Aliens or Americans? Part 25

[Sidenote: Two Timely Questions]

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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude need to be changed?

[Sidenote: The Alien Point of View]

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 inst.i.tutions--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_

[Sidenote: Alien Accessibility is Home Mission Possibility]

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.

[Sidenote: The First Touch]

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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.similation is begun.

[Sidenote: The Fruit of Kindness]

Here is a single ill.u.s.tration 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.

[Sidenote: The Gospel's Power]

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 grat.i.tude by trying with true missionary spirit to bring others of their race to the Master.[92]

[Sidenote: Immigrant Headquarters]

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 ma.s.s 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 inst.i.tution 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_

[Sidenote: Present Work for the Foreigners]

How are the evangelical denominations meeting their imperative obligation to evangelize the mult.i.tudes brought to their very doors?

When the immigrant has pa.s.sed through the gates, what attention is paid to him? Take it in the centers of population, where the ma.s.s of the immigrants go, and the showing is not very imposing as yet.

[Sidenote: Abandoned Fields]

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 a.s.sumption that there was no const.i.tuency 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.

[Sidenote: An Example]

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 inst.i.tutions in the fields from which they withdrew their churches.

Valuable ground has been lost for want of this missionary insight and impulse.

[Sidenote: Need of an Awakening]

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 G.o.d unto salvation in a vague and general way; but there are not enough people who clearly believe that the gospel is the power of G.o.d 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."

[Sidenote: Reasons for Present Conditions]

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:

[Sidenote: The Point for a New Departure]

"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 compa.s.s 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 a.s.similation of all foreign elements into the life of the body politic."[96]

[Sidenote: Success of Earnest Effort]

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?

[Sidenote: Tent Work Results in a Church]

"During the past summer a company of earnest workers for G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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."

[Sidenote: An Ingenious Italian Expedient]

Is this a hopeful work, this effort to evangelize the foreigners? Let the following unique instance give its answer, and ill.u.s.trate also the intertwinings of the home and foreign work. In a quarry at Monson, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 G.o.d'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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.ble examples for American Christians.[98]

_IV. The Call to Great Things_

[Sidenote: How to Save Our American Churches]

[Sidenote: Missionary Effort the Solution]

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. 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 inst.i.tutions must be more than meeting-houses, open a few times a week.

[Sidenote: A Great Mission Enterprise]

The inst.i.tutional 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 cla.s.ses 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.

[Sidenote: Church Federation for Service]