The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-08
MISSIONS IN WYOMING.
REV. MIR. GRAY AND WIFE TELL
 OF THEIR WORK.

Increasing Need of Missionary Work
 The Nature of the Country and the
 POpulation-Very Few Churches-A
 Trip of 1000 Miles to Preach the
 Gospel.
 Rev. W. B. D. Gray, superintendent of Congregational missions in the state of Wyoming, is in New England for season in the interest of the mission ary work of the Congregational Sun day school and Publishing society on the western frontier He is accompa- nied by his wife, Rev. Annette B. Gray, who is associated with him in mission ary work. They are strong and force ful speakers and their addresses to the churches are llled with touching and thrilling personal experiences in the mission field. Years of service In the west make them competent to speak with authority of the conditions, possi- bilities and needs of the frontier
 Rev. w. B. ID. Gray spoke yesterday morning at the Church of the Redeem CT, and in the evening at the Hum phrey Street Congregational church. His wife also delivered two addresses in the morning at the Plymouth church, in the evening at the Dwight Place church.
 Rev. MT. Gray said in speaking of the Rocky Mountain states that their steadily increasing need of Christian missionary work made necessary on ac- count of the marvellous increase of pop ulation in that wonderful Switzerland of America was due to the overflow from the Middle West as well as fur ther east, who were now seeking homes in the more mountainous portion of our country. He called attention to the fact that this more mountainous dis trict was capable of supporting an irn- mense population because of its richness in undeveloped mineral resources. He further stated that the Rocky Noun tain district comprised one-thlrd of the entire area of the United States. Few people have any idea as they are whirl CQ ONCL lllG lAAOdlAkhAlA lfbAA6No N1tPpCh with snowy peaks, across deep, dark canyons, fertile plains and sage brush deserts, of the immense possibilities they contain, or that they are in the midst one of the greatest treasure locked regions of the entire world. In that country, he continued can be found remains of huge reptiles, so large that only those with vivid mag | nations can form an adequate idea of their size, huge mammals of elephan- tine dimensions. great sea monsters and little fishes, and even now there are being unearthed the bones of the | most colossal animals ever taken from | the earth's strata. He spoke of petri- l fled forests, vast deposits of gold, sil-
 yer, copper zinc, lead and Iron ores, which are waiting the hand of man to lift them rom their resting places and put to human use.
 l This country Is the home of the min
 CT, the cowboy and the shepherd. The | mountain sides furnish grazing for countless herds of cattle and immense I bands of sheep. Even the mighty riv- | CTS which flow through countless can l yons are being corralled and made trlb-
 utary to the ever increasing mass of humanity, which are there seeking l homes by furnishing water for irigat- ing the immense plains which lie at the
 base of the mountain slopes.
 The money with which to develop
 these great opportunities. build rail-
 roads into and across the mountains. construct reservoirs and canals for irri- gation purposes, mine the ores and graze the cattle, is largely eastern cap 1 ital which has gone west for invest
 ment, and is not owned by the people
 there to any great extent. As yet this country is only in its infancy, and the opportunities for tho profitable invest
 ment for the worlds capital still lies In the foreground. The reason why the frontier of to-day is not self-supporting along church, Sunday school and mis- 1 sionary lines is because the people of that country are largely wage earners, while the profits of the business go into 1 the investors pockets.
 l A sad fact, he stated, was that in
 the country of which he spoke not 5 per cent of the population were church. ed, He related incidents connected
 with his work in the Hole-in- Wall l country, of a town of 500 people, who had waited fifteen years for a minister
 and church, and of a woman who was
 "a church on foot'' for an entire town ship, the only one who could be de- l pended upon to read prayer at the
 bedside of the dying or at an open 1 grave.
 He spoke of trips he had taken of 1 500 miles to give isolated communities a bit of gospel. The territory given to single missionary in Wyoming covers
 an area of from 16,000 to 10000 square |