St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-02-10
now being done in this direction, the
work has not been taken up in earnest
Work at Home.
immigration Problems.

Immigration Problems.
Special thought and prayer should be
given to the unparalleled and stupendous
migration to America. 1t is a rising
tide, and this year the numbers are start
ling. In the year closing June 80, 1908.
857, 900 immigrants arrived. They come
from nearly every land. Many are in
fidels and utterly irreligious; some are
anarchists.
"Home mission work is not only for
the saving of the soul but for the saving
of the country as well. This great influx
from every nation in the world makes
America the most magnificent mission
airy ground under the sun. Happy shall
we be five meet this great invading host
with the messengers of Christ and make
them our strong allies in helping to fill
the earth with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea. Mrs. D. E. Faunce.
DR.. Edward JudsOn, in foreign mis-
sionary address, full of eloquence and
zeal, said: I'VE must be sure, however,
that our foreign missionary spirit is
gennine and not mere fad. The sure
test is whether we are interested in
everything lying between the heather
and ourselves. To many of us distance
seems to lend enchantment to the view
miseries of people far way, but are limp
and nerveless as regards suffering close
by. We find ourselves greatly interested
in foreigners when they reside ins their
own land, so much so in fact that we
send our best men as missionaries to
them and pay their travelling expenses
but when the Lord puts it into the heart
of these same foreigners to come to our
shores. paying their own travelling ex-
penses, instead of rejoicing over their
advent, we are sometimes inclined to
turn away from them in despair. They
do not look so picturesque near by.
This is only the semblance of the true
missionary spirit-a counterfeit, not the
real coin.''
Rev. E. B. Hubert, of Chicago Univer-
sity, says: "Are we seeking worlds
salvation? We must lay t he basis of our
undertaking in Christianized America.
A wise interest in foreign missions COM
pels boundless Zeal for home missions.
The battle lost at home, our cause is
slain abroad"
Rev. II. L. Moorehouse, D. D., says:
"The religious significance of this great
migration is that multitudes might here
be saved. Missions to them in Europe
generally were difficult and expensive.
Some were almost inaccessible, and oppo-
sition was bitter. Missions have been
transferred to free America. Gods hand
is in it. He has flung these masses into
the lap of American Christianity to be
evangelical. We need not go afar to
them; they come to u.s. Never had
Christian people such an opportunity to
give the gospel at close range to earth's
needy multitudes within it's borders.
Their presence here imposes tremendous
obligation.
THE issue decentralization or democrat
ization. Unless we lift them up. they
will drag us down. The sincerity ofour
missionary spirit is tested by our prac->
tical interest in the evangelization of
these millions here, as well as in others
affair.""
The Outlook, of August /, says:
Twenty years ago our immigrants were
chiefly OF the same races that had peopled
England and quickly formed a homogene-
Gus element in our national growth.
The bulk of the immigration today is
from races historically remote. and today
widely separated from us by the different
social, industrial and political environ
ments.
DIR. c.. L. Thompson says: 1.-THE steady
and increasing movement toward our
cities is menacing enough in itself, but
vastly intensified when we analyze its
character. Congestion is bad enough,
but the congestion Of unassi1lilated ele-
ments is worse. Thus, a walk of half an
hour from my Office will take me into
Hebrew city bigger than Jerusalem; an
other to a German city bigger than Ores
den or Cologne; another to an Italian
city as big as Venice; another to
Scandinavian city as big as the combined
armies of Norway and Sweden. Roughly
stated one-fourth of the people on Man
haitian Island are Hebrews, for whom
practically nothing is done. There are,
it is estimated, $4,000 Protestants,
outside of church influence nor are the
conditions better in other cities. Con-
slider now the whirls of passion and of
mammon, of temptation and crime in
cident to life thus massed; expand it's
demoralizing areas over a hundred cities
from coast to coast, where the young life
of the nation centres, and where the
national pace is being set, and you have
before you home mission problem, the
size OF which should force the entire
church of Christ to her knees in prayer
for deliverance."