THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 .-yl ' 

 
 EDITED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 N. B. Special helps and denominational mission study literature for 
 this course can be obtained by corresponding with the Secre- 
 tary of your mission board or society.
 
 RKY. T. O. DOUC.LASS, OK IOWA 
 Veteran home missionary statesman and administrator
 
 THE NEW 
 HOME MISSIONS 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR 
 SOCIAL REDIRECTION 
 
 BY 
 
 HARLAN PAUL DOUGLASS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION 
 IN THE SOUTH" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 1914
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE 
 UNITED STATES AND CANADA
 
 ;BV 
 
 TO 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Preface xi 
 
 I Home Missions as the Geographical Expansion of the 
 
 # Church 3 
 
 II From Social By-product to Social Aim 31 
 
 cj III An Adequate Program for the Country 61 
 
 IV The City and the Stranger 93 
 
 5? V Social Knowledge and Social Justice 129 
 
 in 
 
 VI A Social Restatement of Race Problems . . . . 157 
 o 
 
 VII The Social Reaction of Home Missions upon the Church 191 
 
 VIII Social Realization of Christianity in America . . . 225 
 
 cJ Bibliography 251 
 
 Index 259 
 
 O 
 O 
 00 
 
 ui
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rev. T. O. Douglass Frontispiece 
 
 Horse Power and Hand Power 12 
 
 The Itinerant 26 
 
 Rev. Peter Cartwright 32 
 
 A Strong Village Church 72 
 
 Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tennessee 82 
 
 Rural and Urban Population 94 
 
 Labor Temple 102 
 
 Bulletin-Board of a Down-Town Church, New York . . . 106 
 
 Total Immigration by Decades no 
 
 Rev. Josiah Strong 132 
 
 A Group of Chinese Children, San Francisco 162 
 
 Young Men of a Japanese Mission, Portland, Oregon . . . 166 
 
 An Overchurched Rural Community 200 
 
 Rev. Charles L. Thompson 208 
 
 Secretarial Council on the Commission of the Church and Social 
 Service of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 
 
 America 216
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Home missions as understood by this book are a 
 group of activities attempting to Christianize the 
 United States, and carried on by the Churches as 
 such. 
 
 There are manifold other agencies working for the 
 same end, but not ecclesiastically organized. Such 
 are the great national non-sectarian allies of the 
 Church like the Young Men's Christian Association; 
 such are the multitudinous philanthropic agencies of 
 general scope. These grow out of but do not di- 
 rectly represent the Church. Home missions on the 
 contrary are the churches themselves at their task 
 of redeeming our nation. 
 
 Home missions, again, operate as agencies of the 
 churches collectively. This contrasts them with the 
 activities of single parishes, which though similar are 
 unrelated to each other. The home missionary units 
 may be city, district, state, denomination, or nation, 
 but they are always ecclesiastical group-activities car- 
 ried on through agencies of which the Mission Board 
 is the type. 
 
 Naturally, agencies in which the churches act col- 
 lectively will concern themselves primarily with gen- 
 eral problems rather than local, and particularly with 
 
 ri
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 problems of national significance and dimension. Most 
 typically then home missions express the social and 
 spiritual consciousness of the churches in matters of 
 nation-wide concern which can best be handled col- 
 lectively by churches acting in larger units, as when 
 the board has some national responsibility for its 
 denomination. 
 
 All this is necessary for precision, but is simply 
 a long way of saying that home missions mean very 
 largely the Christian work of the denominational mis- 
 sionary boards operating in the United States. 
 
 The importance of discrimination within the realm 
 of agencies operating for the redemption of America 
 is seen at once when it is expressed in terms of the 
 division of financial support. Thus the officially re- 
 ported benevolent giving of a representative denomi- 
 nation (apart from the home expenses of local par- 
 ishes) approximates $2,400,000 annually. This total 
 roughly divides as follows: 
 
 To foreign missions carried on through general 
 Church agencies 25 per cent. 
 
 To home missions carried on through general 
 
 Church agencies 25 per cent. 
 
 To other benevolences under denominational aus- 
 pices, chiefly local 25 per cent. 
 
 To other than denominational benevolences 25 per cent. 
 
 A book on home missions in the broadest sense 
 might tell the story of the three fourths of the above 
 total which is devoted to the redemption of our own 
 country. In the narrowest sense it would have to
 
 PREFACE 
 
 xui 
 
 confine itself to the one fourth which is officially rec- 
 ognized as the work of boards of general jurisdiction. 
 As a matter of fact this book takes a middle course. 
 
 It is not confined strictly to the activities of mission- 
 ary boards, but considers them in connection with the 
 large movement of the social application of Chris- 
 tianity as inspired and in the general sense directed 
 by the Church. On the other hand, it does not pre- 
 sume to claim for home missions as such the vast 
 social consequences of American Christianity. 
 
 The seepage and flow of the Christian spirit through 
 the underground crevices and channels of society is 
 beyond charting or measurement. Home missions 
 name a particular set of pumps and engines, which 
 raise and distribute this flow through a particular sys- 
 tem of pipes and sluices upon particular areas, using 
 a technical, intensive method. They do not convey all 
 the water which gets to these particular areas. Some 
 rains down out of the general atmosphere of Ameri- 
 can Christianity ; other is pulled up by capillarity and 
 its moisture conserved at the surface by methods 
 of moral cultivation of which home missions are only 
 one. Once its flow is turned upon the land it mixes 
 immediately with all the waters. The harvest is the 
 result of all the forces operating. 
 
 Home missions are thus but part of a greater proc- 
 ess and this is the assurance of their success. We 
 may, however, note their precise methods and areas, 
 and the superiorities of results where the social spirit 
 is directed by home missions over those which depend
 
 3dv PREFACE 
 
 on the meteorological accident of Christianity as the 
 general moral climate of America. Certain crops 
 grow only under missionary irrigation and the yield 
 is always greater for all crops when home missions 
 assist in their cultivation. In other words, home mis- 
 sions are an efficient and dependable process of social 
 salvation in which the social spirit has become definite, 
 purposeful, adaptive, and accurate. 
 
 Not only does this book not confine itself to the 
 social service activities of the home missionary agen- 
 cies as such, but it is not primarily concerned with 
 activities at all. It does not so much treat of the new 
 things which are being done as the expression of 
 the social spirit, as of the new spirit in which all 
 things are being done. Its deepest interest is in ten- 
 dencies and their interpretation, not in describing par- 
 ticular facts. Consequently it omits from formal treat- 
 ment a great many interesting and important phases 
 of social home missions. Only enough are introduced 
 reasonably to illustrate and amplify the general move- 
 ment in its chief fields of expression. 
 
 Finally, the book strives to give a unified impres- 
 sion of the great process whereby home missions are 
 being made over again inwardly without interference 
 with their old functions. This is the most marvelous 
 aspect of their social redirection. It is like the 
 building of the new Grand Central Station in New 
 York City. Its miracle is not that it finally stands 
 complete a gigantic feat of engineering and archi- 
 tecture but that it was built without interruption of
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 traffic. On this spot stood a vast material creation do- 
 ing a million-handed work of moving human beings 
 and goods. Now its place has been taken by a ten 
 times vaster one different in every detail. There was 
 a new motive power, electricity; a new social tech- 
 nique of admitting and discharging the human ebb 
 and flow of a metropolis; new problems of subter- 
 ranean engineering, and new ideals of civic beauty. 
 All these were wrought into this mighty pile through 
 a series of years yet all the while its trains kept run- 
 ning. In and out they dodged and twisted, hundreds 
 upon hundreds every day, and day after day, past 
 stone heap and under massive girder, not without 
 makeshift and inconvenience, but always on the tracks. 
 The station kept on serving while experiencing com- 
 plete reconstruction. It was the Grand Central all 
 the time from old to new. This same fact of radical 
 transformation without interruption of traffic is the 
 clue to the home missionary story as the following 
 pages try to tell it. The old home missions have be- 
 come the new home missions and the work has gone 
 right on. 
 
 New York, N. Y., 
 June 3, 1914. 
 
 HARLAN PAUL DOUGLASS.
 
 HOME MISSIONS AS THE GEOGRAPHICAL 
 EXPANSION OF THE CHURCH
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOME MISSIONS AS THE GEOGRAPHICAL EXPAN- 
 SION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 "The Regions Beyond." Some thirty years ago a 
 child was growing up in a minister's home of the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley into some such understanding as this : 
 Home Missions are a process which begins in New 
 England and ends in the "regions beyond." Here we 
 are in the Central West ; a little while ago our church 
 was receiving missionary aid ; that is, somebody "back 
 East" sent money through the board to help pay the 
 preacher's salary. We tried as hard as we could to 
 come to "self-support" in order that people "back 
 East" might be free to send more of their money to 
 the "regions beyond." After a little our state would 
 be able to help all the weak churches in it, and the 
 people "back East" might send all their money to the 
 "regions beyond." Later we ourselves would be send- 
 ing money to the "regions beyond." Then the regions 
 just beyond would doubtless repeat the process. 
 Finally the church and Sunday-school would be every- 
 where and presumably the job would be done. 
 
 Expansion Westward. Now this child's naive under- 
 standing of the "regions beyond" scarcely escaped be- 
 
 3
 
 4 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ing profound, for the consciousness of them was the 
 clue to his nation's history of that time. Home mis- 
 sions were an aspect of national expansion westward. 
 They were the religious version of the geographical 
 occupancy of the continent. They were migrant Chris- 
 tianity ever camping on the trail of empire and con- 
 quering for ideals what the pioneer conquered for 
 the nation ; redeeming from materialism and vice what 
 he redeemed from forest, swamp, empty prairie, and 
 roving savage. 
 
 Significance of the West. The West was a state of 
 society, not an area. It was the bending of old insti- 
 tutions and ideals under the influences of free land, 
 the remolding of habits by free environment. It was 
 the breaking up of custom and its reestablishment with 
 a difference. The West was not the frontier, but 
 rather the chaotic state left just behind an ever-retiring 
 frontier and the effort to organize it. As fast as 
 this was done the West passed on, leaving a belt of 
 population suddenly aged and like older parts of the 
 nation; yet always leaving also an ampler and freer 
 spirit. Thus "decade after decade, West after West, 
 this rebirth of American society has gone on, has left 
 its traces behind it and has reacted on the East." l 
 Less by imitation than by domination and free adapta- 
 tion, the West has been assimilated to the nation and 
 assimilated the nation to itself. 
 
 Landmarks of Western Expansion. It will be a 
 sufficient initial background for our study of the home 
 
 1 Turner, "Problem of the West," Atlantic Monthly, 78: p. 289.
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 5 
 
 missionary movement, to recall the chief landmarks 
 of westward expansion before 1830; (i ) the organiza- 
 tion of the national domain west to the Mississippi 
 under the ordinance of 1787, and its vast enlargement 
 by the Louisiana purchase (1803) and the Florida 
 purchase (1819); (2) the westward movement of 
 population which increased the scarce 100,000 people 
 of the trans- Alleghany states of 1790 to over three 
 and a half million by 1830, making them a large quar- 
 ter of the nation and giving Ohio alone more people 
 than Massachusetts and Connecticut combined; (3) 
 the pressing back of the Indians by war and treaty and 
 the facilitation of settlement by the building of roads 
 and waterways, by the use of the steamboat on west- 
 ern rivers, the opening of the Erie Canal and by the 
 liberal land policy of the government; and (4) the 
 admission of states, Kentucky 1792, Tennessee 1796, 
 Ohio 1803, Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816, Mississippi 
 1817, Illinois 1818, Alabama 1819, and Missouri 
 1821. 
 
 The Crucial Dates. Between 1830 and 1835 a re- 
 markable group of forces came to focus. The West 
 of that time was politically in the saddle through the 
 election of Andrew Jackson as President; the first rail- 
 road was building; settlement had touched the Missis- 
 sippi River in the Northwest ; the Webster-Hayne de- 
 bates had formulated the sectional policies of the 
 North and South; the agricultural differentiation of 
 the Northwest from the empire of cotton was estab- 
 lished; prairie farming and the agricultural revolu-
 
 6 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 tion in the North through machinery were just at 
 hand; and the definite reservation of the whole na- 
 tional domain for the genuine settler scarcely a dec- 
 ade away. Finally the era of actual colonization in 
 the Pacific Northwest was beginning, and with it the 
 consciousness that the entire continent was destined 
 to be covered by American homes. 1 These mighty 
 and all but coincident changes mark the period after 
 1835 as essentially different from the preceding one. 
 
 Two Phases. This date divides also the two eras 
 of the older home missions. Since the West was never 
 long in one place and since the later West enjoyed 
 the results of advancing civilization, and could now 
 attack the wilderness with machinery rather than 
 with the ax; and since it shared the development of 
 the nation, particularly in its diverse sectional evolu- 
 tion, religious evolution naturally divides into two 
 phases: (i) a preliminary or pioneer phase com- 
 pleted while the frontier was still substantially homo- 
 geneous, and (2) a characteristic phase in which 
 home missions minister to the home-making and com- 
 munity-building farmer. His type, moreover, subdi- 
 vides with the economic and sectional diversification 
 of American life. 
 
 Preliminary Phase. The object of the preliminary 
 home missions was the pioneer; their agent, the it- 
 inerant preacher ; their method, the revival. The pio- 
 neer was a man who attempted single-handed or in 
 small groups the conquest of the Western wilderness 
 
 1 Schaf er, History of Pacific Northwest, 145.
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 7 
 
 a task which could only be accomplished thoroughly 
 and finally by a considerable population using ma- 
 chinery and advanced organization. 
 
 A Surviving Pioneer. One understands him best 
 by going to see him. One finds him persisting in the 
 Southern Appalachian or the Ozark highlands. There 
 one may visit one of his "contemporary ancestors" 
 a farmer, he calls himself. He lives in a log cabin 
 in a clearing of perhaps two acres on a stony Ozark 
 hillside. His equipment consists of a hoe, an ax, 
 and a gun. He owns no work animal, possesses no 
 farming implements, farms without wheels. Forest 
 and stream still help largely to furnish his larder. 
 With his ax he clears his land, builds his house, and 
 makes most of its meager furniture. A hundred years 
 ago thousands of men like this one thronged the Na- 
 tional Highway from Pennsylvania westward, goods 
 packed on horseback or drawn in a single cart, and 
 stopped where a wheel broke or a horse died; while 
 the better-provisioned pressed on toward the sunset 
 in their heavy canvas-covered wagons drawn by four 
 or six horses. * With many pioneering became a 
 habit. They could not breathe with the smoke of 
 another's house in sight and so pressed ever west- 
 ward, the advance couriers of a civilization which 
 they abhorred. 
 
 Pioneer Traits. The struggle with the wilderness 
 wrought into the earlier pioneer's mind a set of dis- 
 tinctive characteristics which have often been de- 
 1 Turner, Rise of the New West, 80.
 
 8 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 scribed. Lonely and out of touch with society, com- 
 pelled to be sufficient unto himself for such rude sub- 
 sistence as he could get, he lost capacity for group 
 action and became an extreme individualist. Away 
 from books and culture and with no one to enforce 
 moral demands upon him, he became rude and wild; 
 resentful, when society again caught up with him, of 
 all interference with his actions. He took the law 
 into his own hands or rather kept it there. He re- 
 verted in the direction of the Indian with wkom he 
 fought, and from whom he learned. The perils 
 of the wilderness and the savage forced his life against 
 a background of fear. The frontier got on his nerves 
 and he became excitable, reckless. Whisky became 
 his passion, solace, and inspiration. His religious 
 restraint gradually fell from him, and he became wildly 
 emotional in religion. Its fires flared fitfully under 
 the exhortation of the itinerant preacher and blazed 
 out in the great revival of 1800. 
 
 The Early Revival. This frontier revival made 
 a temporary social impression by achieving like-mind- 
 edness in a highly individualistic population. It got 
 their common response to the motive of fear. The 
 Indian had already forced the pioneer to occasional 
 cooperation. The terrors of hell and of the Indian 
 became the chief socializing forces of the frontier. 
 Of institutional strength the early revival had noth- 
 ing. It lacked constructive social principles and in 
 its inevitable reaction seemed destructive to the more 
 stable types of religious organization. But it held
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH g 
 
 the frontier for the gospel till other forces and better 
 motives could appear. 
 
 How Religion Spread. Religion in the earliest 
 West was propagated with very little ecclesiastical 
 guidance. To be sure Methodism was already follow- 
 ing its high instinct as essentially a missionary sys- 
 tem; and the Methodist was everywhere along the 
 frontier. But so was the Baptist, who multiplied 
 without the slightest church machinery. The first 
 praise thus belongs to men of religion lay preachers 
 largely who were of the Western movement itself, 
 who incarnated its motives, took its risks, lived as their 
 neighbors did, preached under responsibility to the 
 Lord alone, and who made faith in its rude forms in- 
 digenous to the frontier. The missionary found and 
 shepherded these men but the Lord created them. 
 
 A Famous Missionary Survey. How frontier re- 
 ligious conditions looked to the eyes of the older sea- 
 board states appears in Mills and Schermerhorn's fa- 
 mous report of their tour of missionary exploration in 
 1813. Sent out by the Massachusetts and Connecti- 
 cut Missionary Societies they crossed the Alleghanies 
 in Pennsylvania, passed through what is now West 
 Virginia and the Western Reserve of Ohio, traversed 
 Kentucky and Tennessee, traveled with Jackson's 
 troops to Natchez, thence reached New Orleans by 
 flatboat. They found Presbyterian ministers chiefly 
 settled in the towns, supporting themselves by school- 
 teaching or vocations other than the ministry. Such 
 few missionaries as the General Assembly and Cum-
 
 io THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 berland Presbytery had were sent out for periods of 
 six or eight weeks only, and their fruits fell to the 
 Methodists and Baptists. Everywhere they reported 
 most appalling religious destitution. As we would 
 put it to-day, Christianity was neither numerically 
 strong nor socially effective. What they chiefly cata- 
 loged were the vices of the frontier the profanity 
 and Sabbath-breaking of Ohio; horse-racing, dueling, 
 and gambling in Kentucky and Tennessee. They 
 found no Bibles in Louisiana, and to their Puritan 
 minds New Orleans was a city of unparalleled wicked- 
 ness. More sin, they reported, was committed there 
 on Sunday than in all the rest of the week. They 
 were shrewd enough, also, to discern beneath some 
 of the sectarian vagaries of the frontier the mental 
 quirks of their own New England. Their report con- 
 stitutes the first original, comprehensive, and states- 
 manlike home missionary survey of Western conditions 
 ever attempted. 
 
 The First Boards. Behind Mills and Schetmer- 
 horn stood a group of agencies which first conceived 
 home missions as a general, organized, and permanent 
 method and enterprise of national evangelization. Nat- 
 urally they represented the more developed and com- 
 mercial sections of the nation, specifically New Eng- 
 land and the middle states. Denominationally they 
 were Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Dutch 
 Reformed. Almost simultaneously, about the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, these churches organ- 
 ized home missionary movements, sometimes under
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 11 
 
 state designations, but substantially with like intent, 
 to follow the frontier with the institutions of religion. 
 By 1826 the strongest of these agencies, the Con- 
 necticut Missionary Society, had sent out 200 mis- 
 sionaries and organized 400 Presbyterian and Con- 
 gregational churches. The characteristic method was 
 that of somewhat transient service, the missionary 
 laboring briefly in a given community, then pressing 
 on to preach to others. Essentially the same method 
 was more systematically employed in the early Metho- 
 dist itinerancy. Fundamentally it was not a matter of 
 denominational polity but simply the inevitable method 
 of the first frontier. 
 
 From Forest to Prairie. By 1830 the "conquest 
 of the great forest" which covered the eastern third 
 of the continent was completed, and settlement was 
 just venturing upon the vast prairies of the Mississippi 
 Valley. So long as pioneering was done in the forest 
 it remained substantially the same as it had been in 
 the colonial period. Upon the prairies it took new 
 forms, was reen forced by new resources, and was 
 followed by that characteristic phase of home missions 
 comprehended within the experience of the middle- 
 aged of the present generation. 
 
 The Second Phase of Home Missions. In contrast 
 with the preliminary phase of home missions for the 
 pioneer, this second and characteristic phase had for 
 its object the farmer, and for its method the com- 
 munity church with its settled pastor. It dates roughly 
 from 1835 to 1890. Of course there were farmers
 
 12 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 before 1835. Though the earlier settlement of the 
 West had attracted diverse elements, the actual home- 
 seeker had always been in the majority. But the con- 
 quest of the entire continent had not yet become the 
 objective of American religion which it was from De 
 Tocqueville's time on, and the farmer was not yet 
 the conscious agent of national expansion. This came 
 coincidentally with an agricultural revolution the like 
 of which the world has never seen. 
 
 From Hand to Horse Power. "In 1833 practically 
 all the work of the farm except plowing and harrow- 
 ing was done by hand. Though there had been minor 
 improvements in hand tools, and considerable improve- 
 ment in live stock and crops, particularly in Europe, 
 yet it is safe to say that, so far as the general character 
 of the work actually performed by the farmer was 
 concerned, there had been practically no change for 
 4,000 years. Small grain was still sown broadcast, 
 and reaped either with a cradle or the still more 
 primitive sickle. . . . Grain was still thrashed with 
 a flail in 1833, or trodden out by horses and oxen, 
 as it had been in ancient Egypt or Babylonia. Hay was 
 mown with a scythe and raked and pitched by hand. 
 Corn was planted and covered by hand and cultivated 
 with a hoe. By 1866 every one of these operations 
 was done by machinery driven by horse-power, except 
 in the more backward sections of the country." * It 
 was in men thus suddenly equipped with new imple- 
 ments of conquest, and reen forced by a more favorable 
 
 1 Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, 84, 85.
 
 HORSE POWER AND HAND POWER
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 13 
 
 public land policy and by the railroad, that the passion 
 to subdue nature flamed out into the vision of the 
 "nation's continental destiny." Shrewd, bold, and 
 in the end grasping, the farmer hastened across the 
 prairies to seize all the natural wealth of America 
 that could be seized by men working with horse-power 
 in family groups. He became the central figure of 
 our history for more than a half -century. 
 
 The Farmer. Agriculture is essentially a domestic 
 industry. Unlike business or manufacturing, it is car- 
 ried on at home and its work shared by all the mem- 
 bers of a family. The head of the family is self-em- 
 ployed. He takes orders and receives wages from no 
 man. He thinks of himself and makes others think of 
 him as independent. His relations with others outside 
 of the family group reflect this independence. He 
 owes them nothing beyond the simple duties of neigh- 
 borliness. Unlike the pioneer, however, he has neigh- 
 bors and lives in permanent communities within driv- 
 ing distance of the country store, school, and church. 
 But social development stops here. Most of the rela- 
 tions between farmer families are competitive. As 
 landowners, or potential landowners, they feel their 
 essential equality and do not realize their poverty in 
 the more intricate social ties. This generalized state- 
 ment does not fit all farmers, but it fairly pictures the 
 type, 
 
 The Church of the Farmer. The farmer's religion 
 reflects his character. It is individualistic, centering 
 in personal salvation. It is conservative, seeking to
 
 14 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 protect the family group from disintegrating vice and 
 to conserve the virtues of thrift and purity. It warns 
 therefore against gambling as the enemy of thrift, and 
 intemperance as the enemy of the home. The farmer 
 seated his church with family pews, but saw no ob- 
 jection to dividing the community between many 
 churches if the interests of personal salvation were 
 only provided for. He continued but toned down the 
 pioneer's revival, and added the peculiar institutions 
 of the family group, the Sunday-school, and the 
 prayer-meeting. He tended to have a settled pastor, 
 frequently himself a farmer. He received missionary 
 aid and learned traditionally to contribute to missions. 
 And his women organized sewing circles. 
 
 Appropriate Missionary Methods. As the farmer 
 appeared in the older states, the existing home mission 
 agencies began to sense his peculiar needs and vision 
 as contrasted with those of the pioneer, and to provide 
 for them. Thus in 1825 a senior in Andover Theo- 
 logical Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts, reading an 
 essay before the student Society of Inquiry said: 
 "We want a system that shall be one one in purpose 
 and one in action a system aiming, not at itinerant 
 missionaries alone, but at planting, in every little com- 
 munity that is rising up, men of learning and influ- 
 ence, to impress their character upon these communi- 
 ties a system, in short, that shall gather the re- 
 sources of philanthropy, patriotism, and Christian 
 sympathy throughout our country into one vast reser-
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 15 
 
 voir from which a stream shall flow to Georgia and 
 to Louisiana, to Missouri and to Maine." l 
 
 Organization with National Vision. This was symp- 
 tomatic of the growing appreciation of changed con- 
 ditions, which issued in 1826 in the organization of 
 the American Home Missionary Society, with the pro- 
 gram of establishing a permanent ministry throughout 
 the West under "national direction." Its organizers 
 were 126 delegates representing thirteen states and 
 denominationally divided between the Presbyterian, 
 Congregational, Reformed, and Associate Reformed 
 bodies. Not only does it mark the beginning of mis- 
 sions as a comprehensive national enterprise, but it 
 undertook the task with surprising disregard for sec- 
 tarian considerations in the broadest spirit of Chris- 
 tian statesmanship. 
 
 Action and Reaction. Its more intimate motive re- 
 peatedly shines through the routine of frontier preach- 
 ers' reports as spread on the pages of the missionary 
 magazines of the day : Our own children have moved 
 to the wicked and careless West. We must hasten to 
 provide them with the same religious environment 
 that they had back home. Socially interpreted, the 
 oft-cataloged sins of the West were just the abandon- 
 ment of the old religious habits. With this clue to 
 duty home missions as originating in the East were 
 rather anxiously conservative than consciously alert 
 to lay hold of the new moral forces which were wak- 
 ing in the West, or to direct their positive destinies. 
 
 * Quoted by Joseph B. Dark, Leavening the Nation, 60, 61.
 
 16 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Repeatedly the men at the front had to agonize with 
 their Eastern backers to get them to understand the 
 socially formative significance of the Western churches. 
 Home missionary vision grew as some of the West- 
 erners themselves came to occupy the directing seats 
 of the national organization. And throughout their 
 characteristic period the most fruitful and innovating 
 of home missionary ideas sprang from missionary 
 ground. By this give and take process home missions 
 became balanced and nationalized instead of being 
 merely the religious subjection of one section to an- 
 other. 
 
 General Tendencies and Differences. The limits 
 of this chapter do not permit detailed narration of 
 specific denominational movements in home missions. 
 Certain general ecclesiastical and sectional differences 
 however require pointing out as essential to social 
 interpretation. 
 
 Church Polity and Missionary Organization. First, 
 strongly organized Churches did not find the same 
 need of separate and specific home missionary or- 
 ganization as did those of weaker polities. It was 
 very easy for those who shared some form of episco- 
 pal organization to discover that the Church itself 
 was a missionary agency. This principle was an- 
 nounced in almost identical language by the Metho- 
 dists * in 1820 and the Episcopalians 2 in 1835. On 
 the other hand denominations of congregational pol- 
 
 1 Buckley, Methodism, 650. 
 
 *Burleson, The Conquest of the Continent, 48.
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 17 
 
 ity had no ecclesiastical agencies to do the collective 
 work of the churches and were therefore compelled 
 to create voluntary societies. Since these and the 
 kindred boards of the Presbyterian bodies bore the 
 name of "home missionary" and created separate his- 
 tories, it is much easier to trace and judge their work 
 than that of denominations in which home missions 
 form a more integral part of ecclesiastical develop- 
 ment. The home missionary movement, therefore, was 
 far broader than the home missionary name, and 
 justice requires that this be remembered in estimating 
 the contributions of the several Churches to it. 
 
 The Denominations and the People. Second, the 
 denominational results of home missions were largely 
 conditioned by the character of the population emi- 
 grating by successive waves to the West. The pio- 
 neers who conquered the great forest before 1835 
 were predominantly Southern. Evicted from the sea- 
 board states through the invasion of their inland coun- 
 tries by the cotton kingdom with its slave-economy, 
 "the free farmers were obliged either to change to 
 the plantation economy and buy slaves, or to sell their 
 lands and migrate. Large numbers of them, particu- 
 larly in the Carolinas, were Quakers or Baptists, whose 
 religious scruples combined with their agricultural 
 habits to make this change obnoxious. This upland 
 country was a hive from which pioneers earlier passed 
 into Kentucky and Tennessee. Now the exodus was 
 increased by this later colonization. The Ohio was 
 crossed, the Missouri ascended, and the streams that
 
 18 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 flowed to the Gulf were followed by movers away 
 from the regions that were undergoing this social and 
 economic reconstruction." 1 
 
 Settlers from the South. Even in Ohio which was 
 first settled by New England colonies the Yankee was 
 soon distanced, and the Southerner crowded close 
 upon the emigrant from the nearer middle states. 
 "The Illinois legislature for 1833 contained fifty-eight 
 from the South (including Kentucky and Tennessee), 
 nineteen from the middle states, and only four from 
 New England. Missouri's population was chiefly Ken- 
 tuckians and Tennesseeans. ... It was the poorer 
 whites, the more democratic, non-slaveholding element 
 of the South, which furnished the great bulk of the 
 settlers north of the Ohio." 2 With the spread of this 
 population went the expansion of its familiar churches, 
 those which had attached themselves to it and ex- 
 pressed its pioneer moods in the Southern uplands. 
 This means that in its raw bulk the human material 
 of the West was chiefly Methodist and Baptist not 
 by reason of the peculiar polity of either denomina- 
 tion, for they were diametrically opposed but by 
 virtue of their previous relation to and affinity for 
 the population. 
 
 Two Dominating Types. Third, the social organi- 
 zation of the Western population was largely the work 
 of two highly specialized types, the Scotch-Irish and 
 the Yankee. The Scotch-Irishman was the natural 
 
 * Turner, Rise of the New West, 54, 55. 
 'Ibid., 77-
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 19 
 
 leader of the pioneer days and the peculiar conqueror 
 of the forest for social institutions. He was individu- 
 alist of individualists in his Calvinism yet his clan 
 spirit was stronger than this theology and he migrated 
 in patriarchal bands. The movement of such a band 
 from Tennessee to Illinois in 1816 is typical. 
 
 A Scotch-Irish Church. "They had enjoyed in some 
 measure the ministry of the famous Dr. Gideon Black- 
 burn of Nashville. Nearly all the adults of it were 
 members of the church; and every morning and eve- 
 ning on the way they had family worship, Grandfather 
 McCord, the patriarch and lay preacher, usually con- 
 ducting the service. After reaching the borders of 
 Illinois they began to look for a suitable place for 
 settlement, but they journeyed on and on until they 
 reached the heart of the territory and were crossing 
 streams which made their way westward to the Mis- 
 sissippi River. Finally one morning the old patriarch, 
 looking out from his encampment upon a broad prairie, 
 dotted with groves, and evidently supplied with liv- 
 ing streams, said: 'This shall be our place of rest; 
 and Bethel shall be its name,' and Bethel was the 
 name of the place for many years, and it is the Bethel 
 Church to this day. . . . Their house of worship in 
 1827 was a log cabin, in size twenty by twenty-five 
 feet. The pulpit was a box made of split clapboards. 
 The house was seated very well, for the time. A 
 seat made of split puncheons or slabs was in those days 
 considered quite comfortable. Then, in the winter, 
 that the house might be warm enough for pioneers, a
 
 20 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 plan was adopted that would freeze out any modern 
 congregation, but which in those days answered a 
 very good purpose. A space about six feet in diame- 
 ter, right in the middle of the house, was left without 
 flooring, securing thus an earthen hearth ; a bushel or 
 two of charcoal was laid there and set on fire. This 
 made the house quite comfortable on cold days." l At 
 the end of thirty years members of the Bethel Church 
 swarmed to a new location in southern Wisconsin 
 fifteen being transferred in a single year. Here in a 
 more mixed community they still responded to the 
 patriarchal leadership of one of the McCord stock, 
 and expressed marked clan-cohesion for another gen- 
 eration. 
 
 Fitness for Community Leadership. This capac- 
 ity for bringing forth strong and compelling com- 
 munity leaders and for establishing social and spiritual 
 permanence around them was the Scotch-Irishman's 
 immense gift to the West. It is more than half of 
 the secret of the staunchness and dependability of the 
 Presbyterian Church to which he traditionally be- 
 longed. And as Dr. Warren H. Wilson has shown, 
 it made him the typical farmer of the older period. 
 
 The Yankee. Still more potent for social organiza- 
 tion was the New England migration. The New Eng- 
 lander came late upon the Western scene. After its 
 first expansion into western New York and Ohio 
 immediately after the Revolution, this section had 
 been busy with fisheries, had developed extraordinary 
 
 1 T. O. Douglass, Autobiography, 9-14.
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 21 
 
 commercial activity, and had successfully used its 
 surplus population in establishing infant manufac- 
 tures. But after the destruction of the carrying trade 
 by the war of 1812 and especially after the completion 
 of the Erie Canal, the Yankee swarmed westward, 
 bringing culture and capital, a developed institutional 
 sense and a machinery of social life which no other 
 section or stock possessed. His advantage in these 
 respects rested back upon his distinctive system of 
 original land tenure. 
 
 Land, Town, and Church. "In the early days in 
 New England it was not customary to make grants 
 of land directly to individual settlers. . . . The ear- 
 lier towns were practically settled as church commu- 
 nities ; that is to say, the formation of a town amounted 
 practically to the organization of a church congrega- 
 tion and then settling as a congregation upon a tract 
 of land and calling it a town. When a town was 
 settled, all members who were admitted to citizenship 
 were given grants of land." * 
 
 Community Life and Moral Discipline. Upon this 
 basis of landholding New England developed two 
 dominant traits which by 1830 had become its dis- 
 tinctive marks, namely, its community life and its 
 moral discipline. Observers from other sections were 
 impressed by its "clustering of habitations in vil- 
 lages," its spires of white churches marking to the 
 eye each separate hamlet, its comfort and thrift. They 
 were not slow, also, to sense and often to resent that 
 
 1 Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, 66.
 
 22 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 focusing of moral sentiment upon individual conduct 
 which made every man his brother's keeper. 
 
 The Schoolmaster of the Frontier. In his most 
 typical migration the New Englander picked up his 
 church and community organization bodily and set 
 them down in the midst of the wilderness intact. He 
 expanded his idea of moral discipline till he became his 
 brother's keeper at large in the New West, its school- 
 master and moral reformer, and he backed and 
 financed this tendency through the national missionary 
 societies of which he was the chief projector. States 
 whose original population was predominantly South- 
 ern took the social stamp of New England and succes- 
 sively called themselves the "Massachusetts of the 
 West." Laws, institutions, and ideals were made by 
 this aggressive Yankee minority. To-day the typical 
 church of New England, the Congregational, is numer- 
 ically and sometimes even relatively stronger in the 
 Western states, which were socially organized by New 
 England, than in New England itself. 
 
 Sectionalism. Fourth, the development of diverse 
 agricultural economies by the North and the South, 
 which were at the roots of their social and political 
 sectionalism, ultimately directed the westward move- 
 ment of home missions into parallel streams which 
 remained separate throughout the period and until 
 increasingly reunited by the newer social aspects of 
 their tasks. 
 
 West versus East. The earliest sectional feeling 
 was that of West versus East, as if Mason and Dixon's
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 23 
 
 line were stood on end. The whole frontier, from 
 North to South, was essentially a unit against the 
 older seaboard states or sections. This sectionalism 
 was acutely evidenced first within certain states, for 
 example, in the struggle for political ascendency be- 
 tween the tidewater and the upland sections in Vir- 
 ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. 1 Each of these 
 states was sharply divided by nature into two agricul- 
 tural provinces: the coastal plain, with its plantation 
 system, based on slavery ; and the forested mountains, 
 fit only for frugal pioneer farming. Between them 
 lay the piedmont, a debatable ground. 
 
 King Cotton. The story of the enormous economic 
 effects of the cotton industry, after the invention of 
 Whitney's gin, is familiar. Already in 1818 it had 
 made the exports of South Carolina and Georgia 
 worth half as much as those of all the rest of the 
 nation. Cotton increased its average sixfold between 
 1830 and 1860. It invaded first the interior valleys 
 and more accessible uplands, driving the Southern 
 small farmer into the mountains and beyond, and as 
 we have seen, increasingly north of the Ohio river. 
 Against his single-handed opposition and even against 
 the stubborn clan-economy of the Scotch-Irish the 
 plantation system was victorious. The plantation was 
 a little world in itself with its self-contained econ- 
 omy; its grouping of slave cabins around the "great 
 house"; its industrial discipline; its division of labor 
 between skilled mechanics, house servants, and field 
 
 1 Turner, Rise of the New West, 52.
 
 24 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 hands ; its systematic sanitation and frequently system- 
 atic religious instruction. In its westward march 
 across the broad Southern plains it exhibited an effec- 
 tive method of occupying and organizing new country. 
 It provided highly specialized ability and strong natu- 
 ral leaders. It gave the South an advantage scarcely 
 balanced by the manufacturing gains and internal im- 
 provements of the North. 
 
 Cultivator versus Hoe. The transient character of 
 this advantage appeared with the agricultural revolu- 
 tion following 1833 which gave the North machinery 
 to release human labor. The slave could hot use these 
 machines. There followed the war of the cultivator 
 against the hoe, which could have but one outcome. 
 Add to this the facts that immigrants who now rushed 
 in from Europe avoided the South because unwilling to 
 compete with slavery; and that the physiography of 
 the South limited its improved lands to plots and 
 patches while the prairie states could be farmed solidly 
 from border to border, and one has a clue to the result 
 of the Civil War profounder than the marching of 
 armies. Scarcely staggered by the losses of war the 
 Northern farmer pressed westward, improving his 
 implements, followed by his "granger" railroads, add- 
 ing empires to his acreage and billions to the value 
 of his product, till checked and forced into a new 
 economy by the semi-arid section of the far West. 
 
 Denominational Sectional Divisions. The division 
 of the stronger and more national denominations into 
 sectional branches on the question of slavery is better
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 25 
 
 viewed in its larger social aspect. It was really a re- 
 flection of the divergent types of agriculture between 
 the sections. The church reflected the farmer. Dif- 
 ferent types of farmers required different churches. 
 The ground of separation was economic as well as 
 and perhaps more than political or moral. Home mis- 
 sions became necessarily sectional, representing the 
 geographical expansion of religion with the migration 
 of the Northern or Southern farm types. 
 
 Achievements of an Era, Thus with minor diverg- 
 encies of method but with essential universality the 
 task of the geographical expansion of religion has been 
 fulfilled. As the central missionary interest and typi- 
 cal missionary method of the Church it culminated 
 by about 1890. It was but a rough preliminary con- 
 quest compared with present social tasks, but it was 
 a conquest. There had been diversities of gifts but 
 the same spirit, and it was a masterful one. The area 
 to be covered was vast in unparalleled degree. For 
 the first time in human history a nation with an im- 
 perial domain to evangelize was to try the experiment 
 of a voluntarily supported Church, which would go 
 nowhere except as the devotion and colonizing genius 
 of its people should carry it. As a sequel, religious 
 opportunity, as measured by the presence of the 
 Church, has been marvelously equalized the newer 
 states fast becoming as privileged as many of the 
 older ones. The five great sections into which the 
 census now divides the nation vary surprisingly little 
 in the ratio of church-members to population. In
 
 26 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 brief, the voluntary Church in American life is every- 
 where and is accepted as inevitable. As bound by 
 virtue of home missions to go wherever national ideals 
 go, it constitutes one of the prime factors in that 
 "Americanization of the world" of which Mr. Stead 
 wrote. 
 
 Heroes in Review The Indian Missionary. The 
 pageant of our national movement westward has often 
 impressed the imagination. Its great types follow 
 one another trapper, frontiersman, farmer, manu- 
 facturer and workman. Each has his religious double 
 first, the Indian missionary. Often the settler found 
 his log chapel among the teepees of the prairie. The 
 missionary was there first. The other day, on a newly 
 opened reservation, a missionary reported the first 
 religious service for the handful of settlers who gath- 
 ered from beyond the horizon to a sod house in the 
 midst of an empty prospect. There was nothing be- 
 fore it of Christian history except thirty years of 
 lonely labor for the souls of the Sioux. On a neigh- 
 boring reservation a man was ministering whose 
 grandfather before him preached the gospel to the 
 savages. These were they who first and sometimes 
 with their blood consecrated the soil of this land 
 to the social uses of God. 
 
 The Itinerant. After them came the itinerant. One 
 day the music of our grandfather's ax in the clearing 
 was broken in upon by the clatter of hoofs and the 
 hail of a mellow voice. The preacher had come, wet 
 with swimming the streams, bearing news of two
 
 MISSIONS AS EXPANSION OF CHURCH 27 
 
 worlds. He went but came again, till he had gathered 
 out from the crude elements of the frontier stern and 
 inflexible groups of Christians, who set up vigorous 
 rules of life against pioneer profligacy, intemperance, 
 perchance against the enslavement of human beings. 
 He made the hearthstones of our grandfathers the 
 altar of our fathers' faith. 
 
 The Pastor. Our uncles and our fathers were 
 breaking the tough prairie sod behind steaming horses, 
 when there came striding across the gray furrows a 
 stranger manifestly from the East, who announced 
 that church would be held next Sunday. He had a 
 missionary's commission in his pocket and had come 
 to stay on $300 from the board and what the people 
 could raise. He had also a state constitution and the 
 plans of a college in his head. After that there was 
 church every Sunday. Soon came a colony, with its 
 land patents, its surveyor, doctor, and school-teachers, 
 bearing in the midst of its "prairie schooners" like 
 the ark in the midst of Israel a chest with books for 
 a library and a communion service from the old home 
 church. 
 
 College and State. In due time the state and the 
 college appeared. In the one, thousands of the most 
 virile men of this generation were born ; in the other, 
 trained. The stamp of home missions was upon both. 
 A generation grew to manhood without seeing a legal- 
 ized saloon. The doors of college classrooms bore 
 the names of New England churches that had fur- 
 nished the desks at which we sat. Our library was
 
 28 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the books of dead preachers our laboratory the cast- 
 off apparatus of Eastern institutions. But the East 
 sent us men of first quality, and we began to raise 
 them ourselves. They gave us high and austere views 
 of life, sound attitudes toward scholarship, and fo- 
 cused our faith and duty upon the "regions beyond.' 
 They made us what we are men with something to 
 hold and much to learn. Our day shows other, per- 
 haps better things to do. Yet theirs was a great task 
 well done. God help us to do ours as well!
 
 FROM SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO 
 SOCIAL AIM
 
 CHAPTER II 
 FROM SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 
 
 A Preview. The first chapter sought to tell the 
 story of home missions before 1890 as a geo- 
 graphical process, interpreted by its economic back- 
 ground and with its social expressions incidentally 
 noted. It will be the purpose of this chapter to con- 
 sider the chief of these expressions with respect to 
 their permanent social values, to show why all of them 
 together are not broad enough to furnish a program 
 of collective religious service for to-day, and to sum- 
 marize the characteristics of the new home missions 
 which issue from our wider social vision and deeper 
 social consciousness. 
 
 Men Larger than Their Theories. The older home 
 missions defined their aim in terms of personal salva- 
 tion, and their conservative instinct drove them to or- 
 ganize religious institutions on old patterns, which 
 safeguarded the home and reflected a simple social 
 economy. But manifestly such a formulation of the 
 case is inadequate to explain such a man as Manasseh 
 Cutler. He began his life in Massachusetts and ended 
 it there as a Congregational pastor. In his seventy 
 years he was by turn pioneer, storekeeper, lawyer,
 
 32 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 physician, army chaplain, and author. His career 
 made him state legislator, and member of Congress; 
 and he declined Washington's commission as Judge 
 of the Supreme Court of Ohio. As agent of the Ohio 
 Company and organizer of the Marietta Colony, he 
 was trader, politician, and statesman enough to hold 
 up the great land bargain which opened the national 
 domain to settlement till freedom, education, and re- 
 ligion had been written in the organic law. However 
 he would have phrased it, such a mind was profoundly 
 interested in the colonization of the West as a social 
 process, and there were social potencies in his life 
 undreamed in his theology. Equally, all along their 
 successive frontier lines, home missions wrought so- 
 cial effects, which officially must be set down as by- 
 products. Many of the men who wrought them, 
 however, had the exact equivalence of the modern so- 
 cial spirit, a spirit as suited to their day and task as 
 our best mood to ours. 
 
 On Virgin Soil. The conditions under which they 
 wrought conspired to give home missions strategic 
 social value. They drank of the vigor of the new 
 West. Migration to a frontier necessarily means 
 rapid social change. It selects the active and eager, 
 and puts them into a society largely free from social 
 stratification; it releases and quickens individual en- 
 ergy, awakens ambition, and creates "go." Home Mis- 
 sions, therefore, may have found transportation hard, 
 money scarce, and minds preoccupied ; but, when once 
 arrested by the challenge of the spiritual life, there
 
 REV. PETER CARTWRIGHT 
 
 Called a backwoods preacher
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 33 
 
 were optimisms, courage, and vision which gave re- 
 ligion tremendous advantage. 
 
 Call for Leadership. The West was a state of so- 
 ciety profoundly dependent upon leadership. The dis- 
 solution of older social tradition by migration, the 
 gathering of many sorts of men on the frontier, the 
 resulting conflict of ideas and sentiments made some 
 sort of new leadership inevitable. Peter Cartwright 
 flailing the rowdies of the Kentucky camp-meeting 
 was a symbol of men who must arise for all the higher 
 constructive tasks of civilization. It is something to 
 find sheep without a shepherd, for then perhaps they 
 will follow you. Under these conditions home mis- 
 sions became one of the chief organizing factors of 
 American society. 
 
 We have now to enumerate some of their methods, 
 and to appraise their chief results. 
 
 I. The Transplanted Community. The previous 
 chapter has already indicated the transcendent im- 
 portance of that method of Christian colonization 
 which brought the Church community from the older 
 regions intact. Thus the Pilgrims had brought their 
 Church from Holland and set it down on these shores. 
 Thus in successive journey ings the Church moved 
 west, bringing with it full social organization of the 
 community type, efficient leadership, and, frequently, 
 economic capital. This method made the transition 
 from old to new with the least social loss, and had 
 great advantage in social power over more frag- 
 mentary migrations. It escaped, in large part, the
 
 34 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 period of frontier disintegration, and was able to 
 organize and impress great masses of plastic popula- 
 tion of other types. Thus the famous Dorchester 
 Church migrated from Massachusetts, seventy-five 
 years after the landing of the Pilgrims, to South Caro- 
 lina; and thence fifty years later to Georgia, continu- 
 ing its name and organization, and leaving its stamp 
 upon three states. 
 
 Western Reserve Example. As typical of this 
 process, Dr. Josiah Strong describes a colony on the 
 Western Reserve: "Founded by a far-seeing and de- 
 voted home missionary. He had become convinced that 
 he could do more to establish Christian institutions on 
 the Reserve 'by one conspicuous example of a well- 
 organized and well-Christianized township, with all 
 the best arrangements and appliances of New England 
 civilization, than by many years of desultory effort in 
 the way of missionary labor.' The settlers were care- 
 fully selected. None but professing Christians were 
 to become landholders. As soon as a few families 
 had moved into the township, public worship was com- 
 menced, and has ever since been maintained without 
 interruption. A church was organized under the roof 
 of the first log cabin. At the center of the township, 
 where eight roads meet, was located the church build- 
 ing fitly representing the central place occupied by the 
 service of God in the life of the colony. Soon fol- 
 lowed the schoolhouse and the public library, and 
 there, in the midst of the unconquered forest, only 
 eight years after the first white settlement, the peo-
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 35 
 
 pie, mindful of higher education, and true to their 
 New England antecedents, planted an academy." l 
 
 Christian Colonization. So perfect a case of 
 Christian colonization was necessarily somewhat rare, 
 but the general method was so common that a widely 
 used and recent school text-book on civics 2 begins its 
 interpretation of social organization in America with a 
 study of a Western church community. The stimula- 
 tion of Western migration by missionary promoters, 
 the guidance of its group movements, and their prompt 
 organization into church communities went on ex- 
 tensively especially under New England auspices. 
 Strangely enough it is Mormonism which furnishes the 
 most complete example of religious colonization. While 
 going sadly wrong in doctrine, this movement pre- 
 eminently manifested social capacity and the ability 
 to assimilate alien elements. Some of the more pre- 
 tentious efforts at orthodox Christian colonization 
 failed because of speculative entanglements; others 
 like Jason Lee's splendid Oregon company, gathered 
 in the interest of Indian missions, builded better than 
 they knew, and became centers of new common- 
 wealths. 3 
 
 Other Applications. Such a method does not differ 
 at its roots from the social settlement, which to-day 
 colonizes the "city wilderness" ; and it would make a 
 perfectly sound basis for the modern development 
 
 1 Our Country, 196. 
 
 * Dunn, The Community and the Citizen. 
 
 ' Schafer, History of the Pacific Northwest, 169.
 
 36 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 of a rural community, say in connection with an irri- 
 gation project. It is not a method to be abandoned, 
 but one to which we shall return. 
 
 2. The Missionary Pastor. Recipient of a meager 
 stipend and of cast-off clothing, traditionally rearing 
 his family on pumpkins and milk, socially considered, 
 the home missionary was a strategically placed, supe- 
 rior man. The plastic West yielded itself to the in- 
 itiating energy of strong personality, which sociology 
 recognizes as among the primary social forces every- 
 where. Of course not every missionary could be a 
 Gideon Blackburn, with states for his parish, but 
 there were mighty and constructive men among them 
 almost without number. Simple goodness too has its 
 own efficiency. The letters of one of the indomitable 
 laymen who molded states refer most affectingly to 
 his mild missionary pastor as "John the Beloved." 
 Not alone the big-fisted frontier preacher, but such 
 leader incarnations of spiritual grace have power to 
 move the mystic who lurked always at the bottom of 
 the Scotch-Irishman, or to focus the deeper forces 
 of the Yankee community. To catalog the home mis- 
 sionary in all his varieties is to catalog an army. The 
 itinerant's physical endurance and spiritual travail 
 but one passage can describe. "In journeyings often, 
 in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from 
 my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils 
 in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in 
 the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 37 
 
 and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, 
 in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." l 
 t A Commonwealth Builder. What then shall be said 
 of the reserve resources and staying powers of a man 
 who died in 1910 after a continuous pastorate of 
 sixty-five years west of the Mississippi River; a 
 man who started with the beginnings of things 
 and lived to see his portrait hung in the capitol 
 building of his state as one of the chief makers of 
 the commonwealth; and what of thousands of this 
 type, who wrought out community results, under the 
 ideal of permanence, results which modern social con- 
 structiveness cannot surpass ? And, whatever his type, 
 the central fact in home missions was the missionary. 
 
 3. Together. The most constructive application 
 of the ideal of permanence was in the group-apostolate 
 or Band. Such home missionary groups went out 
 from Eastern theological seminaries to successive 
 frontiers Illinois, Iowa, the Dakotas, Washington 
 all in the spirit of the famous eleven of the Iowa 
 Band, "Each to found a church and all together a 
 college." Such bringing of highly trained men to 
 the task of institution building, in the plastic period 
 of the West, constituted a social technique of the high- 
 est order. No method could be more effective if ap- 
 plied now to complex social situations. 
 
 4. The Sunday School. Sects still persist in 
 America to whom the Sunday-school is an unorthodox 
 social innovation, along with missions and the prayer- 
 
 '2 Cor. xi. 26, 27.
 
 38 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 meeting. They reflect the ideal of the most primitive 
 frontier, before safety and neighborliness permitted 
 the intensive religious process of the home-making 
 farm group. The Sunday-school preceded the organ- 
 ized church in frequent practise and, perhaps even 
 more than the regular pastorate, is the typical religious 
 institution of its time. It supplemented the home; it 
 expressed community organization on the elementary 
 level ; it could be operated under humble circumstances 
 by the average layman. It was thus peculiarly adapted 
 to pioneer conditions. From 1824 union agencies, and 
 later denominational ones, sent out organizers of Sun- 
 day-schools. Of course Sunday-school missions redi- 
 rected by pedagogy continue as one of the great de- 
 partments of present-day home missionary work. The 
 most enlightened program for rehabilitating the coun- 
 try community looks to the modernized Sunday-school 
 as a central factor. Child welfare is a most crucial 
 point of modern social emphasis. With the broaden- 
 ing of their field to include the whole scope of religious 
 education (including missionary education) and with 
 the development of a higher type of experts, Sunday- 
 school missions discover a new task fundamentally 
 involved in the intellectual readjustment and social 
 leadership of the Church. In a world which is becom- 
 ing increasingly a child's world their essential service 
 will wax rather than wane. 
 
 5. Literature. Narrowing the survey, as our defi- 
 nition of home missions requires, to that literary out- 
 put which bore the imprint of denominational pub-
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 39 
 
 lishing houses, or was directly promulgated for pur- 
 poses of missionary propaganda, not much is left to 
 impress the critic or historian of American letters. 
 Yet whoever has seen Sunday-school literature in the 
 hands of a rural community has seen the seeds and 
 may have watched the development of vast forces. 
 The story of Lincoln's boyhood or the memory of 
 any one's Western grandfather will illustrate the 
 frontier's poverty in books. Mills and Schermerhorn 
 kept exclaiming, "No Bible south of the Ohio River," 
 and they might have added, "Nor any other book!" 
 It was not strange therefore that they were making a 
 second trip within two years with a supply of Bibles, 
 and that the most outstanding result of their revela- 
 tion of frontier conditions was the consolidation in 
 1816 of earlier agencies into the American Bible So- 
 ciety. In 1825 followed the American Tract Society, 
 to produce and circulate a more general Christian 
 literature. These two now venerable union agencies 
 of home missions, supplemented by denominational 
 presses and societies, have put staggering millions of 
 printed pages into national moral development and 
 covered the continent with good books. 
 
 Why Books? Some of our present moods incline 
 us to see in all this a pathetic overemphasis on literary 
 methods, characteristic of Yankee reforms in general. 
 But the actual situation gave it its deep wisdom. Thus 
 a Wisconsin missionary in 1836 pushed across the 
 Mississippi, preaching the first sermon and organizing 
 a Sunday-school in an infant settlement of the Black
 
 40 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Hawk strip. "I proposed," he reports, 1 "if they would 
 raise $5.00 I would furnish $10.00 worth of books; 
 and they immediately collected $11.50 and paid it over, 
 and I have forwarded the library." Now the sociol- 
 ogizing mind might raise the question whether the 
 Black Hawk strip did not first need some more imme- 
 diate element of civilization than books. But the mis- 
 sionary goes on to explain, "They urged me to come 
 again. But there are six or eight places on this side 
 [of the Mississippi], equally important, that I have 
 not visited for many months." In brief, books econo- 
 mized men and in the hands of the frontier Sunday- 
 school teacher were powerful leaven. Behind this 
 consideration there lies also the deepest social implica- 
 tion of Protestantism, namely, that all men must be 
 educated to be able to read the Bible under standingly. 
 Of this conviction, however far it takes one, the book 
 was the symbol. Almost everywhere the Sunday- 
 school library was the first publicly accessible collec- 
 tion of books. Traditional its literature may have been 
 or prosy, but home missions were the first Carnegie of 
 the nation. 
 
 6. The Church School. Precisely this background 
 is necessary for a genuine evaluation of the church 
 school. Recent historians of American education are 
 inclined to emphasize the fact that in its original en- 
 vironment the church school was professional 
 founded "to raise up a learned and goodly ministry" ; 
 and aristocratic always dominated by the ideal of 
 
 1 Home Missionary, September, 1836.
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 41 
 
 "ye university"; also that denominational ends could 
 not include a complete democratic system or a demo- 
 cratic adjustment of education for the entire people. 
 It is more to the point, however, to contemplate the 
 actual function of the church school as tempered by 
 the spirit of the West to its own uses. Thus the most 
 characteristic church school, the academy, was the ex- 
 press image of Western democracy in its best ideals. 
 
 The Academy. In contrast with the class-cleavage 
 idea reflected in the college and grammar-school sys- 
 tem, the academy directly reflects the rise of the char- 
 acteristic American middle class. It is "one of their 
 glories that they were in the earliest days so bound up 
 with the higher interests of the common people." * 
 Thus the constitutions of the two historic Phillips 
 Academies make no mention of college preparation as 
 the object of their founding. The academies spread 
 westward as exponents of the kind of education which 
 was fittingly open to all aspiring youth under condi- 
 tions of frontier equality. Most of the so-called West- 
 ern colleges were merely academies at first and shared 
 their ideals. They furnished the frontier with its 
 teachers ; they originated general education for women ; 
 they mediated between the culture of the civilized 
 world and the inchoate West; they made our fathers 
 and mothers what they were. 
 
 The College, The fundamental educational needs 
 of the frontier being provided in the academies, home 
 missions were profoundly right in their instinct to 
 
 1 Brown, Making of our Middle Schools, 229.
 
 42 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 raise up leaders for the new civilization through the 
 colleges. When the Iowa Band resolved, "each to 
 found a church and all together a college," it was be- 
 cause they believed in themselves, in the contribution 
 to society to be made by such fully trained men as 
 they. The outcome of their faith, and of faith like 
 theirs was that the destinies of American higher educa- 
 tion up to the Civil War were virtually in the hands of 
 the church school and that institutions of such ances- 
 try and type, still educate two thirds as many students 
 as are found in the thronging public universities. As 
 everybody knows the stronger of the early church 
 schools have quite outgrown their ecclesiastical control 
 and almost entirely their denominational affiliations; 
 have become universities, and are the most highly 
 favored recipients of benefactions from men of great 
 wealth. Harvard and Yale have long ceased to be 
 thought of as belonging to the churches which founded 
 them. Church schools of middle size are in great 
 danger of becoming prosperous class institutions for 
 the children of the well-to-do; centers of sound schol- 
 arship indeed and of a certain culture, but standing a 
 little apart from the main current of democratic as- 
 piration and service; or else of being crowded to the 
 wall by the none-too-gentle pressure of trust methods 
 in education. The former danger is the more serious 
 and subtle. From no standpoint of social efficiency 
 can defense be made for the effort to maintain thirty 
 or forty colleges, such as denominational zeal has 
 founded in some of the states of the Middle West,
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 43 
 
 and nobody to-day tries to defend it. On the other 
 hand nothing should dim the fact that most of the 
 large colleges have been small colleges through most 
 of their history and that consequently the small college 
 has done more, as it perhaps can still do, for demo- 
 cratic opportunity in higher education than any other 
 
 type. 1 
 
 Newer Types and Needs. Public education is at 
 the bottom a matter of taxable property. Where re- 
 sources for its adequate support do not exist, as in 
 many thinly settled and backward areas of the na- 
 tion, the church school, adapting the academy ideal 
 to modern educational demands and supported by mis- 
 sionary money, will have a long future of indispen- 
 sable service. New forms of the church school sug- 
 gested by the International College at Springfield, 
 Massachusetts, will reflect the needs of new popula- 
 tion for assimilation to our civilization. In the de- 
 velopment of the backward races its place is still cen- 
 tral. An adjustment between Christian education and 
 the state university is bound to be found. All these 
 mean the continuance of an old though modified home 
 missionary method. 
 
 7. Constructive Legislation and Moral Reform. 
 The home missionary was so much a social former 
 that it was not his first task to be a social reformer. 
 When laws and institutions were in making he was 
 on the ground and had possession of the machinery. 
 
 1 Thwing, Education in the United States Since the Civil War,
 
 '44 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 He sat in constitutional conventions and wrote planks 
 into political platforms. His deepest interest was in 
 safeguarding the home and its thrift. Therefore he 
 was the aggressive agent of temperance and the in- 
 veterate foe of gambling, particularly of the legalized 
 lottery. In the sectional conflict, the home missionary 
 lived along the firing line of national righteousness as 
 he understood it. The time came when "every Metho- 
 dist preacher was regarded as an abolition agent." l 
 During the struggle for Kansas, one wrote : "Stirring 
 times at Tabor now. Pastor John Todd has a brass 
 cannon in his haymow, and another on wheels in his 
 wagon shed. He also has boxes of old clothing, 
 boxes of ammunition, boxes of sabers, and twenty 
 boxes of Sharp's rifles stowed away in the cellar." 2 
 With such a tradition behind them it is not surprising 
 that some of the earliest expressions of modern so- 
 cial militancy were in home missionary institutions 
 of the central West. To men far from cities and 
 the noise of industrial battle, sitting among the sheep- 
 cotes of strictly rural states, came echoes of social 
 strife which kindled old reforming fires. This tradi- 
 tion of devotion to reform remains part of the perma- 
 nent equipment of home missions for their task. 
 
 8. Special Social Adaptations to the Backward 
 Races. Writing as late as 1900 on religious move- 
 ments for social betterment, Dr. Josiah Strong nar- 
 rated chiefly the institutional activities of exceptional 
 
 1 Helm, The Upward Path, 232. 
 * Douglass, Pilgrims of Iowa, 130.
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 45 
 
 parishes and could find little to include under "organ- 
 ized denominational effort for social betterment" but 
 missions to Negroes and Indians. 1 In these realms 
 home missions made some fundamental social experi- 
 ments, the results of which hold good for all time. 
 These included such conspicuous failures as the at- 
 tempt to handle the national Indian policy by assign- 
 ing the reservations to the charge of denominational 
 boards, 2 and such highly original and fruitful suc- 
 cesses as the application of vocational training to racial 
 uplift, as worked out at Hampton and elsewhere. But 
 both failures and successes pioneered the way to the 
 newer social insights and service, and their agencies 
 abide among the most useful of the present day. Some- 
 thing of their story will be suggested in other con- 
 nections. 
 
 9. Influence on Ecclesiastical Organization. The 
 West made the nation what it is. Its Eastern con- 
 sciousness has always been hampered by the "persist- 
 ent presence of the frontier," and its most vital 
 process has always been the give and take of the 
 sections. Similarly home missions have made the 
 American Church what it is. Whatever its creed or 
 form of polity, its main business in America hitherto 
 has been geographical expansion and its organization 
 has reflected this necessity. Whether by board or by 
 bishop, its extension agencies have been ecclesiastically 
 
 1 Strong, Religious Movements for Social Betterment, go. 
 'McKenzie, The Indian in Relation to the White Population, 
 14 ff.
 
 46 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 formative. Thus they have been the chief tie between 
 the local churches of congregationally organized com- 
 munions, which denied all centralizing authority. At 
 the other extreme they brought the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church to adopt the revolutionary device of 
 the missionary bishop sent out by the Church at 
 large. 1 Indeed the missionary task is likely to become 
 the main organizing principle of American Christian- 
 ity. The rapid and revolutionary changes in polity 
 now going on in several of the great denominations 
 are all in the confessed interest of working efficiency 
 in missions as socially broadened and redirected. 
 
 10. Initiative. Our national humor lets us appre- 
 ciate the observation that any chance meeting of three 
 Americans spontaneously organizes with chairman, 
 secretary, and a man to second motions. This tend- 
 ency leads to sinful overorganization. On the other 
 hand it is a testimony to social resourcefulness born 
 of pioneer conditions. The frontier was the mother 
 of initiative. That a thing had never been done be- 
 fore was no reason for not trying it now. It made 
 the reforming spirit adventurous and adaptive. Home 
 missions in this atmosphere got zest for experiment. 
 This is a profound variation from the ordinary con- 
 servatism of religious institutions. It remains an es- 
 sential of the spiritual equipment now that the Ameri- 
 can Church stands on the frontier of social experience. 
 Social experiment under the principle of voluntary 
 organization will throng its new regions with incipient 
 
 1 Burleson, The Conquest of the Continent, 60.
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 47 
 
 sects, with varied cure-alls. But newly acute prin- 
 ciples of selection are at work, which, with the 
 growing scientific temper, may be expected to weed 
 out the unfruitful more quickly than in former years ; 
 and out of this multiplicity of experiment the clear 
 portents of a better day will soon break. Such ad- 
 venturous alertness, such resourceful initiative are 
 the priceless heritage of the home missionary spirit. 
 
 Is the Past Adequate? Thinking back now over 
 the whole social heritage of home missionary history, 
 it is an insensate soul which does not thrill with rev- 
 erent pride and satisfaction. And if such a soul 
 chances to inhabit a body and use a brain which 
 reached maturity before 1890, it is at least an even 
 chance whether it may not say within itself, Is not such 
 a heritage sufficient? Isn't the mighty past adequate 
 to give a missionary program to the present? Are 
 there any novelties which are more than novel, which 
 constitute essential additions to all resources and 
 methods? To meet this mood it is only fair to con- 
 sider some of the inadequacies of the older home mis- 
 sions to their own day and increasingly to ours. 
 
 The Shortcomings of Our Fathers. Thus in 1844 
 a home missionary reported : "The cause of the delay 
 of this report is the existence of the smallpox, in an 
 epidemic form, in our village. We have been, and 
 are being, most severely and dreadfully scourged with 
 it. It commenced in this village on October 28 in a 
 very mild form, and continued such for a considerable 
 length of time, so that four weeks elapsed before any
 
 48 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 of our physicians discovered its true character, so as 
 to venture to call it by its true name; and another 
 week passed away before they could all be persuaded 
 of it. From its commencement no death occurred by it 
 until December 6, since which it has been very fatal. 
 As a consequence, all business is at a standstill; 
 the schools are suspended; and the places of worship 
 nearly deserted. Many are sick, and they must have 
 attendants. The whole village is affected with the 
 disease. . . . Fifteen, who a few days since were 
 among us in all the buoyancy of spirits and of life, 
 now lie beneath the turf. What the end will be, God 
 only knows. The disease stole in among us in so 
 mild a shape that almost the whole community were 
 fully exposed to its contagion before they were aware 
 of the danger. And when the alarm came it was 
 too late to flee, or to take measures in self-defense. 
 And when resort was made to vaccination, it was 
 found that we had imposed upon us a vitiated, if not 
 spurious, vaccine virus, which proved to be no pro- 
 tection, yea, much worse than none. God meant to 
 scourge us; he did not intend that we should be able 
 to escape or elude it. And we feel but the just expres- 
 sion of his wrath. May Heaven dispose this people 
 to profit by this severe judgment." * 
 
 Then and Now. One hardly knows which to ad- 
 mire least, the sanitary stupidity which failed to dis- 
 continue church services during the epidemic or the 
 theological stupidity which ascribed an uncontrolled 
 
 1 Quoted by T. O. Douglass, Autobiography, 23, 24.
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 49 
 
 epidemic to God. Manifestly the fifteen who died 
 were members of the community and church in a 
 sense not comprehended by the current home missions. 
 Increase this membership to hundreds of thousands 
 using a common water supply or sewerage system in 
 a great modern city and religion clearly must at once 
 take more inclusive and more intricate forms to match 
 the fact or to control its malign possibilities. 
 
 Out-of-Datc Morals. In 1913 a Southern state en- 
 acted legislation intended to eradicate the cattle tick 
 and so gain a Northern market for its cattle which 
 had previously been excluded by rigid quarantine. 
 Dipping tanks were provided in all towns. The moun- 
 tain men back from a certain railway line organized 
 night riders and dynamited a dozen tanks in a single 
 night. Their chief use for cattle was to haul lum- 
 ber. They raised none for market, had no concep- 
 tion of the relation of the cattle industry to the pros- 
 perity of the state, nor that of the price of beef to the 
 cost of living. Their outlook was that of the earliest 
 frontier; their social morality belonged back of 1835. 
 
 Transitional Problems. The social inadequacy of 
 the typical farmer's morality is explained by Dr. War- 
 ren H. Wilson: "The transition from the older 
 economy to the new is illustrated in the dairy in- 
 dustry which surrounds every great city. The dairy 
 farmer has ideas of right and wrong which are purely 
 individualistic. He believes that he should not cheat 
 the customer in the quantity of milk. He recognizes 
 that it is wrong, therefore, to water the milk, but he
 
 50 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 has no conception of social morality concerning milk. 
 He gives full measure; but he cares nothing about 
 purity of milk. He is restless and feels himself op- 
 pressed, under the demands of the inspector from the 
 city, for ventilation of his barns and for protection 
 of the milk from impurity. I have known few milk 
 farmers who believed in giving pure milk and I never 
 knew one whose conscience was at ease in watering 
 milk. That is, they all believe in good measure and 
 none believes in the principle of sanitation." * The 
 conditions which excused this limited outlook had gen- 
 erally passed by 1890. 
 
 The End of an Era. The census of that year an- 
 nounced the disappearance of the frontier line in the 
 Pacific Ocean. The first rough conquest of the con- 
 tinent was completed. True, there remained much 
 land to be possessed, but it was in general land on 
 which little rain fell land unconquerable by the 
 farmer homesteading by single families, or by any of 
 the ordinary resources of the farmer economy. A new 
 physiographical province and a new order of society 
 demanded new home missions. Of current religious 
 movements, only the high social organization of Mor- 
 monism was equal to it. How it must be conquered 
 generally is the lesson taught by the irrigation pro- 
 jects of California. In their first stage they were co- 
 operative, small groups of settlers acquiring a water- 
 supply and constructing irrigation works by their own 
 labor. But to conquer any considerable area from the 
 
 1 The Evolution of the Country Community, 174, 175.
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 51 
 
 desert required far more capital than such groups 
 could secure. In their second stage therefore irriga- 
 tion projects were taken in hand by corporations 
 which floated vast amounts of bonds, employed expert 
 engineers and built magnificent works, all resulting in 
 a very high average of failure and great loss to in- 
 vestors. At last it was evident that the task was too 
 great for any one but the state itself or the Federal 
 government Only the state could wait long enough 
 for returns, could control the monopolists and justly 
 distribute water, a matter so fundamental to any 
 civilization that the Almighty ordinarily keeps it in 
 his own hands. 1 In brief the physiography of a large 
 third of the American continent ordained that the 
 farmer economy should cease. To the triumphant 
 stream of Western expansion the desert said, "Hith- 
 erto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall 
 thy proud waves be stayed." 
 
 The Remaining Frontier. A modification of this 
 generalization is made possible by the development of 
 dry farming, which is pushing the line of profitable 
 cultivation farther westward. Within a year the au- 
 thor has seen the opening of a northwestern Indian 
 reservation for settlement. The tiny claim shacks 
 spring up like magic. Somebody has sold the lumber- 
 yard at the end of the railroad a carload of blue 
 building paper. Every shack is hastily covered with 
 it. A single strand of barbed wire is quickly strung 
 to outline each claim. Prairie water-holes are lo- 
 
 1 Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, 142.
 
 52 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 cated or shallow wells dug. A load of coal is hauled 
 weary miles and dumped unprotected before the shack 
 door. With feverish energy man and beast bend 
 themselves to the task of breaking the soil. They will 
 give it over only at the last moment and in time to 
 sod up the cabin before winter closes in. Sturdy Ger- 
 man-speaking Russians most of these settlers are. 
 There is something vastly impressive in the primitive 
 strength and dignity with which they stretch their 
 blue line of civilization against the winter and the 
 desert and wait the fickle moods of next season's rain. 
 Yet even in this case the old forms of farm economy 
 are inwardly changed. First across the line after the 
 "opening" was an automobile containing a tent and a 
 safe and the first institution of the new area was a 
 bank. The railroad grade was ahead of the settler. 
 Pioneering was done with capital and advanced so- 
 cial resources rather than with bare hands before the 
 opening excursion trains brought thousands to the 
 land lottery by which the claims were assigned. After 
 several days' association with them one felt that 
 speculators greatly outnumbered genuine home-seekers. 
 They were more interested in lottery than in land. 
 The old spirit had passed and the frontier is involved 
 in new issues, social to the core. 
 
 Transformed Tasks. The task of extensive home 
 missions therefore can never be completed, because 
 it has vanished. There are unoccupied regions into 
 which people must be followed by the Church. There 
 will still be heroic missionary service for scattered
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 53 
 
 communities in thinly settled regions. It will demand 
 many men and cost much money, especially when such 
 regions are peopled with foreigners, who have to be 
 pursued in order to be assimilated ; but it will be inter- 
 esting rather than typical, and the social emphasis 
 must dominate and furnish its main constructive prin- 
 ciples; while in the characteristic processes of con- 
 quering the semi-arid (or swamp) regions the most 
 immediate factors will be the thickly settled communi- 
 ties of consciously interdependent people and the ac- 
 tive agency of the state in meeting their basic needs. 
 Problems of intricate social organization will be in- 
 stantly compelling. There will be nothing to corre- 
 spond to the long pioneering of our fathers. Old 
 things have passed away for the parts of our land 
 which still remain to be populated. 
 
 New Application of Religion. The religion which 
 saves the newest frontier must prevent the epidemic, 
 sanctify the dipping vat, provide pure milk as well 
 as full measure, and pure politics as well as pure 
 milk, besides controlling the monopolists by law as 
 well as from within their own conscience and taking 
 pastoral care of the dry farmer by automobile. 
 And all this does not begin to take account of the 
 revolutionary inner change which has overtaken the 
 older countryside from Vermont to Oklahoma, nor 
 of the inert rural millions of colored folks, nor 
 of the nation's cities thronged with strangers, nor of 
 the clash of industrial classes all of them among the 
 dominant elements of the America in which we live.
 
 54 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 The New Home Missions. All this demands new 
 and socially redirected home missions and compels one 
 to pronounce upon the old home missions Jesus' ver- 
 dict upon the best man of a departed age : "Among 
 them that are born of women there hath not arisen 
 a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is but 
 little in the kingdom of God is greater than he." 
 The last quarter century has seen the gradual trans- 
 formation of home missionary aims and methods until 
 their social aspects are now the dominant ones. To 
 describe and interpret these is the chief task of this 
 book. Education has coined the term redirection in 
 order to express the parallel experience which it has 
 been undergoing. It has been made manifest that 
 the redirection of home missions tends not to destroy 
 but to fulfil home missions of the older type. At the 
 same time there are fairly sharp differences. The 
 old was extensive; the new is intensive. The old 
 thought it sought individual salvation chiefly ; the new 
 knows that it seeks social redemption equally with in- 
 dividual salvation. The further characteristics of 
 current home missions as socially redirected will ap- 
 pear in the successive chapters. For the present it will 
 be sufficient to indicate them briefly. 
 
 i. Contrast Between Old and New. The new 
 home missions are conscious of enlarged moral 
 realms in which the gospel is to be realized. This 
 enlargement comes by the rapid annexation of new 
 moral fields, but also by the complication of moral 
 issues in all fields, as the brain's surface is increased
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 55 
 
 by the deepening of its convolutions. The demand that 
 one generation should not waste the natural resources 
 of another, should not devastate the forests of pos- 
 terity nor burn up their coal, would have seemed far- 
 fetched to our fathers ; still more would it have seemed 
 remote from religious concern. They knew no such 
 far-reaching questionings as ours, say, concerning the 
 equitable distribution of wealth ; but their greater sur- 
 prise would have been to discover how many other 
 moral issues this one involves, as the modern con- 
 science senses it. Their charity was the giving of 
 alms : ours is the constructive statesmanship which re- 
 duces the death-rate of nations and adds years to the 
 average of human life. Their human relationships 
 were few, simple, stable. Ours are many, complex, 
 and changing. Consequently their goodness was near, 
 direct, and obvious, while ours is remote, necessarily 
 devious, sometimes obscure. This greatly complicates 
 duty for the good man of to-day. His is a sky-scraper 
 morality. Not only must he be good on every floor 
 four stories below ground and fifty above but up 
 and down from floor to floor run elevator shafts, elec- 
 trical connections, mail chutes, telephone wires, and 
 vacuum cleaning tubes. His moral structure is not 
 only higher, but more highly organized inwardly. His 
 religion must be the attempt to realize the program of 
 Christianity with all it implies both as to bulk and to 
 complex relationship. Home missions are expanding 
 to match and serve these enlarged moral realms. 
 2. New Moral Values. Current home missions are
 
 56 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 conscious of new moral values, particularly of the 
 value of socially depressed or obstructed men. On the 
 vigorous and untrammeled frontier men were unequal 
 in muscle, health, and skill, but they were equal in 
 status and potential opportunity. Or at the least they 
 felt equal and more nearly regarded each other so 
 than before or since. Now conscience is compelled to 
 concern itself more profoundly with second comers 
 with those who arrived after all the free land and 
 most of the natural advantages were occupied by 
 others ; with primitive possessors who were shouldered 
 aside; with exploited peoples former slaves or more 
 recent ones; with landless men, tenants, and wage- 
 earners; with emigrants and depressed city masses. 
 The human values within these social ranges are newly 
 sensed by the Church to-day. 
 
 3. Concern the Entire Church. Current home mis- 
 sions address themselves to the entire Church. 
 Formerly they were considered as expressing the lib- 
 erality of the well-established churches to the feeble 
 frontier ones. But the social frontier is everywhere. 
 New elements in our civilization shake the foundations 
 of the strongest churches. The richest are frequently 
 the least effectively attuned to their present task 
 and most in need of social salvation. There are no 
 exempt religious classes to whom home missions need 
 not minister. The boards now represent an appeal 
 to the collective social conscience. Vast sums of 
 money are being spent, not to help the religiously 
 needy in the frontier sense, but to reeducate the most
 
 SOCIAL BY-PRODUCT TO SOCIAL AIM 57 
 
 venerable elements and sections of the Church. There 
 ought to be home missions to theological seminaries, 
 to endowed churches, to prominent city pastors, and 
 there are. The profounder social task universalizes 
 the process. 
 
 4. Use Scientific Method. Current home missions 
 are the inheritor of that great clue to duty, the scien- 
 tific method. The discovery that rigid collective tests 
 of goodness ought to be made, which may serve as 
 guides to millions and prevent their millions of mis- 
 steps, has made all things new in the realm of morals. 
 No specific proposal to social conscience can evade 
 the necessity of submitting to such tests. The sec- 
 tarian extension of needless duplicatory and rival 
 churches, for example, cannot now continue, primarily 
 because the scientific spirit is so widespread and so 
 clearly presents the social consequences of such a pol- 
 icy. All Christian strategy presupposes preliminary 
 investigations and suggestions of this spirit. 
 
 5. Call for Expert Leaders. Concerning specific 
 social issues as they do, current home missions have 
 developed a type of expert leaders who may fairly 
 qualify with experts in other realms. They have 
 taught the sociologists; they have taught the statisti- 
 cians. Before teaching they had to learn from both. 
 The new leader is more of a specialist, and (though 
 true prophets are scarce) not less of a prophet than his 
 predecessors. The social engineer tends to supersede 
 the ecclesiastic as the typical church leader. 
 
 6. Secure Better Team Play. Because with such
 
 58 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 an approach to duty and under such leadership they 
 cannot be fundamentally sectarian or sectional, cur- 
 rent home missions are demanding and getting better 
 team play between communions than ever before. 
 Leaders in home missions have the daily habit of work- 
 ing together. That this is not exceptional but ordi- 
 nary is another omen of the new day. 
 
 7. Necessitate Profounder Religious Sanction. And 
 finally, current home missions are compelled to find 
 profounder religious sanction and support than the 
 older type. It is no disparagement of the religion of 
 the past to say that we must have more religion than it 
 had to meet the complexities and interrelations of duty 
 to-day. The intensive in method requires the inten- 
 sive in experience. We cannot get nearer to God than 
 our fathers did, but we can bring God nearer to more 
 points of life and more grades of men. To do this 
 will take not less but more of the power which wrought 
 in Christ and now works in us to raise society to new- 
 ness of life. Social by-product has thus become social 
 aim. Home missions henceforth have free course to 
 the goal of social redemption for the land of our 
 love.
 
 AN ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR THE 
 COUNTRY
 
 CHAPTER III 
 AN ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR THE COUNTRY 
 
 The Vanishing Farmer. The first step toward an 
 adequate home missionary program for the country 
 is the discovery that the old one is inadequate. It is 
 inadequate because the man it was suited to serve 
 no longer exists. Like the Indian and the trapper who 
 preceded him the farmer is gone a vanishing race. 
 True, there are five million more Americans on the 
 soil than there were ten years ago, and nine people have 
 been born in the country or moved thither for every- 
 one who came away. Yet those who stayed have suf- 
 fered inner change and those who came have brought 
 or received another heritage than that of yesterday. 
 The open country is peopled with a new type which 
 home missions, first of all, must understand. The 
 frontier line has been drowned in the Pacific Ocean. 
 Nearly all of America's free land which can profitably 
 be conquered by single families has been taken up. 
 Homestead ing is no longer a significant resource for 
 surplus population. Now we are adjusting ourselves to 
 the consciousness that somebody has preempted nearly 
 all the farm land there is. And, because millions still 
 
 61
 
 62 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 crowd in who want it, it has become immensely valu- 
 able. 
 
 Rising Land Values. Rural churches seeking aid 
 from the board of which the writer is secretary must 
 answer the question, "How much have land values 
 increased in your community in the last five years?" 
 A recent answer read, "250 per cent." The most 
 frequent answer is from 25 to 50 per cent. And 25 
 per cent, would be the answer even in many sections 
 of the older farming states. For the country at large 
 land values increased 100 per cent, between 1900 and 
 1910. One day the farmer waked up to the discovery 
 that, under such conditions, while one might make a 
 living or a little better by working hard, one might 
 become wealthy by doing nothing. Indeed he could 
 scarcely avoid becoming wealthy if he owned a signifi- 
 cant amount of land. Following this clue, he found 
 himself facing three alternatives : either to borrow 
 money and buy more land for its rise in value, or else 
 to rent the farm and wait for its rise in value, or 
 finally to sell the farm and buy a larger amount of 
 cheaper land in order to profit by its rise in value. 
 
 The End of the Old Order. Choosing any of these 
 alternatives makes the farmer a speculator; the sec- 
 ond makes him also an absentee landlord; the third 
 makes him also an emigrant. All focus attention upon 
 rise in land values instead of upon farming. All 
 quench the inner moral light of the true farmer, 
 namely, his attachment to the land as a homestead, a 
 place whereon to build a home, and substitute an at-
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 63 
 
 titude which regards the land as something to make 
 money from and chiefly unearned money. When 
 these motives operate sharply, the kind of man whom 
 home missions chiefly dealt with up to 1890, whom 
 they knew how to help and save, whose typical insti- 
 tutions they largely created, simply ceases to be. The 
 life goes out of the old order of rural life. 
 
 New Factors. Before determining her new pro- 
 gram, the Church must understand the concomitants 
 and consequences of this epochal change both the 
 harmful and the hopeful. It must measure the de- 
 cline of rural civilization, of its population, its birth- 
 rate, its landownership, its civic and private virtue; 
 the decline of its schools, its rural social centers, and 
 the dying off of the country churches. It must get 
 a broad-minded and ardent appreciation of the new 
 sources of rural strength of its new physical re- 
 sources like good roads and the gas engine, its techni- 
 cal resources in scientific agriculture, its political re- 
 sources in the taxable enthusiasm of a mighty people, 
 its sufficient economic resources in the present and 
 prospective profits of farming. 
 
 Moral and Social Elements. Particularly must the 
 Church sense the moral and esthetic resources of coun- 
 try life. Dr. Warren H. Wilson argues hopefully 
 that the sifting of population between city and coun- 
 try is a division of the nation between equally good 
 stocks, each selecting its fitting environment; and not, 
 as some have made us to fear, the leaving behind in 
 the country of the inert and inefficient. At any rate,
 
 64 THE NEW HOME "MISSIONS 
 
 there is a tremendous leaven in the open country of 
 strong, sound folks who are there because they pre- 
 fer to be there who have followed the soil for its 
 lure and have hallowed it with their love. Nor are 
 the city man's back-to-the-country tendencies alto- 
 gether to be despised, even though they may get ne 
 further in the first generation than the suburbanite's 
 rather ineffective garden. There are a hundred Chi- 
 cago boys in the Illinois College of Agriculture, and 
 more to follow. 
 
 The New Farmer. But the country's best moral 
 resource is the young working farmer of this genera- 
 tion, who with his complete education and his mind 
 fully open to the advantages of the city, has deliber- 
 ately chosen the life of the countryman for his lot. 
 Along with his knowledge and enthusiasm he often 
 cherishes a unique because newly enlightened pride, 
 tenderness, and devoutness toward the life of the 
 farm. This idealistic note in the young farmer is 
 unmistakable, to develop which, with all its finest im- 
 plications, is the high task of religion. 
 
 Patience for Reconquest. For so long lingering 
 with factors preliminary to the specific work of the 
 Church in the country, the apology, if it needs one, 
 is that it has been in search of the only clue to duty 
 which the Church pretends to possess. She knows she 
 must approach all her problems humbly through pre- 
 cise social knowledge. On the old ground of her chief 
 missionary triumphs she turns to a patient doing-all- 
 over-again in a profounder sense. She grew up with
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 65 
 
 the farmer. She followed him through forest, over 
 prairie and desert, to the utmost sea. She thought at 
 times that her work would be done when its geo- 
 graphical expansion was complete. She now sees that 
 it is God's way that the Church should never be out 
 of a pioneering job anywhere. Social change has 
 broken down many of the seeming successes of the 
 past; it has also brought forth the forces of a better 
 reconstruction. Rural humanity is to be cultivated 
 over again for salvation's sake with improved ma- 
 chinery. Intensive moral husbandry is to be applied. 
 There is to be wider appreciation of the social inter- 
 relations of souls. A keener conservationist con- 
 science is to sense the values of humbler men. Good 
 seed will yield thirty if not an hundredfold. In spite 
 of somewhat diminishing returns the fields are white 
 unto harvest. No program of the Church's specific 
 duty could possibly be adequate which did not faith- 
 fully count all resources, trace all relationships, scien- 
 tifically appraise all factors, and lovingly visualize the 
 totality of rural life with which religion is concerned. 
 Rural Leadership. The first direct contribution to 
 rural life by which the Church purposes to make her 
 service adequate is leadership. This was her oldest 
 contribution to the nation. Home missions were essen- 
 tially a far-sighted plan to supply strategically placed 
 superior men to the plastic society of the West. Now 
 that its first plasticity is over, now that the task is 
 largely one of remolding old institutions, now that 
 mere goodness and good sense are no longer infallible
 
 66 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 guides to right results, it is required that the supe- 
 rior man shall be an expert. The Church must fur- 
 nish the rural life expert 
 
 The Layman's Part. The only agent is not neces- 
 sarily the ordained minister of religion. The employ- 
 ment of lay expert service by the Church is increas- 
 ing in most of its fields of service. With all excep- 
 tional rural groups negroes, foreigners, mountain- 
 eers the Christian school must supplement the 
 church, and indeed precede many of its organized ac- 
 tivities. This fact calls for thousands of lay mission- 
 aries with adaptation to work in the open coun- 
 try. The Sunday-school worker has in the country 
 a field peculiarly his own. Almost everywhere the rural 
 social settlement would be a mightily apt agency of 
 betterment. Stripped to its essence, this would simply 
 mean that a family or two of Christian farmers, who 
 can farm, should move into a community for the 
 sake of the community and go into profitable and 
 permanent farming, taking gradually the natural place 
 of leadership to which community forces should call 
 them. The first denomination which has wit and 
 courage enough to supply such leaders as part of its 
 home missionary program will touch the center of the 
 rural life problem. At the same time the expert rural 
 leader which the Church will and ought chiefly to fur- 
 nish is the minister of the gospel. He must be pre- 
 pared, placed, paid, and made permanent. 
 
 Preparing the Ministry. Except the theological 
 seminary repent and become rurally minded it cannot
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 67 
 
 prepare such a minister. And its antecedents and pres- 
 ent environment are a great barrier to repentance. We 
 know that it occasionally puts rural economics into its 
 curriculum, and holds country-life conferences; but 
 these will not suffice. For, in the first place, the semi- 
 nary's atmosphere is non-rural; it has been getting 
 most of its students from the church school, which is 
 a recreant institution country-wise. Located generally 
 in the small town, the church school has been steadily 
 engaged in impoverishing the country by educating 
 its natural leaders away from it, and adding insult 
 to injury by boasting of this triumph. When its cul- 
 ture has been modern at all it has been obsessed by so- 
 cial problems interpreted in city terms. In the great 
 rural states, country-mindedness in education has ex- 
 isted chiefly in the publicly supported universities and 
 agricultural colleges. Unless the theological seminary 
 then can revolutionize both its source and itself, it can- 
 not adequately serve the country-life program. 
 
 New Theological Centers. Perhaps the practical 
 solution lies in the development of a new type of 
 training-school for the rural ministry in connection 
 with the state universities. Many of the denomina- 
 tions have already discovered that the bulk of their 
 youth are going, not to the denominational college, 
 but to the public institutions. They are therefore be- 
 ginning to found church houses and Biblical chairs ad- 
 junct to the universities, to establish university pas- 
 torates and the like. Now Madison, Wisconsin, and 
 Champaign, Illinois, being among the chief centers of
 
 68 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 agricultural learning, ought naturally also to be among 
 the great theological centers of the nation. The semi- 
 naries located in Chicago could do much worse than 
 to send their prospective country ministers to these 
 places for their senior or postgraduate years. They 
 could get their theology in the denominational house 
 and their rural economics in the university, meanwhile 
 drinking in an atmosphere charged with the sense of 
 responsible and resultful rural service to entire states. 
 In the East, Drew Theological Seminary, at Madison, 
 New Jersey, might ally with the neighboring Rut- 
 gers College, at New Brunswick, New Jersey; 
 Rochester Theological Seminary, Rochester, New 
 York, with Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; 
 while one of the superfluous urban seminaries of New 
 England might glorify itself by establishing itself 
 as a connecting and completing link between Amherst 
 College and the Massachusetts Agricultural College, at 
 Amherst, Massachusetts, and becoming an exclusive 
 agency for the training of rural pastors. 
 
 Placing the Minister. Granted his preparation by 
 some adaptation of agencies yet to be perfected, the 
 country minister has next to be placed. There can be 
 no social adequacy in conditions which place him in 
 a competitive church which divides a rural community 
 rather than unites it. To place the minister strategi- 
 cally from the standpoint of public welfare, there must 
 be team-play between the denominations. In this mat- 
 ter the difficulty of the situation is largely expressed 
 by the old rural formula, "One's afraid, the other
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 69 
 
 dassent." We know that the leading denominations 
 have comity principles to which their missionary 
 boards are committed, that they are employing the 
 survey method in whole groups of states as the basis 
 of Christian strategy, that they are rapidly adjusting 
 cases of overlapping and duplication between local 
 churches. The representatives of eighteen communions 
 have voted that the era of extension is over in certain 
 trans-Missouri regions, and have united upon a rural 
 church commission to advise what intensive program 
 comes next. On the other hand, local surveys gener- 
 ally show that rural people are only negatively and 
 traditionally sectarian. Rouse a healthy community 
 spirit on agricultural matters and they will get to- 
 gether religiously whenever they know that their 
 leaders will let them. An adequate program of plac- 
 ing the rural leader will simply assume and act upon 
 the new resources of denominational cooperation and 
 self-sacrifice, just as it assumes and uses the new 
 science and technique of the farm. 
 
 Paying the Minister. Any agricultural situation 
 which can support the farmer adequately can also 
 support the preacher adequately, but it ought never 
 to be able to support a superfluous preacher. The 
 country needs to conserve its resources, and has no 
 money to waste on churches. For a community 
 church, really serving the higher life of a successful 
 farming group, it can afford to pay well, and it should 
 be made to do so. Home missionary policy will be 
 very foolish if it does not insist on an adequate salary
 
 70 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 for the rural minister, and it ought to enlist in this 
 behalf some of the forces which have so successfully 
 advanced other rural interests. Better prices for farm 
 products ought to mean better pay for country 
 preachers. The church is modest in asking for herself 
 but she does think that the agricultural colleges, 
 the rural politicians, and the social experts generally 
 should get behind a campaign of education for the 
 adequate support of the great voluntary institutions 
 which must furnish rural leadership in the highest 
 things. This opportunity of cooperation she oilers 
 them in her great task. 
 
 Keeping the Minister. After the church gets its 
 rural leader it must keep him. This she has largely 
 failed to do in the past. The choice young minister 
 has been willing to serve a rural apprenticeship but 
 not to live a rural li'fe. In 1890 the Yale band of six 
 young men went to Washington. Now two are mis- 
 sionary secretaries, one a city pastor, one a social 
 worker in Chicago, while a fifth preaches in a town 
 of ten thousand. But one remains in Washington and 
 he is a college president. The kingdom of God is 
 doubtless richer but surely the state is poorer for their 
 going. But now, if there is anything in vocational 
 guidance, it would have been better to give Washing- 
 ton a type of men permanently suited to rural leader- 
 ship. And if the rural population is indeed equal to 
 the city population, but temperamentally different, it 
 will be wise in the rural minister to perfect the rural 
 type. Give him the same fundamental education with
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 71 
 
 the city youth as broad, as generous, as modern 
 then let him specialize on rural life and go to the 
 country to stay. Country life in its best interpre- 
 tation is big enough in economic possibilities, esthetic 
 satisfactions, and moral enthusiasm permanently to 
 fill any life which is fundamentally attuned to it. 
 Such a man will find the spheres of his promotion in 
 the superintendency of country churches, in rural 
 bishoprics, in rural social organization, in the con- 
 solidated school and the extension work of the agri- 
 cultural college. If he can make the moral conquest 
 of the small town, causing it to serve the country 
 rather than ape the city, he will have done a service 
 of unparalleled social import for the nation. Thus 
 rural leadership which is adequately prepared, placed, 
 and paid may become permanent. 
 
 Developing Community Spirit. Such leadership 
 will then address itself to the outstanding deficien- 
 cies of the country life, such as the lack of community 
 spirit. Rural America was settled by independent 
 family groups in competitive economic relations, who 
 have never been brought adequately into community 
 experiences and relations. The old rural community, 
 such as it was, was too small. Team-haul distance 
 over poor roads, which constituted the limits of the 
 rural community, did not include enough or enough 
 kinds of people to save life from pettiness and inbreed- 
 ing of ideas. People knew or imagined too much 
 about one another. Good roads increase the team- 
 haul distance and enlarge the community. The auto-
 
 72 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 mobile both enlarges and enriches it. For the true 
 correlative of community is variety. The accessible 
 range of rural life is to include both more and more 
 varied elements. One must think largely of it, for- 
 getting its old poverty and fragmentariness. Instead 
 of the country store which it has lost to the mail-order 
 house, the newly mobile farm population is to 
 possess itself of a considerable center, with its co- 
 operative store and creamery, its consolidated school, 
 its well-equipped church, and ultimately its community 
 bank. The actual farm population is not to be or to 
 be felt inferior to the folks who work in these insti- 
 tutions, for the farmer will own them all. Because of 
 their more varied relations, and especially because they 
 are no longer merely competitive family groups, coun- 
 try people will draw more effectively together and 
 will achieve the conditions of community life. 
 
 United Through the Church. As has already been 
 agreed, the church cannot serve such a community by 
 being a divisive rather than a uniting institution, and 
 the sectarian temper makes it divisive, whether it 
 burdens the situation with actual rival churches or 
 not. The church must become community-minded. It 
 cannot repair the damage of community division by 
 any saving of souls, since the divided community can- 
 not so organize its resources as to conserve and utilize 
 saved souls. Without the community spirit, saved 
 souls must either flee to the city for usefulness or else 
 fall from grace. 
 
 The Gospel of Cooperation. As a community
 
 A STRONG VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 ID a population of Q;I this church enrolls about .125 people, and provides for the social 
 and religious life of the community
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 73 
 
 agency, the church will concern itself primarily with 
 forms of cooperation civic, economic, educational, 
 and religious. Roads and schools, the chief civic as- 
 sets of the country community, will be its twin re- 
 sponsibilities. The grange and the market will be 
 its allies. Its gospel will concern these spheres of 
 religion. They will be the concrete subject-matter of 
 preaching, interpreted in terms of community sin and 
 salvation. 
 
 Worship and Play. Again, rural leadership, 
 through the church, will address itself to the crying 
 needs of worship and of play. Those two words be- 
 long together. The affinities of worship are not with 
 work; its place in religion is not the same as that of 
 work. There is no actual service of God but work. 
 Worship is something else a second, equal good. 
 It is the play of the spiritual life. It idealizes and 
 summarizes its most significant points, its highest joys 
 and deepest solemnities, like birth, death, the sense 
 of sin, the relief of salvation. But its function is the 
 function of play. It is necessary to urge this stub- 
 bornly, because the rural mind, while devout as to 
 prayer, is not ordinarily devout as to local history, 
 nor as to the season's crops, nor as to children's 
 games, nor as to beauty in garb and manner. Because 
 it is not devout in these matters, its young life aban- 
 dons it for the city, which does idealize life in steel 
 and stone, in the civic spectacle, in libraries and gal- 
 leries, in baseball games, moving pictures, and even 
 in milliners' windows. The country, too, must be
 
 74 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 given its parade, in which life is admired and made 
 to glitter. And how rich its materials for idealiza- 
 tion! The pageant of its founders and their deeds, 
 the anniversaries of the Christian year, especially the 
 seed-time and the harvest festivals which Chris- 
 tian got from Jew and Jew from pagan, the local 
 fair, the corn and tomato club and other children's 
 contests, community athletic teams, Boy Scouts and 
 Camp Fire Girls, the singing school and the school 
 entertainment all these the church will foster and 
 promote as its own because they are the community's, 
 and because only when life in all its reaches is ideal- 
 ized, played upon by the imagination and played at 
 through some recreational expression, can its totality 
 be significantly summed up in the worship of God. 
 
 Emancipating the Individual. Again, and to make 
 its country life program finally adequate, the church 
 must address itself to individuality which has been 
 crushed in the excessive solidarity of the farm family. 
 The farm family had in excess the cohesion which the 
 farm community lacked. As an economic and moral 
 group-unit, it was so closely knit as to forbid play to 
 personality. It cramped the self-expression, particu- 
 larly of the wife and children. "I feared my father; 
 I dared not love him" is the too frequent confession 
 of the country-bred man. The country home showed 
 the worst vices of unregulated production. No fac- 
 tory legislation socialized its methods. It exacted work 
 and paid no wages. Its hours of labor were un- 
 limited. It employed child labor, not with equally
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 75 
 
 harmful effects as those of industry, but in the same 
 exploiting spirit. John Brown lived and fought in 
 Kansas, but Professor McKeever has had to face the 
 farmers of that state with the startling challenge, "Do 
 you own your daughter?" The West in general has 
 housed its stock better than it has housed its men. 
 Rural life has still to be rendered into the fundamental 
 terms of human well-being. Its methods must be re- 
 vised to get the fullest value for the individual life. 
 
 Farm Mothers and Farm Children. Now the church 
 is against all exploitation, all harmful overwork of 
 women and children, all grinding labor. She stands 
 for education, specialization, a fair chance for in- 
 dividual talent within, and not at the cost of run- 
 ning away from, rural life. The farm boy and girl 
 must have room for initiative, a garden or a poultry 
 yard of their own, some ready money, a weekly half- 
 holiday. The farm mother must have machinery 
 in the kitchen, some definable right in the family 
 purse, time for her visiting and her club. The coun- 
 try church must enrich her life by organization for 
 all ages and sexes. Doubtless the disintegration of 
 family life and the division of its members' inter- 
 ests have gone too far in the city. In the country how- 
 ever they must be carried further than in the past. So 
 long as town spells individual freedom and country 
 spells bondage, the forceful boy or girl will not be 
 slow to choose. The Church has first to free and 
 then to socialize the individual units of rural society. 
 
 The Things That Are Caesar's. All the foregoing
 
 76 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 is to confess that the Church is not to furnish technical 
 leadership in agricultural processes. This the state 
 is prepared to supply in rich abundance. It is the 
 church's cue to specialize in the fields which she au- 
 thoritatively commands, those of religion and funda- 
 mental social organization. But nothing is more cer- 
 tain than that without her authority in these fields 
 the entire program of rural betterment is blocked. 
 Twenty years ago scientific agriculture in America 
 was in its infancy. Its intellectual outlook was vitiated 
 by crude conclusions from misunderstood Darwinism. 
 Its interests were narrowly technical, its spirit materi- 
 alistic, its exponents one-sided in culture. They were 
 despised by the classical colleges, called "dungists," 
 and some of them justified the appellation. Then came 
 the wonderful burst of new agricultural knowledge 
 and an avalanche of financial resources for the sup- 
 port of research and popularization. Next dawned 
 the consciousness of the high social mission, of the 
 statesmanship, of rural rehabilitation. 
 
 The Question of Motive. All went well till the 
 rural betterment movement came to the question of 
 motive. Then technique and taxes alike felt suddenly 
 inadequate, paralyzed with a sense of moral bank- 
 ruptcy. One saw the humorous spectacle of previ- 
 ously self-confident experts scurrying to the Church 
 and theological seminary to find some one who com- 
 manded the sources of motive some one who could 
 make the people of rural communities cease gossip- 
 ing and begin to work together in the light of a new
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 77 
 
 day. One saw also what was not humorous at all but 
 solemnly joyous, namely, the technical experts them- 
 selves often struck pious by the sense of the need of 
 an adequate power to fill and thrill the great resources 
 of their securing. Some of the most genuine, devout, 
 and practical Christian messages of to-day are com- 
 ing from the agricultural colleges and the rural econo- 
 mists. They fully appreciate and confess the central 
 place of the church in rural life. They call for 
 the situation calls for a profound and adequate pro- 
 gram of rural evangelization in intimate and mutually 
 inspirational fellowship with the great economic and 
 technical program of the state in behalf of the open 
 country. 
 
 Average Conditions. The current program of ru- 
 ral betterment is wonderfully complete and attractive. 
 It by no means compasses, however, the needs of vast 
 areas of America on which people are trying to live 
 from the soil. It assumes rather land of sufficient 
 natural fertility to support rural population of aver- 
 age density, as well as a population of average intelli- 
 gence and capacity to utilize American advantages, to 
 whom the great resources of the state and nation for 
 rural betterment are equitably extended. Under such 
 conditions, the better methods and disposal of re- 
 sources, agricultural, social, and religious, which con- 
 stitute our adequate program, may be trusted to issue 
 in a high degree of happiness and prosperity. Home 
 missions then will consist only temporarily and inci- 
 dentally in extending financial aid to rural churches.
 
 78 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Professor Carver's challenge may be fully accepted: 
 If Christianity means better farming, as it should, the 
 better land will inevitably get into Christian hands, 
 which in the long run will be amply able to sustain 
 their own churches. 
 
 Poor Populations on Poor Lands. But on the vast 
 areas where these conditions cannot pertain rural 
 home missions must continue to mean something quite 
 different and more expensive. Where, for example, 
 there is a heavier population than the land can sus- 
 tain in decency, degraded conditions of life are bound 
 to result, typified for instance in the highlander of the 
 Southern Appalachians. Here are sterile mountain 
 counties with as many people per square mile as live 
 in the fruitful prairie states. From the standpoint of 
 the economist the people should leave the land and 
 come away to some place where they can make a de- 
 cent living. Yet, strangely, they love their wild and 
 barren acres as home. While they stay, home mis- 
 sions must stay with them. Moral victories may be 
 won even on a field which is economically untenable. 
 
 Survey of a Mountain Community. Where one of 
 the narrow southernmost spurs of the Appalachians 
 penetrates a seaboard state lives to-day a community 
 of 78 souls under essentially pioneer conditions. These 
 .78 constitute 13 families. There are two other house- 
 holds, composed in the one case of a widow dependent 
 on a Confederate pension and the community's single 
 spinster, and in the other of two missionary teachers. 
 There are three orphans, one child cripple, and one
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 79 
 
 illegitimate among them, two aged couples, and one 
 bachelor hired man the only wage-earner of the 
 group. All the rest make their living, such as it is, 
 in family groups under economic independence. Prac- 
 tically all of them own land (which is worth from two 
 to ten dollars per acre), and all of them subsist par- 
 tially by its cultivation. Yet but one of the thirteen 
 families really farms for a livelihood and that one 
 only by the renting of hay-land in the valley below to 
 supplement the meager acres which the mountain af- 
 fords. Five do this farming entirely without wheels, 
 each with a single work animal for which they cannot 
 produce sufficient feed. 
 
 Hewers of Wood. Seven of the thirteen families 
 live chiefly by the forest itself. Its first wealth has 
 been appropriated by the lumberman long ago. Such 
 rare lumber tracts as remain are exploited by capital 
 with machinery and trained men. It is left to these 
 seven mountaineers to go lonely into the depleted for- 
 est with saw and ax to cut tie timbers for the railroad. 
 The smaller trees they sometimes turn into fire-wood 
 for neighboring village people. One man splits the 
 rarer cedar or poplar into shingles. Nothing more 
 complicated, more akin to the great world's busy in- 
 dustry, is attempted than this. 
 
 Other Occupations. Besides being hewers of wood, 
 three heads of families perform the function of trans- 
 portation for the rest, hauling ties to the railroad and 
 supplies to the mountain. One of these is also the 
 community's only approach to a capitalist. He owns
 
 8o THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 four or five yoke of oxen and employs the aforemen- 
 tioned hired man. A profane and forceful Scotch- 
 Irishman from another state, he married a wife well 
 educated in the missionary school, half kindly and 
 half cruelly keeps an orphan child, and represents the 
 embryo exploiter of his neighbors. Two more fami- 
 lies supplement their living from the soil by keeping 
 the community in touch with the outer world ; a man 
 as mail-carrier, a woman as postmistress. The post- 
 office is the sole indigenous community center, but it 
 is soon to be abolished and the livelihood of two fam- 
 ilies cut in two by the extension of rural free delivery. 
 Then both families say they must move away. 
 
 Literacy, Health, Morals. The adults of four of 
 the thirteen families are fairly literate, but none of 
 these is native of the mountains and but one of the 
 state. Of the 52 children of the community 28 are 
 of school age according to local interpretation, and 22 
 of these are enrolled. There are four months of school 
 term to be provided with $200 of public funds, but 
 these have usually been supplemented with three or 
 four months more of mission school term. The 
 health of the community is good. There is little 
 tuberculosis (the crippled child probably has it), and 
 no typhoid locally originating. Eyes are in fair con- 
 dition and hookworm not suspected. The children are 
 usually bright. It is not clear whether the few cases 
 of excessive dulness are due either to mental defect 
 or to saturation in tobacco from infancy. Most of 
 the women dip snuff. Drunkenness is rare. The
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 81 
 
 single case of illegitimacy within memory was punished 
 by the relentless ostracism of the woman. Family 
 groups persist loyally, as under pioneer conditions 
 they must. On the other hand a boy of seventeen 
 married a girl of fifteen and to-day at nineteen is the 
 father of two children. 
 
 Survival of Primitive Religion. Denominationally 
 speaking the community is first of all "hard-shell" 
 Baptist, then Methodist and missionary Baptist. But 
 none of these churches has ever had permanent or- 
 ganizations or maintained stated services. Just now 
 the only acutely religious people are the Holy Rollers 
 who have come up from the mines and converted the 
 three or four remotest families of the community. 
 Their characteristics are the claim of sanctification, 
 the gift of tongues, and religious emotion expressed 
 in physical paroxysms. They meet in a mountain 
 cabin. Suddenly babel breaks forth. The lights are 
 extinguished. They throw themselves together on the 
 floor and roll till exhausted. Recently a woman per- 
 sisted in the exercise for half a day, lying in the open 
 air before her cabin while the community sat around 
 on rail fences and mule-back to watch. They are back 
 in 1800 when stricken sinners lay in windrows under 
 the "power" of the Kentucky revival. Like men, 
 like results. 
 
 Deserting the Mountains. Economically speaking, 
 there is just one sensible man in the community. At 
 the time of this writing he is just preparing to move 
 thirty miles to town and put his family to work in
 
 82 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the cotton-mill. He proposes to omit for them the 
 entire evolution of the American people from 1835 
 to 1890 and to press them direct from the pioneer 
 into the industrial stage. The physical, social, and 
 moral risk is apparent; but their family income from 
 the beginning will be more than he could think of 
 gaining as expert tie cutter and mountain farmer. 
 
 Missions Upon an Inadequate Basis. Home mis- 
 sions as represented by two Christian women doing 
 religious, community, and school work may convert 
 individuals and even somewhat mitigate the social 
 fragmentariness and spiritual desolation of this moun- 
 tain community. They may educate the children, who 
 are by no means degenerate, to leave the mountains, 
 which of course does not help the community which 
 is left. Of constructive social results, to speak truth, 
 they have little to show for their efforts. The frontier 
 has lasted too long with these thirteen families. They 
 are not socially plastic. They cannot farm on the 
 mountain and achieve a decent standard of living. 
 Industry must either come to them or they go to in- 
 dustry. For the present their salvation is in the 
 mill towns. And what a salvation ! 
 
 Undeveloped Resources. The case just cited is an 
 extreme one, intended to enforce the dependence of 
 satisfactory religious results upon a sound economic 
 foundation. After the surplus population is removed, 
 the resources of the mountains should be developed 
 to the full so as to sustain adequately those who re- 
 main. There are types of agriculture peculiarly suited
 
 w 

 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 83 
 
 to such regions ; stock-raising, dairying, and fruit cul- 
 ture. The better mission schools are working hard to 
 teach the new generation how to profit by these re- 
 sources. There are extensive deposits of coal, too, un- 
 derlying these mountain farms, and industry is fast 
 coming to the mountaineer when the mountaineer will, 
 not go to industry. Between industry and improved 
 mountain agriculture, population may hope to get ad- 
 justed to resources. Meanwhile, home missions as 
 Christian philanthropy must strive to equalize oppor- 
 tunity for the woodsman's boy as for the Turk or 
 Hindu. 
 
 The Case of the Negro. Another case in which our 
 adequate program will be very inadequate without 
 the further painstaking efforts of home missions is 
 presented by the eight million rural Negroes of the 
 United States. Hordes of them, if they knew such 
 things existed, could not read the bulletins through 
 which Uncle Sam would teach his children to farm. 
 Generally they have been left outside of the scope of 
 those agencies by which the states seek to quicken 
 agriculture. The Negro's schools have been miserable, 
 inadequate fragmentary in time, poorly housed, 
 poorly taught. Even over his conspicuous gains in 
 landownership, the economist shakes his head, remind- 
 ing us that in the long run land will gravitate into 
 the hands of those who can use it best. But the 
 Negro knows little but traditional, land-robbing farm 
 methods. In common with all tenants, he uses insuf- 
 ficient fertilizer. His typical tenant holding is too
 
 84 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 small from which to make a living in the American 
 sense. Child labor seems the only alternative to starv- 
 ation for his family. In debt to his landlord for a 
 year's living before his crop is "made," his margin 
 of opportunity would be pitiably narrow even if his 
 intelligence were greater. In many sections his prog- 
 ress is discouraged by violence. Sometimes his agri- 
 cultural organizations are favored by his neighbors 
 so long as they make him a better producer; nearly 
 always they are bitterly resented when they seek to 
 influence labor conditions or the prices of agricultural 
 products. 
 
 A Rural Social Settlement. Rural mission schools 
 for Negroes have from the beginning largely sus- 
 tained their pupils by furnishing them with the op- 
 portunity of farm or domestic labor in connection 
 with the institution. They had therefore less to learn 
 from the modern social redirection of education, since 
 they were already teaching so largely in the terms of 
 the pupils' immediate environment. For them, as for 
 home missions in general, the new order consists 
 largely in gathering up and revaluing their social by- 
 products, and then in setting them up as direct social 
 aims. Thus the Joseph Keasby Brick School in east- 
 ern North Carolina had operated a farm of 1,029 
 acres, and had essentially conducted a rural social set- 
 tlement for twenty years; had graduated generations 
 of tenants into farm owners; had organized and in- 
 structed farmers ; had sent out brilliant young men as 
 instructors of agriculture or the industries, till it
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 85 
 
 found itself in the midst of a Negro population own- 
 ing 100,000 acres of farm land in three contiguous 
 counties and with taxable property in one of the 
 three worth $1,250,000. Yet all this while the school 
 had cherished the delusion that its chief function was 
 to prepare students for college. When therefore re- 
 cently its supporting missionary board asked it to 
 accept explicitly the role of a school of rural life, it 
 somewhat resented the suggestion. Its practise was 
 better than its preaching. Its thinking needed redirec- 
 tion though its doing had long ago turned "home to 
 the instant need of things." 
 
 Notable Community Service. Three years ago a 
 large Negro school in Alabama, whose large farm had 
 previously been an ornamental adjunct rather than an 
 integral factor in education, set itself directly to de- 
 velop a department of rural community service. Its 
 first step was to organize a Negro farmers' associa- 
 tion for its county. This association meets in the 
 county court-house three times a year; has two hun- 
 dred members and an average attendance of seventy- 
 five. Two years ago it established a Colored Farm- 
 ers' County Fair, which last year gathered 2,000 ex- 
 hibits and awarded nearly a hundred different prizes. 
 The school conducts an annual "school in the field" 
 a day on which the whole countryside gathers to its 
 model farm, the men to inspect and receive instruc- 
 tion in new agricultural methods, the women to have 
 demonstrations in home nursing, the care and feeding 
 of infants, cooking, and sewing. Two hundred men
 
 86 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 and seventy-five women now profit by this occasion. 
 Fifty of them, a year ago, took away each 100 grains 
 of tested seed-corn and competed for a prize Jersey 
 pig which should go to the farmer raising the largest 
 yield of corn. In a state which averages less than 
 15 bushels, David Rutledge raised 56 bushels on one 
 acre and got the pig. An agricultural prize has been 
 established for students of the institution for the 
 greatest profit from a half acre of land. Nine stu- 
 dents have prepared the land, planned the crops, tested 
 the seed, and are now competing for this prize. Ad- 
 vanced students in sociology have been studying the 
 inside and outside of farm homes in order to make 
 the gains of better farming count in better living. 
 
 Cooperating with the State. The college has laid 
 hold of the public school system, too, and is redirecting 
 it into social efficiency. Thus the County Teachers' 
 Institute is annually held within its walls and con- 
 ducted by one of its professors under state authoriza- 
 tion. In connection with this Institute industrial ex- 
 hibits by the several rural schools are developed. Two 
 days per year are allowed to public school-teachers 
 for observation in schools other than their own. These 
 are utilized by the college to offer a County School of 
 Observation in which suitable methods for rural 
 schools are discussed and demonstrated by its model 
 school. A teachers' reading circle is conducted by 
 its extension department. Patrons of rural schools 
 are being organized into School Improvement Leagues 
 and the educational authorities of the state are being
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 87 
 
 encouraged to take a more active interest in their 
 welfare. The railway system on which the college 
 is located is seeking to develop a more diversified type 
 of agriculture along its line, in view of the approach 
 of the cotton boll-weevil; and, along with the state 
 and federal government, is fighting the cattle tick. The 
 college is being used by all these agencies. Its suc- 
 cessful alfalfa culture has been made an object-lesson 
 to the entire state in profitable diversification ; its dip- 
 ping vat has become the center of the county cam- 
 paign for tick eradication. 
 
 Large Beginnings. All this is necessitated by an 
 adequate program of home missions for the rural Ne- 
 gro, because for him hitherto the resources of the 
 state have been inadequately supplied. He has been 
 so poor a farmer that he could neither maintain family 
 life upon a decent standard of living nor support the 
 community factors essential to rural well-being. But 
 where the better mission schools reach out, large be- 
 ginnings have been made. No more eager and teach- 
 able population exists in America than the Negro 
 farmer, when once he is adequately acquainted with 
 the best possibilities of rural life. And probably no 
 ministers more uniformly make it their business to 
 organize and teach for rural betterment than some of 
 the graduates of such schools as have been described. 
 The author receives hundreds of reports from Negro 
 churches each year in which community gains in cot- 
 ton, peanuts, or sugar-cane are as carefully counted 
 as souls saved. Yet there are left unawakened, inert
 
 88 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 millions. Among them and those of other backward 
 races and groups in the open country lies one of the 
 longest, most stubborn, most patriotic and rewarding 
 tasks of home missions. The extracting and exploit- 
 ing industries, like lumbering and mining, project their 
 peculiar communities and social problems into rural 
 conditions and constitute special tasks for home mis- 
 sions. Wherever they go, mountain and marsh, prairie 
 and piedmont, coastal plain and high plateau, each 
 adds its touch of variety, its challenge and its diffi- 
 culty to their work. 
 
 Who Is My Neighbor? Recent studies in local his- 
 tory have established the intimate dependence of civ- 
 ilization upon these physical variations. A very little 
 ridge of hills in the midst of a plain, a very narrow 
 valley huddled between mountains, will produce radi- 
 cal differences in population. How very little a physi- 
 cal difference may reenforce other factors to create 
 strange social types is seen within twenty miles of 
 New York City, where descendants of Indians, Dutch, 
 and Negro slaves have lived for a century on the 
 edge of the highlands as a peculiar community, ex- 
 tremely backward in culture and utterly unmoved 
 by the mighty pulsing of the city's life so near them. 
 In the most fertile and highly improved prairie states, 
 the thin fringes of brush along the streams often 
 shelter generations of social Ishmaelites. The richest 
 valleys often look up to impoverished hill towns, lack- 
 ing every progressive factor of rural life. Not only 
 in the city are there proximity of wealth and poverty,
 
 ADEQUATE PROGRAM FOR COUNTRY 89 
 
 sharp contrast of social fortunes, and the need to unite 
 men in community enthusiasms. In the country, as 
 well, many a Christian, longing for a larger sphere 
 of service, may walk in his garden in the cool of the 
 day and find a mission field no farther away than the 
 hills to which he lifts his eyes.
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER
 
 Concern for the City. The nation has watched its 
 own marvelous urban growth with deep searchings of 
 heart. It is found that 46 per cent, of our population 
 now lives in cities and we are wont to record this 
 fact as a Problem in capital letters. The gains of 
 the country for the last decade were 1 1 per cent. ; 
 of the city 35 per cent. Our cities now number 2,405 
 with a population of 42,623,000 people, and the city 
 has grown faster in prestige than in numbers. Its 
 psychological sway is far beyond its weight. The 
 country thinks in terms of the city as never before. 
 The city bears acutely upon the souls of all the people. 
 The country is in a mood of spiritual dependence 
 and quickly adopts the city ways and conventionali- 
 ties. 
 
 Is the Country Harmed? The assumption, how- 
 ever, that urban growth is necessarily at the expense 
 of the country needs to be sharply challenged. The 
 growth of the rural districts in the last decade is close 
 to the growth in total population of long settled civili- 
 zations like that of Germany ; it nearly equals the in- 
 crease of our own native stock. The country is popu- 
 
 93
 
 94 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 lous enough, or rather too populous in spots, already. 
 Fewer country people could support the city than 
 at present, and the economic balance will be better 
 when more have gone from the country. One farm 
 laborer can produce enough to feed seven or eight peo- 
 ple at present, and under ideal conditions of American 
 agriculture ought to be able to feed sixteen. The 
 chances are that, with normal development, the city 
 will grow even more rapidly than in the past. What 
 it has been getting, up to now, is surplus population, 
 especially that from foreign immigration. The British 
 Agricultural Board treats the English urban movement 
 as normal, and complains only of the supplementary 
 drain of population overseas. 
 
 Reason for the City. The city is inevitable. It is 
 the creation of the country and exists for the sake of 
 the country. When country population increases nor- 
 mally and produces with the tools and the science of 
 modern civilization, it needs vast city populations to 
 transport, transform, and exchange its surplus. Spe- 
 cifically, the city is the product of the machine; it is 
 the greatest machine-made product. One may con- 
 dense the history of its evolution as follows : Steam 
 substituted the machine for the hand tool, and the 
 machine necessitated the factory, which is simply a 
 battery of tools moved by common power. Many ma- 
 chines in one place require many people to run them. 
 These many people living and working together are 
 a city. 
 
 Where Must the City Be? The location of cities is
 
 TOTAL 
 
 49,348,683 
 
 TOTAL ^dL^^i 2,623. 383 
 
 Circles sAow relative size of totals 
 
 Based on Census of /9/O 
 
 RURAL AXU URBAN POPULATION
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 95 
 
 typically a reflection of the concentration of industry. 
 Where there is material to be manufactured, power 
 to drive machines, and men to consume goods, the 
 cities spring up in groups. Factory production seeks 
 proximity of raw material, water-power or fuel, and 
 markets. The result is not an even distribution of 
 urban population, but its concentration where condi- 
 tions have located industry. The varying accessibility 
 of labor and the tendency of industries to mass to- 
 gether have created in America very interesting ex- 
 tremes of concentration. Thus 40 per cent, of all the 
 gloves manufactured in the United States are made 
 in a small city * of 21,000 people; or, more specifically, 
 of 381 glove factories in the United States (Census 
 of 1900) 243 are in New York State, 166 in Fulton 
 County, 150 being in the adjoining municipalities of 
 Gloversville and Johnstown. 2 The iron industry has 
 two conspicuous centers; and the extreme concentra- 
 tion of the knit goods industry, of the manufacture of 
 collars and cuffs, boots and shoes, silk, glass, and pot- 
 tery is familiar. Each of these industries has created 
 a train of cities. While industry has a general west- 
 ward movement, by far its largest bulk and the great- 
 est percentage of its workers lie in the n northeastern 
 states constituting less than one fifth of our area and 
 bounded by a line run from Philadelphia to St. Louis 
 and thence to St. Paul. And since the city is the re- 
 flection of industry it is natural to find in this area 
 
 'Gloversville, N. Y. 
 
 * Brighatn, Commercial Geography, 209.
 
 96 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 32 out of our 50 cities of more than 100,000 popu- 
 lation each. 
 
 The Great Cities. The largest cities of any nation 
 have outgrown the forces which originally located 
 them about single industries or limited markets. 
 Favored by the law that "to him that hath shall be 
 given" they have become vast centers of production, 
 gathered empires of dependent territory around them, 
 focused upon themselves the lines of transportation, 
 become the world markets and the radiant points of 
 civilization. They are among the great social and 
 spiritual achievements of our day. 
 
 The Shame of the City. A just social evaluation of 
 the city requires the balancing of its human losses 
 and human gains. Its shame has been often exploited 
 crowding, anonymousness, heedlessness of the in- 
 dividual as a person. While the machinery of the city 
 follows the single life closely, recording name and birth 
 and death, and how much it costs one either to live or 
 to die, yet it is as names rather than as immortal souls 
 that the city regards its children. The difficulty of 
 acquiring a home in the physical sense puts great moral 
 overstrain on family life. The immensely diverse and 
 conflicting elements of the city make civic unity diffi- 
 cult The city is a synonym for bad government, 
 which means primarily unsuitable government, one 
 not as yet properly adapted to the new social 
 situation. It is inevitably the lair of commercialized 
 vices. Machine-like organization devised to serve the 
 great needs of civilization is prostituted to serve the
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 97 
 
 forces which degrade and damn. Temptation is sys- 
 tematized and made profitable. 
 
 The Glory of the City. But its worst shame must 
 not blind us to the city's glory. In the city ideals 
 dominate environment. It may become what it will. 
 Man made it, but, instead of calling it therefore arti- 
 ficial, reverence ought to see in it the completest and 
 most natural utterances of the divine in him. It has 
 greater moral resources than the country and it handles 
 them better. It is making much more rapid social 
 progress. It points the way in most of the hopeful 
 programs of social betterment. 
 
 Health. The city has reduced infant mortality to 
 the lowest rate ever achieved. It is preventing as 
 never before the tremendous waste of being born only 
 to die. The body is better safeguarded in the city 
 than in the country. Eyes, teeth, and tonsils are cared 
 for in the public school. There are better general 
 provisions for the care of sickness less pain in sick- 
 ness and far better social measures to prevent sick- 
 ness. Even tuberculosis is shown to be less prevalent 
 among city children in the United States than in the 
 country. Repeated physical tests between country- 
 bred and city-bred students in university gymnasiums 
 have shown the average city boy to be freer from 
 physical malformations and more normally developed. 
 
 Sanitation. City streets are cleaner than barn- 
 yards, and city tenements than too many rural kitchen 
 yards. The city man is cleaner in his personal habits 
 than is the American farmer. The farmer consumes
 
 98 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the milk which the city will not buy. He has not 
 learned that it is no cleaner than the flies which light 
 upon his utensils; nor that the "cowey taste" which 
 the city visitor misses in his pasteurized milk is simply 
 the contribution from the manure pile. City food is 
 both cleaner, cheaper, and more varied than country 
 food. The air of city gathering-places, through super- 
 vised ventilation, is purer than that of the country's, 
 where, as Dr. North points out, the advantage of 
 working all day in the open air is more than offset 
 by the habit of sleeping all night in a tightly closed 
 room with one's head under the bedclothes. While 
 American health statistics from the registration area 
 (17 states) indicate that the country is somewhat 
 healthier than the city, it must be remembered, for 
 example, that the whole hookworm belt is outside of 
 this area. It is doubtful whether a survey covering 
 health conditions in the entire nation would prove 
 the country to be generally more healthy. At any 
 rate, improvement is infinitely easier in the city than 
 in the country owing to better agencies of public con- 
 trol in sanitation. 
 
 Conditions of Work. At present there are greater 
 opportunities for work, and work to utilize more men 
 at fitting tasks for city men than in the country. 
 There is more leisure as well as more work. The 
 city offers the shortest working day ever afforded to 
 humanity. 
 
 Social and Educational Advantages. There is also 
 wider fellowship; for while neighborliness is scarce,
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 99 
 
 within class lines both at work and at play organiza- 
 tion is keen. In the city the lowliest may belong to 
 something. From the organization of the Christian 
 Church down, the city has been the home of group 
 loyalties and of democratic movements. The city is 
 intellectually alert as compared with the country. 
 Everybody reads the daily paper; everybody discusses 
 the issues of the day; living in a city is in itself an 
 education. It is an education in esthetic sensibility. 
 The store windows, public buildings, amusement- 
 places the stage and even dress tend to universalize 
 taste. The city has schools for all its children, which 
 is far from true of the country at large. They are 
 none too good, but they are the best which were ever 
 afforded to the people in general and their results are 
 immeasurably significant. 
 
 Life Richer and More Satisfying. There are more 
 varied satisfactions in the city. In the country the 
 range of harmonious and helpful things is limited, 
 and it is not great enough to fill the most forceful and 
 adventurous lives. The city affords many avenues 
 of rewarding interest to one who is not vicious but 
 who is merely eager and zestful. Goodness is better 
 organized and more efficiently directed in the city than 
 in the country; it also touches life at more points. 
 City life is dynamic. Its moral mood is that of 
 achievement. Religion is less inclined to deal in nega- 
 tions. 
 
 The City at Its Best. All told, the city is democ-
 
 ioo THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 racy's finest achievement for the largest numbers of 
 men. Any of its moods justify the poet: 
 
 "Earth hath not anything to show more fair; 
 Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight so touch- 
 ing in its majesty." 
 
 To understand the city at its best one needs to ex- 
 plore the city child's memories. One whose earliest 
 experiences were those of a white cottage standing 
 amid green fields, whose adventures were of the swim- 
 ming-hole, and whose dignitary was the country dea- 
 con, almost certainly fails to understand the satis- 
 faction one may find in idealizing the good old win- 
 dowless bedroom, the good old city pavement, the 
 good old public bath, the policeman, the shops, and 
 the public school; yet all these may be as sound and 
 sacred material for human reverence as the other. 
 
 The Citizen. But the finest achievement of the city 
 is socialized character, and this may be found best ex- 
 hibited in industrial masses. Owning no home, and 
 never expecting to own one; with little of personal 
 wealth, laboring from day to day with little personal 
 reserve against the future, millions of human beings 
 live on worthily, strong in the possession of collective 
 responsibility and wealth, inhabiting the whole city 
 as their home and owning it in the broader sense of 
 enjoying its heaped-up common possessions. They 
 do not miss what they have never had, and they have 
 both human satisfactions and moral excellencies of 
 a new and permanent sort. This thoroughgoing ur-
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 101 
 
 banized humanity is the most promising material of 
 the city church. 
 
 New Religious Conditions. Religion in the city is 
 in the same condition with political and social institu- 
 tions. Most of their forms and too much of their 
 spirit are simply survivals from the farmer economy, 
 not at all adapted to urban conditions. Thus the 
 older home missionary program is totally inadequate 
 to the modern city. The mission church of the older 
 commercial city was fairly successful because it dealt 
 with a largely static population clerks and dependents 
 who were devoid of class resentment. Now however 
 it has to deal with an acutely class-conscious industrial 
 population with which it almost totally fails. Indus- 
 trial workers have personally felt the contrast of 
 wealth and poverty which the city presents and have 
 consequently thought effectively about them. They 
 have asked the question of the fundamental justice of 
 existing conditions and have acquired a highly critical 
 attitude for institutions which tend to restrain men 
 without at the same time urgently concerning them- 
 selves with the rectifying of conditions. 
 
 The Fortunes of the Churches. The mobility of 
 population in cities, rapid changes within given areas, 
 and the irresponsibility of the transient tenant class 
 tend to make the lot of the smaller city church always 
 precarious. Almost any moment its substantial peo- 
 ple may have to move away in the face of an inun- 
 dating flood of aliens. Expansion of manufacturing 
 or business, with any of the more radical movements
 
 102 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 of populations, may reduce to poverty or exterminate 
 even the strongest city church. Probably no American 
 city of over 100,000 will fail to show ancient and 
 venerable houses of worship turned into storage ware- 
 houses or vaudeville theaters. 
 
 Urban Missionary Strategy. The subjection of re- 
 ligious institutions in the city to sudden attack and 
 at almost any point, by changes in population, compels 
 a missionary strategy which views the total denomina- 
 tional prospects of a given city as a single problem. 
 To make headway a denominational group must or- 
 ganize and view all church problems as home mission- 
 ary problems. Its several congregations cannot sur- 
 vive if they are parochially selfish, each tending to go 
 its own way. Land and buildings cost so much in the 
 city that only the most exceptional church can get 
 along without denominational aid at some time or an- 
 other. Denominational city missionary organizations 
 which include all the congregations of a city and which 
 view all their problems as missionary problems are 
 characteristic of our present religious policy. Again 
 the city is too difficult for Christian conquest by the 
 denominations acting separately. More and more it 
 compels interdenominational strategy and organiza- 
 tion. The Church as a whole must get the sense of 
 the city as a whole and must collectively direct its 
 forces to the city's redemption. 
 
 Types of Churches. The religious strategy of the 
 modern city, with its suburbs and "satellite" cities, 
 necessitates a wide range of religious institutions
 
 LABOR TEMPLE 
 
 Located at Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue. Xcw York City. There are 
 600,000 people south of Fourteenth Street and east of the Bowery. Attendance at Labor 
 Temple, in igij, 250,000
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 103 
 
 matching the city's varied needs. Even in the heart 
 of the city the majority of churches will be of the 
 familiar "family" type. American life fortunately 
 is not so stratified but that its large middle class 
 reaches both up and down and combines in its char- 
 acteristic churches the capitalistic, professional, com- 
 mercial, and industrial populations. As many sur- 
 veys have shown, Protestantism is not literally out of 
 touch with "labor." In typical cities as high as 75 
 per cent, of Protestant church population are wage- 
 earners, either as clerks or industrial workers. Given 
 adequate resources the extension of "family" churches 
 to match the growth of cities in their residential dis- 
 tricts is one of the most profitable forms of home mis- 
 sions. There will be more new churches of this 
 type than of any other; and large investments in 
 them will be soonest justified. A growing city in 
 the Middle West, for example, is located in the bend 
 of a river. Across the river on two sides are massed 
 its industries and the lowest grade of laboring popu- 
 lation. On the other two sides a middle-class popu- 
 lation, chiefly American, has expanded in an almost 
 continuous band about two blocks wide per year, for 
 the last decade. In these successive rims of city 
 growth a single denomination has located some ten 
 churches, most of which have been successful beyond 
 the average. Other denominations have secured like 
 results. In a few cases rival churches have interfered 
 with one another, but on the whole the process has 
 been effective and orderly.
 
 104 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Future Development. With the prospective growth 
 of our more than 2,000 cities in the next decade, mis- 
 sionary forces face the necessity of furnishing several 
 thousands of such typical churches. To be sure, their 
 constituency is largely not home-owning, and they 
 suffer from the extreme mobility of urban popula- 
 tions, but there is a larger permanent nucleus than 
 in any other type of city church and with reasonably 
 strategic location and forceful leadership such 
 churches ought to and do succeed. They must of 
 course be housed and equipped in general harmony 
 with the type of community which surrounds them. 
 Their parish methods need not be radically revolu- 
 tionized, but they must live ever in the sense of their 
 greater field the entire city. 
 
 "Down-town" Churches. Specialized types of 
 churches are also found in most American cities. For 
 example almost every population of 100,000 people 
 can support at least one "down-town" church, or- 
 ganized around a commanding pulpit and furnishing 
 a forum for inspirational messages to the entire city. 
 Such churches frequently wield great civic power, as 
 well as gather immense audiences of more or less 
 transient people. 
 
 The Institutional Church. This type is an attempt 
 to serve the needs of communities deficient in home 
 life by reason of poverty, or of new or unplaced people 
 living in boarding-houses. It performs a great variety 
 of functions, furnishing amusement and recreation, 
 education, medical care and nursing, employment and
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 105 
 
 business advice, to its constituency. It generally suc- 
 ceeds chiefly in serving young people who are rising 
 out of the class in which they were born, or during 
 their transition from country to city. The actual com- 
 munity life about the institutional church frequently 
 does not progress, but is rather continually depleted by 
 the removal of its best material through the successful 
 agency of the church, the masses remaining no higher 
 than they were. Frequently when civic agencies of 
 social betterment are perfected the institutional church 
 is found to be no longer necessary. But where it is 
 needed and when it is needed it is a fundamental form 
 of Christian service. 
 
 Churches for Foreign-speaking People. Usually 
 under native pastors, these furnish another character- 
 istic urban type. Our more recent aliens are generally 
 non-Protestant and not easily accessible to missionary 
 organizations. When Protestant, however, as in the 
 case of the Welsh, German, and other northern Eu- 
 ropean peoples, the church organized along the line 
 of the common language group is a suitable and often 
 effective one. On the other hand it should be re- 
 membered that the gospel in one's native tongue is not 
 the same as the gospel preached effectively under city 
 conditions. Many of these churches simply bring the 
 rural traditions of Europe, which are no more suitable 
 to the modern city than the rural traditions of Amer- 
 ica. The children rapidly Americanize and the charm 
 of the gospel in the native tongue wears away. The 
 foreign-speaking church peculiarly needs social redi-
 
 io6 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 rection. It may then hold its young people and de- 
 velop normally into self-support as an American 
 church, or it may become extinct after performing its 
 temporary service to an alien group in transition. 
 
 The Social Settlement. Extreme diversity of class, 
 creed, and race under city conditions frequently makes 
 the sectarian church simply an agent of further divi- 
 sion in the community. It cannot therefore do the 
 fundamental social work of organizing a neighbor- 
 hood spirit. The creation of such spirit and its devel- 
 opment are more easily served by the social settle- 
 ment, which may be ardently Christian in spirit but 
 not ecclesiastical in form. The social settlement 
 brings diverse people together, finds for them com- 
 mon ties, gets them to cooperate and therefore to 
 respect and like one another; helps them to idealize 
 their common life and in general establishes the moral 
 foundations of constructive social progress. In rare 
 cases a church manages to do all this when it has a 
 pastor who is large enough to tower above the insti- 
 tution which supports him, and when a church is 
 large enough to allow him to be a community man 
 rather than an ecclesiastic. There are splendid ex- 
 amples of such men who have grown up with urban 
 communities, have overcome their prejudices, incar- 
 nated their ideals, and subordinated the institutional 
 life of the church to the functions of social leader- 
 ship. But the man and the church that can do this 
 are rare. 
 
 Social Ministries of the State. The largest and
 
 UNDAY SERVICE 
 
 SLOVAK SERVICE 
 SLOVACI SU VI TAN I 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 FOR YOUNG* OLD 
 
 CHINESE BIBLE SCHOOL 
 
 ** 
 
 MAGYAR SERVICE 
 
 M IN DENKIT SZIVESEN IATUNK 
 
 ITALIAN SERVICE 
 
 ITAUANI BENVENUTI 
 
 POLI5H SERVICE 
 
 YOUII 3CKCIUB 
 
 WELCOME. 
 
 f OPEN AIR SERVICE &t 
 
 f t I " .--r. 
 
 ENGLISH MIGHT HOUR SERVICE ,# 
 WELCOME! 
 
 BULLETIN-BOARD OF A DOWN-TOWN CHURCH, 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Meeting the needs for church services in a [xilyglot community
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 107 
 
 best social progress in the modern city has been 
 wrought through the civic activities of Christian men 
 apart from the direct activities of organized churches. 
 This is probably to be a permanent condition, and it 
 is not necessarily derogatory to the Church. Even if 
 the Church were less sectarian it could not match the 
 extreme diversity of city population. Social problems 
 are largely problems of technique involving expert 
 knowledge and highly specialized talent. The Church 
 is less able to furnish these qualities because it in- 
 cludes all sorts and conditions of men. Many social 
 services may be better performed by more limited vol- 
 untary organizations. City government supported by 
 the taxation of the entire people is properly responsi- 
 ble for the larger social environment of its people. 
 Through government, Christian ideals and Christian 
 conscience can most fundamentally affect the condi- 
 tions of urban life. Through politics the Christian 
 man can approach the entire city as his field of service 
 and touch its various human problems, not indeed with 
 the old intimate personal touch, but in far-reaching 
 working alliance of the group-leaders of its diverse 
 classes and races, in a broad and effective way. 
 
 The Unappreciated Church. On the other hand, 
 just because most social reforms can be secured and 
 financed by the state, the free Church, which can exist 
 only through the love and gifts of its adherents, has 
 a better right to both of these than some agencies 
 which have come between it and the state. In this 
 respect the Church is being called back into its own.
 
 io8 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 There is new warmth of feeling between social work- 
 ers and organized Christianity evidenced by the large 
 recent stress upon the Church in social life in the 
 teaching of the schools of philanthropy. The direct 
 social activity of the Church will surely increase rap- 
 idly in the next decade ; and home missions and social 
 service will come better to understand one another in 
 the modern city. Much of the enthusiasm and many 
 of the Christian efforts which have been drafted off 
 into social service channels outside of the Church 
 had far better return and help convert the mind and 
 perfect the machinery of the Church for this task. 
 Division of Labor. The Church need not feel be- 
 littled by any discovery of permanent limitations upon 
 its direct usefulness in social service. Whenever any 
 other agency can really do a thing better than the 
 Church can it should be allowed to do it. Many pre- 
 cise social tasks will probably remain too complicated 
 for direct performance by church machinery. The 
 Church's clue is, first of all, many-sided service, with a 
 variety of typical organizations ; secondly, timely serv- 
 ice performed in advance of the arousing of civic 
 conscience and the perfecting of civic machinery; and, 
 finally, the permanent service of furnishing vision and 
 religious inspiration deeper than any social knowl- 
 edge. The Church need have no pessimism over its 
 present situation. Its urban growth has exceeded 
 that of the population. It is not out of touch with 
 the profoundest of urban problems, but is rather serv- 
 ing them by a variety of ministrations. The city is
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 109 
 
 the best thing which God has yet achieved through 
 man, and its better fortunes for all the future are 
 bound up with the agency which can interpret its 
 life and transfigure its work. 
 
 The Stranger. Through the Church the city ought 
 to be a place where strangers meet and make friends. 
 But this is doubly difficult under American conditions. 
 America is not settled in the sense of the older world. 
 It has always contained an unexampled number of 
 people new to their present environments. The native 
 stock is hardly more at home than the foreign-born. 
 The West, wherever it has been, has always been full 
 of strangers and now there is the vast cityward move- 
 ment. The cost of immigration includes the pain of 
 loneliness, the temporary loss of social position and 
 esteem, the risk of not-yet-established talent invested 
 in new fields, and deep breaches in personal relations 
 and neighborliness. Leakage from its ranks through 
 immigration has been the chief numerical loss of the 
 American Church. The church-member of the East 
 too often has become the worldling of the West. The 
 country deacon moves to the city and meets unex- 
 pected barriers of social stratification in his own com- 
 munion. There will be three or four years of lost 
 time before he gets into most effective working rela- 
 tions with his Church in a new place, if indeed his 
 children ever survive the shock of changed environ- 
 ment. 
 
 The Foreigner. Of course the most difficult strang-
 
 I io THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 er is the stranger from other shores. 1 There are now 
 thirteen and a half million of foreign-born people in 
 the United States, this being 14 per cent, of the total 
 population. They constitute over one fourth of the 
 population in the New England and Middle Atlantic 
 States. Adding those one or both of whose parents 
 are foreign-born gives a total of 35 per cent, of our 
 population as belonging to foreign stock in blood and 
 culture. Foreigners came to America in the decade 
 preceding 1910 to the number of eight and a half mil- 
 lion. Three and a quarter million, however, went back 
 home again, thus illustrating a newly acquired mo- 
 bility in industrial populations, and leaving a net in- 
 crease for the decade of five and a quarter million. 
 The Geography of Immigration. Three fifths of all 
 who came remained in the New England and Middle 
 Atlantic States, which we have already identified as 
 preeminently the industrial and urban section of our 
 nation. Of the foreign-born 72 per cent, dwell in 
 cities ; of the total population but 46 per cent. While 
 this absolute massing of urban millions in the North- 
 east constitutes the most extensive problem of the 
 stranger, yet in proportion to population the most 
 acute situation is in the mountain and coast states of 
 the Northwest. Here naturally immigration is more 
 largely rural and just for that reason more difficult 
 
 1 Since the immigrant has recently been the subject of inten- 
 sive mission study, this book will deal only summarily with the 
 background of facts which illuminate his home missionary 
 problem.
 
 MILL ION S 
 
 12 34 'J6789 1O 
 
 182 1-30 
 
 1831-40 
 
 1841-50 
 
 1851-60 
 
 1861-70 
 
 1871-80 
 
 1881-90 
 
 1891-00 
 
 1901-10 
 
 1821-30 
 
 1831-40 
 
 1841-50 
 
 1851-60 
 
 1861-70 
 
 1871-80 
 
 1881-90 
 
 189100 
 
 1901- 1 
 
 Based on sf/umal Reports of 
 Commissioner -General ofj/nmi<raiion 
 
 TOTAL IMMIGRATION BY DECADES
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER in 
 
 to assimilate. Here must home missions continue 
 many of their pioneer forms to meet a typically social ' 
 problem. Nothing could better demonstrate the fal- 
 lacy of the expectation that country life as such will 
 solve social problems than the fact that the rural 
 Pennsylvania Germans, whose ancestors came over 
 to America in colonial times, are as a group less 
 American in ideals and ways than the Germans who 
 came chiefly to the cities in 1846. Nowhere do an 
 alien tongue, creed, and social order so stubbornly en- 
 trench themselves as in rural colonies. The natural 
 conservatism of country life vies with clannishness to 
 prevent change. The extremest case of all is that of 
 the Mexican population of the Southwest, whose oc- 
 cupancy of their territory antedates our oldest Eng- 
 lish-speaking colonies and whose disinclination to be- 
 come assimilated is the habit of three hundred years. 
 This stubborn habit of clannishness must be prevented 
 in the aliens of the newer West. 
 
 Social and Moral Factors. Everywhere the alien 
 flood comes largely from rural homes. Its character- 
 istics in the American city are not only those of a 
 population moving from one land to another, but from 
 one social environment: to another. They are new 
 to the city as well as to the nation, being largely a 
 peasant population coming from the open country and 
 undergoing the new stress of industrialization. In 
 short, they are suffering the extreme experience of 
 change in all directions at once. Necessarily then the 
 percentage of individual incapacity to meet this dif-
 
 H2 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ficult test will be large. The immigrant's almost uni- 
 versal expectation of larger advantage than is destined 
 to be realized in the new world gives a pathetic side 
 to the whole problem. His material returns for his 
 labor will not be so great as the stranger imagines, 
 nor will his finer hopes have full realization. At the 
 same time the coming of vast bodies of human beings 
 cherishing strong and definite idealistic expectations 
 certainly adds to the moral resources of the nation. 
 We import energy and faith when we receive the 
 stranger within our gates. 
 
 The Newer Immigration. Previous to about 1882 
 most of our immigrant population had come from 
 Northern and Western Europe, from lands which were 
 racially allied to ours and which had experienced paral- 
 lel developments in modern democracy and civilization. 
 Suddenly since that time their great bulk has come 
 largely from Southern and Eastern Europe. Now 
 scarcely one fifth come from the Protestant and fully 
 modernized lands whose civilization is likest ours, 
 while over two thirds come from countries which bor- 
 der on Asia or the Mediterranean Sea. We now deal 
 not merely with the stranger, but such a stranger, who 
 has grown up with our cities until they are largely the 
 human reflection of his problems and struggles. They 
 come from the lands of infinite local variation, of 
 many dialects, of extreme clannishness, of social dis- 
 integration. Every human variety may be found in 
 all our greater cities living largely in clannish com- 
 munities which reproduce as far as possible charac-
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 113 
 
 teristics of the old home. Our greatest city New 
 York is particularly the city of the stranger, and 
 gets its unique character and interest from being the 
 gateway of the continent 
 
 Give and Take. Home missionary interest is con- 
 cerned primarily with the social give and take of the 
 immigration process. It wishes to understand the 
 interaction of the nation and its new peoples, in whom 
 it is equally interested. Its knowledge of sociology 
 leads it to expect that such a mingling of elements is 
 bound to bring vigorous and rapid social change, 
 whether in the direction of progress or not. Home 
 missions are the attempt of religion to turn the immi- 
 grant tide into channels of progress. As a concrete 
 process the give and take of immigration exhibits six 
 fundamental phases: 
 
 i. Dislocation. To find oneself a stranger in a 
 new place is to be filled with bewilderment and to ex- 
 perience strain. The new world challenges the alien. 
 It is an economic challenge. Can he find a job and 
 make a living, especially one which will enable him 
 to send for his family and establish them upon the 
 American standard of living? It is a political chal- 
 lenge. Can he adjust himself to American institu- 
 tions, escaping exploitation by the political boss and 
 arriving at responsible citizenship? It is a moral 
 challenge. Foundations of customary morality are 
 rooted in the habitual life of the group to which one 
 belongs. The group being broken and the sanctions 
 of morals shaken by his transfer to a new world, can
 
 II 4 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the alien discover and rebuild character upon new 
 sanctions? The Hebrew race for example has been 
 traditionally chaste. One of the great moral victories 
 of the Hebrew prophets of the eighth century before 
 Christ was the stamping out of religious prostitution. 
 It is perhaps the supreme tragedy of Judaism that 
 the first general undoing of their work should be upon 
 the soil of America, through the overstrain of immi- 
 gration upon Hebrew morality. Finally immigration 
 is a religious challenge. Orthodoxy tends to vanish 
 with the control of the religious community which can- 
 not survive in strength its transfer across the seas. 
 Shall the Catholic and the Jew, who form the bulk of 
 the new immigration, turn materialistic in America, 
 or shall they find a new religious life springing out 
 of their new experience and relations? 
 
 2. Marked Group Cohesion. As men cling to- 
 gether in panic, the first instinctive remedy of the 
 alien group for dislocation and its challenges is clan- 
 nishness. The immigrant population sticks together 
 in crowded colonies, invades similar industries, acts in 
 political unity under the boss, experiences a narrow- 
 ing moral and religious tendency in which reactionaries 
 tend to get possession of the ancient sources of leader- 
 ship. This tendency to swarm is the root of most of 
 the problems of the modern city, and all of them 
 are complicated by this reactionary tendency. From 
 the standpoint of the nation one would wish to scatter 
 the immigrant into small and easily assimilable bands. 
 From the standpoint of his most thoughtful leaders,
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 115 
 
 however, there is a real danger in too rapid Americani- 
 zation. There is a reactionary mood and an over- 
 hasty one. Between them somewhere must lie the 
 secret of normal evolution into a new life to which 
 every people has a right. 
 
 3. The Revulsion of the Older Population. As the 
 immigrant group withdraws from us in dread, we 
 equally withdraw from it in dislike, and so the dis- 
 tance between us is doubled. The American moves 
 out of the foreign district. He seeks another job en 
 masse if the foreigner comes into his industry. He 
 denies the foreigner entrance to his social circle. He 
 leaves his religious organization if the foreigner gets 
 in. Part of the American's revulsion is intelligible, 
 for, for the time being at least, the sudden coming 
 of great masses of aliens threatens his standard of liv- 
 ing. The newcomers can underlive us and their com- 
 petition brings down our wages. On the other hand 
 they bring new demands to be supplied, create new 
 opportunities for our more established intelligence to 
 serve, and rapidly adopt our standards themselves. 
 Their gain on the whole is far greater than our loss. 
 
 4. Disintegration. In the process of give and take 
 there follows the certain disintegration of immigrant 
 groups. In spite of their best efforts at cohesion they 
 invariably lose the young people. Church, cathe- 
 dral, and synagogue alike suffer. The bigoted Jap- 
 anese Buddhist, who came to California resolved to 
 keep entirely clear of suggestions of Christianity, 
 found even the moving picture shows full of Christian
 
 n6 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 suggestiveness. One who has grown up with it can- 
 not possibly comprehend how freighted and saturated 
 with new influences is every scene and activity of a 
 new land. With America beating in upon his brain 
 and heart, the young foreigner is bound to desert in 
 thought, if not in fact, his native group. Unless 
 caught up into the better phases of American life he 
 becomes the social rebel and criminal, and the disin- 
 tegration of the foreign colony thus becomes the dis- 
 integration of society in general. The more success- 
 ful and progressive members of the foreign-speaking 
 group also tend to desert it. The millionaire or lit- 
 erary Jew moves out of the ghetto and loses himself 
 in American society, thus robbing the people of their 
 natural leaders ; so that disintegrating foreign-speak- 
 ing groups are even more dependent than others upon 
 the purposeful leadership of patriotic and Christian 
 agencies. 
 
 5. Assimilation. In the molding of the original 
 American stock the elements were very diverse and 
 the resulting sectional and regional variations were 
 considerable. Each chief element brought some con- 
 tribution of genius or tendency which was not totally 
 lost in the resultant fusion, the survival of which has 
 added variety and interest to our national life. In 
 perspective we are reconciled to the variations in our 
 English-speaking tradition introduced by the Irish and 
 German immigration before 1880. It made our cities 
 and helped develop our West. In time of war it 
 shared our blood baptism into national unity. The
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 117 
 
 present generation thinks of America as naturally 
 and fittingly including such variations in civilization 
 as are presented by the surviving peculiarities of these 
 groups. 
 
 The Saturation Point. The real heart of our pres- 
 ent fears as to immigration concerns the suddenness 
 and bulk of a new kind of people whom we suspect on 
 racial grounds and otherwise of being a new quality 
 of human stuff. We are not clear whether, coming 
 in such large numbers as they do and presenting a 
 wider variation from the dominant civilization of our 
 people, they may not introduce stubborn dissimilarities 
 which will make it permanently harder to work out 
 American destinies under the ideals of democracy and 
 the Christian faith. A saturation point has un- 
 doubtedly been reached in some of our more con- 
 gested regions. No one can believe that immigrants 
 of such quality should be dumped down where there 
 are already too many. Both the maintenance of the 
 American standards of living and the operation of 
 the American institutions are made difficult under 
 such circumstances. 
 
 The Great-Heart Among Nations. That immigra- 
 tion should be controlled with reference to assimila- 
 tion is a formula that few will challenge. Its applic- 
 ability to concrete issues however leaves room for 
 many debates. Most of the tests by which the check- 
 ing of immigration has been proposed are at outs with 
 our traditions and obnoxious to our convictions. 
 Christians who take the world view-point of foreign
 
 ii8 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 missions will be unable to regard the welfare of 
 America alone in thinking about the immigration 
 problem. Our brethren across the seas are as truly 
 our brethren as the native-born. Check we may, di- 
 rect we should, but essentially to obstruct so reverend 
 an epic process as the migration of peoples in the 
 search for ideals would be the unfaithfulness of 
 America to her finest mission. Our gates should be 
 still open to the North, South, East, and West, though 
 more precise and scientific tests of fitness and greater 
 certainty of practical advantage on the part of the 
 incoming stranger may well be required. 
 
 6. Dilution. The outcome of the immigration 
 process cannot fail to be the dilution of the American 
 type by alien elements. "Dilution" is a figure of speech 
 generally used in a deprecatory sense. Of course the 
 peculiar stream of American life will be diluted and 
 its inner qualities changed ; but the so-called alien ele- 
 ments are already in the same world which Americans 
 have to inhabit. The result of their inclusion in our 
 midst will simply be a somewhat modified ratio of 
 the elements as adjusted here. We dilute the life 
 of the alien far more than he does ours. He brings 
 us positive gifts; not merely raw labor power, but 
 various fine heredities and conspicuous national tal- 
 ents ; he brings also optimism and idealism which tend 
 to dry up in the older stocks. From the moment we 
 reached the Pacific coast and found our free land 
 occupied the chief ground of our historic idealism 
 failed us. From that moment we needed intensely a
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 119 
 
 new world commerce in morals and sentiments. Thus 
 some of the finest exemplifications of the modern so- 
 cial spirit are found in the American Hebrew. It is 
 precisely the higher interests of our national life 
 our music, art, and literature which are most con- 
 spicuously indebted to the foreigner. As the "mud- 
 hog" sinking the foundations of our tunnels and our 
 sky-scrapers far underground, and as the poet singing 
 from the loftiest pinnacle of our achievement, he of- 
 fers his share to the common life. 
 
 Missions and Dislocation. To each of these phases 
 of the give and take of immigration there is a positive 
 and appropriate home missionary ministry. To meet 
 the immigrant in his first shock of dislocation and be- 
 wilderment, home missions send a representative to 
 Ellis Island to soften the gruffness of officialism, and 
 become responsible for the newcomer whose friends or 
 relatives fail to meet him, or who is without sufficient 
 money to reach his proper destination. The guardian- 
 ship of unprotected girls and women is also their spe^ 
 cial care. While duplicatory and not always properly 
 supervised private agencies have seriously compromised 
 the efforts of the missionary boards to use this initial 
 opportunity for service, its helpfulness is still great. 
 Naturally the immigrant's most necessary tool in the 
 new land is the English language, without which he 
 can neither know his rights nor contribute his share 
 of human intercourse to his new home. In far slighter 
 measure than one would wish and with not nearly so 
 much efficiency as the Jewish community, Protestant-
 
 120 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ism, chiefly through the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, but increasingly under the impulse of home 
 missionary direction, has begun to teach the alien 
 English, and to give him his first lessons in patriotism. 
 This has been the long-time and most characteristic 
 approach of Oriental missions to Chinese and Japan- 
 ese. 
 
 Missions and Group Cohesion. Utilizing and mak- 
 ing the best of the tendency to group cohesion, home 
 missions for many years have organized the Protestant 
 immigrant into foreign-speaking churches, with pas- 
 tors of their own race, and supported them by frater- 
 nal counsel and supervision and grants of money. 
 Naturally those European denominations like the 
 Lutherans, which early became naturalized in America, 
 have had the larger opportunity with the incoming 
 millions of their own language and faith, but many 
 of the larger denominations have long had conspicu- 
 ous success in the evangelization of Scandinavian and 
 German immigrants, as well as those of more recent 
 arrival. Of Southern Europeans, Italians furnish 
 the most hopeful material for Protestant evangeliza- 
 tion. Under urban conditions there is a growing ten- 
 dency to organize the foreigner into branch churches, 
 sometimes occupying the same building with the sup- 
 porting American church and preferably under its 
 careful control. 
 
 The Guidance of Foreign-speaking Churches. The 
 chief weakness of these efforts is the lack of satis- 
 factory leaders, both as to character and ability, and
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 121 
 
 as to fitness for modern social guidance. The danger 
 from the reactionary is great A sincere and conse- 
 crated man sometimes contrives simply to lead his 
 people away from broad American sympathies. The 
 schools therefore which train the foreigner for effective 
 work with his own people are vitally necessary. The 
 ultimate guidance of these foreign-speaking churches 
 is an exacting problem for the missionary administra- 
 tor. They are frequently sensitive, self-opinionated, 
 veneered with American progress rather than funda- 
 mentally changed. The supporting boards must stub- 
 bornly lead where they only seem to help. They must 
 be sympathetic, eternally patient, bearing and endur- 
 ing all things; but they must not let group-cohesion 
 define, limit, or thwart the social realization of Chris- 
 tianity in the united nation. 
 
 Living Ties. The only basis of vital and enduring 
 leadership is genuine and spontaneous fellowship. Of- 
 ficial ministries are but the giving of stones for bread, 
 so long as the average church-member in his personal 
 life is deliberately sundered from the foreigner. The 
 irony of the situation would be unendurable except for 
 those great mediatorial souls our missionaries 
 whose friendships bridge for us the class, language, 
 and color lines; who in their lives preach peace to 
 those who are afar off and to those who are near. 
 But for them how deep and hopeless would the es- 
 trangement be between the diverse elements of the 
 nation! Their devotion does not excuse but rather 
 shames our lack, but how they link the land together
 
 122 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 with their hearts! And what genuine and abiding 
 satisfaction they find in their friends from other 
 lands; how little condescension and sense of superi- 
 ority there is about the real missionary ! 
 
 Notable Workers. Dr. E. A. Adams gave his earlier 
 missionary service to Bohemia herself, and then came 
 home to a notable career in the heart of the Bohemian 
 section in Chicago. Here he identified his fortunes; 
 here he reared and educated his sons and daughters and 
 proved that missionaries' children may be none the 
 worse for social sacrifice. For forty years Dr. William 
 C. Pond has been a father to the Chinese of the whole 
 Pacific Coast. Going South as a boy in his teens with a 
 missionary father, Dr. E. C. Silsby has devoted virtu- 
 ally the whole of a long life to Christian service for the 
 Negro. Ranged with these venerable peers of the 
 apostles is the splendid band of those who are newly 
 linking their lives with the lives of the stranger to 
 teach him the ways of the flag and of the cross. They 
 do not pass by on the other side; and they find the 
 Samaritan an interesting and lovable type who makes 
 a remarkable recovery from his wounds under the 
 medicine of fellowship. This is home missions at 
 their best. 
 
 Missions and Disintegration. Protestant home mis- 
 sions have a peculiar responsibility for alien groups in 
 their disintegration. Children and youth especially 
 need the evangelical gospel. Speaking for himself, the 
 author largely excepts the Jew from this responsi- 
 bility. He bqiieves that the Hebrew faith in America
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 123 
 
 is destined to evolve into essential Christianity and 
 that, in its progressive wing, it already shows strong 
 tendencies to quick, democratic adaptation to modern 
 conditions. The social ministries of the Hebrew 
 Church are many and effective. They have set the 
 pace for Protestant missions not once nor twice. We 
 should cooperate therefore in civic and moral reforms 
 with enlightened Jews, should respect and strengthen 
 the vital forces of their religion and should not prose- 
 lyte their youth, believing that they will come most 
 surely to know Christ through the practise of his so- 
 cial teaching. 
 
 Roman Catholic Immigrants. Similar considera- 
 tions would apply to the Roman Catholic Church so 
 far as it is actually holding its immigrant youth 
 to vital religion and so far as it is truly democratic 
 and modern. There are exceptional localities in which 
 it is all of this. As a first aid in the religious placing 
 of undigested alien masses, its social service is tremen- 
 dous. Nowhere is it the part of home missions to at- 
 tack or tear it down, though specific Catholic aggres- 
 sions are to be resisted. The most outstanding fact 
 however, about the Roman Church in America is that 
 it does not hold its own. Vast as its numbers are 
 they would be twice as large had that Church been able 
 to retain the great immigrant masses of its adherents 
 who have thronged to our shores. The millions of its 
 young deserters are the ripe field of Protestantism. 
 This is a social rather than an ecclesiastical judgment. 
 Religion must adjust the alien to the new world on
 
 124 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 democratic terms. Only Protestantism can meet this 
 test. That Protestantism shall not fail to do so is the 
 burden of home missions. 
 
 Building on Old-world Missionary Foundations. 
 There are moreover deep-rooted elements of his- 
 toric Protestantism in populations generally counted 
 as Catholic. Thus hundreds of Italians in New York 
 City, who had never known the touch of missions in 
 America, reported themselves to the Census as Protes- 
 tants. The land of Huss could not be without a strong 
 Protestant tradition. Foreign mission converts from 
 papal lands and from the Near and Far East trickle 
 by hundreds through the immigrant millions. Home 
 missions cannot do less than conserve what foreign 
 missions have saved. 
 
 Missions and Assimilation. Less spectacular than 
 peculiar and separate institutions for foreign-speaking 
 peoples, but sounder and more happy is the persistent 
 assimilating process which takes the foreigner right 
 into the American community and church. With the 
 northern European, especially upon the frontier, this 
 was the rule rather than the exception. The pioneer 
 home missionary church was typically a fusion of 
 human elements. One of the author's childhood rec- 
 ollections is of a Norwegian Sunday-school superin- 
 tendent, and he grew up without any deep sense of 
 separation from the Scandinavian boys who were his 
 schoolfellows. We burden our souls so much now- 
 adays with the difficulties of assimilation as to for-
 
 THE CITY AND THE STRANGER 125 
 
 get our tremendous successes, which are the world's 
 marvel, and which are still largely operative. 
 
 A New England Example. -About twenty years 
 ago a young minister took up a pastorate, which was 
 to last for over fifteen years, in a Connecticut mill 
 town. His church was a merger of two ancient par- 
 ishes, which, with the dying off of the native stock, 
 had been starved into uniting. The predominant mill 
 population was German and there were a few of 
 their children in the Sunday-school. At the end of 
 the fifteen years the church-membership was chiefly 
 of German extraction so Americanized as co continue 
 the best Puritan traditions. By this time however 
 a new generation of common labor had arrived upon 
 the scene, consisting of Catholic Polanders. To 
 win the Germans required only that the Puritan church 
 should cease to be conceited and that its pastor should 
 be persistently faithful in work with the children. 
 But neither of these could penetrate within Polish 
 bigotry and clannishness. The pastor therefore 
 changed his tactics; made friends with the Catholic 
 priest, saw to it that the Polish group-leaders were 
 recognized in civic affairs, and enlisted them in a no- 
 license movement. Assimilation includes both proc- 
 esses. When individuals cannot be directly reached 
 and their group brought to disappear in the general 
 community life, they may yet be effectively included 
 under common ideals. A staunch and aggressive 
 minority, in possession of social tradition and organi- 
 zation, may still subject armies of aliens. Thus the
 
 126 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Puritan spirit still dominates New England, and its 
 best ideals, as expressed in O'Reilly's great tribute to 
 the Pilgrims, are the common possession of Yankee 
 and Irishman. 
 
 Missions and Dilution. Naturally there is no home 
 missionary agency which deliberately strives for the 
 dilution of American life or the American Church by 
 alien elements. But home missions does purposefully 
 introduce into the Church those who humanly justify 
 the apostolic epithets, "more feeble," "less honor- 
 able," "uncomely." Less steady alike in faith and in 
 morals, with lower standards of general intelligence 
 and of religious taste, compelled to make present shift 
 with an inadequately prepared ministry, they range 
 themselves, no more strangers and aliens, but fellow 
 citizens with the saints. Their ultimate contribution 
 to it will be worthy of membership in the body. Of 
 none may the Church say, "I have no need of you." 
 Doubtless the present average of American Christian- 
 ity is in many respects lowered by their inclusion. 
 They do not make it easier for the Church to be free 
 from spot or wrinkle or any such thing; they do help 
 it to include men out of every tribe and tongue and 
 people and nation who are to throng the holy city. 
 In the deliberate judgment of home missions the lat- 
 ter alternative is more worthy of Christ's Church. 
 It is his finally to present it to God faultless; it is 
 ours to see that not the least of his brethren is absent 
 from the ranks in that great day.
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIAL 
 JUSTICE
 
 CHAPTER V 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 Standing Room Only. Just after the Revolution- 
 ary war a soldier received from his grateful country 
 a grant of five thousand acres of land in central 
 Tennessee. Early in the last century this tract was 
 cut up into farms for pioneer settlers. These were 
 described in the old records by natural land-marks 
 this gum tree and that big hickory which time and 
 civilization long since removed. One who went re- 
 cently to locate his ancestral acres within this tract 
 could identify them only by the mill-site. There 
 was but one mill-site on the five thousand acres. The 
 man who got it became a man of power over his 
 fellows. To him must every stubborn pioneer back 
 bend, as it brought corn to be ground. There are 
 no more unoccupied farms for the newcomer and 
 there never was more than one mill-site. Let the five 
 thousand acres stand for the national domain and the 
 mill-site for its limited natural resources its water- 
 power, and waterways, its harbors, mineral deposits, 
 and forests and one has America in miniature. The 
 land and its points of strategic value are all pos- 
 
 129
 
 130 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 sessed. They who possess them control the nation 
 and the later comer. Our perplexity over this fact 
 is what we call the social problem. 
 
 Who Owns the Nation? Of course the case is not 
 quite so simple as our preliminary illustration might 
 suggest. Upon the primary basis of control of land 
 and natural resources modern civilization has built up 
 a great social order in which the transformation and 
 transportation of the raw materials of wealth are of 
 equal moment with the productive land, its fields, for- 
 ests, and mines. Whoever therefore owns the factory 
 and the railroad controls the nation. But these again 
 are so vast that no one can own them except as he 
 first borrows the savings of many thousands of ordi- 
 nary people. This the adventurous, extraordinary 
 man does; and by so doing is able, with others like 
 him, to organize great systems of control over 
 lands and produce, coal fields, oil deposits, railways 
 and steamships, terminals and harbors, banks and 
 exchanges, public privileges and the making of laws, 
 newspapers and the agencies of public opinion and 
 conscience. To control this man, with his hordes of 
 allies and dependents who have had their lives fitted 
 into and their thinking tempered by this vast organi- 
 zation, is the second great factor of the social prob- 
 lem. 
 
 The Industrial Toilers. But the chief aspect is the 
 possession by capitalistic organization of vast out- 
 numbering millions of propertyless workingmen whom 
 it calls its hands, and whom it pays what it calls wages.
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 131 
 
 Large numbers of them perform skilled tasks and re- 
 ceive pay equal to or beyond that ordinarily received 
 by the school-teachers, newspaper men, artists, musi- 
 cians, book-writers, ministers, and other spiritual lead- 
 ers of the nation. But still larger numbers do not 
 receive enough to take their homes out of sordid and 
 ugly surroundings, nor to leave margin for defense 
 against sickness and unemployment, nor to keep family 
 life intact, nor to prevent the benumbing fear of want, 
 nor frequent actual undernutrition. 
 
 The Human Factor. These millions of low-paid 
 workers are not in every respect amiable human beings. 
 They want, many of them, more than they have, but 
 also more than they can or ought to have without great 
 improvement in their personal efficiency. In their 
 present frame of mind, the best of conditions would 
 not make them happy. Some of them we have met 
 among the Strangers of our earlier chapter; others 
 we will meet among the Race Problems. They are 
 not easy of adjustment within the nation. They re- 
 spond imperfectly to the loyalties which are our second 
 nature. Their vivid class consciousness makes them 
 difficult to work with ; their conduct frequently makes 
 them difficult to apologize for. They are like the rest 
 of us in these respects. They are not nearly so hum- 
 ble as they want the Church to be and are not con- 
 scious of any social sins to repent of. Their moral 
 and spiritual discipline is one of the prime phases of 
 their social problem. They need to be made fit for 
 their present and prospective tasks, and for the fellow-
 
 132 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ship and responsibilities to which they aspire. At the 
 same time their mood is eager rather than sodden: 
 they have positive moral ideals and are developing 
 fresh loyalties, which put them far and away beyond 
 any mood which is merely conservative or any moral- 
 ity which is enthralled by the past. They bring a 
 definite contribution to the social problem and repre- 
 sent a fundamental attack upon it. Their great mes- 
 sage to the nation is that social issues are upon us, 
 that they are to be taken seriously, that men must live 
 with them day and night, and that nothing which 
 claims to be fundamental, as religion does, can make 
 them anything but central in its interest. 
 
 The Vision and Machinery of Justice Alike Lack- 
 ing. On the whole America finds herself unprepared 
 to meet the social problem which has stolen upon 
 us as a thief in the night. Half the nation scarcely 
 knows that there is one; the other half knows that 
 there is but does not know what to do about it. We 
 should have no agencies to carry out our knowledge 
 if we had it We are alike without the vision and the 
 machinery of justice. Thus one reports that a chief 
 industrial city of the South represents a "survival from 
 the farmer-economy, whose common needs and in- 
 dividual responsibilities are very different from those 
 of this massed industrial population dropped down in 
 the geographical center of the cotton-belt. It is of a 
 piece with the cramped city limits, the village council, 
 the outgrown income, the criss-cross town plan, the 
 cruil service based on fees, the farmyard sanitation,
 
 REV. JOSIAH STRONG 
 
 A pioneer in social reconstruction
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 133 
 
 the stupid system of municipal works . . . With no 
 public library, no public recreation, no meeting hall for 
 her citizens, no city plan for growth." 1 In other 
 words, Birmingham, with her 20,000 coal and iron 
 workers, just happened. She does not represent so- 
 cial reason, social conscience, or social control; and 
 with minor variations Birmingham in these respects is 
 a piece of America. Thus our unpreparedness for it 
 is a final factor in the social situation. 
 
 The Early Response of the Church. In its recogni- 
 tion of the moral urgency of the social situation the 
 Church was not second among American forces. Not 
 soon enough, yet as soon as any one else she began to 
 sense its importance. By the time outside criticism 
 of the Church for social neglect had become acute, 
 self-criticism had become drastic. By 1889, while 
 such courses were still rare in the universities, three 
 Congregational theological seminaries in New England 
 were teaching young ministers to study social prob- 
 lems radically. Men like Josiah Strong, Washington 
 Gladden and Richard T. Ely had become Christian 
 evangelists of social duty. By 1893 the Baptist and 
 Congregational communions had developed active 
 propagandas for social justice. Many men were speak- 
 ing with heat and some with light. This prophetic 
 phase of the movement had also its martyrs at the 
 hands of conservatism and complacency. But on the 
 whole the Church responded rapidly. Institutional 
 and social service activities were begun in many par- 
 
 *G. R. Taylor, The Survey, January, 1912.
 
 134 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ishes and the social conscience became the sudden pos- 
 session of a new Christian generation. 
 
 Slower Officialism. As late as 1900, however, Dr. 
 Strong could not catalog any general home missionary 
 movement of social betterment except service for the 
 backward races. In mitigation of this delay it may 
 be urged that collective action must necessarily wait 
 upon the development of the average conscience. Vol- 
 untary organization may forge ahead under prophetic 
 impulse, but official agencies have to organize and 
 bring up the main body of the Lord's host. Thus 
 social issues got into home missions as early as into 
 national politics, and into missionary offices sooner. 
 Now practically every important denomination has an 
 official social service agency either incorporated with 
 its existing home missionary machinery or additional 
 to and allied with it ; while, in the collective advocacy 
 of home missions through federated agencies, the so- 
 cial note has become distinctly dominant. The Federal 
 Council of Churches more and more stresses social 
 interests as the common burden of American Chris- 
 tianity, and the marvel is, not that some conservative 
 sects oppose this tendency, but that more do not. 
 
 Redirecting Home Missions. Yet one has to con- 
 fess a certain defensive and apologetic attitude in the 
 official literature of social Christianity hitherto. The 
 current assent of the Church to the social gospel has 
 reached the stage of official toleration, but in many 
 instances has not gone much further. When it comes 
 to the redirection of home missions in detail, to the re-
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 135 
 
 casting of policies and particularly to the shifting 
 of appropriations, old ways are stubborn. Outside 
 the realm of formulas and inside the field of action 
 lies the test of all professions. In home missions it 
 concerns not merely the redirecting of the whole proc- 
 ess, but ultimately the moving of perhaps five million 
 dollars a year in appropriations and 15,000 men from 
 conventional or sectarian to social tasks a step for 
 which no one is quite ready as yet. 
 
 Inescapable Social Issues. This book then seeks to 
 urge the futility of superficial measures and the ne- 
 cessity of radical action. Vast and sudden changes 
 in society demand equal changes in the Church. 
 Twenty-five years ago a man said in the spirit of the 
 apostle, "I am debtor to barbarians" ; and lost himself 
 in the Indian country on the upper Missouri River. 
 Years were passed in lonely labor, when suddenly 
 there broke in upon his solitude construction gangs 
 of aliens to build a railroad Greeks, they were. So 
 the missionary added modern Greek to his accomplish- 
 ments, sent to Athens for Testaments and amended his 
 life motto to read, "I am debtor both to Greeks and to 
 barbarians." After the Greeks came Japanese, sleepy- 
 ing in the same bunk houses and remaining as section 
 men after the construction gangs had passed on. 
 With the fencing of the ranges the stockmen crowded 
 into the Indian country, starting a trail of graft which 
 led to the senate-chamber of the United States, which 
 the missionary must follow or run from duty. After 
 the stockman came the Dutch renter following the
 
 136 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 irrigation ditch; and after him, with the opening of 
 the reservation, the country towns. Where railroads 
 crossed on the edge of the reservation sprang up sud- 
 denly the little city, surrounded by a region of inten- 
 sive farming, on whose depot platform one to-day will 
 watch a dozen nationalities as he waits for a train. 
 A man went into the wilderness to preach a simple 
 evangelism, and lo, Jerusalem and all Judea went out 
 to him. God pursued this man of the obscure, single- 
 hearted mission with all manner and complexities of 
 social problems. He could not free himself from them. 
 No more can the Church. It is beset behind and be- 
 fore by social issues. And what it must meet it should 
 master for its Master's sake. 
 
 No Compromise! No moderate or compromising 
 mood therefore is fitting. The age needs the alert 
 passion of original Christianity. The Church needs 
 an energizing consciousness of its ties to the lowliest 
 and the furthest. It must enforce an aggressive 
 brotherliness in the face of growing fixity of social 
 classes. One cannot pass from one American city to 
 another nor go back to his boyhood country home for 
 a visit without keenly realizing the increased separate- 
 ness of men of diverse fortunes within his own life- 
 time. Who then can doubt that it is time to be radi- 
 cal? We must give over planting children's gardens 
 on vacant city lots when the need is to tax the lots 
 out of vacancy. 
 
 The Approach through Social Knowledge. The 
 most characteristic and notable aspect of the home mis-
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 137 
 
 sionary attack upon the social situation is its method 
 of approach. The impatience of social passion is 
 checked, the radical spirit is made effective by the 
 approach through precise social knowledge. What- 
 ever others may do, home missions propose to find 
 out social duty first of all by the investigation of defi- 
 nite areas and the conditions of the life and labor of 
 their people. They start, not with the social order in 
 general, but with one's own community. They dis- 
 cover the needs of that community by a "survey" of 
 all its significant conditions. All the experts, all the 
 official programs agree on this method of approach. 
 
 The Case of Muscatine. In 1911 a Commission 
 of the Social Service Secretaries of leading denomina- 
 tions, cooperating through the Federal Council of 
 Churches, thus approached the acute social problem of 
 Muscatine, Iowa. This flourishing city of 20,000 on 
 the borders of a prairie state was one in which the 
 strength and success of earlier home missions had been 
 notably exemplified. It had suddenly developed a ro- 
 mantic and profitable industry that of making pearl 
 buttons from the clam-shells which are furnished in 
 great quantity by the Mississippi River. By this in- 
 dustry nearly half of its population lived; yet both 
 the community and the state of which it was a part 
 had ignored many of the possibilities which grew out 
 of this fact and were totally unprepared to meet them. 
 Industrial conditions were not seriously bad. When, 
 however, the workers attempted to get comparatively 
 minor grievances rectified by organizing a union they
 
 138 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 were met by a prompt lockout. Petty violence was 
 resorted to in return and the persecution of non-union 
 workers. The militia was called out ; and later private 
 detectives hired from Chicago. A futile return to 
 work was arranged through the intervention of the 
 churches, the chamber of commerce, and the governor 
 of the state. It failed because it did not go to the 
 roots of the trouble and was in the interest of peace 
 rather than of justice. A general strike followed, with 
 additional violence, which alienated public sympathy 
 from the strikers and shunted the minds of the com- 
 munity from the issue of social justice to that of 
 public order. Finally the whole situation became in- 
 coherent a matter of overstrained temper and nerves. 
 Workmen abandoned their homes seeking work else- 
 where and factories moved to other places. In terms 
 of the community, the losses to purse, to poise of 
 mind, and to human kindness were enormous. 
 
 A Gross of Buttons. The report of the Commis- 
 sion made it plain that there was a rather simple but 
 unsolved technical issue at the bottom of the whole 
 difficulty, namely, how many buttons made a gross? 
 Wages were paid for so many gross of buttons; but 
 was a gross a gross of buttons or of good buttons? 
 What were good buttons ; buttons which sold at stand- 
 ard price or at any price? If all marketable buttons 
 were to be counted, at what rate ? This involved the 
 question whether the lowest grade buttons were pro- 
 duced at a profit or a loss, and this the manufacturers' 
 crude system of accounting failed to reveal. Mani-
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 139 
 
 festly this question was not to be settled by orating 
 upon street corners nor by the muskets of militia. It 
 needed just a production expert and a cost accountant 
 to devise a clear definition of a gross of buttons as an 
 invariable basis for wages. But as the Commission 
 pertinently remarked, this simple point had become 
 the supreme test of religious values in Muscatine just 
 then. 
 
 All Have Sinned. The report of the Commission 
 went on to deal out even-handed criticism to all parties 
 who had so conspicuously failed in their "mutual re- 
 sponsibilities: to the manufacturers for their unwill- 
 ingness to allow the workers to organize while they 
 themselves were practising this same fundamental 
 right, and for their refusal to recognize the community 
 as being a party at interest in all industrial situations ; 
 to the workers for injustice to non-unionists, for gross 
 misrepresentation of factory conditions, for public dis- 
 order, and for a disregard of the community exactly 
 equal to that of the manufacturers. It condemned the 
 churches for failure as teachers of public morals to 
 include leadership as to industrial conditions, for 
 permitting- unnecessary, loose, and aggravating ideas 
 to dominate the public mind and for not pointing 
 prospectively the way of social righteousness and 
 peace. It found the community guilty of not under- 
 standing the relation of industry to civic responsibility, 
 for not providing such means of social recreation as 
 would have been a safety-valve against violence, and 
 particularly for failure in the development of common
 
 140 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ideals and aspirations. The state, it pointed out, had 
 no adequate means of keeping public order under con- 
 ditions of industrial strife, nor of investigating nor 
 preventing the evils which led to such strife. 
 
 Scientific Basis of Justice. It is not to be pre- 
 sumed that every one in Muscatine agreed with the 
 findings of the Commission in all particulars. It was 
 still open to any of the parties to the situation to pre- 
 sent its own point of view and plead its case before 
 the bar of public opinion. It remained however that 
 the Commission had viewed the whole situation in a 
 judicial spirit as no one else had. Its members were 
 experienced in social diagnosis. They brought to bear 
 the best clues from human experience elsewhere. They 
 approached the problem of Muscatine with all the 
 social knowledge available. Their findings represented 
 social justice as nearly as we can now approximate 
 it in such matters. This general method home mis- 
 sions recommend for universal application. It is scien- 
 tific in that it is an application of the method of induc- 
 tive study to actual conditions. It does not deal in 
 vague theories of society but soberly seeks to point 
 out local responsibility and concrete remedies for social 
 ills. It is neither socialistic nor anti-socialistic, be- 
 cause it does not begin with philosophy at all but rather 
 with the practical attitudes of the Christian gospel to- 
 ward all human problems. 
 
 Willingness to Differ in Details. It is strategic 
 because it presents a basis on which men may unite in 
 practical programs when they could not at all unite in
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 141 
 
 theory. Debates about social orthodoxies are just as 
 unprofitable as about theological orthodoxies. A doc- 
 trinal debate about social duties would simply further 
 divide the Church. Men have a right to be extremely 
 sensitive when social conclusions are drawn in the 
 name of religion without the most painstaking pre- 
 liminary study of particular facts. The approach 
 through social knowledge does not preclude differences 
 in judgment between men of equally sincere and sen- 
 sitive consciences. Social workers are entirely accus- 
 tomed to the spectacle of divided opinion on such 
 concrete issues, say of the wisdom of a widowed 
 mothers' pension law, or the terms of a workingmen's 
 compensation act. It is just this willingness to differ 
 in detail, to correct errors by experimentation, and 
 to view the whole matter in an open-minded and scien- 
 tific rather than a dogmatic spirit which characterizes 
 the current home missionary attitude. Such an atti- 
 tude takes much of the sting out of old bitterness and 
 has, for example, largely enabled the North and South 
 to see eye to eye and to unite in common effort for 
 the uplift of the Negro. 
 
 An Ounce of Prevention. The final excellency of 
 this approach to social issues is that it is by its very 
 nature preventive. As seen in the Muscatine case, the 
 weakness of home missions was that their ministries 
 came too late. Immense damage through social strife 
 had already been suffered. But the most significant 
 of wars are those which were never fought; where 
 the issue and the irritant were ready, but were over-
 
 142 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 mastered by the stronger forces of peace working out 
 thoroughgoing moral adjustments and profound hu- 
 man reconciliations. While home missions therefore 
 in their direct functioning cannot show frequent suc- 
 cessful mediation in industrial conflicts, they are doing 
 something better. Their diffusion of the social spirit, 
 their advocacy of social adjustments, their guidance 
 of the Church in local courses of study, are the precise 
 means which will prevent a repetition of the Muscatine 
 situation. 
 
 The Local Survey. At the present moment, in con- 
 nection with the new Christian strategy both of city 
 and of rural missions, large numbers of communities 
 are engaged in surveying their local social conditions. 
 Indeed, the survey method is in danger of becoming 
 the current fad; yet nothing would this book more 
 earnestly commend than this very method. It is the 
 essential first step for an efficient local home mission- 
 ary program. Nothing which is permanently wise or 
 significant can be done without an accurate knowledge 
 of and the education of the community in its own 
 social conditions. One of the largest services of recent 
 missionary scholarship and publication is that of per- 
 fecting the technical methods for making and using 
 such surveys, and in this matter the Church may be 
 proud of her leadership. The recent bulletin on the 
 Social Survey issued by the Russell Sage Foundation 1 
 shows how largely this general field of social study is 
 
 Bulletin No. 2, December, 1913.
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 143 
 
 indebted to home missionary leaders for literature and 
 results. 
 
 Justice through Social Control. Out of these 
 many social studies and local experiments, and in 
 harmony with the general social thought of our age, 
 home missions are able to formulate a constructive 
 program of social justice for the Church. Certain 
 agreements have emerged and established themselves 
 in the modern Christian conscience. Their economic 
 background may be variously stated. It does not ques- 
 tion the fundamental rights of property say in eggs. 
 It is recognized that there will be a season of fluctua- 
 tion in the price of eggs, owing to the fact that hens 
 will produce them more profusely in the summer than 
 in the winter. There is no disposition to forbid a 
 profit to the man of intelligence and foresight who 
 buys up quantities of eggs and puts them in cold 
 storage against the day of relative scarcity. It is in- 
 sisted however that the eggs which he sells out of 
 cold storage shall be good, and that the new resource 
 which has come to humanity in the preservation of the 
 food supply through refrigeration shall in its largest 
 use tend to equalize human advantage and not merely 
 to enrich those who are able to get possession of it. 
 In other words, strict social control is to be exercised 
 over all economic processes and monopoly advantage 
 is to be limited. Whenever a monopoly advantage 
 can be shown to be directly of social creation, as when 
 a public franchise gives an exclusive right to a city 
 street, a harbor frontage, or an interstate railway line,
 
 144 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the state is particularly bound to compel private busi- 
 ness to work out the ends of social justice and may 
 often find it advantageous directly to assume the busi- 
 ness itself. 
 
 The Well-being of Men Paramount. Some such 
 general tendency of economic thought undoubtedly 
 underlies the missionary program. Home missions, 
 however, by no means ask specific consent to this or 
 any other strictly economic proposition, but are rather 
 directly concerned with the human and moral aspects 
 of the social order. In this realm their fundamental 
 agreement is that any specific exploitation of human 
 beings, any industrial or social condition which is 
 shown to degrade man, by attacking his health, limit- 
 ing his educational opportunity, or subjecting him to 
 moral overstrain, must cease. Society is not to do 
 business at the expense of any of its members, but 
 only on condition that all shall have an opportunity 
 for normal and worthy life. 
 
 A Social Creed. The specific convictions which ex- 
 press this agreement and which have been drawn out 
 of study and experience have been formulated by 
 home missions as the social creed of the American 
 Churches. In their form they are a development from 
 a long series of declarations by the denominations 
 and are most perfectly expressed in the action of the 
 Federal Council of the Churches of Christ of Amer- 
 ica, at the last great quadrennial gathering in Chicago 
 in 1912: 
 
 The Churches must stand :
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 145 
 
 1. For equal rights and complete organized justice 
 for all men in all stations of life. 
 
 2. For the protection of the family, by the single 
 standard of purity, uniform divorce laws, proper reg- 
 ulation of marriage, and proper housing. 
 
 3. For the fullest possible development for every 
 child, especially by the provision of proper education 
 and recreation. 
 
 4. For the abolition of child labor. 
 
 5. For such regulation of the conditions of toil 
 for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral 
 health of the community. 
 
 6. For the abatement and prevention of poverty. 
 
 7. For the protection of the individual and society 
 from the social, economic, and moral waste of the 
 liquor traffic. 
 
 8. For the conservation of health. 
 
 9. For the protection of the worker from dan- 
 gerous machinery, occupational diseases, and mortal- 
 ity. 
 
 10. For the right of all men to the opportunity for 
 self -maintenance, for safeguarding this right against 
 encroachments of every kind, and for the protection 
 of workers from the hardships of enforced unem- 
 ployment. 
 
 11. For suitable provision for the old age of the 
 workers, and for those incapacitated by injury. 
 
 12. For the right of employees and employers 
 alike to organize for adequate means of conciliation 
 and arbitration in industrial disputes.
 
 146 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Staying Eternally Teachable. It is worth while to 
 insist again that even these specifications, which at 
 once stir the heart and compel the conscience, are not 
 to be regarded in the old dogmatic and strictly creedal 
 sense. Their application is to be worked out through 
 further years of experimentation as to the precise 
 terms of a given law or regulation in the interests 
 of social justice. The laws of one state will not pre- 
 cisely fit the conditions in another. Nothing could 
 be more abhorrent to the spirit in which missions ap- 
 proach this matter than a legalistic tendency which 
 should array the Church in the interest of some par- 
 ticular formula instead of keeping it eternally teach- 
 able as to social duty. The Church will reach a work- 
 ing knowledge of the truth only by persevering in the 
 task of local adjustment and experimentation. The 
 realization of social justice through home missions 
 is largely in the hands of agencies other than the 
 organized Church. Home missions are the impelling 
 and educating agencies ; Christian men and women are 
 the individual inspiring units of organization, but the 
 Church as such is not to be the chief factor in the 
 securing of social results. If Christ is really sovereign 
 over all the forces of society, it is his right to utilize 
 those best suited to a particular end and to hold the 
 Church in reserve when need be for its original task 
 of spiritual insight and moral impulse. 
 
 No New Organization. Thus a typical declaration 
 of one of the denominational social service commis- 
 sions states explicitly that it does not recommend any
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 147 
 
 new ecclesiastical organization in the interests of social 
 justice. It calls upon the Church everywhere to teach 
 Christian ideals of social relationships and industrial 
 and community welfare; to study local conditions; to 
 make its members good citizens and particularly to co- 
 operate with public, private, educational, social, and re- 
 ligious agencies. In other words, it is in the spheres of 
 politics and of voluntary organization, rather than of 
 formal ecclesiastical activity, that the hand-to-hand 
 work of social justice is chiefly to be done. Thus in the 
 catalog of the definite social ideals for which the 
 Churches must stand it is evident that almost every 
 item is a natural field for legislation in the activity of 
 the Christianized state. The regulation of marriage 
 and divorce; the control of tenement-house construc- 
 tion and sanitation ; the maintenance and adaptation of 
 schools; regulation of child labor and of factory con- 
 ditions in general; conservation of health; compensa- 
 tion for industrial injuries; means for conciliation and 
 arbitration in industrial disputes, and the definition of 
 a living wage in given industries are all ultimately 
 matters for social decision through legislation; and 
 this control must be carried out into actual justice 
 through political administration. 
 
 Cooperation. To get these ideals before the public 
 conscience and to organize them into compelling public 
 opinion, state by state and city by city, manifold volun- 
 tary organizations are necessary with which the 
 Church must heartily cooperate. Such are local parent 
 and teachers' associations in the interests of efficient
 
 148 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 public schools; the national and local Child Labor 
 Committees; the Charity Organization Societies; the 
 Anti-Saloon Leagues ; public health organizations ; the 
 Sabbath Leagues ; and always the local boards of trade, 
 manufacturers' associations, and trade-unions. Occa- 
 sionally the social survey will find radical lacks which 
 must be corrected by the creation of additional organi- 
 zations. In the main however there is chiefly needed 
 a perfection and yoking up of the machinery already 
 existing and its agreement upon a common construc- 
 tive program for the community. When home mis- 
 sions tell the best of their Christian youth to go out 
 and act through these agencies, they do the Church 
 no less honor than if they organized a new depart- 
 ment within her own walls. 
 
 Direct Social Ministries. There remains however 
 a very large field for the direct social functioning of 
 the Church. The local social service program natur- 
 ally varies as to the needs of particular parishes. The 
 family church will find its usefulness largely in estab- 
 lishing a branch or social settlement in a foreign or 
 industrial quarter of the city. The down-town parish 
 may become directly institutional and be itself used 
 by the whole round of public and voluntary social 
 institutions, besides carrying on its own multifarious 
 missions of social betterment. Home missions func- 
 tioning as a city church extension organization may 
 strongly direct the social activities of aided churches, 
 particularly those under foreign-speaking pastors. 
 They may even find it wise to label some particular
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 149 
 
 church a labor church, and to use it as a common 
 meeting-ground for organized industry and religious 
 insight. In general, however, the fewer class labels 
 we attach to Christian institutions the better. For the 
 backward and non-European peoples, the national 
 home missionary boards will continue their marvelous 
 round of constructive social service, ranging from the 
 distribution of old clothes to the organization of build- 
 ing and loan associations ; the housing of public libra- 
 ries, and the reorganization of agriculture. All these 
 forms of service are in actual operation in hundreds 
 of communities throughout the nation under direct 
 home missionary impulse, or as the outgrowth of home 
 missionary education merging with the common social 
 intelligence of the Church. 
 
 Brother versus Expert Especially important in all 
 these efforts is the spirit which respects and utilizes 
 on terms of equality the initiative and local leadership 
 of the people whom home missions desire to help. 
 Thus the system of fraternal delegates sent by de- 
 nominational or local church organizations to sit in 
 trade-union councils has put the touch of personal con- 
 fidence and intimacy upon the whole question of the 
 Church and labor. A recent social survey in Morris- 
 town, New Jersey, was raided and wrecked by a mob 
 of 400 Italians who did not relish the exhibition of 
 their unfortunate living conditions. It would have 
 been far better to have advised with the leaders of the 
 Italian colony in advance, made them understand the 
 necessity of public intelligence as to the lives of all the
 
 150 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 people of the community, and utilized their better im- 
 pulses in the movement for their own redemption. 
 Human contact is the fine secret of effectiveness in 
 all social service work, and a fine regard for the feel- 
 ings of others will be the Church's best equipment for 
 her expert and technical task. 
 
 The Church's Own Labor Problem. Finally there is 
 the question of the Church's own employees her 
 ministers and janitors. She cannot well instruct the 
 world in justice as to wages and conditions of labor 
 until she has more radically and intelligently consid- 
 ered the minister's remuneration and the conditions 
 under which the paid servants of the church are com- 
 pelled to live, educate their families, and do their 
 work. The ability to secure high-class executive talent 
 for small pay has often been pointed out as the su- 
 preme test of the cooperative movement in the eco- 
 nomic field. This the English cooperators have been 
 able to secure. Many of their local managers could 
 draw immensely larger salaries in the world of com- 
 petitive business but choose rather to remain with a 
 movement which stands for human ideals instead of 
 individual gain. In America the Church is the only 
 agency which has been at all able to command and 
 keep high-class men on inadequate pay, but she has 
 no right to press this advantage too far or to glory 
 in it when the real glory belongs to her faithful ser- 
 vants. The Church's own labor problem needs im- 
 mediate attention. 
 
 Justice before Kindness. Allied to this is the prob-
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 151 
 
 lem of old age pensions for ministers and their sup- 
 port in disablement. In this matter the Church has 
 shown great kindness but an inadequate sense of jus- 
 tice. Her aged ministers have been offered charity 
 when an earlier realization of social justice would 
 have provided adequate systems of pensioning such as 
 are now expected of all reasonable corporations. It 
 is impossible that the Church should lead the world 
 in such matters until she has set her own house in 
 order. 
 
 The Church's Own Housing Problem. The same 
 considerations apply to those forms of social service 
 which are directly carried on by the Church collectively 
 through the missionary board. In her mission schools, 
 for example, the Church has created her own housing 
 problem. Home missions have become the voluntary 
 landlord to Indian, Negro, Mountaineer, Oriental, 
 Porto Rican, but have frequently housed them in mis- 
 sion buildings and plants lacking the minimum re- 
 quirements of collective safety and decency as re- 
 flected in modern legislation. Indeed she has some- 
 times suffered the humiliation of having the state com- 
 pel her to provide decent safety and sanitation for 
 her wards. Not even in the name of Christ is it per- 
 missible for two or three hundred to be gathered 
 together without an unimpeachable supply of pure 
 water, fire protection, adequate air and light, and a 
 system of sewage-disposal which reinvigorates the 
 soil rather than contaminates it. Yet in relatively few 
 of the mission schools are these minimum requirements
 
 152 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 met. The whole conception of adequate support of 
 missionary enterprise must be revolutionized in the 
 light of the modern social conscience. Immensely 
 larger sums must be contributed to missionary treas- 
 uries before the Church can provide for herself the 
 conditions of collective life which her social justice 
 program demands of the world. 
 
 The Social Gospel. Summing up, then, home mis- 
 sions are deeply concerned with social justice and 
 throw their strong and persistent weight into the 
 trembling balance of the Church's conscience. They 
 propose the method of local and concrete attack upon 
 social problems based on accurate knowledge, con- 
 fident that the ultimate results of this method will be 
 exceedingly radical. They discover a group of agree- 
 ments growing out of experience which they have 
 expanded into a common workable program of so- 
 cial advance. Home missions attempt to achieve social 
 justice piecemeal, but do not intend to stop until the 
 work is done. Each church and community is set to 
 repairing the breaches in justice over against its own 
 house, and where there is no house all join together 
 to build the wall. Home missions get their working 
 strength from their alliances. They first set the 
 Church to train Christian workers, who in turn or- 
 ganize voluntary agencies of social betterment; then 
 the Church utilizes and cooperates with these agencies. 
 Her allied ministers include business men and poli- 
 ticians. She views both with a degree of suspicion, and 
 keeps examining their ulterior motives ; and the Church
 
 SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTICE 153 
 
 is just as sensitive about her own ulterior motives. She 
 keeps examining herself to see if she is really continu- 
 ing in the social faith. Home missions direct the local 
 church in its large immediate ministries of social bet- 
 terment, but are more fundamentally concerned with 
 the duty of advocacy and education. They proclaim 
 a social gospel in which justice in the collective life of 
 men is regarded, not as a by-product of religion, but 
 as one of the essential exercises of religion itself as 
 interpreted by Christ. To those who question whether 
 the sphere of social religion is really central in his 
 heart, they reply with the old catalog of Messianic ac- 
 tivities, "The deaf hear, the lame walk, and the dead 
 are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached 
 to them; and blessed is he who is not offended in <ne."
 
 A SOCIAL RESTATEMENT OF RACE 
 PROBLEMS
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 A SOCIAL RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 
 
 Race Problems Include All Others. As affecting hu- 
 man fellowship in America race problems have com- 
 monly been approached passionately, and largely so 
 because they have commonly been approached through 
 their extremest contrast, namely, that of the most ad- 
 vanced white type as over against the lowest colored 
 type. One begins by staging mentally a drama of 
 conflict with these two as hero and villain respectively. 
 Its theme concerns their difficulty of association under 
 democratic conditions. The plot is complicated by the 
 fact that one was recently the slave of the other* The 
 result is tragedy. 
 
 Common Conditions of Social Misery. A better 
 and more just approach, the author submits, was dis- 
 covered by him when he arrived in a strange city at 
 night in the midst of a blinding winter storm and 
 sought to locate a social settlement in a slum quarter. 
 Regretfully relinquishing the friendly lights of the 
 departing street-car and the solid, slippery pavements, 
 he plunged into a maze of crooked and narrow side 
 streets with deep mud underfoot and the bewildering 
 outlines of huddled dwellings as his guide to direction. 
 He knew that he was in the heart of a district in which 
 
 '57
 
 158 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Irish, Jew, and Negro lived under common conditions 
 of social depression and misery. Occasionally silent, 
 shadowy forms lunged by, crouching against the walls 
 of houses for protection from the cutting wind. In 
 the storm and dark one was color-blind and felt only 
 the sudden presence of men like himself, buffeted by 
 the elements and seeking the same light and warmth 
 he sought. And somehow in the stress of common 
 struggle with the elements one assumed in them a com- 
 mon humanity which knew the same inner gusts and 
 fires of passion and sought the same desired haven of 
 the soul. 
 
 Negro and Italian. What the sentiment of the night 
 wrought the severe, scientific survey of the day reen- 
 forced. Here was a definite, frequent social setting, 
 the most frequent one indeed in which the social 
 problems of race present themselves in the greatest 
 American cities. Vast groups of varying races on 
 the lowest economic level live contiguously in the 
 poorest quarters and suffer every social ill together. 
 Here in a newer outlying district it is the Italian and 
 the Negro. Year before last the place was a swamp. 
 Then it suddenly became dotted with cheap and patchy 
 habitations standing in sodden pools of water. Now 
 the old country road which was its main artery has 
 been partly paved. Huge heaps of paving-blocks and 
 a huddle of contractors' carts obstruct it. Tawdry 
 saloons ornament every corner. The district has filled 
 with houses. Being just without the city limits, it 
 has neither sidewalks nor sewers, is inadequately
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 159 
 
 lighted, and has no schoolhouse and no permanent 
 church. Under these conditions of sudden social acci- 
 dent the newest arrivals from sunny Italy and the 
 sunny South are dumped together by the overflowing 
 city. Here, in the cheapest, least improved, least reg- 
 ulated area, they begin their search for a job and their 
 struggle for a place. Their men, women, and children 
 have just a life apiece to live, each his own, and all 
 burdened with a common social handicap. 
 
 First Aid to the Injured. One diagnoses the first 
 needs of these diverse race-groups as identical. They 
 need to have the building and sanitary codes extended 
 and to be provided with the ordinary public facilities 
 of the city. If clean streets, ventilated tenements, fire 
 and police protection, equally applied laws, equal 
 schools, rational amusement, and effective labor or- 
 ganization can help a group of Italians they ought 
 to help an equal group of Negroes in the next block ; 
 and they do. If criminals and prostitutes are herded 
 into the districts where the poor must make their 
 homes, if jobs are few and precarious, and the swamp 
 is allowed still to occupy the street, Italians and Ne- 
 groes alike may become acute social problems; and 
 they do. Under such circumstances the social con- 
 science has enough with which to busy itself for some 
 time before it gets to any specific matter of race. The 
 first step of civilized procedure is clearly to remove 
 specific social evils. 
 
 Social Evils Always Specific. From the standpoint 
 of the man who is going to do something about the
 
 160 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 matter the so-called inferior races in America are pri- 
 marily victims of a peculiar social status coupled with 
 the experience of specific social evils. With large num- 
 bers of the white race of like status they suffer com- 
 mon difficulties and are subject to like remedies. All 
 the urban perplexities and wrongs which earlier chap- 
 ters of this book discuss crowding, bad housing, in- 
 adequate sanitation, compulsory association with the 
 depraved, inferior economic opportunity beset, some- 
 what unequally to be sure, the urban Negro, Jew, 
 Oriental, or European immigrant. All the factors 
 which figure in the decay of rural civilization war 
 against the inferior race in the open country. The 
 Indian, rural Negro, Mexican, Porto Rican, or Orien- 
 tal needs all that other country people need and more. 
 All social resources, all social compassion and wrath 
 ought to be equally available on their behalf. 
 
 Reducing the Problem's Dimensions. Reform this 
 and that specific abuse and the race problem shrinks 
 in size; reform them all and it largely evaporates. 
 Race difficulties are nearly always simply common 
 forms of social difficulties, the hopeful remedies to 
 which are perfectly well known and agreed upon. This 
 aspect of them should be dealt with first. Race, the 
 sociologists warn us, can no longer be used as a jug- 
 gler's hat from which to draw theoretical explanations 
 of social difference when concrete explanations are 
 right at hand. "More and more," says Ross, "the 
 time-honored appeal to race is looked upon as the 
 resource of ignorance or indolence. To the scholar
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 161 
 
 the attributing of the mental and moral traits of a 
 population to heredity is a confession of defeat, not 
 to be thought of until he has wrung from every factor 
 of life its last drop of explanation." 1 Note the order 
 of explanation; for this is the kernel of the thought. 
 We are to cry "race" last of all, after we have reck- 
 oned with every other factor, every nearer and more 
 obvious cause. Then if there is something left, say 
 of the Negro's deficiency, which belongs to him as a 
 Negro, one must confess it ; but not until from every 
 social factor has been wrung its last drop of signifi- 
 cance, and till every known duty, based upon his spe- 
 cific social handicaps, has been performed toward him. 
 Colored Americans: The Negro. It is from this 
 view-point that home missions as socially redirected 
 now approach the non-European race material of the 
 United States ; first to catalog, to locate, and briefly to 
 characterize it. One American in every ten is black. 
 Ten millions of Negroes, recently enslaved, now suf- 
 fering every ill of a socially depressed group, are 
 massed chiefly in the rural sections of the South but 
 stream increasingly toward the Northern cities. They 
 absolutely outnumber the white population in South 
 Carolina and Mississippi and have gained more rapidly 
 than the whites during the last census decade in West 
 Virginia, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. No man can deny 
 that the Negro is below the nation's average in health, 
 wealth, education, civic intelligence, and civilized mor- 
 ality. Yet his rich capacity for improvement has been 
 
 1 Foundations of Sociology, 309.
 
 162 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 demonstrated at ten thousand points. He is vastly 
 increasing in numbers, homes, ownership of land, and 
 variety of successful occupation. He is multiplying 
 his farmers twice as fast as the white population is, 
 and his strength and gains as an agricultural producer 
 and proprietor are notable. He has reduced his illit- 
 eracy 14 per cent, in the last ten years and made im- 
 measurable gains in racial self-respect, initiative, and 
 moral control. Judged by the ratio of his churches 
 and ministers he is the most religious of all Americans. 
 The Indian. Arriving almost contemporaneously, 
 the Pilgrim Father and the African slave found the 
 continent thinly possessed by barbarian primeval 
 Americans of whom three hundred thousand a 
 slightly increasing rather than a dwindling number 
 abide with us still. Now almost everywhere engulfed 
 by white civilization, pressed from decreasing reserva- 
 tions on to small individual holdings and these fre- 
 quently in semi-arid regions where whites can farm 
 with difficulty the Indian is obliged to make his tran- 
 sition from savagery to civilization under enormous 
 handicaps. He must abandon tribal life under the 
 benevolent paternalism of the government, and face 
 the problems of living and a job. His deeply en- 
 trenched traditions are desperately at outs with Amer- 
 ican notions. Individual ownership is alien to his pro- 
 foundest sense of the meaning of property. Individual 
 responsibility is all to learn. Greed and graft menace 
 him ; red tape hinders. Whisky, trachoma, and tuber- 
 culosis undermine his physical manhood. He is the
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 163 
 
 victim of the unearned increment of land values, an 
 idle rich man without adequate incentive to industry; 
 yet in spite of his millions and Uncle Sam's, fourteen 
 thousand of his children remain out of school. 
 
 The Eskimo. Clinging to our Arctic coasts, strug- 
 gling for existence under the severest climatic and 
 economic conditions known to the human family, live 
 the Eskimo, a sound, stocky, cheerful, democratic race 
 of fishers and hunters, organized only into fragmentary 
 village groups. Their snow houses, fur clothing, 
 weapons, lamp, sledge, and canoe show marvelous me- 
 chanical ingenuity and artistic instincts. White civili- 
 zation has brought them employment, schools, and the 
 reindeer; also liquor, disease, and the lust for gold. 
 Missions must counteract these by morality, sanitation, 
 and intelligent faith. 
 
 The Chinese. More than half way to meet the west- 
 ward movement of the European races across our con- 
 tinent, came Chinese pilgrims of poverty a few hun- 
 dreds of thousands from beyond the Pacific. They 
 built the first railroad which linked our two oceans; 
 they performed the heavy frontier tasks of the mine 
 and the ranch and the drudgery of the kitchen. Feared, 
 abused, and excluded as cheap labor, they have dwin- 
 dled now to only about seventy thousand, one half 
 of whom are massed in California. One third of 
 them are engaged in agricultural pursuits; another 
 third in trade and industry ; only incidentally are they 
 laundrymen. Chiefly they are enterprising, hard- 
 working, and literate Cantonese. Among them are
 
 164 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 great merchants; not a few are well-to-do. So long 
 as they were an ill-housed, not-yet-adjusted immigrant 
 group, sharing the same quarters with criminals and 
 prostitutes, they showed excessive immorality. For a 
 long time the Chinese in America was typically without 
 a wife and without a God. He had left both his family 
 and his faith beyond the seas. Now, however, in the 
 Christian communities are scores of fine and stable 
 families, hundreds of children born under the Stars 
 and Stripes, and intending to stay there, and a per- 
 manently organized group life which, while little as- 
 similated to American ways, is not without increas- 
 ingly adequate social standards and agencies of its 
 own. And while their contribution to America is yet 
 but slight, these Christian communities have had a 
 vast influence on their former homeland. New China 
 owes much to them both in ideals, benevolent contri- 
 butions, and men. 
 
 The Hindu. One of the latest wrinkles in Oriental 
 exclusion, aimed chiefly at the Japanese, proposed to 
 keep out all peoples not tall enough to get into the 
 United States army. But this would be more than 
 half an invitation to the tall and turbaned Hindu, him- 
 self frequently an ex-soldier of Great Britain. Some 
 6,000 only have been admitted to our shores. These 
 constitute an insignificant though interesting addition 
 to the variety of our non-European elements, impor- 
 tant only because the surplus millions of India have 
 to be reckoned with somewhere if not here. They 
 simply testify within our gates to a world-wide re-
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 165 
 
 sponsibility in which home missions and foreign mis- 
 sions are one. 
 
 The Japanese. There are Japanese in America to 
 the number of seventy-one thousand only. Ninety-five 
 per cent, of them are confined to the Pacific Coast 
 states. They tend rather to scatter among the general 
 population than to create distinctive quarters, and they 
 uniformly adopt American customs of dress and hous- 
 ing. As rural laborers they are the chief factor in 
 much of the distinctive agriculture of the Coast states. 
 Emigration is now voluntarily restricted by the Jap- 
 anese government and there is reason to believe that 
 it can be permanently controlled without friction be- 
 tween the two nations, if the status of the Japanese 
 now in America can be satisfactorily adjusted. Quick 
 to learn English, literate almost to a ma.n, great read- 
 ers, keenly intelligent on civic affairs, the Japanese 
 propose to have something to say about this adjust- 
 ment. They have strong and educated leaders, an 
 active press, and the means of focusing group senti- 
 ment Their Buddhism, with 5,000 enrolled adherents, 
 is aggressive and adaptive, imitating modern Christian 
 organizations and activities. Their racial sensitiveness 
 and capacity for initiative combine also to turn their 
 Christian activities largely into self-directed lines. 
 Interdenominational evangelism, federated churches, 
 close cooperation between the several communions, and 
 the production of Christian literature all thrive in 
 their hands. While numerically insignificant so that 
 all the Japanese in America could be poured into New
 
 i66 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 York City and scarcely any one be the wiser their 
 massing in thinly settled states, their temperamental 
 aggressiveness, successful competition with American 
 interests, and their membership in a mighty and highly 
 self-conscious nation, make them, above all non- 
 European groups in America, most significant for in- 
 ternational weal or wo. 
 
 The Hawaiian. The beautiful and immensely fer- 
 tile Hawaiian Islands form the home of a scant 
 200,000 of population incredibly mingled in race and 
 blood. They were the scene of one of the earlier 
 triumphs of foreign missions which first completely 
 Christianized a pagan people. Now upon the soil 
 of Hawaii as part of our own nation, the battle for 
 civilization and Christianity has to be fought all over 
 again by reason of the inpouring Oriental races. Jap- 
 anese furnish the largest racial element, and with 
 Chinese constitute over a half of the population. The 
 dominant religion of the Islands is Buddhism; the 
 dominant form of Christianity, Mormonism. The 
 small but wealthy white population, led by sons of the 
 early missionaries, with one hand exploits the labor 
 of these thronging aliens and with the other actively 
 and handsomely sustains the institutions of philan- 
 thropy and education, encouraged by the fellowship 
 and gifts of the homeland churches. 
 
 The Mexican. Along our southwestern border 
 from California to Texas, on former Mexican soil, live 
 perhaps three quarters of a million Americans of Mex- 
 ican race. Their Spanish fathers came before our
 
 YOUNG MEN OF A JAPANESE MISSION 
 PORTLAND, OREGON
 
 Pilgrim Fathers came. No one knows with accuracy 
 what racial blend the present generations represent, 
 though competent observers guess them to be one fifth 
 Spanish, two fifths Indian, and two fifths mixed, al- 
 ways with a dash of Negro blood. At any rate the 
 effective result is non-European in trait and tendency. 
 As lonely cattlemen and ranchers in empty deserts, as 
 teamster and laborer on railway construction and irri- 
 gation projects, as miner, fruit grower, and packer, 
 the Mexican lives and labors. His latest recruits are 
 miserable refugees from revolution across the border. 
 He is a bigoted Catholic, the victim of a stationary 
 half -civilization. Yet he does not lack shrewd politi- 
 cal leaders, nor rich landholders; nor promising 
 youths, whose training in mission school and agricul- 
 tural college is the best hope of a better day. 
 
 The Porto Rican. In the West Indian world, as in 
 the whole of continental America south of the Rio 
 Grande, we are neighbors to a mixed racial breed, 
 which verges away from the European type. Under 
 the flags, first or last, of the chief European powers, 
 for four hundred years the West Indies have been 
 becoming more and more Negro. And strangely 
 enough those Islands which have been and remained 
 most European have been just the former possessions 
 of poor, decrepit, much-belabored Spain, who never- 
 theless was the most genuine colonizer of them all. 
 Even in them, however, the resultant racial blend is 
 distinctly non-European. One of these Islands has 
 fallen to us. Of blood so mixed that the census has
 
 168 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 given over the attempt to distinguish black from 
 white, and of civilization so one that black and white 
 think, feel, and act alike, Porto Rico adds her million 
 and more of souls to our deeply sundered human stuff. 
 The economic efficiency of the entire Island is said 
 to be cut in half by the hookworm disease alone. The 
 decrepit and bigoted Romanism of four centuries 
 failed to bless if it did not curse the people. American 
 rule has added population, preserved order, furnished 
 capital and initiative for industry, planted two thou- 
 sand schools, fought disease, and is valued for its 
 results but not loved. Self-government, native initia- 
 tive, democracy, thrift, loyalty, and the effective carry- 
 ing of civilization into the lives and homes of the 
 masses largely wait upon the living fellowships of 
 Christian missions. 
 
 Numerical Summary. Totaling the entire group of 
 important non-European populations in the United 
 States one gets, in approximate numbers, the follow- 
 ing result: 
 
 Negroes 10,000,000 
 
 Indians 300,000 
 
 Orientals 150,000 
 
 Hawaiians 200,000 
 
 Mexicans 750,000 
 
 Porto Ricans 1,100,000 
 
 Total 12,500,000 
 
 This twelve and a half million constitutes one eighth 
 of our people; and the eighth upon which more
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 169 
 
 heavily than on any other social pressure rests. Upon 
 them, first and last, all the social evils focus. And, as 
 the chapter began by saying, there is an overwhelming 
 mass of remediable wrong to which we know the 
 remedy, which must be righted before there is any 
 justice in invoking specific race factors in the problem. 
 
 The National Attitude toward Race. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, it must be confessed, almost nobody takes 
 that attitude. On the contrary, the non-European 
 eighth of our people is marked by our minds in ad- 
 vance for particular hopelessness. We have nearly as 
 many actual European-born foreigners within our 
 borders as the total population which is non-European 
 in origin. Yet unquestionably we regard their dilu- 
 tion of our blood and institutions as less ominous than 
 that of our darker brethren. What is this twelve and a 
 half million more than another twelve and a half 
 million? 
 
 Discrimination between Europeans. The broadest 
 ground for an answer is doubtless in the fact that we 
 instinctively discriminate also within the European 
 immigrant population. What is the five million from 
 Southern and Eastern Europe more than the nearly 
 seven million from Northwestern Europe? The best 
 one can say is that we are inwardly aware of a greater 
 separation from the Southeastern European. There 
 is a feeble consciousness of kind with respect to him 
 and a profounder consciousness of difference. He is 
 nearer to Asia and to Africa than we are or our 
 fathers were. Mixing with the aboriginal peoples he
 
 170 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 has covered one of the two American continents and 
 the other as far as the Rio Grande with a hybrid 
 stock. His is an intermediate, buffer breed which 
 makes, we think, a fundamental difference in the char- 
 acter of our population. 
 
 The Color Line. Remoter still from us, as meas- 
 ured by our feelings, is the colored man, whose case 
 we have been considering. His initial needs, we ad- 
 mit, may be the same as those of any other of like 
 social status ; but his final needs must lie deeper. There 
 is a residual something, we are sure, which makes 
 the problem of race more than a matter of social ad- 
 justment. So we incline to amend our formula to 
 read: race problems include all others, but they also 
 exceed all others. The precise meaning of this dis- 
 tinction comes home one day to the leader of a settle- 
 ment club including Negro and Italian boys in a New 
 York suburb. This very little Sandro, she reflects, 
 should he turn out to be a successful artist, engineer, 
 or merely a rich man, might live in a house on Upper 
 Mountain Avenue and belong to the Montclair Golf 
 Club, a thing not conceivably possible for Sam how- 
 ever talented or rich he might become. In a single 
 lifetime the Italian might compass the whole range 
 of social achievement; but, as most Americans feel, 
 generations of Negroes cannot do it. 
 
 A Depressing Social Atmosphere. As a matter of 
 course, therefore, social effort proceeds with less hope- 
 fulness for the non-European peoples even when pre- 
 sented side by side with depressed Europeans of the
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 171 
 
 same social stratum. There is no doubt about their 
 race handicap which lies in us. We feel differently 
 about them, knowing that they will encounter special 
 difficulties our little faith being one of them and 
 suspecting that they will exhibit less initiative and 
 resistance under them. It weakens our efforts, 
 saps our faith, limits our patience, undermines our 
 strength. On the one hand we are victims of a social 
 heredity which forbids us to be scientific in race mat- 
 ters, and which makes it almost impossible for us to 
 do the best which might be done with the material at 
 hand. On the other hand our thought of them is a 
 depressing atmosphere for the "lower" races to live 
 in. It affects their response. Knowing our little 
 faith in them, they tend to have little faith in them- 
 selves. Their social heredity was largely made by us. 
 It restricts and depresses their capacities and ener- 
 gies, and they are the victims of it. 
 
 The Issue Not Equality but Capacity. For the sal- 
 vation of both of us, therefore, it is important to know 
 what the best social knowledge has to say about the 
 ultimate and irreducible significance of race, if there 
 is any, which must persist as a barrier to human fel- 
 lowship, no matter what we hope or can do. About 
 equality we have no time to waste. There is no such 
 thing as equality between individuals; how then can 
 there be between groups composed of individuals such 
 as the sexes, the races, or the nations? Equality is 
 not only impossible but unnecessary. We do know
 
 172 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 a certain horrid equality among the dregs of mankind. 
 It has been said that "the bottom of hell is level." 
 What is important for us to know, however, is whether 
 in natural capacity the sound cores of the various 
 races overlap in their larger areas, so that they might 
 bring substantially equal brawn and intelligence to 
 common tasks and might find, in a well-rounded civili- 
 zation, honorable and normally rewarded places for 
 the special gifts of each; also whether each can fur- 
 nish a proportionate number of leaders able to meet 
 one another on common ground. 
 
 The Case of the Negro. So far, this chapter has 
 endeavored to avoid that chief specific bone of racial 
 contention in America, the Negro problem, and to keep 
 discussion on the broadest grounds. Humanly speak- 
 ing, the Negro problem is not the chief race problem. 
 On account of his greatly inferior numbers the Negro 
 will figure relatively little in the ultimate human out- 
 come. The Armageddon of race, if there is to be one, 
 will be fought between the white and yellow races. 
 Our nearer American race problem, however, does 
 chiefly concern the Negro. Its specific issue is whether 
 he has capacity to associate with us on democratic 
 terms in the significant things which belong to Amer- 
 icans. Settling this issue for him settles it for all 
 the darker-skinned races. 
 
 Practical Common Ground. In this matter it 
 seems wise to the author to present ground for others 
 to stand on which is distinctly lower than his per- 
 sonal understanding and conviction. It is high enough,
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 173 
 
 however, from which to reach great social conclusions. 
 Professor William S. Sutton of the University of 
 Texas has written a pamphlet on the Education of 
 the Southern Negro which is issued by the University 
 as official Bulletin No. 221. Discussing the signifi- 
 cance of ultimate racial factors in humanity, Professor 
 Sutton says: "How far training can modify and 
 overcome original mental characteristic nobody has 
 yet determined. Boas, in his work entitled The Mind 
 of Primitive Man, published this year, devotes a chap- 
 ter to race problems in the United States. Concern- 
 ing the question, how far undesirable traits now found 
 in the Negro population are due to racial influences, 
 and how far they are due to social environment for 
 which that population is not accountable, he reaches 
 this conclusion : 
 
 Verdict of Anthropology. " 'To this question an- 
 thropology can give the decided answer that the traits 
 of African culture as observed in the aboriginal home 
 of the Negro are those of a healthy, primitive people, 
 with a considerable degree of personal initiative, with 
 a talent for organization, and with imaginative power, 
 with technical skill and thrift. Neither is a warlike 
 spirit absent in the race, as proved by the mighty con- 
 querors who overthrew states and founded new em- 
 pires, and by the courage of the armies that follow the 
 bidding of their leaders. There is nothing to prove 
 that licentiousness, shiftless laziness, lack of initiative, 
 are fundamental characteristics of the race. Every- 
 thing points out that these qualities are the result of
 
 174 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 social conditions, rather than of hereditary traits.' 
 He remarks, with emphasis, however, that it would 
 be altogether a fallacious view to assume that there 
 are no differences in the make-up of the Negro race 
 and other races, and that their activities should run 
 in the same line. Whatever determination shall finally 
 be reached concerning the respective values of racial 
 inheritance or modification by environment, however 
 well-founded may be certain racial instincts, it seems 
 clear that, in the education of the Negro, he should 
 be granted every reasonable opportunity to make all 
 the advancement of which he is capable. To deny him 
 such opportunity is unkind, undemocratic, and un- 
 safe." 
 
 General Conclusion of Professor Boas. Professor 
 Boas, summarizing his own conclusions, finds that "no 
 proof of the inferiority of the Negro type could be 
 given except that it seemed quite possible that per- 
 haps the race would not produce quite so many men 
 of the highest genius as other races; while there 
 was nothing at all that could be interpreted as sug- 
 gesting any material difference in the mental capacity 
 of the bulk of the Negro population as compared with 
 the bulk of the white population." 2 He therefore 
 pushes his logic further than Professor Sutton does 
 and judges that with opportunity the Negro will be- 
 come fully equal to citizenship. 3 
 
 1 Sutton, "Education of the Southern Negro," 13, 14. 
 * Mind of Primitive Man, 268. 
 *Ibid., 272.
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 175 
 
 Irreducible Minimum of Missions. For the practi- 
 cal purposes of the missionary outlook it will be 
 enough to agree that any racial factor underlying so- 
 cial difficulties and evils will be found capable of modi- 
 fication in the direction of greater equality. It may 
 be stubborn; it cannot be implacable. There is much 
 at any rate that we can do besides removing evil con- 
 ditions. We can modify nature so far as change of 
 environment can affect it. We have gone nowhere 
 near the limit of profitable effort. Fundamental social 
 improvement at the worst is only checked, not pre- 
 vented, by ultimate racial factors. If any race can 
 radically better itself, all can. As concerns the darker- 
 skinned races in the United States, home missions are 
 the attempt of the Church to do all that can be done 
 for each and every one through the total resources of 
 Christianity and civilization. 
 
 Missionary Education. The most outstanding mis- 
 sionary service which the Church has undertaken for 
 our incomplete Americans of non-European origin is 
 education. So deficient are they that education must 
 precede most of the organized activities of the Church 
 itself. So needy are they and at so many points that 
 education must include manifold forms of social bet- 
 terment activities, and be brought to bear on every 
 social problem. So vast are their numbers and so 
 acute their needs that all the splendid and increasingly 
 available schools of the states and of the federal gov- 
 ernment must still be mightily supplemented by the 
 Church. With rising standards of living in the people
 
 i;6 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 whom she has lifted up, her ill-supported schools have 
 come into newly difficult responsibility and sharp 
 struggle to maintain the quality of their service. They 
 are not carpet-bagging institutions. They were planted 
 to stay ; and stay they must. 
 
 The Right Policy. But we speak of education 
 now in the broadest sense as deliberate social direc- 
 tion. "Through education," says Dewey, "society can 
 formulate its own purposes, can organize its own 
 means and resources, and thus shape itself with defi- 
 niteness and economy in the direction in which it 
 wishes to move." 1 Educational policy best tells in 
 what direction a nation wishes to move, and to move 
 with its most depressed and alien elements. And mis- 
 sionary education should indicate what the Church be- 
 lieves to be the Christian direction of national tendency 
 for and with the belated races. 
 
 A Cubit Added to Stature. Conscious of its chal- 
 lenging power and responsibility missionary educa- 
 tion for the non-European populations has actually 
 shown two phases : first, it has dealt with the deter- 
 mination of racial outlook and the discovery of racial 
 capacity. It has been a hopeful adventure beyond the 
 horizon of their proved powers in the direction of the 
 ampler men they were believed to be. And if the 
 analysis of our former paragraph is right this is both 
 noble and scientific. If the powers of the "lower" 
 races are stunted by our little faith in them they 
 should be enlarged when our faith increases. When 
 
 l My Pedagogical Creed, 17.
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 177 
 
 One ascended on high, he "led captivity captive, and 
 gave gifts unto men." One of his gifts is that of 
 making a lesser man greater than he was by the ex- 
 pectancy and daring of fellowship. 
 
 "And there was that about his eye 
 That none might see and crouch " 
 
 His dominant word was, "Man, stand up," and men 
 stood up for him. Who would not like to be such 
 a man? 
 
 "Oh, tender dreamer of a generous dream 
 Who didst believe so surely in our soul, 
 That ever since, our soul, and evermore, 
 Affirms, defines itself " 
 
 Who would not wish remotely to help on such effects? 
 A Contrasting Ideal. Quite another program of 
 racial education for the colored peoples has been com- 
 monly and influentially held. Their education is to be 
 vocational, with no expectation that they will ever 
 want to enlarge their vocations. It is conceived as 
 merely a tool for use in present status, not as a key 
 to wider possibilities. It is a splendid idea that edu- 
 cation should prepare men frankly for the concrete 
 probabilities of their life, but a vicious one when prob- 
 abilities are limited by narrow expectation. Whoever 
 believes that there are fatally "lower" and inferior 
 races will lack faith to try those broad incentives which 
 are the soul of the educational method of home mis- 
 sions.
 
 178 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Leadership Primary. Now, if in ultimate issues 
 the soul is greater than the body, the primal need of 
 any group in a fundamental, character-molding strug- 
 gle out from under social depression is not to be ad- 
 justed to the immediately practical demands of their 
 lives, nor to be fitted in the shortest possible time for 
 making a living. It is rather to extend the boundaries 
 of experience and achievement within which prac- 
 tical demands may grow. In short, it must have lead- 
 ers whose gains become the ideal capital of the strug- 
 gling masses. It must have its energized examples, 
 its standard-bearers, its men of whom millions will 
 say, "I can because he has." Such leadership is the 
 chief human value of Jesus Christ to this world. And 
 in the largest social interpretations of education noth- 
 ing could be sounder than the enthusiastic quest and 
 joyful discovery by the mission school of the excep- 
 tional man who should show by his own life what 
 other men can do, and thus lead his people out of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 Release of Suppressed Capacity. A just educa- 
 tional policy, then, for either Church or nation, toward 
 any group which has recently suffered, or is suffering 
 from social repression, must seek to find adjustment, 
 not to its present fragmentary and distorted manifes- 
 tations of natural capacities and traits, but to its future 
 completely emancipated mind and genius. The im- 
 mediate task of education with respect to such a group 
 must be to rouse and discover that suppressed capac- 
 ity. First find your man. This should be the imme-
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 179 
 
 diate business of education; for lack of it any policy 
 toward him is sure to blunder. "What a thing is when 
 its becoming is completed, that we call the nature of a 
 thing," said Aristotle. Because strong sentiment in 
 the nation persistently urges a type of training which 
 would fix the Negro and his dark-skinned fellows in 
 their incompleteness, let the educator, patriot, anthro- 
 pologist each beware. This is the crux of the prob- 
 lem. 
 
 The Masses. The leaders being found and their 
 capacities proved, the door being faithfully held wide 
 open to possibilities, missionary education under social 
 redirection has experienced a certain return to prob- 
 abilities. It is now attempting to adapt its education 
 more democratically toward meeting the prospects of 
 the masses. Perhaps the author's chief personal con- 
 tribution to home missions has been the partial work- 
 ing out of such redirection in a large group of schools 
 for non-European populations. Elsewhere he has for- 
 mulated the principles of such an adaptation as fol- 
 lows: "A wise democracy will not offer its masses 
 merely the schools of the professional or leisure 
 classes, but will multiply class schools until there are 
 enough to go around, and thus one to fit each Amer- 
 ican group. As an invitation to the fairer possibilities 
 because the best wealth of a nation is always its 
 poor boys all these diverse groups of schools will be 
 'open at the top.' The state, as destiny, must never 
 forbid the university to any child because he is poor 
 or black."
 
 i8o THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Race More Varied than Class. "When this central 
 issue is secure, it freely follows that the immediate 
 economic and practical needs of any historically pe- 
 culiar or socially handicapped group of Americans, 
 such as the juvenile delinquent, the Indian, the immi- 
 grant's child, the unskilled worker, may dictate a tem- 
 porary policy of special training for their masses. The 
 actual employment of such a policy can be justified 
 only by a detailed sociological study of their actual 
 situation. But such a study reveals that the Negro's 
 case at least is not parallel to those cited. His life 
 is indefinitely broader than that of any social group. 
 His millions contain groups of all degrees of develop- 
 ment. The only analogy for him is the analogy of 
 white population in its entirety. He needs not one 
 but all kinds of American education for the diverse 
 grades and classes of his people. 
 
 Life from Within. The profoundest educational 
 right of any people is the right to have its inner re- 
 sources of character utilized for its own uplift. Sub- 
 ject groups, whether children, women, or dependent 
 races, while they cannot be controlled unless their 
 own souls are enlisted in the task, may be and have 
 been warped and distorted by external pressure. It 
 can hinder but cannot help. It never succeeds. The 
 modern school confesses that when it fails to awaken 
 the child's own interest its failure is absolute. Some 
 are bold to believe that the world- wanderings of the 
 "new woman" will lead her back to many of her old 
 tasks, but if so it must be because her heart comes
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 181 
 
 around to them again. Her return cannot be of com- 
 pulsion. At all hazards she must follow the inner light. 
 The question of incentive is equally central for Negro 
 education. Vocational efficiency in the long run must 
 be the same as social efficiency. Train, indeed, for 
 the child's "actual condition in life," but be quite sure 
 that condition is understood. We inhabit many-storied 
 houses and our true calling is to occupy them through- 
 out. The effort to make any man a good worker with- 
 out making him a full man will fail ; and could it suc- 
 ceed, it would but give us a blinded Samson grinding 
 in the prison-house of spiritual bondage. * 
 
 The Church and Religion. In no sphere is the utili- 
 zation of native capacity and resource on the part of 
 non-European populations so subtly and profoundly 
 important as in religion, and in none have they blos- 
 somed more convincingly. For example, seven eighths 
 of all Negro churches are included within racial de- 
 nominations, self-governing and chiefly self-support- 
 ing. Ninety-eight per cent, belong to the various 
 Methodist and Baptist bodies. All told, the Negro 
 church is the chief institutional achievement of the 
 race; its best embodiment of self-government and 
 group ideals. On the other hand, as an agency of 
 Christian life and leadership it has notable defects 
 lax moral standards, poor business methods, crude and 
 noisy worship, no fundamental grasp of race needs 
 and their remedies. In these matters, while all de- 
 nominations are struggling forward, the chief stand- 
 
 1 Christian Reconstruction in the South, 296, 299, 301.
 
 i&2 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ard-bearers of social redirection have been, and still 
 largely are, a relatively few churches attached to the 
 Northern denominations, and notable for their edu- 
 cated ministry, restraint in worship, rigid morals, and 
 careful supervision. 
 
 Spiritual Gifts and Fruits. The raw material of re- 
 ligion is possessed by the Negro in rich abundance, 
 together with a very genius for its portrayal. Over 
 and over again their worship repeats the universal and 
 fundamental cycle of religious experience; first, the 
 sense of misery and unworthiness amounting often to 
 complete physical collapse; then the feeling of salva- 
 tion and uplift by a power not oneself; finally the joy 
 of relief and abandon of gratitude. Indeed, to awaken 
 this round of emotion and to dramatize it by voice, 
 posture, and action is the express object of the typi- 
 cal Negro church service. Some of the simpler fruits 
 of religion too are delightfully exhibited in the Negro's 
 version of it : a characteristic cheerfulness based on 
 faith as well as on temperament; an unfeigned piety, 
 dependent, resigned, childlike ; a mood of friendliness 
 to fellow Christians. Never have these graces and the 
 vitality and power of Negro religion had franker 
 recognition than by many of the masters of slavery 
 days. Whoever knows Negro believers knows saints 
 not a few ; souls which have much to teach and to give 
 of the fine mystery of salvation. 
 
 The One Spirit. No original theology or formula- 
 tion of Christian truth is yet included in the Negro's 
 religious development. At the same time it has by no
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 183 
 
 means remained naive and unsophisticated. On the 
 plane of practical wisdom, it has studied deeply the 
 spiritual states of men, their moral weaknesses, and 
 the common means of grace. Profound and shrewd 
 insights abound in sermonizing and glow in prayer 
 and song. As religious lyrics the jubilee melodies 
 reach universal significance and stand as a unique 
 racial contribution to American Christianity. 
 
 Fresh Potencies of Grace. No one can deal with 
 the hopes and aspirations of these churches without 
 feeling that their initiative and self-consciousness is 
 something to be touched reverently. Their religious 
 genius includes fresh and unexplored spiritual poten- 
 cies. It is a stream of grace newly sprung from the 
 Source of all grace, from which uniquely interesting 
 expressions are to be expected. In spite of all their 
 too well known shortcomings it is easy to feel in the 
 collective religious life of the Negro churches the 
 presence of a very holy thing. To the Christian mind 
 the deepest fact in any human being or group is the 
 fact of God. "If then God gave unto them the like 
 gift as he did also unto us, when we believed on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand 
 God" (Acts xi. 17). 
 
 On Earth as It Is in Heaven. Confronted with the 
 fact of God in the darker-skinned races, the mission- 
 ary conscience is compelled to face the often dis- 
 quieting issue of ultimate race relations undei the 
 gospel. The necessity of facing it is implicit in the 
 great Christian consequence of God in men, the fact
 
 184 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 of brotherhood. Especially does the whole momentum 
 of the modern social conscience press for at least a 
 tentative answer as to how the races are to live to- 
 gether in the kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 Peter and Cornelius. The New Testament nar- 
 rates pointedly, in the Peter and Cornelius episode, 
 the particular method of the new-born impulse to 
 brotherhood in the early Church. And the Spirit's 
 first step in this actual case is disappointing. It seems 
 negative and inglorious. It is the refusal to make 
 dogmatic announcement to prejudiced minds of the 
 exact terms of unprejudiced fellowship. One step the 
 Spirit takes inexorably : There are social consequences 
 to religions fellowship. Cornelius drew the conclusion 
 that baptism at Peter's hands implied social intimacy 
 on Peter's part "Then prayed they him to tarry cer- 
 tain days." To Cornelius this was the climax of the 
 episode; and Cornelius was right. The church in 
 Jerusalem, on the other hand, did not at all meet the 
 issue which Cornelius raised. When they heard 
 Peter's story "they held their peace" (as to his social 
 conduct) "and glorified God, saying, 'Then to the 
 Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life.' ' 
 This is the great admission of the spiritual princi- 
 ple of Christian brotherhood; yet it is quite a dif- 
 ferent matter from stopping in a Gentile's house 
 certain days. 
 
 Not Forcing the Issue. This evasion of the social 
 consequences of the gospel was cowardice on the part 
 of the Church yet not to force it was wisdom on the
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 185 
 
 part of the Spirit. The half -emancipated mind of the 
 Church was by no means ready for the ultimate issue. 
 It could not bear it then ; it cannot bear it now. We 
 are not prepared to raise in detail the question of ulti- 
 mate social arrangements under the gospel. 
 
 Type of Mind Required. What manner of mind 
 might judge that question? A stubbornly teachable 
 mind, ready to experiment to the death with race 
 relations, as men with the flying-machine. Assuredly 
 a free mind, not one browbeaten by repressive preju- 
 dice. Still more necessarily a just mind, unswayed 
 by the clamor of racial epithets. Finally, the mind of 
 Christ, for which (God forgive us) we have sub- 
 stituted a mongrel religion. 
 
 Milk for Babes. At worst we have no right to as- 
 sume that the terms of perfected Christian fellowship 
 will be offensive. Indeed we ought to know, on the 
 authority of such fragmentary Christianity as we have, 
 that they cannot be offensive. Christianity has not 
 had a chance to show what unforced forms its fellow- 
 ship will take. But the gospel cannot require of us 
 that to which it does not first conform our hearts. 
 Love is love, which means something spontaneous; 
 and there is no fear in it. 
 
 Searching Standard of the Kingdom. Again, we 
 know that the proprieties of the kingdom of God will 
 not be lax. Its sense of social fitness will not be less 
 keen than that of the world. Some men of wealth 
 will find surprising difficulty in getting into so select 
 a company. Does one really fear that Christian so-
 
 186 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ciety will be less refined than Mrs. Grundy ? Will the 
 emancipated soul be less socially discriminating than 
 the traditional? Does the taste of the kingdom of 
 God suggest social promiscuity and anarchy. So long 
 as perfect love delays to cast out all fear, it will help 
 many to ask themselves such questions. 
 
 Brotherliness a Constructive Principle. Far more 
 important is it to insist that Christian brotherliness is 
 a constructive social principle, which we must first 
 free and then trust. We must not force its hand nor 
 let another do so. 
 
 Realizing Brotherhood through Personal Courage. 
 The story of Peter and Cornelius teaches also that 
 there is immediate specific gain every time the chal- 
 lenge of brotherliness is pressed to a particular issue. 
 "Can any man forbid the water, that these should not 
 be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well 
 as we?" This is not the word of a man dogmatically 
 certain of the whole future, nor yet of a man assured 
 just now even of the assent of the whole Church. 
 Rather, it is the instant clinching of the gains of an 
 exalted hour, by a man none too certain even of his 
 own heart. There is a grimly humorous contrast be- 
 tween Peter's courage, with the Spirit's immediate 
 backing, and Peter's defensive attitude before the 
 critical Jerusalem church. The moral is : If you feel 
 a big, fine, generous, brotherly impulse, act on it 
 you may cool off by to-morrow, too. 
 
 Step by Step. Yet at the worst, every time any 
 man, however feeble his courage, has dared to throw
 
 RESTATEMENT OF RACE PROBLEMS 187 
 
 out that challenge, a specific gain has been made. Can 
 any man forbid the water? No man ever has. They 
 have been baptized in it. Prejudice for a moment 
 has been dissolved. Brotherhood for a moment has 
 been realized. Nay, sometimes it even lasts on for 
 several days. Make the challenge over again and 
 the days of brotherliness begin to overlap. Finally, 
 some good day, they merge together and there shall 
 be no more night. This is the heroic, constructive 
 method of achieving brotherhood piecemeal, through 
 personal courage. For those who are of the kingdom 
 and patience of Jesus it will suffice.
 
 THE SOCIAL REACTION OF HOME MIS- 
 SIONS UPON THE CHURCH
 
 THE SOCIAL REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS UPON 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 Weakness of Division. Even the pillar of fire had 
 its dark side. Told in the book of Joshua the 
 conquest of Caanan seems the exalted onslaught of a 
 united people; told in the book of Judges it appears 
 as a long-drawn-out series of independent tribal forays 
 and fragmentary occupancies with only occasional 
 brief spurts of national cooperation. A third record 
 of the same events also a true one might have been 
 written' from the standpoint of the Caananites. "Israel 
 struck us down at length," it would read, "but how 
 much sooner would they have done it if they had 
 always struck together!" 
 
 Competitive Missions. The facts permit the story 
 of home missions to be told as hitherto in this book, 
 namely, as the common geographical expansion and 
 social readjustment of Protestant Christianity. This 
 furnishes a sound, illuminating, and practical view- 
 point. It is not complete, however, without the con- 
 fession of the sectarian aspects of home missions. 
 The conquest of America by the Church has been made 
 under the competitive system. This fact has peculiarly 
 
 191
 
 192 THE NEW HOME "MISSIONS 
 
 determined the social forms of home missions. Most 
 of the thousands of pages which have been written 
 about home missions during the last hundred years 
 have treated them implicitly if not explicitly as the 
 process of denominational self-propagation. Its large 
 motive has been that of extending some particular 
 communion throughout the nation. This has been the 
 appeal to which men responded in prayer, and in cash ; 
 and in this aspect home missions are most definitely 
 challenged by the newer social insights and tasks of 
 the Church. 
 
 Sectarianism. Let it be understood from the outset 
 that social insight and duty do not challenge sectarian- 
 ism because it is sectarian, but because it is harmfully 
 divisive. Sect is a word from which the average 
 Protestant instinctively shies. An uneasy conscience 
 drives him to seek some softer equivalent. But the 
 sociologist does not spare us; in his analysis we are 
 sectarians. Nor is sectarianism a bad thing unless it 
 works badly. It merely means that there are, within 
 the immense variety of any nation's population, certain 
 like-minded people who are mentally reen forced by 
 one another and thus make some one chord to vibrate 
 with great vigor. Having discovered one another, 
 such people draw together, create agencies emphasiz- 
 ing their common interests, and achieve some form of 
 organization. By badges and banners they make them- 
 selves a "peculiar people." By their slogans ye shall 
 know them (when not by their nicknames) Socialist, 
 Suffragist, Progressive, Pragmatist, Futurist, Cubist.
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 193 
 
 Religious sects are no less respectable if based upon 
 distinctions equally vital. 
 
 The Social Justification of Sect. According to this 
 definition one easily understands why many a sect will 
 be short-lived. The furor which throws its tempo- 
 rary movement upon the crest of the social wave sub- 
 sides. It represented no permanent human interest or 
 point of view. Its abortive "organ" suspends after 
 the third issue. On the other hand, sheltered in clois- 
 ter or in lodge-room, expressed by robe or regalia, en- 
 trenched in secrecy, a sect with scant capital of dis- 
 tinctive interest may perpetuate itself for a long time 
 so ample in man is the faculty of imitation. Any sect 
 which has vitality enough to meet normal exposure to 
 the competitive interests of civilization and to with- 
 stand its leveling forces when fairly met, may be as- 
 sumed to have some social value, temporarily at least. 
 So far as American religious sects have been based in 
 an honest attempt to rally like-minded people around 
 an idea which they felt worthy, they have been so- 
 cially natural, intelligible, and so far admirable. 
 To call them sects makes them neither better nor worse 
 than the merits of their case as judged by its ulti- 
 mate social results. 
 
 The Inevitability of Sect. Organization by sect is 
 one of the permanent methods of human society. Such 
 organization may take place within as easily as without 
 the bounds of a Church. Thus the various monastic 
 orders of Roman Catholicism and the high or low 
 church parties, the liberals or conservatives of Protes-
 
 194 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 tantism, if they have common standards, leaders, and 
 organs of expression, are as truly sects as though they 
 were completely separate rival denominations. Sec- 
 tarianism therefore as a natural phenomenon is not 
 incompatible with a certain unity in the Church ; since 
 sects are already comprehended in bodies whose large 
 unity is not broken. A Church may learn to be more 
 tolerant and inclusive instead of dividing, and this 
 alternative is just as often used as the method of divi- 
 sion is. But not to divide does not remedy or obliter- 
 ate sects. It simply reacts upon them in another 
 way. These considerations are intended to convince 
 the reader that he must abandon all idea that sec- 
 tarianism in itself is either bad or good, in order to 
 study its particular forms in the American Church 
 and to judge by their actual social results how much of 
 either bad or good has been in them. 
 
 Sectarian Methods Taken for Granted. The older 
 home missions definitely organized themselves for 
 sectarian propagation and perpetuation, taking for 
 granted the measures necessary to bring this result 
 about. Thus a majority of the governing board of 
 the typical church school were required to belong to 
 the communion which founded it, or else were wholly 
 the appointees of some ecclesiastical body. The teach- 
 ers must be of like faith. For professors creed sub- 
 scription was necessary. Fixed requirements of re- 
 ligious observation extended to students, and this was 
 intended to secure continuity of belief and tradition. 
 Students for the ministry got free tuition and other
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 195 
 
 aid and became thus financially obligated to their 
 denominations. Barely living salaries, with more or 
 less certain annuities in case of disablement, age, or 
 death, tended to keep the clergy in a permanent eco- 
 nomic bondage. In many communions, periodical 
 accounting for denominational results was exacted 
 of all denominational servants; and in all, promotion 
 and esteem depended largely upon the numbers and 
 money found to their credit in denominational book- 
 keeping. This made the home missionary largely a 
 propagandist of some special sectarian gospel in con- 
 scious competition with others. 
 
 Education in Sect Loyalty. Frontier churches were 
 constantly reminded that their denomination was aid- 
 ing them now in the expectation of receiving as much 
 again and that very soon; they must therefore hasten 
 on to self -support. Of seventeen boards whose con- 
 ditions of granting aid were recently examined, but 
 one failed to make this duty of sect-loyalty explicitly 
 paramount. Denominational boards and bishops pros- 
 pered or starved according to their success in gaining 
 funds and adherents for their own communions. A 
 definite type of sectarian ecclesiastic developed. Men- 
 tally and morally he was own cousin to the magnates 
 of competitive business. 
 
 Pleas and Plans of Propaganda. "Benevolence" 
 was skilfully wrung from faithful denominationalists 
 on pleas of the frontier's need of the gospel inter- 
 spersed with reports of the progress of "our glorious 
 Church." Doubtless this mood was more marked in
 
 196 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 some communions than in others. Some, like the Con- 
 gregationalists in their plan of union with the Pres- 
 byterians, or in the South, were liberal in regions 
 where the character of the population gave them little 
 chance to succeed, and sectarian where they found 
 themselves really in the denominational race. All 
 shared competitive methods and ambitions and all 
 had reaches of consciousness and of service which 
 towered above all sectarian formulation. To these 
 this book as a whole bears vigorous witness; mean- 
 while this chapter sets itself to read faithfully the 
 other side of the shield. 
 
 Origins of American Sects. Before passing verdict 
 on this process of sectarian self -propagation it is neces- 
 sary to hold the mind still longer in suspense while 
 inquiring how the particular sects came to be which 
 one finds struggling for ascendency in America? 
 Why these, one asks, and not others? American de- 
 nominationalism consists of all the sectarian divisions 
 which have immigrated to our shores from all the 
 lands from which our people came, generously multi- 
 plied by national, linguistic, and racial cleavages and 
 added to by all the schisms of our national history, 
 especially by the sectional shattering of the great de- 
 nominations between North and South; and by all 
 the theological aberrations of crude minds unfettered 
 and intoxicated by the intellectual ferment of a youth- 
 ful nation. From the beginning there were Catholic 
 and Protestant; then English, Dutch, Scotch, Swede, 
 and German, each with his national variant of the
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 197 
 
 Reformed faith. The English split again into Puritan, 
 Quaker, and Baptist, and again into liberal and ortho- 
 dox. Frontier disintegrations of old habits, quickened 
 emotionalism, and doctrinal zeal were the occasion of 
 offshoots like Cumberland Presbyterianism and that of 
 Alexander Campbell; or the opportunity of freshly 
 imported vital movements, especially that of Method- 
 ism. When civilization had transformed frontier 
 crudity, reaction sometimes set in and pioneer religious 
 ways persisted in sectarian guise, as in the Primitive 
 Baptists of the Southern mountain states. Religious 
 originators like William Miller, Joseph Smith, Mrs. 
 Eddy, and John Alexander Dowie founded sects on 
 alleged direct revelations. Churches imported by in- 
 coming races brought the sectarianism of Babel not 
 yet mastered by the spirit of Pentecost. 
 
 The End Not Yet. Altogether there are 186 va- 
 rieties of American Christian, differing in polity 
 or doctrine, or nationality or race or temperament; 
 and doubtless more to follow. There is absolute 
 liberty of religious practise so far as is compatible 
 with civilized decency. The Church is a voluntary 
 organization supported by the gifts of its member- 
 ship. Any one who can get one disciple may start a 
 sect. The census will enumerate one with as few as 
 a dozen churches. There is no reason why the num- 
 ber should not be indefinitely multiplied. 
 
 A Plea in Mitigation Great Family Groups. But 
 it is not fair to leave the matter without certain quali- 
 fying comments. First, the actual situation is not
 
 198 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 nearly so bad as the confession that there are 186 de- 
 nominations sounds. The mighty Methodist, Baptist, 
 Lutheran, and Presbyterian family groups include the 
 vast majority of Protestant Christians. While divi- 
 sions within families are often the most bitter and 
 irritating, still families are families, with ties to bind 
 them together as well as tempers to drive them apart. 
 There remains the principle, and in important respects, 
 the practise of union within these groups, which re- 
 cently are showing special capacity for cooperating or 
 getting together. 
 
 Church Has Succeeded. Second, the Church as de- 
 nominationally propagated in America has succeeded. 
 It has been growing faster than the population. In 
 1850 there were only 149 church-members out of every 
 thousand of our people; now there are 391. The 
 ratio has much more than doubled. Between 1890 
 and 1906 church-membership gained upon population 
 by over 6 per cent. The immigration of this period 
 was overwhelmingly Catholic, in spite of which the 
 Protestant gain was nearly 2 per cent. America's 
 total church-membership in 1906 was 32 million. To 
 count children and adherents would be to multiply 
 this multitude more than twice. Over a billion dollars 
 is invested in church property. There are sittings in 
 houses of worship for 58 million people. Over twelve 
 million dollars are spent annually for home missions, 
 and thirty-eight millions are applied to human better- 
 ment under definite Christian direction. Whether be-
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 199 
 
 cause of or in spite of sectarian methods, these are 
 the facts. 
 
 Overchurching Is Limited. Third, there are thou- 
 sands of communities in America which have never 
 known the actual rivalries of sectarian churches. Of 
 missionary aid extended to churches in Vermont by 
 Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists, 45 per 
 cent, goes to fields where there is but one church. In 
 thousands of communities more, sectarianism has not 
 worked distinct moral or social harm. The Colorado 
 survey of the Federal Council found only 1 1 per cent, 
 of communities where flagrantly objectionable duplica- 
 tion of churches existed. 
 
 The Indictment (i) Divisiveness. So far the dis- 
 cussion has professed to hold the scales even as to the 
 good or evil of denominationalism in home missions. 
 One may be pardoned for suspecting, however, that the 
 last few paragraphs were a sort of plea of mitigation 
 in advance of a dreaded indictment. And now the 
 indictment must be faced : denominational home mis- 
 sions have made a profound social failure. First, 
 they have made the American people more different 
 than they were, and have kept them more different than 
 they might have been if subjected to other nationaliz- 
 ing influences without the pullback of sect. Denomina- 
 tions have caused extra and arbitrary social divisions, 
 have sometimes fixed hurtful schisms, have prevented 
 assimilation. Not all of the sects have been guilty 
 of all of these sins, and perhaps none of them has 
 been guilty all of the time; but these have been their
 
 200 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 collective results. In the large the charge stands. 
 The Church has hindered as well as helped the Amer- 
 icanization of Americans. 
 
 The Indictment (2) Neglect and Preoccupation. 
 In supplying the religious needs of the nation the 
 Church has, in the second place, flagrantly disregarded 
 the law of supply and demand, congesting privilege in 
 the more desirable places denominationally speaking, 
 and leaving vast numbers of obscure places without 
 the adequate gospel. Besides the Church has been 
 so preoccupied with self-propagation as not easily 
 to sense many of its newer social duties as they have 
 appeared. It has therefore now belatedly to cure 
 evils which a socially-minded Church might have pre- 
 vented. 
 
 An Extreme Case. The evidence for these charges 
 of social failure may be read in single cases or in the 
 great summaries of religious conditions. Thus a com- 
 munity of 800 souls in a far Western state is re- 
 ported as having eight churches, as follows : Catholic, 
 Presbyterian, Baptist, 3 Lutheran, and 2 Methodist. 
 The investigator finds that sectarian envy and jealousy 
 express themselves in social cliques and an anti-com- 
 munity spirit, but that by strange contradiction there 
 is little genuine denominationalism in the people. Ten 
 denominations are represented in the membership of 
 the Presbyterian church and people easily pass from 
 one church to another. This shows that the population 
 could have been united by the churches much more 
 than it was. There was not really enough local sec-
 
 AN OVKRCHfRCHKI) KfkAL COMMUNITY 
 
 Within this radius of four miles tin-re arc i\ churche 
 for every i . >, |K-rs.,n.s, indu.liiiK thil.lrcn; one diun li lor t 
 every 2.5 families 
 
 This represents one church 
 y <o voters; one church fur
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 201 
 
 tarianism to create 8 churches without assistance 
 through the pressure of outside organizations. The 
 Catholic church in this community, one assumes, em- 
 bodies historic differences which it is necessary to 
 express; the Presbyterian and Baptist perhaps stand 
 for the more intellectual in contrast to the more emo- 
 tional type of religious experience. It would be fair 
 enough to mark this difference by separate organiza- 
 tions among 8,000 people, but not among 800. The 3 
 Lutheran bodies divide along linguistic lines, and 
 are samples of the 24 divisions into which that noble 
 communion has sadly fallen in the national life. The 
 Methodist divisions are Northern and Southern. These 
 meaninglessly continue in the far West old border bit- 
 ternesses of which men have long ago repented in rela- 
 tions in which they are more Christian than they are 
 in their churches. Thus 800 souls are less united, 
 less American, less socially effective and probably less 
 religious because of the churches as they are. 
 
 Average Conditions. The author's memory runs 
 back to three out-in-the-country charges in one of 
 which he, as a Congregationalist, fought the Presby- 
 terians, in another the Baptists, in the third the Meth- 
 odists. In one case the community was suffering a 
 heritage of sectarian bitterness which had divided 
 families and always obtruded itself into the simple 
 social gatherings of the countryside. In all the cases 
 it involved a waste of time and money to have dupli- 
 catory churches at work. In none of them could the 
 modern community service program for the country
 
 202 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 church have been carried out without grave hindrance, 
 by reason of denominational division and jealousy. In 
 each of them the denominational evil will have to be 
 healed if it has not been already before the church 
 can do the business of the Kingdom in a modern, so- 
 cially constructive sense. 
 
 The Colorado Survey. Turning nowto larger areas : 
 The Colorado investigation of 1909 made by the Na- 
 tional Federal Council of Churches revealed 133 places 
 in that state of from 150 to 1,000 population without 
 a Protestant church, 100 of which had no Catholic 
 church either. Extreme cases of overlapping were 
 reported; like the community of 300 people with six 
 churches receiving an aggregate of $600 annually from 
 missionary boards. 
 
 The Neglected Fields Survey. Far more extensive 
 than anything undertaken before is the great Neglected 
 Fields Survey which the Home Missions Council has 
 under way. It is nothing less than a united attempt 
 as yet imperfectly carried out to get detailed knowl- 
 edge of religious conditions in every school district of 
 the fifteen Northwestern states which, as our remain- 
 ing frontier, receive a very large proportion of the 
 home missionary aid of the nation. Partial results 
 for five states, which have now been published, indi- 
 cate that there are probably 170,000 people in them 
 living more than four miles from a church, and that 
 over 1,000 unchurched communities show presumptive 
 evidence of the need of permanent organization. The 
 survey shows also what denominations might most
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 203 
 
 usefully serve the people in many of these cases. Thus 
 there are perhaps 300 calls to the Methodist church, 
 150 to the Lutheran, 100 each to the Presbyterian, 
 Baptist, and Catholic, 50 to the Congregational, and 
 so forth. But in these cases, as in the many cases of 
 overlapping, the survey committee does not pretend yet 
 to advise finally as to what should be done. It has 
 reported a general situation. There are many points 
 of religious distribution and many others of religious 
 congestion. Much education of local church leaders of 
 the several states in social-mindedness and the spirit 
 of comity is necessary, and a more intensive study 
 of the administrative situation, before the positive pro- 
 gram of cooperative advance can be ventured upon. 
 The situation is in faithful, responsible hands for 
 further working out. 
 
 Redistribution of Religious Forces. At the same 
 time it does discover and confess a grave misapplica- 
 tion, over a vast area, of national missionary resources 
 directed and distributed through national agencies. 
 It is pertinent then to offer even a theoretical sugges- 
 tion as to how the Churches might better direct their 
 expenditures, and get the money to found a thousand 
 new churches in five states, should that prove to be 
 wise. The researches of the Rev. George Frederick 
 Wells show how it might be done. 
 
 Case in Vermont. If the Baptist, Congregational, 
 and Methodist religious forces of Vermont were re- 
 organized into non-duplicatory churches of two hun- 
 dred members each, with pastors receiving $ 1,000 sal-
 
 204 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 ary each, not only would Vermont be more efficiently 
 supplied with the gospel, but $65,000 per year would 
 be released for use elsewhere. Sending only one third 
 of this saving to the 15 Northwestern states, Vermont 
 alone could maintain fifty of the thousand presumably 
 necessary new churches. 
 
 Showing of Rhode Island. Little Rhode Island is 
 essentially an urban state. Most of its 356 churches 
 are massed in the five largest cities. They have 65,000 
 members of 27 different denominations and cost $780,- 
 ooo annually to maintain. In a city a membership of 
 300 is not too large nor a salary of $3,000. If the 
 religious forces were redistributed on this basis, Rhode 
 Island would save 140 ministers and $140,000 annually 
 for service elsewhere. Rhode Island could then af- 
 ford nearly 50 men and sustain over 100 new 
 churches in the Northwest, have an equal number left 
 for new forms of social evangelism and still a third 
 available for the foreign field. 
 
 A National Survey and Program. The social aspects 
 of church organization as discovered and verified 
 over such wide areas, through painstaking investiga- 
 tions carried through years, and digested by the most 
 competent experts, mark a new era in religious strat- 
 egy. It is possible to hope that in a very short time 
 we may have an adequate survey of the entire religious 
 forces of America, as a basis for a common program 
 of advance. Already the federal census as relates 
 to the churches has been distinctly modified by the 
 superior methods of the New York Federation of
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 205 
 
 Churches. The cooperating churches could undoubt- 
 edly bring Congress to try to find out in the next 
 census what needs to be known in this matter of na- 
 tional import; or if not, they can find out for them- 
 selves. The subject is worthy the attention of the 
 universities in their advanced social studies. We 
 should then in a little while be able to make a com- 
 plete theoretical redistribution of the religious forces 
 of the nation so as to serve the social need down to 
 the least community. All the social cracks and crev- 
 ices, which extensive home missions in her proudest 
 days somehow failed to reach, would be supplied on 
 paper. The survey method extended to the whole na- 
 tion and interpreted by the best science and scholar- 
 ship is competent to give the united American Church 
 its national institutional program. Till one is reached 
 the work at best will be in the twilight. 
 
 The Truth Even If It Hurts. There has been a 
 fashion to deprecate too great plainness of speech in 
 the matter of the duplication and overlapping of 
 churches. The effect has been feared upon the layman 
 and his purse. Will he not say, "No more of my 
 money to be wasted in rivalry," and turn away with 
 the impression that the Church is socially unadjusted 
 to the situation and generally inefficient and incom- 
 petent? Yet probably the aforesaid layman is, this 
 very moment, paying a fourth more than he should 
 for his table because there are too many grocery stores, 
 besides deliberately contributing to the support of a 
 minister, a choir, an untaxed building, and a janitor
 
 206 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 in competition with the church in the next block. He 
 cannot cast the first stone, because he lives in a glass 
 house. The sin has been the sin of all. Even at the 
 cost of denominationalism the religious needs of Amer- 
 ica must be met; and the layman must pay for 
 it this way till a better is found. 
 
 Better Way Found. As a matter of fact a better 
 way is being found. Not only has the Church the 
 method to find out the conditions and their remedy, 
 but she has told the truth about herself more com- 
 pletely and fearlessly than any one else has. And she 
 is far along in applying the remedy. She is in most 
 excellent position to say to the layman: "We used 
 your money magnificently in taking this nation for 
 God in the continental sense. We are fast getting 
 both the technique and the will necessary to take it 
 for God in the social sense. Only lift up your eyes 
 and see how all things ecclesiastical are becoming new 
 under the impulse of the vision and passion to save 
 the collective and community life of the people." 
 
 Increasing Cooperation. The remainder of the 
 chapter will try to summarize what is to be seen in 
 this realm. In 1903, Randolph, Vermont, a typical 
 New England town of 1,800 inhabitants, had seven 
 churches. The two oldest and strongest, the Congre- 
 gational and the Christian, then united, sold one of 
 their parsonages, tore down one of their meeting- 
 houses and, with the aid of a generous donor, erected 
 a fine community house and music hall. The merger 
 enabled the new organization greatly to increase the
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 207 
 
 pastor's salary, to carry on what corresponds to Young 
 Men's Christian Association and Young Women's 
 Christian Association work, to control public amuse- 
 ment and to use it as a positive means of grace, and 
 to command civic leadership. The experiment has 
 justified itself by ten years of pronounced success. 
 
 Machinery of Direction and Adjustment. One of 
 the most enlightened of religious journals, recently 
 describing this case, commented : "Church union has 
 furnished striking headlines for the press, provided 
 attractive themes for public speakers, contributed to 
 the making of books, has admitted of many theories, 
 and yet has found but few consistent advocates who 
 have attempted to put into practise what is so ardently 
 and generally urged." This comment is so much less 
 than the truth as to be distinctly misleading and mis- 
 chievous. Not only do reports from a single denom- 
 ination indicate that it has participated in the merg- 
 ing or federating of more than fifty churches within 
 two years; but beyond such local combinations the 
 churches are weaving and strengthening a vast central 
 network of directive and restraining organization. In- 
 creasingly made official, as real an expression of the 
 Church in America as the denominations themselves, 
 it has been called into being chiefly in direct and 
 prompt response to the challenge of the social task. 
 The organized Church is the denominations plus their 
 machinery of cooperation and adjustment. The or- 
 dinary church-member may not realize this, but he 
 will never understand the dominant tendencies of his
 
 208 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 age till he gets beyond regarding local church con- 
 solidations as exceptional, and fully appreciates the 
 great actual and permanent agencies of working unity. 
 
 The Home Missions Council. Founded in 1908, this 
 great agency of working unity includes 33 boards of 
 national jurisdiction working in the United States and 
 dependencies, and represents thirteen denominations. 
 As many as 5,115 of the 6,066 missionaries work- 
 ing in the fifteen Northwestern states are under the 
 commission of its constituent boards who have co- 
 operatively agreed, first, to the mutual allotment of all 
 unoccupied fields that none may be without the re- 
 ligious privileges, and second, "to decline to endorse 
 applications for home mission aid in places where the 
 gospel of Christ is earnestly and adequately promul- 
 gated by others, and where assured prospects of 
 growth do not seem to demand the establishment of 
 other churches." On these two commandments 
 against "overlapping" and "overlooking" hang the 
 law and the prophets of the united home missionary 
 program. 
 
 Cooperation for Special Groups. Standing com- 
 mittees of the Home Missions, Council on immigrants, 
 Indians, Spanish-speaking peoples, Negroes, and other 
 exceptional groups, act as clearing-houses for common 
 plans in their respective fields, all having under way 
 important pieces of united work. The immigration 
 committee is midway in a nation-wide survey to deter- 
 mine the measure both of overlooking and overlapping 
 in missions to the stranger within our gates. After
 
 REV. CHARLES L. THOMPSON 
 
 Chairman of the Home Missions Council, roprocntmt; v; orK;ini/~itions and 34 denominations
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 209 
 
 a careful study three years ago, the entire unevan- 
 gelized Indian population was allotted definitely, group 
 by group, to the different denominations, who are oc- 
 cupying the assigned territory as rapidly as their 
 funds permit, and also undertaking joint educational 
 work at certain points. Interdenominational councils 
 have been organized, composed of executive and other 
 workers among the Orientals of the Pacific coast, and 
 the Spanish-speaking people of the Southwest. These 
 act as agents of the Home Missions Council and of 
 their several boards in comity matters and in united 
 work. For example, native evangelists representing 
 our common Christianity have been sent to scattered 
 Orientals in small and transient rural groups, and sup- 
 ported by subsidies paid jointly by the boards. 
 
 Comity in Porto Rico. From the first American 
 occupancy, Porto Rico has been divided territorially 
 for mission work between the larger denominations. 
 While others have later pressed in without full regard 
 for comity considerations, the Island after thirteen 
 years remains essentially without overlapping of forces 
 and with all its significant towns occupied very in- 
 adequately indeed, by the cooperative Protestant ad- 
 vance. Joint educational and publication agencies are 
 also engaged in by the more neighborly denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 United Measures for Negroes. These are so largely 
 carried on by agencies not fully coordinate with most 
 of the constituent boards of the Home Missions Coun- 
 cil, that cooperative measures have chiefly originated
 
 210 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 in voluntary joint conferences of officials. They act 
 however in close cooperation with the Council, and 
 also with the great funds for Negro education and 
 the Federal government Substantial beginnings have 
 been made in standardizing courses of study and school 
 administration, in the exclusion of unworthy and 
 fraudulent institutions, and in federating competitive 
 institutions. 
 
 The General Boards of Denominational Education. 
 These have also their Council established in 1911, in 
 which most of the stronger communions are included. 
 It is working on the problems of the distribution of 
 colleges and academies with respect to comity consid- 
 erations, the control of new foundations, standards of 
 academic efficiency, cooperation with the state uni- 
 versities, and joint measures for publicity, and for in- 
 teresting givers in Christian education. Comity in this 
 field may hope for financial encouragement from that 
 benevolent disposer of educational destiny, the Gen- 
 eral Education Board. 
 
 Cooperation of All Home and Foreign Missions 
 Agencies. The general policies of home missionary 
 promotion, agitation, and advocacy are now planned 
 unitedly by the Home Missions Council and the coop- 
 erating Council of Women for Home Missions. They 
 in turn now stand in a larger affiliation of all home 
 and foreign missionary agencies in their approach to 
 the Christian public for interest and support. Whether 
 the whirlwind campaign methods familiarized by the 
 Laymen's Missionary and Men and Religion Move-
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 211 
 
 ments survive or not, the unity of missionary agencies 
 is permanently attained in this field. Joint plans, joint 
 budgets, the common use of experts and devices are 
 here to stay. 
 
 Missionary Education. Particularly in the sphere of 
 missionary education is cooperation made effective and 
 permanent. Through the Missionary Education Move- 
 ment, as the agent of the boards for pedagogical and 
 publishing work, is produced the general literature 
 necessary to carry out missionary advocacy as jointly 
 planned from year to year, and, more especially, care- 
 fully prepared and graded text-books and other mater- 
 ial for mission study classes. These are circulated by 
 the hundred thousand. Summer assemblies are also 
 held for the training of teachers for such classes and 
 of missionary leaders in the local churches. Technical 
 methods are cooperatively worked out by the Move- 
 ment and the educational secretaries of the several 
 denominations. Recently the home and foreign mis- 
 sion study programs have been unified. 1 
 
 The Sunday School World. The International Sun- 
 day School Association, from motives not directly so- 
 cial, has long been committed to the uniform lesson 
 and largely to standardized methods of treatment. Re- 
 volts from its ideals of uniformity in the more pro- 
 gressive communions have compelled it to adapt its les- 
 
 1 This book is one of the first to be issued under the joint plan, 
 which contemplates a companion volume, The Social Aspects of 
 Foreign Missions. The two books constitute authorized current 
 study material for the entire constituency of the American 
 Protestant Church.
 
 212 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 son material to the different ages; and incidentally 
 have reminded us of the need to keep voluntary initia- 
 tive alive. On the whole, however, the Sunday-school 
 has been one of the most successful as it has been one 
 of the most conspicuous spheres of Christian coopera- 
 tion. More recently cooperation has been developed 
 among the denominations through the organization of 
 the Sunday School Council of the Evangelical 
 Churches, in which publishers, editors, lesson writers, 
 and secretaries unite for conference on common prob- 
 lems. 
 
 Local and State Federations. Naturally such vast 
 cooperative agencies of national scope could not have 
 originated before unity in work had first been tried 
 out in smaller areas as it was in the interchurch federa- 
 tions, particularly of some of the New England states. 
 Home missions in actual operation are largely the de- 
 nominational machinery of state, conference, or city. 
 Unless these are converted to the practise of comity 
 even when it hurts, resolutions of conventions and 
 exhortations of headquarters' secretaries can have little 
 weight. If they have weight, it is because the spirit 
 and practise of unity are widespread in the American 
 Church. Thus, thirteen states have active church fed- 
 erations, and seven more have more or less rudimen- 
 tary ones. Wisconsin furnishes a typical example. Its 
 federation originated directly in the social motive. It 
 worked out its own solution for sectarian overlapping, 
 namely, to induce competitive churches in a com- 
 munity to secure a joint pastor, while retaining their
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 213 
 
 separate organizations. In cases of conflicting in- 
 terests it appoints advisory councils, composed of 
 representatives of all denominations, and submits the 
 case to them, as reflecting the wisdom of the united 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 Exchange of Fields. In the newer Western states, 
 where a larger proportion of churches are necessarily 
 recipients of missionary aid, cooperative movements 
 naturally fall more directly under the leadership of 
 national boards. First by conferences, modestly called 
 "Consultations," denominational state leaders and of- 
 ficials have been skilfully introduced to the ideals of 
 working comity; then after thorough surveys of con- 
 ditions, institutes are being held, under the auspices 
 of the Home Missions Council, in which experts ad- 
 vise as to the redirection of the whole missionary enter- 
 prise and the strategic redistribution of its united 
 forces. Such a program is under way in fifteen states. 
 Then, the situation is left to work itself out not, 
 it must be confessed, without a certain "watchful 
 waiting" on the part of the initiating boards. And 
 it does often work out. Thus, in October, 1913, 
 representatives of three of the strongest denominations 
 in South Dakota met and agreed upon a policy of the 
 reciprocal exchange of fields in order to prevent the 
 duplication of churches. Forthwith, the Congregation- 
 alists surrendered two churches and their outstations 
 to the Methodists, taking in exchange five Methodist 
 points. The result is that some ten communities, 
 largely in the newly-opened Indian country west of
 
 214 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 the Missouri River, will be more adequately served 
 with the gospel, and that without the financial and 
 spiritual strain of sectarian rivalry. And similar 
 processes are at work in various fields from Maine to 
 Washington. 
 
 City and Country Federations. The ultimate sphere 
 in which working unity is to be practised is, of course, 
 local. If it fails with actual groups of neighboring 
 churches, it fails everywhere. Crucial importance, 
 therefore, attaches to the local federations of churches, 
 usually organized with the city or the country as a 
 unit. About a hundred aggressive organizations of 
 this type are now reported, eighty-five per cent, of 
 which have originated within five years. Some of 
 them are affiliated with the national Federal Council 
 of Churches, and operate in the realm of public opin- 
 ion, or unite in occasional civic interest rather than 
 conduct consistent policies of church extensions and 
 community service. Some exist preeminently to 
 give the churches the basic sociological information 
 on which to found policies, as does that of New York 
 City. The most effective local federations, however, 
 directly combine the home missionary agencies of the 
 given city or district, both in the positive strategy of 
 unitedly possessing the community for God, and the 
 negative strategy of keeping out of each other's way 
 while doing so. After all, the only absolute expres- 
 sion of working unity is that which controls budgets 
 and subsidies, locates institutions, and places men 
 unitedly. This, Chicago, St. Louis, and other of our
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 215 
 
 greater cities are beginning to do, basing their policies 
 on painstakingly acquired knowledge, and using de- 
 nominational interests and forces merely as pawns in 
 the high game of applying urban Christianity to the 
 actual factors in home mission service. 
 
 Social Service and the Federal Council. The newly 
 developed activities of the Church in the interest of 
 social amelioration and justice, particularly with ref- 
 erence to the living and working conditions of wage- 
 earners, have been handled in various ways by the 
 different denominations. Some have attached "social 
 service" departments to their old home missionary 
 boards; others have created new agencies. All the 
 chief communions have them, however, and virtually 
 from the beginning they have been in the closest work- 
 ing alliance through the national Federal Council, in 
 which the denominational social service secretaries con- 
 stitute a "cabinet." Their platforms, methods, investi- 
 gations, and publications have been joint labors, imme- 
 diately made effective in common. 
 
 Reuniting Families. Finally, important mergings 
 of denominational families are under way. That be- 
 tween the northern Presbyterians and the Cumberland 
 Presbyterians is accomplished, though not without re- 
 division ; that between the United Brethren and Meth- 
 odist Protestants is in hopeful process of consumma- 
 tion; that between the Northern and Southern Pres- 
 byterians still in the stage of preliminary overtures 
 and joint sessions. The Methodists, North and South, 
 have a Federal Council to which cases of possible
 
 216 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 cooperation are being referred for adjustment. They 
 have commissions also at work trying to define their 
 respective spheres, to prevent future competition, and 
 to plan joint advances, and in the North the regular 
 and Free Baptists are now happily reunited. Thus 
 each of the greater denominational families is seen to 
 be in the process of reintegration. 
 
 Unity in Far-reaching Fields. Summarizing the 
 fields in which working unity is largely and increas- 
 ingly in effect, one is amazed to find how far-reaching 
 it is. The home missionary frontier in at least five 
 sixths of its extent; the newer intensive missions to 
 rural life; virtually all the exceptional peoples In- 
 dians, Orientals, Negroes, Mexicans; denominational 
 education very largely ; missionary publicity, education, 
 and publication on a nation-wide scale; city evangeli- 
 zation and social service ; and the sectional divisions of 
 churches are all powerfully moved, if not practically 
 controlled, by working unity as a current practise under 
 highly organized agencies. Its program is theoretically 
 universal; its realization actually astounding. 
 
 How Widely Effective. Some of the sectional 
 branches of the Church still linger outside of its scope, 
 and the great Negro sects are practically little touched 
 by it. There are thousands of remote communities 
 steeped in the sectarian spirit which do not even dream 
 that it exists. But these are overmatched by equal 
 thousands of communities which have never known 
 sectarian rivalry because they have always been served 
 by a single church organization ; and, more profoundly,
 
 SECRETARIAL COUNCIL OF THE COMMISSION ON THE 
 
 CHURCH AND SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE FEDERAL 
 
 COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 Charles (). (Jill I-rank M Crouch 
 
 Harry !'. Ward Henry A. Atkinson 
 
 Samuel /. It.illrn Charles S. MaifarUnd
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 217 
 
 by the super-sectarian spirit which, thank God, has 
 distinctly pervaded American Christianity in spite of 
 its divisions; which has enabled it to make essentially 
 a unified impression upon the expanding nation, and 
 to assimilate it so largely to the Protestant type. 
 
 Permanent Factors of Ecclesiastical Organization. 
 There needs to be a deliberate revolt against the habit 
 of thought which takes the census as the point of de- 
 parture, and goes on to regard the Church in its 186 
 denominational divisions. Just as staggering and as 
 significant columns of figures could be arranged, show- 
 ing its manifold coordinating and cooperative rela- 
 tions, extradenominational, interdenominational, fed- 
 eral, and world-wide. Under the impulse of social 
 vision these have become the essential expression of 
 the Church to tens of thousands. 
 
 One-sided Conception. To ignore these is one- 
 sided and unscientific. The Christian imagination need 
 not be so, even if the United States Census is ; and the 
 census should reform. The agencies, organizations, 
 and movements which work in unity are as much a 
 part of American Christianity as the sects are, while 
 the spirit which works in unity is native to the Chris- 
 tianity of Christ, in which there is no place at all for 
 the spirit of sect. Facts as above presented are enough 
 to provoke the spirit of song, and when next taunted 
 with the weakness and waste of denominational divi- 
 sion the up-to-date Christian may at least retort, "Like 
 a mighty army moves a large part of the Church of 
 God."
 
 218 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Social Sectarianism Still at Work. How much fur- 
 ther will working unity carry us? That question 
 cannot be answered by itself alone. The Church can- 
 not conquer herself for Christian unity except as she 
 also conquers society. All moral problems are pro- 
 foundly interrelated. If the class spirit gets a per- 
 manent upper hand in America, some sect will incar- 
 nate it, and live on, under some honored but misused 
 name, as the Church of the rich, or of the intelligent, 
 after its historic or doctrinal origins have been for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Racial Lines of Cleavage. The Christian Japanese 
 of the West are close to the edge of a new secta- 
 rian division from the American churches along 
 racial lines. What they feel to be an attack upon their 
 racial self-respect has almost impelled them to sever 
 the denominational relations and to unite .as a Japanese 
 Church. As long as a social color-line is drawn, a 
 sectarian color-line may be expected between white 
 and Negro denominations. Our swarming immigra- 
 tion from eastern and southern Europe brings to us 
 new sects, reflecting their petty provincialisms, their 
 linguistic differences, and their obscure doctrinal dif- 
 ferences. Thus, the greatly useful Lutheran com- 
 munion is being increasingly broken into fragments. 
 The Greek Catholic Church appears in four divisions. 
 The number of linguistic sects is thereby increasing 
 rather than diminishing, and except as the foreigner 
 is assimilated, sectarianism as a divisive and disin- 
 tegrating spirit is sure to increase at one point even
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 219 
 
 while we conquer it at another. Indeed, even holding 
 the ground we have already gained depends upon vic- 
 tory all along the line against all the unbrotherly forces 
 of society. Only by being strong enough to unite all 
 life in service can the Church unite herself in service. 
 
 After Working Unity. Again, will working unity 
 carry us beyond itself to some form of organic union 
 embracing all denominations? Let it be insisted that 
 working unity is unity as definite and concrete an 
 evidence of the spiritual oneness of the Church as 
 sacrament or symbol, and a very much more signifi- 
 cant one. Yet none will doubt that, if working unity 
 is accomplished, she will feel an inner necessity to 
 idealize herself in some fresh outward and visible con- 
 fession of the one Lord and the one faith. What 
 has the social outlook to say as to the form which this 
 instinct will probably take? 
 
 The Psychology of Sect. Here enter some of the 
 obscurer insights of the social psychologists in the 
 study of sects. They think they discover certain 
 broad differences in human nature within the Amer- 
 ican population, say four types of mental make-up, 
 the areas of which may be roughly defined. Thus, 
 according to Giddings, "the 'forceful' congregate about 
 seaboard and lakeboard, in all the mountain regions, 
 and on the great plains. The 'convivial' predominate 
 in the South. The 'austere' are thickest in a broad 
 belt reaching from New England to Iowa and Kansas. 
 The 'rationally conscientious' are found here and
 
 220 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 there in cities." 1 These elemental differences the so- 
 cial psychologist interprets as "natural sects," whose 
 differences will spontaneously appear in separate re- 
 ligious expressions and organizations. He then pro- 
 ceeds to tabulate the American denominations and 
 to assign them to the different natural sects to which 
 they correspond. Naturally, most of us fall between 
 the types, and none may feel greatly flattered by the 
 scientists' handling of his own case. 
 
 Temperamental Affinities. The least discriminating 
 however, will sense the contrast between the more 
 emotional and the more intellectual denominations, 
 and confess that there are certain Christians with 
 whom he feels in temperamental affinity and others 
 who strike him as somehow alien. Further, the so- 
 cial psychologist argues, the great denominational 
 families correspond roughly to the natural sects and 
 their intermediate types. Only let them reunite and 
 the result will be half a dozen or so vast and master- 
 ful branches of the Church, which could afford to 
 ignore such other denominations as did not then unite 
 with them on grounds of inner similarity. 2 Some- 
 thing approximating this result would appear to be 
 desirable from the standpoint of social effectiveness. 
 
 Sect and Efficiency. It is doubtful, however, wheth- 
 er social effectiveness would prescribe more than 
 a working unity between such great bodies. Our in- 
 dustrial trusts, we are finding, have often succeeded 
 
 * Quoted in Ross, Foundations of Sociology, 303. 
 
 * McComas, Psychology of Religious Sects, 227.
 
 REACTION OF HOME MISSIONS 221 
 
 in spite of their size rather than because of it. Some of 
 us suspect that something similar is true of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. A denomination might easily become 
 of unwieldy size. Dr. Fisher of the Laymen's Mission- 
 ary Movement of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 explains the failure of his denomination to respond as 
 readily as others to the appeal for a missionary ad- 
 vance on the ground that it is so much larger a 
 mass to move. Judging by the criterion of efficiency 
 rather than of pride, the missionary administrator 
 would be slow to recommend the nation as the work- 
 ing unit. So large a unit is at least not directly in- 
 dicated by the social view-point in church organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 A Few Denominations and Working Unity. If, 
 therefore, half a dozen denominations should be found 
 necessary to express the more permanent and natural 
 psychological differences between men, it would not 
 defeat social effectiveness to have the ultimate Amer- 
 ican Church so organized, provided always that the 
 working unity which we have even now in fairly com- 
 plete outline were perpetuated and perfected. 
 
 Spiritual Unity. Whether men utterly commited to 
 fellowship in service would find esthetic fitness and 
 moral concentration in erecting some further inclusive 
 order of the visible Church the future will determine. 
 Such a united Church ruled by experts and social 
 engineers rather than by ecclesiastics might escape 
 some of its ancient perils. Its advantages over a
 
 222 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 harmonious federation of denominational families will 
 be doubted by those whose temperaments make them 
 willing that the ecclesiastical body shall have members 
 differing sufficiently one from another to remind them 
 that their Head is Christ alone.
 
 SOCIAL REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 IN AMERICA
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SOCIAL REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 Making the Gospel Operative. The religion of the 
 New Testament is a seamless robe which cannot be 
 divided. There is no such thing as a social realization 
 of Christianity standing alone. Not any nor all of the 
 forces and agencies which this book has tried to inter- 
 pret and honor can make the gospel operative in 
 our land. In Browning's "Death in the Desert" (to 
 borrow an illustration of Dr. Jowett's) the end comes 
 to the aged apostle John while hid from persecution 
 in a cave with three humble converts and a boy. Lay- 
 ing him where a rift of light plays on his face they 
 try to rouse him for a last farewell. They touch his 
 lips with wine, cool his brow with water, chafe his 
 hands and pray; he smiles but sleeps on. Then the 
 boy springs from his knees, fetches the graven tablet 
 of the Gospel and pronounces, "I am the resurrection 
 and the life" ; whereat the old man rouses, sits up, and 
 speaks. Humanity is that aged frame. Social serv- 
 ice may apply the stimulants to life the wine, the 
 water, the chafing of the hands ; personal religion may 
 pray; but the living word alone can stir life itself 
 
 225
 
 226 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 afresh and make it to triumph in all the measureless 
 realm of being. 
 
 Man Bound to FaiL No improvement of environ- 
 ment will make the human soul commensurate with its 
 largest visions. Discrepancy there will still be between 
 a man and his best; humiliation will be his portion, 
 with the experience of essential failure and the inces- 
 sant sense that it is better not to live than not to at- 
 tain. In its profoundest reaches life will still need 
 a redeeming touch deeper than any social ministry. 
 Its total meaning, birth and death, its early and 
 later mysteries, will still overwhelm; nor will any 
 "normality" discovered in the natural cycles of life 
 nor the best balance of social adjustment dissolve the 
 paradox of sin. Only God himself can wipe away all 
 tears from human eyes. 
 
 Working Together with God. In the sense of these 
 solemnities the whole mighty enterprise and enginery 
 of missions is struck humble. The mood of going 
 about religious service as about a business utterly 
 dissolves. If machinery is not sufficient for ultimate 
 things it is not sufficient for anything. Life is of one 
 piece, and only God can make the cooperation of its 
 various movements work out into final blessedness. 
 Home missions simply offer themselves humbly as 
 the bond-servant of Jesus Christ, for social utilization 
 and for the service of the common life. 
 
 Comfort in Past Results. At the same time they go 
 about their remaining tasks strangely comforted in
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 227 
 
 this sense of inadequacy by the consciousness of im- 
 portant service accomplished in the past, and of new 
 knowledge and resources for the future. Missions 
 have overspread the continent with the hearthstone 
 and the spire. They have invented and possessed 
 themselves of original forms of service which have 
 worked imperial results alike under the control of old 
 ideals and now under social redirection. They have 
 visioned in beauty and order a Paradise Redeemed 
 for all the spacious reaches of the open country ; they 
 have seen in outline a completed common life through 
 the mystic potencies of the city, the most perfect re- 
 flection of the World that Shall Be; they have com- 
 posed a symphony of nations out of the babel of alien 
 voices; they have started intelligent and far-reaching 
 streams of social justice which shall yet roll down like 
 mighty waters; they have closed up the deepest racial 
 gulfs of humanity with the daring of fraternal fellow- 
 ship; they have made even the Church brotherly and 
 therefore conquering! These things they have done 
 in part, even as all human service is yet fragmentary. 
 
 Facing the Final Phase. Now home missions must 
 undertake the final phase of their task, namely, the 
 combination of these fragments of success into a more 
 perfect realization of Christianity in America worthy 
 to be presented to God for ultimate completion. 
 
 i. Motive and the Missionary. The social real- 
 ization of Christianity in America depends upon the 
 control of personal motive. The missionary is the key
 
 228 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 to missions; and the missionary is one whose own 
 heart also sends him upon the business which the 
 Lord appoints. Even to operate the enginery of mis- 
 sions which the Church has available money to pay 
 for, there is desperate lack of men. Shortage of labor 
 is the chief spiritual lack as it is the chief economic 
 lack of the Church. "More reapers" is still the groan 
 and travail-cry of fields white to harvest. 
 
 Growing Social Service of State. But the field 
 in which there is greatest shortage of adequately moti- 
 vated lives is not that of the Church but of the state. 
 Throughout the book there have been frequent con- 
 fessions of the relatively limited sphere of the Church 
 as such in many realms of constructive social effort. 
 Measured by the number and importance of social 
 functions performed, the Christian state has been rec- 
 ognized as the chief agent of the social application of 
 the gospel. Government is the frequent supplanter of 
 the Church in ministries which were once ecclesiasti- 
 cal, so that there is a narrowing of the outward forms 
 of "religious" service. In education, in libraries; in 
 the technical aspects of rural betterment; in an infin- 
 itely varied range of urban activities; in schools for 
 Indians, Negroes, and similar backward groups, gov- 
 ernment local, state, and national is doing much 
 which the Church had to do in the earlier eras. 
 
 Missionaries of the State. There is no higher call- 
 ing of God than to serve social ends through the 
 Christian state. On the other hand, the serviceable-
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 229 
 
 ness of politics is strictly limited by the quality of the 
 men it can summon to its tasks. There are many 
 things and they the most fundamental which the 
 law cannot do because it is "weak through the flesh." 
 Its greatest weakness is in the control of motive. 
 American politics have not directly ministered greatly 
 to morality. The vaster the social structure, the more 
 complicated the functions it has to perform, the more 
 dependent does it become upon the power which drives 
 its social machinery. The United States Bureau of 
 Indian Affairs has hundreds of workers under civil 
 service regulations to carry on its great work, and 
 millions of money to spend. Yet so keen is its sense 
 of the need of Christian quality in its service that 
 a recent Indian Commissioner began a deliberate ap- 
 peal to the same students who became volunteers to 
 the foreign missionary field, and to the home mission- 
 ary agencies, to send men of missionary consecration 
 to take the civil service examinations. In the whole 
 range of social ministry, whatever agency does the 
 work, the Church preeminently must inspire and pre- 
 pare the men. 
 
 Conversion and Calling. The origin, then, and the 
 renewal of the sources of motive in the hearts of 
 Christians who may serve either the state or the 
 Church is of preeminent concern. The Church, as has 
 been statistically proved, is the chief present source 
 of social workers ; religion has been their ultimate in- 
 spiration. Their work consists mainly in drudgery and 
 in many of its experiences tends to disillusion. The
 
 230 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 discrepancy between social ideals and our present con- 
 trol of conditions; the old hardship of delay that we 
 are in a great hurry while God does not seem to be 
 constantly throws the social worker back into depend- 
 ence upon the original basis of his consecration in 
 definite religious experience. Now the least outworn 
 of religious experiences the one of greatest working 
 value is unquestionably that of thorough, conscious, 
 personal conversion, whereby God comes into specific 
 possession of one's life. Most lives alternate between 
 hopes and fears, between doubts and certitudes. 
 Hearts beat to the rhythm now of weariness and wav- 
 ering courage, now of new access of faith. Our sure 
 warrant in these vacillating moods is the memory 
 of moments which shone by their own inner glory, 
 untouched by the waxing or waning of the outer day. 
 "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear"; but 
 spiritual extremity always drives one back upon some 
 self-evidencing experience; "but now mine eye seeth 
 thee." These are the central realities whereby men 
 live, upon which the reformer must stand, to which 
 the prophet must return. It is highly important then 
 that his faith should be deep-rooted, that in the initial 
 experience of the Christian religion there shall be a dis- 
 tinctly social aspect. The high, creative, personal ex- 
 perience of redemption should have its strong social 
 coloring, in order that social motive in the completest 
 degree may bear the fundamental stamp of religion 
 against the day of its desperate trial. 
 Social Fire. Individual Christian experience and so-
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 231 
 
 cial passion being of right two phases of one experi- 
 ence, it follows that the call to definite personal service 
 and to the vocation of the missionary in a day of social 
 emphasis should have social fire as its inmost quality. 
 The forms that such a call takes in the lives of 
 the youth of any generation are largely dependent upon 
 the teaching of the Church. It cannot create, but it 
 can direct the divine responses of unfolding souls. The 
 summons to social service should then be read into 
 the profoundest call of Christian vocation. The mys- 
 tical sense and deep confession, "I know the Lord 
 has laid his hands on me," furnishes the only certain 
 and steadying basis for human service. On the other 
 hand, the social vision greatly reenforces the summons 
 to Christian service. Qualifications for social service 
 have become a chief test of the missionary. The 
 fact that one possesses them becomes the 
 most definite practical answer to the ques- 
 tion whether the Lord has truly called him. The 
 recruiting agencies of the Church have begun to 
 sound the social emphasis in no uncertain tones. Those 
 who look for missionary volunteers should go where 
 social enthusiasm has been dominant and economically 
 minded, as often in the agricultural college, the state 
 university, and even in the medical or technical school. 
 Prayer and the Springs of Motive. But the deepest 
 preparation and enduement of the missionary is the 
 work of forces too fundamental for social control. 
 Spiritual efficiency and power are unlocked only by 
 the mystic key of prayer. Education is of the schools,
 
 232 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 practical efficiency a matter of working plans and plant, 
 and men may be hired for pay; but the missionary 
 spirit is born and nourished only in an atmosphere of 
 intercession, in which personal resolves are made good 
 and personal decisions drawn up into the august com- 
 munions of the saints around the throne of grace. 
 Prayer, then, for the missionary that his faith and 
 zeal fail not, for the administrator of missions that 
 his patience and judgment fail not, for the support- 
 ers of missions that their devotion and money fail 
 not, is indispensable in the deeper program of mis- 
 sionary success. The missionary is the key to mis- 
 sions. Whoever can find and furnish motive to this 
 man takes the first step in the social realization of 
 Christianity in America. This is a preeminent task of 
 the Church through home missions. 
 
 2. The Kingdom of God. The social realization of 
 Christianity in our country depends also upon an ade- 
 quate restatement of Christian doctrine. To make 
 effective the social leadership of Jesus Christ necessi- 
 tates a redirection of theology and its rearrangement 
 in social terms around Jesus' teaching of the king- 
 dom of God. In this doctrine he freed an ancient so- 
 cial conception from centuries of limitations. In mak- 
 ing it the central tenet of his thought he kept it so- 
 cial, and made it more than social, expanding it till it 
 reached up into all the realms of life. He taught that 
 the kingdom was to be realized on earth as it is in 
 heaven. He took good care that this concept should 
 not be too greatly entangled with the current social
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 233 
 
 demands of his own time. It was a germinal idea; 
 a life-giving spirit, the definite social character of 
 which he made perfectly plain, but the applications of 
 which he left largely to each generation. We must 
 equally preserve the very atmosphere of this doctrine 
 of Jesus, and must press its detailed claims upon our 
 day. God Father ; men brothers ! God's reign ; man's 
 social life expressing it! Let the divine simplicity of 
 it stand, unvexed by economic or theological subtle- 
 ties. This will leave the doctrine of the kingdom of 
 God perfectly open to the most concrete and practical 
 uses of the present day. When home missions under- 
 take to check the cotton-boll weevil or to eradicate 
 the cattle tick in a given community, they get their war- 
 rant straight from the gospel, in which Jesus purpose- 
 fully imbedded his social principle knowing well that 
 it would be needed for unimaginable uses in every 
 future day. 
 
 Spiritual Basis of Fraternity. As it flows out into 
 the doctrine of universal brotherliness, it is the par- 
 ticular task of the social gospel to correct and com- 
 plete the crude and often materialistic formula of 
 equality which has played so large a part in the social 
 hopes of the modern masses. In a day when the 
 Church has had her doubts as to the efficacy of doc- 
 trine, socialistic doctrine, backed by antiquated philos- 
 ophies and misunderstood science, has been the staff 
 of life to millions of crude but effective thinkers upon 
 social justice. Largely outside of the academic influ- 
 ences, socialism in its various versions has flourished
 
 234 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 through the dogmatic method. Banished from the 
 pulpit, dogma finds a forum in the streets, and flour- 
 ishes from dry-goods boxes and the tails of carts. The 
 moral passion which has been behind it shames the 
 frequent lukewarmness of the Church. To interpret 
 its very real aspirations for fraternity into the terms 
 of Christian brotherhood, to show how equality can 
 only be realized through the enthusiastic sense of 
 membership in the body of Christ, is the mediatorial 
 office of the Christian thinker, and will be on through 
 the centuries. The man who can direct, order, and 
 convince the great outstanding categories of social 
 thought according to the mind of Christ has a mission 
 second to none. Not necessarily apart from daily 
 deeds of social value, and frequently in connection with 
 the practical tests of administrative duties, but always 
 magnifying and controlled by the interpretive gift, 
 this man fulfils his office under the one Spirit. Home 
 missions have large share in the social realization of 
 Christianity through their servants who can think ef- 
 fectively. 
 
 3. A New Creation. The social realization of 
 Christianity in America depends moreover upon a 
 warm-hearted faith in lowly men. The old home 
 missions dealt more largely with their own sons and 
 daughters of the Church in their Westward migration. 
 The new home missions have more largely upon their 
 heart the stranger and those far off, historically and 
 racially. In the difficult problems of their assimila- 
 tion to the nation's deepest life, a controlling and un-
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 235 
 
 failing faith is impossible apart from the ever-burning 
 fires of personal experience. One knows in himself 
 the power of the gospel to make him greater than he 
 was. Faith simply transfers the certainty of this ex- 
 perience from the redeemed man to the remotest 
 brother in whose redemption he labors. This is the 
 apostolic order of statement: "You did he make 
 alive," and therefore you can understand social conse- 
 quences of the life-giving gospel to the Gentiles. To 
 the man in fundamental doubt as to his brother's full 
 human quality and capacity, especially to the man suf- 
 fering the extreme forms of race prejudice, religion 
 is the only effective approach. Argument is a blunt 
 weapon; science is helpless before stubbornness; but 
 show a man that the lowliest Christian is possessed 
 of the same spiritual life which he knows himself, and 
 you make all arbitrary limitations and divisions for- 
 ever impossible ; all essential fellowships forever neces- 
 sary. "For he is our peace, who . . . brake down 
 the middle wall of partition." The Christian life in 
 lowly men is just as revolutionary as the New Testa- 
 ment represents it to be. A class or a race with this 
 experience is a new creation. For it old things have 
 passed away. It is no longer a question of the natural 
 powers or capacities of men. For the entire human 
 race the central fact is the re-creation and reinter- 
 pretation of life by Jesus Christ, and the development 
 of new moral forces through his leadership; "By the 
 one spirit are we all baptized into the one body, 
 whether we be bond or free."
 
 236 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 Missions at Home. Home missions themselves 
 have not always accorded full and equal membership 
 in the body of the nation and of Christ to those whom 
 we think to be "less honorable, more feeble, un- 
 comely." The denominations have differed greatly in 
 their fidelity to the needs of the Negro, Indian, and 
 other non-European groups, as measured by the pro- 
 portion of money and men expended in their behalf. 
 Home missions as denominational church extension 
 have flourished throughout the field, but the peoples 
 who could not recompense the church in conspicuous 
 success or rapid growth have sometimes been forgot- 
 ten. It is necessary then, sometimes at least, to make 
 distinctions within the home missionary field itself and 
 to discriminate between home missions and missions at 
 home. Thus "missions at home" may stand for the 
 vast work for remoter and non-European aliens under 
 our flag, which in problem and method is essentially a 
 duplicate of foreign missions. So much is this true 
 that many branches of such work, though on American 
 soil, are still conducted by the foreign boards of 
 certain denominations. Since all the deeper bases of 
 civilization are lacking with such peoples, social serv- 
 ice for them has to mean, not so much the rectifying 
 of bad conditions, as the creation of fundamental social 
 relations. The civilized home, the modern social com- 
 munity, every deeper aspect of the common life have 
 to be refounded as well as nourished and directed. 
 Farm, shop, and kindergarten have to precede the more 
 highly organized and ecclesiastical forms of religious
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 237 
 
 institutions. Relatively speaking, such poor and lowly 
 people can do little for themselves financially, and their 
 missions will cost proportionately more; also results 
 will be slower. Yet effective loyalty to home missions 
 means loyalty to them in the persons of the least of 
 these our brethren. Man for man, home for home, 
 community for community, they represent the most 
 desperate of America's needs for brotherly bounty and 
 friendship. 
 
 Loving and Liking. But service is not all we owe 
 them : there is the deeper debt of appreciation. A sen- 
 sitive and welcoming recognition that the American 
 Church is genuinely reenforced by the new moral 
 powers born in lowly peoples and races is the finest 
 exercise of social faith. It is the most vital test of 
 spritual discrimination in a too complacent Church. 
 That we are receivers as well as givers, that we need 
 the alien and stranger with their fresh inspirations, 
 young hearts, and novel glow of ideals is one of the 
 greatest social discoveries of American Christianity 
 through home missions. 
 
 4. Home and Foreign Missions. The social reali- 
 zation of Christianity in America depends again upon 
 the naturalization of Christianity in every nation. It is 
 not enough that we be reenforced by the gifts and graces 
 of the new or varied peoples who throng our borders. 
 Redemption is a world-wide task. The redemption of 
 our land will come through the fellowships of a world- 
 wide task, and not alone through our fellowship of 
 missionary service in foreign lands. We live in an
 
 238 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 age, not only of stupendous migrations of peoples, but 
 of stupendous movements which both ebb and flow. 
 From other shores they come to us; to other shores 
 from us they go. And far more potent than the 
 momentous recessional of returning pilgrim feet is the 
 still, small voice of new ideas which he whispers back 
 to his old home, and which ink and steel, vibrant wire 
 and thrilling ether echo to every corner of the earth. 
 Home missions and foreign missions merge and inter- 
 penetrate as nations move backward and forward 
 among the continents and pass from moral zone to 
 moral zone. The typical missionary sits no more in 
 distant loneliness, but stands on the crowded highway 
 of nations and sends daily greetings to his brother 
 across the world by the emigrant who passes nis 
 door. 
 
 Utilizing World Experience. What America needs 
 to complete her social version of the gospel in action 
 can only be discovered for her as the outcome of so- 
 cial experiments in Christianity as naturalized in the 
 East and the South and wrought out in practise by 
 the genius of the darker races under the direction of 
 the indigenous spirit. Foreign missions must give way 
 to the home missions of Asia and Africa. Two 
 divine calls are theirs, of ec[ual moment for the salva- 
 tion of the nations: first, the call to go; second, the 
 call to come away. First, they must evangelize the 
 people; second, naturalize the gospel by the thorough 
 founding of the native Church. Then the work of 
 foreign missions is over. Where foreign missions end,
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 239 
 
 home missions begin. All deeper issues must be faced, 
 all ultimate social applications of the gospel for Asia 
 and Africa made by the native Church conducting its 
 own home missions into social fields under the guidance 
 of the one Spirit, dividing insight and efficiency to 
 each several race and continent even as he will. 
 
 Process of Give and Take, Then will begin that 
 final process of give and take between the home mis- 
 sionary fields of earth which will make world experi- 
 ence available for all and give social Christianity its 
 widest induction and its broadest catholicity. Those 
 social ultimates, the family, the Church, the state, will 
 get their final form from the experiences of the total 
 human race. Faith and brotherhood will get world 
 reenforcement and world definition. Till that day they 
 remain fragmentary even for us. Christian society 
 must mean the permeation of the common life of the 
 whole earthly family of God. It can never be realized 
 in America alone. Apart from all the rest we shall 
 not be made perfect 
 
 5. Whose Is the Church? The social realization 
 of Christianity in America depends upon the Church's 
 radical and sincere repentance of her social isola- 
 tion. She needs not only the gifts of comers 
 from all lands, and the graces which can bloom only 
 in other lands where Christ has become their very 
 own: she needs as well, yea, first, the worth and loy- 
 alty of all sorts and conditions of men in our own 
 America. The Church has position, wealth, technical 
 resources, and ideals largely because it has received an
 
 240 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 unearned increment from the land and a monopoly ad- 
 vantage from industry. These have unlocked all the 
 higher treasures of civilization. The Church has ex- 
 perienced the profitableness of godliness and proved 
 the permanent relations which exist between thrift and 
 virtue and success. It is the Church of people whose 
 fathers worked hard; the farmer's Church and the 
 small capitalist's Church ; the institution of the achiev- 
 ing older population which got hold of natural re- 
 sources first. 
 
 Wealth to Be Democratized. The Church is to be 
 honored rather than blamed for this condition. She 
 cannot permanently raise any one to her own position 
 of advantage except through the same discipline and 
 on the same terms of character. What troubles her 
 peace is the verified suspicion that late comers of equal 
 capacity and likelihood of character have not now 
 the same advantage to capitalize their virtues in the 
 acquirement of wealth and position. It is for the 
 Church therefore to repent of her exclusive advantage 
 and to put an end to it. Christian wealth must be 
 democratized not by arbitrary equalization or divi- 
 sion but by the development of a juster social order 
 which will rapidly equalize it; by the control of wages 
 and profits, by taxation and by exacting standards 
 of Christian stewardship in the use of property. 
 
 An Old Virtue to the Front. Taxes must be re- 
 stored to the place of preeminent virtue which they 
 occupied in the Old Testament, and the Church must 
 cease to misquote, as exhortations to Christian char-
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 241 
 
 ity, Scriptures whose first application was to the politi- 
 cal duty of taxpaying. But taxation must be in- 
 terpreted religiously in the light of the best Christian 
 and modern social emphasis. Giving must be carried 
 out in humility and repentance. Benevolence must take 
 a third place in the catalog of social virtues. If taxes 
 come first, personal service comes second, and the giv- 
 ing of money only third. Of these three the greatest 
 is taxes. But benevolence has still its place and in 
 the support of the voluntary Church and its vast train 
 of missionary and human enterprises it is the central 
 one. It is preeminently the virtue which makes home 
 missions possible. In all its uses benevolence must put 
 on humility. Only humility and works meet for re- 
 pentance can take away the taint which clings to too 
 much missionary money. 
 
 Keeping Goodness Good. The Church's ideals 
 must be democratized; she must be humble in her 
 moral superiorities; she must repent of her frequent 
 sunderings from the masses, even when their separa- 
 tions have been partly due to the higher personal ideals 
 and the finer individual conduct of the church-member. 
 None of these elements of goodness can even remain 
 good without their recombination with the more ro- 
 bust and modern excellencies of social morality, in 
 which often enough the religious teacher needs to sit 
 at the feet of the trade-unionist, and the rural saint to 
 go to school to the city child. Only the speediest 
 spread and equalization of the moral advantages of 
 the Church can keep them from decay. The presence
 
 242 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 of this deep mood of repentance in the fundamental 
 thinking of home missions is a necessary condition 
 of the social realization of Christianity in America. 
 
 6. Environment and the Average Christian. The 
 social realization of Christianity in America de- 
 pends, finally, upon an effective strategy of social 
 control. The Church is committed through the home 
 missionary enterprise to a social program confessedly 
 in advance of the average conscience. Just as mis- 
 sions propose to organize an uplifting environment for 
 the socially depressed people; just as they try to re- 
 deem the young criminal by putting him in a com- 
 munity of higher ideals; so missions propose to or- 
 ganize an uplifting environment for the average Chris- 
 tian in which his collective will may function more 
 generously and wisely than his individual will would 
 do. The individual Christian is immensely dependent 
 upon the moralizing pressure of the collective religious 
 life. This is only to say that he is truly a member 
 of a spiritual body of which the Church is the visible 
 organ. The Church is in a strategic position of social 
 advantage. As an organization it is greatly in con- 
 trol of the moral atmosphere of its adherents. Its 
 deep power over them was shown by its former ability 
 to put upon them a sectarian stamp. It achieved this 
 end only by ceaseless education. It now sets itself to 
 put a social stamp upon the mind and conduct of its 
 members, to do which it must still ceaselessly educate 
 under a redirected social impulse. 
 
 Religious Education. In its larger social expression
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 243 
 
 religious education uses the pulpit, the Sunday- 
 school, and the manifold agencies of public opinion. 
 It involves a modern use of the Bible as a book of 
 social invention and adventure; as an instrument for 
 the guidance of social experiment, and not as a reposi- 
 tory of doctrine or a completed code of social laws. 
 Religious education embraces and must direct the con- 
 crete study of social issues and must interpret the so- 
 cial surveys which have been explained as the current 
 method of approach to social duty. Finally, religious 
 education must include mission study as the record of 
 the outstanding achievements of the Church, both 
 social and spiritual, both at home and abroad. Thus 
 it becomes one of the essential elements in the strategy 
 of Christian conquest. 
 
 Constructive Statesmanship. Home missions have 
 made the Church one of the chief factors in American 
 social life. The Church in turn recognizes and sup- 
 ports home missionary organizations as one of the 
 chief devices of social progress and control. Among 
 the greatest triumphs of modern invention are the so- 
 cial organizations which the new age has originated. 
 In their local and national phases, expressed either in 
 the men that they control, the money that they use, 
 or the influence which they wield, organized home 
 missions rank with the trusts or the trade-unions as 
 one of the first-rate social achievements of the genera- 
 tion. With their experts, their increasingly precise 
 technique, their ability to dispose their vast forces as 
 to time, place, and need, and especially in their coop-
 
 244 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 erative results interdenominational and interna- 
 tional they reach the highest constructive statesman- 
 ship. They are the most efficient, dominant, and 
 highly Christianized of agencies for planting the king- 
 dom of God on the soil of America. 
 
 America Becoming Christian. Among the most en- 
 viable of men is that group of missionary administra- 
 tors whose part it is, in behalf of the Church, to know 
 these United States in their social and Christian prob- 
 lems and potencies, from end to end, and from top to 
 bottom. Probably they, as no one else, understand 
 the redirection of patriotism and affection involved in 
 the social vision of the home missionary task. 
 
 A Land of Natural Charms. To know any part of 
 our land is to love it. The white birches silhouetted 
 against the dark hemlocks on the New England hill- 
 side; the tender little creeping greenery delicately em- 
 broidering the feet of the Adirondack forest; the 
 meeting of rugged highland and misty marshes at 
 the nation's greatest gateway, and the mighty stretch 
 of reddening sunrise over the waving marsh grasses 
 up and down all our coastal plain; the widespread 
 shade of the live oaks draped with Spanish moss, 
 equally stir and engage the affections of one whose 
 parish is the nation. The lapping deep-green waters 
 of the Great Lakes; the dotted farms and forests of 
 the interior wreathed in the smoke of factory chim- 
 neys; the steep bridle paths of the Southern Appalach- 
 ians winding under majestic chestnut and mighty 
 beech; the smiling cotton fields of the Southern up-
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 245 
 
 lands and plains enclosed in a framework of pine tree 
 and vine, all are the familiar furnishing of home 
 to one who lives wherever the flag flies. The shimmer 
 of sunlight over the prairie ; the rich yellow of wheat 
 ripe for harvest ; the smoking gray of the new-turned 
 prairie sod; and then the high plains southward over 
 ranch and mine, to where, against the serrated back- 
 ground of mountains, the cactus towers -as the sand- 
 like pillars in the ruins of Karnak, and the day-long 
 mirage mocks one day after day, each has a mystic 
 compulsion over the heart of one who knows them all. 
 From the white peaks of the farther Rockies ; from the 
 Cascades forested somberly by the firs ; from the stark 
 grandeur of the high Sierras to the virile beauty of 
 the Golden Gate, and the smiling gardens and orchards, 
 with the ancient missions slumbering in the mellow 
 light between the foothills and the unutterably white 
 surf of the Pacific, our land is goodly to know and 
 to call ours. 
 
 A Land of Human Splendor. But infinitely the 
 most beautiful part of America the most majestic, 
 alluring, and passionately compelling is its wealth of 
 people and of divine incentives to brotherliness. Ours 
 is a land of human splendor, passing increasingly 
 under the mastery of Jesus Christ. To miss this is to 
 miss all; and how often it is missed! 
 
 Barrier of the Unfamiliar. Confession perhaps 
 may best serve the case at this point. Once on a 
 vacation ramble in Vermont, I experienced one of the 
 most dramatic surprises of my life. Following a
 
 246 THE NEW HOME MISSIONS 
 
 mountain path, I seemed to hear the voice of angry, 
 quarreling men. My mind pictured a drunken crowd, 
 carousing in the woods, and I would have turned 
 aside if I could. Persisting, however, I came upon a 
 group of Slavic folk picking blackberries; mothers 
 with little children at their breasts, garrulous grand- 
 mothers, maidens, brothers, and lovers all peaceful, 
 domestic, innocent. And the violent brutal words 
 which I had heard were the most dulcet tones of the 
 Itskys and Ozskys. / had never heard them before. 
 Yet in that tongue mild mothers had crooned their 
 babes to sleep for centuries ; man had wooed maid ; God 
 had heard prayers. The excuse, therefore, that I had 
 never heard it before lacked something of cogency, 
 partook somewhat of stupidity and provincialism. Yet 
 for less cause age-long animosities have been cherished. 
 Herodotus thought the barbarous tongue-tied, so 
 strange their language sounded to him. And, at the 
 bottom of their minds, millions of men imagine that 
 those who differ from them by some superficiality of 
 color, voice, or mental pace really suffer some positive 
 defect, or at least somehow lack complete humanity. 
 
 The Bond of Peace. For the lack of this keen 
 and compelling sense of inner likeness and fraternity, 
 Christianity fails of social realization in America. 
 Separated by our vast divergencies of origin and tra- 
 ditions; kept asunder by the vast extent and physical 
 variety of our country, how desperate the need of a 
 unifying spirit, of a bond of peace! How wonder- 
 ful to know and to testify, of personal knowledge, that
 
 REALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 247 
 
 everywhere middle walls of partition are breaking 
 down and men being made one in the blood of the 
 cross; that out of every tribe and tongue and people 
 and nation the transformation into kings and priests 
 unto God is under way. 
 
 Privilege and Task. The people under God are 
 the strength and glory of the land. A mighty land 
 to glimpse whose future is to share a mission with the 
 stars ; to control whose destinies is to stand within the 
 grip of the right hand of the omnipotent God. What 
 then lovingly and faithfully to follow and to serve 
 all the strange and complicated paths of social duty 
 into the furthest recesses, the uttermost nooks and 
 crannies of human relationship; to control their inner 
 qualities and applications as well as their outer exhibi- 
 tions and forms! What then to occupy this land for 
 Christ, not f ragmentarily as the field has won upon the 
 forest, nor fitfully, as the wind sweeps over the prai- 
 ries, but searchingly, engulfingly, as the waters cover 
 the sea ! What then to share in thy social realization 
 of Christianity, O country of our love! 
 
 *And crown thy good with brotherhood, 
 From sea to shining sea."
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 Pioneer Missions 
 
 Adams, Ephraim. The Iowa Band. 1870. Pilgrim Press, Bos- 
 ton. $100. 
 
 Burleson, Hugh L. The Conquest of the Continent. 1911. 
 Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, New York. 50 
 cents, net. 
 
 Dark, Joseph B. Leavening the Nation. 1903. Baker & Taylor 
 Company, New York. $1.25, net 
 
 Douglass, T. C. Pilgrims of Iowa. 1911. Pilgrim Press, Bos- 
 ton. $2.00, net. 
 
 Hines, H. K. Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest. 
 1899. H. K. Hines, Portland, Oregon. $1.50. 
 
 Platt, Ward. The Frontier. 1908. Missionary Education Move- 
 ment, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Puddefoot, W. G. The Minute Man on the Frontier. 1895. 
 T. Y. Crowell & Co., New York. $1.25. 
 
 Shelton, Don O. Heroes of the Cross in America. 1904. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 6b cents. 
 
 Sloan, William N. Spiritual Conquest Along the Rockies. 1913. 
 George H. Doran Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 
 Stewart, Robert L. Sheldon Jackson. 1908. Fleming H. Re- 
 vell Company, New York. $2.00, net. 
 
 Talbot, Ethelbert. My People of the Plains. Harper & Bros., 
 1906, New York. $1.75, net. 
 
 Tomlinson, Everett T. The Fruit of the Desert. 1907. Grif- 
 fith & Rowland Press, Philadelphia. $1.25. 
 
 Tuttle, Daniel S. Reminiscences of a Missionary Bishop. 1906. 
 Thomas Whittaker, New York. $2.00, net. 
 
 Whipple, Henry B. Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate. 
 1902. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.50, net 
 
 251
 
 252 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 City 
 
 Addams, Jane. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. 1909. 
 The Macmillan Company, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910. The Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 Betts, Lillian W. The Leaven in a Great City. 1902. Dodd, 
 Mead & Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 DeForest, R. W., and Veiller, L. Tenement House Problem, 2 
 Vols. 1903. The Macmillan Company, New York. $6.00. 
 
 Howe, F. C. The City the Hope of Democracy. 1905. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 McCulloch, J. E. The Open Church for the Unchurched. 1905. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Riis, Jacob A. The Battle With the Slum. 1902. The Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. $2.00, net. 
 
 Sears, Charles H. The Redemption of the City. 1911. Griffith 
 & Rowland Press, Philadelphia. 50 cents. 
 
 Stelzle, Charles. Christianity's Storm Center. 1907. Fleming 
 H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Strong, Josiah. The Challenge of the City. 1907. Missionary 
 Education Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Wilcox, Delos F. The American City. 1904. The Macmillan 
 Company, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Country Church 
 
 Anderson, W. L. The Country Town. 1911. Baker & Taylor 
 Company, New York $1.00, net. 
 
 Ashenhurst, J. O. The Day of the Country Church. 1910. 
 Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Bailey, L. H. The Country Life Movement in the United States. 
 1911. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 
 Beard, A. F. The Story of John Frederic Oberlin. 1909. Pil- 
 grim Press, Boston. $1.25. 
 
 Bricker, Garland A. Solving the Country Church Problem. 
 1913. Eaton & Mains, New York. $1.25, net.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 
 
 Butterfield, K. L. The Country Church and the Rural Problem. 
 
 191 1. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.00. 
 Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics. 1911. Ginn & 
 
 Company, Boston. $1.30. 
 Fiske, G. Walter. The Challenge of the Country Church. 1912. 
 
 Association Press, New York. 75 cents. 
 Gill, C O., and Pinchot, Gifford. The Country Church. 1913. 
 
 The Maemillan Company, New York. $1.25. 
 Plunkett, Sir Horace. The Rural Life Problem in the United 
 
 States. 1910. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25. 
 Roads, Charles. Rural Christendom. 1009. American Sunday 
 
 School Union, Philadelphia. 90 cents. 
 Wilson, Warren H. The Church of the Open Country. 1911. 
 
 Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Immigration 
 
 Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. 1912. Houghton, Mifflin 
 Company, New York. $1.75. 
 
 Antin, Mary. They Who Knock at Our Gates. 1914. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin Company, New York. $1.00, net. 
 
 Commons, J. R. Races and Immigrants in America. 1907. The 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Fairchild, Henry P. Immigration. 1913. The Macmillan Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.75, net. 
 
 Haskin, Frederic K. The Immigrant. 1913. Fleming H. Re- 
 vell Company, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Jenks, Jeremiah W., and Lauck, W. Jett. The Immigration 
 Problem. 1912. Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York. 
 $I-7S 
 
 Roberts, Peter. The New Immigration. 1912. The Macmillan 
 Company, New York $1.50. 
 
 Shriver, W. P. Immigrant Forces. 1913. Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Steiner, Edward A. The Broken Wall. 1911. Fleming H. Re- 
 veil Company, New York, $1.00. 
 
 Warne, Frank J. The Immigrant Inz<asion. 1913. Dodd, Mead 
 & Company, New York. $2.50, net
 
 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Races 
 
 Baker, Ray S. Following the Color Line. 1908. Doubleday, 
 Page & Co., New York. $2.00, net. 
 
 Brain, Belle M. The Transformation of Hawaii. 1898. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Brown, Arthur J. The New Era in the Philippines. 1903. 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.25. 
 
 Douglass, H. Paul. Christian Reconstruction in the South. 
 1909. Pilgrim Press, Boston. $1.50. 
 
 Grinnell, George B. The Story of the Indian. 1895. D. Apple- 
 ton & Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Grose, Howard B. Advance in the Antilles. 1910. Missionary 
 Education Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Hammond, L. H. In Black and White. 1914. Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 
 Helm, Mary. The Upward Path. 1909. Missionary Education 
 Movement, New York, 60 cents. 
 
 Hinman, George W. "The Oriental in America." 1913. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 5 cents. 
 
 Humphrey, Seth K. The Indian Dispossessed. 1905. Little, 
 Brown & Co., Boston. $1.50. 
 
 Leupp, Francis E. In Red Man's Land. 1914. Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, New York. 50 cents, net. 
 
 Leupp, Francis E. The Indian and His Problem. 1910. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.00. 
 
 Miller, Kelly. Race Adjustment. 1908. Neale Publishing Com- 
 pany, Washington. $2.00, net. 
 
 Moffett, Thomas C. The American Indian on the New Trail. 
 1914. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 
 cents. 
 
 Murphy, Edgar G. Problems of the Present South. 1909. Long- 
 mans, Green & Co., New York. $1.50, net. 
 
 Oldham, W. F. India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. 1914. 
 Eaton & Mains, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Stone, Alfred H. Studies in the American Race Problem. 1908. 
 Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. $2.00. 
 
 Waid, Eva Clark. Alaska, the Land of the Totem. Woman's
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 
 
 Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., 
 
 New York. 50 cents. 
 Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. 1900. Douhleday, 
 
 Page & Co., New York. $1.50, net. 
 Wilson, Gilbert L. Goodbird the Indian. 1914. Fleming H. 
 
 Revell Company, New York. 25 cents, net. 
 
 General Social 
 
 Batten, S. Z. The Social Task of Christianity. 1911. Fleming 
 
 H. Revell Company, New York. $1.25. 
 Brown, Charles R. The Social Message of the Modern Pulpit. 
 
 1906. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25, net. 
 Clow, W. M. Christ in the Social Order. 1913. George H. 
 
 Do ran Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 Cooley, C. H. Human Nature and the Social Order. 1902. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.50. 
 Cutting, R. F. The Church and Society. 1913. The Macmillan 
 
 Company, New York. $1.25. 
 Dickinson, Charles H. The Christian Reconstruction of Modern 
 
 Life. 1913. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, 
 
 net. 
 Earp, Edwin L. The Social Engineer. 1911. Eaton & Mains, 
 
 New York. $1.50, net 
 Hall, T. C. Social Solutions in the Light of Christian Ethics. 
 
 1910. Eaton & Mains, New York. $1.50, net. 
 Henderson, C. R. Social Duties from the Christian Point of 
 
 View. 1898. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $1.25. 
 King, Henry C. The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our 
 
 Times. 1911. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Making of To-Morrow. 1913. Eaton 
 
 & Mains, New York. $1.00, net. 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Social Teaching of Jesus. 1910. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Church and the Changing Order. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 Mathews, Shailer. The Social Gospel. 1910. Pilgrim Press, 
 
 Boston. 50 cents, net.
 
 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Nearing, Scott. Social Religion. 1913. The Macmillan Com- 
 pany, New York. $r.oo, net. 
 Patten, Simon N. The New Basis of Civilisation. 1907. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York $1.00, net. 
 Patten, Simon N. The Social Basis of Religion. 1911. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25, net. 
 Peabody, Francis G. Jesus Christ and the Social Question. 
 
 1900. Grosset & Dunlap, New York. 50 cents, net. 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianising the Social Order. 1912. 
 
 The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, net. 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. 
 
 1908. The Macmillan Company, New York 50 cents, net. 
 Ross, E. A. Social Control. 1901. The Macmillan Company, 
 
 New York $1.25, net 
 Scudder, Vida D. Socialism and Character. 1912. Houghton, 
 
 Mifflin Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Smith, Samuel G. Democracy and the Church. 1912. D. Ap- 
 
 pleton & Co., New York $1.50, net. 
 Spargo, John. The Bitter Cry of the Children. 1906. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York $1.50, net. 
 Stelzle, Charles. The Workingman and Social Problems. 1903. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, New York 75 cents, net. 
 Stelzle, Charles. American Social and Religious Conditions, 
 
 1912. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.00. 
 Taylor, G. Religion in Social Action. 1913. Dodd, Mead & 
 
 Co., New York $1.25, net 
 Thompson, C. B. The Churches and the Wage Earners. 1909. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York $1.00, net. 
 Tippy, W. M. The Socialised Church. 1909. Eaton & Mains, 
 
 New York 50 cents. 
 Ward, Harry F. Social Creed of the Churches. 1912. Eaton 
 
 & Mains, New York. 50 cents, net.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abolition talk, 44 
 Academy, democracy of the, 41 
 Adams, Dr. E. A., 122 
 Admission of Western States to 
 
 the Union, 5 
 
 American Bible Society, 39 
 American Church, chief business 
 
 of, 45; future task, 46 
 American Home Missionary So- 
 ciety, 15 
 
 American rule in Porto Rico, 168 
 American Tract Society, 39 
 American sects, origins of, 196, 
 
 197 
 "Americanization of the World," 
 
 26 
 Amherst, a proposed center for 
 
 training rural pastors, 68 
 Andover Theological Seminary 
 
 essay, quoted, 14 
 Anniversaries, uses of, 74 
 Anthropology and the Negro, 
 
 i?3 
 
 Aristotle, quoted, 179 
 Armageddon, the racial, 172 
 Advantages of city life, 97-100 
 Agriculture, as affected by horse- 
 power machinery, 12, 13; new 
 idealistic note, 64; problem of 
 a ministry adapted to present 
 needs, 66-76 
 Agriculture, Illinois College of, 
 
 64 
 
 Alfalfa, 87 
 
 Alien, the, assimilation of, 124, 
 125; first problems of, 113; 
 
 revulsion of older popula- 
 tions from, 115 
 
 Aliens and "barbarians" on the 
 upper Missouri, 135, 136 
 
 Assimilation of aliens, 124, 125 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, quoted, 4 
 
 Automobile, 52, 71 
 
 B 
 
 Band of settlers, a typical, 19 
 
 Bank, first in at opening of a 
 reservation, 52; in plan of 
 community center, 72 
 
 Baptists, 17, 133 
 
 Baseball should be a factor in 
 rural play, 73 
 
 Bible, lack of, 10; plans for cir- 
 culation, 39; value of in 
 Protestant view, 40; Biblical 
 chairs, 67 
 
 Birmingham, Ala., 133 
 
 Blackburn, Dr. Gideon, 19, 36 
 
 Black Hawk strip, 40 
 
 Boas, Professor Franz, quoted, 
 
 T, I 73 ' - 174 
 
 Bohemia, 122 
 
 Books, poverty in, of early 
 
 Mississippi Valley region, 39, 
 
 40 
 
 Boy Scouts, 74 
 Brotherhood, the fact of, 183- 
 
 186 
 
 Brown, E. E., quoted, 41 
 Browning, Robert, referred to, 
 
 225 
 Buckley, James M., 16 
 
 259
 
 260 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Buddhism, 165 
 Burleson, H. L., 16, 46 
 
 Call to home mission work, 230 
 
 Camp Fire Girls, 74 
 
 Campbell, Alexander, 197 
 
 Canaan, contrasted accounts of 
 conquest of, 191 
 
 Capital and industry, 130, 131 
 
 Capitalist, a mountaineer, 79 
 
 Cartwright, Peter, 33 
 
 Carver, Professor T. N., chal- 
 lenge of, 78; quoted, 12, 21, 51 
 
 Case of social failure, 200 
 
 Catalog of social ideals, 147 
 
 Cattle tick, 87; mountain men 
 and the, 49, 53 
 
 Census views, 217 
 
 Champaign, 111., a center of 
 agricultural education, 67 
 
 Charity Organization Societies, 
 148 
 
 Child labor, 84; Committees, 
 148; in the country home, 74 
 
 Child, old-time city and country, 
 100 
 
 Chinese immigrant, the, 163 
 
 Christ. See Jesus Christ 
 
 Christian Reconstruction in the 
 South, 181 
 
 Church, the, as respects Ameri- 
 can social life, 243; fields of, 
 76; problems of, 64 
 
 Church school, ideal of the early, 
 40 
 
 Cities of the stranger, 112, 113 
 
 Citizen, the, 100 
 
 City church, conditions in, 101- 
 105; family type, 103; for 
 foreign-speaking people, 105 
 
 City, glory of, 97; reason for, 94; 
 shame of, 96; some statistics, 
 
 93 
 
 City life, advantages of, 97-100 
 
 City's machinery, 96 
 
 Civil War, some results of, 24 
 
 Claim outlining in the North- 
 west, 51 
 
 Clannishness, in 
 Clark, Joseph B., quoted, 15 | 
 Coal deposits, 83 
 Colorado Survey, 202 
 Colored Farmers' Courty Fair, 
 
 85 
 Community and the Citizen, The, 
 
 35 
 Community, bank, center, 
 
 church, creamery, school, 
 
 store, 72 
 Community - minded church 
 
 needed in the country, 72 
 Community spirit, 71, 72 
 Community, the transplanted, 33 
 Congregational Church, 1 1 
 Congregationalism, 22, 133 
 Connecticut Missionary Society, 
 
 the, ii 
 Conquest of national domain 
 
 completed by home missions, 
 
 So 
 Conquest of the Continent, The, 
 
 16,46 
 
 Conscience, the modern Chris- 
 tian, 143 
 
 Consolidated school, 72 
 Constitution of state, itinerant's 
 
 thought of, 27 
 "Consultations," 213 
 Cooperation rapidly growing 
 
 among denominations, 207- 
 
 222 
 
 Cooperative creamery and store, 
 72 
 
 Corinthians, Second, xi. 26-29, 
 quoted, 37 
 
 Cornelius and Peter incident, 
 184, 1 86 
 
 Cornell University, proposed al- 
 liance for training rural pas- 
 tors, 68 
 
 Cotton boll-weevil, 87 
 
 Cotton, growth of and slavery, 
 17; King, 23 
 
 Council of Women for Home 
 Missions, 210
 
 INDEX 
 
 261 
 
 Country store's successor, 72 
 County Teachers' Institute, 86 
 Cumberland Presbyterianism, 197 
 Cutler, Manasseh, career of, 31, 
 
 D 
 
 Dairy industry, 49 
 
 Darwinism, misunderstood, 76 
 
 Dates, crucial, 5 
 
 "Death in the Desert, A," 225 
 
 Debt to the alien, our, 119 
 
 Degradation in Southern high- 
 lands, 78 
 
 Democratization of wealth, 240 
 
 Denominational, colleges, 42 ; 
 families reuniting, 215; move- 
 ments explained, 16, 17 
 
 Denominationalism in home mis- 
 sions, 199; effects of, 200, 201 
 
 De Tocqueville alluded to, 12 
 
 Devoutness, 73 
 
 Dewey, Professor John, quoted, 
 176 
 
 "Dilution" of the American 
 element, 118, 126 
 
 Divergences and the bond of 
 peace, 246 
 
 Douglass, T. O., Autobiography, 
 
 ?uoted, 19, 20, 48; Pilgrims of 
 owa, 44 
 
 Dowie, John Alexander, sect 
 founder, 197 
 
 "Down-town" church, 104 
 
 Dry farming, 51 
 
 Drew Theological Seminary, al- 
 liance proposed, for training 
 rural pastors, 68 
 
 Dunn, A. W. quoted, 35 
 
 Early settlers, the, 12 
 
 Economic processes and social 
 control, 143, 144 
 
 Eddy, Mrs. Mary B. G., sect 
 founder, 197 
 
 Education, for non-European 
 peoples, 175, 176; of the South- 
 ern Negro, 173 
 
 Education in the United States 
 Since the Civil War, 43 
 
 Ely, Richard T., referred to, 133 
 
 Emotional religion, 8 
 
 English language, effect of teach- 
 ing, 119, 120 
 
 Episcopal Church and missions, 
 16 
 
 Equality not necessary. 171 
 
 Erie Canal, 5; effect of its com- 
 pletion, 21 
 
 Eskimo, the, 163 
 
 Evolution, of a city, 94-96; of 
 the American people, 82 
 
 Evolution of the Country Com- 
 munity, The, 49 
 
 Faith in lowly men, 234 
 
 Far West, the semi-arid, 24 
 
 Farm work in pioneer times, 12; 
 revision of methods, 75 
 
 Farmer, the, 13, 14; and the 
 community church, n; new, 
 64; vanishing race, 6 1 
 
 Fathers feared rather than loved 
 by many country-bred chil- 
 dren, 74 
 
 Federal Council of the Churches 
 of Christ in America, 134, 137, 
 214; social creed formulated, 
 144 
 
 Festivals and pageants to be 
 used in rural life, 74 
 
 Fisher, Dr. F. P., referred to, 
 221 
 
 Florida purchase, the, 5 
 
 Foreigners in U. S., no; assimi- 
 lation of, 53; churches for, 105 
 
 Forests conquered, prairies en- 
 tered, n 
 
 Frontier gone, 50, 61 
 
 Gain, facts of the Church's, 108 
 Garden and poultry for farm boys 
 and girls, 75
 
 262 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Giddings, F. H., quoted on types 
 of mental make-up, 219 
 
 Give and take, 113, 119, 239 
 
 Gladden, Washington, 133 
 
 Glove-factory data, 95 
 
 Grange, the, an agency in the 
 new era, 73 
 
 H 
 
 Half -holiday, for country young 
 people, 75 
 
 Hampton Institute, 45 
 
 Hand-power and horse-power, 12 
 
 Harvard and Yale and Church 
 control, 42 
 
 Hawaiian, the, 1 66, 1 68 
 
 Health, city and country, 97, 98 
 
 Helm, Mary, quoted, 44 
 
 Hindu immigrant, the, 164 
 
 History of the Pacific Northwest, 6 
 
 Holy Rollers, the, 81 
 
 Home Missionary, quoted, 40 
 
 Home Missions, early form and 
 work of, 3-48; redirection of, 
 53-58; now applied to the 
 country, 6 1-88; serving the 
 city and stranger, 93-126; 
 wide social bearings, 129-247 
 
 Home Missions Council, 208, 
 213 
 
 Homesteading, 61-63 
 
 Hookworm, 168 
 
 Immigration, changes in char- 
 acter of, 112 
 
 Inadequate basis for missions, 82 
 
 Indebtedness to the alien, our, 
 119 
 
 Indian in Relation to the White 
 Population, The, 45 
 
 Indians, the, 5, 8, 61, 162, 168; 
 missionary, 26; missions, 45; 
 reservation opening, 51, 52 
 
 Individuality encouraged, 74 
 
 Initiative, 46; farm boys and 
 girls to have room for, 75 
 
 Inner resources, 180 
 
 Institutional church, the, 104 
 
 Intensive, moral husbandry, 65; 
 program, 69 
 
 Interchurch federations, 112 
 
 International Sunday School As- 
 sociation, 211 
 
 Iowa Band, the, 37, 42 
 
 Irrigation, 50 
 
 Itinerant, the, 8, 26, 36 
 
 Japanese in America, 165; a 
 
 possible church, 218 
 Jersey prize pig, 86 
 Jesus Christ, 58, 183; interpret- 
 ing religion and life. 153, 235; 
 recognized as alone Leader 
 and Head, 178, 222 
 Jew in America, the, 122, 123 
 Joseph Keasby Brick School, 84 
 Justice, machinery of social, 
 lacking, 132 
 
 Lack of men in social service, 228 
 
 Land values, 62 
 
 Landmarks of Western expan- 
 sion, 4, 5 
 
 Language differences, 246 
 
 Language group churches, 105 
 
 Lay missionary, the, 66 
 
 Lay preachers, 9, 18, 19 
 
 Layman and his purse, the, 205 
 
 Laymen's Missionary Move- 
 ment, 210 
 
 Leadership, 20, 65, 66, 71, 121; 
 of Jesus Christ, 178 
 
 Leavening the Nation, 15 
 
 Lee, Jason, 35 
 
 Louisiana purchase, 5 
 
 "Lower" races, 171 
 
 Lumber tracts, 79 
 
 M 
 
 McComas, H. C., 220 
 McCord, Grandfather, 19 
 Me Kenzie, F. A., quoted, 45
 
 INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 Machinery lacking for social 
 
 justice, 132 
 Madison, Wis., a center of 
 
 agricultural education, 67 
 Making of Our Middle Schools, 41 
 Market, the, in rural redirection, 
 
 73 
 
 Marietta Colony, 32 
 
 Men and Religion Movement, 
 
 210 
 
 Messianic activities, the, 153 
 Methodism, 16 
 Methodism a missionary system, 
 
 9 
 
 Methodists and Baptists among 
 pioneer missionaries, 81 
 
 Methods, early, of home mission 
 work, n 
 
 Mexican, the, 166, 168 
 
 Milk and the farmer, 98 
 
 Mill town, from the farm to the, 
 82 
 
 Miller, William, religious orig- 
 inator, 197 
 
 Milliners' windows, 73 
 
 Mills and Schermerhorn's report 
 on frontier conditions, 9, 10, 39 
 
 Mind of Primitive Man, The, 1 73 
 
 Minister, the rural, preparing, 
 placing, paying, and keeping, 
 68-70 
 
 Missionary Education Move- 
 ment, 211 
 
 Missionary methods change, 14 
 
 Missionary pastor, 36, 37, 122 
 
 Missionary Survey, an early, 9 
 
 "Missions at home," 236 
 
 Missouri River missionary, a, 
 
 135 
 
 Money, ready, a need of farm 
 boys and girls, 75 
 
 Moral issues, 53, 55 
 
 Morals and milk, 49 
 
 Monnonism, 50 
 
 Morristown Survey, 149 
 
 Motive, search for the source of, 
 76, 77 
 
 Mountain, agriculture, 82; com- 
 munity, 78-82 
 
 Moving pictures should be a 
 
 factor in rural recreation, 73 
 Muscatine, Iowa, 137-140, 141 
 My Pedagogical Creed, 176 
 
 N 
 
 National Survey, 204 
 Near at hand mission field, a, 89 
 Neglected fields survey, 202 
 Negro, the, 83-88, 161, 168, 172, 
 1 80, 182; education of the 
 Southern, 173; farmers' asso- 
 ciation, 85; jubilee melodies, 
 183; missions to, 45; religious 
 experience, 182; service for, 
 122, 209 
 
 New Englander, the, 20-22 
 New far-reaching questions, 55 
 New Testament religion, 225, 
 
 233 
 
 New woman, the, 180 
 
 New York Federation of Church- 
 es, 204, 205 
 
 Non-European peoples, needs of 
 the, 175, 176, 236; in the United 
 States, 1 68 
 
 North, Dr. F. M., quoted on 
 pure air, 98 
 
 Norwegian Sunday-school super- 
 intendent, a, 124 
 
 O 
 
 Ohio Company, the, 32 
 
 Ohio's early settlers, 18 
 
 Old age pensions, 151 
 
 Open gates, our duty respecting, 
 
 118 
 O'Reilly's tribute to the Pilgrims, 
 
 126 
 Organization, of American Home 
 
 Missionary Society, 15; of 
 
 early Boards, 10, 1 1 
 Oriental exclusion, 164 
 Our Country. 35 
 Our national unity, 116
 
 264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Overchurching, 119-206 
 Over-organization, danger of, 46 
 
 Pacific Northwest, opening of, 6 
 Pathos in immigration, 112 
 Pearl buttons, 137 
 Personal experience and social 
 
 service, 229 
 
 Phillips Academies, the, 41 
 Physiography and the farmer, 51 
 Picture show suggestions to aliens, 
 
 115, 116 
 
 Pilgrims of Iowa, 44 
 Pioneers in forest and prairie, 
 
 6-1 1 
 
 Plantation system, 23, 24 
 Play, value of, in the country, 
 
 73-75 
 
 Political strife, 23 
 Politics and service, 107 
 Pond, Dr. William C., 122 
 Populations, non-European in 
 
 the United States, 168 
 Porto Rican, the, 167, 168 
 Porto Rico, 209 
 Prayer, the mystic key, 231 
 Presbyterian Church, n, 20 
 Presbyterian early work, 9, 10, 
 
 39 
 
 Principles of Rural Economics, 12 
 "Problem of the West," quoted, 
 
 4 
 
 Protestantism and labor, 103 
 Psychology of Religious Sects, 220 
 Puritan spirit, the, 126 
 Purse, a share in, the right of 
 
 mothers or wives, 75 
 
 Q 
 
 Quakers, 17 
 
 Questions, new far-reaching, 55 
 
 R 
 
 Race, our attitude toward, 169, 
 170 
 
 Redemption a world-wide task, 
 237 
 
 Redirection of home missions, 
 53-58 
 
 "Regions beyond," the, 3 
 
 Religion, the farmer's, 13; new 
 application of, 53 
 
 Religious education, 243 
 
 Religious experience and the 
 Negro, 182 
 
 Religious Movements for Social 
 Betterment, 45. 
 
 Revival, the early, 8; the farm- 
 er's, 14 
 
 Rhode Island possible new 
 Church adjustment, 204 
 
 Rise of the New West, 7 
 
 Rivalry, church, 199 
 
 Roads, good, a community asset, 
 7i, 73 
 
 Rochester Theological Seminary, 
 proposed alliance, 68 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, the, 
 123, 124 
 
 Ross, E. A., quoted, 161 
 
 Rural Economics, 51 
 
 Rural life methods, 70-75; 
 Church and state in agricul- 
 tural processes, 76, 77 
 
 Russell Sage Foundation Social 
 Service Bulletin, 142 
 
 Rutgers College, proposed al- 
 liance, 68 
 
 Rutledge, David, wins prize 
 pig, 86 
 
 Safeguarding the home, 44 
 Sam and Sandro, 170 
 Sanitation, 97, 98 
 Saturation point in immigration, 
 
 117 
 
 Schafer, Joseph, quoted, 6, 35 
 School, Church ideal in the early, 
 
 40 
 School Improvement Leagues, 
 
 86 
 Schoolmaster, the, 22
 
 INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 Scientific method in home mis- 
 sions, the, 57 
 
 Scotch-Irish, the, 18-20, 36, 80 
 Seamless robe, a, 225 
 Sectarianism, 192-199 
 Sectionalism, 22 
 Sects, origin of American, 196, 
 
 197 
 
 Shacks and barbed wire in secur- 
 ing claims, 51 
 
 Shortcomings of the early home 
 mission workers, 47 
 
 Silsby, Dr. E.G., 122 
 
 Skyscraper morality, 55 
 
 Slavery and cotton-growing, 17, 
 
 23-25 
 
 Slavic group m Vermont, a, 246 
 Smallpox epidemic, lessons from 
 
 a, 48, 49 
 Smith, Joseph, sect originator, 
 
 197 
 
 Social, aim and by-product, 58; 
 conscience, 159; creed of the 
 American churches, 144, 145; 
 engineer, 57; frontier, 56; 
 ideals, 147; leadership of Jesus 
 Christ, 232, 233; misery, 157, 
 159; problem, 130; sectarian- 
 ism, 218; service of Church 
 and state, 228, 229; settlement, 
 106, 107. 157 
 
 Social and individual redemp- 
 tion, 54 
 
 Social Aspects of Foreign Mis- 
 sions, 211 
 
 Social Service Secretaries, Com- 
 mission of, 137-140 
 
 Social types, strange, 88 
 
 Soldier's Tennessee land grant, 
 a, 129 
 
 Solidarity of farm life, 74 
 
 South Dakota, cooperation in, 
 213 
 
 Southern settlers in the West, 
 18 
 
 Speculator, the fanner now tends 
 to be a, 62 
 
 Spiritual unity, 221 
 
 State, work of the, 76 
 
 States, admission of new to the 
 
 Union, 5 
 Statistics, Church in the United 
 
 States, 198; city and country, 
 
 ?" 93 
 
 Strangers and the Church, 109 
 Strategy, religious, 102 
 Strong, Dr. josiah, quoted, 34, 
 
 45, 133, 134 
 
 Success of the Church, the, 198 
 Sunday-school, the, 38; library, 
 
 40 
 Sunday School Council of the 
 
 Evangelical Churches, 212 
 Survey method, strong approval 
 
 of, 69, 137 
 
 Survey, The, quoted, 133 
 Sutton, Professor William S., 
 
 quoted, 173 
 
 Taxpaying, 241 
 
 Taylor, G. R., quoted, 133 
 
 Team-haul distance, 71 
 
 Theological and agricultural cen- 
 ters, favorable for rural pas- 
 toral training, 67, 68 
 
 Thinking and doing, 85 
 
 Thwing, C. F., 43 
 
 Todd, Pastor John, 44 
 
 Trapper and pioneer as vanished 
 classes, 61 
 
 Turner, F. J., quoted, 4, 7, 18, 23 
 
 Types, strange social, 88 
 
 U 
 
 United States Bureau of Indian 
 Affairs, social workers of, 229 
 University of Texas Bulletin, 173 
 Upward Path, The, 44 
 Urbanized humanity, 100 
 
 Vices of the frontier, 10; pro- 
 tection of the family from the, 
 14
 
 266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Vermont, 203; cooperation in, 
 
 204, 206 
 Vocational education, 177 
 
 W 
 
 Washington (Terr.) and the 
 Yale Band, 70 
 
 Weekly half -holiday. See Half- 
 holiday. 
 
 Wells, Rev. George Frederick, 
 suggestions made by, 203 
 
 West, the, crucial dates for, 5; 
 significance of, 4; versus East, 
 22 
 
 Western Reserve Colony, a, 34 
 
 Whisky, 8 
 
 Wilson, Dr. Warren H., 20, 49, 
 50, 63 
 
 Wisconsin, federation in, 212 
 
 Woman, aiding in Church sup- 
 port in farmer period, 14; 
 educated by academies, 41; 
 now needing in country, better 
 guaranties of her comfort, re- 
 sources, and privileges, 75; 
 status and habits in mountain 
 community, 78-81 
 
 Working unity, 219 
 
 Worship and play, in rural 
 reconstruction, 73, 74 
 
 Yale Band, the, 70 
 
 Yankee in the West, the, 18-21, 
 36 
 
 Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, 1 20, 207 
 
 Young Women's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, 207
 
 Mission Study Courses 
 
 "Anywhere, provided it be FORWARD." David Livingstone. 
 
 Prepared under the direction of the 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE: G. F. Sutherland, Chairman; A. 
 E. Armstrong, J. I. Armstrong, Frank L. Brown, Hugh L. 
 Burleson, W. W. Cleland, W. E. Doughty, H. Paul Douglass, 
 Arthur R. Gray, B. Carter Millikin, John M. Moore, John 
 H. Poorman, T. Bronson Ray, Jay S. Stowell. 
 
 The Forward Mission Study Courses are an outgrowth of 
 a conference of leaders in young people's mission work, held 
 in New York City, December, 1901. To meet the need that 
 was manifested at that conference for mission study text- 
 books suitable for young people, two of the delegates, Pro- 
 fessor Amos R. Wells, of the United Society of Christian 
 Endeavor, and Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Chairman of the General 
 Missionary Committee of the Epworth League, projected the 
 Mission Study Courses. These courses have been officially 
 adopted by the Missionary Education Movement, and are 
 now under the immediate direction of the Educational Com- 
 mittee of the Movement. The books of the Movement are 
 now being used by more than forty home and foreign mis- 
 sion boards and societies of the United States and Canada. 
 
 The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering the 
 various home and foreign mission fields and problems and 
 written by leading authorities.
 
 The following text-books having a sale of over 1,500,000 
 have been published: 
 
 1. THE PRICE OF AFRICA. Biographical. By S. Earl 
 Taylor. 
 
 2. INTO ALL THE WORLD. A general survey of missions. 
 By Amos R. Wells. 
 
 3. PRINCELY MEN IN THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM. Biograph- 
 ical. By Harlan P. Beach. 
 
 4. SUNRISE IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM. Revised Edition. 
 A study of Japan. By John H. De Forest. 
 
 5. HEROES OF THE CROSS IN AMERICA. Home Missions. 
 Biographical. By Don O. Shelton. 
 
 6. DAYBREAK IN THE DARK CONTINENT. Revised Edition. 
 A study of Africa. By Wilson S. Naylor. 
 
 7. THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF INDIA. A study of India. 
 By James M. Thoburn. 
 
 8. ALIENS OR AMERICANS? A study of Immigration. By 
 Howard B. Grose. 
 
 9. THE UPLIFT OF CHINA. Revised Edition. A study of 
 China. By Arthur H. Smith. 
 
 10. THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITY. A study of the City. 
 By Josiah Strong. 
 
 11. THE WHY AND How OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. A study 
 of the relation of the home Church to the foreign mission- 
 ary enterprise. By Arthur J. Brown. 
 
 12. THE MOSLEM WORLD. A study of the Mohammedan 
 World. By Samuel M. Zwemer. 
 
 13. THE FRONTIER. A study of the New West. By Ward 
 Platt. 
 
 14. SOUTH AMERICA : Its Missionary Problems. A study 
 of South America. By Thomas B. Neely. 
 
 15. THE UPWARD PATH : The Evolution of a Race. A 
 study of the Negro. By Mary Helm. 
 
 16. KOREA IN TRANSITION. A study of Korea. By James 
 S. Gale. 
 
 17. ADVANCE IN THE ANTILLES. A study of Cuba and 
 Porto Rico. By Howard B. Grose. 
 
 18. THE DECISIVE HOUR OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. A study 
 of conditions throughout the non-Christian world. By John 
 R. Mott. 
 
 19. INDIA AWAKENING. A study of present conditions in 
 India. By Sherwood Eddy. 
 
 20. THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN COUNTRY. A study of the 
 problem of the Rural Church. By Warren H. Wilson. 
 
 21. THE CALL OF THE WORLD. A survey of conditions at 
 home and abroad of challenging interest to men. By W. E. 
 Doughty.
 
 22. THE EMERGENCY IN CHINA. A study of present-day 
 conditions in China. By F. L. Hawks Pott. 
 
 23. MEXICO TO-DAY: Social. Political, and Religious Con- 
 ditions. A study of present-day conditions in Mexico. By 
 George B. Winton. 
 
 24. IMMIGRANT FORCES. A study of the immigrant in his 
 home and American environment. By William P. Shriver. 
 
 25. THE NEW ERA IN ASIA. Contrast of early and pres- 
 ent conditions in the Orient By Sherwood Eddy. 
 
 26. THE SOCIAL ASPECTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. A study 
 of the social achievements of foreign missions. By W. H. 
 P. Faunce. 
 
 27. THE NEW HOME MISSIONS. A study of the social 
 achievements and social program of home missions. By H. 
 Paul Douglass. 
 
 28. THE AMERICAN INDIAN ON THE NEW TRAIL. A story 
 of the Red Men of the United States and the Christian 
 gospel. By Thomas C. Moffett. 
 
 In addition to the above courses, the following have been 
 published especially for use among younger persons : 
 
 1. UGANDA'S WHITE MAN OF WORK. The story of Alex- 
 ander M. Mackay of Africa. By Sophia Lyon Fahs. 
 
 2. SERVANTS OF THE KING. A series of eleven sketches 
 of famous home and foreign missionaries. By Robert E. 
 Speer. 
 
 3. UNDER MARCHING ORDERS. The story of Mary Porter 
 Gamewell of China. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 
 
 4. WINNING THE OREGON COUNTRY. The story of Marcus 
 Whitman and Jason Lee in the Oregon country. By John 
 T. Faris. 
 
 5. THE BLACK BEARDED BARBARIAN. The story of George 
 Leslie Mackay of Formosa. By Marian Keith. 
 
 6. LIVINGSTONE THE PATHFINDER. The story of David 
 Livingstone. By Basil Mathews. 
 
 7. ANN OF AVA. The story of Ann Hasseltine Judson of 
 Burma. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 
 
 These books are published by mutual arrangement among 
 the home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders 
 should be addressed They are bound uniformly and ar* 
 sold at 60 cents in cloth, and 40 cents in paper ; prepaid.
 
 New 
 
 The Whole World for Its Scope. 
 Promotes World Peace. 
 Cultivates the Missionary Spirit. 
 
 Unique 
 
 Contains True Stories of Life, Ac- 
 tion, and Bravery. 
 
 Develops High Ideals. 
 
 Describes the Customs of Peoples in 
 All Lands. 
 
 Attractive 
 
 Bound in a Beautiful, Appropriate 
 
 Cover in Colors. 
 Abundantly Illustrated with Original 
 
 Drawings and Photographs. 
 Printed on Excellent, High-finish 
 
 Paper. 
 
 EVERYLAND in the Home. Why not 
 supplement your influence among boys and 
 girls? 
 
 EVERYLAND in the Sunday-school. A 
 rich source for missionary story material. 
 An excellent award, Christmas, or birthday 
 gift 
 
 EVERYLAND is issued quarterly, sixty- 
 four pages and cover. Subscription price, 
 50 cents a year, 10 cents extra for Canada, 
 and 20 cents extra for foreign postage. 
 
 EVERYLAND, 156 Fifth Ave., New York City
 
 ADULT MISSION STUDY TEXT-BOOKS 
 
 The New Home Missions 
 
 BY H. PAUL DOUGLASS 
 
 Dr. Douglass in his treatment of the new home missions displays 
 a masterly knowledge of the whole social program of the Christian 
 Church in the United States. He traces the expansion of home mis- 
 sions and the social by-products of pioneer effort. He shows the 
 new social program necessary in rural communities and city centers. 
 Two chapters deal with the problem of social justice in industrial 
 life, and race problems. The final chapters discuss the social 
 reaction of home missions upon the Church and the social realiza- 
 tion of Christianity in America. 
 
 India Awakening 
 BY GEORGE SHERWOOD EDDY 
 
 A vital discussion of many of India's present problems. Mr. 
 Eddy, as secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association for 
 India, and as a missionary in a regular station, has had exceptional 
 opportunity to study all phases of present-day life in India and knows 
 his subject as few other men do. 
 
 The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions 
 
 BY WILLIAM H. P. FAUNCE 
 
 Dr. Faunce has packed into this volume his observations of a 
 world tour. In his introductory chapters he treats the relation 
 of the individual to society, and contrasts the social life of the East 
 and the West. Five chapters record the remarkable social achieve- 
 ments of Christian Missions in non-Christian lands. In the dosing 
 chapter he discusses the relations of the East and the West. 
 
 Korea in Transition 
 
 BY JAMES S. GALE 
 
 "Of all the books on Korea, the body of this one by Mr. Gale, 
 despite his learning as lexicographer and translator, has the most 
 red blood in it. It pulses on every page. It is written by a man 
 whose heart overflows through his pen from the well of deep ex- 
 periences. Edited with skill, and ideal for purposes of study, it is 
 the best presentation of Christian Korea in our language." 
 
 The Independent. 
 
 The American Indian on the New Trail 
 
 BY THOMAS C. MOFFETT 
 
 Dr. Moffett is the recognized authority on Indian missions in 
 the United States. He writes from an intimate knowledge based 
 upon actual work and extensive observation. He treats race rela- 
 tionships, social, moral and religious conditions, and the splendid 
 results of education and the Gospel. One chapter is devoted to 
 Alaskans. The book contains a number of original maps and statis- 
 tical tables.
 
 The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions 
 
 BY JOHN R. MOTT 
 
 Dr. Mott probably has as wide an acquaintance as any man of 
 this generation, through travel and observation, with the present 
 religious condition of the world. These discussions, based on the 
 reports of the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, 
 July, 1910, constitute the latest and most authoritative presentation 
 of the present missionary situation. 
 
 The Emergency in China 
 
 BY F. L. HAWKS POTT 
 
 Napoleon said, "When China moves, she will move the world." 
 Conditions in China are changing so rapidly that an up-to-date stu- 
 dent will welcome the clear and authoritative survey as furnished by 
 Dr. Pott in this book. The manuscript was not completed until 
 after the opening of the Chinese Parliament, March, 1913. It 
 therefore provides a statement of the present situation and fore- 
 shadows the future. 
 
 Immigrant Forces 
 
 BY WILLIAM P. SHRIVER 
 
 This survey of the people now coming to the shores of America 
 emphasizes the contribution of the immigrant population to Ameri- 
 can development and civilization. It also suggests the opportunity 
 of the Church in determining the future of these new citizens. The 
 best and most up-to-date book on the subject. 
 
 The Church of the Open Country 
 
 BY WARREN H. WILSON 
 
 Dr. Wilson is superintendent of the Department of Church and 
 Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian 
 Church, and is recognized as the foremost leader in the presentation 
 of practical plans for the solution of the problem of the country 
 churches. The modern economic development of our nation has 
 brought the church face to face with the seriousness of the problem 
 of the rural community. In this book Dr. Wilson shows that the 
 Church has a fundamental relation to the development of modern 
 country life. 
 
 Mexico To-Day 
 BY GEORGE B. WINTON 
 
 A condensed survey of Mexico, with emphasis on the present. 
 The book discusses the social, moral, educational, political and 
 religious conditions, and closes with a statement of the contribution 
 Protestantism is making in the solution of Mexico's problems. 
 
 Price, cloth, 60 cents; paper, 40 cents; postpaid.
 
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