Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1912-11-26
UNION MEET
|NCS CLOSED
Series of Home Mission Services
Come to an End With Big
Gathering Sunday @
Evening. .s
AT CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Rev. Ramsay of Eldora the Speaker
Meetings a Revelation in
Many Respects.
AT CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

Inc union meeting at the UnlteC
Brethren church Saturday night in
furtherance of the home mission
week program, was attended by q
rather small crowd, owing no doubt
to the touch of real winter weather
which prevailed on that evening
The gathering was presided over by
Rev. r. r. Percy and DR.. R. E.
Graves, pastor of the United Breth-
rem church at Waterloo, was the
speaker. The fore part of the SER
praise. DR.. Graves delivered a strong
address, emphasizing more especial.
ly the problems which confront the
church today in the immigration
question and the social and indus
trial conditions which obtain in our
large population centers. The speak
er quoted some statistics as to the
per cent of people who are identified
with the cause of Christ in the big
cities which showed very forcibly
that the church has an ample field
and a pressing call for it's efforts
along the line of home mission work
in evangelizing the different peoples
in these large commercial centers.
DrI Graves said that in our great de-
sire to carry the gospel to the re-
mote corners of the earth we had
laid such stress upon foreign mis-
sions that conditions at home had
been largely overlooked and that it
was high time that the church wake
up to the real needs at our own
doors. The weeks meetings just
closed have been highly educational
along this very line and this was
the real design in their conception
and carrying out. In summing up
the whole matter, DR.. Graves declar-
ed that the cause of home missions
challenged the best thought, the
earnest prayers and the financial
support of every one who desires
that righteousness shall prevail in
our land and who has at heart the
coming of the Kingdom of God. e.
These union home mission meet
ings came to a close Sunday night
with big gathering at the Congre-
gational church, the auditorium be-
ing filled full and also quite num-
Der in the side rooms. Rev. A. f.
Colver presided over the meeting
and Rev. w. G. Ramsay of the Con-
gregational church in Eldora deliv-
cred the address. Rev. A. |. Martin
of the Christian church made the
opening prayer. The Congregation
al young folks chorus choir led the
singing and rendered good service.
AS a preface to the services Rev.
Charles Parsons, superintendent of
the Iowa division of the Society for
the Friendless, with headquarters in
Des Moines, and who happened to be
in the city, made short talk on the
prison reform movement. Such a
subject Is certainly pat at any gath
ering in the interest of home mis-
sions, as the problem of redeeming
men after they have paid the legal
penalty behind prison bars is one Of
the questions being pressed home to
the people Of this country and is a
problem of vital interest to the
Rev. Parsons gave some ex-
amples in his personal experience
along the line Of saving men which
appealed with much force to the
sympathy and intellect of the audi
ence. He said that the men in our
jails and penitentiaries have the
same hopes, desires and aspirations
we outside of these walls have, and
the great work of saving them to
Christ, the community and the
church, is one which ought to en-
list the help and hearty support of
all right minded men and women.
Rev. Ramsay, in his address
which followed, referred to the fact
that the meetings of the past week
had been a revelation in many re-
spects--in point of attendance, in
the multiplicity of the problems in
VOWED and considered in the work