The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-11-18
SPOKE ON WORK OF
SOCIETY HE REPRESENTS

Special to The Spy.
Shrewsbury, Nov. 17.-Rev, George A.
Hood of Boston, New England field
secretary of the Congregational Church
Building Society, spoke of the work OF
the society in the First Congregational
Church this morning, and in the even
ing at the Shrewsbury Congregational
Church.
His text was Luke 7:5: HE Loveth
Our Nation and Himself Hath Built Us
a Synagogue" He said: Lovers of
our nation must help build sanctuaries.
Ever since God built the tabernacle in
the wilderness all forms of the true re-
ligion must have their churches, and
indeed, all false religions must have
their temples. Congrgationalists are
the only ones who organize 200 church
es, more or less, and build only few
more than 100 per year.
"Our young men developing the new
towns are equipped with docks, eleVa-
tors, mills, machinery, and every i'm
provement for doing their work six
days of the week; will they go to
church the first day of the week in an
abandoned saloon, or dance hall, car
penter shop, or the loft of livery sta
BILE? No; 1t makes them homesick;
they have no respect for a church
which cannot build, and they cannot
afford $25 or $50 to help it build. The
church, like any other line of business.
must have an equipment to succeed. II
we can aid the young church to build,
the new settlers will attend, will give 90
cents or 81 or 81 a week to make 1t
self-supporting; and the future charac-
ter of the new town can be moulded by
the church. Thus the Congregational
Church Building Society helps the
young churches of the Congregational
Home Missionary Society, and of the
American Missionary Association
among the dark races.
I'VE aid them by three funds; the
grant fund the loan fund, and the par
sonage loan fund The money is paid
back to be used over and over, the
loans every five years, the grants ir-
regularly by contributions. Every dol
lar is secured by first mortgage and in
surance policy, therefore there is no
loss. The aid pays only last Dilis'
therefore the missionary church will be
out Of debt The society has always
paid every dollar when due, therefore
donors to the annuity fund may be
sure of their interest money, and yet
execute their own wills.
"Why do they need help? Because
church building costs four or five
times as much as the missionary's sal
airy. Were the Home Missionary So
ciety helps pay the minister, economy
and success demand that the Church
Building Society should be able to give
much larger aid on the building. To
convert open prairies or empty woods
into town is hard on the first settlers,
and with farms and homes mortgaged,
interest and taxes high, shanties to live
in, usually at first no partitions, no
plaster or paint, no cellar or well;
snowdrifts inside when snowstorms are
outside, and food frozen solid in the
morning, the people cannot build
churches without aid. But they give
wonderfully. A carpenter trying to get
home for wife and two children gave
$175 out of 81 a day wages; a laborer,
earning $500 a year, gave $3.50 and a
note for 800 more. minister, living
in a dugout, had saved money for a
new roof, but afraid of losing the new
church for lack of Church Building So
ciety aid, he gave his roof money and
kept an umbrella beside the bed in case
of rain
"A missionary church has no hope of
success till It gets a church building,
and 1t cannot build without aid. If not
aided the churches will die, or if they
live it will be only by taking continued
Home Missionary aid. One Home Mis-
sionary superintendent said his church.
es would live only two years without
a building. Large numbers of church
es have died from this cause, for a
church without a building is like an
egg without shell, the more it is
brooded the worse condition it is in.
When a church dies it damages the
moral future of the new town and loses
the Christian workers and riches of the
future.
''If we aid a church to build. a re-
vival soon follows, and many Eastern
young men are saved in this way in
the new town. new life, new habits. A
Minnesota church took Home Mission
airy aid for IS years without a sign Of
success; but when the Church Building
Society gave 1t $500 to pay last bills on
a $500 church a revival began with the
dedication, and IA young men were
converted.
Then comes self-support. One Min
nesota church expected every year for
five years to throw off Home Mission
airy aid the sixth year it has $500 aid
from the Church Building Society on a
$4,000 church, and it has been self-sup-
porting ever since