ALICE M. GUERNSEY UNDER OUR FLAG A STUDY OF NATIONAL CONDI- TIONS FROM THE STAND- POINT OF WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY WORK BY ALICE MrCtJERNSEY , I S-jfo " Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day ; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH ^2 KC Copyright, 1903, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY (June) SIXTH EDITION New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue Chicago : 63 Washington Street Toronto : 27 Richmond Street, W. London : 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh : 30 St. Mary Street (=> $ Bvictoft CONTENTS PAGE CENTRAL THOUGHT 9 A RACE IN TRANSITION 13 IN THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, 33 ON THE OUTPOSTS Frontiers 55 Alaska 72 CHILDREN OF THE ORIENT. In the Hawaiian Islands, .... 84 The Chinese, 90 " OLD SETTLERS " AND NEW. The Indians, 100 Spanish-speaking People, . . . .112 MORMONISM AND THE MORMONS 132 WHERE EXTREMES MEET, 160 SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME MISSIONARY MEETINGS, . 178 TOPICS FOR THOUGHT, 182 HOME MISSION BOOKS, ...... 186 AMERICA My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing ! Land where my fathers died,, Land of the pilgrim's pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring ! My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love. I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills, My heart with rapture thrills Like that above ! Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing ! Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light, Vrotect us by Thy might, Great God, our King. WOMAN'S WORK FOR HOME MISSIONS ORGANIZATIONS BAPTIST. Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society. Cor. Sec., Mrs. M. C. Reynolds, 510 Tremont Temple. Boston, Mass. Official organ, Home Mission Echoes. Women's Baptist Home Missionary Society. Cor. Sec., Miss M. G. Burdette, 2421 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111. Official organ, Tidings. CONGREGATIONAL. Forty-one State organizations, bound together by an Annual Conference of officers, carry on the Woman's Home Missionary work. CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN. Woman's Board of Missions. Cor. Sec., Mrs. Dee Ferguson Clarke, Y. M. C. A. Building, Evansville, Ind. Official organ, the Woman's Department in Missionary Record. (Home and Foreign.) LUTHERAN. Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society. Cor. Sec., Miss M. H. Morris, 406 North Green St., Baltimore, Md. Official organ, the Woman's Depart- ment in Lutheran Missionary Record. METHODIST EPISCOPAL. Woman's Home Missionary Society. Cor. Sec., Mrs. Delia L. Williams, Delaware, Ohio. Official organs, Woman's Home Missions and Children's Home Missions, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. Woman's Home Mission Society. Cor. Sec., Mrs. R. W. MacDonell, 346 Public Square, Nashville, Tenn. Official organ, Our Homes. PRESBYTERIAN. Woman's Board of Home Missions. Cor. Sec. (acting), Mrs. John F. Pingry, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Official organs, Home Mission Monthly and Over Sea and Land (the latter, both Home and Foreign, for children). PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL. The Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions. Cor. Sec., Miss Julia C. Emery, 281 Fourth Avenue, New York City. Official organ, the Woman's Depart- ment of The Spirit of Missions. (Home and Foreign.) REFORMED CHURCH OF AMERICA. Women's Executive Committee Board of Domestic Missions. Cor. Sec , Mrs. E. B. Horton, 25 East 22d Street, New York City. Official organ, the Woman's De- partment in The Mission Field. (Home and Foreign.) SUGGESTIONS THE methods of using this book may be as varied as the conditions surrounding its users. The following outline of plans is given for the help of those who may wish it : 1. Members of the society read the chapters at home and talk them over at the meetings; the topics may be still farther elaborated by papers, talks and discussions on various allied themes. 2. The main chapter is read aloud at the meet- ing. The illustrations following each section are read by different members present, and discussed by all. 3. A leader appointed at a previous meeting, prepares herself by thorough study of the theme to give the substance of a chapter in her own words, and to answer questions upon it; others should do their part by asking numerous ques- tions. 4. A given chapter is divided into sections, and a member of the society assigned to take charge of each section and to present it in whatever way she sees fit at the next meeting. 6. Written questions are distributed, to be an- swered from previous reading of a given chapter. 6 CENTRAL THOUGHT IT should never be forgotten that the end and aim of Woman's Home Missionary work, aside from the personal salvation of those brought under its influence, is to uplift the homes of the nation and, thereby, its citizenship. The proudest distinction of America is that it is a land of homes. To uplift the home requires effort along many and varied lines. There must be housekeepers trained in all deft and womanly arts of house- wifery; there must be nurses and doctors able to take intelligent care of the sick; there must be schools and teachers capable of co-operating with the home at its best. Hence, for the de- velopment of a race, or a nation, there must be industrial Homes, normal classes, advanced edu- cation of young men and young women, that they may keep step together as makers of homes. With this thought in mind, the subject-matter of this book centres around the home, in the broad sense of the term. Does an organisation of Home Missionary women maintain a school for the children in some neglected or forgotten region ? The reflex influence of the school is felt 9 10 UNDER OUR FLAG in the homes of its pupils, and the missionary teacher, visiting from house to house or from hut, or wigwam, or tepee to other dwellings of like character finds that slowly, but surely, the home-life takes on new and brighter aspects. Is an industrial Home set as a signal light in the darkness of ignorance and superstition? Back to the forlorn places they have called home its eager students carry the lessons of neatness, industry, thrift and intelligence, and the desert begins to blossom. Is a kindergarten started for the waifs of the street? "Teacher" becomes a household word, the name of a friend, and the work enlarges into a Settlement with Christian women at its head, the guides and helpers of the womanhood around them. It is fitting, therefore, that the first book of an inter-denominational study course for societies of Home Missionary women should deal with the needs found, in the main, in the 'homes of the nation. There are other fields of missionary en- deavor in the homeland that must be untouched here. The mighty task of starting and main- taining churches in the great Northwest and the colonial sections of the United States, the per- plexing problems of city evangelisation, the sup- port of colleges in the South and of missionary fields covering vast areas these, though largely aided by the gifts of women, are managed by the general missionary societies of the church with men as their officers. The womanhood of the CENTRAL THOUGHT 11 church, God-commissioned, gathers up the glean- ings, and the Lord of the harvest multiplies them into sheaves of golden fruitage. 1607-1903 almost three hundred years! It is the difference between armed sailing-vessels and armored menof-war, between signal fires from mountain peaks and wireless telegraphy! It would be an interesting quest to trace the causes of present conditions, and note the " foot- prints on the sands of time " footprints of pioneers in arts and crafts, in education and statesmanship, as well as in want and suffering and sin. But this limited study must, of neces- sity, deal with the living, active Present, with the conditions existing to-day under the flag of our love and devotion, with the needs that can be met both for our land and for other lands only by Home Missionary work. The fulfilment of the plan of this Home Mis- sionary Series involves other books which shall deal with the heroic and successful efforts that are being made to meet the needs and better the conditions described in these pages. The story here told is, of necessity, somewhat sombre. But let no one be discouraged. An enemy in plain sight is more easily met and vanquished than one in ambush. A mistake seen, may be corrected. In the early days of the South African war, a telegram came across the wires from be- 12 UNDER OUR FLAG leaguered Ladysmith, to this effect : " A civilian has just been sentenced by court-martial to a year's imprisonment for causing despondency." What had he done? Nothing, save to go along the lines of the brave defenders of the city and say discouraging things. That was all but it was enough to make the sentence of the court- martial richly deserved. What is the outlook? Pilgrim, in Doubting Castle, says, " It is all dark. The Mormons are ' lengthening their cords and strengthening their stakes.' The Negro problem is farther from solution than ever. Our great cities are sunk in iniquity. And, as if we had not enough burdens before, Alaska and Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines have been added. We can touch but the outer fringes of the great pall of darkness and sin. Better fold our hands and let things drift." O Pilgrim, look from the windows! You have not even known that there were windows in Doubting Castle! But look now out to- ward the east. See! the sun is rising, calm, clear and beautiful. It is the " Sun of Right- eousness," with healing in its beams. Mark how its rays chase the 'darkness away! See the mists and miasmas flee before their coming! O Pil- grim, the locks are broken, though you know it not. Come out from Doubting Castle, walk forth in God's free sunlight, and you will know that He has right of way in the world. II A RACE IN TRANSITION TO say that all Negro homes in the South are like those hereafter described would be unjust to a very large class of edu- cated, cultivated people of the Negro race. But since the object of this book is to show existent needs, it must present in the foreground of its picture the homes of which, alas, there are abundant examples that show the necessity of such an uplift as can come only from within, through the development and teaching of their inmates. It goes without saying that there are many Negro homes that compare favorably in cleanli- ness and attractiveness with the best American homes of similar class. Careful estimates indi- cate that, take the South as a whole, city and country, two per cent, of the homes of the colored race are of this kind and the fact is one of pro- found encouragement, especially when it is re- membered that the results have been obtained, in the main, within the lifetime of a single gener- ation. But even the superficial glance of a pass- ing traveller in the Southland discovers much in the Negro settlements that is below the standard 13 14 UNDER OUR FLAG of the true American home. Lack of money is no more evident than lack of thrift. A tumbling shanty, with floor of loose boards or no floor at all outside chimney, no window save a square hole in the wall, and but one room for the eating, sleeping and living of the entire family, may be an abiding place it can hardly be called a home. As a rule, the home-makers of the Southern Negroes are wage-earners, and while at work from morning until evening their offspring must care for themselves. They have, as a matter of course, but little opportunity for home-making, and it can hardly be a matter of surprise that in these small, one-room cabins the ordinary condi- tions of domestic life elsewhere are " conspicuous by their absence." The food is cooked over an open fire, and such a thing as sitting down to a table for a family meal is practically unknown. Each takes his portion and eats it on the door- step, or wherever is most convenient. Clean, white tablecloths, napkins, even knives and forks, are a distinct revelation to the girl going from such a dwelling to an industrial Home. And her shyness and awkwardness are so great that for some time it requires constant effort on the part of her teachers to ensure that she eats and sleeps in accordance with the customs of civilised life. What becomes of the sweet intimacies of fam- ily life under such conditions? What opportu- nity is there for the cultivation of taste in dress, or love of " the good, the true and the beauti- RACE IN TRANSITION 15 ful " ? What dangers lurk in such conditions for the womanly instincts of modesty and pro- priety! How can there be development of " the strong upward tendencies " that are the birth- right of humanity, without distinction of race? What ideals can be cherished when dark corners and stale odors characterise the place, and the circus handbill is the chief teacher of decoration? The redeeming feature of country life under these conditions is God's free, glad outdoors. There are trees and flowers and fields, and sun- shine and air. And yet the yards of these cabins, even if set off by rickety fences, are either hard and bare, or filled with weeds. If he is a bene- factor who makes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, what shall be said of her who teaches that grass and flowers can green and blossom where none have been seen, or even dreamed of? Such conditions are bad enough in the coun- try. But when they exist in the heart of a city, then is the region a slum, indeed. The characteristic basis of city life among the Negroes of the South is the alley. Opening on this, and between better houses often a con- traction, in reality, of their backyard space stand tiny dwellings, of one room or two, lack- ing ceiling and plastering, windows and paint simply boxes on the ground, or perched on wooden or brick pillars, without cellar or foun- These habitations are crowded together 16 UNDER OUR FLAG in groups, water being obtained from wells com- mon to the community and easily contaminated by sewage. Sewer connections are seldom made. Such physical conditions are bad enough, and leave no room for wonder at the high death-rate among the Negroes of the South. But their chief importance, after all, is their effect on the mental and moral possibilities. The one-room house is the primitive and original form of the home, as illustrated by the wigwam of the In- dian and the topek of the Eskimo. It is by no means peculiar to the Negroes. As a residence for two husband and wife it may be made fairly comfortable and respectable. But fill it with children of differing ages, and it becomes a dan- ger-spot in the community. The resultant herd- ing no other word expresses it makes all home decency and courtesy and elevation almost an impossibility. Another danger to be recognised is the fact that the " best Negro settlements are never free from the intrusion of the worst class of whites.'* The paths of girlhood and young womanhood among this people are set with traps and snares undreamed of by their more fortunate sisters. But there is a second danger, inherent, per- haps, in the make-up of mankind, but developed by circumstances among the Negroes of the South to an unusual degree. " Get leave to work In this world 'tis the best you get at all," RACE IN TRANSITION 17 sings Mrs. Browning. In the vocabulary of the Negro race, especially under the warm sunshine of the South, this has been too often rendered, " Get away from work in this world just as far as you can." The effect of this on the home can easily be imagined. With little work and, in con- sequence, little money in the hands of the head of the household, there is little to do with and still less for improvements in methods, even if the desire for them existed. There has come, also, as the product of various causes, a half- scorn for work and workers, and hence it is true that one of the imperative lessons for the colored race is the nobility of work of work for work's sake, of honest, downright, hard work, of pride in doing it well <and of satisfaction in its results that can be obtained in no other way. " Lazy " is not always the correct adjective to apply to man or woman, however much cir- cumstances may suggest it. Experience abun- dantly proves that lack of stimulus, ambition stifled at its birth, confining environments, often lead to that which seems like laziness to mere observers. But it is noticeable that Negro boys trained in certain schools in the South are in demand as farm laborers because they " do a full day's work." Only by such training can labor be " lifted up out of toil and drudgery into that which is dignified and beautiful." " The Negro needs," writes Mr. Booker T. 18 UNDER OUR FLAG Washington, " knowledge that is harnessed." A sense of proportions, of values, is none the less necessary. " One of the saddest sights I ever saw," writes again this clear-sighted Afro-Ameri- can, " was the placing of a $300 rosewood piano in a country school in the Black Belt. Four- fifths of the people in the community owned no land, many lived in rented one-room cabins, many were in debt for food supplies, many mortgaged their crops for the food on which to live, and not one had a bank account. After the home and the necessaries of life were sup- plied, could come the piano. One piano in a home of one's own is worth twenty in a log cabin. The music lessons in school were all right, but should have been deferred about twenty-five years." A writer from the Black Belt of Alabama, a section where the proportion of Negroes to whites is twenty-seven to one, says : " The stand- ard of morality is low; human life is cheap, and crime is common. The families are handicapped by the crop-mortgage system, through which ' de lender owns de borrower, wife an' chillun, an' all dey raise.' " With interest on such loans ranging anywhere from fifteen to forty per cent., what chance can there be to " get ahead " ? According to the census of 1900, ten Southern States having 25 per cent, of the school popula- tion of this country own only 4 per cent, of the public school property, and expend only 6 1-2 RACE IN TRANSITION l per cent, of the public school moneys. As an inevitable result, illiteracy, with all its evils and dangers, follows. The annual per capita expenditure for public schools in Mas- sachusetts is $4.93; in the country, as a whole, $2.83. In Alabama it is fifty cents, and. in North Carolina, fifty-one. Mr. Washington is authority for the statement that there is one whole county in the South where the State or school authorities do not own a single dollar's worth of school property, and where not a school has a blackboard or a piece of crayon. " And yet," he adds, " a vote in this county means as much to the nation as a vote in the city of Boston." The last census shows that more than half of the Negro population of Georgia, South Caro- lina, Alabama and Louisiana is illiterate. Tak- ing out the few, comparatively, in the educa- tional centres of those States, the intelligence, as a whole, is hardly more than it was fifty years ago. To realise what this means it is well to remember that in 1880 there were 3,950,000 Negroes in the United States. To-day they number some ten millions, or nearly twice as many as the 'entire population of the Dominion of Canada. The deficiency in school facilities affects the white as well as the colored race, as shown in the next chapter. Tuskegee, Hampton, Carlisle, Cal- houn and similar schools are doing splendid 20 UNDER OUR FLAG service; the public schools are all that their con- ditions permit. But all of these cannot do all that must be done. Woman's touch is needed for the Negro womanhood and girlhood of the South, and this, the initial field of most of the Woman's Home Missionary societies, still de- mands time and means and effort. " To get the children is to get the older people. Moreover, the school door once open is the open door to the entire community life." The instinctive thought when facing such destitution, is of blame for the municipality, the county, the State, in which such conditions are possible. But the " sober second thought," con- sidering the difficulties that have already been overcome, the poverty and bankruptcy that fol- lowed the Civil War, together with the racial problems that pressed with such tremendous force upon the people and the State, realises that much, very much, has been done by the South itself for the education of its citizens, black and white alike. And more is planned, and will be carried out. " Rome was not built in a day." All honor to those who have laid the foundation on which, in the not distant future, will rise the fair superstructure of a full public school education for all the children of the State. Given a condition of need, physical, mental and spiritual, how shall it be met? " The grace of God is the great panacea for all human needs/' says one, and we reverently accept the statement RACE IN TRANSITION 21 But how shall it be brought to bear upon these needs? Shall a missionary go into the heart of a city slum and preach Christ and His salvation from sin and do nothing else? Nay, not so does God work His miracles of re- generation. With the gospel of salvation from sin must be taught, through long and painful struggle, the other gospels of cleanliness, of work, of brain-culture these as well as soul- saving. And for this teaching, the law as well as the gospel, public sentiment as well as re- ligious enthusiasm, must unite. Someone has said : " It is a pretty hard thing to make a good Christian out of a hungry man." It is equally true of a lazy man, to say nothing of an igno- rant one. Such training must be given as to equip the average child for the place he is likely to occupy in after life, and to prepare the way for future advancement in obviously exceptional cases. And this must be so done that there shall not only be no tendency, but no desire, to revert to former conditions when away from the school influence. ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS From Booker T. Washington What the [Negro] race accomplishes in these first fifty years of its freedom will at the end of these years in a large measure constitute its past. It is, indeed, a responsibility that rests upon this 22 UNDER OUR FLAG nation the foundation-laying for a people, of its past, present and future, at one and the same time. The millions of colored people in the South cannot be reached directly by any missionary agent, but they can be reached by sending out among them strong, selected young men and women with the proposed training of head and hand and heart, who will live among them and show them how to lift themselves up. Out of the Negro colleges and industrial schools of the South there are going forth each year thousands of young men and women into dark and secluded corners, into lonely log schoolhouses, amidst poverty and ignorance; and when they go forth no drums beat, no banners fly, no friends cheer, yet they are fighting the battles of this country as bravely and truly as those who go forth to do battle against a foreign enemy. From " The Southern Workman " We as Negroes must recognise that the main tendencies among us are toward bad homes, bad houses, bad family customs, and that, therefore, we must put forth especial effort among our- selves and our neighbors to guard against care- lessness, and to insure progress in home build- ing. Each one of us must strive to occupy a model home which shall inspire our neighbors. RACE IN TRANSITION 2 Secondly, we must recognise that a large part of the Negro death-rate is due to poor houses and poor home customs. Here is the place to begin, then, to improve health. Thirdly, if it is difficult to develop good minds in poor bodies, it is just as hard to instil morals in one-room cabins or in bad houses anywhere. The first step toward good family life is made in building a suitable house. Ability to read and write is only a single fea- ture of the true education. A training is required that will make the man a man and the woman a woman of the best type, resolute for any task and competent for all required duties. There has been current a great deal of talk about the needs of practical education for black children. They need, above all, theoretical train- ing. They need to realise what a home ought to be, what it ought to stand for, what the in- stitution of the family means in human develop- ment. . . . The untouched masses of the black South should be set to thinking and to wish- ing. Political economists, thinking only of dollars and cents, complain that the results of mission- ary effort are not commensurate with the outlay. " They tell us," said the late Professor Max Mul- ler, " that every convert (in foreign missions) costs us 200, and that at the present rate of 24 UNDER OUR FLAG progress it would take more than 200,000 years to evangelise the world. There is nothing at all startling in these figures. Every child born in Europe is as much a heathen as the child of a Melenesian cannibal, and it costs us more than 200 to turn a child into a Christian man. " The other calculation is totally erroneous, for an intellectual harvest must not be calculated by adding simply grain to grain, but by counting each grain as a living seed, that brings forth fruit a hundred and a thousand fold." The following table of illiteracy in the colored population of various States, including those ten years old and over, deserves careful considera- tion: Connecticut u.8 Massachusetts 12.4 New York. 12.8 Pennsylvania 15.3 New Jersey 17.5 Ohio .. 17.9 Illinois 18.2 Indiana 22.6 District of Columbia 24.2 Missouri 28.0 West Virginia 32.3 Maryland 35.2 Delaware 38. i Texas 38.2 Florida 38.5 Kentucky 40.1 Tennessee 41.6 Arkansas 43-o RACE IN TRANSITION 25 Virginia 44- 6 North Carolina 47.6 Mississippi 49- 1 Georgia 52.3 South Carolina . 52.8 Alabama 57.4 Louisiana 61.1 HINTS AND TOKENS An old colored man, looking out from the vantage-ground of experience upon the new pos- sibilities for his race, exclaimed in pitiful help- lessness: "Oh, I do want to do something for my wife and children, but I do not know how. I do not know what to do." A colored girl, trained in a Home Missionary school in Texas, cried exultantly:-" I've learned right smart. I've learned to save. I'll be the savingest one in the family when I go home." We smile at the characteristic idioms, but there is deep significance in the words. From one school the teacher writes that two of the boys walked from their homes, fifty miles away, for the sake of coming. Another boards himself on bread and water. Still other boys, anxious to " learn the book," walk some five miles each way daily, their only luncheon being corn bread and roadside berries. Some of the girls made their coming possible by picking cotton in the fields at the rate of thirty-three and a half cents per hundred pounds. 26 UNDER OUR FLAG " had given so much trouble that finally I told him he must go home. He left, but came back in a day or two for his trunk. Some of the Christian boys of the school took him into the chapel and had a prayer-meeting, seemingly without effect, praying especially for him. But he could not get away from the prayers. In three or four days he came back with the joyful news that he had found the Saviour. He said he wanted to come and confess Christ, even if I would not take him back into the school. But I was glad to restore him, for he is a changed boy, and will give us no more trouble." Letter from a mission school. Said a white-haired old Negro to a missionary teacher: "Ma'am, it cuts me to the heart to think I have to make my mark. If you don't think I'm too old, I want to come and learn to write my name." And come he did, bending pa- tiently over the strange characters, his toilworn hands painfully grasping the unaccustomed pen, but the joy of progress in his soul. " If a reading-room is needed anywhere in the world, it is in the South among the colored people, where they do not have access to Chris- tian books and papers. There are numerous grog-shops, the lowest progeny of the saloon, the social clubroom where the boys learn to smoke, to use profane language and gamble, RACE IN TRANSITION 27 where they hear vile stories and see lewd pic- tures. These are some of the perils, some of the vices, by which the young people are daily sur- rounded, and these are the only resorts to which they can go and feel welcome." Her father brought Mary Jane to the school. She wore a cotton dress, bright red in spots, through some peculiar method of dyeing. It reached her shoe-tops in front, and touched the floor in a point in the back. The trimming was coarse pillow-lace around the low, collarless neck. Her rusty, brown hat had a single red feather stuck up in front, in what she supposed was ex- actly the right angle for the prevailing fashion, and her tight-braided hair was tied with cotton strings. The teacher handed the new-comer to the care of girls of her own age for a short time. An hour later she hardly knew her. Deftly, tact- fully, the girls had rearranged her hair and dress till she actually looked like themselves. A month later, at Christmas time, her father came to take her home for the vacation, and his sur- prise was unbounded. " I never'd a knowed you, chile. You'se mighty changed." " The best workers," writes the principal of a school for Negro young men and women, " those who have taken the full school course, are needed right in the home field. The pastors of the 28 UNDER OUR FLAG churches depend on them more than on their elders; they are the hope of a better state of things in the public schools; in all missionary and reform work they are the recognised lead- ers." " Mother, don't be uneasy 'bout I in studying, because I'm doing my best, and you know when I was going to school at home I always did try to know my lessons perfect when I went to my class, so you know I am most compel to study hard here, being with so many girls that are trying with all their might to know their lessons perfect. ... I haven't cause any my teachers any trouble since I been here, none of them has never had to speak to me 'bout talking or doing anything wrong because I'm very careful in try- ing not to break any of the rules. ... It was encouraging to know that you expect me to do something. With God to help me, you shall not be disappointed." From a school-girl's letter. He was twenty-three years old a gaunt, over- grown boy applying for admission to a school. " I wants learnin'," was his introduction. " How far have you studied? " asked the prin- cipal. " Nowhere in yourn's books." "Can you read?" " Not in them books you's got." RACE IN TRANSITION 29 " Well, how are you off for means? " " I isn't mean at all." " I mean, have you any money? " " Yes, I have two dollars, an' I wants to work." " We have no work we can give you just now." " That's powerful funny. I sees lots of work that isn't did about here." "Yes? What do you see?" " Them cobwebs needs to be took down ; that stuff ought to be toted away, an' lots of things is to be did here that them boys there hasn't did." " Well, if I take you into school, will you do what these boys have not had time to do, and study your lessons, too?" " Yes, I will, for I has jest come to work an' larn." " How are you off for clothes? " " I has these pants you see, an' I can buy this coat I have on for a dollar. These shoes is mine, an' I has my working clothes." What missionary teacher could resist such a plea, even although the school was already filled beyond the capacity, not only of space, but of funds? The boy was taken, remaining four years, and then going out, a good scholar, trained in handicraft as well as in books, to teach among his own home people who " thought there was no 30 UNDER OUR FLAG need of school," and thus to form another centre of uplift and hope. MEMORY TEST What is involved in the uplifting of homes? Describe the majority of Negro homes in the country; in the city. Describe the dangers to home life of the one- room cabins. Why is the lesson of the nobility of work especially important to the colored race ? What does Mr. Washington say of music les- sons and pianos among the Negroes? What is the average per capita expenditure for public schools in Massachusetts? In the country as a whole? In Alabama? In North Caro- lina? How many Negroes are there in the country to-day? What per cent, of these in the South are il- literate? What is the South doing to better these con- ditions? Why are missionary societies of women needed in solving these problems? What does Mr. Washington consider the best plan for the uplifting of the Negro race? What is the Divine plan for human help in the redemption of the world ? Why do the Negroes of the South need both practical and theoretical training? RACE IN TRANSITION 31 Give incidents illustrating the success of such training. BIBLE LESSON Home Missionary Readings "What shall I read? " It is a frequent ques- tion from those called upon to conduct the open- ing service at a Home Missionary meeting. True, one can hardly go amiss, since the Bible is a missionary book from cover to cover, but the value of a service is distinctly increased by the reading of Scripture especially appropriate to the theme. The following selections are given as illustra- tive of many that may be made: Encouragement for Work in Desolate Places. Isa. 35- The Command and the Promise. Luke 24: 45-47; Isa. 33: 20-24; 62: 1-7; 40: 28-31. The Call for Workers. Isa. 62: 10-12; John 4: 35-36. Two Home Missionaries. (Selections from the books of Esther and Nehemiah.) HYMN FOR HOME MISSIONS. (TUNE " Sun of my Soul.") Land of our love, thy daughters meet In love and worship at the feet Of Christ, the Lord of lands, to claim Redemption for thee in His name. The ceaseless tide of human souls From either sea that o'er thee rolls, 33 UNDER OUR FLAG Grows dark with ignorance and shame; We ask redemption in His name. Thy simple children of the sun, From bitter bonds so dearly won, Stretch forth their hands with us, and claim A new redemption in His name. For homes of poverty and woe, Where love upon the hearth burns low; For holy childhood, born to shame, We ask redemption in His name. Lord over all, as through the years We plant with joy, or sow with tears, Help us to serve, 'mid praise or blame, For love of Christ, and in His name! " MARY A. LATHBURY. Ill IN THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS "Tl ^OUNTAINEERS are always free- |\/| men," is the proud motto of West JL * -1- Virginia. The " Hymn of the Vau- dois Mountaineers " is the Magna Charta of all dwellers on the heights: 44 For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our fathers' God. Thou hast made Thy children mighty By the touch of the mountain sod. Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod. For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, Our God, our fathers' God." " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," sang Israel's Psalmist. In a very practical sense, " the people of tired cities " have learned within a few years that there are " help " and strength in the mountain regions of the South, and the tides of travel set that way with steadily increasing force. But health-seekers and pleasure-seekers find that Christian life and civilisation have preceded them into the heart of the Blue Ridge and the 34 UNDER OUR FLAG Alleghanies, and the school and the church have the right of pioneers in the land. The mountain region of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama has a population, according to an eminent Southern writer, of about 2,000,000. " At least four-fifths of these," says the same writer, " will compare favorably in intelligence, morality and religion with any other population in the United States." There are several colleges of excellent standing in this section, some of which have passed the half-century, and even the century, mark. Its " scholars, orators, ministers, statesmen, have an almost passionate love for the region that gave them birth." For the condition of the other one-fifth of this mountain population, geographical limitations are largely responsible. Most of the people are the descendants of English Puritans, Scotch Covenanters, and French Huguenots. Here are "Colonial Dames," indeed; here are Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, " un- recognised, but of none the less genuine line- age." These isolated mountaineers are of the best Anglo-Saxon stock, with the blood and tra- ditions of heroes, " the only portion of our popu- lation that retains pure and undefiled the Ameri- canism of colonial times." Men of these mountains fought with honor and distinction on both sides during the Civil War. At its close they returned to their homes, drop- SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 35 ping communication and contact with the out- side world, and for them the hands of the clock of Christendom and civilisation stood still. Poor they are, but self-reliant, the axe and rifle furnishing their monotonous support. The loom in the cabin home, the fireplace for cooking sometimes the still hidden in the woods for illicit whiskey-making supply their modest wants. In the Southern mountains, as elsewhere, the homes are an index of conditions and needs. And here, too, as everywhere else, it goes without saying that there are good homes, comfortable, cultured homes, homes of college graduates and people of refinement equal to the best in the land. It is not necessary to picture these, but others must be shown in any adequate presenta- tion of the country's needs. They are not unlike homes elsewhere, North and South, with the ex- ception that a greater degree of geographical isolation has placed its inevitable stamp upon them. Dark, one-room cabins in the midst of bare, uncultivated land, with scant furniture, and that mostly home-made, will be rapidly replaced by better things when the sons and daughters of these homes, returning from school, bring with them the lessons there received in home- keeping, garden-making, cooking, quickness of brain to plan, and deftness of hand to execute. All the needs of the home are not revealed by its walls and furnishings. When the mother in the mountains, shut away from the blessed op* 36 UNDER OUR FLAG portunities given to so many of her sisters, en- ters the valley of the shadow that a new life may come into the world, how pitiful is the lack of educated care and skill! The Rachel of the mountains weeps as bitterly over the death of her first-born as the mothers in more fortunate homes and with the added pang that if better knowledge had been hers, or better medical skill obtainable, the sorrow need not have been. The preaching of the gospel of work is de- manded here, as elsewhere. Too often potatoes are dug only when wanted, in a happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth fashion; wood from the unshel- tered pile is split for the preparation of each meal as it comes, and cotton and corn go un- gathered until convenience serves, with little re- gard to the resultant effects upon the crops, or the pocket-book or larder. Another and a more serious danger threatens the girlhood and womanhood of these homes. Mormon elders, wolves in sheep's clothing, tra- verse the mountains, " seeking whom they may devour." "Have you any church here?" asked a traveller in one of the most inaccessible parts of the Alleghanies. " Yes," was the reply. " Just 'round the corner of that hill you'll find a church." Into those mountain fastnesses the Mormon missionary had penetrated, establishing there a " church " of the Latter-Day Saints, poisoning SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 37 the minds of the people, and luring them to leave " the strength of the hills " for the pollution and moral degradation of Utah. These men are sap- pers and miners in the army of him who is ever and always the enemy of Christ and the church. Slowly, skilfully, they are undermining our heri- tage of Christian liberty and true civilisation. When will churchmen and statesmen awake to the danger? " The great difficulty in the way of improve- ment," says Bishop E. E. Hoss of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, " is poverty. Much of the soil is very poor, and yields only a scant re- turn to labor. ... In many instances the peo- ple have given up hope, and do not look for any- thing better than they have known." A writer in a missionary magazine gives a vivid picture of conditions in this region: " A visit to the Southern mountain field meant early morning starts and journeyings over un- speakable, washed-out roads, through gorgeous autumn woods, into dim, brook-threaded coves, past rustic sorghum boilers and primitive mills, into the deep silence of the mountains sug- gestive of mystery and danger that the sight of an occasional mountaineer with his rifle quickens and enhances then suddenly the open valley and the schoolhouse crowded with mountain boys and girls." Prominent among the mountain problems of the South stands the need of more schools, and 38 UNDER OUR FLAG better ones, of schools for the training of hand and eye, as well as of the brain. Two months of study perhaps in July and August, with in- different teachers may be better than none, but it is far from being all that should be given to young Americans of the present day. " Why does not the State furnish good schools and good teachers, as a matter of self-protection?" There is one simple and complete answer to this and similar questions the Southern States are poor. President Dabney, of the University of Tennes- see, is authority for the statement that the people of the South are doing as much per taxable dol- lar as are those of the North.* " The poverty of the South," says an editorial writer on a New York daily, " is the fundamental fact that ex- plains the brief school terms and the ill-com- pensated, inefficient teachers. We can scarcely be said to have solved the educational problem, even in New York City, in view of the failure of the schools to keep step with the increase of population, and it should occasion no surprise that the slender resources of the Southern States are found insufficient. Moreover, the ratio of children to adult males is surprisingly larger in the South than in the North; 100 to 51 in South Carolina, against 100 to 102 in New York." Child labor threatens to take from the chil- *The taxable property in Tennessee, for instance, for each child of school age is $327 ; in New York, $2,661. SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 39 dren of the South even the limited education provided by the State law. Only the strong arm of compulsory education, enforced by Christian beneficence, to furnish the needed opportunity, can avert the threatening danger. " If you save the child to-day you have saved the nation to- morrow/' applies here as well as elsewhere. " The Star of Bethlehem " of more reforms than temperance " stands over the schoolhouse." It were easy to picture homes that would make the heart of Christian womanhood ache with unutterable sorrow and pity; schools that are little more than the name might be described in truthful detail; communities where the homely virtues that are a part of the Anglo-Saxon's birthright have been overgrown by lust and sin, are not unknown in the Southern mountains or anywhere else on this broad continent of ours. But all that is required to show the absolute necessity of help from outside sources, given in the spirit of Christian love and brotherly kind- ness, can easily be imagined by those whose hearts are tuned to the cry of the helpless. The free-handed, open-hearted South, the fortunate, prosperous North each must help, according to its ability, until the glad day dawn when " the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- lished in the top of the mountains." The line of progress in this section must be, in the marin, from the Christian school to the Christian church, and then to the Christian home. 40 UNDER OUR FLAG We cannot hope to see the beautiful Southland taking the position to which it is so royally en- titled without the Christianised, educated sup- port of these citizens of its ramparts. The country needs them. They are not anarchists, or adventurers, there are few foreign names among them. They are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, Americans " to the manner born," and they wait " upon the mountains " for " the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." IS IT WORTH WHILE ? " The cry for schools is so great and urgent that the hearts of the workers are constantly torn with longings to possess some magical power to grant these pleas." Students are eager to work out their tuition fees, and in one school in the Southern moun- tains forty were rejected in a recent fall term for lack of opportunity to do this. Is it any won- der that industrial schools are popular? A twelve-year old boy in North Carolina walked six miles to school in the morning and back again at night every school day all winter, save on the few rare occasions when the family mule could be spared for his use. " The new boys who have come to us this SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 41 term are for the most part larger boys, and some of them men grown in size, who can just read and write a little, and who, eager for an education, enter the first grade with the small boys." From a Mountain Teacher. " I was afeared goin' down there to school might spoil Belvy and Gertrude; but it ain't, not a bit. They work every bit as good as they did, and they've learned to do a sight of things. Belvy, there, now, ain't been out of the corn- field one day since the school was out, early in June, and Gertie she just gets the meals right ahead. I tell you, I think a heap of that school." Testimony of a Mountain Mother. " Every one of them missionary women has been just like a sister to me/' said another mother. " When my poor little baby died, they came right in, and when we're sick they ain't afraid to help us, and they've told us about the blessed Jesus." " Money is scarce in the mountains. Even the school-child needing a pencil will bring an egg in exchange. A few days ago I found a woman and two children waiting on the porch. They had walked four miles. The mother had a chicken which she gave in payment of her sys- tematic offering pledge for the church, and a gal- lon of cherries to pay for a child's dress, while 42 UNDER OUR FLAG the little five-year-old girl had brought some strawberries to buy herself an apron." From a Southern Teacher. " The Southern mountaineers are probably the best people on earth as raw material; their very vices lean to virtue's side. The stores of H. have broken windows with bits of thin board tacked in them that a ten-year-old boy could push out, yet no store is interfered with, though left from sunset to sunrise without a soul near; nobody ex- pects anything to be stolen. . . . These people believe in God and in the Bible some may know little and care less about them, but way down in their hearts they firmly believe." From 'Home Mission Monthly. " The mountaineers have been reduced to their present condition of poverty and ignorance by the strenuous conditions under which they have been compelled to live. No one who has never himself experienced those conditions can realise how terrible is their effect upon the individual life, or how great their effect must be upon the life of a family from generation to generation. To live on the mountainside, and, perhaps, in the depths of a forest, without roads, without means of transportation, on such products as the soil outside the cabin door provides, and in a climate of great severity, will tell upon any man or woman, or family, or stock, however fine its origin." Rev. W . S. P timer Bryan. SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 43 " The Highlands were so sparsely settled as to make it almost impossible to perpetuate the in- herited institutions, the school and the church. The few books the first settlers brought with them were lost or torn to pieces by the young children, and a mental and spiritual famine has been the natural sequence, the minds and souls of each generation becoming more and more anaemic for lack of nourishment." Back in the mountains, a forty-mile ride on muleback from the nearest railroad station, is a " Settlement " school. Many of its pupils walk four miles and back daily over the rough moun- tain paths for the sake of attending the school, and the numbers are twice as many as the room was intended to accommodate, four sitting on seats meant only for two. Only teachers who know what such crowding would mean under more favorable conditions, in the way of dis- order and lack of discipline, can fully appreci- ate the spur of necessity that makes the children eager for this opportunity. From an isolated mountain section came the call for a teacher. Those in charge of the mis- sion school receiving the appeal carefully se- lected the one they deemed best adapted to the pioneer work, and sent her forward with their blessings and prayers. She found a house with some rude benches and sixty children awaiting 44 UNDER OUR FLAG her and that was all. No text-books, black- boards, desks, no school supplies of any descrip- tion, but human lives to be moulded and shaped for time and for eternity. Bravely she took up the work, and none the less bravely was she met by her pupils. What mattered it that they had to kneel on the floor and use the benches to write on it was a chance to learn, and learn they did. The first Sunday brought still other duties for the young worker. A Sunday-school must be held and church service maintained with uncer- tain help in the carrying on of either. In the " parish " of that young woman teacher to-day there are twelve hundred people unshepherded but for the care of this faithful, consecrated worker, who one day asked on her knees : " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " Their own words and deeds bear the best tes- timony to the longing for an education among the youth of this mountain region. The follow- ing incidents, rich in pathos and filled with the pluck that wins, are reported in the Christian En- deavor World: A young man entered a college office, and, touching the president's arm, asked in a peculiar mountain brogue, " Be ye the man who sells larnin'?" Before the president could reply, he asked again, " Look here, mister, do you uns run this here thing? " SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 45 The president replied, " Yes, when the thing is not running me. What can I do for you?" " Heaps," was the only reply. Then after a pause the lad said, " I has hearn that you uns educate poor boys here, and, being as I am poor, thought I'd come and see if 'twas so. Do ye?" The president replied that poor boys attended the college, but that it took money to provide for them, that they were expected to pay some- thing. The boy was greatly troubled. " Have you anything to pay for your food and lodging? " asked the president. " Yes, sir," was the reply, " I has a little spotted steer; and if you uns will let me, I'll stay wid you till I larn him up." Such persistence generally carries its point, and the lad remained, and the little steer lasted for years. The president's closing comment upon the incident is this: "I have had the pleasure of sitting in the pew while I listened to my boy, now a young man, as he preached the glad tid- ings of salvation. Does it pay to help such boys?" The other incident is even more pathetic. A young boy applied for admission to the college. He had been prepared by a former student, and was able to enter the freshman class. He brought with him a supply of provisions, rented a room, and did his own cooking. For months 46 UNDER OUR FLAG he worked and studied, making rapid progress. One day the president met him, and found that he was greatly distressed. As soon as he could control himself, he said, " I must go home; it is time to be at work with the crop, it has rained so much, and I am needed." The president reasoned with him, and tried to show him the folly of giving up his studies at that time. He broke down completely, and, sobbing as if his heart were broken, said: " I can't study; when I take up my book, I see on every page my mother with a hoe in her hand, working like a slave to keep me in school. I'd rather not be educated than be compelled to look at that pic- ture." In all probability the boy had written home, stating that he expected to leave college that day, for at this juncture the mother appeared. Mother-fashion she drew him into her arms, and said, " Davy, my boy, would you break mammy's heart? Stay! Mammy will work for her baby, and will never stop until you say, ' Mammy, here is my 'ploma.' " A friend called to see the parents of Dave at their humble mountain home. It was the month of July, and the mother was cooking at the fire- place. " Mrs. Green, you ought to have a cooking- stove," was the comment of the visitor. SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS *7 " I had one, but I put it in Davy's head," was the only reply. That mother had sold the stove in order to keep her boy at school. She cannot read, but she was determined that her boy should have an education. At his graduation she was happier than a queen, for she saw her boy receive his diploma, and also carry off second honors in his class. I think that it must somewhere be written, " Blessed are the mothers who make a way for their boys to ascend, for their reward is great both here and hereafter." FACTS AND FIGURES* "The census of 1900 showed a population in the States south of the Potomac and east of the Mississippi of 10,400,000 white and 6,000,000 black. "In these States there were 3, 981,000 white and 2,420,000 colored children of school age (five to twenty years), a total of 6,401,000. The school enrolment in 1900 was 60 per cent, of the en- tire number, and the school attendance 70 per cent of the enrolment. One-half of the colored and one-fifth of the white children receive no schooling whatever. * The Civil War, prostrating the South and destroy- ing its institutions, caused a great temporary increase of illiteracy a condition from which the section is rally* ing quite as rapidly, perhaps, as could be expected. 48 UNDER OUR FLAG " The average child, whites and blacks to- gether, who attends school at all, stops with the third grade. This means that the average citizen in the South gets only three years of schooling in his whole life. AVERAGES Years in Value school Salary of school property teacher Days in Amt. exp. sch. year per pupil N. C., 2.6 $180 $23.36 70.8 $4-34 s. c., 2.5 178 23.20 88.4 4-44 Ala., 2.4 212 27.50 78.3 3-10 Ga., 523 27.OO 112. 6.64 " In other words, in these States, in school- houses costing an average of $276 each, under teachers receiving the average salary of $25 a month, we are giving the children in actual at- tendance five cents' worth of schooling a day for eighty-seven days in the year! " In 1900 the percentage of illiterates among males over twenty-one native whites, the sons of native parents was in Virginia 12.5; in North Carolina, 19; in South Carolina, 12.6; in Georgia, 12.1; in Alabama, 14.2; in Tennessee, 14.5; in Kentucky, 15.5. These are grown white men, descendants of the original Southern stock. In Mississippi there is a marked difference, the percentage of illiteracy being only 8.3, directly traceable to their better schools, established some twelve years ago." President Charles W. Dab- ney, of the University of Tennessee, in an address on " A National Problem" SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 49 A PRESENT-DAY PERIL " Next to Massachusetts, South Carolina manufactures more cotton cloth than any other State in the Union, and the cotton mills of South Carolina are mostly owned and operated by New England capital. " The infant factory slaves can never develop into men and women. Boys and girls from the age of six years and upwards are employed. They usually work from six in the morning until seven at night. For four months of the year they go to work before daylight and work until after dark. " At noon I saw them sit on the floor devour- ing their food, then topple over in sleep, in all the abandon of babyhood. When it came time to go to work, the foreman marched through the groups, shaking the sleepers and shouting in their ears. The long afternoon had begun, and from a quarter to one until seven they worked without respite. They watched the fly- ing spindles on a frame twenty feet long, and tied the broken threads; they could not sit at their tasks, but paced back and forth. The roar of the machinery drowned every sound, the noise and the constant looking at the wheel reduces in a few months nervous sensation to the mini- mum. The child no more longs for the com- panionship of all the wild, free things that run, fly, climb, or swim. Children seven or eight 50 UNDER OUR FLAG who have worked in the mills a year lose the capacity to play, and the child who cannot play, cannot learn. When you have robbed a child of its play-time you have robbed it of its life." The quotation calls attention to one of the most serious problems now facing the states- men of the South, a problem complicated, alas, by the fact that the cotton mills so rapidly being placed near the cotton fields, are largely financed with Northern money. Shame on Northern mill- owners who, forbidden by law to employ child- labor at home, adopt it in the States where but inadequate laws exist for the protection of child- hood! Mrs. Browning's pitiful " Cry of the Children " finds sorrowful parallel in our day and genera- tion, and a later poet voices the pathos and wrong of it all in " The Children of the Mills " : They no longer shout and gambol in the blossom-laden fields, And their laughter does not echo down the street. They have gone across the hills ; they are working in the mills, Oh, the tired little hands and aching feet! And the weary, dreary life that stunts and kills! Oh, the roaring of the mills, of the mills! All the pleasures known to childhood are but tales of fairy-land. What to them are singing birds and rushing streams? For the rumble of the rill seems an echo of the mill, And they see but flying spindles in their dreams. SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 51 In this boasted land of freedom they are bonded baby slaves, And the busy world goes by and does not heed. They are driven to the mill just to glut and over-fill Bursting coffers of the mighty monarch, Greed. When they perish we are told it is God's will. Oh t the roaring of the mill, of the mill ! Ella Wheeler Wilcox. As a matter of course, the womanhood of the South is aroused on this vital subject, and is calling the attention of legislators to the problem with no uncertain voice. But the passage of laws forbidding child-labor must be accompanied by such changes in the school laws as will make it not only possible, but obligatory, for every child, white or black, to have a reasonable amount of schooling each year. As matters now stand, the Negro child has the advantage in the cotton-mill regions, owing to the general exclu- sion of Negro labor from the factories. " While the white child goes to the factory," says a Georgia senator, " the black child goes to school/' * A MOUNTAIN JOURNEY " Perhaps you would like to know how I went to see about my school. Mounted on a horse, with a fresh waist or two tucked in a genuine pair of saddle pockets, I started alone on a thirty-mile trip. The first afternoon I rode only five miles, and stopped with friends. Next morn- ing early, with my lunch and corn for my horse 52 UNDER OUR FLAG in a sack, added to my luggage, I started down the mountains. " Down, down, we went, by the side of a dash- ing little creek, between two and three thou- sand feet to the river; then along the river, and up another little creek, through forests and over the creek bed, walking mostly in rocks, where it seemed almost impossible for the horse to go of course walking and leading the horse, till we came to the side of another mountain ridge. " Here Molly and I ate our corn and biscuits and rested. Then up, up, up, we clambered, hot and tired, to the top. Then down the rocky way several miles, till we began to reach human habitations again. At about six o'clock we reached our stopping-place. Next morning I rode on six miles farther, fording creeks, and threading bridle paths. " On the return I hitched my horse to a friend's buggy, tying the saddle on behind, and we went six miles to the head of the creek, con- stantly going in the creek-bed, over rocks and into holes that it seemed must tear the buggy up and ruin the horse. We found a comfortable staying-place for the night, and by sunrise the next morning we were climbing the mountain. At eight o'clock we reached the summit, nearly four thousand feet high. Then we went down, then up again to the four thousand feet level, reaching home about six p. M. I wondered how many teachers had such a trip to secure their SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 53 schools." From a letter written by a North Carolina Teacher. MEMORY TEST Locate the mountain region of the South. What is the ancestry of its people? What physical conditions have interfered with progress in this section? Describe the cabin homes of mountaineers. What special dangers threaten the girlhood and womanhood of these homes? Describe the child-labor problem. Describe a mountain journey in this section. What is the usual length of the school year, and why is it not longer? Are schools appreciated by the mountaineers? BIBLE LESSON Christ in the Home In Childhood. Of noble ancestry Matt. 1 : 17. Of lowly birth Matt. 13: 55-56. His mother's familiarity with the Scriptures Luke i : 46-55. His boyhood Luke 2: 52. In Manhood. Honoring marriage John 2 : 2. A neglected Guest Luke 7 : 36, 44-46. An honored Guest Luke 10 : 38-42 ; John 12 : 54 UNDER OUR FLAG A Sympathiser Luke 7: 11-15. A Friend John 11:5, 30-36. A Healer Luke 4: 38-39. The Conqueror of death Luke 7: 11-15; & : 49-5 6 ; Jo nn II: 43-44- Christ's Law of Marriage As regards divorce Mark 10: n. As regards polygamy Matt. 5 : 27-30. The Home a place of Love and forgiveness Luke 1 5 : 20. Shelter and care John 19 : 27. Rejoicing Luke 15:6. The Women of the Gospels Talked with Christ John 4 : 27. Were His friends Luke 10 : 38-39. Ministered to Him Luke 8 : 2-3. Were first heralds of His resurrection Luke 24 : 10. For helpful suggestions see " Christ and the Home," in " Imago Christi." (Rev. James Stalker, D. D.) "THINE IS THE POWER" (TUNE Hamburg.)! God of the mountain and the star, Of things anear and things afar, For all that human hands have wrought We praise Thee for the Master thought. Thine is the skill of tongue and pen, Thine is the will that works in men, Thine are the treasures of the deep, And thine the secrets earth doth keep. SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 55 God of the hills! Our hearts ascend To where Thy praises have no end. God of the valleys! O'er us rolls Thy tide of love for wandering souls. God speed our feet! Oh, may they be Glad messengers of love for Thee! Till hill and valley, near and far, Shall catch the gleam of Bethlehem's star. Take Thou our hearts, O God of power! We bring Thee love, our only dower. Though poor and mean the gift may be, Thy love can make it fit for Thee. ALICE M. GUERNSEY. W IV ON THE OUTPOSTS FRONTIERS * """"HAT is meant by a steerage passage ?" asked a teacher in the course 'of a reading lesson in which the phrase was used. " Going by ox-cart," promptly replied a wide- awake youngster. To many of us, " frontier " suggests something quite beyond our personal knowledge. Theo- retically, we understand that the whole country is threaded with railroad lines crossing moun- tains as well as plains, and annihilating time and distance. But there is a lingering fancy that somewhere in the mysterious " out West " there are still regions to be explored by " prairie schooners " and " steerage passengers " of the type suggested by the boy's reply. Nor, with the substitution of foot or horseback travel for the slow-moving teams that first crossed the Mississippi, are these fancies far out of the way, as the life of many a Home Mission- ary abundantly reveals. What are the conditions of this, the West that is not, as yet, the land of church spires and com- 56 ON THE OUTPOSTS 57 fortable homes? For answer take these pictures of what it means to be a frontier minister: " To travel all day over hard roads when the winds blow cold from the icy waters of Lake Superior, or the snow and rain insert themselves inside your coat collar, while the hail and sleet bite and sting your face until it is almost un- bearable; to spend days in an unpainted, bleak- looking town, visiting from house to house in the heat and cold, perhaps 50 below zero, in the shine or rain or snow; to open the church (if there is one to open), to sweep and dust it, to fill and light the lamps, and in the frosts of winter to build the fires, and then to hold service and do the part of minister and choir all these things are so commonplace that unless one has a deeper motive than desire for the sensational, he will soon tire of them and go back to the East, or to more settled conditions." A minister in northern Michigan drives his horse one hundred miles in one direction one week, and the next rides one hundred miles on the cars in another direction, to reach his various stations. We hear of a clergyman in South Dakota going from one end of his field to the other, to attend a funeral service a horseback ride of eighty miles, and not an unusual experi- ence! " In Montana," says the New York Observer, " there are many places where there are no min- isters, and no means of grace. Appeal after ap- 58 UNDER OUR FLAG peal comes often in vain for a minister. A mis- sionary held a service recently at which some were present who lived sixty miles from a regular church service, and some who had not heard a sermon for nine years." Such possibilities as these, growing out of the magnificent extent of the country, are almost beyond our comprehension. " If one corner of the Synod of Montana," says the same paper, speaking of Presbyterian missions in that State, " could be put on Boston, the other would reach Cleveland, Ohio. ... A single Presbytery is as large as the whole State of Pennsylvania." A missionary in Oregon writes thus of a meeting held under the auspices of a Woman's Home Missionary society: "There is no water in the schoolhouse, and the day is oppressively hot, so jars of water are brought in a wagon from the nearest house. Eighteen saddle-horses and four carriages are outside, and the schoolhouse is filled with cowboys, sheep herders, ex-convicts, and a few Christian families. One woman rode fourteen miles horseback, carrying her baby." The wife of a Methodist Presiding Elder in Colorado says : " When we first went to the Rio Grande district I thought I would travel it once, at least, to see the country, and come a little in touch with the people. But on finding that the railroad expense would not only equal the cost of a trip to New York and return, but include that of Pullman and dining-car service, ON THE OUTPOSTS 59 with tips for the porter, I gave it up. I went on one occasion fifteen miles up hill and down hill, not passing a house, till all at once a village- three or four houses and a store came into view. That fifteen miles was in one pastor's circuit, and fifteen or more miles in another direction there was another schoolhouse, and about the same distance in another direction was a third; I know not how many more there were in all of which the faithful pastor preached and labored, with discouragements many and salary less. . . . Only last year a preacher was sent to a small ap- pointment, and a girl twenty-one years old for the first time in her life attended a church service and heard a sermon. It was her first opportu- nity ! . . . One man on the Denver district has to travel in a one-horse buggy eighty miles every two weeks to reach his six appointments." " You can travel a hundred miles," says a mis- sionary in the far Northwest, " and not see a single Christian church, but you cannot go so far up the mountain side, or so low down into the valley, or so far back into the magnificent forests, that you do not see the inevitable beer signs. Wherever men go, this enemy of God and man is there to meet them. Oh, that the Christian Church were as wise, as eager to pre-empt the ground for Jesus Christ ! " In the Northwest peninsula, within the State of Washington, there is untold wealth of moun- tain and forest and minerals, yet young men and 60 UNDER OUR FLAG women who have lived there from childhood have never been in Sunday-school and never heard a sermon. They show great curiosity ' to see a preacher/ whom they think must be a peculiar sort of being. Mormon missionaries are pushing into all these places, and often the largest church in the village is a Mormon church. " The scenery of this region is unrivaled, the climate ideal. It is a great land, a great mission field. The frontier preacher is doing heroic work, not for money, but for God. One young preacher, a splendid fellow, told me that when a cowboy he received $65 a month, but that the past year he had not seen $65 in twelve months. Yet he had no desire to give up preaching." Instances of like heroic devotion and self-sac- rifice might be multiplied almost indefinitely. " Hard for the minister " ? Yes, but think of the unshepherded people! The services of a clergy- man are within immediate call to most of us. And these dwellers in the great Northwest are people like ourselves, often people who have gone there from the church and school oppor- tunities of the Central and Eastern States. To make the matter worse, there is more than mere words in the common saying that " church cer- tificates get lost in crossing the Missouri River.' 1 The struggle for existence in an undeveloped country pushes Christian work and often Chris- tian life to the rear, and indifference, which ends in downright neglect, is the frequent result ON THE OUTPOSTS 61 There is nothing of glamour and excitement about work in fields like these. It is simple, downright, hard labor for the Lord Jesus Christ. The average yearly cash receipts of many a clergyman on the frontier are well within $200. On this he cares for his family t and carries for- ward his work, while often the college-bred minds of himself and wife clamor in vain for the food they need. Frequently the scanty support must be eked out by work with the hands during the week. Of one such the record runs thus: " Home, a log cabin of a single room ; furniture made from dry-goods boxes, with flour-sack portieres. Eight appointments and no horse. To reach his weekday work he must needs wade cold mountain streams." It would be unfair, as a rule, to charge priva- tions of this sort to a lack of interest and love on the part of the people for whom such sacrifices are made. How can they give that which they have not themselves? Another phase of the frontier problem is seen in the mining camps. The saloons are there, human souls are there, and there must the mis- sionary of the cross unfurl the banner of the Lord of Hosts, and call men to the standard of Him whose are the silver and the gold. Out of these camps cities are often formed, but the beginnings are in the hamlets and small villages, those that are " no place for a woman," where the men 62 UNDER OUR FLAG work, often underground, for seven days in the week, and lose track of the days as they pass. Money is needed for this work men are needed still more. " I remember one day," writes a missionary on the Pacific Coast, " seeing a Government vessel from Nome pull into port at Seattle with five hundred stranded miners on board. I never saw such a wretched, dejected, desperate lot of men in rny life. Lured on by the gold of Alaska, they had met with disappointment, and were coming back with everything gone. They were, of course, an easy prey for the emissaries of Satan, who are so alert to their opportunities in this section. Would that the Church realised the possibilities of evangelistic work among this class ! Many have been converted as the result of street meetings and other services in Seattle, and this means that fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, have not only started Eastward to loved ones, but, best of all, have started heaven- ward/' There is no more needy, more urgent, more difficult and, at the same time, more hopeful field in all the world than the mining towns of the Northwest. For by and by comes the re- flex, the return wave, back to the home church and to the home community; whether that re- turn wave is to be " waters of refreshment " to those home communities, or sewers of corrup- tion, depends upon the vigor with which the ON THE OUTPOSTS 63 Christian church sets out to evangelise, cleanse and save the miners of the North. The political economist talks fluently of the law of supply and demand. Fifty thousand people moved into North Dakota in 1901. How many missionaries did the church send there? The passage of the irrigation bill by Congress means the expenditure of $150,000,000 in the next thirty years. This alone will mean a won- derful broadening of frontiers. In the first four months of 1902 more immigrants went into Mon- tana, Minnesota and North and South Dakota than in all of the previous years. Montana alone will have 4,000,000 acres additional homestead land when fully irrigated. Where the people go the church should lead. The census of 1900 brought to light some start- ling facts concerning the distribution of popula- tion, and, in a sense, re-located the frontiers. " Practically all the increase in foreign-born since 1890," says the statistician, " has been in the New England section of the country." He goes on to prove the assertion by showing that the present proportion of foreign-born to native, the country over one to six, in round numbers includes marked increase in all the New Eng- land States except Vermont, in New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Hawaii, and de- crease elsewhere. In other words, the great Westward movement of New Englanders, with their heritage of church and school, has left be- 64 UNDER OUR FLAG hind areas that would be vacant had they not been filled by a very different class coming from the Old World a class to whose needs the church of God may not close her eyes and re- main guiltless or safe. Hastening to make a railroad connection in the grey of the early morning, the stage on a certain New England route climbs a long hill and passes a church at its top built, as was the custom in the days of its erection, on the sightliest and most inaccessible spot in town. There it stands, gaunt and grim, the ghost of a church, for through its windowless casements and empty door-frames the winds whistle a dirge for the days gone by. They were days of Christian work and cheer days in which the fire burned upon its now ruined altars, and its sounding- board echoed the Law and the Gospel proclaimed from its pulpit. What happened? The old mem- bers, one by one, passed away; the young people, christened within its walls, nurtured by its care, married by its ministers, went their ways, some to near-by cities, some to the West, then so far distant. There was less and less money for the support of the church as time went on the more because the farms around, which had been the abode of American Protestants, passed into the hands of foreign Catholics or worse. The old church stands in all its desolation, a mute wit- ness of the past, a silent exponent of the change that has taken place within the last fifty years, ON THE OUTPOSTS 65 through which, by curious reversal, New Eng- land is becoming frontier ground. BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION "A young lady, sixteen years of age, the daugh- ter of one of our pastors, came to my home to borrow books and spend the night. She was looking for a place to work for her board and attend school. Her entire wardrobe was from the missionary box, with one exception her hair was pinned up with nails ! When I told her they would ruin her hair, she said : ' I know it ; papa does not know I am out of hairpins. But as soon as he pays a sacred debt he is going to let me have the first money he earns/ He is a carpenter, and was obliged to work at his trade to support his family, but was never known to miss an appointment, though some of them were forty miles distant. " One year four of our pastors, good, worthy men, received less than one hundred dollars each, missionary money included. In two of these homes that year the families had but one roll of butter each from one September until the next. One of our pastors received only seven- teen dollars for the year's work on his circuit. His wife supported him, selling milk from one cow, and boarding the school teacher. " Do not for a moment think these are things I have read of in books in regard to foreign 66 UNDER OUR FLAG fields, for in our own homeland I have visited in these homes. I have seen cupboards that were made of book boxes nailed to the wall, one placed upon another. The screen door, made of flour sacks, dropped down as a curtain. I have dined in homes where the table, made of dry- goods boxes, was without covering of either table linen or oilcloth, simply the plain pine board ; but it was white and clean. The cracks of some of these parsonage homes are corked with burlap sacks and moss from the trees, to shield the inmates from the cold." Mrs. J., Wife of a Presiding Elder in Oregon. A little girl came in from her home on the prairie to the town of and one day she suddenly asked her Sunday-school teacher : " You used to live in Brooklyn, didn't you?" " Yes." " That is just opposite New York, isn't it? " " Yes." "Wasn't that nice? Then, whenever you wanted to go to church all that you had to do was to go over to New York and you could find a church!" The child did not mean to be hard on Brook- lyn, but she had discovered the pleasure of church-going after living where the nearest ser- vice was one town away. Into the primary room of the same Sunday- ON THE OUTPOSTS 67 school a stranger came soon after, and, looking about in surprise, asked the teacher: "Is this the church?" " No, this is the Sunday-school room, but the morning service will soon begin. Won't you sit down and wait ? " As they went into church afterward the stranger said, " I am so glad you asked me to wait. I wanted my little girl here to see what service is like. She has never been to church." The little girl was twelve years old, and the teacher asked her mother, " How long since you have been to a service yourself? " " Oh," she answered, " I hope you don't think I did not want to go. If you could see my home and know how far it is from the nearest church, I think you would understand. I haven't been to church for fourteen years." How to bring to people like these the priv- ileges of occasional church services is the prob- lem of the Far West. The older States are send- ing their best sons and daughters, and scattering them in the undeveloped sections of Washington and Idaho; and when money comes from the older States for church work, it is used to follow up with religious influence the men and women they have sent, who are destined to make such an influential part of the West. A mining camp is not all bad. It is rough. 68 UNDER OUR FLAG Half the men in any camp wish the conditions were better. But every man is there to make his pile as quickly as he can, and then to leave. They rarely consider it a home. If they can help it, they never bring their wives and families with them. The great need of these communities is the need of men who care more for their brothers' welfare than for the speedy making of a pile. The man who falls sick in a camp, or is hurt in an accident, finds as much, yes, more, sympathy and generous help than he would in New York City unorganised, individual help, too. But of moral help, very little; spiritual help, almost none at all. From " The Spirit of Missions." A missionary worker in the extreme North- west, who is thoroughly familiar with that vast field, writes thus concerning it : ' The great Northwest is rapidly becoming the richest and grandest section of our country, and must be held for God. People are pouring into it by thousands every month, large numbers of them being the immigrants who land at our eastern sea-gates. They do not tend to form ' cities within cities,' as in the East, and so are easier to win and to assimilate through gospel influences. " Representatives of nearly every nation under heaven are found in these western cities, and all are there to stay. The great host is augmented ON THE OUTPOSTS 69 by the stream of adventurers, those who risk all in the wild rush for gold, men like those described in ' Black Rock,' seemingly given up to sin, yet with noble blood in their veins and splendid qualities on which to build." For over half a century the Home Missionaries of the Pacific Northwest have been plunging into the forests, picking their way along the trails of the miners, burying themselves for months at a time in isolated places far from the main lines of travel. They have sacrificed without a murmur. They have won the respect of the rough back- woodsmen who hate shams, they have not feared to declare the whole counsel of God to men who did not want to believe that the Gospel was true. I wish you might know some of our Home Mis- sionary soldiers, whose heroisms are rarely heralded abroad, and who have no martial music to inspire them to battle. Let me introduce you to some of them ; here comes one swinging up the street on his pony; his long ulster is covered with mud; he has on rubber boots that come to his hips. His white necktie has got around under his ear. His face beams with such joy as danced in the eyes of the seventy when they returned to the Master. The hand that grasps yours is not dainty and white like that of the fashionable preacher who spends his forenoons over his books and his afternoons over the teacups. It is rough, and brown, and strong. He has ridden 70 UNDER OUR FLAG thirty-five miles, through the mud, since seven o'clock this morning. Yesterday he went to a little church off in the foothills, built the fire, rang the bell, conducted the service, superin- tended the Sunday-school, led the singing for the Christian Endeavor Society, and preached in the evening. Here is another, who has just returned from a trip through the " cow " counties. Last Tues- day you might have seen him on a stage with his felt hat drawn down over his eyes trying to catch a few winks of sleep between jolts as he drew near the end of a journey of one hundred and eighty miles from the railroad. On Wed- nesday he went with a local missionary from store to store to raise money for the coming year. In the evening he told the old story of Calvary to a rough crowd that filled the little church to the doors. Thursday he moved on fifty miles, and preached to men who had not heard a sermon in twenty years. Last year he travelled by stage and horseback and boat a distance of 27,000 miles, and was with his family thirty-seven days out of the three hundred and sixty-five. Here is another. He knows every trout stream within twenty-five miles of his station, can kill a deer every shot at fifty yards, and preach six nights in a week without getting tired. An anarchist in his town, hearing that President McKinley had been assassinated, said, " I'm glad of it, he ought to have been killed ON THE OUTPOSTS VI long ago." When this Home Missionary heard what his townsman had said, he went to the an- archist's store, looked the man straight in the eye, and said, " My friend, I understand you said this morning that you were glad our President had been shot. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I want to tell you that if I ever hear of your saying such a thing again, I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had." The an- archist looked the preacher over for a moment as if noting the broad shoulders and the meaning of the steady grey eyes; then he apologised and said he would never say such a thing again. That is the way our Home Missionaries some- times preach the gospel of patriotism. Have you any idea of the monotony amidst which men like these live and move and have their being ? It is one thing to delight over the spark- ling pages of the " Sky Pilot." It is a second thing to visit a lumber camp for a day, or spend a few hours in a rollicking mining town. It is a third thing to listen to blasphemy three hun- dred and sixty-five days in a year; to give one's heart and head and hand to the work with full devotion for twelve months and apparently make no more impression on the godlessness of a town than if a cowboy had taken a shot at the moon; to face the same rocky canons and the same desolate hills month after month and year after year. Rev. Dr. Edgar P. Hill, in " Centennial of Home Missions." 72 UNDER OUR FLAG " Last Sunday," writes a city minister of a sum- mer vacation, " I preached at a little settlement on Mt. Desert Island (off the Maine coast), where one old man came on foot over two miles to the schoolhouse where the service was con- ducted, that being the nearest service he could attend. Next Sunday I expect to preach at an- other schoolhouse in a distant part of the island, where there is no service of any kind all the year around but that of a small Sunday-school, which is practically supported by a lady resident in New York City. This little community is so far re- moved from any church that it is a physical im- possibility for them to attend. Yet there are still other places on this island that are even worse off, and where the children have absolutely no opportunity to attend either church or Sunday- school." ALASKA We think of Alaska, and correctly, as a region of ice and snow. During the winter months there is daylight for only a few hours out of the twenty- four. The cold is intense, icicles several inches in length forming from the moisture of a man's breath in the central and northern sections. But this is not the whole story. In a country nearly as large as the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, and with a definite sum- mer, even though short, there is room for va- ON THE OUTPOSTS 73 riety of climate. The southern coast of Alaska is as mild in winter as Ohio. Good authorities claim that two or three great agricultural States will yet be carved out of its interior. Wheat, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, strawberries and raspberries grow well there. Sweet grasses, red top and wild timothy, stand waist-high in the central plains. Sixty-two kinds of flowers have been counted in blossom at one time on an acre of ground. We are more or less familiar with the mineral wealth of this region, although its full extent is doubtless larger than is yet dreamed. The royalty paid the government by the seal fisheries alone, has balanced the purchase money of Alaska more than twice over. Other fisheries are in their infancy, but, already, they supply more than half the canned salmon of the world. In 1875 there were less than 500 white men in the territory. In the winter of 1901-2, the white population was estimated at from 50,000 to 60,000. Commerce and gold-hunting are rapidly opening up and pre-empting this, one of the few unexplored sections left on the earth's surface. Will the Christian church awake to its opportunity? The question involves the whole future of Alaska. It is a current saying there that " God doesn't exist beyond the sixtieth de- gree of north latitude." Christian work, for both whites and natives, is imperative in this outpost of the extreme 74 UNDER OUR FLAG Northwest. ; ' The first cargo shipped to a min- ing camp is whiskey. The first establishment set up is a saloon. And in this, whether it be a tent or a hastily built cabin, all sorts of gam- bling are carried on for seven days in the week," the place becoming a low dance-hall as well as a saloon and gambling-hell. A more forlorn-looking lot than the native women and children of Alaska in their natural condition it would be difficult to conceive. Per- haps their chief characteristic is dirt. The girls are married at thirteen or thereabouts, the new families thus formed becoming part of the house- hold in the one-room cabins, caves, or snow- huts. There is little of what we recognize as the joys of childhood among Alaskan children. The fearful storms that sweep peninsula and islands fill their hearts with terror. The conditions of life forbid much of the free, glad outdoor play that is the birthright of children in kindlier cli- mates, and their dwellings offer no substitute. " Alaskan children seldom laugh " is a statement full of pitiful significance. Even when Alaskan girls are under mission- ary protection in the Homes and schools, con- stant watch must be kept against men from 'the whaling ships men whose skins are white but whose hearts are " black as Erebus," and who consider the native girls their legitimate prey. Putting into port for water, coal and provisions, ON THE OUTPOSTS 75 " shore leave " has brought lifetime suffering and sorrow for many a girl in the snow country. The priesthood of the Russian-Greek church, some of whom are still uneducated and super- stitious, finds free scope for its mummeries among this ignorant, childlike people. So does the medicine doctor with his theories of witch- craft and his senseless prescriptions. The enmity of the priests extends beyond death, the village coffin maker having in some instances been forbidden to make coffins for those who have attended mission schools. But Christian womanhood has proved itself compe- tent to deal even with this problem, and the ex- pectation of the priest that the bodies will be given him for burial with churchly rites has been disappointed. So persistent have been these priestly demands, that the presence of the mis- sionary and the United States flag in the door- way have been required to keep out the intruder. But there are brave, heroic souls bearing the banner of the Cross even into mining camps and native igloos, travelling two hundred miles on the frozen trail between Sundays, preaching each night in some miner's cabin. The men needed here are those " who can lie on the snow when it is 60 below zero, -and keep healthy, happy and contented." Such men men before they were preachers meet with hearty welcome even among the roughs of the camps for these, the advance-guard of civilisation, possessing, per- ?6 UNDER OUR FLAG force, the same qualities of courage and perse- verance, are able to appreciate them in others. As everywhere in new sections, the messen- gers of our Lord Jesus Christ must bear to Alaska healing for bodies as well as souls. One may travel thousands of miles even along the coast, where settlements are most numerous and best equipped, and find no physician. Western Alaska and the Yukon valley, populated with thousands of men, coming and going as sealers, whalers, miners, and workmen in the canneries, are practically without hospital or medical aid. To these must be added the native Aleuts, Eskimos and Indians, whose condition is pitiful in the extreme, and there are missionary graves in Alaska to-day that need not have been there had there been medical or surgical help at hand in the hour of need. " Graves of missionaries may be like anchors holding the church to a missionary field, but living missionaries are better." What this lack of physical help in their hours of sorest need means to the women of Alaska, can be but faintly realised by their more fortu- nate sisters. Hospitals must be provided, schools must be established and maintained, in- dustrial Homes must teach womanliness, home- making and home-keeping. The " all nations " of the Master's commission includes the Aleuts of Alaska. But their redemption cannot be ac- complished without the efforts of Christian womanhood. ON THE OUTPOSTS 77 ALASKAN CONDITIONS " Ink freezes on the pens of the scholars as they write; people in church have to keep stamp- ing their feet to keep warm, and the minister has to break off icicles from his moustache while preaching." " Me sick," said an old chief to a missionary. " Me sick at heart. My people all dark at heart. Nobody tell them Jesus died. By and by all die go down to dark, dark! " Although women are recognised as the natu- ral burden-bearers among the Alaskans, yet the right of descent is on their side of the family, a child inheriting name and property from its mother instead of its father. In Alaskan myth- ology, the crow stands as creator, and woman was his first work. He made her the head of the Crow family, man, a secondary creation, be- ing head of the Wolf, or warrior, family. Salem witchcraft was as nothing compared with the superstitious notions and cruel prac- tices in the homes of Alaska. During a grip epidemic the children had to return all their slates to their teachers, as the pictures the chil- dren drew were the " bad medicine " that caused all the sickness, for which the children were punished. A child less than five years old was beaten and almost starved to death because she V8 UNDER OUR FLAG was giving " bad medicine " to a woman who was ill. Hundreds have been tortured, and even put to death, as the authors of witchcraft that caused sickness or misfortune. The medicine man, or Shaman, with his horrid mask and costume, his weird incantations and claims to supernatural vision and power, his worse than nostrums and inhumanly cruel treat- ment of some forms of sickness, is still a power in the land. The people fear him, and are in constant dread of the spirits in water and air that may any moment obey him and inflict upon them some dire disease. The result is that if a physician tries to treat them in their homes, they neglect his medicines and resort to witchcraft in his absence. If the patient dislikes the medicine, or fancies it makes him worse, they heed his whims. They cannot appreciate a dietary regimen, but feed the sick in ways that would ordinarily kill the well. Ven- tilation is a thing entirely unknown. Their houses, or barabaras, usually have but one room, often partially underground, damp, filthy, sick- ening. Into this family room, already vile, the neighbours gather to sit with the sick. They often imbibe " quass," and gossip till drunk. Nine drunken women were sprawling on the floor of a sickroom and filling the place with odors unspeakable when our missionaries went to see how the patient was progressing. 'Mrs. A. F. Better. ON THE OUTPOSTS 79 A brighter side of the picture is shown in the devotion of Alaskan Indians, ten men of the mission, who for three days in a frail dug-out braved the open sea to bring a physician across sixty miles of stormy water to save the life of a woman missionary. When the captain of the native crew was asked what reward should be given for such services, he reproachfully ex- claimed, " Do not breathe any such idea to my men. It would break their hearts. No amount of gold would have tempted us on that sea; but she loved us and we loved her, and would have died for her, if need be." TOKENS OF HOPE A company of Alaskans were so anxious to learn about Christianity that they came to a class held at six o'clock in the morning, that they might be free from interruptions. Said an old chief in describing his conversion, " I've given my whole heart not half of it." " I want to come to school to learn about God," said an Alaskan boy. " Don't you want to learn about books?" asked the teacher. " Yes, books, but God more," was the boy's reply. " The service was mostly in the native tongue," writes one who attended a meeting of 80 UNDER OUR FLAG native Christians, " but we could almost know what they were saying by the intonations of thankfulness, humility and supplication, and the oft-repeated word ' Jesus,' which is borrowed from the English, as there is no corresponding word in their language." " Most of the native Christians^' says a mis- sionary, " are very careful to keep the Sabbath rest. One man, who makes his living by freight- ing goods up the river, lost a good job because he would not load on Sunday; another lost the sale of a boatload of salmon because he would not travel on Sunday to deliver the fish to the cannery." Out of its poverty and with but limited re- sources, the Presbytery of Alaska is credited with an annual contribution of " about four dol- lars per member for Christ's kingdom." " Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?" The teacher and the missionary, the church and the school, have exerted a stronger influ- ence for the elevation, civilisation, and educa- tion of the Alaskan native, than any and all other forces combined. From the Official Report of a Governor of Alaska. MEMORY TEST Locate the frontiers. Describe homes occupied by frontier min- isters. ON THE OUTPOSTS 81 Describe the travelling that must be done by a frontier minister. What conditions are found in the mining camps? What connection has the passage of the irri- gation bill with Home Mission work? What change has taken place in New England since 1890? What are the physical conditions of Alaska? Has its purchase paid from a financial stand- point? Why is the Territory being explored ? What does this mean to the Christian church? Describe Alaskan homes. What are the special needs of Alaska from the Christian standpoint? From whom does an Alaskan child inherit name and property? What is the state of medical knowledge among this people? BIBLE LESSON A Dozen Questions 1. In what respect was Esther typical of the Home Missionary Worker? 2. Which is the patriotic, and, therefore, the Home Missionary, Psalm? 3. What was God's test of true giving when the tabernacle was built? 4. Find a motto for Home Mission work in the story of Rahab. 82 UNDER OUR FLAG 5. What word of Manoah may well be the question of missionary societies? 6. What descriptions of work are found in i Chron., Chapters 4-12? What is their appli- cation to missionary work? 7. What Jewish priest arranged a mite box for the receipt of offerings for the Lord? 8. What miracle did Christ work in response to the faith of an immigrant ? 9. What definite command for Home Mis- sionary work was given by Christ? 10. Was the work of Dorcas, Home Mission- ary or church work? 11. Who was the deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, and what is said of her work? 12. What prophecy for the home church was made by Paul, the great foreign mission- ary? AMERICA FOR CHRIST (TUNE " From Greenland's Icy Mountains.") We claim our land for Jesus, Its vales and towering hills, Its cities full and hamlets, Its brooks and gurgling rills. We claim its wealth for Jesus, Its lowly poor we claim, Its native-born and alien, ^ Of every hue and name. ON THE OUTPOSTS 83 Around us souls are dying, They perish at our door; The land is full of sighing And sin, from shore to shore. Gladly we toil to save them, From death to make them free, For Him whose life He gave them, Far back at Calvary. T. E. ROACH. V CHILDREN OF THE ORIENT IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS THE guns of Admiral Dewey in Manila Harbor settled at once and forever a question that had been under considera- tion for half a century. It is a literal fact that no man-of-war can cross the Pacific and be of any service after reaching Manila without re- coaling on the way. Neither troops nor ships mercantile or naval can be sent to the Philip- pine Islands without a halfway place at which they may obtain needed supplies. There had been a dim realisation of the fact that sometime, somehow, the Hawaiian group might be of value to us, and in 1843 tne United States notified the world that it would not, without opposition, per- mit any other power to take possession thereof. But with direct and important interests on the other side of the sea, our acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands became a necessity. But stronger bonds than those of trade or treaty had linked the two countries together, and made possible the political union of the two. Oahu and its sister islands were already ours 84 THE ORIENT 85 by virtue of the Christianity that fitted them to take place by our side, one sovereign nation mak- ing agreement with another. The history of missionary work in the kingdom reads like a romance. In 1818 the islanders abandoned idolatry, and became " a people without a re- ligion." The next year, knowing nothing of that action, but following the leadings of Provi- dence, a little band of missionaries, bidding fare- well to home and loved ones in old Park Street Church, hard by Boston Common, sailed for Honolulu. Between that date and 1853 some- thing over $900,000 was expended in mission work on the islands. By that time, they ceased to be missionary ground. What the change meant, from the very lowest commercial stand- point, may be gathered from a single illustra- tion: in 1897 the Hawaiian exports to the United States alone amounted to more than ten and a half million dollars. " In seventy years," says a recent writer, " the islands have been raised from the lowest degra- dation to a condition of average literacy higher than that of all other countries save the United States, Prussia, and Switzerland, and to a wealth per capita averaging greater than any other country in the world. The first printing-press on our Pacific coast was sent thither from Hono- lulu, and while Indians and buffalo roamed the ' new West ' at will, Hawaii furnished the gold hunters of 1849 w * tn potatoes and wheat." 86 UNDER OUR FLAG The Hawaiian Islands are " a veritable land of sunshine and breezes," having almost uniform temperature, no hurricanes, and thunderstorms but rarely. The native language has no word to express " weather," and one wonders what the people do for a staple of conversation. Hawaiian women were not beasts of burden, but enjoyed the confidence of their husbands and shared their counsels. The native race, in unmixed form, is rapidly decreasing, but through intermarriage with stronger races a new and fine national character is being evolved. With such conditions it would seem there was little field for missionary effort from the main- land, and little need of such help. Nor would there be if this were all. But other races and other conditions are there. Accord- ing to the census of 1896, the total female popu- lation of the islands is 36,503, of whom 5195 are Japanese, and 2440 Chinese. Of the 114,000 people in Hawaii, one-fifth are Japanese, one- fourth Chinese. Of the 9000 Japanese in Hono- lulu, looo are women; and of these women less than twenty attend Christian services, the vast majority being Buddhists, as are most of the Chinese and Japanese on the islands. Of the others, 52 per cent, of the Japanese are Mormons, and 5.14 per cent, of the Chinese. Nor are these unintelligent, ignorant masses. The per cent, of those able to read and write stands as follows: THE ORIENT 87 Natives, 83.97; Japanese, 52.60; Chinese, 48.47. Of the Japanese of school age, 94.55 per cent, attend school; of the Chinese, 92.48 per cent. Buddhism upon our shores! Womanhood in- sulted and degraded by idolatrous rites and cus- toms ! There is imminent danger to the fair land of the Southern seas, danger that she can- not meet alone. She needs the help of America and, especially, of American womanhood. HAWAIIAN ASIATICS " Chinamen substantially fill the majority of places in the machine, carpenter and other shops where expert work is requisite, and leave few vacancies in fields of labor less exacting. And the Chinaman carries his competition farther, and with as great success he very nearly mo- nopolises the lower class of Hawaiian women. . . . He is the very quintessence of industry, the only man in the Far East who continues work- ing after he has accumulated a couple of dollars. . . . He is a good provider and kind to the weaker members of the household ; so in Hawaii, as in Siam, the native woman marries him in preference to her own countryman.'* The Japanese are eager, active and restless. Intensely patriotic, keenly alive to the place of Japan among the nations, they form to-day a 88 UNDER OUR FLAG difficult element in the population. The mass of those in the islands are from the lowest ele- ments in Japan, and they have not proved the most desirable laborers or the best citizens. As a rule they do not bring their wives with them, and, as they never marry the Hawaiians, their ex- ample and influence are not on the side of mo- rality. The Hawaiians are an easy-going, kindly people, winsome and charming in their friend- ships, lovable in their ways and easily led for good or evil. They have the lines of strength and weakness which they share with other chil- dren of the tropics. They are not a commercial people. They care little for money-making, still less for the accumulation of wealth. They are generous givers and live luxuriously so long as the money lasts. They lack the qualities of lead- ership, and will never be an influential factor in the commercial development of the islands. The Chinese of Hawaii are not generally un- derstood in the United States. They are differ- ent from their countrymen in America. We think here of the laundrymen and the keepers of the dens of Chinatown. In America they live apart, aloof, with us but not of us. In Hawaii many of the Chinese marry Hawaiian women and settle down for life. They are at home to live and die. They are industrious, frugal and law-abiding. To-day they control the business of market-gardening in Honolulu. The ducks THE ORIENT 89 and chickens are raised and sold by them. The small shops and stores in all the islands are manned by them. They make shoes and houses. They are tailors and dressmakers, plumbers and painters the Yankees of the East. The China- man is a public-spirited citizen, and his children are in the public school. Of all the many mix- tures of race in Hawaii, the best is the cross be- tween the Hawaiian and the Chinese. The child of this union has the good qualities of both par- ents the kindly, gracious spirit of the Hawaiian and the virile, aggressive intelligence of the Chinese. He is to-day one of the most useful elements of the varied population, and the United States, if she has the interest of Hawaii at heart, should permit more of the Chinese to settle in the Islands. Five thousand of the better grade would be a blessing there to-day. From " The Southern Workman." THE CHINESE "These from the land of Sinim," said Isaiah, enumerating those who were destined to share the blessings of " the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." Interpreting the word to mean " China/' we have given scant evidence in this country of willingness to help, through personal effort, the people named by the prophet. The Chinese question, so far as Home Missionary work is concerned, is almost everywhere. No 90 UNDER OUR FLAG city of any considerable size, the country over, lacks its laundries manned by almond-eyed Ce- lestials and patronised by men and women of Christian churches. How many of these laun- drymen have been taught of Him who maketh the sinful heart " whiter than snow " ? Little as has been done for Chinese men, still less, in proportion to their numbers, has been done for the women of the Orient who have come to this country. The conditions that con- front the Home Missionary worker among the Chinese are most serious in San Francisco. Be- hind barred windows, in dark, unhealthful dens, sit Chinese slave girls, the victims of the lust and greed of their masters, bought and sold, de- graded and suffering. Often they are little girls mere children who should find in God's free sunlight and clear air the blessings that belong to childhood. " They know no worship except that of incense-burning, exploding fire-crackers and other combustible Chinese prayers." Even if rescued, they are not safe, for recapture, in spite of the law, would be almost inevitable if they went on the street without white protec- tion. Is it any wonder that before the opening of Mission homes in California many a Chinese woman ended the life that seemed so hopeless? One who is thoroughly conversant with con- ditions on the Pacific coast writes of them thus: " We have no need to cross the seas and pene- THE ORIENT 91 trate the jungles of far-away tropical lands to find missionary work; a heathenism dark as any found in the wilds of Africa or the islands of the South Seas is to be found at our own doors. Ever since the Chinese set foot upon the shores of California human chattel slavery has existed. The army of custom-house officials, the laws of the land, the whole power of a united Christian sentiment, backed by the moral sentiment of the whole community, have thus far been but a por- tiere of cobwebs across the Golden Gate so far as excluding these yellow-faced slaves is con- cerned. " Five thousand Chinese women in California fifteen hundred of them in San Francisco, two hundred of whom are little slave girls are slaves in free America. These slave girls on our Pacific coast have been bought or kidnapped in China, brought to this free country, sold in the silent slave markets of San Francisco, and doomed to a slavery that passes description." In combating these evils the missionaries fight almost single-handed against a large and wealthy association of slave-dealers, who are as- sisted by lawyers and others of our own blood, men who can be bought by highbinders' money ! Less intense, perhaps, but none the less pitiful, is the condition of Japanese women and girls on our Pacific coast. Only Christianity creates homes. " The Chinese bring their idolatry with them. 92 UNDER OUR FLAG They set up their heathen temples under the shadow of our Christian churches. There are eighteen of these temples in San Francisco alone. The newest, largest, and finest is that ... on Waverly Place. . . . The principal idol in it is a great, red-faced, hideously grotesque Joss, dressed in gaudy robes, called Kwan Tai, the god of war. . . . The temple is fitted out with all the paraphernalia of heathen worship." In the temple of the Kong Chow Company, there was recently sold to a temple keeper, for twenty thousand dollars, the exclusive right for a year to sell the things used in idolatrous wor- ship. Verily, idolatry is not yet dead! " The worship of ancestors, the strong belief that every nook and cranny of creation is filled with evil spirits, as well as the grosser forms of idolatry, have wrapped the Chinese in the in- tricate meshes of the most debasing superstition. The work of Christianising this great ' Gibraltar of heathenism ' on our Western coast is a task which nothing but the divine power of the Gos- pel of Jesus Christ can ever accomplish. " The Chinaman will never make America his permanent home. This is the very reason why we should give him the Gospel to take home with him. ... To this nation is now being given one of the most wonderful opportunities that has ever been offered for helping forward the King- dom of God on the earth. Through the repre- sentatives of the Chinese empire who have provi- THE ORIENT 93 dentially come to our shores we can send back the saving and enlightening influences of the Gospel, thus preparing a belated people to take their place in the world's onward march. How are we meeting this grave responsibility? " FOREIGN MISSIONS AT HOME Sons shall be his, on couches lulled to rest. The little ones, enrobed, with sceptres play; Their infant cries are loud as stern behest; Their knees the vermeil covers shall display. As king, hereafter, one shall be addressed: The rest, as princes, in our states shall sway. And daughters also to him shall be born. They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep : Their playthings, tiles; their dress, the simplest worn: Their part alike from good and ill to keep, And ne'er their parents' hearts to cause to mourn; To cook the food, and spirit malt to keep. From a Chinese Classic. House-to-house visiting among women and children in Chinatown leads up narrow, filthy stairs to the third and fourth stories, and often down into dark basements. The rooms are more than crowded, many without windows or means of ventilation, save possibly through transoms, less than seven feet square in area; the odor is almost unendurable. Whole families are packed in these little boxes of rooms. 94 UNDER OUR FLAG The Chinese are much harder to reach in this country than in China. They are not going to change their religion until convinced that they have found something better. They suppose that all Europeans are Christians, while the fact is that the class of Europeans coming most in con- tact with the Chinese are not Christians, but very far from it. Those who hang around China- town are far more degraded beings than the very worst of the Chinese, and the manner in which the Gospel is represented to these poor people is, to say the least, extremely confusing. They often say: "The missionary tells us, get Holy Spirit in our heart. Make bad man good. No more cheat. No more steal. Make him very good. I see white man. He say he Christian. He not good. Lie, cheat, swear, all the same heathen Chinese." The slave question alone is enough to arouse righteous indignation in the heart of every per- son who can read and understand the Constitu- tion of the United States. Consider the fact that fifteen hundred slave girls are held in bond- age against their will, behind barred windows, bolted doors, and locked gates, watched and guarded by white men employed by the slave owner for the purpose of preventing the poor, unfortunate creatures escaping to the missions. These white men receive a good salary for their nefarious business, and the girls are compelled to lead a life of shame, no matter how young THE ORIENT 95 and tender their years, or how much they abhor the life. The slave owner has paid between $1500 and $2500 for his chattel, and she is his to do with as he pleases, to beat, to scourge, to burn with red-hot irons in case she refuses to make money for him. She is completely in his power. Recently a nine-months-old baby girl was sold for $350, the money going to pay the bal- ance due on her parents' wedding feast. The little girl will be raised as a domestic slave, and when old enough will be sold into a life of shame for the sum of $2000 or more. These slave girls are often maltreated and made to carry burdens far too heavy for their strength and years. Girls ranging from seyen to ten years are obliged to carry a large, bouncing, Chinese baby boy strapped on their backs, where he takes his nap in the daytime. I have seen these ill-fed, poorly clad little creatures carrying a boy from a year and a half to two years old, their bent bodies swaying under the burden, and in going down an inclined street spreading their feet to balance themselves. Woe to them if they should happen to slip or fall with the precious son and heir! The children of the master are often tyrannical to the slave girl. To illustrate, we have the case of little Kwan Ho, who was found crouched in a corner of the " Chamber of Tranquillity " in the horrible presence of the dead and dying, and 96 UNDER OUR FLAG burdened with the thought that she was there to remain without food until death released her from her sufferings. The horrors of this place can never be adequately told, with its filth, its stench, its vermin, and its gruesome darkness, but little Kwan Ho was kept there for twenty- four hours a poor little cripple, suffering in- tensely from a cruel injury to her spine caused by a blow with an iron rod in the hands of one of her master's children. It is much harder now to rescue slaves from dens than hitherto. The slave-dealers are bolder; upheld by our officials they break the laws, and defy us and all our efforts to rescue the girls. Recently the entrances to several al- leys have been boarded up, the gates being pad- locked, and guarded by white watchmen. On the outside of the gates is posted this notice, " Private. No white person allowed inside with or without guides." Within these gates are sev- eral hundred slave girls, who are living vile lives at the command of the greedy master. Some of the girls forced to lead this life were kidnapped in China. One girl, a tea-picker, while on her way to her work was drugged, carried away, and put down in the hold of one of the steamships plying between this port and China. Coached by the Chinese steward, she was taught to say that she had been born in San Francisco, naming the street and number of the house, and the room, that she had been to THE ORIENT 97 China to see her grandmother, and was now returning to her parents. She was shown a pic- ture of the man and woman whom she was to claim as father and mother, but who were in fact keepers of the slave den. She was told that if she did not learn this story and do as they told her they would kill her, but if she obeyed them they would get her a rich hus- band as a reward. The poor, deluded child, not knowing what was in store for her, learned her part so well, as did the others connected with it, that she was landed, and, as is usual in these cases, was kept in a family house for a few weeks, and then put into a vile den. From this den we rescued her a few weeks later, but not until we had made five unsuccessful efforts. From a Mis- sionary in San Francisco. MEMORY TEST When and why did the acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands become important to our gov- ernment? How was Christianity sent to these islands? What is the history of mission work there? What are its results from the commercial standpoint? What races on the islands are in special need of missionary work? Describe the native Hawaiians; the Japanese and Chinese on the islands. 98 UNDER OUR FLAG Where are the Chinese who can be reached by Home Missionary work? Describe the condition of many Chinese women and girls in San Francisco. How many women slaves are there in that city? How many little slave girls? Describe house-to-house visiting in China- town. Which is the more difficult, work for the Chi- nese in this country or in China? BIBLE LESSON The Isles Wait for His Law From whence shall the redeemed of the Lord be gathered? (Isa. n: n.) Who shall join in the " new song"? (Isa. 42: 10.) Over whom shall " the king's son " have do- minion? (Psalms 72: 8, 10.) Why are the islands to be glad? (Psalms 97: I.) W'here shall the name of the Lord be glori- fied? (Isa. 24: 15.) How does the prophet illustrate the power of God? (Isa. 24: 15; 41: 5.) What prophecy may be put in the present tense to-day? (Isa. 42: 4.) What encouragements for missionary work are given by the prophet? (Isa. 51: 5; 60: 9.) THE ORIENT 9< What is the prophecy of final victory? (Zeph. 2: n.) GOD'S MESSENGERS (TUNE Eltham.) Go, ye messengers of God, Like the beams of morning fly! Take the wonder-working rod, Wave the banner-cross on high. Go to many a tropic isle In the bosom of the deep, Where the skies forever smile, And the oppressed forever weep. O'er the pagan's night of care Pour the living light of heaven; Chase away his dark despair, Bid him hope to be forgiven. VI "OLD SETTLERS" AND NEW THE INDIANS "f I iHE Japanese, the Mexicans, the Fili- pinos, the Mormons, even, are com- "* parative strangers to us. But the Indians oh, we know all about them! They live in wigwams or wickiups. We have seen them in would-be savage costume at the World's Fairs, ' Buffalo Bill ' has made us familiar with their war-dances yes, and we know the splendid work done at Hampton and Carlisle. Surely there is no need of spending time in the study of Indian conditions." This thought, real though not always spoken, finds quick reply from the heart of one who really knows the present-day conditions of these, the " first families " of our land. " The right of eminent domain " is a pleasing phrase when applied to ourselves. Said a little fellow in an Indian school, to his teacher: " Miss M., where you come from?" " Oh, I come from San Francisco," she re- plied. " No, where your mother come from?" 100 "OLD SETTLERS' 101 Understanding then that the boy was ques- tioning of her ancestry, she said, " Oh, way back, we came from Holland." " Then you go back to Holland," said the lad. " Holland your country. United States be- longs to Indians." Of unfair and cruel dealings with the Indians detailed description need not be given here. The story is, alas, sadly familiar. A tardy sense of justice and the purpose to recognise the man- hood of the red man, seem at last to have en- tered into the dealings of the government with these, its wards. The gradual abolition of the reservation system and the opening of schools are omens of good. But in some of the locali- ties occupied by these, our reconcentrados, self- support is impossible, and for them special pro- vision must be made. As it takes time to ad- just matters of this sort, we are likely to realise the needs of reservation Indians for years to come. All who are truly interested in the welfare of the Indians must regret the opportunities given them to preserve and confirm their savage cus- toms and habits through their presentation as a part of a " show " whether that " show " be a low-grade circus or an exposition. Not so are manhood and womanhood developed. Familiar as we may be with the ordinary type of Indians, and with the pressing need of Chris- tian work among them, there are others less fre- 102 UNDER OUR FLAG quently brought to our notice, for whom little if any missionary work has been done. Let us note a few typical tribes. Along the southern boundary of the United States live the Pueblo Indians, a people practi- cally unreached, as yet, by missionary effort. Their dwellings are flat-roofed community houses, the second story built over the rear of the first, and reached only by ladders up which the women climb with brimming jars of water often brought from miles away or well-filled wheat baskets, on their heads. A fire-place in the middle of the floor has a hole in the roof as its outlet for smoke. This charred fire-place also serves for purposes of ventilation, as the windows are designed only for lighting. To reach these interiors one must mount a ladder to the roof of the first story, pass through a hatchway in the roof and down another ladder. Life seems little worth the living under such conditions. Yet these bronze men, with ban- danas on their foreheads and moccasins on their feet, have wrested success from even the bar- ren soil of the Painted Desert of Arizona, and forced corn crops from what seems capable of yielding only " scorching curses." In southern California are the Mission Indians, living among rocks and desert wastes in place of the good lands they formerly owned, feeding on grass, acorns and rats, when food is scarce. Look at the long line of vermilion-painted 'OLD SETTLERS 5 103 women at the agency, their hair awry, their faces marred and furrowed with the traces left by savagery and its inevitable degradation of womanhood. See the eagerness of each to get a full supply of the rations of raw meat enough for the needs of the family, enough to satisfy the husband who leaves the drudgery of living to his wife, enough so that none of her neighbors will get " ahead " of her. Mother-love, fear of failure, hunger, rivalry, are in their faces. Or go among the Navajos. They will not notice you, a stranger, nor would they were you of their own blood. That would be contrary to eti- quette. The prairie dogs will pay more atten- tion to your presence, for their restless eyes will spy you and their quick retreat into their holes will betray their fear. These are nomads, wan- dering with their sheep from place to place. Mis- sionary work among them has difficulties all its own. It takes time and patience, devotion and yearn- ing love that will not be baffled or driven back, to reach hearts like these. But that there are warm, true hearts beating under the unprom- ising exteriors, many a missionary can testify. " The saddest thing in all our dealing, as a nation, with the Indians, is the winning of their respect, their confidence, and even their rever- ence," says a missionary worker, " and then violating it. The hard thing in missionary work among them is not the dealing with their super- 104 UNDER OUR FLAG stition and ignorance, but the striving to win back that which they have lost, to undo the influence of the miserable white men who have betrayed them." As among the Alaskans, belief in the power of the " medicine-man " dies hard, and forms one of the greatest obstacles to missionary work. The Indian theory seems to be, " We know our fathers were happy, but we do not know that we shall be happy if we adopt the white man's ways." Who can blame them? Would we not say the same thing ourselves in their place ? The difficulties surrounding an Indian lad, returning to the reservation from school, are well-nigh overwhelming. He is considered mean and selfish if he does not divide the contents of his trunk among his friends, though this, in itself, reduces him almost to the level of his associates by removing the possessions that are identified with his habits of civilised life. His people ex- pect him to don the dress of the " braves " around him, and to take up life where he dropped it on going away. The gift of a horse increases the temptation of the old, wild, unhampered ex- istence. Nor is it less difficult for the girl to adjust the two forms of life. She goes back to the wigwam or the hut, finding, in place of the school-mother in orderly attire and with neat working ways, a "OLD SETTLERS' 105 squaw whose costume and habits she has almost forgotten. Her mother's hair looks as if it had never seen a comb; she wears a queer, bag- shaped sort of dress, with yards and yards of buckskin wrappings like bandages, for shoes and leggings. In place of the happy social life of the school the girl is ostracised unless she yield to the petitions of her friends, and, often, to the commands of her parents, and takes part in the barbaric festivities of the tribe. All her inherited instincts, all her filial devotion, all her social condition, are opposed to the maintenance of the new life she has learned, and savagery gets the better of civilisation unless she has strength of character, wisdom and tact beyond that possessed by the majority of even white schoolgirls. The school in daily touch with the home, save in exceptional cases, rather than a boarding- school to which the children are sent, and in whose atmosphere they can but become alienated from their natural environment the home cleared and cleaned, and gradually changed from the adobe hogan or the crude wickiup, the pueblo or the wigwam, to a neat cabin or frame house the church established and maintained by men and women who have learned in truth of the Great Spirit these are the steps that will solve the Indian problem, and it rests upon Christian citizens to see that these steps are taken. 106 UNDER OUR FLAG INDIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER The North American Indian was the highest type of pagan and uncivilised man. He pos- sessed not only a superb physique, but a remark- able mind. " Why do you not use all kinds of roots for medicines? " " Because the Great Mystery does not will us to find things too easily," answered the Indian. " There are many secrets that the Great Mystery will disclose only to the most worthy." Very early the Indian boy assumed the task of preserving and transmitting the legends of his ancestors and his race. Almost every evening a myth or a true story of some deed done in the past was narrated by one of the parents or grand- parents, while the boy listened with parted lips and glistening eyes. On the following evening he was usually required to repeat it. ... As a rule, the Indian boy is a good listener, and has a good memory. . . . This sort of teaching at once enlightens the boy's mind and stimulates his ambition. " All the stoicism and patience of the Indian are acquired traits." I was made to respect the adults and especially the aged. I was not allowed to join in their discussions, nor even to speak in their presence unless requested to do so. ... We were taught "OLD SETTLERS" 107 generosity to the poor and reverence for the " Great Mystery." Religion was the basis of all Indian training. No young man was allowed to use tobacco in any form until he had become an acknowledged warrior, and had achieved a record. Grace at meals. " Great Mystery, do thou partake of this venison and still be gracious." Young men treated to " spirit water " were ordered tied up and put into a lodge by them- selves to remain " till the evil spirit had gone away." From "Indian Boyhood" by Dr. Charles A. Eastman, a full-blooded In- dian. There is profound pathos in the story told by a missionary of the way in which a threatened In- dian uprising and massacre were averted. The little garrison in the vicinity would have been powerless, and the situation began to be serious, when some bright official bethought himself to take " Captain John " to San Francisco that he might see the sights and, incidentally, realise the power of the white man. The shrewd old chief learned the lesson well. Calling a council on his return, he said to the assembled braves, " White man too much. White man heap too much. Alice same sand by river. You takee some way, 108 UNDER OUR FLAG FROM THE CENSUS OF IQOO. Indians (total number) 266,760 Arizona 26,480 Montana n,343 South Dakota 20,225 Oklahoma n,945 Washington 10,239 Indian Territory 52,500 New Mexico 13, 144 California 15, 377 Alaska 29,536 HEATHENISM AND CHRISTIANITY " We regard the [native] religion of the In- dians as superstitious and heathenish, but they are earnest and sincere in it, and those are two of the highest requirements of any religion. The Hopi Indians, for instance, spend from four to sixteen days out of each month in the perform- ance of what they consider religious duties. . . . Even the dolls used by their children are made a means of teaching them a knowledge of their ancient religion. These are representations of their kat'chinas, mythical, semi-deified persons, from whom they are descended, and who are able to bring them much evil or good, and are there- fore to be prayed to, danced before, smoked to and generally propitiated/' " We wish you could make us Christians/* said some Indian boys to their teacher. " We want to be." "OLD SETTLERS" 109 " Are Indian conversions genuine? " The question asked of a missionary received prompt reply: " If they were not they would not be con- versions." In proof of the statements made, she pro- ceeded to give the testimony of some of the mis- sion converts. Said an old woman, " When I in that church house I feel so different. I know Jesus come in my heart in that church house. He come in my heart, and He going stay there." An Indian girl lay dying. " I see man," she cried. " He good man. He stand this way " (raising her hands to represent outstretched, wel- coming arms). " He say, ' Come.' I go now. Good-bye." Who can doubt that for her, though of " the least of these," a place was waiting in the " many mansions "? " Work with the Indians is so pathetic," says a missionary. " There is such a look of wonder and amazement on their faces as they listen. The stories that are so old to us are so new to them. They seem to be saying", ' Why have we not heard of these things before? ' ' Our modern civilisation as it touches primi- tive races too often imparts to them new vices and robs them of savage virtues. Christianity must be linked with civilisation to counteract this result." 110 UNDER OUR FLAG A trader was closing his store when a Chris- tian Indian came, late Saturday night. (< You come to-morrow," said the store-keeper. " To-morrow is the Sabbath," was the reply. " I don't buy on the Sabbath." Another Indian gave up a position as herder, saying to his employer, " I'm a Christian. I can't hear you swear." " Tell your people by the great fresh water and the great salt sea," said an Indian to the missionary, " to pray for the little baby you bap- tised, and that God will spare him and let him grow up to make a great talk for Jesus." Speaking of a tour he made to certain of the Indian reservations while Civil Service Commis- sioner, President Roosevelt said, " I had not gone there properly upon missionary work, in the narrowest sense of the term, but I got en- listed in missionary work rapidly, because, after all, any effort to try to further the cause of civic righteousness is missionary work, and the effort to see that the Indian gets a square deal is, at any rate, an adjunct to missionary work. I spent twice the time I intended out there, because I became so interested; and I travelled all over the reservations to see what was being done, espe- cially by the missionaries, because it needed no time at all to see that the great factors in the up- lifting of the Indian were the men who were 66 OLD SETTLERS " 111 teaching the Indian to become a Christian citi- zen." IN AN INDIAN PUEBLO Imagine a room twelve by fourteen feet in area, with ceiling so low as to be easily touched by the hands, black with smoke and very' dirty. It is the under side of the flat roof, which is made of grass and mud thrown over poles laid cross- wise and a foot apart. Dry chips and dirt are continually dropping through the cracks, and the ceiling is a splendid place for wasps' and spiders' nests, with an occasional scorpion, centipede or tarantula to drop to the floor, and possibly a snake to crawl along the poles. Strips of meat hung for drying on lines stretch- ing across the room are covered thick with flies. The floor serves for dining-table as well as for beds. Water is brought by women in jars, manufactured by themselves, up the steep trail, and up and down the ladders; so skilful are they that they can run with these jars on their heads without breaking them or even spilling their contents. Bread is baked in ovens outside, and these are the favorite resorts of the dogs with which the pueblo abounds. Should the wife or daughter in such a dwelling we cannot call it a home chance to faint, she runs great risk of being buried alive, for the superstitious Indians know no difference be- 112 UNDER OUR FLAG tween death and unconsciousness, and are so afraid of dead bodies that they get them out of the way as quickly as possible. SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE Three and a half centuries is a longer lifetime than the most sanguine resident of New York or Chicago would prophesy for a " sky-scraper " built in accordance with the most approved prin- ciples of modern architecture. But in Santa Fe, the capital of a section richer in historic inter- est than almost any other in the United States, the tourist is shown a house of mud and adobe brick that had been standing fifty years when English colonists settled Jamestown! Back still for another hundred years and for unknown time beyond the Pueblo Indians fashioned their fort-like barracks, seeming part of the mesas amid which they are placed. Traces of a still older civilisation, and that of a high degree, were found when Cortez ravaged the country with fire and sword. New Mexico is to-day largely Spanish and Mexican, though under the flag of the stars and stripes. It is also Roman Catholic, in the main, its political center bearing the name it received in a baptism of blood Santa Fe Holy Faith. " For three hundred and fifty years the Ro- man Catholic church dominated New Mexico, and yet when Protestant missionaries entered " OLD SETTLERS ' H3 its valleys it was to find the people living in darkness, degradation and sin." " Does not the second commandment forbid idol worship?" questioned a missionary. " Certainly," was the reply. " Does it forbid making an image of Christ and worshipping that?" " Oh, no ; that is what everyone should do," answered the devout Catholic. On being rea- soned with, he retorted: " That is what comes of reading the Bible. The priest has always said we should get into all kinds of difficulties if we read it." With the padre demanding from five to one hundred dollars for tolling the bell at a funeral, and making other charges for religious services in proportion, churchly rites can have but slight effect upon the morals of the people. The " to-morrowness " of the Orientals, if we may coin a word, has firm hold of the Mexican mind, and the inertia of the tropics helps to render the field a difficult one for missionary effort. What of the homes? There is an Eastern quaintness in much of the Spanish life that is very pleasing, especially to the casual observer. There are houses of the well-to-do spread with carpets and Navajo rugs, gay with blossoming plants, their mistresses wearing the graceful mantilla as only a Spanish woman can wear it, offering coffee, chocolate or wine to their guests 114 UNDER OUR FLAG with a cordiality all their own. Surely this is a paradise! Alas, there is another side! There are one- roomed huts of sticks covered with mud, with roofs and floors of mud, and these are typical of a large class of Mexican dwellings. The Spanish language contains no equivalent for our English word, home. The occupants of these houses sit, eat and sleep on the floor. The men and boys have the first chance at the meals, the women waiting upon them and taking what is left. Girls are married in absolute accord with the will of their parents, and often at thirteen years of age. How can a mother living with her large fam- ily in such an adobe hut, teach her daughter the lessons that belong to her sex, the arts of home- making and home-keeping? The statistics of illiteracy in this section are startling. In the cities there are excellent pub- lic schools. But the country districts a/e often so large that a pupil from the outskirts, mount- ing his burro early in the morning, must needs ride till mid-afternoon before reaching the schoolhouse. The native Mexicans, " ignorant as slaves, and more courteous than kings," " poor as Lazarus, and more hospitable than Croesus," are not the only race in New Mexico needing missionary help. There are 9000 Pueblo Indians there, peaceful, home-loving tillers of the soil, Catholics in the occasional church-going times, but " good " OLD SETTLERS ' H5 pagans " otherwise. In New Mexico and Ari- zona there are 10,000 Navajos, sullen, nomadic, horse-loving and horse-stealing vagrants, " pa- gans first, last and all the time." From such diverse elements as these, poured into the crucible of American life, what can come? Little of good for the nation unless fused by the white heat of love and shaped in the mould of a Christian civilisation. There is no essential difference between the needs of the Spanish-speaking people in New Mexico and those in Arizona and California. Racial characteristics and Romanism produce similar results wherever found, and the same sort of help is needed. THE PENITENTES " There are no real heathen in this country at least, on this continent." Though the remark is not an infrequent one, the speaker shows but slight knowledge of conditions under our flag. Go through southern Colorado and New Mexico, along the valley of the Rio Grande and back among the hills for hills have marvellous power in shutting away civilisation and Chris- tianity. Here are villages of adobe houses, a wooden cross standing in the centre of the plazas, and the spell of peace seeming to rest upon them. But wait until the beginning of Lent, 116 UNDER OUR FLAG and then witness even the little that is permitted to the sight of the uninitiated. Blanketed forms creep through the twilight to the lonely <morada, or brotherhood house. It is cold on these heights, but many of the participants are nude save for white cotton trousers to the knees and they drag heavy wooden crosses. From the morada the penitents creep on hands and knees to the crucifix in the cemetery, and there scourge themselves with twisted ropes of the yucca fibre, or branches of the long-spined cactus. The blood on the walls around the crucifix testifies to the results. All night these torturing marches continue, and night after night, the culmination com- ing in Holy Week. On midnight of Thursday evening, after the most severe penances of all, the subject for crucifixion a high honor is chosen. Friday morning he is bound to a cross and left there until he swoons, or dies. After this experience, there is no limit to the evil a man may do, and yet receive priestly abso- lution. Four years of it releases one from fur- ther penance through life. This Brotherhood of Penitentes, or Flagellants, was introduced from Spain. Of course it reaches only the most ignorant of Mexicans, and it is but fair to say there is a movement in the Catho- lic church not only to discountenance, but to abolish it. But religious superstition, essential heathenism like this, dies hard. And, meanwhile, "OLD SETTLERS' 117 these men are American citizens. Indeed, there is a touch of grim humor in the fact that there are Republican and Democratic moradas. DANGER POINTS " Adulterated and unadulterated heathenism is at our doors, and about the cradle of its infancy hovers the cloud of mystery which for many gives their charm to Oriental mission fields." " It is hard for an American to realise the condition of the mass of poorer, uneducated Mexicans. They live an idle, aimless existence because they have nothing to do with. The women cannot sew because they have nothing to sew. They cannot cook much because they have nothing to cook. Many sit all day long, it may be, doing nothing, waiting for time to pass, helpless, because ignorance is always helpless." Stripped of much of its former wealth, and given to less ostentatious display, the Roman church is still far from spiritualised, and is the great menace to liberty in Spanish America. As a patriotic American it makes my blood tingle to recall that when the Pan-Americanists went, almost all of them, in a body to the shrine of Guadaloupe, after some of the American dele- gates with the rest had kissed the Archbishop's hand, the silken folds of our Stars and Stripes were laid upon the altar of a shrine which is a 118 UNDER OUR FLAG notorious example of religious superstition and degradation. Assembly Herald. The Mexicans in the United States are all citizens under our common flag. To lead them into the privileges of a heavenly citizenship is the aim of the work of the church. With the glow of the sunset-coast in our faces, and a larger hope in our hearts for the Spanish-speaking, people, whose lives are taking on a color and richness only known under Gospel skies, may there not come a more golden realisation to the thousands waiting for the electric touch of generous gifts to Home Missions ? Rev. D. E. Finks. SCHOOL PICTURES Maria, living back in the hills of New Mexico, thirty miles from any school, had to be sent home for lack of room in the school and of means for her support. Sent home to the life of a poverty-stricken, ignorant Mexican wife and mother, married at thirteen! And she begged for the chance to go to school! Said a Catholic mother, " Make my daughters Protestants if you will, only take them. I can scarcely feed them, and as for school privileges they have none." Five girls from a tiny ranch away in the hills, " so unused to strangers that they hid like fright- OLD SETTLERS ' ened quails," yet mustered up courage enough to beg to be allowed to enter the school. They were bright-eyed, manly little fellows, who had walked five miles to school, and pro- posed to do so daily if only they might come so as to learn to read, like a companion who had been in school the previous year. How could they be turned away? " Two fathers," writes a missionary teacher, " begged to be allowed to enter the school. The other night I found one of our boys at his regu- lar task of helping one of these in arithmetic, by the light of a fagot fire, that the man might be in the boy's class when I could admit him." One frequently sees the children on the way to mission school carrying two or three sticks of wood apiece, with their books. Unable to pay money, they furnish the wood for their tuition, their fathers sending it in this way instead of bringing a wagonload at a time. An old man present at the dedication of a mis- sion school begged that one might be opened in his village. He was told that perhaps sometime the Board would be able to do so. " Sometime," he replied, with tears in his eyes, " sometime I be dead!" The old men and the young men, the women and the children, stretch out earnest hands from the very Valley of the Shadow, pleading for 120 UNDER OUR FLAG Christian succor and cheer. Shall we turn away with indifference and pay no heed to their cry ? If you could see a dirty, procrastinating, un- trained Mexican boy transformed by this school life into the tidy, dish-washing, bed-making, care- taking, studious, Bible-loving, hymn-singing, wide-awake schoolboy, you would know what it is that justifies this string of adjectives, and the money spent on this school. And you would want to help all the rest of the poor, school-less, Christless Mexican boys to find home care and practical Christian training that shall make them citizens worthy of such a country as our own. Is there anything more patriotic that women can undertake as a measure of saving their country? From a Visitor to a Presbyterian School in New Mexico. PORTO RICO AND THE PHILIPPINES Said a small boy, drawing his conclusion from the study of recent history, " Seems to me the United States is getting her land too much scat- tered around." Whether we agree with the youngster or not, the fact remains that Home Missions have expanded with the expansion of the nation, crossing oceans and seas, and reach- ing halfway around the world. That which may be said of Porto Rico applies,^ to a large extent, to the Philippine Islands, as "OLD SETTLERS' 121 well only, in the latter, there is the added re- sponsibility of a native population differing from ourselves even more widely in race and concep- tions of life than the natives of the Caribbean isl- and. To all intents and purposes, missionary work among the Filipinos is foreign work, in spite of the protection of our flag. In both Porto Rico and the far Eastern isl- ands, the Roman Catholic church had her op- portunity, and lost it. In four hundred years of possession Spain did not erect a single school- house in Porto Rico. That fact alone is an in- dex to the needs and conditions of the island to-day. When it came into the possession of the United States, but ten out of one hundred of its people could read and but six out of one hundred could write. The Spanish-American War, fol- lowed by the study of conditions in Cuba and Porto Rico, has forever disposed of the flimsy argument, " Better leave people alone. They're not responsible if they don't hear the Gospel and are as well off." About one-third of the inhabitants of Porto Rico are young people between the ages of five and sixteen. Two-thirds of the native popula- tion are women. In the United States, exclusive of its colonial possessions, there are twenty in- habitants to the square mile. In the Philippine Islands, sixty. In Porto Rico, two hundred and seventy! Porto Rico is a land of perpetual sunshine 122 UNDER OUR FLAG of bananas, beans and black coffee as the staple food of its people of shacks built on stilts, with stables beneath, as the dwellings of its country folk of poverty in the extreme, where work is considered a disgrace and self-indulgence is the order of the day. The village and city homes of the poorer classes are little better than the country shacks. " The women," says a missionary worker there, " may be divided into upstairs and downstairs women. The better class live on the second floor, and the visitor stumbles over washing tubs and charcoal braziers in the halls. A necklace is the ' dressed-up ' costume of the downstairs child." Poverty presses to an extent of which we can have little idea. It is not at all unusual to keep children at home from school for the lack of food to satisfy their hunger. A missionary on the island gives the following vivid picture of her work: " Miss and I go into dens every day where the sunlight has never entered, neither broom nor water. Whole families live in these dark rooms. At night they shut the door there are no windows. The patio is surrounded by small rooms, all opening into it. Crowds of people live in each patio t and there are tubs everywhere, and screaming, smoking women, naked children, and loafing men. It strongly reminds me of pictures of the Inferno. There is "OLD SETTLERS' 123 one cistern, which all use. The waste water is thrown on the pavement, and it is wet and sloppy everywhere, and smells! I'm learning to hold my breath instead of breathing deeply. I try to see how little I can breathe and still get along. The people follow us around the patio, and carry chairs for us. A family is lucky if it has one chair. " Our waiter is really very funny, and amuses us very much. One day as he was starting for the kitchen with a tray of tottering dishes he remarked in Spanish, of course ' Well, I don't know whether I will get there or not, but, after all, God is great and over all.' He got there." There is pitiful need of hospitals for the poor and of training in the simplest matters of sani- tation. The missionary physician finds treat- ment rendered vastly more difficult than at home by reason of the native prejudice against fresh air and baths. While the windows may be opened, possibly, during his visit, he is morally certain they will be shut as soon as he leaves, especially if it is a case of fever! But more than anything else, Porto Rico and the Philippines need to-day the gospel of clean, pure lives. The exorbitant charges of the priests have placed even the ordinary ceremonies of civilisation beyond the reach of the majority of the people. Marriage costs from $25 to $250. One-tenth of a man's income is claimed by the priest, and masses and other churchly functions 124 UNDER OUR FLAG are equally high-priced. The more intelligent of the people have lost faith in Catholicism. It remains for us to teach them faith in Chris- tianity. As a matter of course, Protestant work meets opposition. A small girl who had attended a mission sewing-school sent word she could not come any more because they did not believe in God at the school, and there would be no salva- tion for her. The child, of course, but echoed the words of the priest. " It seems to me all great men are Ameri- cans," said a Porto Rican lad. Unfortunately for the life that we wish to see develop in the beautiful " Gem of the Antilles," the boy's state- ment will not bear reversal. Not all the Ameri- cans he sees are " great men," nor even good men. As is always the case, there is a large element among the new-comers that is not rep- resentative of the best types of the American nation. The work of Christ must be strength- ened and enlarged with special reference to Americans on the island for to them the Porto Ricans look as examples. When, too, there is sufficient missionary work for the people with whom we have thus far been brought into inti- mate contact in the Philippines, we shall but have touched the outer fringe of the inhabitants of the archipelago. As Christians, do we be- lieve that the soul of a Mohammedan devotee in Sulu or Mindanao is worth as much as our "OLD SETTLERS' 125 own? " Beginning at Jerusalem," where are the outer borders of our commission from the blessed Christ? PORTO RICAN PICTURES Said a Porto Rican mother, " I believe much in God. I like very much this religion. My two daughters and all my family wish to enter with me into the church. But I must be married first. I have lived twenty-two years with the father of my children. I am ashamed to tell the pastor. I want you to tell him. Do you think when I am married God will pardon my sins?" " A pretty young girl of seventeen," says the principal of a Porto Rican school, " walks twenty miles to and from the school daily, sleeps on a bare floor, and is so poor that she must beg nearly all her food." " I see very clearly," said an intelligent Catho- lic, " that you Protestants are friends of educa- tion, and your chief weapon is the enlightenment of the people. Why, your very churches are schools for your congregations ! " This is the thing that strikes these people most forcibly, the fact that all lines of Protestant missionary work are in their very nature educational. " There is among the Porto Ricans an idea that air in a sickroom is certain death, and as we 126 UNDER OUR FLAG visit our sick, we are almost prostrated as we enter the apartment that has been scrupulously closed to all light and air. Native physicians tell their patients that they will not treat their cases unless the rooms are thus kept closed and that in a climate where it is perpetual summer. So also as to the use of water. It is feared by many as death itself. The filthy practices that are in vogue among the people in cases of sick- ness, due to superstition or ignorance, defy all credence. The only possible way to combat these things is through a medical missionary who shall be a teacher and a preacher of good sense and sound Gospel." A boy in a Porto Rican school who modestly admitted he could speak some English, said, " I am learning many things in this school. I like best the story of Abraham Lincoln. He was a poor boy like me and lived in a log cabin as poor as mine. But he was honest and earnest and became the saviour of his country. I mean to work so hard that I may become of use to my country." The Congregationalist. Profoundly pathetic is the story that comes to us from the Spanish-American mission field of a little boy who so loved and revered his teachers that he sought to conceal from them his place of abode, deeming it unfit for such superior beings to enter! Think what innate cleanness and " OLD SETTLERS " 127 longing for higher things this suggests. Truly we know not what we do when we carry light and help to these " little ones," of whom our Lord declared, " Of such is the kingdom." Woman's Home Missions. The poor people of Porto Rico are making unusual sacrifices to educate their children. No compulsory law is necessary. Attendance is higher in percentage than in any State of the Union except Massachusetts, which State ex- ceeds Porto Rico only by one per cent. Hundreds of children carry their shoes and stockings to and from school in their arms. It is a common experience to see the pupils at dismissal leave the school, sit down by the roadside, remove shoes and stockings and climb rugged and jagged mountain trails barefooted to save the shoes and thus prolong their use. I know women who sit on the river rocks all day and every day wash- ing clothes to keep their children in school. In the mountain district above Corozal a boy was found in school wearing a peculiar shirt at least four times his size. Upon inquiry it was learned that the boy had only one shirt and that one was being washed. That the boy might not miss a day in school his father gave the son his only shirt. The father that day, naked to the waist, carried a case of mer- chandise on his head over the mountains, under the palms, in a fierce tropic sun, a distance of 128 UNDER OUR FLAG twenty miles and return, that his son might learn. And the father's shirt on his son's back bore the legend " Pillsbury's XXX " ! At Juncos I saw a boy in school who was un- usually self-conscious and who, in moving about from class to seat, never turned his back to me. Inquiry of the teacher told the story. The boy was finally to pass to another room, and my teacher-friend's explanation led me to watch. As the boy passed out I saw that all the shirt he had in this world was on the front of his body! Hiding the shame of his poverty, there he was in school, dressed only in a pair of tattered trou- sers and half a shirt. He was to me a genuine little patriot, pressing his face to the light and pushing his half-naked body forward in the movement for the uplifting of himself and his beautiful island home. The Congregationalist. MEMORY TEST Why is missionary work necessary among the Indians ? Describe the Pueblo Indians and their homes; the Mission Indians. Describe Indian women as seen at a distribution of rations. What is the greatest hindrance to missionary work among the Indians ? Why should there be good schools on the reser- vations ? "OLD SETTLERS' 129 What lessons are taught the Indian boy ? What is said about the native religion of the Indians ? Do they become genuine Christians ? Where is the oldest house in our country, and when was it built? Of what older civilisation have records been found ? What are the results of Roman Catholicism in New Mexico? Describe the homes of native Mexicans in this country. Describe the rites of the Penitentes. Give school pictures of the Spanish-speaking people. What added responsibility comes to our coun- try with the acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippines ? In what condition was education in Porto Rico under the Spaniards? Describe the homes of the poorer classes in Porto Rico. What lessons of purity are needed in Porto Rico, and why ? Tell about children in Porto Rican schools. 130 UNDER OUR FLAG BIBLE LESSON " Beginning at Jerusalem " Study Home Mission work for foreigners, as described in the book of Acts. Note The nationalities reached on the Day of Pente- cost. Acts 2 19- 1 1. The act of an immigrant convert. Acts 4: 36-37. A foreigner made steward in the church. Acts 6 : 5. The relation of foreigners to the first Christian martyr. Acts 6 : 9. Paul's sermons in the presence of the Roman guard. Acts 21 : 37-40; 22; 23 ; i-io. THY KINGDOM COME (TUNE Missionary Chant.) Lord, when we pray, " Thy kingdom come," Then fold our hands without a care For souls whom Jesus died to save, We do but mock Thee with our prayer. Thou couldst have sent an angel band To call Thy straying children home, And thus, through heavenly ministries, On earth Thy kingdom might have come. But since to human hands like ours Thou hast intrusted work divine, Oh, let our eager hearts make haste To join their feeble powers with Thine; OLD SETTLERS" 131 To sow the seed in every soil; To bring the word of life to men; To give as Thou to us hast given, Hoping for no reward again. All this to do, while in our thought No pride or vain self -trust finds room, This is to pray, with honest heart And purpose true, " Thy kingdom come." HELEN G. RICE. VII MORMONISM AND THE MORMONS THE limitations of space forbid anything more than a brief outline of the inception of Mormonism and the character of its founder. A Mormon poet (?) says : " Vermont, a land much famed for hills and snows And blooming cheeks, may boast the honor of The Prophet's birthplace." The " honor " seems somewhat doubtful, since the best that his Mormon biographer can say of Joseph Smith is that " he could read with- out difficulty and write a very imperfect hand, and had a very limited understanding of the ele- mentary rules of arithmetic. These were his highest and only attainments, while the rest of those branches so universally taught in the com- mon schools through the United States were en- tirely unknown to him." His father was accus- tomed to boast of Joseph as the " genus " of the family. Moving to western New York while Joseph was quite young, the family led a curious, vaga- bondish existence, the use of divining rods and the digging for supposed treasures being the 132 M O R M O N I S M 133 favorite occupations of father and son. The mother should not be overlooked in .any study of Mormonism, for it is evident that she aided and urged this son apparently her favorite to such an extent that she has claim to be consid- ered the real founder of the infamous system whose basis is the degradation of womanhood. From the evil she wrought for the women of Mormonism, the hands of Christian women must rescue them. Mormonism began with the alleged finding of mysterious golden plates, the discovery being accompanied by " revelations." The whole story hinges upon the testimony of Joseph Smith, whose word was less than worthless among his neighbors of the respectable sort. The " revela- tions " became of marked value in the establish- ment of the system. When the first " transla- tion " of the plates was stolen, and Smith did not dare to attempt a duplicate lest, unfortunately, there be comparison with the original, it was " revealed " to him that he should take another portion, " a more particular account," from the " plates of Nephi," as that first used had been " altered through the agency of Satan." The crude, incoherent, complex result which was destined to form the Book of Mormon the Mormon Bible went begging for a publisher, in spite of Smith's assurance that this one, or that, would undertake it. But a " revelation " accounted for the non-fulfilment of those previ- 134 UNDER OUR FLAG ously received by saying, " Some revelations are of God, some are of man, and some are of the devil " a statement we may all be willing to ac- cept. Alas! no rule was given by which either could be identified. For this we must go to an older authority, and read, " By their fruits ye shall know them." Certain it is that Mormons were left no choice concerning such " revelations " as those ordering that a house should be built for Smith, or declar- ing the " will of the Lord " in regard to elections. On September n, 1831, Smith announced that it had been " revealed " to him that the Mor- mons were " the Lord's agents, and as such had the right to take what they chose and pay as they chose." There were sixteen " revelations " in 1829, thirty-five in 1831, and so on, with vary- ing numbers, until in 1845 there were but two but these proclaimed the doctrine of polygamy. In his last days Smith was allowed to issue " revelations " only after they had been censored by the Church Council. They had become too convenient even for Mormons. Smith made careful provision for his father by constituting him a Patriarch, a position that enabled him to sell his " blessings " at what we may suppose to have been a good profit. In 1875 these were openly advertised at $2 apiece. Whether there were wholesale rates, or bargain days, does not appear. The followers of Joseph Smith claim to hold MORMON ISM 135 the Bible in equal honor with the Book of Mor- mon. But their editions of the sacred volume contain curious interpolations and changes. As a single illustration, take the addition made to the fiftieth chapter of Genesis: " That seer will I bless, and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded, ... for his name shall be called Joseph, and he shall have judgment and shall write the word of the Lord/' More than three thousand changes have been made in the Book of Mormon since it was first issued changes in grammar, chronology, geog- raphy and Bible history. The words " Carefully revised by translator," on the title-page of an edition, are suggestive, to say the least. " How can honest people, earnest people, peo- ple who have professed to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, accept such doctrines, be the victims of such barefaced imposture?" The question is a natural one, and yet we may not mock at the credulity of the Mormons when we remember, for instance, the annual " cures " at the shrine of a Roman Catholic saint in New York City. Human nature is a singular com- pound, and most of us are very human, when all is said and done. " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Three things constitute the power of Mor- monism: the iron hand of the church, the steady and continuous extension of the system into con- 136 UNDER OUR FLAG tiguous States, and its proselyting in other sec- tions of this country and in other lands. One chief element in the almost perfect con- trol that the church has over its members lies in its equally complete control of the means, and even of the necessities, of life. Utah is in the arid section of the continent, and agriculture is pos- sible only through an elaborate 'System of irri- gation controlled by the church. Co-operative stores, managed by the church, must be patron- ised by the Mormons under dire penalties. An apostate Mormon finds himself under the ban of a boycott more severe than trades unions have ever conceived. Said Brigham Young, as offi- cially quoted in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 31 : " The moment a person decides to leave this people, he is cut off from every object that is desirable for time and eternity. Every posses- sion and object of affection will be taken from those who forsake the truth, and their identity and existence will eventually cease." Tithing is a continuous test of loyalty, and is carried out to a minute degree. One-tenth of the original value of property is paid in tithes, to begin with. One-tenth of all its increase must follow, at stated intervals, and for every nine days' work there must be one day's service for the church, the requirement extending even to beasts of labor. (See statement by Brigham Young, in address in Salt Lake City, Sept. 8, M O R M O N I S M 137 1850. Reported in The Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, p. 21.) In 1878 the tithes of the Mormon church amounted to $1,000,000 a year. The total tithes during the administration of Brigham Young were $15,000,000. No report is required of the vast sum thus raised. The people are told that the payment is essential " to secure a future resi- dence in the heaven they are seeking after." It must seem a literal " laying up treasures in heaven " to those who believe implicitly in the word of the priesthood. Religious statistics have not yet been collated from the returns of the last census. The census of 1890 gave the Mormon population of Utah as 118,201. (Estimated number of adherents in all countries, 300,000.) The following figures, also from the census of 1890, indicate the workings of the policy of expansion, one of the chief elements in Mormon strategy: Mormons All Churches New Mexico 456 105,749 Idaho 14,972 24,036 Arizona 6,500 26,972 Nevada 525 5,877 Wyoming 1,336 ",705 Colorado 1,762 86,837 No more impressive statement of the peril to the government of the United States from the ex- tension of Mormonism can be given. It is first, 138 UNDER OUR FLAG last, and always, for its church. Its political af- filiations swing from party to party at the man- date of the church. For years it has been stealthily working to secure the balance of power in other States. It " has ever in view objects rather than methods." Brigham Young's con- tinuous cry was to be let alone. " In a few years," said an official orator in a Fourth of July address, " there will be no United States government, for the Mormon church will be the head of the nation." Feb. 15, 1844, the Times and Seasons announced Joseph Smith as its Presidential candidate, and kept his name thus before the people until his death. The example was followed by The Neighbor, another Mormon paper. When next the Mormon hierarchy names its candidate for this high office, he will have the backing, unless present conditions are changed, of at least five States. " Mormon am- bition," says an apostate Mormon, a grandson of Brigham Young, " is broad as the world and deep as simple faith. It seeks only its own ends, defying human judgment and claiming authority from God." Mormonism makes practically no proselytes among its Gentile neighbors. Its progress is the result of its persistent missionary work. In 1901 officers of the Mormon church claimed that from 1400 to 1900 emissaries of the " Church of the Latter-Day Saints " were in the field. The East is permeated with their influence. They MORMONISM 139 enter a Christian church in Harlem (N. Y.), and their specious arguments capture members and officers of its Christian Endeavor Society, who forthwith emigrate to Utah ; they call from house to house in Pennsylvania, and even the descend- ants of Scotch Covenanters are not proof against their wiles ; they penetrate the coves of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, seeming angels of light to the secluded inhabitants. They take service in families, the better to carry forward their work. A Mormon butler actually induced sixty servant girls to go to Utah by the promise of husbands and homes. The English manufacturing towns are a prom- ising field. The people are ignorant, supersti- tious and poor, and the offer of a building lot, or a farm, is very attractive. In the six years beginning with 1840, 3750 Mormon immigrants came from Great Britain alone. No law can prevent this unless the incomers admit that they are polygamists and that contingency, of course, is carefully guarded against. In fact, the doc- trine of polygamy is usually kept in the back- ground, if not denied, until the new convert reaches Utah. " When we dare," said an apostle, speaking of missionary work in Japan, " we preach the doctrine of plural marriage." A slight possibility of relief in this direction lies in the fact that the supply of government land in Utah is now exhausted, and this constitutes a strong reason for colonisation elsewhere. The HO UNDER OUR FLAG fact that such extension has already begun in Mexico can but rouse sympathy and anxiety for our sister republic. Of the blasphemy of Mormonism and the un- speakable horrors of the doctrine of polygamy, the direct and cruel enemy of the home, the words of Mormons themselves are the best evidence. Instead of enlarging upon these here, liberal quotations concerning them are given at the end of the chapter. "No woman," says a Mormon document, "can be perfect without a man to lead her. ... A man cannot be saved without a woman at his side." The principal doctrines of the Mormon church are more or less directly connected with this state- ment. Polygamy is based on the theory that the more wives (and children) acquired here, the more honor and power will a man have in the next world. " What do you find in the Book of Mormon more than you can get in the Bible ? " The question was addressed to a prominent Mormon, and his reply, unconsciously, perhaps, gave the keynote of the whole system. " Oh, the kingdom that is promised to every man." But no " kingdom " is promised to woman. For her there is simply the negative assurance that only if " married " here and " sealed " to some man for the hereafter, can she be saved. A man may have " sealed " to him women whom he can never know, as Queen Victoria, for instance, MORMONISM Hi was made the prospective partner of many a Mormon in the other world. " All over Mor- mondom are pious old widows, or wives of Gen- tile apostates, who hope to rise in the last day and claim a celestial share in Brigham Young." Baptism for the dead is also a taking doctrine. Families may be thus baptised by the wholesale, ensuring for those in whose name the rite is ob- served all the privileges of Paradise and inci- dentally, as is always the case in ceremonies of the Mormon church, paying well for the privi- lege. With Mormons occupying the places of judge, and advocate and jurors, there is slight hope of conviction in any accusation of polygamy against a Mormon. The only chance for the civil re- demption of the womanhood of Utah and its manhood, as well lies in a constitutional amend- ment making plural marriage a crime against national law, and thus giving Federal courts jurisdiction even within the State of Utah. Against such an amendment all the power of the Mormon hierarchy, and all the influence it can bring to bear political, mercantile, and railroad will be exerted, as it means the death-blow to the distinctive doctrine of the Mormon religion. The language of Governor Wells, in vetoing an act of the Utah legislature, March 14, 1901, shows the chief dread of Mormonism : " I have every reason to believe this enactment would be the signal for a general demand upon the National 142 UNDER OUR FLAG Congress for a constitutional amendment directed solely against certain conditions here a demand which, under the circumstances, would assuredly be complied with." " Did not Utah promise, when admitted to Statehood, to do away with polygamy ? " Certainly. The constitution of the State, adopted in May, 1895, says, " Polygamy or plural marriages are forever prohibited." In 1890, the president of the church issued a proclamation (not a " revelation ") which struck out polygamy as a necessary belief and practice. This was justified to Mormons as called forth by the " perseverance of their enemies," and to this state- ment was added, " That which is not fulfilled will be." A Mormon elder says, " The polygamists who have become so since the law forbade it are as truly heroes as was Washington. We honor them and will stand by them. Persecution only shows their worthiness." The author of " The Story of the Mormons," an invaluable book on this subject, writes: " Only the certainty of continued exclusion from the rights of citizenship, and the hopeless- ness of securing the long-desired prize of State- hood for Utah, finally induced the church to bow to the inevitable and to announce a form of re- lease for its members from the duty of marrying more wives than one. . . . The doctrine is simply held in abeyance. It must be remembered that it is a part of the doctrine of polygamy that one MORMON ISM 143 can enter heaven only if ' sealed ' to some devout member of the church, ' for time and eternity/ and that the space around the earth is filled with spirits seeking ' tabernacles of clay ' by means of which they may obtain salvation." A constitutional amendment giving power to Federal officers to enforce the law against polyg- amy whenever public sentiment is so perverted that local officers are powerless, is necessary for the safety of the nation. But only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ can rescue souls en- snared in the Satanic net of Mormonism. MORMON STATEMENTS A lie is righteous when it can serve the church. Brigham Young. Girls, do not forget polygamy. You cannot practice it now, but keep it alive in your hearts, and remember there are four girls to every boy in Utah. Editorial Statement in the Organ of the Young Women of Utah. Adam is our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. When he came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. From an Address by Brigham Young, in the Tab- ernacle, Salt Lake City, 1852. Published in the Journal of Discourses. 144 UNDER OUR FLAG We did not reveal celestial marriage. We can- not withdraw or renounce it. God revealed it and He has promised to maintain it and to bless those who obey it. If any man or woman expects to enter into the celestial kingdom of our God without making sacrifices and without being tempted to the very uttermost, they have not un- derstood the Gospel. . . . Who would suppose that Congress would enact a law which would present the alternative to religious believers of being consigned to the penitentiary if they should attempt to obey the law of God which should deliver them from dam- nation? An Epistle from the First Presidency to the Officers and Members of the Church, Oct. 6, 1885. Whether the doctrine of the plurality of wives is true or false is none of their business. We have as good a right to adopt tenets in our religion as the Church of England, or the Metho- dists, or the Baptists, or any other denomina- tion. Brigham Young, as quoted in Journal of Discourses, Vol. II, pp. 187-188. I believe that they will not under our present form of government (I mean the government of the United States) try us for treason if believing and practising our religious notions and ideas. I think, if I am not mistaken, that the Constitution gives the privilege to all the inhabitants of this MORMONISM 145 country of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith for the practice of it. But if it can be proved to a dem- onstration that the Latter-Day Saints have actually embraced as a part and portion of their religion the doctrine of the plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be laws enacted by* this government to restrict them from the free exercise of their religion, such laws must be unconstitutional. Orson Pratt, in an Address at a Church Conference, Aug. 28, 1852. See Deseret News, extra, Sept. 14, 1852. In the spiritual world we will go to Brother Joseph, and he will say to us, " Come along, my boys. We will get you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives?" '' They are back yonder. They would not fol- low us." " Never mind," says Joseph. " Here are thou- sands; have all you want." H. C. Kimball, in an Address in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Feb. /, i#57. Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 209. No man in Utah who already has a wife and who may desire to obtain another, has any right to make any proposal of marriage to a lady until he has consulted the president of the whole church and through him obtained a revelation from God as to whether it would be pleasing in His sight. The Seer, Vol. I, p. jr. 146 UNDER OUR FLAG As a people we view every revelation from God as sacred. Polygamy was none of our seeking. It came to us from heaven, and we recognised it, and still do, as the voice of Him whose right it is not only to teach us, but to dictate and teach all men. Deseret News, 1865. Seem always to obtain information from your husbands, especially before company, though you may pose as a simpleton. Never forget that the wife owes all her importance to her husband. From Maxims for Mormon Wives, in Deseret News. The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such that if true none can be saved who rejects it, and if false none can be saved who receives it. Orson Pratt. Every spirit that confesses that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he lived and died a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God ; and every spirit that does not, is of anti-Christ. Brigham Young, in an Address at Nauvoo, Oct., 1844. A man marrying many wives " cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that which belongeth unto him and to no one else." Book of Doctrines and Covenants, Sec. 132. MORMONISM Wf The Mormons claim that " in conceding the cognisance of the marriage relation as within the province of church regulation," they are " practically in accord with all other Christian denominations." In a " revelation," Joseph Smith declared that marriages " not by me nor by my word," were invalid in the other world, and the parties thereto could not be " gods " there by reason of their vio- lation of law here, but " must remain separately and singly, without exaltation," being " minister- ing servants to minister for those who are worthy of a far more and an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory." Book of Doctrines and Cov- enants, Sec. 132. A " Revelation " given July 12, 1843. Concerning the " revelation " of the " duty " of plural marriage, an English paper (The Mil- lennial Star, Liverpool, January, 1853) said that no " other revelation " had ever had the power so "to shake to its centre the very social structure which has been reared and vainly nurtured by this professedly Christian generation; none more conclusively exhibits how surely the end must come to all works, institutions, ordinances and covenants of man; none more portrays the eternity of God's purpose ; and we may say none has carried so mighty an influence, or had the power to stamp the divinity upon the mind by 148 UNDER OUR FLAG absorbing every feeling of the soul, to the extent of this." " Mr. Young, may I say to the President that you intend to observe the laws under the Con- stitution ? " " Well, yes, we intend to." " But may I say to him that you will do so ? " " Yes, yes, so far as the laws are just, cer- tainly." From an Interview between Senator Trumbull and Brigham Young, in July, 1889. Reported in Alt a California. " Do you believe that Jesus Christ had wives, and where do you get your authority for so be- lieving." " I can answer that question only by asking another. When a man is sick, who is the natural one to take care of him? " " His mother, sister, or wife, if he has one." " Who were first at the sepulchre to care for the body of Jesus?" " Mary Magdalene and the other Mary." " Were these Marys his mother ? " " No." "His sisters?" "No." " Then they must have been his wives." Report of a Conversation with a Mormon Mis- sionary. MORMONISM H9 A gentleman living in Utah writes: "Yesterday a Mormon young woman told me that her father paid every tenth load of hay for tithing when he brought it from the field. During the winter when he sold the remaining hay he also gave every tenth dollar. Also with his cattle he gives one-tenth of what he has, and the next year he tithes the same stock over again, giving one- tenth of all, thus including the cattle from which he has paid for many years, plus the increase. This man is in moderate circumstances, yet he pays $500 a year tithing. He asked the officials if, having once tithed his hay and stock, he must again tithe them when they were sold by giving one-tenth of the amount realised, and was told that he must do so. Is it any wonder that this organisation is so abundantly provided with the ' sinews of war ' ? " An old man, leaving his home and family at the command of the church authorities possibly because he was suspected of disaffection re- joiced in the opportunity to go to Denmark on a mission, expressing himself as " lucky to have the chance to travel." The priesthood takes advantage of the desire for travel and adventure in the hearts of the young, and sends out its young men as mis- sionaries. Said a high-school graduate, " I'll not begin my study of law for three years, but dad is going to make use of me meanwhile. I 150 UNDER OUR FLAG am going on a mission to Holland. I don't know how much preaching I'll do, but I'll see Germany and have a good time. Us Mormon kids get a good chance to see the world! " (For illustration of Mormon missionary work, read " By Order of the Prophet.") Three hundred American Mormons are re- ported as attending the dedication of a Mormon temple in Copenhagen. The Book of Mormon has been translated into fourteen different lan- guages, including German, French, Danish, Italian, Dutch, Welsh, Swedish, Spanish, Hawaiian, Hindostanee, Maori, Samoan and Tahitian. Said a Mormon wife, speaking of polygamy, " Oh, it is hard, very hard. But no matter, we must bear it. It is a correct principle, and there is no salvation without it." Said another, " While it would break my heart to have my husband take another wife, yet if the laws allowed him to I would have to yield, for it is a sacred command, and my welfare in the next world depends upon it." The following statement by a Mormon woman illustrates one phase of polygamy : " We had one wife, but it was so hard, both for my husband and myself, that we could not endure it and she left us at the end of seven months. She had been M OR MONISM 151 with us as a servant girl several months, and was a good girl. But as soon as she was made a wife she became insolent, and told me she had as good a right to the house and things as I had, and you know that didn't suit me very well. But I wish we had kept her and I had borne everything, for we have got to have one, and don't you think it would be pleasanter to have one you had known than a stranger ? " Joseph Smith's wife seems to have been some- what rebellious, for in the " revelation " com- manding plural marriage, " Mine handmaid, Emma Smith," is carefully commanded " to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to no one else." Evidently the rule of plurality was not meant to work both ways. Two sisters of a man's first wife became his fifth and sixth wives, and the mother of these was the seventh, " for the salvation of her eternal state." This man had nineteen wives in all, and sixty-four children! IN A MORMON SUNDAY-SCHOOL " The teacher announced that the lesson for the day was the Passover. A little boy was asked to tell the story of the Passover in Egypt, and he did it in a creditable manner. Then the teacher 152 UNDER OUR FLAG gave a half-hour's discourse, beginning with the Feast of the Passover, at which time Christ in- stituted the Lord's Supper and foretold His own suffering and death. In speaking of the resur- rection of Jesus, the teacher laid special stress upon the fact that the Lord was not buried under the ground, but in a sepulchre with only a stone rolled against the opening, and that otherwise He could not have come forth from the grave when He came back to life. Then several stories were told of people who were buried alive, but could not get out of their coffins because they were un- der the ground. The class was told that Jesus appeared to a great number of people before His ascension, and also that He appeared to the Nephites right here in the United States. " After telling this long story, the allotted time for the study of the lesson not having yet ex- pired, the remainder of the time was taken up by telling fairy stories and singing songs. As it was Thanksgiving season they sang such selec- tions as ' Father, We Thank Thee ' and ' Carloads of Pumpkins/ " The boys and girls who were eight years of age were urged to be baptised into the kingdom. The boys were told to be good little Latter-Day Saints, so they might some day be sent out on a mission. " As a reward for good behavior the children were promised a nice dance sometime next month. It was said that such a good spirit was mani- MORMONISM 153 fest in the last dance they had, that it was thought wise to have another one soon." MORMONISM IN HYMNS I'll be a little Mormon and seek to know the ways That God has blest His people in these the latter days J I know that He has blest me with mercies rich and kind, And I will strive to serve Him with all my might and mind. By sacred revelation, which He to us has given, He tells us how to follow the ancient saints to heaven-, Though 1 am young and little, I too may learn forth- with To love the precious Gospel revealed to Joseph Smith. With Jesus for the standard, a pure and perfect guide, And Joseph's wise example, what can I need beside? I'll strive from every evil to keep my heart and tongue, I'll be a little Mormon and follow Brigham Young! Go, welcome his people, let nothing preclude you, Come Joseph and Simeon, and Reuben and Judah, Come Naphtali, Issachar, Levi and Dan, Gad, Zebulon, Assher, and come, Benjamin. Sound, oh, sound the trump of fame, Let Jesus with the Mormon name Ring through the world with loud applause, The Bible shall defend our cause. 154 UNDER OUR FLAG It matters not when or whither You go, neither whom among, Only so that you closely follow Your leader, Brigham Young. The blessings of heaven attend you, Both in time and eternity, If you strictly attend to the counsel Of Brigham and Heber C. In sunshine, in storms and in tempests, In all changes, console yourselves That your sharers in sorrow and joy are Brigham, Heber, and all the Twelve. THE ETERNAL FATHER AND MOTHER I had learned to call Thee Father, Through Thy Spirit from on high, But until the Key of Knowledge Was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare. Truth is reason ; truth eternal Tells me I've a mother there. When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal court on high? Then at length when I've completed All you send me here to do. With your mutual approbation Let me come and dwell with you. MORMONISM 155 WORDS OF WARNING The strength, the perpetuity and the destiny of the nation rest upon our homes established by the law of God, guarded by parental authority, and sanctified by parental love. These are not the homes of polygamy. President Cleveland, in First Annual Message. Think of its evil origin of deceit; its history of crime; its covert practice of polygamy every- where where Mormons are found, more pro- nounced now than ever before; its doctrine of blood atonement which has never been repudiated and which can be enforced when considered politic; its debasing conception of a polygamous God and Saviour the Holy Spirit a kind of mesmeric fluid imparted by the laying on of hands; its lying practices and unequalled pro- fanity; its school of deception where the mis- sionaries are trained before going out to preach ; and its treasonable faith. Loyal to the United States! Not in the faintest mental conception. Their political designs, which they are quietly but surely carrying out, are stupendous. When one thinks of it all, and of the apathy of the people while this Satanic faith is spreading all around the world, it is hard to remain calm. Mrs. Darwin S. lames, President Presbyterian Woman's Board of Missions. 156 UNDER OUR FLAG Northern Mexico contains six flourishing Mormon colonies, in all of which polygamy is practised without let or hindrance, and in all of which the population is increasing with great rapidity. These Mormon communities will become in no real sense Mexican, but remain outlying parts of the great Mormon imperium in imperio which is building up in our own domain. They keep the institution of polygamy more than doctrinally alive. Their people come and go between the Mexican colonies and Arizona and Utah. The temples wherein their polygamous elders are " sealed " to plural wives stand on United States territory. The Mormons have annexed Mexico for the purposes of polygamy. In addition to these, they have recently pur- chased a sort of peninsula which projects into the United States, being bounded west by Ari- zona and east by Texas. All the men whose names have appeared in connection with the pur- chase are Mormons of Utah, and there is more than a suspicion that it is an important step in connection with a new and greater movement of Mormons from the United States upon a large tract of land in Mexico, contiguous to the United States, which they can develop according to their well-known thrifty methods, and call their own. But if they are the purchasers of this land, they are not purchasing it to provide for a Mormon exodus. They are not going to abandon the MORMONISM 157 parent hive at all they are simply going to send out a big swarm from it. The Mormons have been making many proselytes lately, both in the East and in Europe. They must have thousands of colonists ready for location somewhere. There can be no reasonable doubt that they look forward to the day when northern Mexico, as well as the mountain region of our West, will be pre- dominantly Mormon. When that day comes the agriculture of Arizona will be almost wholly in Mormon hands. A more or less compact Mor- mon community will exist over a country extend- ing from the middle of Montana on the north to the Mexican State of Durango on the south, a distance of fifteen hundred miles, and from the Rockies on the east to the Sierras on the west. Their " State of Deseret " is, at least in their own imaginations, greatly extending its borders. New York Times, 1903. Travellers, excursionists and business ex- ploiters are easily blinded to the real character of Mormonism. On the trains, in hotels, and in business places, Mormons are not easily distin- guished from Gentiles. It is therefore necessary to call attention to the fact that there is a dis- tinction between Christianity and Mormonism. In some respects Mormonism resembles Mo- hammedanism. Each has a false prophet and a false Bible. Each has a polygamous priesthood, and claims a monopoly of saving power. Each 158 UNDER OUR FLAG holds to the Christian revelation and superadds a pretended revelation. There are many things that distinguish Mormonism from Christianity. Mormonism insists on faith in Joseph Smith as a divine prophet, in the Book of Mormon as a divine revelation, and in the authority of the Mormon priesthood. Faith in all this is abso- lutely essential to salvation. It teaches that God was only a man, still going on to perfection, that Adam was God, and the natural father of Jesus Christ, and that there are multitudes of Gods, and that God is a polygamist, and that Jesus Christ was a polygamist. It debases woman to the Turk- ish level, gives her no chance for the future unless she is married naturally or spiritually to some man, and says her greatest work is to furnish bodies for the vast multitude of souls hovering about the earth waiting and watching for bodies in which to be born. The Christian church has as definite a mission in Utah as in any heathen land. fiishop Charles H. Fowler, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. MEMORY TEST Who was Joseph Smith? Give the history of the Book of Mormon. Name some of the " revelations " issued by Smith. Do the Mormons believe in the Bible ? What three factors give Mormonism its power ? M O R M O N I S M 159 Describe the tithing system as practised by these people. Why is Mormonism a danger to our govern- ment? Where are Mormon missionaries at work, and with what results? Give Mormon statements concerning polyg- amy. What is baptism for the dead? Why is it difficult to convict a polygamist in Utah? Was the promise of Utah to do away with polygamy made in good faith ? What must be done to make it possible for the Federal Government to reach and punish polyga- mists ? What is the effect of Mormonism upon women ? Describe a Mormon Sunday-school. How are the Mormons extending their bor- ders? BIBLE LESSON Christ's Law of the Home The type of paternal love Luke 15 :n, 20-25. Childhood the type of Himself Luke 9 47-48. The law of family love Matt. 5 121-25. The law of marriage Matt. 5 13 1-32. The law of filial obligation Mark 7:9-13. The law of hospitality Luke 9:1-5; 10:5-6. 160 UNDER OUR FLAG The law of the guest Luke 10 7-9. The law of conscience Luke 8:19-21. The supreme law of God Matt. 10:37. See " Jesus and the Family " in " The Prhv ciples of Jesus " (Robert E. Speer). THE TEST OF LOVE (TUNE Ortonville.) O Lord and Master of us all, Whate'er Thy name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine. To Thee our full humanity, Its joys and pains belong; The wrong of man to man on Thee Inflicts a deeper wrong. Who hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes Therein to Thee allied; All sweet accords of hearts and homes In Thee are multiplied. We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But dim or clear, we own in Thee The Light, the Truth, the Way! J. G. WHITTIER. VIII WHERE EXTREMES MEET SAID a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the early days of organised Home Missionary effort by its women, " You have two fields before you the frontiers and the cities. The latter is the largest and most important, and will eventually claim the largest share of the at- tention of your society. But you cannot touch cities with systematic effort until you have a strong organisation. You must begin with the frontiers." The prophecy has found abundant fulfilment. More and more are missionary workers in the home field learning that cities are strategic points, politically, morally, socially, and spiritually. In them " the rich and the poor meet together," and the problem of the Church of Christ is to bring about the state of society and civic condi- tions that can result only from full realisation that " the Lord is the maker of them all." The needs of our cities what are they ? God's blessed air and light in place of dark, damp tenement-houses, breeders of malaria and foster- ers of crime; room for the joyous, glad childhood 161 162 UNDER OUR FLAG to which every boy and girl is entitled room for play which shall mean contact with " mother earth," in place of the debasing influence of the sidewalk and street; room for mental growth rather than the dwarfing slavery of factory, shop, and store room for spiritual growth through a wise Christianity that believes in " downtown churches." Answers like these come instinctively to our lips as the question is asked. Second thought goes deeper. Civic corruption seems to dominate city life, scarcely a community of any considerable size being free from its taint. Foreigners, bring- ing with them the low ideals, the degenerate tend- encies of the Old World, herd in our cities no other word describes it and are unreached by American civilisation and Christian sympathy and uplifting. Homelessness is on the increase, since those who can afford to do so are more and more taking residence in the suburbs. Clubs are no more homes than. are tenement-houses. This exodus leaves the city in the control, so far as government 'is concerned, of the less responsible and less fitted for such a burden. Churches are gradually moved farther and farther away from the centres of population, missions, in some cases, taking their places the very name often repelling those for whom they are established. Well does Dr. Josiah Strong say, " Ignorance, vice, and wretchedness, combined, constitute social dyna- mite, of which the city slum is the magazine, WHERE EXTREMES MEET 163 awaiting only a casual spark to burst into terrific destruction." Especially must the menace of the liquor traffic be considered in any discussion of city conditions. More arrogant, more powerful, more treacherous, if possible, than anywhere else in the land, it often holds municipal government, education, life and health, in its deadly grasp, and is amenable neither to law nor Gospel. To quote again from Dr. Strong, in " The Twentieth Century City " : " A New York brewer said, ' The church peo- ple can drive us when they try, and we know it. Our hope is in working after they are tired, and continuing to work three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.' Who does not exclaim with Dr. Parkhurst, ' Oh, what a world this would soon be if the perseverance of the saints were made of as enduring stuff as the perseverance of the sinners ! ' " Organised missionary work in our home cities has two notable centres, around which, in the main, its efforts are concentrated children and foreigners. As pointed out by Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, in " Democracy and Social Ethics," chil- dren are children, whether clad in velvet or rags. The freebooters in embryo, who steal lead pipe from untenanted houses, buy beer with the pro- ceeds and dare each other to face the policeman, are but the counterparts of country boys with 164 UNDER OUR FLAG their rods and guns, and their inherent love of ad- venture. It is startling to charitable instincts, to be sure, to have a family spend for photographs money given for the purchase of coal; but have they not a right to family love and pride as well as we? In other words, the absence of true homes, and the suppression of family life and the natural characteristics of childhood, are impor- tant factors in making the city what it is to-day. The normal child is a creature of perpetual motion. The child of the city finds his chief op- portunity in the street, and from the stolen ride on the back of a trolley car or the unwarranted picking up of wood from places where building is going on, it is an easy transition to the theft of apples from a push-cart, and then to larger steal- ings. In the school, or factory, or store, there is constant repression and that, without safe re- laxation to follow, is perilous education. Bless- ings on the vacant lots, in which childhood may romp and " perform " to its heart's content. They have saved more lives to manhood and wo- manhood than can be computed in the arithmetic of earth. While the plan of this book calls for the study of conditions rather than of causes, it will not be out of harmony to refer to one special factor in the city child's concept of authority, municipal, State, and national. The " city fathers " must be recognised in considering the conditions of our great cities. Whether standing, personally, for WHERE EXTREMES MEET 165 clean or dirty politics, whether honestly elected, or chosen through franchises bought and sold like merchandise over the counter, there are cer- tain things an alderman representing a city's slum must be, if he stand at all. These are sum- marised by Miss Addams in the book mentioned above, somewhat after this fashion : He must not be too good that is, his standard must not be above that of his constituents. In practice, this often means that he must help a constituent out of trouble without engaging in curious investigation as to whether or not the man deserves to be in trouble else what is the value of a " pull " ? He is expected to override the civil service and all other laws, if necessary, for the protection of the people of his ward. It is the old patriarchal system a blind groping that aims at the extension of the family type into public life. His gambling place may run, his saloon may be kept open long after legal hours of closing, but police headquarters would be sadly embar- rassed if either, by some unfortunate mistake, should be raided. He must pay rent for unfortu- nate constituents and find jobs and secure fat places in city departments for those who have voted for him. An alderman in a certain city boasted that he had 2600 men from his ward on the public payroll. This was one-third of the entire vote of the ward one chance in three for the men who voted for him to get work or, what was more to the point, to get pay. 166 UNDER OUR FLAG Companies seeking city franchises find it con- venient to heed the applicants for positions who are sent by aldermen. The " city father " gives free excursions to his constituents, makes pres- ents to his numerous baby namesakes, supplies railroad passes, buys tickets for balls and fairs, and " chances " galore, and is in his element at a church bazaar. Free drinks and turkeys mark Thanksgiving and Christmas for him and for the recipients of his bounty. This " boss " has his supreme opportunity on funeral occasions; he puts his hand into his pocket or into that of the city and prevents burial in the pauper's field, that bete noir of the poor whose scant earnings are drawn on for burial insurance, when they utterly fail to meet the needs of the living. He is good to the widow and the fatherless, he " knows the poor better than the big guns who are always talking about civil service and reform." What bearing has all this upon city needs? Chiefly in its effects upon family life and the convictions of childhood. With the people thus royally served by what seems simply the mani- festation of " human friendliness," what chance is there for the exposure of corruption, for teach- ing the sacredness of the franchise, for a clean municipal government? And yet this is what goes on, and the only remedy is the arousal to civic righteousness, through the redemptive power of personal righteousness, day after WHERE EXTREMES MEET 167 day, year after year, in every large city in the land. We need not dwell upon the dangers to wom- anhood in our cities, save to note a single point. It is said there are but two places in Chicago in which a respectable woman without funds may hope for a respectable night's shelter. How is it elsewhere ? What becomes of the thousands of immigrants that annually make this country their home ? One answer to the question may be found in the following synopsis, taken from The Christian Herald: " The present population of Chicago is over two millions. About ninety per cent, of the peo- ple are foreign by birth or parentage. Every continent, and some of the islands of the earth, are represented. Sixty languages are spoken. Different nationalities colonise in different parts of the city, until one can visit Bohemia, Poland, Italy, and other lands, without leaving the city limits. " There are more Germans than in any city in Germany except Berlin, and more Poles than in any city in Poland. One city missionary visiting from house to house during the afternoon of a single week, offered the Gospel to fifteen nation- alities. In one section, not two miles square, eighteen languages are spoken. Many of these people do not understand English. Most of 168 UNDER OUR FLAG them are nominally Romanists, and these things greatly increase the difficulty of reaching them with the Gospel. But a glance at the city shows how much the Gospel is needed. About 6000 saloons are doing business. These employ 31,600 persons, and have a daily income of $316,000. In a single saloon, on a certain ordi* nary Sabbath evening at seven o'clock, there were counted 524 men. Within the next two hours 480 more entered, until men were standing six- deep around the gambling tables. There are 3000 billiard and pool rooms. Houses of im- purity abound. In one ward were counted 312, in which were found 1708 inmates. A thousand men are engaged in alluring men into these dens. " The religious and moral destitution of the masses is startling. Some years ago a section was canvassed, and it was found that of 1280 families visited, 1220 did not possess God's Word, neither were they willing to receive it. The canvass of another section revealed 1140 families with no Bible, with 1823 families neg- lecting public worship, and nearly 2000 chil- dren in no Sunday-school. It is not uncommon to find people who never saw a Bible, and do not know it when shown to them. One woman pro- duced on invitation what she thought was her Bible ; when, on her failing to find the Gospel of John, the visitor came to her assistance, it was to discover that she had Webster's Dictionary in her hand. ' Well,' said she, ' if that is not a WHERE EXTREMES MEET 169 Bible, then we do not have one.' There are said to be twelve atheistic Sunday-schools in opera- tion in the city, the members of which are indoc- trinated by means of a catechism whose summary states that there is no God, no Christ, no Holy Ghost, no heaven, no hell, no virtue in Chris- tianity and no integrity in its ministers." According to the census of 1900, more than one-third of all the aliens in the United States cannot speak English. A large proportion of these are in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, and the extreme Western States and Territories. The percentage of non-English-speaking aliens is greatest in the cities. Notable instances of this are found in Allegheny, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Scranton, and Milwaukee. Of those who have taken out naturalisation papers in the latter city, 21.6 per cent, of the total number of foreign- born males of voting age cannot speak English. In other words, more than one-fifth of the foreign- born voters of Milwaukee do not know the language of the country whose destinies they help to control ! Foreigners are clannish^ so are we. Have we not an " American colony " in every foreign city ? Full often the seeds of anarchism and nihilism are sown in their hearts, even if they have not germinated before these aliens land on our shores. In the isolation enforced by their own customs and ours and by reason of the freedom of speech and press, the conditions are favorable for the UNDER OUR FLAG growth of such seeds. Only by showing that there is something better than destruction, some- thing really worth living for, can a large pro- portion of those who reach our shores be made a safe element in our body politic. The concentration of foreigners in the mining districts of the country is another serious feature of the immigration problem. Poles, Hungarians and Italians constitute a large part of the work- men in the coal mines men whose votes count the same as those of native-born citizens, but men, as a rule, with no other education in citizenship than that given by the " boss," and able to read their ballots only so far as the picture symbol of the party that has claimed their allegiance. But these men, miserable as their condition is, have apologies for homes. The nomads of our population, the " gangs " that build our railroads, dig our canals, construct our great reservoirs, do the hard work of installing irrigation plants in the Far West these men, controlled by the padrone system and bound hand and foot through debts contracted in their ignorance these men have, absolutely no homes but they are voters. HOMES OF "THE OTHER HALF" Can you picture to yourself two rooms called home where the sun never shines? This sun- less home is in a rear house five steps below the street level. WHERE EXTREMES MEET 171 The general living room is cold and damp and there is a suspicious sort of scratch and scramble behind the stove, which makes one creep all over, when a big rat takes itself off into the unex- plored depths under the chimney. Then follows the explanation of an old broom handle kept in the bed to pound the floor with when the rats come out " But sure, lady, them's so bold them's getten not afraid of me stick; there's too much rats in this house " and so the lady thinks as she watches under the chimney expecting any minute to see " too much of a rat." " Why no fire to-day ? " asks the visitor. " Sure, lady, you see I'm trying to save all I can for me baby ; it's not so cold on me in bed, and it costs thirteen cents to feed that stove with coal only one day. My man he has not much work; he's gone now to a saloon to get a free lunch, and then he brings home a five-cent soup for me; it's hot and that warms me up. My man he only cleans out beer pipes in the saloons around town and only makes about $4 in a week and not always that ; then we pays $4 for our room and then tries to live and save a bit for me baby, but we haven't saved any yet." The five-days old son who is an heir in his own right to rats and poverty and the " bit " yet to be saved, is just as welcome, just as much loved, and just as happy as if he had been born into a mansion. Our next visit is not in a basement, but an 172 UNDER OUR FLAG old attic, and I wish I could show you an interioi view, for it is quite impossible to describe it. In the lower hall (for the first floor is a saloon and gambling den), the water came up over my rub- bers, and the plastered ceiling had tumbled down so that the laths were everywhere exposed with the water running through. It was so dark and horrid I dreaded going up, but I knew that there were two old, helpless people under the roof, so I opened my umbrella and climbed up over the debris toward the top. It was the same on every landing and my only wonder was that the whole old frame house did not blow down. Such hard faces as one meets in these halls make it seem like a hiding place for criminals. Certainly the dregs of many nationalities have found a refuge in old " 79" In the room of the old people water was pour- ing through the roof and everything in the room was soaked, even the bed. Mrs. H., over eighty years old, sat by the tiny stove crying, and holding an umbrella over a can of milk which the lame old husband had just brought from the diet kitchen. Mr. H. was nailing pieces of old boxes down on the floor where the boards had rotted away and broken through. Suddenly he looked up and pointed to half of a loaf of wet bread and a small bag of peas soaked by water and said : " There's our food for to-day and to-morrow gone! Oh, such a dreadful hole, but when spring comes we can get a little work, and then WHERE EXTREMES MEET m we'll move. People say we ought to go to the Island, but we are not criminals; I've been well brought up and never expected to come to this. I'm over eighty, it's a little while I've yet to live ; we'd like to stay together because I'm so help- less." "Your religion," said a girl in a Catholic home, " is not good. Your minister can't forgive sins. Your religion was made by Martin Luther, my religion came from Christ." I explained to her what the word " Protestant " meant, how Luther came to separate from the Romish church, and repeating the Creed, which greatly astonished the young girl, I said : " Read the Word of God, search the truth in the Bible, Katie, and God will lead you into light." " What ! Read the Bible the Protestant Bible ? No, I won't; there are things in it I have been told not to read, things only the priests must know." City Mission Monthly, New York City. MEMORY TEST Why did Home Missionary work begin with the frontiers? Name some of the inherent rights of child- hood? What special dangers in city government result from suburban life? m UNDER OUR FLAG Which is better, a down-town " mission " or a down-town church? Why? Give the quotation from Dr. Parkhurst. How does it apply to the temperance question ? What effect does tenement-house life have upon childhood? What are the dangers in street education of children ? What are the objections to factory or store life for children? What picture is given of " city fathers " ? What bearing has this upon Home Missions ? Give illustrations of the dangers to womanhood in city life. Describe the nationalities found in Chicago. Illustrate the religious destitution of our cities. What is atheism doing? What startling fact is given concerning the alien population of Milwaukee? What is the remedy for anarchism ? Describe conditions in the mining regions? How is it along the lines of new railroads, canals, etc.? BIBLE LESSON Strangers and Sojonrners [To be read responsively] Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ex. 22! 21. WHERE EXTREMES MEET H5 Thou shall not oppress a stranger; For ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ex. 23:9. Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. Ex. 23 : 12. Thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; Thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger; I am the Lord your God. Lev. 19: 10. // a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shalt not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. Lev. 19: 33-34. If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. Yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Lev. 25 : 35. Judge righteously between every man and his brother, And the stranger that is with him. Deut. I : 16. Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God liath given unto thee and unto thine house, Thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. Deut. 26:11. 176 UNDER OUR FLAG Gather the people together, men and women and children, and the stranger that is within thy gates, That they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law. Deut. 31:12. The Lord preserveth the strangers; he re- lieveth the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. Psalms 146 : 9. THE CHILD AT THE DOOR (TUNE " There's a Stranger at the Door.") ' Behold^ I stand at the door and knock" There's a child outside your door; Let him in! He may never pass it more; Let him in! Let a little wandering waif Find a shelter sweet and safe In the love and light of home; Let him come! There's a cry along your street, Day by day ! There's a sound of little feet Gone astray. Open wide your guarded gate For the little ones that wait, Till a voice of love from home Bid them come. WHERE EXTREMES MEET There's a voice divinely sweet Calls to-day; " Will you let these little feet Stray away?" Let the lambs be homeward led, And of you it shall be said, * Ye have done it faithfully Unto Me." MARY A. LATHBURY. IX SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME MISSIONARY MEETINGS HAVE a " progressive conversation, " on Home Missionary topics. Name a defi- nite time, say five minutes, for each theme assigned, and secure a " change of part- ners " at the end of each period. Appoint reporters, each to serve for a definite time, whose business it shall be to gather Home Missionary news from other sources than regular missionary papers, and present it at the meetings. Newspapers and magazines furnish abundant items for such a resume, if one's eyes are open to see them. THEMES FOR WRITTEN PAPERS OR IN- FORMAL TALKS Tilled and Untilled Fields in America. Why organise Missionary societies among young people ? How do present conditions in China affect Home Missionary work for the Chinese ? 178 SUGGESTIONS 179 The best Missionary meeting I ever attended and why? The poorest and why? A Home Missionary Journey (describing visits to the several missionary fields.) Little Brothers and Sisters (children in Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, etc.). A Fourth of July Home Missionary Service. Why is Mormonism more dangerous to the country than the crime of bigamy ? Slaves white and yellow in this country to- day. A HOME MISSIONARY ROUND TABLE Arrange the seats around a table a circular one, if possible. On the table place the following numbered articles : 1. A box of cotton bolls ; if these cannot be ob- tained, use cotton-wool. 2. The picture of a reindeer. 3. A horseshoe magnet to which several nails cling. 4. The picture of a burro laden for travelling. 5. A handful of coffee beans. 6. Strips of sugar-cane; lacking these, lumps of sugar. 7. Wreath of artificial flowers. 8. A bottle of turpentine. 9. Picture of Admiral Dewey. 10. A handful of rice. 180 UNDER OUR FLAG 11. An Eskimo doll. 12. A bow tied from two strips of white mull. 13. Picture of an ocean steamship. 14. Indian bead-work or weaving. 15. A pair of chopsticks or some other Chinese curio. 1 6. A piece of coal. 17. A specimen of drawn work. 18. Strips of red and yellow cambric. 19. A bandage roll. 20-25. Pictures of leading Home Missionary workers. Supply sheets of paper, and pencils, to those present and ask each to write the name of the Home Mission field, or work, represented by the several objects, numbering the answers to cor- respond with the articles. If it is desired to in- troduce the element of competition, a subscription to the Woman's Home Missionary organ of the denomination (for herself or a friend) may be given to the one presenting the poorest list. A skilful manager may introduce other features, such as a statement concerning each mission field, personal choice of fields, comparison of the work for Chinese in this country with the work in China, etc. (i. Work among Southern Negroes. 2. Alaska. 3. Mormonism, especially polygamy. 4. New Mexico and Arizona. 5. Porto Rico. 6-7. Hawaii (the luai, or wreaths for the shoul- ders, are an inseparable feature of all festive oc- SUGGESTIONS 181 casions on the Hawaiian Islands). 8. Work among Southern mountaineers. 9. Philippine Islands. 10. Hawaii, Porto Rico, or the Phil- ippines, ii. Alaska. 12. Deaconess work the " white ties." 13. Immigrant work. 14. Indians. 15. Chinese. 16. Work in the mining regions. 17. Mexican work in the West. 18. Work among Spanish-speaking people. 19. Hospitals. 20-25. Missionary names that should be familiar.) A FIELD DAY Placard the walls of the room with telling facts concerning different fields of Home Mis- sionary work. These may be hand-printed in large letters on sheets of wrapping paper. Give personal invitations to be present, accompanying each with a small tag on which is written the name of the field the possessor is to champion. These tags worn in the buttonhole stimulate ques- tions and are excellent ads. Prepare typewritten answers to telling questions on each field. On assembling seat the "Indians," "Alaskans," " Mormons," etc., together. Intersperse the sing- ing of stirring missionary hymns with the other exercises. X TOPICS FOR THOUGHT IN the fall of 1902 the annual meeting of the National Spiritualists' Association was held in the city of New York. Among its features were reports from the four missionaries who had been at work under the auspices of the Associa- tion during the year. Two of these reported thirty-one meetings held in one month in the State of Texas, with four new Spiritualist societies as the result, and a total of 298 meetings with an ag- gregate attendance of 32,720 people. The others, working in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michi- gan, etc., reported holding joint meetings with Methodists, Baptists, and other denominations ! " Not yet have we crowded opportunity. In- stead, we have waited for her." Said a poor old Negro woman, " De Lawd don' hurry, but I reckon He's managin'." Somehow I never feel like good things b'long to me till I pass 'em on to somebody else. " Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch!' " All human life belongs to Jesus Christ, and 182 TOPICS FOR THOUGHT 183 it not only may be, but is lost now, without the Divine Redeemer." The Church can do large things much better than she can do small things. Bishop of Mon- tana. In a well-deserved tribute to Mr. Samuel B. Capen, the distinguished President of the Ameri- can Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. Francis E. Clark says, " He is not so engrossed with the Foreign Missionary idea that he cannot see the evils or the needs of his own city, but presides at political meetings, takes the stump, when neces- sary, defends a cause, popular or unpopular, if he believes it to be right, and is as much a power for civic righteousness as for missionary ex- tension." America for Christ! Doesn't that slogan stir your soul, make your heart beat quickly ? It does that for me. America for Christ ! Again I sound the stimulating slogan. " America has become the wardrobe of the earth, the wheat-bin of the hemispheres, the corn-crib of all nations, the purveyor of meats to all markets, the successful competitor in the commercial trade of the globe, and the head banker of the world." Now let's make this same America thoroughly and truly Christian, that she may the more certainly ade- 184 UNDER OUR FLAG quately fill the large place in the history of the world that God desires her to fill. John Willis Baer. Sturdy, self-respecting morality, a readiness to do the rough work of the world without flinching, and at the same time an instant response to every call on the spirit of brotherly love and neighborly kindness these qualities must rest at the founda- tion of good citizenship here in this republic if it is to achieve the greatness we hope for it among the nations of mankind. President Roosevelt. " For we, Who scarce yet see Wisely to rule ourselves, are set Where ways have met, To lead the waiting nations on." " Home Missions," says an eminent foreign missionary, born and reared in India, " means that America must be won for Jesus Christ throughout her borders, so that she may conserve a high Christian life, and may do her God-ap- pointed work as an evangelist among the nations. More and more, as our history develops, we are forced into a wider world activity, and as we go the church must see that the civilisation we carry is filled with the spirit of the Gospel. If we fail to come to large Christian achievement and fruit- age at home, how shall we be empowered to permanently do our work abroad? The whole foreign missionary work of these United States TOPICS FOR THOUGHT 185 rests back upon an effective and adequate pro- gramme of Home Missions." In the olden days the call for a Scottish clan to assemble for battle was sent by swift runners who bore a blood-dipped cross. O'er peak and fell, by mountain streams and through peaceful hamlets, sped the messenger till he could speed no farther. Then he thrust the cross into the nearest hand, with the cry, as voiced by the poet of the Highlands, " The muster place is Lanrick Mead, Instant the time! Speed, clansman, speed! " And he who received the weird symbol dropped plough in furrow, left stag at bay or bride at the altar, and hastened on with Clan-Alpine's fiery cross. In the hands of His church militant, God has placed a blood-stained cross. From man to man He bids us speed the message. Shall we be less ready, or less faithful than they who bore Clan- Alpine's message and signal? XI HOME MISSION BOOKS HY don't they name some Home Missionary books? " It was an enthusiastic missionary meeting, and books of value to those inter- ested in missionary work and those who ought to be were being named from the floor. But missions, apparently, meant those in foreign lands alone. The question was addressed to one of the most intelligent leaders of young people's work and thought in our coun- try, and his instant reply was, " Home Mission books? Why, there aren't any, are there? " The response gave food for thought. Was this lamentable condition of affairs really the case? It seemed a question best answered by the publishers of books, so it was sent to them, with the statement: "Anything illustrating conditions of life among the Indians, Mormons or Chinese, on Western frontiers (including Alaska), among the negroes and the mountaineers of the South, the foreign and tenement-house population of our great cities, or the natives of our colonial possessions, should HOME MISSION BOOKS 187 be of value to our workers. Books from your house will be gladly included in the list now being prepared for publication." In response to this apparently definite state- ment, answers like these were received : " We beg to call your attention to (books on Prayers and Hymns). " We mark, as especially worthy of note, (a book on Africa) and (one on Mada- gascar.)" Another publisher mentioned a volume treating of life at the court of Siam as being particularly in the line of Home Missions, while yet another advised a special list of temperance books. " We have checked our missionary books in the catalogue sent you herewith," wrote one firm. " Though not distinctly in the line you suggest, the story of Paton and that of Mackay, especially, are considered standard, and have been so widely adopted for missionary libraries that they would seem to us to be as well fitted for the Home Mis- sionary work to which you allude." Paton, the Apostle of the South Sea Islands, and Mackay, the hero of Uganda ! Life in Japan, biographies of Neesima and Moffat, a history of Chinese literature, and the story of a home in Fiji were especially com- mended to notice. One was almost tempted to think Home Mis- sions a figment of the imagination, since these leading publishers of great cities had no com- 188 UNDER OUR FLAG prehension of their existence. Clearly there must be personal search. The results of this search are classified below. Abbreviations (all addresses are in New York City unless otherwise stated) : Appleton, A. ; Baker Taylor, B. T.; Baptist Publication Society (Philadelphia), B.; Crowell, Cr.; D. C. Cook (Chicago), C.; Doubleday, Page & Co., D. P.; Dodd, Mead & Co., D. M.; Harper Bros., H.; Houghton, Mififlin & Co. (Boston, Mass.), H. M.; Lee & Shepard (Boston), L. S.; Little, Brown & Co. (Boston), L. B.; Longmans, Green & Co., L. G.; Macmillan, M.; Methodist Book Concern, M. B.; Methodist Episcopal Church South, M. E. S. ; McClure, Phillips & Co., M. P.; L. C. Page & Co. (Boston), P.; Pilgrim Press (Boston), P. P.; Presbyterian Board of Publication (Philadelphia), P. B.; Fleming H. Revell Co., R. ; Chas. Scribner's Sons, S. ; Woman's Home Missionary Society, 150 Fifth Ave., W. ALASKA The New Eldorado M. M. Ballou. H. M., $1.50. Alaska Rev. Dr. Sheldon H. Jackson. D. M., $1.50. Alaska and the Klondike A. Heilprin. A., $1.75. Picturesque Alaska Abby J. Woodman. H. M., $1.00. Among the Alaskans Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. P. B., $.75. HO ME MISSION BOOKS 189 Life in Alaska Mrs. Eugene S. Willard. P. B., $75- Kin-da-shon's Wife Mrs. Eugene S. Willard. R., $1.00. THE CHINESE The Story of Chinatown Mary E. Bam ford. C, $.08. The Lady of the Lily Feet Helen F. Clark. B., $.50. These two books are illustrative of Chinese life in American cities, the latter dealing espe- cially with the sufferings of Chinese women. A Chinese Quaker Mrs. Nellie Blessing Eyster. R., $1.50. A story based on experience, showing the re- sults of Christian work among the Chinese in this country. The Chinaman as We See Him Rev. Dr. Ira M. Condit. R., $1.50. The history of Home Missionary work for the Chinese on the Pacific coast. CITIES Democracy and Social Ethics Jane Addams. M., $1.25, net. Modern Cities and Their Religious Problems, Samuel Lane Loomis. B. T., $1.00. The 20th Century City Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong. B. T. (paper, 25 cents), $.50. 190 UNDER OUR FLAG How the Other Half Lives Jacob A. Riis. S., $1.25, net. A Plain Woman's Story Julia McNair Wright. P. P., $1.00. Dealing with the subject of sweat-shops. The City Wilderness R. S. Woods. H, M., $1.50. Practical Sociology C. D. Wright. L. G., $2.00. The New W'orld's Welcome Alice M. Guern- sey. W., $.10. A study of immigration and some of its problems. The Leaven in a Great City Lilian W. Betts. D. M., $1.50. Based on experiences in Settlement life and work. Down in Water Street S. H. Hadley. R., $1.00, net. What God can do even in the slums, as illus- trated in the history of the old Water Street Mis- sion (established by Jerry McAuley). FRONTIERS Recollections of a Missionary in the Great West Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady. S., $1.25. The Minute Man of the Frontier W. C. Pudde- foot. Cr., $1.25. A Frontier Hero L. T. Thurston. P. P., $1.25. Black Rock and the Sky Pilot" Ralph Con- nor." R., each, $1.25. Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate Bishop Whipple. M., $2.50, net. HOME MISSION BOOKS 191 The Annie Laurie Mine David N. Beach. P. P., $1.50. HAWAIIAN ISLANDS Hawaiian America Casper Whitney. H., $2.50. The Transformation of Hawaii Belle M. Brain. R., $1.00. INDIANS A Century of Dishonor Helen Hunt Jackson. L. B., $1.50. Indian Boyhood Dr. Chas. A. Eastman. M. P., $1.60, net. Illustrative of the native traits and character of the Indians. The author, an educated Indian, knows whereof he writes. Onoqua Frances C. Sparhawk. L. S., $1.00, net. The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop Hamlin Garland. H., $1.50. A charming story, illustrating two methods of dealing with the Indians, and their results. The Apostle of the North. R:, $1.25. On the Indian Trail. R., $1.00. Indian Wigwams and Northern Camp-fires. M. B., $1.25. By Canoe and Dog Train. M. B., $1.25. Oowikapun. M. B., $1.00. Algonquin Indian Tales. R., $1.25. The above, by Rev. Egerton R. Young, though dealing directly with conditions across the Cana- 292 UNDER OUR FLAG dian border, are illustrative of common experi- ences of missionary work among the Indians. Our Life among the Iroquois Indians Mrs. H. L. Caswell. P., $1.50. MISCELLANEOUS Expansion Dr. Josiah Strong. B. T. (paper, 50 cents), $1.00. Our Country Dr. Josiah Strong. B. T. (paper, 30 cents), $.60. The New Era Dr. Josiah Strong. B. (paper, 35 cents), $.75. History of the Deaconess Movement Rev. C. Colder. M. B., $1.75. Joy, the Deaconess Elizabeth E. Holding. M. B., $.90. Leavening the Nation Rev. Dr. Joseph B. Clark. B. T., $1.25, net. The Little Green God Mrs. Caroline At water Mason. R., $.75. Those Black Diamond Men Wm. Futhoy Gib- bons. R., $1.50. A tale of the mining regions of Pennsylvania. Presbyterian Home Missions Rev. Sherman H. Doyle. P. B., $1.00, net. After Prison What? Maud Ballington Booth. R., $1.25, net. MORMONISM The Story of the Mormons William Alexander Linn. M M $4.00, net. The Mormon Monster Edgar E. Folk. R.,$2.oo. HOME MISSION BOOKS 193 / By Order of the Prophet Rev. Alfred H. Henry. R., $1.50. A powerful story showing the gradual disinte- gration of character produced by belief in Mor- monism. Rocky Mountain Saints T. B. H. Stenhouse. A., $3.00. My Summer in a Mormon Village Florence A. Merriam. H. M., $1.00. MOUNTAINEERS In the " Stranger People's " Country Charles Egbert Craddock. H., $1.50. Other books by this author contain similar pictures of life and character in the Southern Highlands. The Puritan in Holland, England, and America Douglass Campbell. H., $5.0x5. NEGROES Our Brother in Black Rev. Dr. Atticus G. Hay- good, M. E. S., $1.00. Up from Slavery, and Character-Building Booker T. Washington. D. P., each $1.50, net. SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE Old Glory and the Gospel in the Philippines Dr. Alice B. Condict. R., $.75, net. The Cross of Christ in Bololand John M. Dean. R., $1.00, net. The New Era in the Philippines Arthur J. Brown. R., $1.25.