The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-03
WORK OF HOME MISSIONS
FIST ANNIYERS1RY OF CONGREGA-
 TIONAL HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY


 Attended-Rev. N. IT. Whittlesey of This
 City Speaks for Ministerial Relief on the Subject of "PracticaI Comradeship"- The Address in Full.
 Saratoga, N. Y, June 2.-The second days ceremonies of the seventy-first anniversary of the Congregational Home Missionary society commenced to-day
 The following is the programme: 9 a. m.-Devotional meeting.
 9:30 a. m.-Our Auxiliaries. Addresses
 by Rev. Alexander McGregor of
 Rhode Island; Rev. William H. Moore
 of Connecticut; Rev. T. Q. Douglass,
 D. D., of Iowa.
 10:30 a. m.-Fifteenth annual meeting
 of the woman's department, Mrs. H.
 s. Caswell, secretary, presiding.
 Addresses by Mrs. R. B. Wright, "The
 Day of Small Things" Rev. R. B.
 Wright, "On the Frontier" Mrs.
 James B. Gregg, Woman in Cobra
 do;" Miss Marie zoltak, With the
 Slovak"
 2:3O p. m.-Our Cooperating Societies.
 Addresses by representatives of the
 Congregational Church Building so-
 ciety; the Congregational Education
 society, also the Ministerial Relief
 Committee.
 3:30 p. m.-The annual meeting of the
 society for the election of officers;
 hearing reports and other business. 7:30 p. m.-Paper by Secretary Joseph
 B. Clark, "A Year of Distress" Ad-
 dresses by Rev. A. r. Sherrill, D. D.,
 Illinois; Superintendent J. H. Park
 CT, Oklahoma; Superintendent H. A.
 Schauf1er, D. D., Ohio; Rev. W. c.
 Puddefoot, Eastern Field secretary.
 Practical Comradeship" was the theme of the Rev. Nathan H. Whittle- sey of New Haven, Conn.,, secretary of the Congregational National Councils Ministerial Relief fund. He said:
 When the rioters who made a night attack on one of the Leadville mines last summer, were repulsed by the wig orous volleys of the militia, there was surprise that though the firing had evidently been effective, no wounded men were left upon the field. Accord ing to the newspapers, when these des- perate men made their escape through the darkness, they carried off their wounded with them. Surely Congrega- tional Christians will not permit a lawless mob to outdo them in the sim pie duty of comradship. Not for sim gle night, but for hundred years our noble army of home missionaries had led the attack on every form of evil. It has not suffered defeat, but has push ed steadily on to grander and ever grander victory. Everywhere the home missionary has been at the front; through the thick forests of Ohio, over the boundless, bottomless prairies of Illinois and Iowa, facing the Dakota blizzards and scaling the Rocky noun tains, and when the race was made for the new territory of Oklahoma, the missionary, as ever was at the front riding on the coWcatcher. The services of these men and woman have been broad and varied and on magnificent scale. When Michigan was to be equip ped with splendid system of public education from primary school to uni versity, when Kansas had to be de- tended, even with carnal weapons, from slavery and bands of ruffianism; when the temperance laws were to be enacted and enforced in Iowa. when the infamous lottery had to be hurled head long out of North Dakota, in these and many other critical hours, at what ever cost or peril, the Home Missionary was at the front, bravely bearing the brunt of the battle
 If a soldier in the Lords army is cut down in mid career by death, have we any duty to his widow and father less children? To ask this question is to answer it.
 "A majority of those who need our care have long cultivated their genera tion Of the last twelve applications for aid considered by the national councils ministerial relief committee, only four were for persons under sev- enty years of age. Four were between seventy and eighty. The remaining four were, respectively, eighty three, eighty~four, eighty-five and eighty nine. In their time they may have rendered heroic and even distinguished service Their names may have been on all lips and their praises may have resounded over all the land; but now those who knew and honored and loved them are gone.
 "In Iowa, 1 made list of the thirteen families on our roll whose services to a greater or less extent have been ren- dered in that state. l showed that list to Rev. Dr. Douglass. He has been a minister for nearly thirty years. He knew but few of those names. But when I showed them to his revered predecessor in office, Rev. Dr. Ephriam Adams, who went out as a member of the Iowa band fifty-four years ago, when Iowa was yet territory, he knew the names and worthy record or almost every one on our list. We see, then, that we cannot rightfully leave our war-worn veterans to the care of in- dividuals or of churches.
 'In my home recently we have been greatly interested in reading the life of Mrs. Jeremiah Porter, whose husband preached the first sermon ever heard in Chicago, and who gave a son and daughter to Foreign Missions In China Specially thrilling is the account of the work done in the last war for the boys in blue, by herself and Mother Bicker- dyke under the Northwestern Sanitary commission. When General Sherman started from Nashville for his Atlanta campaign and his subsequent march to the sea, in which Major General O. O.