Morris tribune., 1919-05-23
METHODIST CENTENARY
NOW REACHING CRISIS
Local Church Has Promised to Do
It's Share and Raise Eight
Thousand Dollars

The Methodist Centenary Move
ment for World Reconstruction with
a goal of at least sos, 100000, has
reached it's crisis.
The goal of $1O5, 100000 was
fixed not because it was clever
guess as to how much money could
be obtained from the church con-
stituency, but as result of de-
tailed survey of all the fields. The
number of new churches, institu-
tional centers, parsonages, hospitals,
and industrial farms and the workers
needed was determined with the
same accuracy that an architect pre-
pares his blue prints.
Of the total, $40,00O,0O0 will be
expended in home mission work in
the United States and in it's depend
encies; $4O,OOO,OOO in foreign fields;
and $25,000,O0O in definite after
war reconstruction work, one half in
Europe and one half in the United
States. War reconstruction COM
prises the work of rebuilding the de-
vastated places Of Europe-supply-
ing raw material as we'll as men for
work.
If a man were wrecked on an
island and should find there million
dollars worth of gems and yet had
no food to eat, the money would be
a mOckery. France is in need of
supplies, even more imperatively
than of money. More than $4,000
tractors and plows were scrapped in
northern France in the German at
tacks. The Centenary proposes to
take from America on relief ships
new tractors, plows, and other agri~
cultural implements. The mich
COWS which furnish the living and
in many cases, the income of poor
families were carried off by the in
vaders. The Methodist Centenary
intends to do its share by sending
COWS to France to replace these.
Sheep also will be sent. These re-
lief ships will be sent this summer,
the first one starting July list. De-
finite villages near Chateau Thierry
have been assigned to the Methodist
Centenary leaders for the purpose OF
reconstruction by the building of So
cial centers, orphanages, anC
churches. In communities thus as
signed the responsibility rests upor
the Methodist Centenary alone. L
pledges to carry through it's program
thus assuring that the work will b'
done.
AmericanizAtion of foreigners i
of Dnoocci+ioc in solving tht
industrial unrest in the Unitet
States, and large sums will be spen
to furnish teachers and fOun'
churches and schools which will Sc
cure this result.
Scattered throughout the uniO
are thousands Of rural cOmmunitie
where there are church building
but no minister, and places Wher
the buildings are without equipment
The Centenary will accomplish ia
reaching results in reviving the rura
church where needed, in establishin
rural social centers, and in som
places in eliminating certai
churches where denominations over
lap and where no church is doing tn
right kind of work.
About $4O,OOO,OOO has alread
been subscribed towards the total {
100000. If the total is owe
subscribed the excess will go to hos
pitfalls, the retired ministers, the We
mans Home Missionary Society an
the Woman's Foreign Missionary Sc
ciety, the Boards of Education an
Temperance and other agencies whic
are already designated.
Not only are Methodists intereste
in the success of the Centenary bu
all other denominations, for the Ger