The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-04
.SEVENTIETII ANNIVERSARY
THE CONGREGATIONAL HOME MS
 STONIRY SOCIETY.

Seventy Years History in New England
 Interesting Features of the Noble Work
 of the Society in Many Parts of the
 Country Chances at tho Society's His
 tory and It's Various Branches of Note
 Able Addresses-The Election of Officers,
 A big throng of delegates, represent ing all parts of this great and glorious union, including east, west, north and south, gold states, silver states, and about all the states of these United
 States, and all of the aforesaid dele gates alive with interest in the cause
 they were here to represent, is attend ing the meeting of the Congregational
 Home Missionary society, which are being held at the Center church and which continue throughout to-day, morning, afternoon and evening. The ladies age not left out in the cold, but
 their meetings are prominent feature of this big anniversary of a big society
 
 ladies meeting yesterday was one of the most interesting of the series, and they are alive to the mission work and jealous reminders of the zeal of the women who were first at the tomb of Christ to bear witness to the resurrec- tion. The anniversary opened with the splendid sermon of Dr. Merriman of Worcester, Mass. a synopsis of the leading features of which was given in our yesterdays issue-a sermon dealing | with great national and social prob l lems, the right solution of which de- bends greatly upon Christian work and | workers, and which dealt also with problems inside the church calling for 1 thoughtful and earnest endeavor. Dr. | Merriman'S remarks upon the hetero- | geneous character of the population of 1 the United States, state of things growing out of the immense immigra- | tion to this country of unlettered people who are strangers to the spirit of our l institutions, and who present a crude
 mass for Uncle Sam's assimilation and | digestion; and Dr. Merriman's sugges- | tions regarding other social problems
 of grave importance which the church can help solve were read with great in- I terest by large number of our peo- l pie.
 THE MORNING MEETING. l Yesterday forenoon's meeting was preceded by prayer meeting, led by Rev. Charles Williams, who in his re- marks complimented the New Haven Boys Brigade, whose parade here he
 saw last Saturday, and spoke of the | propriety of imbuing the youth of the | land with proper appreciation of the
 sacrifices of the fathers who imperilled 1 them all for their country.
 I Vice President Webb presided at the meeting tor the reports of the auxili- aries the first of to-day's sessions of l the convention.
 1 Rev. D. P. Hatch of Maine, the young est secretary in the service was the 1 first to report for the society in the state.
 T have only to say that since my appointment last November the work in our state has increased from day l to day. Our interest centers in the l work in the northwest, on the west | ern frontier. We apparently forgot | that we have an eastern frontier, a Maine frontier Maine is peculiar in some respects. We are self-supporting and independent. We accept nothing | from the national society and we give nothing, although the churches send l to the Home Missionary society,"" From the speakers remarks it was evident that there is plenty of good
 mission work that can be done in 1 Maine. The Woman's Auxiliary in
 Maine was very helpful
 Rev. Ethan Curtis reported for New York state-a state wherein dwells one union and one-sixth of the entire for l eign population of the nation New | York state has 3S cities, each with more than 100000 population, while Greater New York is alone equal to 26 such cit ies. More than 4,000, 100000, or two- thirds of New York states people live in places of over 10000 inhabitants. The Home Missionary society was he added, grappling with both the city and country work before it. He told an interesting story of how a run down slum mission belonging to another de- nomination applied to the society for help and how successfully it was re- built and reconstructed. He told some interesting facts regarding the work in the country districts
 Rev. Joshua Colt next spoke of the mission work in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts society had just cele- brated it's ninety-seventh anniversary. This society had 13S home missionaries. He said: ''In the last census you will see diagrams showing that in Massa- population is Roman Catholic This is somewhat misleading, for in the Ro- mish church all the members are re- ported as communicants. while in other churches only the actual active mem bers are reported.
 ''The growth of Romanism in this country is alarming to many, but this is also somewhat misleading. It is growing rapidly. but its growth each year is becoming smaller, as is shown by statistics. The Catholics have not increased in fact, as rapidly as they should according to birth and immi- grafton. They should now number 16, ,OO0, ,OOo, GOO, while they actually num- Der only 5000, OO0 900.
 "A large proportion of the foreign poulation in Massachusetts is Catholic. A great deal of our work is among the French Canadians, and we are making an impression on them. So much, in fact, that they are settling here instead of going back to Canada. Besides that, sc-eif ,rfn