The question of supreme interest to us is the religious question. What share shall the Church have in making Christian Americans of these immigrants? How may Church and State work together for the solution of the problem, on the solution of which very largely the future prosperity of the State and the Church depends.—Charles L. Thompson, D.D.

The future success of missions will be largely affected by the success of the Church in dealing with problems that lie at her very door. The connection between home and foreign missionary work is living. The conversion of the world is bound up with the national character of professedly Christian lands. —Rev. Herbert Anderson, English Missionary in India.

"The blood of the people! changeless tide through century, creed, and race,
Still one, as the sweet salt sea is one, though tempered by sun and place,
The same in ocean currents and the same in sheltered seas:
Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies.
Indian and Negro, Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Gaul,
Mere surface shadow and sunshine, while the sounding unifies all!
One love, one hope, one duty theirs! no matter the time or kin,
There never was a separate heart-beat in all the races of men."

I. Alien Accessibility

"Save America and you save the world." Through immigration the United States is in a unique sense the most foreign country and the greatest mission field on the globe. "All peoples that on earth do dwell" have here their representatives, gathered by a divine ordering within easy reach of the gospel. Through them the world may be reached in turn. Every foreigner converted in America becomes directly or indirectly a missionary agent abroad, spreading knowledge of the truth among his kindred and tribe.[89] The greatness of the opportunity is the measure of obligation. God's message to this nation has been thus interpreted: "Here are all these people; I have taken them from the overcrowded countries where they were living and sent them to you, that you may mass your forces and lend a hand to save them." No such opportunity ever came to a nation before. The Christian church must seize it or sink into deserved decadence and decay. Only a missionary church can save the world or justify its own existence. The manner in which American Christianity deals with the religious problems of immigration will decide what part America is to play in the evangelization of the nations abroad.

We have now reached the vital part of our subject. We have learned to discriminate between peoples and find the good in all of them. We have seen that assimilation is essential to national soundness and strength. But we have yet to realize that the most potential factor in assimilation is not legislation or education but evangelization. There is no power like the gospel to destroy race antipathies, break down the bars of prejudice, and draw all peoples into unity, brotherhood, and liberty—that spiritual freedom wherewith Christ makes free. When American Protestantism sees in immigration a divine mission none will discover in it thenceforth a human menace.

Marvelous mission, involving the destiny of free America. A writer asks, "Will New England be kept Christian?" and answers, "That depends. Population is greatly changing. Immigrants from all parts of the world are here. They will continue to come. Unless they are molded according to the principles of our religion, they will greatly increase the irreligious elements of New England, already too large. There is a religious basis in those who come, but it will require an application of religious agencies to make them truly Christian citizens."[90] Put America in place of New England, and the question and answer will be as pertinent. Shall America be kept Christian? That depends. It depends upon what American Christians do.

Few of the immigrants are evangelical in religion. They know nothing of our gospel, and little or nothing of the Bible. The religious principles they have been taught are totally opposed to the spirit of our free institutions of religion. They know priestly sovereignty but not soul liberty. They are the creatures of a system, and the system is thoroughly un-American and inimical to freedom of conscience and worship. But thousands and tens of thousands of them are out of sorts with the system and are ready for something better.[91] They have lost faith in their Church and will lose it in religion unless we teach them the gospel. To accomplish this result two persons must be changed—the immigrant and the American. Alien assimilation depends largely upon American attitude.

Two questions confront us squarely as we approach this subject. First, the common one, What do we think of the immigrant? And second, the less common but not less important one, What does the immigrant think of us? It will do us good, as Americans and as Christians, to consider both of these frankly. Honestly, what is your attitude toward the ordinary immigrant? Do you want him and his family, if he has one, in your church? Do you not prefer to have him in a mission by himself? Would you not rather work for him by proxy than with him in person? Do you not pull away from him as far as possible if he takes a seat next to you in the car? Actual contact is apt to mean contamination, germs, physical ills. He is ignorant and uncultured. You desire his conversion—in the mission. You wish him well—at a convenient distance. You would much more quickly help send a missionary to the Chinese in China than be a missionary to a Chinaman in America, would you not? Think it over, Christian, and determine your personal relation to the immigrant. Is he a brother man, or a necessary evil? Will you establish a friendly relation with him, or hold aloof from him? Does your attitude need to be changed?

What, now, do you suppose this "undesirable" immigrant thinks of America and Protestant Christianity? What has he reason to think, in the light of his previous dreams and present realizations? What does Protestant Christianity do for him from the time he reaches America? What will he learn of our free institutions—in the tenement slums or labor camps or from the "bosses" who treat him as cattle—that will teach him to prize American citizenship, desire religious liberty, or lead a sober, respectable life? If we are in earnest about the evangelization of the immigrant we must put ourselves in his place occasionally and get his point of view. When we think fairly and rightly of the immigrant, and treat him in real Christian wise, he will soon come to think of us that our religion is real, and this will be a long step toward the change we desire him to undergo. We shall never accomplish anything until we realize that the coming of these alien millions is not accidental but providential.

II. Missionary Beginnings

The first human touch put upon the immigrant in the new environment is vastly important in its effects. He is easily approachable, if rightly approached. Alien accessibility makes home mission possibility. The approach may not at first be on the distinctively religious side, but there is a way of access on some side. A living gospel incarnated in a living, loving man or woman is the "open sesame" to confidence first and conversion afterward. Make the foreigner feel that you are interested in him as a man, and the door is open beyond the power of priestcraft to shut it. The priest may for a time keep the Catholic immigrant away from the Protestant church but not from the Protestant cordiality and sympathy; and if these be shown it will not be long before the immigrant, learning rapidly to think for himself, will settle the church-going according to his own notion. A kind word has more attractive power than a cathedral. You will never win an Italian as long as you call him or think of him as "dago," nor a Jew while you nickname him "sheeny." The immigrant wants neither charity nor contempt, but a man's recognition and rights, and when American Christians give him these he will believe in their Christianity and be apt to accept it for himself.

Home mission work of a distinctive character should and does begin at the point of landing in the New World. At Ellis Island, for example, there are now some thirty missionaries, representing the leading Christian denominations. This gives proof of the partial awakening of the Churches to the importance of this work. It is only of late years that any special attention has been paid to the welfare of the incomers, either by State or Church. Now both are seeking to throw safeguards around the immigrants and secure them a fair start. A large room is set apart for the missionaries in the receiving building at Ellis Island, and they perform a service of great good both to the aliens and the country. First impressions count tremendously, and happy is it for the immigrant who gets this initial impression from contact with a Christian missionary instead of a street sharper. Once put the touch of human kindness upon the immigrant and he is not likely to forget it. The hour of homesickness, of strangeness in a strange land, of perplexity and trouble, is the hour of hours when sympathy and help come most gratefully. The missionaries are on hand at this critical juncture. Thousands of immigrants are saved from falling into bad hands and evil associations through their zealous efforts. Thousands are supplied with copies of the Testament, the sick and sorrowful are comforted, the rejected are tenderly ministered to in their distress, and the gospel is preached in the practical way that makes it a living remembrance. This is one way in which a true and enduring assimilation is begun.

Here is a single illustration of the unexpected results of this first Christian touch in the new world. One of the women missionaries was very kind to a Bohemian family, helping the father find his destination and get settled. At parting, the missionary gave him a Testament and asked him to read it when in trouble. He thanked her for all her kindness to him and his family, and said he would keep the book for her sake. He put it away and forgot all about it. One day his little girl got the book and tore a leaf out. When he learned what she had done he was very angry, and punished her for tearing the book, saying that the kind lady at Ellis Island had given it to him, and he had promised to keep it. He threatened the child with severe punishment if she touched it again. "What is the book, papa?" she asked. He said he did not know what it was, but the lady gave it to him, and that was enough.

The little girl kept asking about it until at length his curiosity was aroused, and he took the Testament to find out for himself. As he began to read the story of Jesus he became interested, and presently had his wife reading it also. Such wonderful things he had never heard of before, and he thought he would tell the priest about it, for if the priest knew about it he would surely tell the people. The priest forbade him to look into the book again, saying that it was a bad book and would cost him his soul if he read it. This only ended the influence of the priest, for the immigrant said such a good person as Jesus could not do anybody any harm, he was sure of that. He decided to go back to Ellis Island and ask the kind lady about it. The light came, and he and his family are earnest members of a Christian church, showing their gratitude by trying with true missionary spirit to bring others of their race to the Master.[92]

This missionary work, coming at the critical time, needs to be extended and dignified. It should be so enlarged that it would be possible to reach in some way the great mass of the newcomers, where now it touches comparatively few. There should be a great interdenominational headquarters building, thoroughly equipped for every kind of helpful service. A large force of trained workers of different nationalities should be employed, so that all kinds of needs might be met. It is entirely possible to establish a center that would powerfully impress the immigrants with the worth and importance of the Christian religion. But no small affair will do. Our great denominations have the money in plenty, and certainly have the talent to organize such a work as the world has never yet seen. And what a chance for personal service such an institution would afford. This would be a living object lesson of Christianity helping the world, that might fitly stand beside the statue of "Liberty enlightening the world."

III. Protestantism and the Alien

How are the evangelical denominations meeting their imperative obligation to evangelize the multitudes brought to their very doors? When the immigrant has passed through the gates, what attention is paid to him? Take it in the centers of population, where the mass of the immigrants go, and the showing is not very imposing as yet.

The truth is that as the foreigners have moved into down-town New York the old-time Protestant churches have moved out, in great measure abandoning the field, on the assumption that there was no constituency to maintain an American church. It did not seem to dawn upon the rich churches which moved up town that the new population needed evangelization and could be evangelized. The result is that the immigrant accustomed to imposing churches and splendid architecture and impressive ritual, sees little to impress him with the existence of Protestant Christianity. Go through that teeming East Side in New York, and here and there you will find a mission supported in desultory fashion by some church or city mission society or mission board, and in quarters conducive to anything but worship or respect. There is nothing to make the new arrival feel the presence and power of the religious faith that created this free Republic and still predominates in its best life. So it is wherever you go. The home mission work is in its beginnings, and these are manifestly feeble and inadequate.

The Roman Catholics teach us some practical lessons. They build large and impressive churches for the immigrants. They abandon no fields, and immediately occupy those left by Protestants. They expend money where it will go furthest. The Protestants of New York should have been far-sighted enough to plant strong evangelistic and philanthropic institutions in the fields from which they withdrew their churches. Valuable ground has been lost for want of this missionary insight and impulse.

The conditions in New York are symptomatic of those obtaining generally, in country as well as city. The Protestant churches, not recognizing the supreme home mission opportunity to Christianize the immigrants, have in many cases become weak where a zealous evangelism would have kept them strong. Too many of the American Churches have been satisfied with their own prosperity and unmindful of the growing need of the gospel all around them. As a missionary worker says:[93] "There are plenty of Christians who believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation in a vague and general way; but there are not enough people who clearly believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Italian working on the railroad, or the Hungarian in the shops, or the German on the farm. Too many of us have no faith at all in foreign missions at home."

It is impossible to enter into details of what has been undertaken by the different evangelical denominations. Reference to the tables furnished by various Home Mission Boards[94] will indicate, as far as bald figures can do so, the extent of the work among the various peoples. The statistics show that in the country, especially in the West, missions among the earlier type of immigrants—the German and Scandinavian—have long been maintained with success. There are hundreds of strong and prosperous churches among these peoples. For the later immigrants less has been done, although the need is far greater. Some of the reasons for the small proportions of this work are manifest. In order to reach the Slavs and Italians there must be native missionaries, and these cannot be found offhand. After converts are made, those who are fitted to preach and teach must be trained, and schools must be provided for the training.[95] The difficulties of language must first be overcome. The process requires time and patience and large resources. Missions cannot be imposed upon these foreign peoples from without. Force cannot be used. Access must be found, and the gospel seed be sown as opportunity occurs. There must be a natural development in a work like this, which deals with individuals, and that by persuasion. The present work must not be judged too harshly, therefore, as reflecting upon the churches. Only of late has the need been recognized by the leaders in Christian effort. Dr. Thompson puts the situation in true light, when he says:

"It goes without saying that the church has not so far taken its full share of the responsibility. She has not realized the gravity of the situation. Indeed, only in late years has it emerged in its full significance. Consequently the work of the various Christian bodies has been sporadic, rather than systematic and persistent. There has been no serious endeavor to deal with it as a problem and to try to compass it. All the Churches have worked among the foreigners, but it has been determined by local conditions and needs which have appealed to Christian people here and there; that, however, is very different from an intelligent view of the whole situation and a campaign intended and adapted to solve the whole problem. We have reached a point in the immigration problem where it must be solved broadly, philosophically, and by the combination of all forces—civic, social, moral, and religious—to bring about the healthy assimilation of all foreign elements into the life of the body politic."[96]

We have said the foreigner is accessible. How true this is, when earnest and genuine effort is made, is shown by the tent work in many cities. Take it among the Italians in New York, for example. A tent worker tells the results:[97]

"New York City within a year will hold a half million Italians. What is the Church of America to do with them? Will they listen to the gospel? Who has tried to reach them?

"During the past summer a company of earnest workers for God and man tested the problem of saving men to save New York. They started an open-air and tent campaign. They proceeded on the simple hypothesis that 'Nothing will elevate the man, no matter how good he is morally, except the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it alone is the power of God to change the whole man and save him eternally.' They drove their tent-stakes into the ground in an Italian quarter and began to preach and to sing the gospel of grace triumphant into the ears and hearts of Roman Catholic Italians. Except when the weather was exceptionally bad, from five to six hundred persons were there nightly. They were met just as the foreign missionary would meet them. Not one among them, perhaps, Christian from a purely evangelistic standpoint, and yet, what was the result? In less than one year they expect to have a permanent church building to cost $60,000; something like two hundred are ready to enter and form a Protestant church."

Is this a hopeful work, this effort to evangelize the foreigners? Let the following unique instance give its answer, and illustrate also the intertwinings of the home and foreign work. In a quarry at Monson, Massachusetts, where over three hundred Italians are employed, there was among the number a man who had been converted in Italy, through the faithful efforts of an American missionary. When this convert reached the Massachusetts quarry, his heart burned within him as he realized the spiritual condition of his countrymen, who were living without any religious services. He labored so effectively for their salvation that in a few months seventeen of the workmen were converted, and they held regular meetings for prayer and study of the Bible. At length they sent a message, signed by every convert, to a state missionary society: "In God's name, send us a missionary." A missionary was sent to organize them into a church. They had no meeting-place, and in this emergency one of the converts proposed that a room be built on the roof of his cottage. This was done by the little band, and there they worshiped until the place was too small. Then the first story was extended in the rear, giving space for a comfortable chapel, and the family occupied the second story or roof-room. This indicates the ingenuity as well as the generous and self-sacrificing spirit of these Italian Christians, who maintain a regular pastor and full services. How many of our American churches, with much larger resources, could show a better record? What American Christian would have thought of building a meeting-house on his home roof, or would have been willing to do it if he had thought of it? In devotion and liberality the converted aliens often set noble examples for American Christians.[98]

IV. The Call to Great Things

Missionaries have been surprised at the eagerness with which they were received by the Italians, Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, and Lithuanians, and others commonly regarded as most hopeless. The Bohemians have a large number of freethinkers—over 300 societies of them—who have sought to draw their people away from Christianity or any form of religion; but they also have a large number of earnest and devoted Christian converts, who know the power of the gospel to save, and are preaching and teaching it.Missionary Effort the Solution In Pennsylvania, among the Slav peoples, simple-hearted native workers who have found the way of life are making that way known to others, and local churches in many places are becoming revived through their active work for these foreigners. Many churches now extinct would be alive if they had seen their opportunity. If those churches that have lost most of their old-time membership could be filled with missionary zeal, and be sustained as evangelistic centers, the church life of the mining regions would become a different thing once more. The only way to save these American churches is for them to save the immigrants. The same thing is true in all country sections where the foreigners have become numerous. The need everywhere is for money to plant and equip thoroughly, and maintain efficiently, these evangelizing churches in every community. These institutions must be more than meeting-houses, open a few times a week.

The institutional church always open, with something to meet every legitimate need of old and young, so that the evangelical center shall be the center of community life, can alone meet the requirement. A great force of workers must be raised up, and this means training schools. No more important educational work can be done in our country in the present emergency. These schools might be interdenominational, with special classes where required for the specific denominational training, and thus a united Protestantism could be rallied to their support, and make them of size sufficient to impress all with the real consequence of the work.

In this work the interdenominational comity and coÖperation represented in the federation of evangelical churches would secure the best covering of the whole field, in the true fraternal and Christian spirit. What all desire supremely is the salvation of the immigrants. And only a united Protestantism can present such a massive front as to impress the world. This work must be large enough to be self-respecting. At present it is extremely doubtful if there is enough of it to make individual members of the churches feel its worth and importance. There should be a mighty advance movement, calling for millions of money and thousands of missionaries, and reaching into a multitude of places now destitute of gospel influences. Then the alien in America would realize the American spirit and purpose and interest in him, and the birth of a new citizenship would begin.

This is the day of large enterprises. The home mission movement for the evangelization of the foreign peoples in America ought to be in the forefront of the great enterprises. The real hope of America lies in the success of this work. The best brain of the Christian laity should be engaged in this business.

In New York City alone the Christian denominations ought to raise and expend at least a million dollars a year for the next ten years for city foreign evangelization, and this would be only a start in a work bound to extend indefinitely. The demand is imperative. The fields are ripe for harvest. We have seen that the old religious ties are not only weakened by the Atlantic voyage, but often broken altogether. In some nationalities this tie is strong, in most of them not very binding. The great bulk of the new immigration is Roman or Greek Catholic. Thousands of these nominal church members drift into open infidelity or schools of atheism, or else into nothingism. Their former Church does not keep them, and Protestantism does not get them. It is a question whether their new condition is better or worse, religiously, than it was in the old country. We should remove that question by surrounding them with such Christian influences and institutions as will make it impossible for them to escape the Americanizing and evangelizing environment. Why should not Christian philanthropy, for instance, build a block of model tenement-houses in the Italian district, and give the income from rentals as a permanent endowment for Italian mission work? This would be a double blessing.

There is a magnificent opportunity, an opportunity to fire the heart of the men who have means to carry out whatever they devise. The evangelical denominations should establish in the heart of the East Side, where are gathered a dozen little nationalities, not simply one great establishment of distinctively religious and educational character, but a number of such institutional churches, costing anywhere from a million to a million and a half each, and sustained in a thoroughly business-like way. Christianity should permeate the entire work. We ought to be working for to-day and for the future. The Home Mission Boards in coÖperation should be asked to lead forward in this, the greatest task of the twentieth century. There is nothing sentimental or impracticable about these suggestions.

Here is a work that demands the moral strength of Protestant union. Let us seek to make the foreigners Christian, give them the Bible, and set them an example of the brotherhood of believers. Then the immigrants will become believers and join the brotherhood.

In addition to this organized work done through the missionary bodies, there is a large work for local churches to do. In some denominations, which report little organized effort, there is much mission work done by local parishes. And in all denominations there are many churches that study their community and apply themselves to its needs. The Chinese Sunday-school work has been chiefly done by the local churches, and therefore it is not easy to learn the extent of the work, since reports are not made to central boards. This form of service is especially desirable when it draws the members of the churches to any extent into personal contact with the foreign element, and it should be fostered.

V. The Individual Duty

This brings us to the heart of the whole matter—the personal equation. The trouble is that the alien and the American do not know each other. Aversion on the one side is met by suspicion on the other. Shut away from intercourse, the alien becomes more alienated, and the American more opinionated, with results that may easily breed trouble. The antidote for prejudice is knowledge. Immigration has made it possible—and in this case possibility is duty—for the consecrated Christian, in this day and land of marvelous opportunity, to be a missionary—not by proxy but in person.

Here is the foreigner in every community. You meet him in a hundred places where the personal contact is possible. Did it ever occur to you that you could do something directly for the evangelization of the Greek or Italian fruit vender or bootblack or laborer? Have you ever felt any responsibility for the salvation of these commonly despised foreigners? Have you laughed at them, or shown your contempt and dislike for them as they have crowded the public places? The evangelization of the foreigners in America must be effected by the direct missionary effort of the masses of American Christians. That is the foundation truth. The work cannot be delegated to Home Mission Boards or any other agencies, no matter how good and strong in their place.

Hence, let all emphasis be put here upon personal responsibility and opportunity. Be a missionary yourself. Reach and teach some one of these newcomers, and you will do your part. Do not begin with talking about religion. Make the chance to get acquainted; then after you have shown genuine human interest, and won confidence, the way will be open for the gospel that has already been felt in human helpfulness. As a result of this study, which has taught you to discriminate and to be charitable to all peoples, the new attitude and sympathy will enable you to approach those who have been brought within your sphere of influence. There is a field of magnificent breadth open to our young people. Once engaged in this personal service, and aware of its blessed effects, there will be no lack of a missionary zeal that will embrace the world-wide kingdom.

At a conference in New York, in the Home Mission study class a young colored man from the West Indies gave a practical illustration of individual missionary effort of the kind that would evangelize the foreigners, if it were generally practiced. He said that every Thursday, when the steamer from the West Indies arrives, he arranges his work so as to be at the wharf, ready to welcome immigrants, especially young people, and to advise them, if they are strangers without settled destination. He was led to do this by his own experience. For three years after he came to New York, he went from church to church without ever receiving a word of welcome or invitation to come again. Finally he found a church home; but the homesickness and loneliness of those years made him feel that so far as he could help it, no one else from the West Indies should have a similar experience. So he made himself free to speak to the young men, and always invited them to church. He had been the means of aiding many to establish themselves, and had saved many immigrants from being lured away into evil. He said the place to get the heart of the foreigner was when he first landed. It was a simple story, told without any false modesty. Plainly his heart was in the work. He was a home missionary, doing a definite service of importance, and setting an example that inspired that company. They could not help the round of applause that followed his statement. It was spontaneous. This is the personal touch that must be put in some way upon the stranger that is within our gates. If the alien can be brought under this gracious Christian influence, the chances are many that he will soon cease to be alien and become Christian. Blessed is he who makes any soul welcome to country and church.

A call to home mission service is thus presented by Dr. Goodchild, who would carry religion more fully into the settlement idea: "We need for the solution of this problem that young men and women who go to the great cities from the strong churches of the smaller towns and villages should identify themselves with mission churches rather than to seek ease and honor in wealthy churches where unused talent is already congested.

"We need young men and young women to go down among these people and live Christian lives in the midst of them. I do not believe that any one should take his children there to rear them. But young men in groups, or young women in groups, or young couples without children, who are able to earn their own living could contribute greatly to the solution of these problems if they would live among these foreigners and help in the process of digestion and assimilation. And there is nothing that can do that work so quickly and effectually as for Christian men and women to dwell among these people, as Christ once left his home on high to dwell among the sinful ones of earth. And if there are young men and young women who are willing to give themselves wholly to work for these people, and will live among them, and seek by the power of divine grace to lift them up, it surely is very little for you and me to sustain them while they toil."

Wherever earnest effort has been put forth, the progress of the work has been most encouraging. As an illustration of this, when Dr. H. A. Schauffler some twenty years ago began his pioneer missionary work among the 25,000 Bohemians of Cleveland, he could not learn of any fellow-laborers in the Slavic field except a Bohemian theological student in New York, a Bohemian Reformed Church pastor in Iowa, and another in Texas. But in 1905 there met in Chicago an Interdenominational Conference of Slavic missionaries and pastors, and that gathering comprised no less than 103 Slavic workers, of whom sixty-four were pastors and preachers, fourteen women missionaries, and twenty-five missionary students; while the conference represented forty-nine churches in thirteen states, and five evangelical denominations. Mr. Ives says truly: "It has been forever established that foreigners are as convertible as our own people, that in many instances their faith is more pure and evangelical than the American type, that their lives are transformed by its power to an extent that sometimes puts the American Christian to shame, that their children are easily gathered into Sunday-schools, their young people into Endeavor Societies, and their men and women into prayer-meetings, where in many different tongues they yet speak and pray in the language of Canaan. The immigration problem is not the same menace that it was. A mighty solvent has been found."

There is no escaping the fact that a prodigious amount of difficult lifting must be done in order to elevate the aliens to the American social and religious level. But the very vastness of the home mission task is inspiring rather than discouraging to heroic souls. As someone says, "The American loves a tough job." Difficulties will not hinder him a moment when once he is moved with the divine impulse, sees the thing to be done, and sets himself with God's help to do it. Present conditions call to mind that passage in "Alice in Wonderland," where by the seashore

The walrus and the carpenter were walking hand in hand,
And wept like anything to see such quantities of sand.
"If seven maids with seven mops, swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the walrus said, "that they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.

It must be confessed that what has been done, in comparison with what has to be done, would not be unfairly represented by the seven maids, and that some people think the conversion of the foreigner as hopeless as the carpenter did the sand-sweeping job. But seven mops are better than none, and the pessimists are few. Souls are different material to work upon from sand. By and by the Christian denominations will stop sweeping around the edges of this great missionary enterprise, and take hold of it with full force. This will come to pass when the real conditions and needs and perils are widely known; and in making them known the young people have their opportunity to render signal service to foreigner, country, Church, and Christ.

VI. Basal Grounds for Optimism

Now that we have completed our study of immigration, necessarily limited by time and space, we are in position to draw some conclusions with regard to the outlook. Our study shows that there is plenty in the character and extent of present day immigration to make the Christian and patriot thoughtful, prayerful, and purposeful. On the surface there is enough that is appalling and threatening to excuse if not justify the use of the word "peril." The writer confesses that when he lived, years ago, in western Pennsylvania, and came close to the inferior grades of immigrants, and witnessed the changes wrought by the displacement of the earlier day mining class, he bordered for a time on the pessimistic plane. Nor was his condition much improved during residence in New England, where the changing of the old order and the passing of the Puritan are of vast significance to our country. But closer study of the broad subject has led to a positively optimistic view concerning immigration, and some of the grounds of this optimism may properly close this chapter and volume.

The basal ground is the universal tendency toward democracy and the universal necessity for religion. These are sufficiently axiomatic. The appeal to the history of the nineteenth century is sufficient to establish the first, and the appeal to the heart of humanity will establish the second. Democracy is the dominant spirit in the world's life to-day. It is the vital air of America. Whatever is in its nature inimical to democracy cannot permanently endure on this continent, and certainly cannot control, whether it be in the sphere of ecclesiasticism or commercialism. This, then, is the sure ground for optimism. Religion is a necessity in a nation. What shall the type of religion be in America? The answer is clear, for Protestantism is democratic, while Romanism is autocratic.

The hope of America's evangelization is increased by the fact that the pure religion of Jesus Christ is so essentially democratic in its fundamental teachings of the brotherhood of man, of spiritual liberty and unity. The immigrant comes into a new environment, created alike by civil and religious liberty, and cannot escape its influence. Political liberty teaches the meaning of soul liberty, and leads the way slowly but surely to it. A man cannot come into rights of one kind without awakening to rights of every kind; and once awakened, soon he insists upon having them all for himself. Freedom is infectious and contagious, and the disease is speedily caught by the old-world arrival, who breathes in its germs almost before the ship-motion wears off. The peril of this is that to him the main idea of liberty is license. The true meaning of the word he must be taught by the Christian missionary, for certainly he will not learn it from the Church to which he commonly belongs. Here, then, is the opportunity for the pure gospel and for the Christian missionary.

Adding the natural appeal of the gospel in its simplicity to this favoring democratic environment, there is every reason for optimism concerning immigration, if only American Protestantism prove true to its opportunity and duty. "Ah, but that is a tremendous IF," said a widely known Christian worker to whom this statement was made. "I agree with you as to the favoring conditions, and my only doubt is whether our Christian Churches can be brought to see their duty and do it. So far there are only signs of promise. Our home mission societies are doubtless doing all they can with the slender means furnished by the contributing churches, but they are only playing at the evangelization of these inpouring millions." What could be said in reply? One could not deny present apathy on the part of Protestants at large, whether the cause be ignorance or indifference or want of missionary spirit. One could but declare faith in the prevailing power of Protestantism when the crisis comes. We believe the day is not distant when American Protestantism will present a united front and press forward irresistibly. For the hastening of this day let us pray and work.

Thus the problem always resolves itself to this at last: God has set for American Protestant Christianity the gigantic task of the ages—the home-foreign-mission task—nothing less than the assimilation of all these foreign peoples who find a home on this continent into a common Americanism so that they shall form a composite American nation—Christian, united, free, and great. What could be more glorious than to have part in the solution of this problem? To this supreme service, young men and women of America, you are called of God. What say you: shall it be Alien or American?

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VIII

Aim: To Make Hopeful Beginnings a Strong Incentive to Great Expansion of Christian Work for Foreigners

I. Faults on Both Sides.

1. What issues hang upon our work for the incoming foreigners?

2. * What barriers must be broken down in order to approach them successfully?

3. What do these immigrants (speaking of them in general terms) possess, and what do they lack, spiritually?

4. Is there a lack in our own personal attitude and feelings toward them? What is it?

5. * If you had come as an average immigrant, what would you be likely to think of "America" and the "Americans"?

II. Missionary Beginnings.

6. When and where is it most easy to approach the foreigner? What will a "lurking prejudice" do?

7. What Christian workers are there at the ports of entry? Give instances of the results of their labors.

8. Can we possibly rest content with what is now being done on these lines? Why not?

9. * Should all denominations unite in an effort to meet the situation? Will you strive for it?

10. What has been the history of evangelical churches down town in New York City? What centers of Christian work may be found there? What form would a more adequate provision be likely to take?

11. Among what classes of immigrants has the most successful Christian work been done?

12. Among what classes has it been thus far sporadic and experimental? Give instances of successful work for Italians.

III. Expansion Needed and Possible.

13. * Are those who are ordinarily neglected responsive to the right sort of effort? How may there be sent forth "more laborers into the harvest"?

14. When and how may the scattered forces be joined for more effective work?

15. * Shall we "dare to brave the perils of an unprecedented advance"?[99] Have we such faith that God will move his people to furnish the funds?

IV. Local and Individual Efforts.

16. Are there many Sunday-schools for Chinese in local churches? Why not as many for other needy races?

17. * How can every Christian be a Home Missionary? Describe some example. Compare our Lord's parable of the leaven.

18. Will the "day of small things" lead to greater? On what conditions? Give instances.

19. * Is the task great enough to challenge our Christian faith, courage, and perseverance?

V. A Hopeful Outlook for the Christian.

20. Is there any reason for inactivity and despair? Why not?

21. Will Christian democracy help to solve the problem?

22. Where lies the element of uncertainty and how can it be removed?

23. * Will you deliberately give yourself to be used of God in helping to remove it?

"Immigration Means Obligation."

References for Advanced Study.—Chapter VIII

I. Study the various forms of work undertaken for foreigners by denominational Home Mission Boards.

Tables and statements in the appendixes of this book.

Missionary periodicals.

Reports and papers of different Societies.

II. Investigate and report upon efforts made in your own locality.

III. Frame an argument, or plea, for the great enlargement of all Christian activities on behalf of foreigners.

McLanahan: Our People of Foreign Speech, X, XI.

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