the Synod's treasury and to missionaries in the presbytery. Elsewhere the synodical treasurer receives funds directly and makes disbursements to the Board and to missionaries in the synod. Throughout the rest of the territory the Board receives all funds directly from the churches for disbursement as indicated above. A GUIDE TO CHURCH TREASURERS. The formula reproduced from the Board's literature puts directions in concise form: Congregational offerings from the churches of the synods of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio and in several scattered presbyteries elsewhere, designed for the general work of Home Missions, should be sent to the Treasurer of the Home Mission Committee of the Presbytery. In Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas and West Virginia they should be sent to the Synodical Treasurer. (For Michigan and Kansas, the Treasurer of the Board is also the Synodical Treasurer.) In other territory such funds (not for synodical or presbyterial self-support) should be sent direct to Harvey C. Olin, Treasurer of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The Board's Treasury Taken as a whole, the statement below is cheering, every item in the five months' statement showing a gain. Churches are doing nobly-approximately $6000 in advance of last year. Individuals have come to the front with $1400 advance, while the Woman's Board, as usual, forges well to the front. The great amount of gain, however, as will be seen, is in legacies-$221,787.00. The legacy gain is owing largely to the receipt of some large legacies which have been pending for some time, with regard to one of which legal proceedings have been necessary. While legacy receipts are always most welcome, yet it is greatly to be desired that the living shall give more largely in proportion to the gifts of those who have gone before. None of the Kennedy Legacy principal is included in the statement. THE BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. Comparative Statement of Receipts for CURRENT WORK for the 5 Months ending August 31, 1910-11 $18,696.23 Some Things Your Money Does through the Agencies of the Helps 1,784 churches to maintain their life in as many needy communities. (About as many more outstations adjunct to these are cared for.) Encourages 75,000 members of small churches to hold hard places, strategic centers for the Kingdom of God. Supports wholly or in part 1,498 ministers in charge of churches and missions. Makes possible Sunday Schools for 100,000 children, training schools for coming Christian citizens. Keeps $3,600,000 an effective investment in the buildings of 1,550 home mission churches; a sagacious Christian business enterprise. Brings about the organization of 100 new churches every year; in the same period helps 80 to 100 others to self-support. Conducts a work in Cuba with 36 mission centers, 18 pastors and helpers, 1,600 church members, 30 Sunday Schools, 1,750 Sunday School scholars, 3 church edifices. Helps discharge American Christian responsibility in Porto Rico with 90 preaching stations, 31 pastors and assistants, 2,689 church members, 30 Bible schools, 2,264 members in Bible schools, 30 organized churches, 19 church and chapel buildings, 12 other buildings, including important hospital and medical equipment, a property valued at $109,500. Provides in Alaska for a work with 20 churches, 14 ordained ministers, one of whom is a native, two candidates and six commissioned helpers in two presbyteries, 1,200 communicants, and more than 1,000 Sunday School members. Draws attention of the entire Church to the neglected lumbermen in temporary camps, and provides regular gospel services for over 10,000 men in the Central Northwest alone, through Sky Pilots who also distribute several tons of magazines and other good literature, visit hundreds of sick, and, in numberless ways, minister to those in need. Maintains within the bounds of nineteen states, among fifty tribes and parts of tribes of the American Indians, 103 churches, 71 preaching stations and 102 Sunday Schools, served by 118 ministers and commissioned helpers, having communicant membership of 6,665, and an estimated adherence of over 17,100 Indians. Equips the Department of Immigration, with its careful and special study of races and communities, practical work, informing literature, and increasing roll of missionaries, to relate the Church to its new, augmented missionary task: the welding of the immigrant masses of today into the strength of an American Christian society. Directs the thought of millions of workingmen and their families. toward the higher ideals of the church through articles which are syndicated every week to 250 labor papers and 100 monthly trade journals; conducts mass meetings for workingmen in halls and theatres on Sunday afternoons throughout the winter season; leads in an important temperance movement for workingmen; develops methods to meet the increasingly important problem of the city through surveys and constructive plans; maintains "Labor Temple,' an enterprise established as a demonstration center on the lower East Side of New York City, from which district scores of Protestant churches have recently moved, and where the problem of the downtown church is at its severest; conducts a Correspondence Course in applied Christianity for ministers and Christian workers, in city, country and immigrant communities. Prepares scientific Surveys of country communities, as a basis of religious social service; sets up Exhibits for the graphic display of the Church's work in country localities, at Agricultural Expositions, Country Church Conferences and Institutes, Meetings of Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly, and elsewhere, to illustrate the needs and possibilities existing in the country community; superintends the work of twenty-five Country Life Organizers located in rural communities; sends articles regularly to over two hundred agricultural papers on some phase of country church work; promotes Summer Schools for special sociological and religious training for country ministers and sends to these Summer Schools ten to twenty country ministers whose local work has showed them specially adapted for this training. Supplies individuals, churches and church organizations with literature on fields, phases and methods of work, Year Books, Prayer Calendars, text-books and supplemental aids for mission study classes, stereopticon lectures, maps and books from loan library, including the systematic distribution within the year of 999,400 copies with 6,457,000 pages of pamphlet and leaflet publications, and 10,722 copies with 2,833,400 pages of text-books for study classes. To maintain these and allied interests the Board needs more than a million dollars every year. To all seeking to make investments guaranteeing large returns to the Kingdom of God the Board's agencies are urgently commended. Methods of contribution are through the local church for home missions, special gifts of individuals for special enterprises maintained by the Board, annuity deposits and testator's bequests. Correspondence with the Board's officers is heartily welcomed. THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City The text of the above is reproduced in a leaflet issued by the Home Board, and upon application to the Board will be supplied in numbers desired for effective dis THE A New Strategy HE project outlined below is one of the greatest importance, and the successful issue of the effort will open a new day in Home Mission enterprise. As will appear, thirteen western states, where the Home Mission problem is specially stressful, are to be reached. The religious press will make further announcement as the dates for the effort approach. I. NEGLECTED FIELDS Composed of Twenty-two General Home Mission Boards and I. REASONS FOR THE SURVEY. The rural church problem is requiring such a study as it has never had. Especially in the West the rapid development of irrigation projects is evolving conditions of community life not before encountered on a large scale by either the American State or the American Church. It is an unquestioned fact that a majority of the strong men of God's kingdom, even in the cities, have come from country churches. It is equally unquestioned that, as things are now drifting, unless a way is found of re-invigorating religion in rural sections, the sources of the kingdom's strength in the future will be wanting. An increasing number of churches interpret their mission in terms of wide community service. The kingdom of God is apprehended as the kingdom of heaven upon earth. 2. There are great numbers of neglected fields. Recent investigation by a Joint Committee of the Home Missions Council and the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America shows this to a degree surprising even to those best acquainted with conditions in the West. We find in one western state one hundred and thirty-three towns of from one hundred and fifty to one thousand souls without any Protestant religious work, one hundred of them being also without Roman Catholic work. In addition to these, there are four hundred and twenty-eight communities of sufficient importance to have post offices, but without any churches. If the same rate of destitute communities to total population holds through all the mountain and Pacific States there are many more than four thousand such communities in those eleven states. Home Mission funds have been so limited that the Boards have all felt compelled to confine their efforts mainly to what appear to be the most strategic fields. But we must find some way of establishing Christianity in the thousands of utterly neglected fields. They, too, may be strategic in the Kingdom of God like the lonesome Moravian village of Harrnhut and William Carey's hamlet of Moulton, in which the whole modern missionary movement germinated. 3. A knowledge of the needs is the first essential in order intelligently and successfully to meet them. It is time that scattered facts and off-hand representations be brought under thorough study. Such a survey has never been made. It is an immense undertaking. It is possible only by combined endeavor. It is the legitimate work of Home Missions and can be accomplished if all Home Mission agencies both local and general co-operate in an energetic way. 4. The great Home Mission Boards have separately taken action naturally requiring such a survey. General Home Mission Boards which are aiding five-sixths of the missionaries aided west of the Mississippi river, in response to the findings and suggestions of the Joint Committee above referred to, have taken formal action in favor of seeking by co-operative survey to find some way of meeting the otherwise unmet needs. It is not a movement to curtail denominational activity, but rather greatly to encourage and increase The ideal thing would be a study of every community in the home mission field in respect to the organized religious activities in it in such a way as to be able not merely to tabulate, but also in some measure to describe the situation. The field is now as wide as the continent and as complex as modern life. The study should be made by those who are on the ground and whose business it is to meet the conditions, uniformity of investigation being secured by the Home Missions Council's plan. The practical thing is to make a beginning in certain selected states, naturally some of those which are in a formative period. It is probable that in the rural regions of the West the public school district will be found the most natural civil unit of study, since it is already equipped with available data, is organized with reference to the rising generation, is unsectarian, and at the same time is concerned with the higher life of the community. Detailed plans are in hand and in process of formation. By united activity it is believed that in one year or less vastly greater knowledge of the situation can be made available to all than has ever before been within reach of any one. III. PRELIMINARY SURVEY. The primary essential and the indispensable essential in achieving such a survey is large co-operation of the forces concerned. The first step therefore is consultation in each state by those who are now charged by the churches with the responsibility of directing the missionary work in the state. The plan of the reconnaissance is as follows: I. The region chosen is two contiguous tiers of states between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean; the time, a month, beginning the middle of November. 2. The Home Missions Council invites the field officers and all the members of the boards of management of home mission work of the various denominations in each state to come together for a DAY OF CONSULTATION. 3. The visiting deputation is to consist of one general executive officer from the head quarters of each Home Mission Society or Board doing extensive work in the West. 4. The forenoon (9:30 to 12:30) will be given to a preliminary survey of Neglected Fields by men in the state qualified to present concrete, compact papers, giving outstanding facts as to unmet needs which are particularly urgent in that state. The first of the following topics would be stressed in every state and a varying number of the others. Unmet Needs. (a) In Rural Districts; (b) Among Foreigners; (c) In Small Towns; (d) In Suburban Districts; (e) In Congested Urban Districts; (f) In Lumber Camps; (g) In Mining Camps; (h) Among Indians; (i) In Social Ministry; (j) Among Orientals. (It is possible that a selection of a few of the most concise, clear and complete papers prepared in this preliminary and topical survey may make a suggestive hand-book in advance of the ultimate regional Survey.) 5. The afternoon (1:30 to 4:30) will be given to inquiry of God and one another as to how to meet the needs. First hour, Prayer; second hour, Definite Plans, (a) for the complete survey; (b) for action in the light of the survey; third hour, Organization for the Survey. 6. If the way be clear the evening is to be devoted to a public meeting in the interest of Home Missions to be addressed by members of the Deputation. 7. The itinerary already outlined covers the period from the middle of November to the middle of December. The gatherings proposed for the several states named are to be held in the following cities in order: Minnesota-Minneapolis, Nov. 15, Wednesday. N. California-San Francisco, Dec. 5-6, Tuesday-Wednesday. California-Los Angeles, Dec. 7, Thursday. Utah Salt Lake, December 11, Monday. Colorado Colorado Springs, Dec. 13, Wed. Kansas Topeka, December 15, Friday. Nebraska-Omaha, December 18, Monday. South Dakota-Huron, Dec. 20, Wednesday. |