The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-16


 clean cradles and decent homes and sun | light. We must give the children of l our poor neighbors an education where by they shall be able to work intelligent l ly with their hands, or else Satan will come in and teach them how to work in l another way. In other words, the poor must be taught how to earn their own living. or else they will learn how to live upon the moneys some one else has earned
 l But We must not stop here in our work among the poor. We must give them sun i light. We must open their eyes to see and teach their hands 10 do.
 Why poor man wants to live in city ] is ineoceivable to me Where there IS i work for one man in a large city there 1 are five applicants for the position. In 1888 there were 79O0O deaths In the city O. London; 0,170 took place in the public warehouses, 7113 in public hospitals and 3SO in public asyhms In other words, at least one-ifth of all the people lying in London in one year were dependent upon public charity The records of other cities are only a little better There were over 600000 paupers in 1888 in Eng land alone. But today one out of every ten persons who died in New York City i is buried in potters field. That means when they die they leave not an estate large enough even to pay for the pine box which covers them and the hire of the hearse which drags them to their grave nor the fee of the gravedigger who digs the hole in which the coffin Is lowered. One-tenth of all the population which die in New York City are buried in potter's field. Now Dr. Barnardo and General William Booth intelligently reeog- nzed these social conditions. and they l aa,,t aa.fl, gFr o.1a fu htF ha ands and the tens of thousands.
 Thank God, I say. for a Dr. Barnardo. Tn the winter nights he roamed about the London streets gathering the raggedest and most forlorn of boys and girls into his public orphanage. But no sooner had he collected them there than he sent them out by almost every steamer to the far thermost colonies. There they were adopt ed There, amid the pure, sweet influence of the country, the boys and the girls of the London slums became the noble Chris tian men and women of the farm and country village. Dr. Barnardo saved the man by colohizing the boy, while General Booth sent his Salvation Army soldiers into the city slums and gathered the men and the women together and took them out of their out of their surroundings and placed them upon the farms and saved them also Thus, my brother, you and T should embrace every means we can find to take a boy or a girl or a man or a woman out of the overcrowded city and send them out to the soil, into the farm ing regions. Then we are doing Gods work as Dr. Barnardo did it, and William Booth is doing it today.
 Institutional Church.
 But we must do more than simply coll onize our boys and girls in country places. We must carry the institutional church into our poor districts and fight sin on Its own ground. The simple fact is that many of our churches are going to pieces simply because the people do not have enough to do. The congregations listen to sermons, but do not work for Christ.
 When Jacob Riis started In his long ten years war to give playgrounds to the children of the congested east and west sides of New York he could not find enough room for the poor, even though millions of dollars worth of buildings were condemned and turned into public playgrounds. Then a happy idea struck him. .Why can we not turn the roofs of our public schools into playgrounds for children?' Absurd" said the politicians. Absurd" said the teachers. Absurd, said almost every one. But Jacob Riis kept on and now the roofs of many of those public school buildings have been turned into playgrounds for the scholars. At last the common people have come to learn that a magnificent school building is not to be kept idle all the time with the exception of the few hours when school is in session. The public school buildings are now used for public. libra ries and public lectures and public con- certs and public playgrounds. Why can not our church learn the same lesson?
 The churches are gradually deserting the poorer sections of our cities not be-
 rE In1 flaVa hrff hl- cause they dot not do their duty as they ought to do it. The poor of our large cities need a church building for some thing more than a place where they shall attend a divine service once or twice on the Sabbath day. They need a church building where men and women can come and find Christian fellowship and help in social intercourse. They need a church building where poor mothers can come and leave their babies while they them selves go out for a days work. They need a church building for an intelligence office and a dispensary. They need church building where a man or wo- man can go in all times of trouble and always find 1t temple of refuge" Oh, why do we not as Christian people grasp the gospel opportunity and go back into the poorer sections of the city and teach women how to sew and how to keep the babies clean and teach ignorant, tired
 
 pray and to sing and to listen to Gods word?
 l want you to realize that Christ was preaching practical gospel sermon when he told the Pharisee the parable of the good Samaritan. I want you to remem- Der that Christ meant just what he said when he took a little child in his lap and said, Tt is better for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck and that you were drowned in the midst of the req rather than that you offend one of these little ones" have tried to show you that even among the lowest and the Yilest of outcasts you can find some whom you can lead to Christ if you will only go after them. And thus, my friend, on this beautiful Christian Sabbath day I invite you to help bridge over the ever widening chasm that Is separating the rich man from the poor man and the so-called respectable man from the social outeast by throwing across 1t the strong, broad central beam of the cross of Christ's sacrifice. Will you become a brother to the poor in practical way, as Christ did during his earthly ministry?
 Copyright. 1906 by Louis Klopsch)