Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-02-26
Financial "Drives''

money by "drives"-concentrated eff
fort within a given length of time
All sorts of "drivcs" have been put
over, Liberty Bond Sales, Red Cross,
Rcd Triangle, Armenian Relief. But
q bigger drive than all of these is
coming, and the best "drive" of all,
because it aims to spend the money
raised in 4 way to make permanent
the good work these previous drives
have accomplished temporarily.
That's a great missionary drive to
raise several million dollars to bring
other countries up to our religious,
! moral and social standard 60 that c''
| time sensitive racial differences will
! disappear and all the world will come
to know itself better.
Once upon time it gave us sort
of a weary pain to have a "missionaly
collection" sprung on US about once
in so often by the local preacher.
We're getting over that. We're get
ting over it for the reason that if all
this good missionary work had been
done by the red -bloodcd men before
who have it in charge now, there
wouldn't have been any war with its
terrible toll.
The war also has taught US not
only to think in large figures, but to
work in unity The Methodists start
cd movement for home and foreign
missions with s85,000,00O as an ideal
for working capital; but the plar
looked so good to other Churches
that they have decided to come to-
gethcr, pool their efforts, and raise
not eighty-fivc, but three hundred
millions.
With five years to do it, and the
Liberty Loan campaigns as an edu-
cational preparation for the people,
the aim looks as good as accomplish
ed.
The New'Y Times Estimates
some 25,000,000 communicates of
thirty or more different denomina-
tions, with 100000 individual church.
cs and at least 2O,000,O00 Sunday
school pupils to take care of the
raising of this fund in five years.
The country, we are told, has been
divided into districts, the districts
into smaller localities, and the local
tiles into unions of groups of church
es." One hundred thousand speakers
are ready to herald the story, and no
community will fail to hear the mes
sage. 1t is now four years since the
movement was first under way, in
itiatcd by DR.. S. Earl Taylor, exc
cutive secretary of the Joint Centen-
airy Committee of the Methodist Epis-
copal church, who began a survey of
world-conditions, religious, sanitary,
educational, etc.
The Times points out that not the
least important field of the work will
be home missions. 1t seems that
there arc three important phases of
this: First, the treatment of the de-
prcst, bclated, or so-called inferior
classes; secondly, the teaching of
religion to the laboring classes, and
thirdly, the activities with the Indi-
ans, negroes, Mexicans, Alaskans,
and similar groups of the country.
On the subject of those DR.. Tay
lor's survey bears the following mes
sage:
"Thc biggest piece of missionary
work possible would be for the people
in every Christian church to start to-
morrow and be friendly, cordial, and
helpful to the immigrants living at
their doors.
This would mean decent houses and
more schools for them, and it would
mean moral education which so far
they have not yet received. They
arc brought in touch with the worst
side of American life, and that is the
side that is uppermost in letters to
their friends and in conversation
when they return home. The failure
so to apply Christianity is almost fa-
tai The cost of the Allies of the
detection of Russia is incalculablc.
That detection is due to many causes,
but to none more than to the stories
Of exploitation told by returned Rus
sian immigrants from America. In
tensive home mission work on Man
haitian Island, south of Fourteenth
street, would have more than paid for
itself at this juncture.
"There is every indication that the
laboring classes of the world are to
be very much more influential today
than they have been up to now, and
the gravest question today is whether
their leadership shall be sane, in
elusive, and religious, or whether it
shall be characterized by narrowness,
eccentricity, and contempt for the
church. In America alone do you find
a free church, supported only by the
voluntary contributions of people
who like that sort of thing. In fact,
it is a most significant .rIDute to the
vitality and power of Christianity
that there have been started and are
now being maintained in the United
States more than 175,000 chu' ches,
not one of which receives any sub