The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-07-03

| a necessary part of the work to come.
Just now a survey of the situation
is being made. The Rev. George w.
davenport, executive secretary of the
New York Institute, who is associated
with the Rev. A. NJ. Mansfield, in
charge of the work. has returned from
a visit to the chief ports of the coun-
try He finds there is opportunity for
work in South Chicago, in Chicago
proper, in Gary and in all the lake
ports. Some work is being done in
Boston, and, as a result of his visit,
work has been started on a small
scale in Philadelphia. The water
front boarding houses situated in New
Orleans are reported to be anything
but what they should be and the op-
portunity for service in every port
from San Diego to Seattle is great
Lastly, in Havana, which Bishop
Hulse says is the third largest port
on this side of the Atlantic. nothing
is being done for seafaring men.
The work that the Seamen's Church
Institute proposes to do through the
nationwide campaign, is not rescue
work. Seamen from strange lands
come to strange ports. To give them
community life, TO provide them with
a place where they may get clean
may leave their baggage and receive
their mail, where they may read and
play billiards or smoke and write
home and receive their letters, where
they may get employment and attend
ance if they are sick, that is the aim
of the Seamen's Church Institute. In
New York that is what it does. and
through the nation divide campaign of
the Episcopal church that is what it
proposes to do in every port
'tIt is not rescue work." the Rev.
Mr. Davenport is careful to explain,
but it is community work with a re-
ligious foundation. Upon these men
religion is not forced. We do not seek
to convert them We strive to serve
them in a Christian spirit
But the figures of church attend
ance are striking. At 2S1 services
held last year in English the attend
ance was 1859; at seventy Scandi-
navian services the attendance was
977; at twenty eight Lettish services
the attendance was Sill; to two ser
vices in the Russian language there
came SO men and to three services in
Dutch came IS men.
While six chaplains are in constant
attendance at the institute their duties
are mostly in the nature of social ser
vice. To their office, for their help.
men come in all their perplexities and
each is assisted to the utmost. Nor
is that all for there is a house ma
tron too, whose duties it is to make
the men feel at home and to give to
the institute that intimate and spirit
ual touch that only a motherly woman
can give.
The educational activities of the in
stitute are no mean effort, either. To
1852 men last year and there were
navigation and marine engineering no
less than 1879 students.
Perhaps long before he can make
flagstaff of the Seamen's Church In
stitute the sailorman is greeted in
New York harbor by a representative
of the institute itself. for each day
there goes out to meet incoming |
steamers the j. Hooker Hammersley" |
the institutes tender. On board may |
be a chaplain with newspapers and |
magazines and a cordial invitation to |
the sailor to make the tall sixteen
story building his home until he sails |
again.
Nor is this all the work among sea-
men, for if it should so happen that
the sailorman whilst in port should
spread his last sheet of canvas and
heave his last log and die a stranger
in strange land he is assured of n
decent Christian burial in the plot
that the institute has in one of the
cemeteries.