Home Missions in Action Part 2

"The following facts are significant. The European war is said to cost over _one hundred million dollars_ a day in money, stoppage of industry, and destruction of property.

"The United States has spent in preparedness for war during the past ten years a sum six times the cost of the Panama Ca.n.a.l."

[Footnote: New York Peace Society Leaflet.]

The European war says:

"That a world that prepares for war will get it sooner or later.

That militarism has revealed itself as an enemy to civilization and must be destroyed.

That autocrat rulers with power to make war have no rightful place in the modern world. That no more attempts at world domination are wanted, no matter by what nation or race.

That nationality and national boundaries must be respected, territories being enlarged only by the free consent of the population to be annexed, and colonization taking place only by peaceable commercial and industrial methods.

That, while military preparedness cannot preserve peace, _preparedness against attack_ is essential.

That a league or federation of the peaceably inclined nations for mutual protection and for the preservation of international law and order has become a necessity of the immediate future.

That lasting peace may be secured through the development of international law, the extension of democracy, and the cultivation of the spirit of international justice and good will."

Home Missionary women must a.s.sume their full share in all efforts to spread illuminating information on this subject, and through their personal att.i.tude, thinking, and praying, strive for the establishment of world relations that will make for peace.

The destruction of homes, hunger, sickness, poverty, degradation, all fall heavily upon women and their helpless little ones.

When the guns have ceased their work of death and the ruined land turns to rebuild its broken commerce and industry, it is the children who must grow up under the privations and the stunting burdens of fearful taxation. From the cradle to the grave, they must pay the billions of treasure eaten up by devastating, destroying war.

Let every Home Missionary woman, to whom this land is dear, who cherishes father, husband, son or brother, who clings to loved home and precious children, use all her influence to bring in the day when the Christ standard shall be the standard for all our national and international relations.

O bells, to-day let warfare cease!

Christ came to be a Prince of Peace.

No longer let the sound of drum Or trumpet, campward calling, come To vex the earth with dread, and make The hearts of wives and mothers ache.

Leave battle flags to moths and dust-- Let sword and gun grow red with rust!

Earth groaned with carnage--let it cease-- Ring in the thousand years of Peace!

Ring out the littleness of things, Ring in the broader thought that brings Swift end to all ign.o.ble creeds.

Ring in an age of n.o.ble deeds For all things pure, and high, and good-- The era of true brotherhood.

Ring out the l.u.s.t for gold and gain-- The greed that cripples soul and brain, And open eyes, long blind, to see What grander, better things there be!

[Footnote: Eben Rexford.]

Home Missions is one of the greatest contributors to national righteousness. Through it the higher life of the community is developed in the formative period; through it belated peoples receive the spiritual transforming dynamic that makes them reach up to the higher and better in their surroundings and gives them a developing effectiveness and efficiency.

It brings the same force with greater power into the lives of the children, giving them also a training of minds and hands that equips them for an enlarging sphere of usefulness.

It brings the most telling force possible to the upward struggle of our primitive and dependent people, patiently leading them by the road of sympathetic understanding into some strength to stand amidst the overpowering complexity of the civilization that surrounds them, in which they as yet are not advanced enough to become more than a problem.

The Negro and Indian testify to the marvelous transforming power of the Gospel of Christ brought by Home Missions--a power that gives moral fiber, a wholesome att.i.tude of life in which work and ambition have place.

To all that is n.o.blest, highest and best in our national life, Home Missions has given in large measure.

Home Missions faces forward, realizing that infinitely greater responsibility and service must now enter into the mission of the church at home, if this country is to remain Christian itself and be a force for Christianity in the world.

II

A RECLAIMING FORCE

"Go ye and teach the next one whom you meet-- Man, woman, child, at home or on the street-- That 'G.o.d so loved them' each in thought so sweet He could not have them lost through sin's defeat, But sent you with His message to repeat That pardon through His Son might be complete.

So shall our land be saved from sore defeat And gather with the nations at His feet."

Referring to the incident when the disciples, James and John, confronted by the lame man at the gate Beautiful of the Temple, gave him restored health through the power of the Christ, instead of the alms which he solicited, Dr. John Henry Jowett said: "He, the Master, gave fundamentally to those in need. He did not attend to the symptoms, but cured the disease. He gave capacity for incapacity, ability for inability, life for feebleness. He strengthened the wills of those born impotent and gave them the power of self-control.

"As Christ gave fundamentally in His earthly ministry, so He has given since. It is still the greatest mission of the church to reach and restore--to give "capacity."

Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." It can never come in society, it can never prevail in a nation, until it has first come into individual lives and found expression through them.

"All true progress," says the Hon. James Bryce, "has always been from the soul working outward through men's acts, and it is so to-day."

Home Missions has pre-eminently been the agent of the church in this fundamental work of reclamation. Let us go to the laboratory of the Mission fields where we may see Home Missions in action, and witness the Christ power to restore, uplift, transform, to give capacity.

It was a crisp day in early autumn when the visitor from the Women's Board stepped from the train at a small station in Northern Minnesota and was met by the Home Missionary pastor.

A pair of strong horses and a light buggy made quick work of the ten-mile drive, to the new mission church at M---- L----.

It was through what might be termed new country--so new that the stumps of the recently demolished forest were still standing, seared and slashed remnants of the splendid trees.

The first crop raised by ploughing the rich earth between the stumps stood tall and full of the promise of marvelous productiveness when suitable cultivation was possible. It was one of the crude frontier towns of the Northwest.

Several Old World kingdoms had contributed to the population.

There were Norwegians, Swedes, Hollanders, a few Poles, and some Americans of the sort who perennially move on, hoping for better conditions.

The lives of the people were filled with heaviest toil, for they were conquering a new country. They were renters of the land, or had bought with heavy mortgages, and so their ceaseless struggle was to gain a foothold. Little time or thought had they for the claims of the higher life.

There was no reminder of the things of G.o.d in the town save a Catholic chapel. To many of the people this faith was most repugnant.

There was no Sabbath, though for some the day's toil was not quite so arduous. The saloon, with its warmth and brightness, lured the tired men with the promise of sociability at all times.

Among them, however, was a man who had been an elder in a Protestant church across the seas, and he realized what the G.o.dlessness of the little place would mean to them all, and especially its effect upon the lives of their little children.