The Newtown bee., 1904-09-16

MR RObERTS Al TIE (ONOkEUA.
 TIONAL CHURCH. HE TELLS HIS AUDIENCE HOW CON
 NECT1CUT APPEARS AS A MISSIONARY
 FIELD TO-DAY.
 It was a large, interested audience to which Rev Henry B. Roberts spoke in the Congregational church on Sun- day morning. Although MT Roberts was presenting the claims of the Con- necticut Bible Society, since that soct- ety is now on the list of church henev- olences, he did not give the usual mis- sionary address, bristling with figures and emotional in it's appeal. He talked in bright, entertaining way about the problems our commonwealth pre- sents to-day, with it's foreign popuia- tion, it's decadence in country life and it's distance from the raw material which is the basis for it's manufactures. The Connecticut Bible Society is an influential factor in solving COnnecti- cuts missionary problems; and so one could easily infer, after these problems had been presented, what the claims Roberts has a charming personality and Is one to whom the door of an active church would always be swung ajar. ;,
 Let us gather up . few points from what was said, dropped handfuls for the gleaner, so to speak, by the way. The Frenchman thought of Connecti- cut when he looked 1t up to see where the land was that had produced so | many great men, as little yellow spot on the map; and yet this little l yellow spot is by no means thing for contempt when we think what it has meant for the world. The Connecti- cut Bible Society is more than 100 years old. When 1t first began its mis- sion, it sent Bibles to Massachusetts and Vermont and to the wilds of New York, where pioneer settlers had gone; now every state has it's own Bible soci: ety. In Waterbury. there are 1000 Italians, in New Haven there are 15, 900. An Italian mother in Hartford had wrapped her newborn babe in swad. dling-bands, according to the usual fashion, to give 1t a good form. Ably. stander said: i've don't do that way in America; we let baby kick itt feet and wave it's hands," "This is an Italian baby, "said the mother. "No,' replied the other, 'that baby was borr under Uncle Sam; it is good Ameri can baby" "Yes, good American baby" echoed the mother, and of V0lAO VAV o"0AO4AAH~ U0AN0s kJO3 AAAOA the influence of American ideas an6 American customs, those of fOreigr birth are made good American citizens When the Bible Society was founded the New Haven Green was COW pasture, traced across by sandy cart tracks; then Bridgeport, New HaveI and Hartford contained as many peo pie as there were in the rest of thu state. Now the population runs ul we'll to million; but in the last tw' decades 26 towns in the state hav' ] actually decreased in population Marlboro, the smallest town, has onl. $50. These little white churches upol the hillsides, with their green blinds
 without wOrshipper. Let us belle VI , that the country districts have seel
 their worst days. Farmers now ge
 more for their produce than they did
 wealthy city people are buying III
 abandoned farms; telegraphs, tele
 phones and the rural mail delivery ar
 doing away with the loneliness an
 isolation of the back country farm f There is no life less calculated to pro 8 duce good homes than that of tn e childless couple who live in the steam
 a week and spend Sundaylat aIpleasur ). resort. The old New England farm
 house, with it's hardships and har
 work, made good men. Do you kno,
 what the curtains hung over the be
 for? They were to keep out the chi
 northern blasts. The clapboards witt
 out any lining made good sieves, bu '' not good walls. It is surprising ho,
 much our grandfathers got from thes |. stony farms. They got everythin
 from the soil except molasses and run
 MT Roberts spoke for three-quarter
 of an hour and held the closest alter , tion to the end. This lis the kind C
 speaker we like to hear.-[O. w. B.