The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-03-10
HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY
THE ESRYENTIETn.iNN IRY TO
 BEHELD TN RJIIS CITY.

and the Results of It's Labors-Aotive
 Workers in Various Hines,
 New Haven, Conn, March 8.
 The following is history of the American, now the Congregational Home Missionary society during the latter half of it's history, which covers seventy years. The seventieth anni- versary of the society will be observed here from Tuesday to Friday, June 2d to 4th. The society, in common with nearly all the Congregational Mission ary societies, was known as the Amer ican' society until October 1st, 1S93 when the change of name took effect under order of the supreme court of the state of New York The society, in its aims and spirit and field of activity, is none the less American than before. The whole land is the sphere of its ser vice.
 1860 to 1895.
 Now, for thirtyfve years of the three score and ten of this society's history has it been the organ of Con gregationalism alone; the last of the four allied denominations which, in 1926 united in it's formation, having withdrawn in 1860. It is period in comparable in it's shaping power in our national life. In its first half-d decade, American nationality was irrevocably determined through the arbitrament of the only court known to nations from which there is no appeal" With in it's first ten years the continent was spanned by the iron rail, and the vast interior realms opened for the incoming of those great migrations which have 1 characterized the past quarter century. Minnesota has been entered by the missionaries of this society ten years before this period began; Kansas five years and Nebraska four. But the great Rocky Mountain section, and it's eastern slope to the Missouri river, with it's northwestern to the Pacific, were waiting for the beginnings of | those states that have since been plant 1 ed there. Colorado's first missionary entered in 1868; Dakota's, in 1867; Utah, | Wyoming, Montana Idaho and Wash | ington, New Mexico and Arizona, since  | 1870
 These thirty-tive years constitute the period of the nations most rapid ex- pansion. Within that time our popula-
 ton, which in the nearly two and one
 half centuries previous had reached S1,- 100000. leaped to 69,OO0,0 0OO
 While the total immigration to our land since 1790 is about 7500, 900, 13,-
 100000 of these have come since 1860, | The 30,000 miles of railway in the
 country thirty-ive years ago have be- come 1S0,000 miles, giving five trans
 continental lines whose branches are penetrating every quarter of the land, i by which our increasing millions are
 scattered over our great territory In the effort to keep pace with this
 unparalleled growth of population and expansion of life, and to fulfill it's duty
 to the peoples who were laying the 1 foundations of great commonwealths land building up mighty states. and
 rearing institutions, educational and religious, by which the nations highest 1 life is secured, Congregationalism has accomplished the following results, so l far as such can be tabulated and num- i bered
 The missionary force which in 1861, l by the withdrawal of the Presbyterian churches-not of all Presbyterian giv- CTS, for many gift and legacy down | to the present time has come from a sympathizing heart and benevolent hand of the sister denomination-the
 missionary force which, in 1861, dropped from 1,062 to S63, has since the close of the war had an almost contin- uous upward movement, reaching 2,01O in 1S93-94, and not far from that num- | Der to-day.
 The annual receipts, which by the l separation of the Presbyterians showed l a decline of about s20,00O only, have | steadily increased, and from $163, ,S52 in 1s61-62, reached $645, ,9l1 in the last com pleted year, touching high-water mark | in 1S92-93, when more than $73S, ,000 were administered by this society, including | it's auxiliaries. For these thrty-five years the grand total is $12,652, ,722. or more than three-fourths of the whole amount given to this cause in the en- I tire seventy years of it's history. | In 1860 Congregationalism was a Christian force in our land of 2,734 churches, with membership of 260, ,3S9. 1 Through the agency of this society in | this period, BAYS churches have been organized, and 1,509 brought to self support; 266, ,726 additions to the mem 1 bershipof these home. missionary churches have been made, of which | 104,396 were, by confession of faith in Jesus Christ, gathered from the world into the Kingdom.
 1 Out of these churches, thus planted and fostered by this ministering hand 1 of the denomination there have come into the ranks of the Christian ministry not far from one thousand young men THE MODERN PROBLEMS OF HOME MISSIONS.
 During this time thus reviewed in outline, and in it's later years, the great
 modern problems of home missions have had their rise and commanded re- cognition. It was upon the platform of this society, at 'an annual meeting, that the first note of warning touching the peril in our national life of the central izing of population in our cities was sounded The keen eye of it's then hon. ored vice-president, the late Dr. Julius H. SeIye, of Amherst college, discerned the revelation which the successive census returns had made, and in 1884 | traced that startling line which marks the increase of urban population through the decades from 1190 to 1880