CONCERNING THE FOREIGNER THE CHURCH AND THE IMMIGRANT STATUE OF LIBERTY Published by the Presbyterian Committee of Publication, RICHMOND, VA. TEXARKANA, ARK. -TEX, IMMIGRANT STATION ELLIS ISLAND NEW YORK HARBOR Concerning The Foreigner THE CHURCH AND THE IMMIGRANT BY Mrs. D. B. Cobbs, Mobile, Ala. PUBLISHED BY The Presbyterian Committee of Publication RICHMOND, VA. TEXARKANA, ARK.-TEX. ALL ABOARD “Concerning The Foreigner” “Lo, these shall come far, and lo, these from the north; and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.” One’s senses fairly reel as we stand at the gateways of our nation and watch the long line of humanity coming out from the steerage of the great ocean liners, laden with bas- kets, bundles, and babies. Sad-eyed, silent folk they are, filing through the nation’s sieve; coming out of a known and bitter past; going forward into an unknown future. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thou- sands; and still the patient, heavy tread goes on, month after month, year after year. But who are these strange people of foreign speech, who are coming in like the tide, and like the tide receding but leaving here and there segregated masses of foreigners, and the whole land mightily influenced by this cosmopolitan tide? Are they an invading army, bent on conquest? Are they the child-folk of the earth coming to America as to a new, modern and up-to-date school, to return as teachers? Are they the progressives of the old world, seeking to break away from effete forms, decadent rites, and deadening tra- ditions? Are they the restless, turbulent discontents, the red-handed anarchists of earth, escaping from ancient re- straint, with thoughts of vengeance still rankling in their hearts? Or are they down-trodden toilers, the peasants of noble-ridden lands, enslaved, hunger-driven, and heart- sore, seeking bread and freedom, in a land of fabled liberty and wealth? They are a part of all that has been since time began; 4 Concerning the Foreigner. they are a part of all that is in this struggling, toiling, hungry, climbing earth; they are a part of all that shall be, in America. For out of want they are seeking plenty. Out of failure and defeat, conquest. Out of bondage, free- dom. Out of oppression, justice. Out of hate, they are yearning for love. Out of dead forms they are seeking — God. Whence come they? From the rocky fords of Norway, and the Emerald Isles. From the fogs of London and the hamlets of Germany. From the vineyards of South Italy and the Gothic cities of the north. From the fabled lands of the Aegean and the storm-girt shores of Finland. From the Bosphorus and the Nile. From the fastness of Monte- negro and the rock-bound costs of Dalmatia. From the Waag and the Dnieper. From the Carpathians and the Balkans. From the Danube and the Jordan, from Mt. Lebanon and Arabia. Lrom India and the land of Sinim. Lrom Mexico, Cuba, South America. Lrom the islands of the sea — and from every land or country where there is trouble and unrest. “All these gather themselves together, they come to thee.” And what bring they from far lands? A few clothes tied up in bundles and baskets. And what more? Old world traditions, old world loves and hates, old world dreams. Yes, and faces turned to the future and hearts full of hope. Strong backs to bear burdens — hands to toil — brains to devise. Multitudes of children to bless or curse the land. Human hearts throbbing with human aches and yearning for human sympathy. Immortal souls with endless capacities for evil or good. They bring to us changing conditions, race modifications, possibilities, perils, and problem^, Concerning the Foreigner. 5 Colonial Immigration. We love to speak of America as the land of the Anglo- Saxon, as though we would claim certain exclusive privileges because of that fact. New Americans Arriving 1 . It has been demonstrated beyond peradventure that our puritan forefathers dominated the infant republic politically, intellectually, and religiously. But one has only to glance at a map of colonial America to realize that from a very early period we were a polyglot nation, our population being tri-coloured, and representing more than ten races, with a large proportion of Germans, while the French and Spanish held a monopoly on the Gulf Coast. Horatio Seymour once said that nine prominent men in the early history of New York represented as many nationalties. 6 Concerning the Foreigner. Looking back over the last century, Kelts — Scotch-Irish — may come in for a large share of honor as having been the leaders in our industrial and military life. The sons of Erin rank high as our political “bosses” in municipal and national affairs, while German influence and power is to be reckoned with in the financial and moral issues of the day. It is easily seen, and the proudest son or daughter of colo- nial America must admit it; we are a nation of immigrants from many lands. Modern Immigration. But these were yesterday’s immigrants — our fathers, and Teutons to a man. What will it be to-morrow — when Greek meets Slav, and Turk, Syrian, Japanese, Hindoo, Korean and Russian, are found struggling with the older Americans for supremacy in politics, business, social and religious life? What will be the true American type, when the Melting Pot has done its work? The Church of Christ must answer. The Rising Tide. Immigration laps the shores of America on four sides, the tide rising highest on the Atlantic Coast, though a sea-wall of stringent exclusion-acts alone prevents a ground-swell on the Pacific Coast, while the opening of the Panama Canal will be the signal for an inundation through our own South- land. Some Facts and Figures. Study the charts issued by the Commissioner-general of Immigration, illustrating the ebb and flow of foreign immi- gration during the last ninety-three years, In the year 1820 Concerning the Foreigner. 7 only 8,385 immigrants, mostly Irish and Teutonic, landed on our shores. Then the figures rise, and fall, and rise again, each sixth or seventh wave mounting higher, and then reced- ing, according to industrial prosperity or depression in the land, until flood-tide is reached in 1907, this high-water mark Waiting 1 for Inspection, Ellis Island. -.-szsmtj being 1,285,349 souls; from whence it drops again suddenly, so that in 1912 the wave record is only 838,172. But the average for ten years is 1 ,000,000 per annum. And the grand total for the 93 years is just 290,611,052. Of these, 80 per cent, came over in the last 50 years, of whom only 11,000,000 are Teutonic, the remaining 279,000,000 being largely from southern and eastern Europe. The population of the United States is estimated at 90,000,- 000 now; two-thirds of which are either foreign-born or the children of foreign parents. (Commissioner-general of Im- migration.) 8 Concerning the Foreigner. The report of the Commissioner-general for 1912 shows that we received aliens from fifty-three countries, of whom 161,290 came from northern and western Europe, being 19 per cent.; while the remaining 81 per cent, were from south- ern and eastern Europe and from Asia. The new immigration from southern and eastern Europe is very largely Roman Catholic. The Bureau has taken no official cognizance of religious differences since 1890. In that year the proportion of Roman Catholics was 53 per cent., and since then it has increased largely. The states of New England, once puritan, are now overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Only 22 per cent, of the voters in the northern states are Protestant, while in the state of Maine the per- centage is only 18. Some Warnings from Signal Stations. Notwithstanding the close care exercised, many undesir- able immigrants are being admitted. An Italian, who had been living for several years in the South, returned to Ellis Island, was taken sick and died, leav- ing as his only assets a few stilettoes. The commissioner of immigration stated that of the million immigrants admitted in 1903, 200,000 were an injury instead of a benefit to the industries of the country. The ignorance of many of them is unbelievable. Often they do not even know the days of the week, their own names, or the names of any country in Europe except their own. (Commissioner-GeneraPs report for 1912.) The cities are the storm-centres of the immigration problem. The most ignorant and undesirable herd together in the city slums. As stated by John R. Commons: “From the rural districts of Europe they are drawn into the slums, where they live in un- Concerning the Foreigner. 9 speakable filth, and 1 readily become a prey to disease and parasites on the charity of others. The United Hebrew Chari- ties of New York asserts that one-fourth of the Jewish popu- lation of New York are applicants for charity, and other societies make like assertions for the population at large.” English Immigrants. “The children of foreign-born parents show a proportion of criminality much greater than that of the foreign-born them- selves (5,886 per million).” (Races and Immigrants, page 169.) “This amazing criminality of the children of immigrants is wholly a product of city life, and it follows directly upon the incapacity of the immigrants to control their children under city conditions. The children, accustomed to absolute obedience. and humble service to their parents in their home land, break restraint as soon as they become denizens of the slums. Their parents, with their broken English, become “back-numbers” to them, while street jargon and saloon standards take the place of the simple home-life and village plays of the old world.” (Immigration Races, page 70. “The Promised Land,” by Mary Antin, page 290.) 10 Concerning the Foreigner. “The dangerous effects of city life on immigrants and their children cannot be too highly emphasized. The country can absorb millions of all races from Europe, and can raise them and their descendants to relatively high standards of Ameri- can citizenship, in so far as it can find places on the farm.” ( Commons. ) Miss Helm, the editor of “Our Home,” the organ of the Woman’s Home Mission Society of the Methodist Church, says in a late editorial: “It is probable that Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa, and possibly other towns, will become great commercial marts through which the traffic between the eastern and the western world will pass, and hence become converging foci of the streams of immigration flowing into this country. Homes, lodging-houses, schools, churches, provisions of every kind, will be in such demand in the next two decades as to endanger the sanitary and moral condition of these cities. The over-crowded tenement houses of London and New York will be duplicated, and with the same fearful results, unless State and municipal laws are enacted which will grapple with the danger in time. Then with this rush and swirl of population and trade, that will be called “growth” and “prosperity,” all the problems of god- lessness will be intensified beyond anything we have yet seen in our Southern cities. Drunkenness, debauchery, poverty, ignorance, disease, shame. What will the Church of God do to meet these conditions? It would be weakness and folly to wait until the forces of the enemy have possessed the land before we rally our forces to meet them. The example of other cities that have been submerged should be a frightful example to us.” Concerning the Foreigner. 11 Making Ready. A rich man once boasted that he had made his fortune during the hours when other men were asleep. The Roman Catholic Church may boast that it is making a new papal dominion in America while the Protestant denominations sleep. • \ } Roof Garden for Men, Ellis Island. “In all of the northern, manufacturing and industrial States, and in their great cities, the marvellous organization and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church has carefully provided every precinct, ward, or district, with chapels, cathe- drals, and priests, even in advance of the inflow of popula- tion, while the scattered forces of Protestantism overlap in some places and overlook other places.” (Commons, page 211 .) , • The Problem. The writer asked the president of an orphan asylum if he did not fear to receive certain children of vicious parentage 12 Concerning the Foreigner. aud environment. He answered, “No; the morale of the in- stitution is so strong that any newcomers naturally fall into its current of thought and action.” Is the meaning plain? The immigrant comes to us in his poverty, ignorance, and moral weakness. He is seeking “a better country” — a land of fullness, freedom, and knowledge. He comes a learner, often ready to copy Americans. The op- portunity therefore is tremendous. Ihe real problem is, not so much what the foreigner will do to America and her insti- tutions, but what will Christian America do to the foreigner? The fact that the children of immigrants show a larger per- centage of criminality than the immigrants themselves, cer- tainly gives us food for thought. The Church of Christ is on trial before the nations of the earth. If the type of Christi- anity which the immigrant finds in American churches is not pure and virile enough to stamp itself upon the foreigner in our midst, how dare we hope to save the foreigner in his own country, in the antipodes? “If we do not love our brethren whom we have seen, how can we love Him whom we have not seen?” It is a common complaint that the immigrant, politically and morally, stands in with the saloon element, and it is generally found impossible or extremely difficult to align him with the “best” candidates at election times. What wonder? The saloonist has been awake to his opportunity. He it was who met the alien at or near the city’s gateway, and placed him industrially and socially, and the saloon becomes the centre around which his life moves. He does not get acquainted with the “good men” of the community, and looks on them as representing but another form of the hated aristocrats. “Brethren, these things ought not so to be.” Gypsies. if we speak of adults only, we might add that the saloon- keeper is the most potent of them all. In many large cities and centres of industry he is the self-appointed immigra- tion bureau. He is back of or concerned actively in employ- ing agents in the old countries who “induce” immigration by promises of high wages, and perhaps a steamship ticket Concerning the Foreigner. Some oe the Secular Forces that Are at Work in Americanizing the Foreigner. It is without fear of contradiction that we place the sa- loon-keeper first among the secular agencies that are active in harmonizing the foreigner with his new environment, and 14 Concerning the Foreigner. put up by his master agencies. Many an immigrant arriv- ing here is “consigned” to the saloon man, possibly his own countryman, who keeps him fop a few days and then turns him over to the “boss” of some great industrial plant, after arranging for the refund of the travelling expenses advanced, with interest and a commission for securing the employment. Having gotten him here, he now proceeds to interpret to him this new world, shows him how to become a “citizen” accord- ing to ideas embodied in the saloon, around which his social life hereafter revolves. The Socialist then becomes his teacher also, finding him a ready pupil, willing to learn things to his own interest, but untrained in the logic necessary to disentangle that in- terest from his hurt; and often the school-room of the Social- ist is directly over or very near the saloon. If, then, there is no wise friend by, to show him the Christ as the only safe guide in Socialism, as love is its heart, his lessons are of peril necessarily. The labor unions are hewing the alien into shape by many thousands a year. Foreigners cannot qualify as members of the unions until naturalized citizens. But they are taught by “ past-masters ” in fourth-of-July eloquence to rally to the Stars and Stripes of the new country, that old-world pre- judices and hates should be forgotten when they stand to- gether as brothers in a common cause of justice and equality. Charles Stelze says that they inculcate sobriety and kindli- ness toward each other. They are also an active foe to the domination of priesthoods, and break the last tie that binds them in servility to the ruling “classes.” Concerning the Foreigner. IS The Public Schools are undoubtedly the most hopefully solvent that the cities offer to the alien children. The pa- rents may remain strangers to the end. But the public schools bring to the children the gift of speech, a plane of equality, and an arena where their developed powers may be measured with a vast number of children; and thus a door of opportunity opens into every avenue of real and high American life, through which very many children, aliens once, have passed from obscurity, poverty and dirt, into high, true, American greatness. The most brilliant orator who has gone out from the public schools of a Southern city is the son of a Russian Jew, an obscure tailor. Read Mary Antin’s story of her own really wonderful life, “The Prom- ised Land,” by a Russian Jewess, and learn how the public schools became to an immigrant child of the slums the first open doorway into a broad and beautiful life. Polish Women. 16 Concerning the Foreigner. And there are many other secular agencies at work in this process of assimilation under the name of social service. In each there is some good, and in some there is great peril to the foreigner. The Church of Jesus Christ should be the foundation and capstone of all the welcome and blessedness that America holds for the new-comer. Some Things the Church is Doing. And the church is not idle in the face of its supreme pepl and opportunity. All the evangelical denominations hqve some agencies at work. The Northern Presbyterian Church is facing the situation right nobly. Standing at Ellis Island she receives the alien with outstretched hand. In New York City, whose slums receive one-fourth of the immigrants annually, she has her great Labor Temple, her institutional churches, her mis- sions, schools, kindergartens, settlement houses, neighbor- hood houses, and every agency to minister to their help and uplift. All or some of these are duplicated in other large cities and industrial centers, as occasion requires. A very fundamental and far-reaching plan in operation is the establishment by the Home Board of Immigration Fellowships, bearing a thousand dollars each, and open to graduates of theological seminaries. The winner of the fel- . lowship is entitled to eighteen months or more of residence in Austria-Hungary, or Italy, or other countries, from which large numbers of immigrants come to us. The Home Board is thus seeking for young men of scholarship, men of the highest social and spiritual qualifications, of heroic mould, and of broad vision. Concerning the Foreigner. 17 In contemplation of the fact that we must look among the sons of the foreigner for spiritual leadership of the great mass of aliens, the Northern Presbyterian Church has two theological seminaries directing their attention exclusively to the preparation of a foreign-speaking ministry, besides en- Italian Home. rolling a number of foreign-speaking students in its other ten seminaries. Realizing the need of woman’s tact and pa- tience in this new mission field, they have established six schools for lay-workers, two of which are especially designed for preparing young women for work among the foreign- speaking people. They maintain also 139 foreign-speaking churches, with fifteen different languages, and a membership of 27,466. The Home Foreign Field in Dixie. The tide of immigration is rising steadily in the South. Last year 57,523 aliens found their way into the States that constitute the field of the Southern Presbyterian Church. Are we waking to the danger and the problem? The Home Mis- sion Committee has for years been on the watch-tower warn- 18 Concerning the Foreigner. ing us of coming perils and pointing to vast opportunities for service. Nor have their cries been unheeded. Some self- sacrificing work is being done for the foreigner here and there throughout the South. Mexicans. The work for the 300,000 Mexicans in Texas has received special treatment, and so will only be referred to here. The Presbyterians of Texas are alive to their opportunities, grandly. The church cannot but be greatly enriched by these new children who are being won out of the former bondage of the Roman Catholic Church. The Texas-Mexican Pres- bytery has twenty-two churches and eleven hundred commu- nicants. This presbytery is co-terminous with the synod of Texas. It was said at the late Home Mission Conference that “the opening of the Panama Canal focuses the home-mis- sion problem of the Southern Church upon Louisiana and the Gulf States for the next ten years. This section is bound to drain the church at large of many of its best families, who if properly organized in Christian effort will become a missionary storehouse; but if neglected will in- crease the missionary problem for years to come. It is a national as well as a local problem.” French. '.i, '•* Louisiana is already long since known as a polyglot State. In it are more than 400,000 French people, pure blooded, most of them the descendants of first settlers and the Acadi- ans who came from “the shores of the Basin of Minas,” in Nova Scotia, whence they were driven out by order of the then English Government — a fact immortalized by Long- Concerning the Foreigner. 19 fellow in his “Evangeline.” They are a gentle, hospitable folk, who though heirs of the rights of American citizenship, are yet enslaved by the Pope at Rome. There are six French missionary evangelists laboring among them with good suc- cess, and twenty preaching places are maintained. New Or- Roumanians. leans has one French church. Italians in Louisiana number over 50,000, all Romanists. Rev. Christopher Russo is pas- tor of the Presbyterian Church of Italians in New Orleans, which has a membership of eighty communicants, all con- verts from Romanism. And one of these converts has re- turned to his own country, Sicily, and opened a mission for his own people there. Germans. There are two German churches, both in New Orleans, which having begun as missions are now self-supporting and contribute to all the regular causes of the church. At Arpadhon, Louisiana, we have a Hungarian church with fifty members, the only Presbyterian church of that na- tionality south of the Ohio river. 20 Concerning the Foreigner. Alabama has in the Birmingham district 20,000 Italians employed in the mines and mills. In 1909 a mission Was placed at Ensley, with a kindergarten and day school for children, a night school for adults, and regular preaching services on Sunday. The work has been extended, and mis- sions have been opened at five other places in the Birming- ham district. Rev. J. A. Bryan, of Birmingham, is super- intendent of this work, and Rev. Angelo Mastrotto, a Wal- densian, is the evangelist. Mrs. Winsborough’s name is associated with the organi- zation of a splendid work for Italians in Kansas City, Mis- souri : kindergarten, sewing school, boys’ club, girls’ club, Sunday school, and preaching services, with Rev. Thomas De Pamphilis as missionary. There is now a church of 49 communicants. Prince George, Virginia, has a First Bohemian Presby- terian Church of 60 members, served by Rev. J. A. Kohout, who also visits amongst other Bohemian colonies in Vir- ginia. And it is estimated that there are in Texas 100,000 Bohemians, generally Catholics or unbelievers. Tampa, Florida, has a Cuban colony, numbering about 15,000. Rev. P. H. Hensley and wife, formerly missiona- ries in Cuba, have done yeoman service here. With a miser- ably poor equipment as many as 247 have been enrolled in the Sabbath school. A choice corner lot has been secured and a temporary chapel erected. New Orleans Presbyterial Committee of Chinese has the honor of having conducted a successful Chinese day and Sunday school for several years. Hundreds of Chinamen are said to have received their first lessons in English, and their first knowledge of the love of God as it is in Christ Concerning the Foreigner. 21 Jesus from this school. Several converts have returned to China, and maintained their Christian character amid heathen surroundings, and one of them has established a Christian church there. Members Italian Sunday School. New Orleans has also the honor of having the only or- ganized work for Syrians. It consists of a school taught by Mrs. Mogobgob, a native Syrian, the reading text-book be- ing the Arabic Bible. Government Street Presbyterian Church, Mobile,, has a number of Syrians on her church roll, though she maintains no separate work for them. At Norton, Va., Rev. John Ujlaky is missionary to the 2,000 Hungarians employed in the coal fields of that sec- tion. He began his work in May, 1910, and is being blessed in bringing the gospel to hundreds who otherwise would be 22 Concerning the Foreigner. denied the privilege of Protestant worship. He has built and furnished four churches, and has gathered more than 100 members. Ruling Elder Andrew P. Evanyshyn ministers to the Rus- sian colonies at Pierce, Texas, bringing another nationality into our Home Mission family. The above are a nucleus of what must soon become a lars;e and important department of home missionary work. Tell Us What to Do. Josiah Strong says: “Sometimes I fall into despair and want to run off into the woods and never look at the city again.” The writer has experienced some of the same feel- ing as to this immigration problem which is the problem of the city. At such times we recall the parting words of the world’s redeemer: “All power is given unto me — go ye and teach all nations.” Then the atmosphere clarifies; peace comes to the heart, and some definite plans take shape. There is an old recipe for cooking rabbit which says, “First catch your rabbit.” So if we would begin an organ- ized work amongst foreigners in our cities, locate the for- eigners; gather all the facts and statistics concerning them that are available, and find a point of contact. Woman’s kindliness and tact is of the utmost usefulness here, where the first step, if false, is fatal. The language of love is uni- versal. A woman knows how to follow the age-long trails of motherhood and domestic cares back to the citadel of the heart of another woman, though she be from Finland or the Sahara. She knows how to charm the children till they follow her like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. She under- Concerning the Foreigner. 23 stands how to do the little neighborly deed that seals a friendship with the lonely woman who lives in a rookery down town. Children of Steel Mill Quarters, Birmingham. Getting Acquainted. An invitation to attend church may not often be successful among newly arrived immigrants — they are suspicious and feel strange; but they may respond to some social pleasures in the church house — an evening with pictures — a song ser- vice — a folk-dance — games — anything to please and divert their lonely lives and show that the Church cares for their happiness. In time the church may easily become their social centre. Mothers’ clubs, kindergartens, sewing classes, all may have their weight in winning and uplifting them. 24 Concerning the Foreigner. Dr. Judson, of New York, once said: “Beware of beginning this work, for I forewarn you that it will so charm and fasci- nate you that you can never give it up.” Personal contact with these newly arrived ones brings many surprises. Where you expect ignorance, you sometimes find culture, and in looking for stolidity you discover fine sensibilities; if you assume to amuse them with some crude form of entertain- ment, you sometimes find them taking up the role of enter- tainers, with folk-dance, song, or picture. And, again, where you look for much, you find disappointment. It is well at this and all other stages of work to keep in close touch with others who are doing a successful work along the same lines. You may thus be saved many a heart-ache, — many a failure. Literature Available. The American Tract Society furnishes literature ot a re- ligious kind in all languages, for the use of those working amongst immigrants. The printed tract or the gospel can carry a message where and when our lips cannot if we do not speak their language. But Jesus Christ, the world’s Re- deemer, held continually before their eyes is the one true and only means of making permanent anything that may be tried for their betterment and assimilation as citizens of our country. An evangelized immigrant is an old world evan- gelized and America saved from materialism. Other Equipment. The down-town church, if it is an old-timer, needs a church house annex to make room for her new children who flock as doves to her windows, if the congregation or leaders have the spirit of Christ in seeking those lost ones in the streets and by-lanes of the city; and it should provide for all Concerning the Foreigner. 25 of the social needs of the people. If the church is not con- venient to enough of them, church extension houses might be scattered here and there in the district occupied by the class of foreigners we are trying to reach. A social settle- Italian Sunday School. ment or parish house in charge of trained workers is an ideal plan and a logical feeder for the church. But save the children. For though many of the adults be foreigners to the last and never even learn our language, or our customs, yet the children, who are to make or mar our country, per- petuating endless weal or woe, the children must be saved. Training for Service. Work among foreigners is difficult, intricate, requiring infinite tact, grace, and wisdom. One trained, consecrated worker, speaking their native tongue, and with some knowl- edge of their habits of thought is worth many well-mean- ing blunderers. Immigration is an opportunity for Presbyterianism. We have lost much in the last generation by our neglect of the country church. But now God gives us a new chance; He 26 Concerning the Foreigner. sends into the cities at our very doors the needy ones from foreign lands, that our table may be furnished with guests. In our Father’s house there is plenty and to spare, let us bid them come in, “and they shall be no more strangers and foreigners.” Some Things that We Need. “What we need is not more bars to keep foreigners out, but more laborers to work with them and teach them how to gather the harvest of American and Christian liberty.” (Dr. Chas. L. Thompson.) “Personal contact is essential for the evangelization of the foreigner. We cannot stand on a pedestal and hand them the gospel on the end of a pole.” (Dr. E. E. Chivers.) Consecrated women in all of our cities are needed who will seek out the lonely, friendless wives and mothers of the immigrant, and through them get hold on the children in whom lies much hope for America. They are an unworked mine of treasures to the Church, and they can be had for the digging, almost for the asking. The mothers are often too busy to attend church, or too ignorant of our language to understand the service if they did. But they do hunger for the kindly touch of a friendly hand, and eagerly accept suggestions that may help to make their children Ameri- cans. We need to have whole missionary societies, be they home or foreign, seeking the foreigner in slum, shop, or field, or as they minister to us day by day, and showing them kind- ness, individual or organized kindness, on the plane of their own needs, for Christ’s sake. Concerning the Foreigner. 27 We specially need women trained and set apart for the work — the deaconess, if you will, the city missionary, or the pastor’s assistant; the woman who knows how to find the woman’s heart behind rags and dirt and the barrier of an Class in Domestic Science. Italian Mission, Kansas City, Mo. unknown tongue, or behind the chilly conservatism of sus- picion and aloofness. Woman with a vision as broad as the foreign missionary, who is willing to consecrate herself to this home work. We need laymen of vision and consecration, who will meet the foreigner while he is on the low rungs, and give him a strong hand-grasp of welcome and an upward pull; men who are willing to give some of their time and strength in showing him the first step in Christian citizenship; who are willing to come with him to the house of God; to stay by 28 Concerning the Foreigner. him while he learns the language; to give an hour of time on Sundays in teaching him the word of God, and an occa- sional few minutes at least through the week in exemplify- ing to him the brotherhood of man. One such man in a Mobile church gathered all of the Chinese in the community into a Sunday school on afternoons and held them in un- failing and unvarying loyalty — until God took him. We need men trained for the home-foreign service. Our best and most gifted young men — those men who will give of their means freely for the support of the work. We need churches that are willing to receive the foreigner in his green stage and make him welcome and at home. He comes from cathedral cities; his eyes have looked on the frescoes and mosaics of the masters, his ears have been at- tuned to stately oratorios — yea, his very fathers gave them to the world. Why, then, force him to seek the unattractive mission quarters down town, when in his Father’s House there is room and to spare? Compel him in, in all his strange uncouthness, and by and by his children in our cities will build more stately temples in which vaster crowds will worship the God of the Stranger, and they will swell the chorus in grander praise than we yet have heard. And we need, above all things, to have the Church so swept by the power of the Holy Spirit that no alien can come into the land without feeling the influence of a religion pure and undefiled. For they imitate first our clothes, then our manners, then our morals. “The issues of the Kingdom of God are with America.” I am indebted to a mass of Bibliography for many of the foregoing facts. Concerning the Foreigner. 29 Especially would I mention The Immigrant Tide, by Ed. Steiner; Races of America, by Jno. L. Commons; Of- ficial Report of Immigration; The Incoming Millions, Grose; The Challenge of the City, Josiah Strong; Immi- Sunday School, First Bohemian Presbyterian Church, St. George, Va. grant Races, Roberts; The Jews, Dr. M. Fishburg; The Burden of the City, Horton; The Promised Land, Antin; The Foreigner, Connor; the pamphlet literature of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches and many other sources. 30 Concerning the Foreigner. ■ There are Madonnas in mysterious guise, With the lost look of Mary in their eyes, And in their humble hearts the ancient good Of perfect motherhood. They pass us in the streets; in crowded marts They hurry by us with love-laden hearts, Sad aliens, unfamiliar with our tongue, Whose song is never sung. How wistful are their faces!- — lit with hope For a new world wherein they blindly grope; Their worn eyes filled with yearning that the years May hush their children’s tears. — Old World Madonnas, by Charles Hanson Towne. Concerning the Foreigner. 31 TAKE THE CHILDREN TO THE COUNTRY. Take the children to the country; take them into purer air, There the fields are starred with beauty and the world is fresh and fair. They who never saw the sun set, they who never saw it rise — Never saw the wondrous beauty of the rainbow in the skies. We who guard our own dear children as the apple of our eye, Shall we see God’s other children left to suffer, pine and die ? Left to those who’ll teach them evil, and their youthful feet beguile, Till their pure and holy fancies fade amid surroundings vile? - — Mrs. Mary B. Wingate. Immigration Facts in Black and White FOREIGN POPULATION BY PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES OF BIRTH 1900 1910 2,813,628 Germany 2,501,333 649,743 Russia and Finland 1,732,462 637,009 Austria Hungary 1,670,582 1,615,459 Ireland 1,352,251 484,027 Italy 1,343,125 1,072,092 < Scandinavian ) Countries ) 1,250,733 1,167,623 Great Britain 1,221,283 Home Mission Pamphlets A series of interesting and informing pamphlets dealing with the special Home Mission problems of the Southern Presbyte- rian Church. 32 pages illustrated. Price, 5c. each, postpaid. Texas-Mexican Missions Mrs. R. D. Campbell. The Country Church Mrs. E. P. Bledsoe. Our Work Among the Negroes. . .Miss S. O’H. Dickson. The Highlanders of the South... Miss Anne H. Rankin. The Frontier Rev. S. M. Glasgow. Concerning the Foreigner ..Mrs. D. B. Cobbs Our Indian Work Mrs. Bella McC. Gibbons. 50,000 Subscribers Wanted for the Missionary Survey The Missionary Survey is the General Assembly’s official Church magazine. 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