The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-07-16
THE LAST DAY.
Great Gathering of Christian En-
IS; deayorers to Disperse. 49,
Enthusiastic Meetings Were Held Yester-
day-Earnest Words by Rev. Mr.. Pud-
defoot.

otAooG.
Boston, July Is. -Nature had wiped her
eyes this morning and there was promise
OF bright skies for the closing day of the
great Christian Endeavor Convention.
Inc usual morning prayer meetings in
tWenty-one churches were attended and
the throngs in Mechanics hall and in the
tents when the forenoon meetings opened
well testified to the sustained enthusiasm
OF the young delegates
NATIONAL NEEDS AND PERILS.
REV W. G. Puddefoot spoke at one of
the tent meetings on National Needs
and Perils" as follows:
Zone of the hardest things for any of
US to do is the duty that lies nearest to us.
30 That we lind people going over to Eng
land to stir up the Christian people there
over our lynchings in the South, and
there are many there whose voice was
eloquent over the condition of negroes in
America, that you cannot stir to help in
the needful work that lies all about
them.
Today our people, with other nations
are nightly indignant with Turkey on
account of her treatment of Armenia,
and rightly so. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe
has lately written to the ssBoston Herald,
IN Which she states that almost 100, 600
Armenian Christians have been massacred
in IS years, and we all feel that the I'M
speakable Turk ought to be made to
speak, and to speak plainly.
But how many of us are aware that
within the last IL years so, 600 people have
been killed by violence in our own land,
and that not 5 per cent. of the guilty
ones have suffered. the extreme penalty of
the law; that the record for homicide
has risen from 1857 in 1882 to $500 in 1894.
know that these figures have been dis
puted by Mr.. +. H. Wines, but they are
taken from reliable sources, and believe
are approximately correct.
'sDr. Wayland, in his address at the
American Association of Social Science,
held in Saratoga in 1894, quotes DR.. An
drew White, at the Social Science Asso-
citation meeting: Every year 1000 inno-
cent men are murdered, and not more
than 200 murderers are legally executed. +"
Il plead for the 1000 men innocent of
crime, who, during the year, to come.
will be murdered. Instead of the 1000,
we had over 5000 reported for 1894.
Now, this is an awful Indictment,
and what can we do? Statistics show
that the foreign clement furnish larger
number of criminals per capita than the
DuL, Ou uIl6 OUIlGr udQu, UIOSG
states which have the largest percentage
of foreign element have the least percen-
tage of homicidal crime. Our neighbor,
Canada, last year reports II murders
among $3.50, 900 people, and no town or
village without a church. We have
thouands OF towns, villages and communi-
ties that as yet have no church
These two facts, l think, explain the
real cause of so much crime. And why
have we no churches in these places? Be
cause every society is in debt. And why
are they all in debt? Simply because the
church members of the entire country do
not give an average of cents per day per
member for sustaining the church, for
home and foreign missions and all
benevolent causes. In fact cents per
day would pay everything, including the
1874, 900, 600 given to colleges last year, and
leave millions for new work. Your O. 0O0,
600 members raised $3.50, 900 last year. Had
you given 2 cents per week, you would
have raised over So, 900, 900, which would
have started hundreds Of new churches,
and taken the gospel to thousands of our
own people who. have never yet heard
sermon.
''Of course, there are other causes of
crime. The rapid growth Of the city at
the expense of the rural district is one,
and it is as true in newer sections as the
old, and it works badly both ways The
decayed towns have hard work to keep I'D
the school and church for lack of material
and the children go into the cities, which
have as yet no room for thousands of
children, growing up with nothing but
the street education of the slums So
that today the two points of danger lie on
the frontier and in the great cities.
"Over rs per cent. of the children born
in New York die before they are two
years old. What was Herod's slaughter
of the innocent compared with this Over
26, 600 children have been abandoned by
their mothers in the last 20 years in New
York, left with the Sisters of Mercy We
have places in the city to take a young
girl in after she has fallen, but we need
places to take her in before she falls. 1t
costs more to make criminals than
Christians. Our jails and crime cost
$400 900, 600 per year to run them, and the
interest money on our jails and peniten-
tiaries comes to more than we raise for
home and foreign missions. So that
there is work ahead for every Christian
Endeayorer. HID
''The statement is made that we have
enough church sittings to let all the peo-
pie go to church on Sunday, and that is
true in one sense; but it is nonsense, all
the same, for thousands are too far from
any church to reach it by fastest horse
riding all day. Whole counties without
a church. churches whose nearest neigh
Dor is over 70 miles.
Son the other hand, we have hundreds
of towns cursed with too many churches.
Right here in New England, towns of
less than 400 population building their
sixth church. Churches are often built
to preach an ism, instead of Christ, and
those you must frown down. You must
stand up for every reform, and, as Mr.
Lang says, Fear nothing; make the pest
of everything, and rejoice that notwith-
standing the awful figures given above,
we are living in d time that is the best
the world ever saw We are stronger,
purer, kinder, richer and live longer,
and are getting to be alive to the fact
that we are related to all the human be-
ings on the globe; that no part can suffer
without the other, and that in no possible
way can we help that other part so we'll
as by doing the duty nearest to us. :"
AT MAINE HEADQUART ERS.
The Endeavorers quartered in Charles
town are preparing to leave for home. A
number of Maine delegates have gone
Praise is bestowed upon the committee in
charge of the Maine headquarters in the
Winthrop Congregational church All
possible has been done for the comfort of