CHURCH IN THE MISSION FIELD

[s. 188] : When the mi ionary or evangelist has felt the joy of leading men to accept Jesus Christ, the fact comes to light that the converts have to be taught the nece ity of growth as the well as the means of growth. Each individual has to be established in the faith, to be taught to recognize and resist temptation, the idea of which is new to him, and to be guided and encouraged as he tries to throw off old evil hal:)its of thought and action. He cannot otherwise become an aggre ive worker Moreover, to win others to allegiance to Christ. For their the new converts cannot stand alone. own growth they need mutual support, and to maintain their position in an unfriendly and often actively hostile community they need organization. Only through becoming members of an organic body can the converts take the place in the community and the nation where their influ- 170 ence will tell in support of the principles which they profe . The church, then, must be established early in the mi ion field as a permanent institution for It must be organized in all the work of Christ. its different departments, placed on a firm foundation of faith, self-support, activity; be provided with the various means e ential to its continued existence and growth. The Christian community is to be permeated with Christian ideas, its social life freed from its evil a ociations, brought into accordance with the spirit of the Gospel, its customs purified, its aims enlightened, its national life made to include a genuine and true patriot And so on in all the endle lines that open ism. up before those who study what is involved in the establishment of the kingdom of God upon earth. It is a mighty task, more perplexing even than the corresponding undertaking at home. And retrospect only makes its difficulties stand out more prominently. No one can travel in the Levant, over the roads where Paul led the way in Christian work, recall the story of those first centuries of growth, remember the subsequent centuries of stagnation and decay, and not wonder whether the story is to be repeated in the churches now gathering in every city and town, and almost in every village. Modern Christians are no more sincere or devoted than modern mi ionaries no those of earlier ages; more earnest or skilled than the apostles and fathers. The question of the need of new church organization has come up with some sharpne in connection with work among the Oriental churches and in Papal lands. When mi ions were commenced in the Levant among the Armenians, Nestor i ans, Greeks, etc., there was no plan for a separate church organization. The old one, it was thought, was good enough, and it was far better to utUize that, introducing whatever of reform was nece ary or practicable, but not severing historic a ociations, especially in view of the fact recognized by all, that the creeds of these old churches were e entially in accord with those of the more modern bodies. This, however, was found to be impracticable, and as a matter of fact Protestant church organizations have been formed wherever evangelical mi ionaries have gone. The need to organize the Church on the mi ion field being admitted, the duty of doing this work falls upon the mi ionary. We expect the mi ionary to be fully occupied in winning converts. In actual fact, however, in every succe ful field, it speedily comes to pa that the greater part of the converts are won by the efforts and the explanations and the pure lives of the native Christians. This the native believers can do. But that which they cannot do for a long time is to bear the burden of culture and nourishing those whom they have been the means of winning This duty falls upon the mi ionary. to Christ. The problem of the mi ionary is one of securing growth and permanency. The question he is constantly striving to solve is that of how to hold the vantage-ground gained, and make it the point of departure for new achievements. Here certain e entials must be kept in mind: 1. The development and growth of the individual church and community must be natural, not forced. The genius of the people must be studied, and that line of development found which will bring out 171 the best that is in them. South Sea Islanders cannot be transformed into Europe ans or Americans, and every effort so to transform them results in harm. At the same time they must be something different from what they have been. While it is doubtle true that the Asiatic must remain an Asiatic, it is also true that the Christian Asiatic must be as different from the heathen or Mohammedan Asiatic as the modern English man is from his Norman-Saxon progenitors. 2. The element of time is very e ential. Occabut sionally a sudden transformation will come; is the exception rather than tlie rule, and he works best who is not disturbed if he has to admit that the growth of Christian character is a 3. The methods adopted must be slow proce . primarily constructive, not destructive. Their build is to up rather than to tear down. object They do not attack systems, but seek to help individuals. It is not that Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, or Fetishism is to be overthrown, but that individual Muslims, Hindus, Japanese, Africans, are to be guided and a isted into a higher this life. It is not only natural but inevitable that that organization should take the form to which the mi ionary himself has been accustomed; and thus it happens that the mi ion church, in most cases, seems to be an extension of the denominational differences of the home lands. It is, however, to be said that those differences are seldom if ever as sharply defined in foreign fields as at home; and, except in case of divisions resulting from unworthy rivalry, the members loolc upon them as formal rather than substantial. There are some cases where the form of church organization has been left almost entirely to the choice of the native community, with the result of an occasional departure from the denominational This is especially true usage of the mi ionary. of mi ions conducted by the Congregational Churches of England and the United States. As a rule, however, the polity preferred by the mi ionary has prevailed, not because he has felt tied to it, but because in it he can work to better advantage for the best growth of the Church. More perplexing and difficult than any question of form is that of the material to be used in Men who apply to organizing the new church. be received are actuated by different motives, not nece arily from hypocrisy so much as from sheer inability to comprehend the insistence of The duty of Christianity upon moral purity. discovering who are sincerely and steadfastly taking the way that leads upward is a very weighty responsibility to be thrown upon a foreigner who has been but a few years among the people of the field. In this connection the fixing of conditions upon which candidates may be admitted to baptism The tirne often seems difficult to the mi ionary. may arise in every field which has been known in many, where the tide turns in favor of Chris and men come in crowds asking to be baptized. Sometimes the conversion of a leading man may bring a whole village in seemtianity ing sincerity to desire to be received into the Church. It “is often argued that baptism cannot be refused to those who declare their faith in Jesus Christ. It is even urged that to take such applicants when they are in the mood to be received is the wisest course; since after they are committed to Christianity their instruction and development is facilitated. The fact that some of those received Chnrcli Mi ionary Church In the Mi ion in this manner and in this expectation fall away and continue evil practises, bringing discredit upon the name of Christ because they have been cla ed as Christians by their neighbors, seems to be a conclusive reason for avoiding haste in receiving such candidates. For the good of the Church it seems to be a duty to make careful choice, to be patient in giving instruction, and to be slow in coming to conclusions as to the principles of the new converts. Far better is it to watch such in order to be sure that the vitality of growth is in them. Intelligence, progre in education, intellectual championship of Christian doctrine may not be treated as grounds for admitting converts to the church. A living faith in Jesus Christ, which has kindled in the heart a sincere purpose to live in Him and for Him, must be the condition of admi ion, or the Church will be uncertain in its growth and too feeble to stand in the midst of the hostile powers of pagan lands. A reasonable certainty that the applicant has made the choice to turn from the low and self-seeking life to which he has been accustomed, with earnest desire to live for the higher things that belong to God’s kingdom, must exist before the candidate can be safely aclcnowledged as a follower of Jesus Christ. At this point practical proof of faith, through the life and its trend, should outweigh the most glib proficiency in expre ion of doctrinal soundne . The Christian is to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, and if that great choice has not been made which opens a way for the Spirit to enter the heart as a dwelling, it is dangerous to hope that membership in the Church will serve as an incentive to an ultimate self-renunciation thus belittled at the outset. Another perplexity which confronts a mi ionary who would organize a group of converts in a newly fruitful field, is the choice of those who are Some may to be office bearers in the Church. be prominent through education. But a convert highly educated in Confucius or the Vedas is not, nece arily, qualified to lead his fellows in Others may be socially prom spiritual growth. But inent through their po e ions or position. men who have had influence in the heathen community because of wealth or rank may not be the best men to carry responsibilities in the Church. The tendency of Asiatics to suffer themselves to be led by such will, perhaps, add to the difficulty of placing the most spiritual men in places where But happily their influence will be widely felt. the mi ionary, by careful study, can hope to reach a clear understanding of the ideas and motives of those who make up the material for Furthermore, the wise misthe new church. sionary will take counsel with the native evangel and ist who has had dealings with the people, who understands the people as the mi ionary cannot hope to do. By such means selection of men must be made upon whom so much of the growth and the strength of the Church will depend. The question of securing a right basis for church membership opens up the whole problem Peculiar per of discipline in the new churches. plexities are thrown about this part of the education of converts from non-Christian peoples by the difference between the mi ionary and his spiritual children in mere matters of ordinary In this matter mi ionaries are con civilization. stantly forced to remind themselves that the ideal African convert, for instance, should not be Clmrcli in tlie Mi ion City Mi ions a mere ape-like caricature of an English or American Christian. The real difficulties arising from the circumstances of tlie newly converted Christian are too great to leave room for the introducSuch a man is surrounded tion of artificial ones. by untoward influences which long e.xperience Ties of alone will fit a foreigner to appreciate. family or clan have a strength which we cannot usages suspiciously like pagan easily gauge; usages appeal to the convert under the guise of superstitious revernationality; patriotism or ence for witchcraft is inbred; feudal subservience to the will of the chief or the lord of the manor in respect to observances and feasts is not easily thrown off; caste affects not only the vision but The mi ionary the conscience of the convert. teacher of the newly developing church needs direct guidance from on high if he is wisely to separate in his own mind those points of unaccustomed conduct which may be tolerated from those which must be attacked, while the influences which lead to them are resisted with flintlike immobility. It should here be noted again that the mi ionary unaided cannot hope to train men by church He must work with, and as far as po ible through, fellow workers born in that atmosphere, and, therefore, knowing the impulses and ideas of the people living in it. discipline. The difficulties which surround the question of church discipline on the mi ion field cannot be better illustrated than by the case of those converts who have been brought up to polygamy. It is easy to declare that a polygamist may not be admitted to church-membership unle he first ceases to be such by putting away all but one Yet some mi ionaries have been led to wife. take the ground that each case must be judged by itself, lest a greater wrong be done in dismi ing the wives under a fixed rule which takes no account of their rights and their feelings. In some cases one of the wives of an unbelieving and polygamous husband has become an humble and sincere believer in Jesus Christ. To admit her to the church will be to relax the fiber of the whole body in its stand against polygamy. To refuse her admi ion will be to deprive her of privileges and gracious influences which she has not forfeited by any act of her own. To insist on her leaving her husband as a condition of admi ion to the Church will be to smite her in her most tender human affections, as tho in punishment for having followed in ignorance the current of usage, without conscious and wilful wrongdoing. Such a situation is one that demands the highest wisdom in dealing with its complications. The one principle that has to be followed in teaching the young churches to maintain disci and repeat and root in the pline is to preach hearts of the Christians who make up the church membership the fact that their witne for Christ is to be a positive witne , and that it cannot have this aggre ive quality unle each member of the church is a living epistle, known and read of all men. As the members of the Church grow into understanding of the nature of Christian purity, and grasp withal the idea that a church whose repute among the heathen is marred by spots has no power to witne for Jesus Christ, they themselves will find solutions for many problems of discipline’ with which the mi ionary could not cope. This sense of responsibility to witne for — — 17» Christ has another bearing so self-evident that it need only be alluded to here. From the very beginning the members of the young church must be made to feel that duty to their Redeemer requires them to tell others how great things the Lord has done for them. It is easy for the mi ionary to delay this teaching through sense of the slender knowledge of the best of the new But delay here is fatal. None are so believers. ignorant, who have learned to try to foUow Jesus Christ, that they have no light to give their neighbors. In pagan lands a glimmer of light is precious to those who live in darkne profound and eternal. Moreover, the convert who begins with regarding his Christian privileges as given him for his own happine alone will find it hard Without recogniever to shake off that heresy. tion of responsibility to take up the very work which Jesus Christ did when upon earth, the Church will lack the first elements of strength and stability. The members of the Church must gladly render others the loving service that reached them and awakened their desire for right living, The condition of or the Church will slowly die. life in the Church everywhere is that it must be constantly winning others to allegiance to its great Head. The Church must not only learn from the very to be exemplary in pure and honest living, and in eagerne to give to others the good which itself enjoys, but it must also learn from the first first to give generously for the support of its own institutions that it may stand upon its own feet. This is no place to enter upon any discu ion of the doctrine of”self-support” as it is technically The principle is now uni ver called on the field. sally admitted that the newly constituted church members must be taught to give for the support of their own pastors and for other expenses of But mi ionaries often err in the church life. delaying to pre this duty home upon the minds This is partly of converts at the very beginning. due to lack of understanding of the fact that the Church, which has learned to expect subsidy, wUl fall into confusion the moment the mi ionary and his subsidies are taken away. It is more often due to indolence. The mi ionary sees that the sums required are very small and feels that them himself than to them from the poclvets of people who seem, and who probably are, poverty-stricken. it is far easier to give extract There should never be a day’s delay in teaching the converts their duty to set aside, as the Lord has prospered them, funds for His uses. Tlie Church on pagan soil which has grown to the point of being what it can be among the forces of reform; able to stand without aid and incentive from foreign lands; to govern itself, to maintain itself, and to use with eager initiative every opportunity to advance the interests of the Kingdom, is thereafter the leaven hid in the ma , performing the part falling to it in its Master’s plan. It has become a center whence Divine influences will radiate with beneficent results while life continues. And there is no earthly joy greater than that of the mi ionary in a land of thick darkne , who has served as an instrument in the hand of God to lead converts during their early e ays at wallving in the Way; to organize them into a church and to train them to fruitful activity in carrying on the work of Christ for the world. That mi ionary has had to efface himself, to cast himself upon his Leader for guidance in many a perplexing crisis; but he has 173 had a share in a work of eternal duration, and “whose per\ asive influence none can measure. For such, ali\ing church is the very body of Jesus Christ, precious in itself, and beyond price in its worth to the nation which is ble ed by its presence. A CIENG BAU: town in the province of Fokien, China, situated about 10 miles S. by E. of Kien-ning. Station of the CEZMS (1897), with (1902) 3 mi ionary women, 2 native women helpers, 1 elementary school, 1 high school and S converts brought in for baptism during the year. CIUDAD DEL MAIZ A town in the State of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, about 70 miles E. of the: capital of the State. Station of the A ociate Reformed Presbyterian Synod of the South, with 1 mi ionary and his wife, 1 mi ionary woman, •6 native workers, men and women, 2 places of worship, 2 elementary schools, 1 Sunday school, a Young People’s Society and 54 church members CITY MISSIONS: This term designates, in current usage, those agencies and methods of work through which the church ministers to the material and spiritual needs of the laboring cla es and of the poor in the great towns and cities of Christian lands. It includes all efforts of Christian love for the ingathering and instruction of neglected children, the evangelization of the ma es, the relief of the poor and wretched, or the rescue and reforming of the depraved and the vicious. Great cities in all circumstances require work of this sort; its spirit and the model may be studied in the attitude held by our Savior toward Jerusalem. A large population inevitably includes a considerable proportion of poor people who need from their more prosperous neighbors the helping hand. The poor are compelled by the exigencies of their condition to inhabit the le desirable parts of the town. There is also certain to be a criminal or vicious element in every large town, for town life offers peculiar opportunities for escaping the restraints of public opinion, for evil companionship, and for vice and crime. It is therefore especially alluring to the profligate and the dishonest. Thus the vicious also tend to herd together; and since poverty promotes vice and vice begets poverty and crime, all three are frequently found together in regions which are by choice as far as po ible from the churches and good and helpful influences. Such places unle subject to the patient and vigorous application of moral disinfectants become hotbeds and nurseries of every sort of evil. But the amount and importance of the mis which cities demand has been immeasurably increased by those social and industrial changes which modern times have sionary effort brought to all civilized nations. The discovery of the steam-engine, its application to the industries, the development of machinery, with you sands of attendant discoveries and inventions, have together resulted in the transfer of a great share of the world’s work from the rural districts to the towns, whither the world’s workers have followed it. This immense development of manufactures and consequent increase of traffic ca,used cities in all civilized lands to grow with amazing rapidity throughout the 19th century, and especially during its latter years. It would be difficult to parallel in all history, in a city of the same size, the growth, for example, Chnrch In the Mi ion City lUl lous of Chicago, which in 1880 numbered 503,185 souls, in 1890, 1,098,576, and in 1900 had reached 1,698,575. If the city churches had nothing more to do than to keep pace with the expanding population, their task would be one of no small magnitude; but other elements have entered into the problem which very seriously enhance these difficulties. The steady flow of the human stream into the great towns has crowded them to an oppre ive and truly terrible degree. Such overcrowding has had a twofold evil effect upon the artisan; it has prodigiously increased his rent, plunging him into so much the deeper poverty; it has driven him into narrow, and more narrow quarters, until it has stripped him of every semblance of a home. The census of 1880 reported one-third of the families in Glasgow as living in a single room, and another third as occupying but two rooms. Le than one family in ten in the Scottish metropolis enjoyed so many as four rooms for its home. Health and morality seem alike impo ible to children brought up under such conditions. New York is even more straitly crowded than any of the old World cities, two-thirds of its people living twenty to each dwelling house, while London has but nine and is steadily increasing the space for housing the poor. Out of this overcrowding has sprung the tenement system, a system by which several families, usually not than six or eight, sometimes as many as twenty-five, have been huddled together under a single roof, with common entries and halls, le narrow rooms, and dark bedrooms. This plan of housing the working people is the one that generally prevails in American cities, altho there are some marked exceptions, like Philadelphia. Fully one-half of New York’s population of 3,437,202 souls are at present living in her tenement-houses. The ordinary city tenement offers to its unfortunate inhabitants the poorest conceivable apology for a home. Its atmosphere is both physically and morally unwholesome to a degree, and fairly poisonous, notwithstanding the efforts constantly made in London and New York to remedy these conditions. The saloon is at the corner, the drunkard reels up the common stairs; the shouts of countle rude, neglected children fill the air with shrill profanity; the discordant notes of the neighbors’ quarrels and the wail of sickly babes pierce the thin partitions. There is no quiet day or night, no privacy, no chance for the development of healthy family life. From the midst of such environments the city mi ionary must glean his scanty harvest. The problem of city evangelization is further complicated by the fact that in their growth the great towns have a tendency to remove those portions of society whose influence would naturally be conservative and helpful from those who most need their help. The dwellings of rich and poor are more and more widely separated from one another. The most flourishing and able churches are farthest away from the fields that most urgently require their aid. The suburban movement, like a great eddy, draws off into the beautiful park-like villages about the town great multitudes of the middle-cla folk the bone and sinew of the churches’ strength. In addition to these difficulties, religious effort in the cities of the United States meets with an even more serious obstacle in the complex and — City Mi ions confusing.mingling of nationalities in the population which it seeks to win. The immigrants constantly pouring into our land settle for the most part, or at least so far as the more ignorant and undesirable cla es of them are concerned, in the towns. They and their children it is that people the tenements to-day. Seventy-six per cent, of the inhabitants of New York, seventy seven per cent, of those of Chicago and Detroit, and nearly eighty-three per cent, of the people of Milwaukee are eitlier foreign born or the Every nation children of foreign-born parents. of Europe and more than one Asiatic nation has its colonies, one or more, in our metropolis; but among the tenements, at least, there is no American quarter. Being of many races and speaking divers languages, having very few and meager conceptions of religion, and being opposed by habit to the fundamental ideas of the Protestant religious system, these denizens of the tenements have proven e.xceedingly difficult to reach, and have rarely been gathered in great numbers into The latter have the churches of our fathers. depended largely for their increase on converts from families of American stoclc; but such families bear only a small proportion to the population of most of the great cities. This explains the fact that while in the country at large more than one fifth of the people are members of evangelical churches, in the great cities the proportion The varies from one-tenth to one-twentieth. reason also appears for the fact that while church membership in the whole country has increased much faster than the population, in great cities it has fallen behind the population. Notwithstanding these obstacles and difficulties, largely, perhaps, because of them, the work of city mi ions has been making wonderful advances The broadening and deep in recent years. ening of public interest in its problems, and the increased amount of wealth and talent devoted to its aims, have marvelously enlarged the field and the scope of city mi ions. The following are some of the most marked characteristics of the new development: 1. The aim of city mi ions has enlisted for its various forms of work, men and women of fine culture and large abilities in unparalleled numbers. 2. It is adopted as a rule that Christianity should minister to all the nece ities of the helple and ignorant and degraded, not only caring for their spiritual needs but for their physical and intellectual needs also, and to do this by personal contact of individual with individual. It is seen that alms-giving is rarely a benor a remedy, and a scientific treatment is applied to poverty, pauperism, and crime. 4. The mi ion Sunday school is extended to include week-day meetings and cla es for the general instruction of people of all ages, and the children of the tenements are given, as far as po ible, a substitute for their lack of home-life, 3. efit through societies, clubs, reading-rooms, evening cla es, industrial instruction, and the like. churches” are substituted for 5. “People’s mi ion chapels, and are equipped by the employment of pastors, mi ionaries, and other helpers; and the work is made more intensive and their influence more far reaching by establishing”parish houses,” with reading-rooms, club-rooms, cla -rooms, gymnasiums, etc. 6. A deepening interest is seen among religious 174 people in the needs of the poor which cannot be met by a tract or gift of money. 7. There is a strong movement toward cooperation between denominations, and between congregations in any one denomination. This is manifested in three ways: first, by churches in prosperous communities combining to sustain and enlarge the work of the churches among the poor; second, by churches of different denominations uniting in schemes of general evangelization, including the canva of the whole congested district of a city; and third, b}’ the multiplication of strictly undenominational religious enterprises in the cities, which spring up independently of the initiative of the churches. Christian literature is deemed a most effect means of influencing the people who are drawn into relations with the city mi ionary. The Bible societies do an effective work with 8. ive cheap editions of the Scriptures or parts of Scrip and the London Tract Society, the American Tract Society, and similar organizations ture, provide attractive tracts and leaflets in all languages. These are not only granted freely for the use of city mi ionaries, but are very extensively circulated by the colporteurs of the societies themselves. Every city of consequence in Great Britain, the United States and Canada, and many on the continent of Europe is the field of some sort of city mi ion work. With local variations the same problems are everywhere met, the same general method prevails, and the same tendencies are observable. The general plan adopted is first to minister to the immediate physical wants of the poor, then to help the unemployed to find work. Mi ionaries in the service of that church go from house to house, from room to room, learning needs, helping sufferers to seek and find relief, and preaching the Word; not one apartment is left unvisited, and weekly reports are made, at personal interviews with the pastor. Money is not given to the needy except in special cases, tickets being used upon which the orders are given. Provision is made for the care of orphans, for securing change of scene and rest for the exhausted and for convalescents, besides clubs, societies, meetings, and cla es. Great vigor of life is a mark of the work in its efforts to give religious instruction, yet nothing is spasmodic, for the people are lifted by degrees. They are first touched by the mi ionary in their homes, are then persuaded to visit the mi ion chapels, and thus are lifted a step higher. By degrees they learn to enjoy the prayer-meetings and are finally brought into the regular services of the Lord’s house. Under this system there is no hopele cla , however abandoned the people may have been. As an illustration of the practical operation of the modern theory of city mi ions the following list is given of works for the poor and ignorant maintained by a single church in New York: Besides the regular religious services of the church, there are maintained services, in three different localities, in English and three foreign languages. The church also maintains a course of lectures for women and girls; a course of stereopticon lectures for men and women; a charitable bureau to aid the needy; an employment bureau; a loan a ociation; a penny provident fund; a Chinese protection society to prevent imposition upon the Asiatics; a medical clinic, a surgical clinic, an eye and ear dispensary, a girls’ club, 175 with club-room, baths, mutual benefit fund, and regular cla es in sewing, dre making, typewriting, stenography, etc.; a girls’ club house, where members can reside temporarily when out of work, paying $3.50 or $4.50 per week for board; men’s club, with reading rooms, billiards, gymnasium, baths, cla es in gymnastics, bookkeeping, drawing and modeling; boys’ club, with club-rooms, baths, military drill, and cla es in typewriting, bookkeeping, drawing, etc. In a well managed club of this cla the boys take a strong interest because tliey are made to feel at home, and come in contact with those Christian workers only, who understand and sympathize with their impulses and their needs. Another of the religious agencies working among the congested districts of the cities is a cla of interdenominational enterprises, of which the New York City Mi ion and Tract Society (1829) may be taken as a type. The objects of this corporation are to promote morality and religion among the poor and destitute of tlie City of New York, by the diffusion of evangelical reading and the Sacred Scriptures, by the establishment of Sabbath schools, mi ion stations, and chapels for the preaching of the Gospel and for the ordinance of divine worship. The busine affairs and the estate of the corporation are managed by a board of fifty directors, who are chosen from different religious denominations. The Society has erected churchly buildings, has organized independent congregations on the principles of Christian union and cooperation, with the Apostles’ Creed as the symbol of faith, and with a simple form of church government. The ministers in charge are regularly ordained by some one or other of the evangelical denominations, and a ociated with them for counsel and help are church officers chosen by the people. These mi ions are constituted on the basis of the Evangelical Alliance and their places of worship are called “churches for the people.” Some of these edifices are large, spacious, elaborate in their accommodations and of architectural comeline , combining beauty without and comfort within. The methods adopted by the London City Mi ion are much the same as those which are pursued in other great cities for the relief and evangelization of the destitute and vicious Each mi ionary visits once a month about 500 families, or 2,000 persons. Their work to act as pioneers in places where the faithful pastor may in due time follow. They read the Scriptures, pray with and exhort the people, give them tracts, see that the children go to school, and that every family is po e ed of a copy of the Word of God. While the Society’s mi ionaries are forbidden to give money or to so deport themselves as to be looked upon as mere charity agents, they render most effective service in bringing relief to those whose destitution demands immediate attention; but their constant aim is, through Gospel instrumentalities, to reach and renovate the character, and thus transform the personal and family life. When this end is attained the family is at once found to be lifted permanently above the level of vice and cla es. is want. The field in London is so vast that it may be rightly termed unparalleled, imperial and national in its proportions. In order to come into effective touch with this City Mi ions vast urban field, the Society divides and apportions its laborers to different districts, cla es, and trades, and encourages the use of every means which experience has proved to be effective in reaching and rescuing the fallen. The following constitute some of the departments of labor: House-to-house Visitation; Mi ion Halls; Open-air Work; Special Mi ions to Bakers, Day and Night Cabmen, Canal Boatmen, Chelsea Pensioners, Coachmen, Grooms and Hostlers, etc.; to the Docks, to Drovers in Isling ton, to the Factories, to the Fire Brigade, to the French, to the Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Asiatics, Africans, Jews, and Foreign Sailors; to Hospitals; to Navvies; to Omnilous and Tramcar Men, Railway Men; to Post-Oflice Employes,, Telegraph Boys, City Police, Metropolitan Police, Public-houses, Common Lodging-houses and Coffee shops; to Hotels and Clubs; to Builders on Public Works; to Soldiers in London and Woolwich; to Theater Employes; to the Welsh; to Worlchouses and Infirmaries; and to Gypsies. The magnitude, severity, and difficulty of the work will more closely appear from the following citations, selected from among many which have been published in tlie past in connection with the Society’s reports: “I have paid,” says one mi ionary, “during the past year 5,694 visits and calls, in which I read the Scriptures 4,671 times, besides offering prayer. To the sick and dying I paid 556 visits. I have given away 10,665 religious tracts and periodicals, and 12 copies of the Scriptures; 32 persons were induced to attend public worship, of whom 9 became communicants; 23 families were induced to establish family prayer; 15 confirmed drunkards were led to abstain; 5 backsliders were restored; and 3 couples living together unwed were induced to marry.” One appointed to work in the “Angel Gardens” because he was young and strong, found the “Gardens” were filtliy courts of tumble-down houses, whose population of several you sands (in a space of 280 by 160 yards) were vagrants and criminals, many of the houses being dens of thieves, robbers, and murderers. “I had not been many hours at worlc,” he reports, “when I was accused of being a policeman in disguise. At once I was hounded out by a desperate, howling mob of thieves and outcasts. Upon my return home I was so cast down as to be able to gain relief only in tears and prayer. Very cautiously I went to work next day; but upon ascending a very steep, rickety staircase, a woman ^vith hob-nail boots came on to the landing and declared, with bitter oaths, if I came a step higher she would kick my Desperate efforts to eyes out; so I retreated. gain a footing were continued for several months, and so hard was the conflict that I have sometimes stood at an entrance to the district in silent prayer for a quarter of an hour before I dared venture down. This perseverance, however, with the Word of the Living God, was effective, and constant, brutal opposition was overcome, tho for long years I was subjected to low abuse and occasional acts of violence. No Christian but myself dared venture into ‘Angel Gardens,’ and I was therefore called to visit the sick and dying at all hours of the day and night, and many a strange scene I witne ed. In full day I saw a gentleman, who had ventured down the place, surrounded, his coat taken off and run away with. One morning I saw two women dragging a ‘slavey’ A few hours after, the into the yard by her hair. child of thirteen was found beaten to death in City Mi ions ClauT Till i am At another time I saw two women when one who had fallen dragged the other down by the long hair of her head, then bit pieces out of her lips and cheeks and spat them out of her mouth. One Sunday, on going out early, I saw a woman on the ground with the the yard. fighting, blade of a knife sticking out of the chest-bone. She had robbed a sailor of all his money, and he had stabbed her. I also witne ed a murder when a Spaniard killed a girl named Norah with a dagger, and before I could prevent it, he blew half his head off with a pistol. After I had succeeded in opening a room for meetings, and a ragged-school in the center of my district, I was often stopped in the service by cries of murder and by fights.”After many years of unceasing effort I gained entrance into many rooms, and into most of the dens. My care for the sick and the children disarmed opposition; then, in room after room, -attention was secured to the reading of the Bible. Friendship on the part of many took the place of hostility, and I have been rescued from a band of roughs by a powerful and savage Irish woman, who on that very evening was arrested for robbery, and was transported for five years. “The work went on; people listened; the ragged school was crowded, and the meetings were well attended; soul after soul was brought under conviction, and many were gathered intc;.he fold of Christ. The neighborhood was opened up to the clergy and consecrated lay-workers; sanitary and other improvements were made; and so, through the entering in of the Gospel, the district changed its character to that of a far more respectable place.” Another cla of these religious agencies may be encountered in some of the cities of Europe, where they have sprung from the kindly interest of a single individual, like the old Belleville A lady named Mi De Broen, mi ion in Paris. a worker in the Mildmay Mi ion, London, being in Paris, just after the outbreak of the Commune, visited P^re la Chaise. Only the night before 500 communists had been shot there, and the long ditch into which they fell one by one became their common grave. A crowd of women and children surrounded the spot; their grief and despair were terrible to see; and Mi De Broen longed to do something for their relief. Every man engaged in the Commune was shot, transported, or had to flee the country. You sands of women were thus left destitute and unable to obtain work. Even the priests and Sisters of Mercy shunned them. No one cared for them. Mi De Broen raised money by personal solicitation, engaged a room, and, pa ing to and fro in the streets of Belleville, which had been the center of the Commune, she spoke to the poor women, saying that she knew of their distre , and that if they would come to her room they would receive five pence for three hours of needlework at the.same time she told them that her chief object was to tell them of the Lord Jesus. The kind invitation sounded strangely in their ears, the greater number hardly understood it, and the first time only three were present. Eight came to the next meeting, and from that time the numbers steadily increased. The ignorance of these; poor women was surprising, and at first they were rough and sullen. Many had seen their own little ones pine in the cold and hunger of the siege; others had lost all husbands, sons, and.brothers in the war and in those last awful — — 176 days of the Commune; aU had known the agony of lengthened starvation, buoyed by false hopes and cruel treachery. Goaded on by pangs of hunger, some had concealed weapons in their clothing, and had attacked the soldiers unawares; worse than this, in their frenzy, they had done. But after only a few months in the sewing-cla a great change had come over the poor creatures; no fiercene and no sullenne now, but an earnest, even a softened, expre ion appeared on many a face. In addition to the sewing-cla es and Gospel meetings at La VUlette, night-schools were soon opened for the benefit of many men who had been imprisoned, at the time of the Commune, but who, no charge having been found against them, were liberated after a few weeks. They could not read or write, and were glad to be taught. The McAll Mi ion in France is another instance of similar work. The Salvation Army has proved a most effect agency for mi ion work in cities. Its ive methods and style of presenting religious truth, and the language used by its members, arrest and secure attention. It has been called a mi ion “from the lower cla es, by the lower cla es, to the lower cla es.” Whether this characterization is just or not, its members never forget that a large part of the ma es whom they would reach will not listen to those who have not warm sympathy of feeling for them, and that they can receive impre ions and ideas through the simple, perhaps rough, but picturesque language, only, which the common people use. Besides its regular religious services in its own halls or “barracks,” in almost every city, even to the ends of the earth, which permits the practise, it holds street meetings where they are most needed near the resorts of the vicious. Its groups of “slum sisters” seek out the sick and needy, and comfort or otherwise help the despairing. It also maintains labor bureaus; various simple industries where the unemployed, however unskilled, can earn a living; lodging houses for men; inquiry bureaus; day nurseries for the small children of working women; shelter houses for homele women; mi ions for the rescue of — women who have gone astray, and homes for such to use as a means to reform, etc. The Volunteers of America do a similar work in several American cities, and have found a way to lay hands upon criminals in prison in order to lead them to honest ways upon their release. Whatever may be said, justly, in the way of criticism, the Salvation Army and its offshoots or imitators have certainly had great influence in stirring up the churches to an appreciation of the needs of the poor, and especially of the power of direct contact to win and elevate the outcast. One of the earliest steps taken by Mr. Hogg, the boy-loving merchant of London, when he decided that street Arabs must be saved, was to become a shoe-black himself for six months, that he might know the boys, their needs, and their thoughts. As Dr. Josiah Strong has said, such persons “are in their own persons a revelation of God, and are demonstrating to us what has been demonstrated to every generation since Christ, that His love and sacrifice can be shown by the personal love and self-sacrifice of His followers to the most ignorant, hardened, and vicious, and that with saving power.” This readine to give self for others must underlie any succe ful city-mi ion work. Its instances 177 are made conspicuous, not alone in worlc like that of the Salvation Army, but in the work of the Young Men’s Christian A ociation and especially of the University Settlements in the great cities. It is through watching such methods “that we see and realize that no poor and ignorant person is ever treated as Jesus would treat him when sent away with a mere gift of money. The Boys’ Club House, not connected with.any i;hurch but exercising a strong uplift both moral and spiritual through bringing neglected boys into touch with those who have not been neglected, is an institution already developed Into a power in many cities. New York has a.number, of which the largest, with a membership counted by you sands, is the one built by Mr. Harriman at the corner of 10th Street and Avenue The type of this cla of institutions can A. best perhaps be seen in the Polytechnic in LonThis institution began when Mr. Quentin don. Hogg, at the age of 18, one evening in 1863 sat down under an archway in a London street, with a. candle stuck in a bottle for light, to teach two street Arabs to read the Bible. It is now a vast enterprise equipped to win and develop and transform into useful and trusty men, the boys of the slums and the boys to whom poverty permits no respite for improvement. There are ten you sand members, and its graduates all over the world loyally help on its work. Such clubs are of pricele value, both in what they prevent and in what they secure. While these religious agencies may be encountered in almost all cities in England, the United States and Germany, and while they are carried •on by all denominations, including Roman Catholics and Hebrews; and while in Roman Catholic countries the various religious orders conduct ‘City-mi ion work on very similar lines, such religious agencies are not by any means the only ones working for that general uplift of the poor which we have described as a part of the object of city mi ions. So far as the purpose is concerned in beneficent care for their poor and their laborers, many municipalities do true city mi ion work by applying disinfectants to the hotbeds of vice and restoring home and family life destroyed by the congestion of cities. The work of Glasgow in reforming its tenement house districts would re•quire a book itself, if the full and far-reaching results were to be made clear, of an intelligent and kindly interference of a city government. The introduction by law of decency, some measure of i privacy, opportunity to enjoy light and air, and other inspiring improvements in the tenements, and the establishing of little parks and breathing.-^rounds and play-grounds for the poor, tend to lift them out of depths to which the greed of This is landlord and employer has sunk them. cities do not true mi ionary work, altho commonly call their efforts in this direction by that name. Of the same cla are a host of be nef i i cent enterprises, found in greater or le degree in all cities, which do one part of the work of the city mi ion. An instance of such an instrumentality for improvement in the City of New York is the Charity Organization Society, founded inl883, -as a sort of link between the different charitable resources of the city, whether religious, denominational, or independent of church connection. It is entirely disa ociated from questions of creed, politics, or nationality, and it does not administer alms from its own funds: but it advises, 12 City MlHslons ClanTvilllam informs, and incites all who would aid in any way in bearing the burdens of the ignorant and helple . One of the benevolent independent bodies aiding the poor in New York is the Legal Aid Society, which comes to the aid of the poor in any case where deserving persons are unjustly Another is the treated by employer or landlord. Sanitary Reform Society, which sees to it that the requirements of the Board of Health as to tenement houses are obeyed. The number of the boys’ clubs which are fostered on unsectarian Further lines is considerable in all the cities. more, besides the hospitals, there are diet kitchens for the sick poor, burial societies tliat provide for the needs of the dead, and many other enterprises aimed by kindly sympathy toward the help of those who need help. One of the most touching of such kindly undertakings is what is known as the Little Mothers’ Aid A ociation, which has for its object the securing of needed rest for girls of from 10 to 14 years old, who have the care of younger brothers and sisters during working hours when the mother is away. It takes such girls to its Holiday House for a day’s, or a week’s rest and entertains them at Christmas or at Easter. Of the same cla are the Fresh Air enterprises founded in every city, which aim to give summer outings and country life to mothers and children from the tenement house region. The money for the regular support of such agencies comes sometimes as thank-offerings, and often in large sums given unsolicited; but the means are never, wanting. As a resiilt of all these evangelizing and humanizing instrumentalities ‘there is le drunkenne , le pauperism, le crime, in the great cities today than ten years ago. The mi ionary spirit is abroad, and it is one of the modern miracles to see a city growing better while she is daily adding to her immensity. Booth (C), Life arid Labor in London, 5 vols., London, 1903; New York Charities Directory, Charities Organization Society, New York Reports of the New York City Mi ion and Trad Society; Reports of the Brooklyn City Mi ion and Tract Society; Reports of the City Mi ion Society of; Boston; Circulars of Information of the Armour Mi ion in Chicago; Reports of the Albany Czty Tract and Mi ion Society; Manual of the Union for Christian Work, Providence, R. I.; Yearbook of the Cathedral Mi ion of the Good Samaritan, San Francisco; Hatton CG.), St. Giles Christian Mi ion., London, 1886; Dolling (R. R.), Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum, London, 1896; Tollman (W. H.), Industrial Betterment, New York, 1900; Hiis (J. A.), How the Other Half Lives, New York; Woods (R.A.) America Tis in Proce , Boston, 1903; UfFord (W. S.), Fresh Air Charity in the United States, New York, 1897; Am. Inst, of Social Service, The Better New York, New York, 1904; City Mi ions, Organ of the Foreigners’ Mi ion, New York. 195