[Tentative edition; not for general circulation] 
 
 ‘‘ Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel 
 to every creature.” (Mark xvi: 15.) 
 
 “The field is THE WORLD.” (Matt, xiii: 38.) 
 
 “The world is MY PARISH.” (John Wesley.) 
 
 OUR PARISH 
 
 AT HOME 
 AT LARGE 
 ABROAD 
 
 “A whole Christ for my salvation; a whole 
 Bible for my staff; a whole Church for my com¬ 
 munion and the whole world for my Parish.” 
 (Chrysostom.) 
 
 Published by the Forward Movement Committee 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions 
 of the Presbyterian (j jlhurch in the U. S. A. 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 1906 
 
 F. M. Series, No. ig 
 
T he following paper is offered as a slight contribu¬ 
 tion toward the consideration of a subject of 
 vital importance to every phase of the work of the 
 Church. It is written from no mere theoretical stand¬ 
 point, but out of an intensely practical experience extend¬ 
 ing over a wide range. It is not assumed that this will be 
 received as the last word on the subject. The fact is, the 
 first word has scarcely yet been clearly spoken. The mat¬ 
 ter will be looked at from widely divergent points of view. 
 Bat if all personal and partisan interests are left out, and 
 the one aim is to bring in the Kingdom of God, the mind 
 of the Master will be made clear, competition between 
 one cause and another will give place to cordial co¬ 
 operation, and a new day of spiritual quickening and pros¬ 
 perity will ere long dawn upon the Church. 
 
OUR PARISH 
 
 AT HOME, AT LARGE, ABROAD 
 
 U NLESS a church has a debt, it is not really 
 prosperous,” once remarked a pastor; and 
 this is true, although in a sense far different 
 from that which was intended. Every church owes 
 it as a debt to itself, as well as to God and mankind, 
 to help give the Gospel to the whole world—“debtor 
 both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and 
 to the foolish.” Nor is this a debt of mere sentiment, 
 either; it may be measured to some extent even in 
 terms of dollars and cents. But many a church, even 
 when making proper provision for its own mainten¬ 
 ance, fails to deal in an equally sensible way with the 
 larger obligation to project its power to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth. Sometimes this is due merely to 
 the lack of a clear-cut business-like system of benevo¬ 
 lence. But in many cases it is owing to an utter fail¬ 
 ure to apprehend the fundamental principle that the 
 church is designed to be. 
 
 The Force and Not the Field 
 
 “The Held is the and the church exists pri¬ 
 
 marily and essentially for the express purpose of giv¬ 
 ing the Gospel to the world. Each church should be 
 brought to realize that it is to be a base of operation 
 for the evangelization of the world. Its parish is 
 three-fold: (i) The local work, or its Parish at 
 
 Home; (2) the national work, or its Parish at Large; 
 (3) the world-wide work, or its Parish Abroad. If 
 
A 
 
 Distinc¬ 
 tion with a 
 Difference 
 
 only this distinction were kept clear, it would be found 
 far easier to provide for the wlork at home as well as 
 abroad. 
 
 Consider carefully this obligation and how it is met: 
 
 1. The Local Work. Most churches have long ago 
 come to the conclusion that the collection is an utterly 
 unreliable method of providing for self-support. If 
 the coal-merchant were expected to lay in the winter’s 
 supply for the church, on the assurance that in the 
 spring a collection would be taken and whatever might 
 then be contributed would be turned over to him, the 
 furnaces of our churches would soon be cold. Gradu¬ 
 ally, even self-interest has compelled a saner policy, 
 and many of the churches now depend for their local 
 expenses upon individual subscriptions, paid in envel¬ 
 opes on the weekly plan. 
 
 2. Home Missions. It is of the utmost importance 
 that we should give the Gospel to the unevangelized 
 in our own country. The wards of our nation, whether 
 red or black, the congested populations in the slums 
 of our great cities, the immigrants pouring in upon 
 us, all call loudly out of their dire need for the 
 Gospel which alone can offset the corruption and sin 
 in our own land. Not in the very least degree should 
 these needs be minimized in our thought. Nei^erthe- 
 less, it is necessary to distinguish clearly as to our rela¬ 
 tive responsibility for this work in our country, as com¬ 
 pared with that vaster work which, being more distant, 
 as well as more difficult, is more liable to be overlooked 
 and left undone. Of the eight Boards of our church. 
 
 Seven are in Fact Home Missions 
 
 in one form or another. Whether the money contrib¬ 
 uted goes to erect church buildings, or to furnish 
 good literature, or to establish Sunday Schools and 
 
 2 
 
churches on our far frontie*r, or to educate a future 
 ministry, or for ministerial relief, it is expended within 
 onr oum land, and more or less affects our own inter¬ 
 ests as a nation. Undoubtedly far more ought to be 
 done than is being done in all of these directions, and 
 this would soon become possible if a better basis were 
 adopted for our entire scheme of benevolence—a basis 
 which would bring the claim home in a more intelligi¬ 
 ble way to the consciousness and conscience and will 
 of each individual member of our churches. For this 
 shall we not both importunately pray and zealously 
 work? But will not this hope be all the longer de¬ 
 ferred, if the appeal for this work at home be made to 
 rest upon the fallacy that ‘‘we are first to save America, 
 in order to save the world?” For this contradicts one 
 of the most fundamental principles of Christ, the law 
 that “he that loveth his life shall lose it,” which is no 
 less true of an aggregation of individuals than it is of 
 each individual. If it be true that the individual be¬ 
 liever shall find his life by losing it, it must be no less 
 true of the Christian Church and of this Christian na¬ 
 tion. The truer position for us to take is, to 
 
 Save the World, and, in so Doing, We Shall 
 ^ ♦ Save America 
 
 and the Church and ourselves. 
 
 3. Foreign Missions. The Board of Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions is in fact a Board of Boards, charged with the 
 overwhelming responsibility of carrying on, far from 
 the base of supplies, in the face of hoary systems of 
 heathenism and despite difficulties humanly insuper¬ 
 able, the work which all the other seven Boards of our 
 church are carrying on under more favorable condi¬ 
 tions at home; and over and above all this, the Foreign 
 Board bears the responsibility for a world-wide medi¬ 
 cal service. 
 
 The 
 
 Master* 
 
 Method 
 
 3 
 
It is true that the Boai^s of Education, College Aid 
 and Ministerial Relief are tributary, in some degree, 
 to Foreign Missions, as well as to Home Missions, and 
 it is but fair in determining the proportion of our debt 
 to the several causes, local, national and world-wide, 
 that this should be taken into account. But in measur¬ 
 ing the relative responsibility for Home Missions, is 
 not this more than offset by the far greater demands 
 made upon us on our Foreign Field? 
 
 Where the Foreign Missions appeal is responded to, 
 the heart will be open to every other claim. This is 
 the “Open Sesame” to unlock the door of the self- 
 centered church. For the greater includes the less, 
 and when once the heart has been drawn out “to the 
 uttermost part of the earth,” there will be sympathy 
 for every need nearer home. Necessarily “the light 
 that shines the farthest, shines brightest nearest home.” 
 
 Is it not high time to squarely face the situation as 
 regards our relative responsibility at the present time 
 for these several sides of the work of our church? 
 Look more closely at it: 
 
 The Field. In our own country, since one in four 
 of the population is a communicant member of a 
 Protestant Christian church, our proportion of the 
 community outside the church might b» taken^to be 
 three times the number of our communicants, but let 
 us allow very liberally and reckon the population for 
 which our church is responsible, at four millions. On 
 the other hand, in heathen lands those to whom we 
 have deliberately made ourselves responsible to give 
 the Gospel, number about 
 
 One Hundred Million Non-Christians, 
 
 reckoning as our own proper constituency only the 
 population of those sections where we have preempted 
 the field and where, in accordance with the principle 
 
 4 
 
of comity, other missionary bodies will not feel free 
 to work. And in this field of ours, they are perishing 
 at the rate of a thousand a day without ever having 
 had a chance to receive the Gospel. 
 
 The Force. For four millions of people in this 
 country, mostly nominally Christian, we have a force of 
 some 7,750 men, or one man to each 516 of our part of 
 the population. For the one hundred million non- 
 Christians abroad, we have at present 280 ordained 
 and 81 unordained workers, making in alF36i men, 
 clerical and lay, or one to 277,000—giving, on an aver¬ 
 age, to each of our male missionaries a population con¬ 
 siderably greater than that of Wyoming and Nevada, 
 with Alaska twice over, all combined, or more than the 
 population of Washington, or of Milwaukee, or of 
 New Orleans. If our field at home were manned in 
 the same ratio as our field abroad, w(e should have 
 blit fourteen Presbyterian ministers for the entire com¬ 
 munity of our Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America. 
 
 The Funds. For our own congregational expenses 
 last year we spent a little more than thirteen and a 
 quarter millions of dollars. For Home Missions, in 
 its varied aspects—after deducting that proportion of 
 contributions for Education, College Aid and Minis¬ 
 terial Relief which is fairly chargeable to Foreign Mis¬ 
 sions—we contributed, as a church, almost four and 
 a half millions, or an aggregate of nearly $18,000,000 
 for the work of our church in this country. At the 
 same time for our Foreign Mission work, for the evan¬ 
 gelization of one hundred million non-Christians, there 
 was contributed by living donors, adding one-twen¬ 
 tieth of all that was contributed for the three Boards 
 already mentioned to that given through the Board 
 of Foreign Missions, less than one million dollars, or, 
 to be exact, $973,633. 
 
 A Serious 
 Lack of 
 Proportion 
 
 Worse 
 than a 
 
 Basis 
 
 5 
 
These factors, then, in the equation of the church’s 
 debt may be summed up as follows: 
 
 TME FIELD THE FORCE 
 
 Is it not evident that what is needed ‘is, to put the 
 support of the work which we have to do beyond our 
 church doors on just as stable and liberal a basis as 
 that of our own local self-support, viz : by Individual 
 subscription, payable weekly, as an act of worship ? 
 
 6 
 
If it be objected that it is not practicable to secure a 
 separate weekly subscription for each of our eight or 
 more authorized benevolent causes, we grant it. But, 
 as a matter of fact, there are essentially only tzvo 
 ‘'causes ’'—Home Missions in its several aspects and 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 Indeed some churches, in order to escape the endless 
 appeals for “z collection,” have resolved these to one. 
 
 Many a pastor finds himself at his wits’ end to in¬ 
 vent some new way to plead for each of the Boards 
 year after year. While many a church member, know¬ 
 ing that the end and aim of each such appeal is to be 
 a collection, complains of the ''everlasting begging 
 for money” and makes this an excuse for staying away 
 altogether on such occasions. 
 
 Unwilling to allow the missionary enterprises of the 
 church to be left longer at the mercy of the elements 
 and subject to the caprice of those who may shirk 
 their responsibility altogether, if absent when the plate 
 is passed, some churches have taken the first steps to¬ 
 ward a better system by seeking to secure a weekly 
 subscription from each member for all of "the benevo¬ 
 lences,” en bloc. 
 
 While undoubtedly the plan of an omnibus subscrip¬ 
 tion is far better than the passing of the plate, yet 
 experience has showin that the sense of individual re¬ 
 sponsibility is largely lost in a generalization which 
 takes in all the earth. Comparatively few contributors 
 exercise their discretion as stewards in designating 
 the proportion upon which their contribution shall be 
 divided. And especially is the appeal of the more dis¬ 
 tant part of the work obscured when thus merged with 
 the many claims that lie nearer at hand and are pressed 
 from so many different standpoints. Yet our Lord has 
 embodied the commission to "go and give the Gospel 
 
 A Make¬ 
 shift 
 
 Wanted 
 “the Pas¬ 
 sing “ of 
 the Pas¬ 
 sing of the 
 Plate 
 
 7 
 
A More 
 
 Excellent 
 
 Way 
 
 to every creature” as a part of His last will and testa¬ 
 ment to the church. Every cause is suffering because 
 of our shameful failure to fulfill this trust. Every 
 cause will gain by our obeying this command of the 
 Master. 
 
 There is no lack of money; what is lacking is love 
 and prayer and knowledge, in order that the will of 
 our Lord may be done. We must speedily adjust our¬ 
 selves to the present situation, largely increasing our 
 gifts and likewise rectifying the ratio of our giving. 
 Is it not high time to be adopting a better basis for the 
 payment of ‘^our church debt” and more earnestly set 
 about doing our part in the evangelization of the 
 world? Would not some such division as the follow¬ 
 ing be a better standard, toward which we should at 
 once begin to work, however inadequate it may be as 
 affects our vaster Parish Abroad? 
 
 HOW TO DIVIDE $1 
 
 By such a distribution every hundred members con¬ 
 tributing, on an average, $i.oo a week each, for all 
 
 8 
 
the work of the church, local, national, and world-wide, 
 would give annually: 
 
 For the Parish at Home . $2,600 
 
 For the Parish at Large . 1,300 
 
 For the Parish Abroad . 1,300 
 
 or an aggregate of. $5,200 
 
 And, at even that low rate, the contributions of our 
 church, as a whole, would amount, annually, to almost 
 sixtv million dollars, or 
 
 For the Parish at Home. $30,000,000 
 
 For the Parish at Large . 15,000,000 
 
 For the Parish Abroad . 15,000,000 
 
 If $1.00 a week for all objects is regarded a higher 
 average per member than is practicable, cut this esti¬ 
 mate down one-half and the gain would still be im¬ 
 mense. 
 
 The proportion indicated above may be modified, but Down to 
 should not every church adopt a standard which would Bed-rock 
 -embody the following cardinal principles, viz.: 
 
 1. That every member of the Body of Christ, being 
 under Covenant to help carry out the will of the Head, 
 is privileged to have an intelligent, prayerful and 
 practical part in fulfilling the Great Commission, to 
 “go and give the Gospel to every creature”, if not 
 in person then by proxy, contributing for the support 
 not only of the Parish at Home, but likewise of the 
 Parish at Large and Abroad according to the Scriptural 
 Rule of Three in I Corinthians xvi; 2 . 
 
 “ Let every one of you (INDIVIDUALLY) 
 
 lay by him In store on the First Day of the week 
 
 (SYSTEMATICALLY) 
 
 as God has prospered him.” (PROPORTIONATELY) 
 
 9 
 
2, That the entire church, being essentially a Mis¬ 
 sionary Society, the object of which is to aid in the 
 evangelization of the world, and every member of the 
 church being a member for life of said Society and bound 
 to do all in his power for the accomplishment of this 
 object, the church should at least contribute no less for 
 extending the Kingdom outside than is spent upon its 
 own support, and not less for the evangelization of the 
 world, than for the work within our own country. 
 
 Upon this better plan, then, it is proposed to: 
 
 (1) Seek to secure a systematic and proportionate 
 subscription from everyone, including each man, wo¬ 
 man and child, to be paid weekly, in worship, for the 
 support of (a) The Parish at Home, (b) The Parish 
 at Large, (c) The Parish Abroad, designating, if de¬ 
 sired, how (b) is to be distributed among the several 
 Home Boards, or, failing such designation, the Session 
 would determine a ratio on which it would be divided. 
 
 (2) Supply each subscriber with a distinct set of 
 envelopes for each of these three objects. Or two en¬ 
 velopes, or even one, may be made to serve the pur¬ 
 pose, when the same Treasurer handles the accounts, 
 the required separation being made on his books. 
 
 (3) Maintain a steady and systematic process of edu¬ 
 cation, including the work of all the Boards, but pre¬ 
 serving a due sense of proportion between the claims 
 of our vastly greater and needier work in the world¬ 
 wide Parish Abroad, as compared with that’ in our 
 own land. 
 
 Make H not prepared to thus adjust the entire scheme of 
 a start benevolence at once, a beginning may first be made 
 by adopting the plan of individual, systematic subscrip¬ 
 tions for the support of the Parish Abroad, only. No 
 matter what the present plan may be, whether by col¬ 
 lection or omnibus pledge, every member who is not 
 
 10 
 
already contributing systematically and proportion¬ 
 ately, for the carrying out of the Great Commission 
 should be offered the privilege of doing so, the con¬ 
 tribution for the various Boards that are charged with 
 the various phases of the work in this country—the 
 Parish at Large—continuing as hitherto, but eliminat¬ 
 ing Foreign Missions from this altogether, if deemed 
 best. 
 
 Each church would in this way come to bear a 
 worthier share in the evangelization of the world, and 
 have its own Parish Abroad, either undertaking the 
 support of a particular station, wholly or in part, with 
 which it can be connected by a Living Chain of com¬ 
 munication ; or else extending its interest to the whole 
 work throughout the world-wide field. As the work 
 of making Christ known to the whole world, is thus 
 brought home to the consciousness and conscience of 
 each individual member of the church, and the heart 
 is opened to this primary claim of Christ, it will not 
 be long before all the rest of the church’s work will, 
 likewise, be put upon the same stable basis of an indi¬ 
 vidual subscription. 
 
 And when this is done and the collection is super¬ 
 seded by an individual, systematic and proportionate 
 offering, given in worship, every interest of the church, 
 both near and far, will be abundantly supplied. 
 
 Take, as a single case in point, the experience of a a case in 
 country church of 264 members. summoning its Point 
 
 members, individually, to systematically support a Par¬ 
 ish Abroad (in China) the annual contributions for 
 ‘‘Foreign Missions” aggregated $150; afterward $948. 
 
 Those for Home Missions (in its several aspects) 
 which before aggregated $146, afterward amounted to 
 $998, every Board receiving from two to four times 
 as much as before. And a balance of some v$400 zvas 
 
 1 
 
 II 
 
carried over into the nezv hscal year, to the credit of 
 the local current account. 
 
 When we have thus put the need that is direst and 
 most distant in the very forefront of our plans—set¬ 
 ting before the church on a scale far beyond what has 
 ever been .seriously considered hitherto, a great objec¬ 
 tive, proportionate to our resources, both of money and 
 of men, demanding our best, appealing not to the petty 
 but to the heroic and involving real self-sacrifice of 
 time, talent and treasure—then and not until then will 
 the church realize her owni divine destiny. 
 
 Shall we not at once gird ourselves for the larger 
 task before us? If we do not evangelize, we shall 
 surely fossilize. And we are certainly in honor bound 
 either to evangelize our whole Parish or else to evacu¬ 
 ate so much of it as we are not prepared to evangelize. 
 Which is to be done, should be settled soon. We be¬ 
 lieve that the church will see to it that the Parish 
 Abroad shall be evangelized. And in order to do this, 
 each Parish at Home must be made to realize that it is 
 not itself the principal part of the field, but rather 
 the foree to evangelize the Parish at Large and 
 Abroad. So shall the Kingdom come, and the church 
 be revived, and the return of the King be hastened! 
 
 JAMES A. BEAVER, Bellefonte, Pa. 
 
 JOHN H. CONVERSE, Philadelphia 
 E. A. K. HACKETT, Fort Wayne, Ind. 
 
 ALFRED E. MARLING, New York 
 
 DANIEL ROGERS NOYES, St. Paul 
 L. H. SEVERANCE, New York 
 
 JOHN WANAMAKER, Philadelphia 
 DAVID McCONAUGHY, Secretary, NewjYork 
 
 The Forward Moveme7it Committee, 
 
 12