western
stories are on the same large scale, so large, indeed
that it often takes a dozen eastern men to believe
one of them."

It is generally supposed that the Mississippi
River divides the east and west into somewhat
equal areas. But as a matter of fact the area be-
yond the Mississippi is two-and-a-half times the
size of that on the east. To divide our country

163

164 At Our Own Door

into equal parts, it would be necessary to begin at
the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican
border and run directly north, throwing a large
part of Texas on the East and all immediately
north of it as far as Canada. In present parlance
the West means everything beyond the Mississippi ;
but it has not always been the case ; and even now
hundreds of miles beyond the Mississippi, the
West is still far beyond.

" Nothing better illustrates the vast and rapid
expansion of America during the nineteenth cen-
tury than the history of ' Sectional Nomenclature.'
' The West ' has had a new definition in every de-
cade. ' To the Westward,' named in the preamble
of the Connecticut Society, was the State of New
York, ' northwestward ' was Vermont. Of a much
earlier period, it is related on good authority that
a surveyor was commissioned in Massachusetts to
lay out a highroad from Cambridge towards Al-
bany, as far as the public good required. His road
came to an end twelve miles from Boston in the
town of Weston, and the report made to the
government was, that the work had been pushed
into the wilderness as far as the public need would
ever require. A good many pieces have been
added to that road, and before each such addition
* the West ' has steadily retreated. At different
times it was on the banks of the Charles, the
Connecticut and the Hudson ; on the shores of the
Great Lakes, in the Mississippi Valley, on the tops
of the Rockies, and it stopped at the Pacific only
because it could go no farther. Beyond that line

The Great West 165

the East began again, Nor has this vague con-
ception for the "West been always due to the pro-
vincial short-sightedness of New England. The
writer remembers, not twenty years ago, visiting
a primary school in Southern Wyoming, from
whose windows the peaks of the Kockies were
visible. To his question addressed to the children,
how many of them were born in "Wyoming, only
two hands went up. To the further question, how
many of them would like to grow up in "Wyoming
and help to make it a grand State, not a hand was
raised ; and when the catechism was brought to a
close with the bewildered inquiry, ' Where then
are you going ? ' with a united shout they replied
' West ' " (Leavening the Nation).

The original thirteen states occupied only a thin
strip of land along the Atlantic coast with unop-
ened territory stretching towards the Mississippi
south of the Ohio. From the earliest history of
the country aggressive men have always been com-
pelled to wage a fierce conflict with others strenu-
ously opposing "the annexation of more terri-
tory." No event in our national history has ex-
erted a greater influence on the destiny of the
country than the famous " Ordinance of 1787."
Embracing the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin and Illinois, a section of 250,000 square
miles, wedge-shaped, and from that fact known as
" the keystone of the American commonwealth,"
was added to the territory of the United States ;
and from that moment " Expansion " began. Its
influence on our national life was not more potent

i66 At Our Own Door

than on the church. It was a new birth of the
home missionary enterprise of the church, calling
for " expansion " of the spiritual kingdom to keep
pace with the march of empire. Population
poured in to possess this marvellously rich land.
Home missionaries entered to win new territory
for Christ and the church.

The nineteenth century opened with the Missis-
sippi River as our western boundary. The Louisi-
ana Purchase of 1803, the Annexation of Texas in
1845, the Mexican Treaty of 1848 carried our pos-
sessions to the Pacific and multiplied our territory
two and a half times. This created " The Great
West."

"Of the twenty-two states and territories west
of the Mississippi, only three are as small as all JSTew
England. Montana would stretch from Boston on
the east to Cleveland on the west, and extend far
enough south to include Richmond, Va. Idaho, if
laid down in the east, would touch Toronto, Can-
ada, on the north, and Raleigh, North Carolina, on
the south, whilst its southern boundary line is long
enough to stretch from Washington City to Colum-
bus, Ohio ; and California, if on our Atlantic Sea-
board, would extend from the southern line of
Massachusetts to the lower part of South Carolina,
or if in Europe, it would extend from London
across France and well into Spain. New Mexico is
larger than the United Kingdom of Great Britian
and Ireland. The greatest measurement of Texas
is nearly equal to the distance from New Orleans to
Chicago, or from Chicago to Boston. Lay Texas

The Great West 167

on the face of Europe, and this giant with his
head resting on the mountains of Norway (directly
east of the Orkney Islands) with one palm cover-
ing London, the other Warsaw, would stretch him-
self down across the kingdom of Denmark, across
the Empire of Germany and Austria, across north-
ern Italy and lave his feet in the Mediterranean.
The two Dakotas might be carved into half a
dozen kingdoms of Greece ; or if they were divided
into twenty-six equal counties, we might lay down
the two kingdoms of Judea and Israel in each "
(Our Country).

In his address to the General Assembly of 1901,
Dr. C. L. Thompson, Secretary of home missions,
urged the importance of the west as occupying a
vital position in the superstructure of the govern-
ment : " The work of the Central West is to build
the piers on which the Nation's weight must rest.
I looked recently at the new bridge over the East
Kiver. The shore approaches are long, the cables
are anchored far back. But standing on granite
feet out in the river are the great steel piers, that
will hold the strain of the mighty structure. Our
national life has long approaches. It is anchored
far back in traditions and constitutions. But the
young states of the west must stand like steel
piers on granite foundations, if the arch of the
State shall stand secure from shore to shore.
All honor to the men who build. And when we
think of the heroes of wars, let us not forget the
missionaries who toil on disgraceful stipends —
making Christian the States, that will hold the

l68 At Our Own Door

balance of power. They are the true nation
builders."

1. In this account of the West it is necessary
to confine our scrutiny to that section lying within
the bounds of the Southern Church. Only half a
century has passed since the Republic of Texas cast
in its lot among the States of the Union, contain-
ing at that time about 200,000 people ; and it has
gone forward marvellously, striding in its seven
league boots to the very front, claiming a popula-
tion at present of three and a half millions, equal
to the entire country at the time of the American
Revolution. The orator is yet unborn who can
make the average citizen appreciate by means of
statistics and comparisons anything of its vast
area, magnificent resources and future possibilities.

{a) In size it contains 262,000 square miles,
larger than the North West Territory added by
the Ordinance of 1787. If Texas were carved up
into separate States it would make 240 Rhode
Islands, 112 Dela wares, thirty-one Massachusetts,
six Kentuckies, or four Georgias ! Place it east
of the Mississippi, and it will cover Mississippi, Al-
abama, Georgia, South Carolina, ISTorth Carolina
and Tennessee.

(b) The greatness of area is even exceeded by
the greatness of resources. Her lands are of every
conceivable variety. Possibly the United States
contains no soil but can be duplicated by Texas.
The vast acreage taken as a whole is doubtless the
richest in the world. Every variety of crops can
be grown on her fertile valleys and broad prairies.

The Great West 169

Her cattle ranches are the marvel of the world.
Her oil fields just opening up are fabulous. Her
cotton crop is now larger than the entire cotton
crop of the United States at the beginning of the
Civil War. She now furnishes one-third of all the
cotton raised in the United States, and the time may
come when she will drive her sister states out of
the cotton market, and undertake the contract for
supplying the world. Her minerals are as yet an
unknown quantity. In 1860, Texas had about 300
miles of railroad ; at present she has nearly 11,000
miles, more than any State in the Union except Illi-
nois and Pennsylvania, which have each about the
same amount.

According to Dr. Strong in " Our Country "
Texas is capable of supporting the entire popula-
tion of the United States. " After allowing, say,
50,000 square miles for ' desert,' Texas could have
produced all our food crops in 1879 — grown as we
have seen, on 164,215 square miles of land — could
have raised the world's supply of cotton, 12,000,000
bales, at one bale to the acre, on 19,000 square
miles and then have had remaining for a cattle
ranch a territory larger than the State of New
York. Place the population of the United States
in 1890 all in Texas, and it would not be as dense
as that of Italy ; and if it were as crowded as Eng-
land, this one State would contain 129,000,000
souls ! "

At present her school lands amounting to thou-
sands of square miles are leased by great cattle
corporations for the largest ranches in the world,

lyo At Our Own Door

but the influx of population is crowding westward,
and as these leases are expiring they are being
opened up for farming purposes, which will in a
few years decrease the grazing lands but add im-
mensely to the agricultural acreage and the popu-
lation of the country.

(c) The country has its silver question, negro
problem, immigration peril, but Texas has prob-
lems peculiarly her own. Life is at its flood tide
in Texas. Business opportunities are so great, that
it is most difficult to hold back the entire popula-
tion from being engulfed in the vortex of com-
mercialism. For many years the State has been
afflicted with a most undesirable type of citizen-
ship. It has been the asylum for the criminal
classes from all the older States in the Union. To
convert them from lawlessness and assimilate them
into the body politic is no small contract, espe-
cially as most of them are isolated from the restrain-
ing and moral influences of home life. Add to
these the 100,000 Mexicans coming across the
border with their low standard of morality and
their idolatrous rites practiced in the name of re-
ligion, and the problem becomes still more compli-
cated.

{d) The church must face all these conditions.
Yet in spite of these difficulties and obstacles the
Gospel is having some of its greatest triumphs in
Texas. Based upon the oldest records of religious
work in Texas, we gather the following facts :

Kev. P. H. FuUen wider was the father of Texas
Presbyterianism ;

The Great West 171

Rev. Hugh Wilson, the great organizer and
teacher ;

Eev. Dr. Daniel Baker, the great evangelist, who
laid the foundations of religious work and churches
in many sections and made Austin College the
child of his tenderest care ; and Rev. J. W. Miller
the wise counsellor and teacher.

From the most humble beginning, consider the
great progress of Presbyterianism in Texas by a
comparison of the past fifty years-
Just fifty years ago — in 1853 — when there was
a total of 72,000 communicants in the Southern
Presbyterian Church, Texas contained only 700 —
less than one one-hundredth of the whole number.
In 1903 Texas had over 20,000, out of a total of
235,000 — nearly one-tenth of the whole. Fifty
years ago Texas contained twenty-five Presby-
terian ministers and three small presbyteries.
Now in half a century this little handful, like
Jacob's company, has become " two bands." The
three presbyteries have grown to ten, and the
twenty-five ministers have multiplied into 187. In
this same period the strength of Presbyterianism
has increased nearly thirtyfold in Texas, while in
the country east of the Mississippi, it has increased
only threefold. Presbyterianism has grown twice
as fast in Texas as the population, the latter in-
creasing fifteenfold and the Church thirtyfold.
If we add to this the three thousand communi-
cants of the Northern Presbyterian Church and
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (more than
equal to the Southern) we may safely say, that

172 At Our Own Door

Texas contains fifty thousand Presbyterians. It is
a matter of great surprise to learn that Texas con-
tains more Presbyterian churches than any South-
ern synod, except Virginia, but that synod is com-
posed of three States, Virginia, West Virginia and
Maryland. The synod of Virginia leads with 469
churches, while Texas contains 390. North Caro-
lina with the largest Presbyterian membership of
any Southern State is a close second with 386. It
will thus be seen that no money which has been
contributed to religious purposes has produced
more liberal returns than that expended on Texas ;
and it is now being repaid with compound interest.
Fifty years ago Texas Presbyterians gave to all
the causes of benevolence less than $6,000. Now
in just half a century they are giving $260,000 —
more than fortyfold. By actual calculation Texas
is leading the whole church in liberality. The
Synod of Virginia with 43,000 members gives the
largest aggregate, $423,127, an average of $9.74
per member. Texas comes next in the total
amount. Its 20,336 members gave $258,412—
being $12,21 per member. Kentucky and South
Carolina have each about the same membership as
Texas ; yet Kentucky reports only $188,049, and
South Carolina $144,209. The money expended
on Texas from the home mission treasury comes
back to the church with interest, as Texas now con-
tributes more to foreign missions than she draws
for her vast home mission field.

" Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number
the fourth part of Israel ? " But the time is coming

The Great West 173

when Texas will far outnumber Israel in her palm-
iest days. Texas will one day contain as many
people as the United States now numbers. If the
present rate of increase continues, and the church
can furnish the men and means for still greater
aggressiveness, we may confidently expect with the
blessing of God, that the time will come when
Texas will contain more Presbyterians than can
be reckoned at present in the entire Southern
Church.

In his first address and publication on home
missions, the present Secretary said : " As goes
the United States so goes the world ; as goes the
West so goes the United States ; and Texas is a
tremendous factor in the west ; so that Texas may
play no mean part in influencing the destiny of the
world in the future. Alexander the Great wept
for more worlds to conquer but the Presbyterian
Church might well be content for awhile, if it
could conquer the great Empire State of the West
for Christ." The east must evangelize Texas, or
this mighty giant may turn on us a current of un-
godliness, which will shake the foundations of our
civilization as the vandal hordes of the north
overturned the civilization of the Roman Empire.
In Texas it is now " Flood Tide " and we " must
take the current when it serves or lose our ven-
tures.'' Texas is another name for opportunity ;
and opportunity spells r-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-i-l-i-t-y. If we
wait " till the harvest is past," " the summer will
be ended," and the opportunity gone forever.

2. Passing by the Indian Territory, the most

174 At Our Own Door

promising home mission field in the West, which
has been considered in connection with the Indians,
our attention is claimed next by Oklahoma, its
twin Territory, the newest frontier, whose develop-
ment reads like a tale of the Arabian Nights.
Once it was " the Great American Desert," which
according to Dr. Strong, " seems to have become
a fugitive and vagabond on the face of the earth,"
now it is called Oklahoma, which means " Beauti-
ful Land." Few people perhaps are aware of the
fact that Oklahoma owes its existence to the
Southern Confederacy. The Creeks and Seminoles
held claims upon this territory, but owing to their
sympathies with the South in the war, the gov-
ernment decided that these claims were forfeited,
and their land reverted to the government, and
became a part of the " public lands." It contains
about 40,000 square miles, being larger than any
New England State and only one-third less than
Georgia or Florida, the largest States east of the
Mississippi.

Before the northern section was opened in April,
1889, several organized attempts were made to
force entrance into this " Beautiful Land " and
were defeated only by government troops.

No worse method of opening the country could
have been devised. At the firing of a signal gun
at twelve o'clock the mad rush began, and the men
or women who drove down the first stake had
legal titles to the lot. Richard Harding Davis at-
tempts a description of this confusion confounded :
" These modern pilgrims stand in rows twenty feet

The Great West ij^

deep, separated from the Promised Land, not by an
ocean, but by a line sci'atched in the earth with
the point of a soldier's bayonet. The long row
toeing this line are bending forward, panting with
excitement, and looking with eager eyes towards
this new Kingdom ; the women with dresses tucked
up to their knees, the men stripped of coats and
waistcoats for the coming race.

" And then, a trumpet call, answered by a thou-
sand hungry yells from all along the line, and hun-
dreds of men and women on foot and on horse-
back, break away across the prairie, the stronger
pushing down the weak, and those on horseback
riding over, and in some instances killing, those on
foot, in a mad, unseemly race for something they
are getting for nothing. These pilgrims do not
drop on one knee to give thanks decorously as did
Columbus, according to the twenty dollar bills, but
fall on both knees and hammer stakes into the
ground, and pull them up again, and drive them
down somewhere else at the place, which they hope
will eventually become a corner lot, facing the
post-office, and drag up the next man's stake and
threaten him with a Winchester, because he is on
their land, which they have owned for the last
three minutes."

In September, 1893, the Cherokee Strip was
opened in the same manner amid still wilder scenes
while 200,000 fought and struggled at the risk of
life and limb for "a claim" in this new country.

Dr. Clark in " Leavening the Nation " gives an
account of an eye-witness : " The horsemen and

176 At Our Own Door

those in light vehicles were lined within a 100 foot
strip along the border for miles, and the heavier
teams loaded with merchandise of all sorts, lumber,
household goods, tents, buildings fitted and ready
to be put together, barrels of water, stacks of cooked
food were ranged in the rear to follow the owners
who were to race for claims and town lots. On
the railway were forty palace stock cars attached
to three engines. As this train moved into posi-
tion, it was literally filled and covered, sides and
top, with living humanity, as fast as men and
women impelled by wildest frenzy, could scramble
into place. Every part of the cow-catchers and
engines were black with men anxious to be near
the front, to jump and get a little advantage.
Eleven minutes before twelve o'clock, a false sig-
nal was given, and in less time than I can pen it
the prairie was alive with the myriad racers. The
few soldiers were utterly powerless to stop the
rush, and away in the distance went the wild
crowd. The rush and the roar of thousands, the
whistle of engines, and the rumbling of the im-
mense trains, the shouts of the excited drivers, the
noise of the moving wheels, the rearing and tossing
and neighing of excited horses, the discharge of
firearms in every direction and the clouds and clouds
of dust, raised by this moving mass, all conspired
to make impressions from those who witnessed
the grand and awful scene, never to be erased.
Thousands of men and some women jumped or rolled
or fell from the train, running at the rate of twelve
or fifteen miles an hour, to secure a claim or lot.

The Great West 177

Some broke an arm or leg or both ; a few Avere
killed. Many got more real estate upon their faces
and persons than they had to keep, or sell that
night. Others were rewarded by getting splendid
claims and valuable lots for their efforts and risks.
The Rock Island Right of Way is fenced through
the strip with a five wired barbed fence. Through
this, most found a serious difficulty in making their
way. I saw one man with a big piece out of his
trousers ; he said he hung on the fence and vainly
struggled to extricate himself, while a woman
crawled through and got the claim he was after.
One man leaped the fence, struck his flag in a
choice piece of ground, and then pulled out a skirt
and sun-bonnet from under his coat and donned
them. Women's rights are respected on the western
plains, he argued with himself. Two young men
and a young woman raced for the same claim. She
caught in a fatal wire. The rival male claimants
staked at the same moment. They then ran and
extricated the struggling lass, took her stake and
drove it into the ground, pulled theirs up, lifted their
hats and went to seek other quarter sections."

" The Minute Man on the Frontier " enriches the
description with the following incident : " In one
case a portly woman, taking the tortoise plan of
slow and steady, reached the best section, while
the men still hung in the fence like victims of a
butcher bird. It is said of one young woman, who
made the run on horseback, that reaching a town
site her horse stumbled and she was thrown vio-
lently to the ground and stunned. A passing man

178 At Our Own Door

jumped off his horse and sprinkled her face with
water from his canteen ; and as she revived, the
first thing she said was, ' This is my lot.'

" ' No, you don't,' said the man. But to settle it
they went to law, and the court decided in favor
of the woman, as she struck the ground first."

The Southern section was opened in August,
1901, the towns and their sites being sold at public
auction and the quarter sections assigned by lot-
tery. Men were compelled to make oath that they
were not owners of land elsewhere. They regis-
tered at El Keno and Lawton for the drawing, and
the man drawing the first number was allowed to
take choice of sections, etc. The lots of the pro-
spective town of Lawton, at that time a prairie,
sold at auction for $600,000. The present Secre-
tary of home missions visited Lawton two months
after entering office and saw the town a month old,
variously estimated at from 10,000 to 20,000 thou-
sand people. Banks, newspapers, barrooms and
churches began their career under tents ; and lum-
ber was selling at $30 a thousand. Of the eighty
barrooms which sprang up like magic, one adver-
tised itself handsomely at the expense of the tem-
perance crusader, as flying from the tent pole its
flag announced : " All Nations Welcome Except
Carrie."

Munsey's Magazine for May, 1903, gives the fol-
lowing origin of the town of Thomas : On board
an excursion train going into Oklahoma, a Town
Site Commission was formed. The train was
stopped at a suitable place, and the site laid out.

The Great West 179

Before night the town had a saloon, a grocery, a
half-dozen law offices, and a daily paper issued
from its own plant ! The present taxable value of
Oklahoma is $60,000,000 ; whilst the wheat crop
of 1902 amounts to 25,000,000 bushels and the corn
crop 60,000,000. During 1902 at least 30,000 peo-
ple settled in the Territory.

The Committee which appeared before Congress
to urge Statehood was able to make the following
showing :

Without including the Indian Territory the new
State would exceed twelve States of the Union in
size and nine in population, while in resources it
could boast 144 banks, twenty-two daily newspa-
pers, a University and 1,500 miles of railroad.

Dr. Clark in " Leavening the Nation " sums up
the religious progress of Oklahoma as follows :

" Let it be remembered that this Territory is only
thirteen years old. ' The oldest girl born in Okla-
homa is not out of short dresses.' Between 1890
and 1900 the population advanced from 61,834 to
398,245, a gain of 500 per cent., surpassing all other
records for that decade, and probably for any dec-
ade in the history of American settlement. The
growth of religious forces has kept pace with the
march of population. Already Oklahoma has 200
religious organizations, representing a church mem-
bership of over 6,000. More than eighty Congre-
gational churches have been planted, with their Sun-
day-schools, Endeavor Societies, and their more than
3,000 communicants. Thirty Presbyterian churches
have taken a good start. Baptists, Methodists and

i8o At Our Own Door

Episcopal missions are represented by fifty more.
Colleges and academies have sprung up in the path
of these religious movements, as they always will."

The Southern Church only entered the field in
1902 and is confining its operations to the newer
southern section. Its evangelists have already or-
ganized several churches, and are preaching regu-
larly at other stations.

" The Minute Man on the Frontier " says, " A
church could be organized every day in the year,
and not trespass on any one's work," The desti-
tution may be judged by this fact stated by Dr.
Doyle : " In one western State, in 1901, the Presby-
terian Church entered seven regions in which up
to that time no church of any kind had been doing
any religious work."

The success of home missions in the west is evi-
dent from the fact that Secretary Thompson of the
Presbyterian Church acknowledges that nine-
tenths of all their churches are of home missionary
origin ; and the Presbyterian Church for that rea-
son is especially strong in the "West.

3. New Mexico is part of the Territory, ceded
by Mexico to the United States in the Treaty of
1848, and an area larger than all of New England
and New York combined. It shares with Florida
the honor of being the oldest country settled in
the United States, dating back within forty years
of the discovery of America by Columbus, The
oldest house in the United States is said to be lo-
cated in Santa Fe, the capital and second oldest
City in America. The writer a few years ago in

The Great West i8l

studying the comparative religious statistics of the
census of 1890 was amazed to find that JSTew Mex-
ico stood at the very head of the list of states, in
having the largest church membership in propor-
tion to population. The explanation lies in the
fact that the whole country is nominally Eoman
Catholic. It is really a foreign land in the United
States and differs very little from Mexico itself,
containing together with Texas most of the Mex-
icans in the United States. It is the home like-
wise of the Pueblo Indians, 8,000 in number, a
quiet, peaceable people, whose religion is a mixture
of Catholicism and paganism. It possesses a pe-
culiar order of religious fanatics called Penitentes,
probably the successors of the old Spanish Flagel-
lants, who early came into this country, with as-
cetic practices and superstitious ceremonies. On
Good Friday it is said they carry a huge cross to
a distant hill and represent in a rude way the cru-
cifixion of Christ ; it is sometimes even charged
that they have crucified one of their number. Few
Americans know perhaps that the Passion Play is
thus coarsely represented in our own land. They
strip themselves to the waist and lash themselves
with whips until the blood flows freely, and some
have died under these self-inflicted scourges.

It is a beautiful country of mountains and val-
leys, caiions and parks ; the climate is dry and
salubrious attracting many invalids in search of
health. Its precious metals are valuable and its
fruits among the finest in the world. On account
of the scarcity of rainfall the crops are confined to

i82 At Our Own Door

the valleys, but are capable of supporting any num-
ber of cattle and sheep. Here the Montezumas
ruled the most civilized and enlightened of all the
aborigines. Here the Spaniards and Catholics
have ruled for 300 years without making any ad-
vance in science, industry, education or religion.
At the time it became a part of American Terri-
tory it possessed but one school in all its wide do-
mains. It furnishes a fine field for foreign mis-
sions at home among its 122,000 population. The
Presbyterian Church has established a number of
splendid schools that are leavening and elevating
gradually the whole Territory.

Kev. Joseph B. Clark sums up the result of re-
ligious effort in the following language :

" Presbyterian missions in New Mexico reflect
honor upon the wisdom and diligence of their
Board. Their work includes three presbyteries
in the Synod of New Mexico, sixty-two organized
congregations, — of which twenty-seven are Amer-
ican, twenty-nine Mexican, — with a total member-
ship of 3,500. There are thirty-eight ordained
missionaries, twenty-two evangelists and helpers,
sixty commissioned teachers and 1,500 enrolled
pupils. These congregations have raised during the
past year $29,000 for missions and church expenses.

" Methodists show a total of sixty organizations,
forty-two churches, and 2,500 communicants. Bap-
tists, Congregationalists and Episcopalians are
doing a smaller work, but of the same kind, educa-
tional and religious combined, and with constant
and most cheering tokens of success."

The Great West 183

The conditions in Arizona do not differ essen-
tially from those found in New Mexico ; this same
mixed population, only larger relative proportion
of American settlers, drawn thither by the richer
mines and larger possibilities of the soil.

The Southern Church entered the field a few
years ago and met with immediate success, but
from lack of funds to prosecute the work has not
pushed it aggressively. Being a part of our own
Southland there is a tremendous obligation upon
us to give this vast section the gospel. To the
searching question of the Master, " Where is the
Mexican, thy brother ? " will we repudiate the obli-
gation by saying, " Am I my brother's keeper ? "

This brief review but touches " The Great West "
at one or two points as specimens. But " what can
the man do that cometh after the king ? " It
would seem almost presumption to attempt to add
to the forecast of Dr. Strong on the future of the
West :

" Beyond a peradventure, the West shall domi-
nate the East. With more than twice the room
and resources of the East, the West will probably
have twice the population and wealth of the East,
together with the superior power and influence
which, under popular government, accompany
them. The West will elect the executive and con-
trol education. When the centre of population
crosses the Mississippi, the West will have a
majority in the Lower House, and sooner or later
the partition of her great Territories, and probably
some of the States, will give to the West the con-

184 At Our Own Door

trol of the Senate. When Texas is as densely-
peopled as New England, it is hardly to be sup-
posed that her millions will be content to see the
62,000 square miles east of the Hudson send twelve
senators to the seat of government, when her terri-
tory of 262,000 sends only two. The West will
direct the policy of the government, and by virtue
of her preponderating population and influence
will determine our national character, and, there-
fore, destiny.

" Since prehistoric times populations have moved
steadily westward, as De Tocqueville said, ' as if
driven by the mighty hand of God.' And follow-
ing their migrations the course of empire, which
Bishop Berkeley sang, has westward taken its way.
The world's sceptre passed from Persia to Greece,
from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Great Britain,
and from Great Britain the sceptre is to-day de-
parting. It is passing on to ' Greater Britain,' to
our Mighty West, there to remain, for there is no
further west ; beyond is the Orient. Like the
star in the East, which guided the three kings
with their treasures westward, until it stood still
over the cradle of the infant Christ, so the star of
empire, rising in the East has ever beckoned the
wealth and power of the nations westward, until
to-day it stands still over the cradle of the young
Empire of the West, to which the nations are
bringing their offerings.

" The West is to-day an infant, but shall be a
giant, in each of whose limbs shall unite the
strength of many nations."

IX

THE PROBLEM OF MISSIONS— FOES

Church history has impressed no lesson more
forcibly than the fact, that it is easier to evan-
gelize a nation than to maintain the purity of the
truth. It is easier to conquer a country for Christ
than to hold it for Christ. "Where is Jerusalem,
the Mother Church ? Where is Antioch, that sent
out Paul and Barnabas, the first distinctive foreign
missionaries ? Where is the Church of Asia Minor,
that had its Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia, etc. ?
Where is North Africa, with her great churches of
Alexandria, Hippo, etc., that contained in the
early days of Christianity a thousand (Presbyte-
rian) bishops ? In all the region around the Medi-
terranean, where Christianity had its earliest and
grandest triumphs, in all Bible Lands, Mohammed-
anism has uprooted Christianit}'', and from hun-
dreds of minarets and towers 200,000,000 followers
of the " false Prophet " hear the call : " God is
God and there is no God but God, and Mohammed
is His prophet." Geneva, the home of John Cal-
vin, is now the home of Eationalism. The origi-
nal Presbyterian Church of England is now Uni-
tarian. Many of the largest sections of the once
Christian church are now apostate and anti-
Christ.

»8s

l86 At Our Own Door

Will history repeat itself in the United States ?
It may be thought that in our " Christian country "
with its splendid civilization, material development
and great religious organizations, there is no
danger of degeneration ; and yet the danger may
lie just in the direction of our splendid civilization
and material progress. The church is being over-
organized and cumbered with machinery till in
danger of breaking beneath its own weight.
Machinery is being substituted for spirituality.
Culture is more in evidence than piety. The
church is becoming "rich and increased with
goods" and in danger of becoming satisfied.
Commercialism and worldliness are sapping in
many places the life of the church. As long as
the church was poor and persecuted she was spirit-
ual and aggressive. As soon as Constantine en-
throned her in the palace of the Caesars, she lost
her spirituality and power largely, ceasing to bear
witness to the truth. The logical result was
" The Dark Ages " ; the remedy was " The Kefor-
mation."

It may be that America is the world's last great
problem. It may be that here the forces of good
and evil are gathering for a last gigantic struggle,
the spiritual Arma-Geddon. Are we not already
in the midst of perilous times ? Is not the adver-
sary already marshalling his forces for the fray ?
Intemperance, that annually fills a hundred thou-
sand graves with its victims and consumes a billion
dollars of the country's wealth, is a huge monster
of iniquity, but is not the most dangerous foe of

The Problem of Missions — Foes 187

Cliristianity. It is an open, avowed, hideous evil.
The more subtle, dangerous foe is Satan trans-
formed into "An Angel of light," not so much
anti-Chrisi as a false Christ, offering a substitute
for the Gospel of Christ, preaching "another
Gospel which is not another." The struggle for
this country is fierce and uncompromising, between
good and evil, between Satan propagating his
" gospel of dirt " by false prophets, and Christianity
propagating its faith by home missions.

Has the world ever witnessed such a propaganda
of falsehood as the Christian Science craze ? A
woman of questionable reputation, divorced from
her husband, discovers a new gospel in 1866, which
she promulgates at Boston. Laughed at and ridi-
culed at first on account of its absurdities and
questionable morality, it at length becomes a fad
among a certain type of society women for the lack
of better employment and newer sensational ex-
citement. Just the opposite of the Gospel of
Christ which was "preached to the poor," this
spurious gospel is preached almost exclusively to
the indolent rich. Propagated chiefly by women
preachers and so-called " healers," who have made
merchandise of souls and grown rich by practicing
on nervous, hysterical and credulous people, ac-
cepted at first largely by cranks and unbalanced
minds, it has obtained a foothold in almost every
section of the country. The Christ of God " had
not where to lay His head," and was crucified by
the world. This false Christ of Boston has amassed
millions of dollars by the sale of her book (which

i88 At Our Own Door

must always be purchased as a condition of being
healed, making her " healers " without exception
her book agents) ; and she herself has been deified
as " Our Mother," as much an object of idolatrous
worship by her dupes as is " Our Lady " by
papists.

As a system of philosophy (" science, falsely so
called " ), it is heathen Pantheism, redressed in
semi-religious garb, and baptized under a new
name. It is a false gospel that denies the exist-
ence of sin, which in theory denies, and in practice
admits, the existence of pain, which merges self in
God and converts God into a sentimental " Father-
hood and Motherhood," which takes away from us
a personal Christ and gives us an abstract idea in-
stead. Its rapid spread cannot be accounted for
upon any rational principle, for it is contrary to
reason. It is a delusion of the devil that spreads
as contagion. It manifests that zeal which is so
characteristic of falsehood.

Its literature is plaguing the country like the
frogs of Egypt. Our railroad depots are flooded and
public libraries are infested with it. In one of our
great cities " The Public Library," founded by
philanthropists and public spirited citizens now in
their graves, has been prostituted by its present
directors in the service of this slime of the pit, and
over the door of this Public Building the writer
saw in flaming characters " Christian Science
Reading Room," During one of the largest State
Fairs in the South, where the crowd was esti-
mated at 40,000 people, the writer saw no evangel-

The Problem of Missions — Foes 189

ical church distributing the principles of its faith,
but there were the propagators of this substitute
for the gospel, thrusting their literature into the
faces of all passers-by.

Mark Twain may laugh it out of court, philos-
ophers may demonstrate its absurdity, preachers
of the gospel may show that it is utterly subver-
sive of the gospel and morality, the funerals of its
" patients " and the death of its devotees may be
in evidence in every community ; and yet it goes
on unblushingly denying the existence of suffering
and sin, collecting its fees from fresh victims, and
making new converts by a species of hypnotism
peculiarly its own. The Church cannot longer af-
ford to ignore it, the faintest toleration of it is un-
faithfulness to the Truth, and to Christ. The
Church must meet it squarely and unhesitatingly,
by teaching the truth which neutralizes it ; and by
its home mission operations in occupying the
ground, effectually shut it out of new communi-
ties and circumscribe the sphere of its operations.

" Out of the mouth of the false prophet " — the
time was when the application of this language
pointed to Mohammed. The church has come to
recognize the fact that no individual can embody
within himself exclusively the character and office
of " False Prophet." He is the teacher of a false
gospel, whether Mohammed, Swedenborg, Madame
Blavatsky, Mary Baker Glover Eddy, or Joseph
Smith, the founder of the " Church of the Latter
Day Saints," popularly known as Mormonism.

The history of the latter is unique. Kev. Solo-

190 At Our Own Door

mon Spaulding, a Presbyterian minister, adopted
the fanciful theory that the Indians were the de-
scendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and
constructed a romance, embodying and maintain-
ing that idea entitled " The Manuscript Found."
It was written in imitation of Scripture language,
containing frequently such expressions as " It
came to pass." Having tried in vain to find a pub-
lisher, this manuscript lay several years in the
office of the Presbyterian Banner. Sidney Rig-
don, a Baptist minister, employed in the Banner
office and afterwards a prominent Mormon, had
this manuscript in possession for a time and made
a copy of it.

In some way it came into the possession of Jo-
seph Smith, an obscure and illiterate man, native
of Vermont, then residing near Palmyra, New
York. Pretending to have been divinely guided
by celestial visions and voices, he claimed to have
found certain golden plates, which were written
in " Egyptian," but translated by himself and
given to the world as the " Book of Mormon," the
Bible of the Latter Day Saints. If anything can
be proved by evidence, there can never be the
shadow of a doubt, that the romance written by
Spaulding and the Book of Mormon by Joseph
Smith are one and the same. It was so asserted at
the time by numbers of persons in that community
who had access to both. It was testified by Mrs.
McKinstry, the daughter of Spaulding. The evi-
dence was so damaging that one Hurlburt, accord-
ing to the sworn statement of Mrs. McKinstry,

The Problem of Missions — Foes igi

borrowed the original manuscript under the pre-
tense of comparing it with the Book of Mormon.
The manuscript was destroyed, probably in the in-
terest of Mormon ism, and the evidence led to the
conclusion that Hurlburt was himself a Mormon.

" The Book of Mormon has been supplemented
by * The Book of Doctrines and Covenants.' This
book contains the revelations to Joseph Smith and
Brigham Young. These, with the Bible, form the
Mormon Scriptures. They consider the Old Tes-
tament as being specially for the Jews, the New
Testament for the Judaic and European Christian
Church, the Book of Mormon for the American
Christian Church, and the Book of Doctrines and
Covenants specially for themselves.

" The history of the development and spread of
Mormonism has been most remarkable. The Mor-
mon religion, if it may be so called, began with the
experiences and achievements of Joseph Smith.
January 18, 1829, he married Emma Hale against
her parents' wishes. The Mormon church was or-
ganized April 6, 1830, at Fayette, Seneca County,
New York, at the home of a convert named Whit-
mer. Six members were enrolled — the prophet,
two of his brothers, two "Whitmers and Oliver
Cowdery, a school-teacher. Cowdery had become
Smith's amanuensis in 1829. On May 15, 1829,
by the command of an angelic messenger, who
called himself John the Baptist, Smith baptized
Cowdery and Cowdery baptized him. Afterwards
they ordained each other to the Aaronic Priest-
hood. Smith later received the Melchizedec

192 At Our Own Door

Priesthood from the apostles, John, James and
Peter. In December, 1830, Sidney Rigdon, who
had secured for Smith the copy of ' The Manuscript
Found,' announced himself as a convert. ' Rig-
don was erratic, but eloquent ; self opinionated, but
versed in the Scriptures ; and in literary culture
and intellectual force was the greatest man among
the early Mormons.' From this point on the sect
grew very rapidly " (Dr. Sherman Doyle).

Various places became the rendezvous of the
saints. From Kirkland, Ohio, to Jackson County,
Mo., they passed. Driven from community to
community till finally they founded Nauvoo on
the Mississippi. Joseph Smith continued to receive
" revelations," and when at Kauvoo the spiritual
wife doctrine was announced it caused great indig-
nation. The office building of the Expositor^
the opposition paper to Mormonism was burned.
Redress was sought in court, and finally Joseph
Smith, the leader, was thrown into prison at Car-
thage, Mo., where a mob attacked the jail, and
Smith was murdered. It was exceedingly unfor-
tunate ; for it converted a fakir into a martyr. It
aroused the saints and gave them a stronger and
wiser leader in Brigham Young, who led them
overland a journey of 1,100 miles to Utah, where
they established a flourishing colony in the beauti-
ful valley of the Great Salt Lake. They organized
the State of "Deseret" signifying the "Honey
Bee," but on account of its polygamous practices it
was refused admission to the Union. The United
States organized it into a Territory, but it required

The Problem of Missions — Foes 193

government troups to maintain the authority of
the National Government. The State of Utah has
been recently admitted to the Union, upon the
adoption of a constitution forbidding polygamy,
but it is still encouraged and practiced. With
Mormon juries, courts and officials it is almost im-
possible to convict a polygamist.

Ecclesiastically, it is a hierarchy of the most
despotic order. It is both church and state, whose
ambition is to control the National Government,
as effectually as it dominates Utah. Tithing is es-
tablished by law and binding upon every member
of the Mormon Church. This brings in an enor-
mous income of $1,000,000 annually for the sup-
port of the machine and for the propagation of
their faith in other sections. As an organization
it controls its members as completely as the Jesuit
Order and by methods as disreputable. Brigham
Young decided that a lie might be told in the in-
terest of the church. Each must spend several
years in missionary work if commanded. They
" say to one man go, and he goeth, and to another
man come, and he cometh." Their agents are all
over the world, making proselytes, shipping them
to Utah, who must refund such expenses as soon
as possible.

The writer and friends met one in Berne, Switzer-
land, in 1895. After a most gushing welcome to
his countrymen from America, with many expres-
sions of pleasure at the meeting, the following con-
versation took place almost verbatim :

" What is your occupation here in Switzerland ? "

194 At Our Own Door

" I am a missionary."
" What church do you represent ? "
" The church of the Latter Day Saints."
Our telltale countenances expressive of disap-
pointment and disgust caused this " missionary "
immediately to add :

" And I am very proud of my church."
Whereupon, Dr. W. T. Thompson, now of Wash-
ington, D. C, ventured to inquire, " Are you
equally proud of the Mountain Meadow Massacre ? "
To which he promptly replied : " The public has
never understood our position in that affair. We
heard a report that this party had formed an alli-
ance with the Indians to murder our people. So
we killed them as we believed in self-defense." As
we all boarded the train for Geneva, he excused
himself from our company, saying he always trav-
elled third-class, and remarked, " the only reason
I do not travel fourth-class is because there is no
fourth-class."

The Presbyterians, Baptists and Congregational-
ists have issued an Indictment of " Ten Keasons
Why Christians Cannot Fellowship with the Mor-
mon Church," which has been condensed by Dr. J.
B. Clark as follows :

"1. The Mormon Church unchurches all
Christians.

2. The Mormon Church places the Book of
Mormon and the Book of Doctrines
and Covenants on a par with the
Bible, equally inspired and binding.

The Problem of Missions — Foes 195

3. The Mormon Church makes Joseph Smith

a Prophet of God, and all who reject
him, heretics.

4. The Mormon Church makes faith in the

Mormon Priesthood essential to salva-
tion, and denial of its authority a
damnable sin.

5. The Mormon Church teaches a doctrine

of God that is anti-scriptural, dishonor-
able to the divine Being and debasing
to man.

6. The Mormon Church teaches that Adam

is God, and that Jesus Christ is his son
by natural generation.

7. The Mormon Church is polytheistic. It

teaches the plurality of gods.

8. The Mormon Church teaches an anti-

biblical doctrine of salvation.

9. The Mormon Church believes in polyg-

amy. The doctrine is to them both
sacred and fundamental.

10. The Mormon Church teaches that God is
a polygamist " (Leavening the Nation).

" If there be any doubt as to the designs of the
Mormons, let the testimony of Bishop Lunt be
conclusive on that point. He said in 1880 : * Like
a grain of mustard seed was the truth planted in
Zion ; and it is destined to spread through all the
world. Our church has been organized only fifty
years, and yet behold its wealth and power. This
is our year of jubilee. "We look forward with per-
fect confidence to the day when we will hold the

196 At Our Own Door

reins of United States Government. That is our
present temporal aim ; after that, we expect to con-
trol the Continent.' When told that such a scheme
seemed rather visionary, in view of the fact that
Utah cannot gain recognition as a state, the Bishop
replied : ' Do not be deceived ; we are looking
after that. We do not care for these territorial
officials sent out to govern us. They are nobodies
here. We do not recognize them, neither do we
fear any practical interference by Congress. We
intend to have Utah recognized as a State. To-
day we hold the balance of political power in
Idaho, we rule Utah absolutely, and in a very short
time, we will hold the balance of power in Ari-
zona and Wyoming ' " (Our Country).

Socially, Mormonism is a blot upon our country
and a disgrace to civilization ; politically it is a
menace to any government ; religiously it is a delu-
sion, but propagated with the characteristic zeal
of the fanatic and bigot.

It is a well-known fact that they have recently
acquired vast tracts of land in northern Mexico
and are now undertaking to plant colonies on
them.

If they were content to confine their operations
to the West that would be peril enough for our
country, but they are invading the East, and oper-
ating in all parts of the world, having an aggre-
gate membership at present of three hundred
thousand. Presbyterians send twenty-two mission-
aries to Utah ; whilst the Mormons send 2,000 to
every nook and corner of our country !

The Problem of Missions — Foes 197

" Mormonism makes practically no proselytes
among its gentile neighbors. Its progress is the
result of its persistent missionary work. In 1901
officers of the Mormon Church claimed that from
1,400 to 1,900 emissaries of the church of the
Latter Day Saints were in the field. The East is
permeated with their influence. They enter a
Christian Church in Harlem, New York, and their
specious arguments capture members and officers
of its Christian Endeavor Society, who forthwith
emigrate to Utah ; they call from house to house
in Pennsylvania, and even the descendants of
Scotch Covenanters are not proof against their
wiles ; they penetrate the coves of the Blue Ridge
and the AUeghanies, seeming Angels of Light
to the secluded inhabitants. They take service in
families, the better to carry forward their work.
A Mormon butler actually induced sixty servant
girls to go to Utah by the promise of husbands
and homes.

" The English manufacturing towns are promising
fields. The people are ignorant, superstitious and
poor, and the offer of a building lot, or a farm, is
very attractive. In the six years beginning with
1840, 3,750 Mormon immigrants came from Great
Britain alone. No law can prevent this unless the
incomers admit that they are polygamists — and
that contingency, of course, is carefully guarded
against. In fact, the doctrine of polygamy is
usually kept in the background, if not denied,
until a new convert reaches Utah. 'When we
dare,' said an apostle, speaking of missionary work

198 At Our Own Door

in Japan, ' we preach the doctrine of plural mar-
riage.' . . .

" Three hundred American mormons are reported
as attending the dedication of a Mormon Temple
in Copenhagen. The Book of Mormon has been
translated unto fourteen different languages, in-
cluding German, French, Danish, Italian, Dutch,
"Welsh, Swedish, Spanish, Hawaiian, Hindostanee,
Maori, Samoian and Tahitian" (Under Our Flag).

One of the great dailies in Atlanta recently an-
nounced that there are more Mormon elders at
work in Georgia than Presbyterian ministers. The
writer was in Baltimore recently and read a call
in one of the papers for a meeting of ministers
and others interested, to take action in regard to
Mormons preaching in that city ; and he stood on
the streets of Macon, Ga., and saw the Great Mor-
mon Convention, as it adjourned, and watched
them as they scattered two by two in all directions
to propagate their infamous doctrines. Once they
glided stealthily, through rural districts, and fron-
tier settlements, but now they preach boldly on the
streets of Atlanta and infest our great cities and
the very strongholds of our faith. To counteract
and thwart them, is one special mission of home
missions. The Presbyterians and Congregation-
alists are gaining a foothold in Utah by means of
schools and missions; but it is too late to send
missionaries after the proselytes have been shipped
to Utah. The Church must meet these emissaries
in every community. Other communities must be
preempted against them by being occupied for

The Problem of Missions — Foes 199

Christ so thoroughly through home missions, that
these emissaries will find an uncongenial atmos-
phere.

" Why did not the Mormons effect a settlement
in Illinois or Missouri, where they first attempted
to found a home for their pernicious doctrine and
strange practices ? Because the ground was oc-
cupied by a better class of citizens who abhorred
the vicious tenents of the Mormons and bitterly
opposed their progress. So this anomalous sect
sought a home farther west where the foot of the
white man had hardly trod. There they created
a great commonwealth of ignorant and fanatic
people under the absolute control of unscruplous
leaders, whose disregard of sound morals is
equalled only by their contempt for civil law"
(Rev. P. H. Gwinn).

If it is true as stated by Oliver Wendell Holmes
that the training of a child should begin a hun-
dred years before it is born, then the time to pre-
pare our communities against Mormonism is before
they make their appearance on the scene. No
method will be effectual till the Church in its home
mission operation exceeds the zeal of the false
apostles of this unscrupulous sect. If men are
zealous for falsehood, why is it Christians are not
more zealous for the truth ?

This chapter devoted to an expose of the enemy
has dealt with only two types, as specimens. Time
would fail to tell of Theosophists, who under the
guise of " Brotherhood of man " is seeking to in-
troduce into our country the old effete heathen

200 At Our Own Door

Buddhism of the East. One of our cities in
Georgia contains an organization of Theosophists
one hundred strong; and they have established
under the leadership of Catherine Tingley an in-
stitution in California for the propagation of this
form of heathenism in the United States. Time
would fail to tell of Spiritualists, Socialists, An-
archists, Dowieites and other foes, which antago-
nize the church and threaten godliness.

It is time the church were girding up her loins
and preparing to meet the enemy, which is " com-
ing in like a flood," if she is not only to capture
this country, but hold it for Christ, It is neces-
sary to contend not only for the faith, but for our
fair land, our home, our civilization and our relig-
ion. This is the object of home missions ; to meet
the enemy at every point ; to give the Gospel to
every community ; to plant a church in every lo-
cality ; until every dark valley is illumined, and
every mountain-top crimsoned with the glory of
the Gospel of Christ.

It must be home missions for America now / or
it may be that foreign missionaries from Japan or
New Zealand must come in the coming centuries
to tell the story of the Cross in our apostate land.

WOMAN'S WORK— FRIENDS

Will the noble, self-sacrificing women of the
Church of Christ allow the Secretary of the As-
sembly's home missions to speak a word to their
hearts for the cause of our common Lord ? Will
you consider this appeal individually for your sym-
pathy, prayers and help in the great cause of home
missions ? Will you, if possible, read this chapter
at any of the meetings of your Ladies' Societies,
and let them consider whether they cannot divide
their gifts for the cause of Christ, so as to include
the self-denying men who toil in the slums of our
cities, among the destitute mountain regions and
the scattered multitudes of the West ? Is there
not here and there a company of women who
could undertake the support of a home missionary
for the Indian Territory, Oklahoma or Texas ?

" Now, there stood by the Cross of Jesus His
mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of
Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene "—and woman has
been standing by His Cause ever since !

1. It is a question of great interest to us who
love to dwell upon and study each circumstance in
the life of Christ, how He was sustained during
His public ministry, from His baptism of consecra-
tion at its beginning until His baptism of blood at

201

202 At Our Own Door

its close. Who supported heaven's Missionary,
who not only left His native shore but descended
from a throne, laying aside His royal robes and
divine glory, to publish the gospel of salvation to
the heathen of earth, at the expense of His life ?
"Whence came the means that ministered to His
wants whilst He " went about doing good," " heal-
ing the sick," " raising the dead," " preaching the
gospel of the Kingdom," in the synagogues or pri-
vate houses, along the public highways of Pales-
tine and in populous cities, or in lonely deserts and
on mountain heights, exhibiting an unselfish, un-
worldly self-sacrificing and consecrated life, which
is the type and model of all missionary effort ?

He could not have been sustained by His family,
for the offering of His mother at her purification
(Lev. 12 : 8 and Luke 2 : 24), and the occupation
of His father, Joseph, the carpenter (Matt. 13 : 55),
indicated that the family at Nazareth were not
strangers to poverty. It could not have been fur-
nished by other members of His family or kindred,
" For neither did His brethren believe in Him "
(John Y : 5). He had no means of His own, for
" though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became
poor " (Mark 6 : 3 and 2 Corinthians 8 : 9). It
was necessary, by a miracle of knowledge, that He
should apply to the fish of the sea to obtain the
money for paying the tribute required of each Jew
for the Temple service (Matt. 17 : 24-27).

Alluding to His own poverty, how touchingly
He exclaims : " The foxes have holes, and the birds
of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not

Woman's Work — Friends 203

where to lay His head " (Matt. 8 : 20, and Luke
9 : 58). The disciples could not have ministered
unto His maintenance, for although they possessed
a treasurer, who " had the bag and bare what was
put therein," yet they were but poor fishermen,
and as they shared His manner of life and lot, must
themselves have been sustained in the same way.

He worked no miracles to satisfy His wants;
the suggestion of Satan : " Command that these
stones be made bread," He positively refused. By
miracles, on more than one occasion, He supplied
many thousands with bread, but never worked a
miracle in His own behalf. The only light which
can be thrown upon this inquiry, is that which
gleams in a few seemingly casual references by the
evangelists in their Gospels. In Luke 8 : 2, 3 there
occurs the remarkable statement that there were
certain women which had been healed of evil spir-
its and infirmities : Mary called Magdalene, out of
whom went seven devils, and Johanna, the wife of
Chusa, Herod's steward, Susanna, and many others
which " ministered unto Him of their substance^
Some of the best and most ancient manuscripts in
the latter clause read " them " instead of " him,"
thus including the disciples as objects of their min-
istrations as well as Jesus.

Matthew, in describing the various circumstances
and characters which surround the Cross of Christ
at His death, mentions (Matt. 2Y : 55) that " many
women were there, beholding afar off, which fol-
lowed Jesus from Galilee, ininistering unto Him^
among which was Mary Magdalene, etc." Mark,

204 ^^ ^"^ ^^^ Door

alluding to these women, who beheld Him cruci-
fied, explains that they were the same " who also,
when He was in Galilee, followed Him and minis-
tered unto Him " (Mark 15 : 40, 41). The word in
the Greek, translated " ministered," is the one from
which is derived our English word "Deacon."
From the infallible testimony of the sacred scrip-
tures, it is evident that Jesus, the great Itinerant,
was sustained in His work by the liberality of a
few noble, self-sacrificing, devoted women !

It is never said that any man ministered unto
Him of his substance. It is true that the Magi
brought gifts unto His manger ; that Nicodemus
brought a " mixture of myrrh and aloes " to the
cross, and that Joseph of Arimathea furnished
Him a sepulchre ; but these were at the beginning
and the close of His earthly life, and were not to
sustain Him in His work. On one occasion it is
recorded that having refused to convert stones
into bread for his use, " Behold, angels came and
ministered unto Him." Angels and women were
His ministering spirits! Angels and women are
placed in the same category, by the similarity of
their work! Oh! woman, what honor has been
attained by you! To be classed with angels!
Who have ministered unto the Son of God !
" Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world, this, also, that she
hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of
her."

2. By whom supported, and from whence comes
the means that send out missionaries of the Cross,

Woman's Work — Friends 205

both home and foreign, in this age of the Church,
who have caught the spirit of their Master, to
imitate Him in preaching the Gospel to the
heathen of every land ? Through whose liberality
comes it to pass, that every sea bears upon its
bosom the "ambassador for Christ" ; that the sun
shines upon no land where the Gospel is not now
being preached ? Who sustains the home mission-
ary on the far western plains of Texas, and amid
the hardships of the Indian Territory ? The hand
and heart of woman are conspicuous in this matter.
She who sustained the first missionary out of her
substance bears no inferior part in the work of the
Church, which characterizes, and is the glory of
the twentieth century. The magnitude of her
labor cannot be estimated, but only indicated, by
the following brief review of the operation of the
Ladies' Missionary Societies during the past hun-
dred years :

The dawn of the nineteenth century marked the
beginning of the organized work of Ladies'
Societies and Missionary effort. In 1800 fourteen
women, part of them Congregationalists and part
Baptists, organized the "Boston Female Society
for Missionary Purposes," and raised $150 the
first year. Immediately "Female Mite and Cent
Societies " sprang up all over the state. In ten
years auxiliaries had so multiplied that the an-
nual income amounted to $1,360. In 100 years
the society has raised about $175,000.

In the Presbyterian Church, Ladies' Societies
began to appear about 1860, which so multiplied

2o6 At Our Own Door

that a general conference was held at Chicago in
1870; but it was not until 1878 that the Synodical
Committees met in the Bible House and organized
the " Woman's Executive Committee of Home
Missions," which has raised in the aggregate three
and a half million dollars.

Previous to 1850 nearly fifty Ladies' Societies
had been organized among the Baptists, raising
each year about $12,000. In 1879 at Chicago all
these were consolidated under the direction of a
general society, which has raised in all $1,500,000.

It was not until 1880 that the Congregational
Societies came together to form the "Woman's
Home Missionary Association," but it is estimated
that the missionary boxes furnished to needy min-
isters by them would amount to two and a half
million dollars in value, and their gifts to church
erection, etc., were at least a half million dollars ;
whilst in their organized capacity these women
have contributed one and a half million dollars to
home missions. In the last twenty years the
ladies of the Keformed Church have given $275,-
360. The Woman's Auxiliary of the Episcopal
Church began in 1871 and has contributed the
enormous sum of five millions of dollars for
missions.

In the Southern Church, there are Ladies' Mis-
sionary Societies in almost every prominent church
and in many of the weaker, but there is no general
organization except " Presbyterial Unions," con-
fined to individual presbyteries. These contribute
annually nearly $50,000 to foreign missions, and

Woman's Work — Friends 207

$2,000 to the Assembly's home missions, besides
their gifts to local home missions. The aggregate
of their gifts can only be estimated, but would
probably amount to a million dollars.

Adding these gifts of Ladies' Societies together,
we have the vast sum of fifteen millions of dollars.
Millions of other uncounted dollars contributed by
women for missions are known only to Him " who
seeth in secret and will reward openly."

Compare the membership of the Southern Pres-
byterian Church and the membership of the
"Ladies' Missionary Associations " in its bounds,
and then compare the respective contributions of
each by the year, and some idea will be furnished
in regard to the question, who supports the mis-
sionaries, at home and abroad. Add to this the
other fact, that more than half of the membership
of the Church, whose contributions are compared
with these " Ladies' Missionary Associations " are
themselves women, who contribute a large share
of that credited to the Church ; and their work
will be even more manifest. Disband these asso-
ciations of devoted women, and paralyze the indi-
vidual efforts, and estop the gifts of others, much
of which is earned by their own personal labor,
and what disastrous results would overtake the
cause of missions ! Many laborers would be re-
called ; many stations abandoned, many souls left
to perish, if not the whole work, humanly speak-
ing, involved in hopeless confusion and utter
ruin.

What a commentary on the love of woman!

2o8 At Our Own Door

What a specimen of her self-sacrificing spirit !
What a proof of her devotion to Christ !

3. Women have ever been true to Christ. It
was no woman who denied Him. Woman never
betrayed Him into the hands of His enemies.
Though endowed by nature with a shrinking,
modest, timid disposition, yet they stood by His
cross when the disciples forsook Him and fled, who
had boasted that they would die with Him. It is
not mere sentiment that woman was " last at the
cross and first at the sepulchre." The fact that
the evangelist explained that these women at the
cross were the same who ministered unto Him,
confirms a great principle, that the parties who
contribute to an object or cause are the parties
to whom it is dear, and who will cling to it with
ever-increasing devotion. That object which costs
us thought, labor or money, is the object around
which our affections will entwine their strongest
tendrils.

Woman had ministered unto Him of her sub-
stance, therefore she stood by His cross, followed
the body to the sepulchre (Luke 23 : 55), her loving
hands assisting in this sad duty, prepared the
articles for embalming (Luke 23 : 56), was seen
"sitting over against the sepulchre" (Matt. 27:
61), first discovered His resurrection (Matt. 28:
1-10 ; Mark 16 : 1-8, etc.), and was consequently
the first to whom He appeared (Mark 16 : 9).
Only one of the twelve was at the crucifixion, not
one at the burial, nor is there any evidence on
record, or any probability even, that any one of

Woman's Work — Friends 209

them ever visited the sepulchre till after the an-
nouncement of His resurrection. She who was so
true to Christ, is it any wonder that she should be
true to His cause? The more she labors for
Christ, or contributes to His cause, the more her
affections are stimulated ; and the more they are
stimulated, the greater are her labors of love.
By the law of action and reaction, her labor and
her love continually augment each other ; her
labor giving strength to her love, and her love
giving fervor to her labor.

4. Owing to causes like these, the highest com-
mendation or eulogies ever uttered by Christ to
the honor of any human being, were spoken by
Him in behalf of woman. It was a woman, who,
out of the depth of her love, anointed Him with
the precious ointment so costly (Mark 14 : 3, 4) as
to move the indignation of a man, who only a
few days afterwards sold Him to His bitterest
enemies, betraying Him with a kiss for a sum of
money less than one-third the cost of the oint-
ment (Matt. 26 : 14-16). Of this woman on a
former occasion He had said, " But one thing is
needful ; and Mary hath chosen that good part,
that shall not be taken away from her." Now,
for this loving act of anointing, she is to receive
still greater honor from Christ. From His lips
she receives the noblest tribute that could be
bestowed on any human being, " She hath done
what she could " (Mark 14 : 8). Such a testimonial
may never have been deserved by any man.
There is, at least, no record that Christ ever said

210 At Our Own Door

of any man, He hath done what he could. She
erected for herself a monument more beautiful
than marble, more lasting than adamant or brass,
more valuable than ruby or diamond. " Where-
soever this Gospel shall be preached throughout
the whole world, this also that she hath done shall
be spoken of for a memorial of her."

His commendation of the " poor widow " is His
testimony to the liberality of woman. " Jesus sat
over against the treasury, and beheld how the peo-
ple cast money into the treasury." He is not in-
different to the gifts of His people, but beholds
and considers the proofs of their love and devo-
tion. " And many that were rich cast in much.
And there came a certain poor widow, and she
threw in two mites, which make a farthing."
This was the smallest offering allowed to be made.
" And Jesus called His disciples unto Him." He
calls their attention specially to her act : " and
saith unto them, Yerily I say unto you, that this
poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which
have cast into the treasury," etc. He weighs the
gifts of His people, and makes ability the standard
of estimating their value, and gives them credit
accordingly (Mark 12 : 41-44). Woman hath this
additional honor that she made the most valuable
contribution in the estimation of Christ ever made
to His treasury. It was not a man that had this
honor or praise of Christ.

"The coats and garments, which Dorcas had
made while she was with them," were shown after
her death as evidence, that she was a " woman full

Woman's Work — Friends 211

of good works and alms deeds which she did"
(Acts 9 : 36-43).

In concluding his Epistle to the Romans, it is
remarkable how large a proportion of the saluta-
tions given and commendations uttered were of
women. Of Phoebe, Priscilla, Persis, Tryphena,
Trypbosa, Julia, Junia, and Mary, it was variously
said by him in approbation : " For she hath been
a succorer of many and of myself also ; " " who
bestowed much labor on us ; " " which labored
much in the Lord," etc. (Rom. 16).

These references indicate how important was
the work of women in the primitive Church. All
these numerous and varied commendations of dif-
ferent women, and which were not bestowed on
men, are not simply accidental, but proofs of their
greater devotion and superior merit, and are but
specimens of Paul's exhortation, "Render there-
fore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is
due; honor to whom honor." What a work is
being done in the Church of the present day for
Christ by the Dorcases, the " poor widows," the
Lady Huntingtons, and many others, whose worth
is known only to Christ, and whose praises are
spoken only by Him ! How many church debts
have been paid, how many ministers of the Gospel
have been sustained, how many church edifices
and chapels have been erected by them! For-
tunate is the church that hath a Dorcas, or a pious
" poor widow " ! These are more valuable than
the rich or noble. As they stood by His cross, so
they will not desert His cause at the approach of

212 At Our Own Door

disaster, but will rally closer around it, water it
with their tears, uphold it by their prayers, labor
for it with their hands and sustain it by their gifts,
till the calamity be overpast. " Then Jesus an-
swered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy
faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

5. It is a slander perpetrated on woman, which
charges her with being liberal at the expense of
her husband. It is a charge which is quite easily
refuted. That one, of whom Jesus said, "She
hath done what she could," was an unmarried
woman. She, whom Christ announced to His
disciples as having made the most liberal contri-
bution of all that cast into the treasury, was " a
poor widow!''* Of those that "ministered unto
Him of their substance," concerning whom any-
thing definite is known, most were either widows
or unmarried. Not many years ago, a young
lady of culture and wealth, to whom the world
presented as many attractions as to any, to whom
home and friends were as dear as to others, offered
herself to the Church as a missionary to a foreign
shore. Nor was this all, for many other devoted
women have done the same ; hut she went at her
own expense.

In the majority of churches the most liberal con-
tributors, those whose gifts are greatest in propor-
tion to their ability, are the " poor widows," and
those whose offerings are the result of their own
exertions. Many pastors and deacons would,
doubtless, confirm that statement from their own
personal observation, and would be ready to prove

Woman's Work — Friends 213

it with the facts and figures. It may be, therefore,
that in the aggregate " the widows' mites " will
amount to a far greater sum than the gifts of the
rich, not only in the estimation of Christ, but also
in actual figures. If the whole church were but
endowed with the faith and love, and consequently
the liberality and devotion, of many "a poor
widow," it would be comparatively easy to con-
quer the world for Christ !

6. What is it a Christian woman cannot do ?
She may have been a heathen ; but let her heart
be won for Christ, and henceforth her efforts in
His behalf are untiring. It was reported in the
missionary periodicals that not long ago a mission-
ary in India was awakened out of sleep by a noise
at the door. Upon inquiry he found there a
woman, who had been converted from heathenism
and was now connected with his church, who said
to him, " O sir, I cannot sleep for thinking of these
perishing people ; and I have come to ask you to
pray with me for their conversion." They knelt
there and mingled their entreaties for the heathen
around them. In a short space of time they wit-
nessed the conversion of that people by the thou-
sand, and the Telugus are to-day a Christian
nation.

No sacrifice is too great, no cross too heavy for
her to bear, if she but recognize in it the will of
her Master. The wife of a missionary stood upon
the seashore in India watching the diminishing
form of a receding vessel. On board were her
children, being taken home to be educated. Know-

214 At Our Own Door

ing they would be months upon the water, and
many years must elapse before she could see them
again, perhaps never, with her heart full of emo-
tion she exclaimed, " This I do, O Christ, for Thy
sake ! "

It may be that God has not endowed woman
with the wisdom of man, nor has He created her
with the strength of man, and she is, therefore,
designated " the weaker vessel." But He has given
her that which is better. He has enriched her with
more heart and irresistible influence. Her heart
is a match for his wisdom, and her influence can
cope with his strength. Although called " the
weaker vessel," yet doubtless she far outstrips him
in the race. Her opportunity is inferior to His.
She is not permitted by the Master to advocate His
cause from the pulpit. Her sphere, compared with
that of the other sex, is limited. But when the
history of redemption is written, and the " books
are opened," and the rewards of faithfulness and
activity are meted out " according to their works,"
then, perhaps, it will be revealed that if her oppor-
tunities were not so great, yet she accomplished
more and performed a more important part in the
evangelization of the world than man.

7. Woman ought to be devoted to Christ. Al-
though the human race is under an obligation to
Christ which no service, no tears, no zeal, no hom-
age, no love can ever cancel, though all were com-
bined and prolonged during the ages of eternity,
yet woman is under peculiar obligation to Christ
and the elevating influence of His religion. If it

Woman's Work — Friends 215

were permitted to give utterance to the expression,
that all human beings, both men and women, are
infinitely indebted to Christ, and that the latter class
are, if possible, even more indebted to Him, it
would be but saying that His religion has brought
the same spiritual blessing to woman as to man,
and has added even another, in elevating her from
the most abject slavery to man to a position of in-
fluence and a degree of refinement in some respects
at least even superior to his.

Christ was and ever has been her truest and best
friend. His religion civilized man ; it emancipated
and ennobled woman. The difference between the
position of woman, the slave of man in every
heathen land, and her position of honor in every
Christian country, is a difference caused by noth-
ing else except the religion of Christ. Neither
civilization, education, refinement, nor any other
system of religion, ever accomplished such a mar-
vellous result. The learning or philosophy of a
Socrates did not impel him to undertake the task
of ameliorating her bondage. Neither the moral
culture of a Seneca nor the statesmanship of a
Cicero was of any material benefit in alleviating
her bitter life. The religion of the most righteous
Pharisee did not secure his friendship in her be-
half, or induce him to become the champion of her
rights ; but, on the contrary, caused him to take
the least public street leading to the synagogue,
and to gather up the folds of his flowing robe, lest
he become contaminated by accidentally touching
a woman. The very disciples of Christ were im-

2i6 At Our Own Door

bued with the same spirit, and marvelled, not so
much that " He talked with the woman " of Sa-
maria, as that " He talked with a woman ! " (John
4 : 27, correct translation.) According to the teach-
ing they had received, He was violating one of the
tenets of the rabbis.

His conversation with woman was not the only
method by which His friendship was exhibited to-
wards her. He did not scorn her touch like the
self-righteous Pharisee, but addressed words of
comfort to her who touched Him secretly with fear
and trembling, " Daughter be of good comfort "
(Luke 8 : 48) ; and to the woman that was a sinner,
bathing His feet with penitential tears, whose
touch moved the scorn and indignation of the
Pharisee, He said kindly, " Go in Peace " (Luke
T : 50). It was this spirit of Christ once manifested
in His person, ever afterwards manifested in His
religion, that emancipated woman from the most
galling and degraded bondage of man. It is His
religion and that alone that caused the difference
in the condition of woman among heathen and
Christian nations.

It is not strange, therefore, that she should be
the friend of Jesus, His religion. His Church and
His cause of missions. The appeal in behalf of
evangelization may be made to woman with a
double argument and more intense emphasis.
One appeal may be based upon the wretched state
of her sisters wherever the Gospel's blessed sound
has never been heard. She cannot resist the ap-
peal of such a peculiar nature, that which calls

Woman's Work — Friends 217

upon her to redeem her sisters from a twofold
bondage of tenfold bitterness, from bondage of
slavery and bondage of sin, from bondage to man
and from still more degrading and galling bondage
to Satan, to relieve her body from the yoke of
man and release her soul from the yoke of Satan.
Such an argument could not fail to exert a most po-
tent influence in arousing many a " Ladies' Mission-
ary Association " to even more fervent zeal and in-
creased activity, in securing many "a widow's
mite " with Christ's blessing upon it and its giver,
and in stimulating many a one to win Christ's ap-
probation, " She hath done what she could," " Well
done, good and faithful servant."

But the second is a still more powerful appeal
even than the first ; one which comes alike to man
and woman ; the argument which is hoary with
age ; that which prompts the converted heathen
to send the Gospel to other heathen: it is the
voice of a risen Eedeemer crying in the ears of
apostles in an imperative command, thundering
through the ages like the voice of mighty
waters, heard by the men of this generation
"marching" orders which the Church dare not
disobey. " All power is given unto Me in heaven
and in earth." " Go ye, therefore, into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature."
" And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end
of the world."

XI

SYNODICAL EVANGELIZATION

In the year 1881 two gentlemen of Louisville,
Kentucky, offered to duplicate any amount of
money which might be raised by the Synod of
Kentucky to the amount of $5,000 for the prose-
cution of evangelistic work in that State. The
synod accepted the offer and entered vigorously
upon an aggressive effort. This was the begin-
ning of a movement in the church known as " Syn-
odical Evangelization," which afterwards spread
into almost all the synods in some form ; and al-
though abandoned by some, is still in operation in at
least one-half of the synods at present. The plans
of the synods have not been uniform, but there has
been a similarity of work ; and the object of this
chapter is to give some account of this aggressive
effort in the various synods.

1. Alphabetically, Alabama comes first. In the
year 1892 the following action was taken by that
synod :

" Kesolved, That a Committee of fifteen be ap-
pointed at this meeting of synod to be known as
the Executive Committee of Evangelistic Labor,
which shall be authorized to inaugurate a general
work of evangelization within the bounds of synod.
This Committee shall have power to employ a fi-

2l8

Synodical Evangelization 219

nancial agent, to collect money for this purpose in
all our churches, to engage evangelists and direct
their movements."

The Committee was appointed and the agent
elected. He secured $2,514.05 the first year. Dur-
ing that year five evangelists were employed for
part of the time and a total of $6,T82.75 was col-
lected in cash and subscriptions for the work ; and
over two hundred persons received on profession
of faith. The synod decided to try to raise $10,000
the next year. In 1893 the evangelists held fifty-
five protracted services, made 1,464 pastoral visits,
preached 1,264 sermons, ordained fourteen elders
and thirteen deacons, organized four new churches,
witnessed 746 confessions, received 109 members
on certificate and 601 on examination ; and
$8,272.52 was subscribed and collected for the
work. A good deal of colportage work was done
also by this Committee this year. In 1894 the
Committee had three evangelists. During this
year fifty meetings were held, 1,200 sermons
preached, 1,700 visits made, 542 members received
on examination, and ninety by certificate, and
$5,198.10 received in cash and subscription. The
reports for the succeeding years remain about the
same each year until the work was abandoned in
1898.

The reason for discontinuing is stated in the fol-
lowing resolution : " In view of the fact that there
has been for several years past very little differ-
ence in the amount given by the three presby-
teries ; and therefore each presbytery in the di-

220 At Our Own Door

vision of funds has received back and expended in
its own work approximately the same amount that
has been raised by itself (the Presbytery of Tusca-
loosa excepted this year) ; and that we believe a
larger amount can and will be raised by each pres-
bytery for its individual work than for the work
of the synod as a whole ; and in the strong, and
we believe almost universal, desire on the part of
the constituents of the different presbyteries to
prosecute their own evangelistic work ; therefore,
we recommend that the Sy nodical Evangelistic
work be discontinued, and that the several pres-
byteries be urged to take up this great and press-
ing branch of our work and prosecute it to the full
extent of their ability." Since 1898 each presby-
tery has carried on its own work in accordance
with the above resolution.

2. The Synod of Arkansas adopted its present
plan of home mission work in 1899, so that it is
now only five years old. The plan is very simple.
The Synodical Committee is made up of the chair-
men of the Presbyterial Committees, four in num-
ber, and a member at large. This Committee
meets regularly once a year to plan its work for the
succeeding year. A canvas is made once a year for
the raising of funds and laying the burden of the
work on the churches. The Presbyterial Com-
mittees conduct their work as usual and are aided
by the Synodical Committee and evangelists.

About $16,000 have been expended in this work
during the period of 1899-1903, employing nine
evangelists, whose time aggregated two hundred

Synodical Evangelization 221

and four months or seventeen years evangelistic
work for one man. The number of members added
on profession is 928, by letter 887, total 1,815.
Manses have been built at eight or more points,
valued at about $10,000. Churches have been
erected at nine points valued at $25,000. There
are now three evangelists at work and two more
are wanted. There are twenty-three counties out
of seventy-five in which there is not a Presbyterian
Church, and twenty-one with only one. But there
are many towns and country localities where
churches could be organized if the money and
men were available. Arkansas offers a fine field of
promise for home mission work.

3. The Synod of Florida as at present consti-
tuted came into being December 2, 1891. In the
year 1879 the Presbytery of St. Johns, then ex-
tending over the whole part of the State east of
the Suwanee River, began a good evangelistic
work in the lower counties of the State. This
work was continued until 1890, and did very much
towards making possible the erection of the Synod
of Florida in 1891. Two evangelists covered the
whole territory, and a third did some work in two
of the counties of middle Peninsular Florida. The
organization of the churches of Tampa, Plant
City, Braidentown, Clear Water, Dade City and
Bloomingdale was the main outcome of this evan-
gelistic effort.

At the meeting of synod in 1886 (South Georgia
and Florida) a Committee on evangelistic work
was appointed, and authorized to raise the sum of

222 At Our Own Door

$2,500 and begin the work. Two evangelists were
employed, who devoted their labors to the Presby-
tery of Florida, comprising the territory west of
the Suwanee River. The Committee failed to
collect the needful funds, so that after a year or
two this work had to be abandoned. Some addi-
tions were made to the churches already estab-
lished, but no new places were occupied and no
churches were organized. Beyond this effort noth-
ing was ever done by the former Synod of South
Georgia and Florida.

Evangelistic work has often been discussed in
the present Synod of Florida. The way never
seemed open to attempt anything, however, until
the meeting of 1902 in the City of Jacksonville.
The synod was of the opinion that " it is now time
that we should employ with the aid of the As-
sembly's Committee, an evangelist for the work in
our State." A special Committee, centrally lo-
cated, was appointed, to which was entrusted the
raising of the funds and the securing of an evan-
gelist. This Committee was "authorized to en-
deavor to secure by correspondence or personal
solicitation at least $600 from individuals, $400
from the churches of the synod and $500 from
the Assembly's Committee, to pay the salary
of an evangelist for the work in our synod,"
Nothing as yet has been accomplished in this
direction.

4. In the year 1890 the Synod of Georgia
inaugurated within its bounds the w^ork of Sy nod-
ical Evangelization, or rather encouraged the effort.

Synodical Evangelization 223

At first it was largely voluntary work begun
by Drs. Barnett, Strickler and Gaines, made
possible by the individual gifts of persons and
churches in or near Atlanta. Later the synod
formally undertook the work by appointing an
Executive Committee, composed of the presby-
terial chairmen of the presbyteries and several
laymen in Atlanta. The Committee met in De-
cember and June each year and mapped out the
work on a basis of $8,000, but only about $5,000
was actually received annually.

The work had a twofold aspect. It not only
employed evangelists but supplemented the salaries
of weak groups and sustained them until they be-
came self-supporting or were abandoned as hope-
less. For about five years the work prospered
greatly ; then, owing to the fact that presbyteries
began to withdraw or cooperate only partially, it
declined till it was abandoned in 1900 and re-
manded to each presbytery, to be carried on sepa-
rately by presbyteries doing their own evangelistic
work.

During this period of evangelistic effort the
Synod of Georgia made its greatest progress,
growing from about 10,000 communicants to 15,-
000, and from 151 churches to 210. An impetus
was given to evangelism which is still felt, and
each presbytery is prosecuting an aggressive work
with varying degrees of success.

5. Synodical Evangelization was Dr. Stuart
Robinson's last favorite scheme of aggressive
church work. It was inaugurated by the Synod of

224 ^^ ^^'' ^^" Door

Kentucky October, 1881, a few days after his
death and chiefly under his influence, and under
the immediate inspiration of a telegram from Col.
Bennett H. Young and K. S. Veech, Esq., ofi!ering
"to double any amount between $2,500 and $5,000,
which may be raised by the synod for evangelistic
labor within its bounds." This generous offer was
accepted with appropriate expressions of gratitude.
An Executive Committee was elected to have
charge of the work and instructed to apportion
$5,000 among the churches.

It consists at present of the Chairmen of six
Presbyterial Committees of home missions who are
members ex-officio and fifteen other members who
are elected by the synod, and including three
elders and two laymen and the chairman, whose
duties are largely those of a secretary or superin-
tendent, and upon whom chiefly rests the burden
of responsibility for the success of the work.
This Committee is the agency through which the
presbyteries cooperate to their mutual advantage
in the prosecution of the work within their re-
spective bounds. It always meets a few days after
the adjournment of the synod to formulate a
schedule of operation for the year, to consider the
needs of particular fields, to make such changes in
the apportionments and appropriations as may seem
proper, and to do whatever else may be necessary
for the best interests of this cause within constitu-
tional limits. Other meetings are held at stated
times and on special occasions. Three presbyteries
have always done some mission work within their

Synodical Evangelization 225

respective bounds in addition to the work done
through the Synod's Evangelistic Committee.

This remarkable movement has been character-
ized from its beginning (1) by the earnest advocacy
of the foremost men of the synod, with whom it
has ever been a favorite cause ; (2) the larger gifts
of a number of generous friends ; and (3) by the
apportionment among the churches of the amount
called for by the synod each year, generally $10,-
000. The value of its direct and indirect results
has exceeded the largest expectations of its most
enthusiastic friends. For twenty-two years there
has been an average of forty or more laborers em-
ployed, including synodical evangelists, presbyte-
rial evangelists, local home missionaries, lay work-
ers (chiefly theological students) and consecrated
women who conduct Sabbath-schools and catechet-
ical classes and distribute Bibles and render other
kindred service. A total of $239,000 has been
contributed and expended, eighty-five churches
have been organized, seventy-five houses of wor-
ship have been erected and paid for, 120 Sabbath-
schools have been gathered and sustained, twenty-
eight counties have been entered for the first time
by our church and occupied. The numerical net
gain of the synod has been 100 per cent. The in-
crease in the number of candidates for the minis-
try, the impetus given to educational and other
church work, the spirit of esprit de corps awak-
ened, the Christian courage enkindled, the enthu-
siasm aroused and the influence exerted upon other
synods and denominations, stimulating and in-

226 At Our Own Door

spiring them to undertake greater things for the
Master along similar lines, exceed by far the nu-
merical increase and territorial expansion. To ap-
preciate more fully these results, it must be re-
membered that " for forty years there had been no
territorial or numerical growth " of Presbyterian-
ism in Kentucky, until God used Dr. Robinson's
influence and the consecrated thousands of Colonel
Young and Mr. Yeech to move the synod of Ken-
tucky to branch out for the first time in the his-
tory of our Church, in the work of Synodical
Evangelization.

6. The Synod of Louisiana which was erected
in November, 1901, covers the State of Louisiana
and two counties of Mississippi. The population
of this territory is in round numbers 1,500,000.
Of these 6,469 are Presbyterians. This member-
ship is divided among three presbyteries.

Home mission work in Louisiana and Eed River
Presbyteries is done under the supervision of Pres-
byterial Committees, which cooperate with the
Synodical Committee, the latter securing and dis-
bursing all funds. This Synodical Committee is
composed of the chairmen of the Presbyterial
Home Mission Committees, and one minister and
one elder from the Presbyteries of Red River and
Louisiana, and two ministers and one elder from
New Orleans Presbytery. It is elected annually
by the synod. The executive work of the Synod-
ical Committee is done by a sub-committee of five,
which meets monthly in New Orleans.

New Orleans Presbytery supports and directs

Synodical Evangelization 227

independently her own work and besides contrib-
utes a pro rata to the Synodical Committee for use
in the other parts of the State. The Home Mission
Committee of this presbytery has under its care,
in addition to the work usually denominated as
home missions, interesting missions to resident
Italians, French, Chinese and negroes.

The home mission work in Louisiana is en-
tirely self-supporting. Last year this synod aided
forty-six churches within the sjmod, nine in the
Presbytery of Louisiana, nineteen in New Orleans
Presbytery and eighteen in Eed Eiver Presbytery.

7. The Synod of Mississippi prosecuted vigor-
ously for some years aggressive work, but at Co-
lumbus in 1902 the committee was dissolved and
Synodical Evangelization abandoned. Correspond-
ence failed to obtain the details in reference to the
work of this synod ; but its committee was consti-
tuted very much as in other synods, and the suc-
cess and work done differed very little from the
others.

8. The Synod of Missouri has been in connec-
tion with the Assembly twenty-seven years. This
time with reference to home missions may be
divided into two periods of twelve years each, and
a shorter one of three years. During the first
twelve years, the home mission work was carried
on by the presbyteries independently; but little
evangelistic work was done except as pastors found
time for it. The additions were not large and the
net growth almost nothing, as the figures show.
There were in 1874, sixty-eight ministers, 141

228 At Our Own Door

churches, and 8,000 members; and in 1886, sev-
enty-seven ministers, 138 churches, and 8,870
members, or a loss of three churches and a gain of
nine ministers, and only 870 members in twelve
years. There was, however, better organization,
and a decided increase in contributions to all
causes, both at home and abroad.

During the next twelve years there was a great
change both in methods and results. All the pres-
byteries united on one general work under the
direction of a Synodical Evangelistic Committee.
An average of $5,000 a year was given for special
evangelistic effort ; and from one to six evangelists
were employed every year, beginning January,
1886. The work of these evangelists was greatly
blessed; and as the direct result of their labor,
during twelve years, there were 4,441 additions on
profession of faith, forty-three churches were orga-
nized, including three among the negroes, and
thirty-eight church buildings erected at a cost of
$50,000. Nine counties hitherto unoccupied by
either synod were entered ; and the net gain to
the synod during this period was twelve ministers,
thirty-four churches, and 4,278 members, or an in-
crease of fifty per cent. There was also an in-
crease in total "benevolences" in 1898 over those
of 1886 of $10,961, and in total contributions of
$17,382. Best of all the whole synod was greatly
encouraged, and a new life was infused into every
part and department of the church's work. The
past three years have witnessed the same contin-
ued prosperity of the work.

Synodical Evangelization 229

9. In North Carolina, synodical evangelistic
work has been in operation since 1889. In each of
the eight presbyteries composing the synod there is
a Home Mission Committee. The several chairmen
constitute the Synodical Committee. The synod
elects a superintendent who is ex-ofBcio member
of said Committee and chairman of the same. One
general evangelist devotes his whole time to hold-
ing missions in the mission field. His time is
divided among the presbyteries as the needs de-
mand by the Synodical Committee ; and the evan-
gelist is under the direction of the Presbyterial
Committee in whose presbytery he labors. The
work is supported by church collections in the
month of June and subscriptions taken by the
superintendent and cash offerings received by the
general evangelist at the close of the meetings held
by him.

The results of the work may be judged by the
fact, that fourteen years ago thirty-eight counties
out of ninety-seven were without Presbyterian
Churches, now only eleven are destitute of Presby-
terian Churches. From one to five churches have
been organized in the twenty-seven counties opened
up. There have been over 10,000 professions of
faith under the preaching of the evangelists em-
ployed by this Committee, and an average of four
churches organized each year.

At present the Committee has under its super-
vision about thirty workers, consisting of evan-
gelists, teachers, colporteurs, etc. For all its local
work, including presbyterial and synodical, North

230 At Our Own Door

Carolina raises annually $30,000, the largest
amount of any synod in the Assembly.

10. The Synod of South Carolina was the last
of all to undertake synodical evangelization, ob-
jection being raised against its constitutionality.
Some of the presbyteries have never entered into
the work fully, but given only partial assistance.
A few years ago a Synodical Committee was ap-
pointed whose composition is made up of members
from each of the six presbyteries, ordinarily a
minister and an elder, but there is one exception
to this rule. The chairman is elected by the synod ;
and all the members for one year. Meetings of the
Committee are held at the call of the chairman,
who is also secretary and treasurer.

At the meeting of synod in 1902 this committee
was directed as far as possible to confine its work
to evangelistic labor strictly, and leave all susten-
tation work to the Presby terial Committees. This
has been the endeavor of the Committee during
this year. There are four evangelists under the
care of the Committee. Six small churches have
been supplied by these men. Last year there were
eight others, which have now been committed to
presbyterial control. The State has over 40,000
cotton mill operatives, who represent a population
of 100,000 souls.

The synod has authorized the Committee to raise
$5,000 annually for the work ; but of this sum
only about $2,000 has been actually raised. There
are no financial agents of the Committee. At the
meeting of 1903 synod elected a superintendent

Synodical Evangelization 231

for the State and a general evangelist, looking to a
larger aggressive effort.

11. The Synod of Tennessee as now consti-
tuted only came into existence in 1901. Up to that
time it had been divided between the Synods of
Memphis and Nashville. The present synod at its
first meeting elected a Committee of Synodical
Missions, but as yet has not succeeded in launch-
ing the work. It is still in contemplation.

12. The Synod of Texas inaugurated its synod-
ical mission work in 1898, by adopting the follow-
ing resolutions :

" (a) That synod take up evangelistic work sep-
arated from the remaining branches of home mis-
sion work, which shall be left to the control of
the presbyteries.

" (h) That in order to this, synod appoint a
Committee of eleven, four ministers and seven
ruling elders, of which five shall be a quorum, and
to which shall be committed the planning of this
work.

" (c) That this Committee be advised to em-
ploy as soon as practicable one or more evangel-
ists as the funds in hand may justify, and to se-
cure such funds the Committee is authorized to
solicit subscriptions for this work in our churches,
with the consent of pastor and session.

" (d) It shall be the duty of the synodical evan-
gelists to solicit funds, and arouse interest in the
work in every proper way, and hold meetings as
the occasion may require.

" {e) That these evangelists shall labor under

232 At Our Own Door

the joint direction of the Synodical Evangelistic
Committee and the Presbyterial Committees of
Home Mission, in whose bounds they are labor-
ing.

" (/) That this work shall be carried on inde-
pendently of the Assembly's Committee, the funds
for this work being received and dispensed by the
treasurer of Synod's Evangelistic Committee.

" ( g) That this work shall not interfere with
any home mission work of the presbyteries, now
existing or that may hereafter be planned."

For the first year the Committee could secure an
evangelist for only six months, whose report shows
that he held meetings in ten churches, preached
201 sermons, and travelled 2,000 miles. The work
was continued at irregular intervals during 1900,
but no results are given. In 1901 the evangelists
held " twenty-one meetings, extending from ten to
fifteen days each. Members received, 342; chil-
dren baptized and dedicated to the Lord, 169 ; and
many family altars established. In several churches
the members were increased fifty to one hundred
per cent. ; church lots were bought and paid for,
and six to eight thousand dollars raised for church
lots, buildings, pastors' salaries," etc.

In 1902, eighteen meetings were held ; in which
" 263 were received into the church ; sixty-six in-
fants were baptized ; and money or pledges aggre-
gating about $1,688 received for the work ;
$2,641.75 was raised to pay off balance on pastors'
salaries and church debts ; many family altars
were established ; and in some cases more than

Synodical Evangelization 233

fifty per cent, added to the church membership."
This is a specimen of the reports year by year ;
and the work is still continuing.

13. The evangelistic work of the Synod of
Virginia is conducted by a Committee which is
elected every year. At first the Committee was
widely scattered over the synod, each presbytery
being represented. This plan was cumbersome
and caused needless delays and expense in the con-
duct of the work. The Committee is now small
and made up mainly of ministers and elders in one
locality, and this meets easily and with little ex-
pense on the call of the chairman, who is also
treasurer.

{a) It is charged with the duty of electing the
evangelists, of locating them for work, and of
raising funds for their support. Only at the re-
quest of a presbytery can the Committee send an
evangelist into its bounds ; and after assignment
to any particular presbytery the work of the evan-
gelist is entirely under the control of the home
mission Committee of that presbytery, thus pre-
serving presbyterial authority.

(b) The evangelists are always regularly or-
dained ministers of the Gospel, and generally they
are men who have proven themselves to be con-
servative, evangelistic pastors of some years' ex-
perience. Some are located at strategic points and
kept there as long as it may be necessary for the
development of the work, and the forming of self-
sustaining charges; others are kept in a presby-
tery from year to year according as the needs re-

234 At Our Own Door

quire, and others pass from one presbytery to
another as the general work demands. They open
up new fields, settle pastors, visit weak and vacant
churches, infuse new life into them, help the pas-
tors in home mission churches by protracted
services, organize Sunday-schools and raise funds
for the evangelistic work, for church erection, for
debts on churches, etc.

(c) The results have been very gratifying in
proportion to the funds supplied and the men em-
ployed. The following figures give only a glimpse
of the work from 1891 to 1902 : Average per year
of men at work, six ; members added to the Presby-
terian Church on profession, 3,706 ; members added
to sister churches, hundreds ; churches organized,
thirty -five ; money raised by churches, $49,037.63 •
by evangelists $59,637.70, by individuals $10,-
231.28 ; the total amount of money raised being
$118,906.61.

14. The following table of comparative statistics
exhibits the distribution of Presbyterian strength
throughout the Assembly by synods, and reveals at
a glance where the greatest destitution lies. Statis-
tics of other evangelical churches furnish a painful
exhibit of our comparative weakness, in numbers
at least. They also show that destitution from a
Presbyterian standpoint does not necessarily indi-
cate religious destitution. The inability of Presby-
terianism to obtain a foothold in many communi-
ties often means that it has delayed till the ground
is thoroughly occupied by other evangelical
churches; and it is often a waste of men and

Synodical Evangelization

235

means to attempt to recover lost opportunities and
lost ground. Is it not wiser and more Christian to
attempt to plant our principles in comparatively
unoccupied territory, really destitute not only from
our standpoint, but in a religious sense ?

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§•

2

a;g o§

d^

0 0

1

s

A

s,

Qj

w^

^G

JZi

^

M

a

w

0

Alabama

1,828,697

14089

~75

69

9

11

134424 122498

7874

3000

Arkansas

1,311,564

5762

170

75

23

21

75000

65000

3300

10500

Florida

528,542

4347

75

45

6

12

25000

25000

3100

1700

Georgia

2,216,331

16521

75

137

39

45

202724

171542

8100

600

Kentucky

2,147,174

20241

91

119

22

60

200000

100000

4200

20000

Louisiana

1,381,625

6469

112

59

29

11

41000

30000

7837

1000

Mississippi

1,551,270

13182

50

75

6

13

99662

86134

4001

6000

Missouri

3,106,665

12818

227

114

19

21

175000

230000

7118

43000

N. Carolina

1,893,810

36762

35

98

11

14

169436

141284

5128

4000

S. Carolina

1,340,316

20595

28

41

1

4

101077

77764

7557

4000

Tennessee

2,020,666

18984

84

99

42

17

137850

154630

5700

40000

Texas

3,048,710

21213

120

243

93

68

198377

200000

5000

40000

Virginia

4,003,034

44149

60

139

32

40

122138

176200

39000

30000

(Virginia includes three states: Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.)

A study of these figures reveals some startling
facts. The two Carolinas lead all the synods in
the percentage of Presbyterians to the white popu-
lation ; and yet the statistics of 1902 compared
with 1903 show an actual decrease of the church
in South Carolina ; whilst North Carolina having
the largest Presbyterian population of any State in
the Assembly, with its splendid synodical work,
made only a small net gain in membership. Mis-
sissippi and Virginia stand next in Presbyterian
strength, in proportion to white population ; and
yet they barely held their own during the past
year. Alabama, Florida and Georgia stand side

236 At Our Own Door

by side, each having one Presbyterian to every
seventy-five of white population ; and yet Georgia,
separated from South Carolina by a river only, has
thirty-nine counties without a Presbyterian Church
and forty-five with only one ; so that practically
eighty-four of its 137 counties are destitute of
Presbyterianism, making it one of the weakest in
the whole Assembly. Kentucky with its splendid
well-organized sy nodical work actually lost ground
the past year. Missouri has the appearance of
being weakest, having only one Presbyterian to
every 227 of white population ; but if we take ac.
count of the Northern Presbyterians, it would con-
tain about one in every one hundred, which would
lift it above some of the others. Texas shows only
one in 120, and Arkansas one in 170, which makes
them in reality the most destitute from a Presby.
terian standpoint, and justifies the action of the
Assembly in selecting them as its great home mis-
sion field, discriminating in their favor in the dis-
tribution of home mission funds. Being new terri-
tory in the West, towards which the tide of popu-
lation is pouring, renders them not only the needi-
est, but at the same time the most hopeful, field
for the planting and propagating of Presbyterian-
ism.

15. The threefold division of home missions
into Local, Synodical and General, is rather un-
fortunate, and somewhat confusing to the rank
and file of the church. It would be far wiser, and
more efiicient work would be done, if there were
only two departments : Local and General Assem-

Synodical Evangelization 237

bly's Home Missions. This would not in the
slightest interfere with synodical work ; but on the
contrary, give it greater power by reason of the
concentration of effort and forces. It seems a
waste of energy and a needless multiplication of
machinery to have presbyterial and synodical mis-
sions both undertaking to occupy the same terri-
tory. "Why not unite all the local forces of the
Synod in one great synodical evangelistic effort ?
If the presbyteries of a synod can combine without
friction and to their mutual advantage in partial
evangelistic work, why not in the whole work of
the synod ? In union there is strength.

This would enable every synod to have its super-
intendent of missions ; every presbytery would be
represented on the Committee, and have absolute
control of the operations within its own bounds.
It would give tremendous potency and point to the
meetings of synods. In all probability it would
double the efficiency and aggressiveness of the
Church. Might it not supply the " Missing Link,"
which would make our system more successful in
its operation ? In cases where the presbyteries of
a synod decline to unite in such synodical effort,
each could do its own work separately, and in that
synod there could be presbyterial local home mis-
sions exclusively. All local home missions in a
synod would then be either presbyterial exclusively
or synodical exclusively, as determined by them-
selves. It would prevent friction, confusion, waste
of forces and the multiplication of machinery.
In either case, whether the plan of local home

238 At Our Own Door

missions in a synod is presbyterial or synodical,
the Assembly's Committee would be able to sup-
plement the efforts of the weaker portions of the
church.

All parts of the work of home missions would
be wisely articulated, and well adjusted to each
other, and as a consequence move harmoniously
towards one end. Waste force, now creating fric-
tion and retarding the progress of the whole,
would be utilized in advancing the Kingdom of
Christ. Presbyterianism would be no longer " a
house divided against itself." Its lack of aggres-
siveness would no longer be a reproach. Every
thoughtful mind recognizes that there is something
lacking. Every earnest soul is longing and pray-
ing for the remedy. Is not the suggestion worthy
of the thoughtful and prayerful consideration of
our beloved Church ?

XII

ARGUMENT AND APPEAL

" The insight of genius," said Thomas Carlyle,
" consists in cooperation with the world's real tend-
ency." The instinct, \vhich can read the signs of
the times in the commercial world and forecast the
future, spells success. The trend of the age to-
wards great railroad combinations, billion dollar
steel trusts, etc., foreseen, enabled the keen-eyed
financier to use the world's current to tide him
over the shallows in which others floundered,
whilst it lifted him into the throne of commercial
power — a real king, greater than the Monarch of
Britain or the Czar of Russia. In like manner the
Christian who shall command the greatest success
in advancing the kingdom of God on earth must
study to discover which way God is moving and
" keep step with Jehovah." It is what some one
has termed, " conspiring with God."

Facts are the fingers of God in history pointing
the direction. Facts are the voice of God in prov-
idence, like the pillar of cloud by day and of fire
by night, indicating the line of march. Facts are
the steps of God in the Church, leading the way.
The most powerful argument for home missions is
the logic of facts. No stronger argument for
home missions has been attempted in this volume

239

240 At Our Own Door

than the presentation of facts. They speak for
themselves and for God. This closing chapter is in-
tended to give them a voice, that the facts them-
selves may appeal to the Church in the interest of
a deep, widespread, powerful revival of home mis-
sions, like " a rushing mighty wind," as at Pente-
cost.

1. World-wide evangelism in obedience to the
" Marching Orders " of Christ demands the ac-
centuation of home missions Jirst in " the order of
the March." " That repentance and remission of
sins should be preached in His name among all na-
tions, heginning at Jerusalem.''^

" Save America to save the world," is both good
philosophy and true Christianity. "As goes
America, so goes the world," has a deeper signifi-
cance to-day, owing to our international influence,
than when uttered by Austin Phelps seventeen
years ago. The greatest obstacle to foreign mis-
sions is not pagan superstition nor heathen philos-
ophy. So called " Christian " England and Amer-
ica, not only give the gospel to the heathen, but are
themselves the greatest hindrance to its success.
England sends more opium than missionaries to
China. Christian people saw the finger of God in
the acquisition of the Philippines by our " Chris-
tian Nation." " We double freight our vessels to
Africa and the Philippines with missionaries on
deck and rum in the hold. What message can the
missionary bring as he steps from the gangway, that
is not paralyzed by the cargo rolled out on the
wharf ? " We supply Japan with Bibles and the

Argument and Appeal 241

results of the higher criticism, with the gospel of
Christ and " the gospel of dirt " as promulgated
by Huxley and the gospel of doubt as inculcated
by Ingersoll. Missionaries among the heathen
dread nothing so much as our ungodly soldiers,
merchants, tourists, etc. The Japan student who
upon landing in San Francisco fell upon his knees
and thanked God that he was at last upon the soil
of " Christian " America was rudely awakened
from his dream of ideal Christianity by the jeers
and ill treatment of the rabble, " certain lewd fel-
lows of the baser sort."

" "William Kincaid, after years of devotion to
home and foreign missions, declares that 'the
planting and nurturing of churches in America is
our first and best work for the world / our first
work because all other Christian activities grow
from and depend upon this ; our best work because
in no other place on earth can we obtain so mighty a
purchase for the elevation of mankind.' * Should
America fail,' declares Professor Park, ' the world
will fail.'' And if further testimony were needed
to mark the far-reaching influence of home mis-
sions in America upon the fate of the nations, the
stirring words of Professor Phelps, addressed to
the Home Missionary Convention at Chicago in
1881 might be added :

" ' The evangelizing of America is the work of an
emergency. That emergency is not paralleled by
the spiritual conditions and prospects of any other
country on the globe. The element of time must
be the controlling one in a wise policy for its con-

242 At Our Own Door

version, and for the use of it as an evangelizing
power over the nations. That which is to be done
here must be done soon. If this continent is to be
saved for Christ, and if the immeasurable power
of its resources and its prestige is to be insured to
the cause of the wotWs conversion, the critical
bulk of the work must be done now. The decisive
blows of conquest must be struck now. For rea-
sons of exigency equally imperative with those
which crowded Jerusalem upon the attention of
the Apostolic pioneers, this country stands first on
the roll of evangelical enterprise to-day. This as
it seems to me, is just the difference to-day be-
tween the Oriental and the Occidental nations, as
related to the conversion of both to Christ. The
nations whose conversion is the most pressing ne-
cessity of the world to-day are the Occidental na-
tions. Those whose speedy conversion is most vital
to the conversion of the rest, are the nations of the
Occident. The pioneer stock of mind must be the
Occidental stock. The pioneer races must be the
western races. And of all the western races, who
that can read skillfully the Providence of God, or
can read it at all, can hesitate in affirming that the
signs of divine decree point to this land of ours, as
the one which is fast gathering to itself the races
which must take the lead in the final conflict of
Christianity for the possession of the world.
Ours is the elect nation for the Ages to come.
We are the chosen people. Ours are the promises,
promises great and sure, because the emergency is
great. We cannot afford to wait. If we cannot,

Argument and Appeal 243

the world cannot afford to wait. The plans of
God will not wait. These plans seem to have
brought us to one of the closing stages in this
world's career, in which we can no longer drift
with safety to our destiny. We are shut up to a
perilous alternative. Immeasurable opportunities
surround and overshadow us. Such, as I read it,
is the central fact in the philosophy of American
home missions ' " (Leavening the Nation).

" The speedy evangelization of the home field is
the quickest way to large success in the foreign
field. According to present methods of propagat-
ing the Gospel abroad the home church is the base
of supplies. Hence, there must be enlargement
at home or shrinkage abroad. ' The greatest need
of the foreign field is a revised, reconsecrated, and
unified home church,' said Ex-President Harrison
in his classic address on missions before the Ecu-
menical Missionary Conference in ]S"ew York.
The right sort of home missionary work quickens
the energies of God's people, unites the Church,
and begets a world-wide missionary zeal.

"Let us apply this principle in the concrete.
Nine years ago the first Presbyterian church at
Newport News, Virginia, had a membership of
thirty-four. The pastor was then aided by the
Home Mission Committee. In less than a year
the church assumed self-support. Since that time
it has sent off a colony, the Second Presbyterian
church, with a membership of 100, and is at pres-
ent maintaining a flourishing mission. The con-
gregation has built three houses of worship, one

244 At Our Own Door

of them a beautiful building handsomely equipped
at a cost of $31,000. The church has risen from
the weakest of any denomination in the city to
the strongest, and is contributing liberally to all
the causes of beneficence, notably to foreign mis-
sions " (Rev. P. H. Gwinn).

Until quite recently the church at Moultrie, Ga.,
was aided from the treasury of home missions.
ISTow it supports its pastor all his time, is exceeded
by no church in the State in proportion to mem-
bership in gifts to home missions, and supports its
own missionary in the Congo Free State, and it is
now supporting its own missionary in the West.
Illustrations of this kind might be multiplied in-
definitely and in any direction. The strong
churches of Texas, Texarkana, Sherman, Dallas,
etc., of home missionary origin, now have each
its own representative in the foreign field. The
surest and quickest method of winning Japan,
China, India, Africa and the Isles of the sea for
Christ is " Beginning at Jerusalem " — by winning
America; for, said Matthew Arnold, "America
holds the future."

2. Presbyterianism lays the obligation of home
missions upon every individual member of our
Church, whose very constitution and history make
it a missionary society for the propagation of the
faith. The Presbyterian church in the United
States had its origin in home missions, the colonies
being at that time a part of the Mother Country,
and were sustained and developed by men and
means liberally supplied by the Mother Churches

Argument and Appeal 245

of Scotland and Ireland for the benefit of their
children scattered in the forests of America. The
very existence of the Presbyterian Church in this
country is Itself a noble monument to home mis-
sions. The first act of its organized life in the
meeting of the first General Assembly was to
launch its home missionary enterprise, which has
since reached to every section of our broad land.
It has been characterized in all of its varied his-
tory by the home mission spirit. Some of the
brightest chapters in all the annals of its existence
are the records of its home mission efforts. Its
children yet unborn will feel a pardonable pride
in the work of their fathers among the Indians, as
they transmuted, by the operation of divine grace
through the agency of home missions, thousands
of savages into Christian people and children of
God. Presbyterians have the honor of being the
pioneers in Kew Mexico, Utah, Alaska and many
sections of the great West. According to Secre-
tary Thompson, nine-tenths of the Presbyterian
churches beyond the Mississippi had their origin in
and were sustained by home missions. The great
Synod of Texas is a standing illustration of " a
handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the
mountain," whose " fruit shall shake like Lebanon."
"Presbyterian missions in particular have
yielded and are yielding to-day rich spiritual divi-
dends. Presbyterianism in a half century has
organized and developed 2,000 churches beyond
the Mississippi River. In its first century's work
it organized or aided 6,500 churches. Place the

246 At Our Own Door

average year's service in these 6,500 churches at
fifty years, — set the average number of souls
saved in each one at but ten a year, and the stu-
pendous result is 3,250,000 saved souls, as a result
of Presbyterian home missions ! If one soul is
worth more than the whole world who can ask if
Presbyterian missions pay, in view of 3,250,000
souls saved in a century ! Then add to this the
value of missions along other spiritual lines, — the
strengthening of the tempted, the comforting of
the afflicted, the supporting of the dying, the
transformation of homes, the redemption of com-
munities and the uplifting of entire peoples and
populations " (Dr. Sherman Doyle).

Home missions are the hope of the future. If
the Presbyterian Church is to grow with the
growth of this mavellously developing country ; if
her glorious heritage of the past is to be the
prophecy of a more glorious future ; if her sceptre
of influence among the nations is not to depart to
some other branch of the visible church ; if she is
to meet her obligations to the " aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel " in her midst — 9,000,000
negroes, 12,000,000 foreigners, 2,000,000 mountain-
eers, 300,000 Mexicans, 300,000 Mormons, 250,000
Indians, and 12,000,000 adults in the United States
" without Christ and without God in the world " ;
— if she is to fulfill her mission amongst men and
meet the expectations of the Master; then must
she project her home mission work on a still
broader basis, and gird her loins for a still more
strenuous effort. If John Wesley recognized that

Argument and Appeal 247

"the world is my parish," can the Presbyterian
Church be content with the domain of less extent ?
Every loyal child of the church who would see her
come into possession of her heritage must aid in
her home mission effort of winning America, that
she may attain her destiny "in the regions be-
yond."

3. Self-interest necessitates home missions.
Not simply the salvation of myriads of the lost,
but the very salvation of the church itself depends
upon her home mission zeal. The church must
evangelize the masses or they will paganize her
children in the coming generation. The moun-
taineers are an object lesson of warning, children
of the Covenanters and of the Scotch-Irish. The
slums of our cities are the degenerate children of
the church largely, whose ancestors gradually
drifted from the church, by the way of neglect,
into the cesspool of debauchery and criminality.
Only by evangelizing the masses can our country
be saved from the fate of other degenerate nations.
Dr. C. L. Thompson lifts his voice in eloquent
warning :

" Our Gospel is yet little more than a voice cry-
ing in the wilderness. It has not evangelized the
people. We punctuate our creeds with stately
church spires in great cities, but even under their
shadow the people die friendless and unregarded.
By all the misery and wickedness, by all the doubt
and despair of our congested population, we are
not a Christian people. By the infidelity of a
thousand new communities in which the Church is

248 At Our Own Door

but a feeble protest against conditions she has not
changed — we are not a Christian people. By all
the sodden sin and cruel crimes of mining camps,
by all the fever of mammon, regardless of whom
it consumes — in gay capitals, or lonely hamlets, or
moving tents — we are not a Christian people. By
all the menace of incoming tides of population, east
or west, infidel or pagan — we are not a Christian
people.

" And a Christian people we must become, if we
would not add one more to the wrecks of republics
along the path of history. To this result there is
only one road. Christian missions must do the
work they have so splendidly outlined. . . .
The missionary must go into the slums of the city
and stay there till they brighten into Christian
homes. He must camp on the trail of the advanc-
ing line of every population till the new settle-
ments become the abode of virtue and religion."

For a quarter of a century men who forecast the
future of our country have been calling to the
church to prepare for the great spiritual conflict,
The Battle of Arma-Geddon, the gigantic struggle
for this country by the forces of good and evil, in
the battle-ground of the West. Such graphic de-
scription as that of Dr. Thompson is enough to stir
to fever heat the most cold blooded, careless Gallio,
who " cared for none of those things " :

" When Seward said the time was coming when
our Pacific coast would be the theatre of the
world's greatest events, we eastern people smiled
in our serene and satisfied conservatism. We were

Argument and Appeal 249

the people, and wisdom was in danger of dying
with us. But something has happened. It re-
quires no prophet to forecast the time when the
Pacific will be the world's central sea. One-third
of the human family already throngs its coasts, and
they are getting ready for great affairs. The two
dominant lines of the human march approach each
other on that sea. The Anglo-Saxon is leaving the
ancestral home. Most of them have pitched their
tents on American shores. The old world's camps
are breaking up, and more are coming. They are
moving westward, drawn by the events of Seward's
prophecy. From the other side another column is
moving eastward ; the soon-to-be second race of all
races : the Slav, slow, steady, sturdy ; moving like
a bear, clumsily rolling over the steppes of Asia.
He approaches the Pacific. China gasps, Japan
doubles her artillery, and America may well
ponder ! "What does it all portend ? Shall these
two great columns meet? The one armored
with new ideas — the other heavy with the impact
of the old. And if they meet — what then ? If
our lines bend upwards along Aleutian Islands,
those broken piers of immemorial history, if the
Slavic lines gather across the narrow straits, what
then but the world's Armageddon and the final
conflict between liberty and tyranny, Christianity
and superstition ? "

The shock of battle has not yet come. All
parties are rallying and marshalling their forces.
They are now engaged in maneuvring for position
and occupying strategic points. The wise general

250 At Our Own Door

will not neglect to occupy the most favorable van-
tage ground. If the church shall win in this great
campaign in the West, she must occupy the great
centres of population. Delay is dangerous. Some
places can wait — others cannot! "With many,
" now is the accepted time " ; " now is the day of
salvation." For the Presbyterian Church it is just
the nick of time in the new country of the West.
The struggle for Cemetery Kidge decided the fate
of the battle of Gettysburg. The battle of Gettys-
burg decided the Pennsylvania campaign. The
Pennsylvania campaign decided the fate of the
Confederacy. So in a certain sense, the struggle
for Cemetery Ridge decided the fate of the Con-
federacy ! In the West it is now " the struggle
for Cemetery Ridge" with us in many places.
Many of these new towns springing up will be the
strategic points of the future. If we lose them,
we lose the Territory ; if we lay our hand on them,
we can hold the country for Christ and the Pres-
byterian Church. No other such opportunity will
come to the church in the twentieth century ! It
is the crisis of her opportunity ! If lost, it goes
by forever and ever !

The Presbyterian Church of the South is spe-
cially interested in the battle of the West. She
must help to win the conflict for her own salvation.
The North is already overcrowded. The West is
rapidly filling. The time is coming when the pub-
lic lands of the West will be exhausted, and the
streams of population must flow southward. What
is to be the character of that coming tide of peo-

Argument and Appeal 251

pies ? Will it be Christian or godless ? It is a
question of tremendous import to the South ! The
unparalleled development of the South is attract-
ing the attention of the world, attracting capital,
attracting business enterprise, attracting popula-
tion. Leaders of thought in the Church begin to
foresee the great crisis of the South, as indicated
in the language of Rev. P. H. Gwinn : " South-
ward the star of Empire moves to-day, — the Em-
pire of capital. The annual export trade of the
South is greater by $170,000,000 than it was a dec-
ade ago. Manufacturers follow in the wake of
a growing foreign commerce. In 1899, New Eng-
land increased her spindles three and a-half per
cent., while the South increased thirty-four per cent.
. . . To-day there is, perhaps, no place in the
world where God's people may look for quicker and
better returns from their investments than within
the territory covered by the Southern General As-
sembly. What if our membership were increased
during the next decade to 1,000,000 ; and what if
she average one dollar per member to the cause of
foreign missions ? How it would speed the Gospel
in all lands. Ought not such splendid results to
be achieved at whatever cost ? Will not the Al-
mighty hold our Church responsible for as
much ? "

The Southern Church was financially wrecked
by the war, and for a whole generation was en-
gaged in building up her dismantled homes and
broken fortunes, greatly crippling and embarrass-
ing her missionary enterprises. Now the great

252 At Our Own Door

struggle with abject poverty is ended. The church
of the South is growing rich. Will she use her
wealth for selfish indulgence and display ? Or
will she recognize her obligations to Christ ? Will
she rise to the height of the occasion ? Will she
meet the great crisis in her history ?

4. There remains yet one more consideration,
the greatest of appeals. The appeal of humanity,
the claims of the destitute, the " Macedonian cry "
of the dying, are exceeded in pathos and power
only by the Cross of Christ. If " the life and death
of Christ are the model and type of all missionary
effort," there can be, and ought not to be, any
stronger appeal to the church than the Cross. Yet
Christian men spend so much more for cigars and
beverages than for missions, that Bayley says, " A
deified appetite outranks a crucified Christ " in His
own blood bought Church. Church of Christ, will
ye bear longer the reproach ? Will ye not tarry
at the throne of Grace till ye be filled with the
Spirit of Christ ?

" Must Jesus bear the Cross alone,
And all the world go free? "

The Church of the Redeemer now needs, as never
before in her history, men to make sacrifices for
Christ, that they may be able to furnish the means
for giving the Gospel to those " scattered abroad
as sheep having no Shepherd." The Church needs
consecrated ministers who are willing to make the
sacrifice of themselves for Christ, leaving comfort-

Argument and Appeal 253

able places for the sake of the unevangelized
masses.

In one of his campaigns, at a critical moment in
battle, Napoleon called for a hundred men to lead
a forlorn hope, explaining that it meant certain
death to any who volunteered. " Now," said he,
" let any man who is willing to die for the emperor
step out of ranks," and the whole regiment leaped
forward as one man and rang their muskets at his
feet. If men are willing to die for a man, if men
are willing to sacrifice life itself for an emperor,
are there not those in the blood bought Church of
Christ who are willing to make some great sacri-
fice for Christ and the Church ?

Gathered around the crucified, but now risen
Christ, the eleven disciples had given them the
most powerful object lesson, the most irresistible
appeal of history :

"And when He had thus spoken. He showed
them His hands and His feet." Those hands were
pierced hands, and those feet were pierced feet !
It was an object lesson exhibiting the cost of re-
demption. It was an appeal for sacrifice and serv-
ice, based upon the Cross. No wonder they went
from the presence of those pierced hands and feet,
and " turned the world upside down." Would to
God the Church could see those pierced hands and
feet to-day, mutely, passionately, poAverfully, ap-
pealing for sacrifice and service, seemingly saying :

" I gave, I gave My life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
What hast thou given for Me? "

Index

A3IEEICA, World's Last Great

Problem, 186
Arizona, 183
Armageddon, 249
Army Chaplains, 27
Authorship Demanded, 5

" Back to Christ," 78
Bacon, Rev. Silas, quoted, 32
" Bitter Cry of Outcast Lon-
don," quoted, 69
Board of Home Missions Cre-
ated, 23
Books Consulted, 5, 6
Broughton, Dr. L. G., Institu-
tional Church, 84

Candidates for the Ministry,

decrease in, 55
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 239
"Central Presbyterian,"

quoted, 65
Chattanooga Conference, 5
Chicago, Cosmopolitan popula-
tion, 66
Chicago, Degradation of, 67
Christ, " His Hands and His

feet," 253
Christian Endeavor World, The,

quoted, 101
Christian Herald, quoted, 66
Christian Science craze, 187
Christian Science pantheism re-
vived, 188
Christian Science propaganda,

188
Church accredited. The, 109
Church erection, 53
Churches, earliest, 14
City, Christ weeping over, 63

City, congestion of, peril to self,

74
City, increase in population, 64
City, increase accounted for, 68
City, increase multiplies wick-
edness, 72
City, increase remedy for, 69
City Missions, explanation of

failure of, 81
City Missions, Presbyterian, 87
City Missions, problem of, 77
City, the peril of Commercial-
ism, 73
Clark, Dr. J. B., quoted, 175,

179, 182
Clark, Jas. Freeman, quoted, 75
Clay, Henry, quoted, 161
Cleveland, Ex-President, quot-
ed, 103
Cleveland, Dr. T. P., elected

Secretary ad interim, 37
Converse, Dr. F. B., quoted,

105
Craig, Dr. J. N., elected Secre-
tary, 36
Craig, Dr. J. N., tragic death,

37
Craig, Dr. J. N., quoted, 27

Dabney, President, quoted, 99
Davis, Eev. E. Mac., quoted,

97
Davis, Richard Harding, quoted,

174
Domestic Missions' Advisory

Committee, 26
Domestic Missions' Executive

Committee, 27
Doyle, Dr. Sherman H., quoted,

104, 180, 191, 192, 246

254

Index

255

Durant, Presbyterian College

of, 152
Dutch, First Church of in U. S.,

13

Education, value of Christian,

153
Eliot, Apostle to Indians, 145

Foes of the Chuech Christian

Science, 187
Foes of Mohammedanism, 185
Foea of Mormonism, 189
Foes, remedy for. Home Mis-
sions, 200
Foes of Theosophists, 189
Forward Movement, result of,

59
France, failure of, 12
Friends — women, 201

Genebal ASSE3IBLY organized,

15
Gibbons, Mrs. Bella McCallum,

quoted, 149
Graybill, Kev. A. T., quoted,

134
Guernsey, Miss Alice, quoted,

101
Guerrant, Dr. E. O., quoted,

102
Gwinn, Eev. P. H., quoted, 24,

33, 37, 41, 45, 199, 243, 251

HAEEISON, EX-PEE9IDENT,

quoted, 243

Hoge, Dr. Moses D., quoted, 26

Home Missions, ad Int. Com.
on, 39

Home Missions, analogy of na-
ture, 52

Home Missions, appeal of the
Cross for, 252

Home Missions, at the first Gen-
eral Assembly, 17

Home Missions, basis of all ope-
rations, 55

Home Minions, basis of Foreign
Missions, 55

Home Missions, Board created,
23

Home Missions, changes in ad-
ministration, 38

Home Missions, first standing
committee on, 21

Home Missions, hope of the fu-
ture, 246

Home Missions, Presbyterian-
ism creates obligation for, 244

Home Missions, present plan of,
39

Home Missions, results of, 44

Home Missions, scope of, 50

Home Missions, self interest
necessitates, 247

Home Missions, three depart-
ments of, 236

Home Missions, world wide
evangelism argument for, 240

Home Missionaries first ap-
pointed, 18-21

Home Missionary, First
Monthly, 23

Home Missionaries, form of
commission for, 19

Home Missionary funds, first
grant of, 16

Home Missionaries, individual
support of, 59

Indians, Aborigines of Amer-
ica, 139
Indians, care of, 29
Indians, character of, 140, 149
Indians, Dawes Commission for,

159
Indians, distribution of, 157
Indians, first attempts to evan-
gelize, 145
Indians, Industrial Schools for,

155
Indians, intermarriage with, 160
Indians, lauds of, purchasing,

161
Indians, manner of worship, 151
Indians, miscellaneous Missions,

146
Indians, peace policy, 144

256

Index

Indians, policy of the Govern-
ment, 158

Indians, Presbyterian Missions
among, 147, 150

Indians, revenues of, 158

Indians, Southern Presbyterian
Missions among, 148

Indians, schools for, 153

Indian Territory, 155

Indian Territory Misnomer, 156

Indian Territory, opportunity
for Presbyterianism, 162

Indian, treatment of, 141, 143

KiNCAiD, William, quoted,

241
King College, Tennessee, 105

" Land of the Sky," The, 90
LawtoD, Oklahoma, remarkable

grovrth, 178
"Leavening the Nation,"

quoted, 13, 20, 56, 86, 165,

175, 179, 241
Lees-McEae institute, 105
Leyburn, Dr. John, Secretary,

27
Louisiana Purchase, 166

McKemie, Francis, 14, 15

" Man, The Forgotten," 91

Mayflovrer Compact, 13

Mcllwaine, Dr. Kichard, elected
Secretary, 36

McKelway, Dr. A. J., quoted,
63

Mecklenburg declaration, 94

Mexicans, evangelization of, in-
directly reaching Mexico, 133

Mexicans, immigration, 131

Mexicans in Texas, 51

Mexicans, Missions inaugurated,
134

Mexicans, Missions, results, 135

Mexicans, nominal Roman Cath-
olics, 132

Mexicans, present needs, 137

Minton, Dr. H. C, quoted, 22

" Minute Man on the Frontier,"

quoted, 177, 180
Missions, attitudes towards, 49
Missions, cooperation in, 60
Missions, departments of, 50
Missions, the program of, 48
Morgan, Hon. T. J., quoted, 142
Mormonism, conflicts vrith, 192
Mormonism, designs of, 195
Mormonism, ecclesiastic despot-
ism of, 193
Mormonism, Indictment of
Evangelical Churches against,
194
Mormonism invading the East,

198
Mormonism, Missionary in

Switzerland, 194
Mormonism, origin of, 190
Mormonism, proselyting meth-
ods, 197
Morris, Dr. S. L., elected Secre-
tary, 37
Moultrie, Georgia, 244
Mountaineers, ancestry of, 92
Mountaineers and Catechism,

106
Mountaineers, Anglo-Saxons, 95
Mountaineers, characteristics of,

96
Mountaineers, diflSculties in

evangelizing, 108
Mountaineers, population of, 92
Mountaineers, school facilities

of, 98
Munsey^s Magazine, quoted, 178

Negroes, care of Home Mis-
sions, 28
Negroes, characteristics, 114
Negroes, Executive Committee

of colored evangelization, 29
Negroes, first great need of, 122
Negroes, first step of progress,

121
Negroes, moral status of, 117
Negroes, other needs of, 126
Negroes, pastors of, 29
Negroes, quality of labor of, 115

Index

257

Negroes, redeeming traits of,

116
Negroes, religious life of, 120
Negroes, second great need of,

124
Negroes, slavery, blessing in dis-
guise to, 113
Negroes, splendid opportunities

of, 119
Negroes, social impurity of, 118
Negroes, Stillman Institute for,

127
Negroes, two classes of, 112
New Mexico, area of, 180
New Mexico, oldest Colony in

U. S., 180
New Mexico, religion of, 181
New Mexico, religious progress

of, 182
New Mexico, Southern Pres.

Church in, 183
Newport News, Virginia, 243

Oklahosla., Cherokee Strip
opened, 175

Oklahoma, opening of Northern
Section, 174

Oklahoma, origin of, 174

Oklahoma, religious progress of,
179

Oklahoma, showing of Commit-
tee on Statehood for, 179

Oklahoma, Southern Presby-
terian Church in, 180

Oklahoma, Southern Section
opened, 178

Opportunity, crisis of, 250

"Ordinance of 1787," 165

"Our Country," quoted, 75,
77, 79, 167, 196

Persecution, method of propa-
gating the Faith, 11, 12

Phelps, Austin, quoted, 240, 241

Phillips, Dr, A. L., elected Sec-
retary of colored evangeliza-
tion, 29

Plan of Union, The, 20

Presbyterian Church, Birth of
Southern, 24

Presbyterian Church, Child of
Home Missions, 16

Presbyterian Church, costliest
mistake of, 58

" Presbyterian Home Missions,"
quoted, 147

Presbyterian Church, sources of
American, 11

Presbyterianism, humble be-
ginnings of, 16

Presbyterianism, statistics of, 46

Presbytery, first in the U. S., 15

Rice, Dr. John H., quoted, 24
Eoosevelt, President, quoted, 93

Scepticism, the cure for the
world's, 110

Schools, Mission, 54

Schools, Mission, always in con-
nection with the Church, 103

Schools, Northern Presbyterian
Mission, 104

Schools, Southern Presbyterian
Mission, 105

Scotch-Irish element, 14, 93

Snedecor, Dr, J. G., elected
Secretary of colored evangel-
ization, 29

Southern Presbyterian, birth of,
24

Spain, failure of, 12

"Spring Resolutions," famous,
25

Stillman Institute, 127

Strong, Dr. Josiah, quoted, 43,
67, 71, 163, 169, 183

Sustentation, Executive Com-
mittee of, 34

Synodical Evangelization, com-
parative statistics, 234

Synodical Evangelization, origin
of, 218

Synodical Evangelization iu
Alabama, 218

Synodical Evangelization in
Arkansas, 220

258

Index

Synodical Evangelization in

Florida, 221
Synodical Evangelization in

Georgia, 222
Synodical Evangelization in

Kentucky, 223
Synodical Evangelization in

Louisiana, 226
Synodical Evangelization in

Mississippi, 227
Synodical Evangelization in

Missouri, 227
Synodical Evangelization in

North Carolina, 229
Synodical Evangelization in

South Carolina, 230
Synodical Evangelization in

Tennessee, 231
Synodical Evangelization in

Texas, 231
Synodical Evangelization in

Virginia, 233

Texas, annexation of, 166
Texas, area of, 168
Texas, benevolences of, 172
Texas, comparative progress of

Presbyterian Church in, 171
Texas, future prospects of, 173
Texas, peculiar problems of 170,
Texas, resources of, 169
Texas, Synod of, argument for

Home Missions, 246
Thomas, Oklahoma, remarkable

origin of, 178

Thompson, Dr. Chas. L.,

quoted, 22, 46, 167, 247, 248
"Twentieth Century City,"
quoted, 73, 75, 81

" Under Our Flag," quoted,
100, 198

Watson, Thos. E., quoted, 94
West, comparative statistics of

the, 166
West, divided from the East, 164
West, fictitious boundaries of

the, 163
West, marvellous future of the,

183
West, The South interested in

the, 250
West, The struggle for the, 61
Western Texas, the Presbytery

of, 130
Wilson, Dr. J. Leighton, Secre-
tary, 27
Woman, Christ eulogizes, 209
Woman, indebtedness to Christ,

215
Woman in the primitive church,

211
Woman, Missionary Societies of,

205
Woman Missionary Societies in

Southern Church, 206
Woman Sacrifices for Christ,

213
Woman True to Christ, 208
Woman, work of, 201, 203

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