ram. n^i^ Y)\lss Cl)e Centettarg Oome "Boatti iBooklet jaum&er Ctoo Save the City If given playthings cleaner and more interestnig than an ash heap and a tin can; if properly fed and completely clothed and "taught the way he should go," this little urchin would stand as good a chance of developing into a useful citizen as your boy Save the City FOREWORD IMMEDIATELY upon adjourn- ment of the annual meeting of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, November, 1918, the Department of City Work was asked to make a complete inventory, includ- ing present equipment and program and needs for the future, in the great centers of population throughout this Republic. It was a period of heart- searchings for the Church, a period in which God pressed the responsi- bility down upon the hearts of men to discover the weak points and probe the sore spots in the churches' life. Not to the end that the weak points and sore spots might be held up to ridicule before the world, but that a remedy might be discovered and applied which would, in the end, strengthen and heal the church, lead- ing her to greater usefulness and power. The findings of this inventory indi- cate that the Christian Church has failed in bringing about the redemp- tion of the great cities. She has failed to link herself up with God and adopt a passionate, sacrificial, every-day well-rounded evangelism such as would enable her to work in an effect- ive way in the densely populated cen- "Beginning at Jerusalem" ters. She has failed to project her spiritual life into the foreign-speaking and polyglot communities, the down- town, congested and corrupted por- tions, and the great industrial and economic districts of our cities. One need not look long for abundant proof of this statement. Rev. Charles Stelzle, of the Presbyterian Church, tells us that in New York, while the population below Twentieth Street was increasing 300,000, forty-six Protestant Evangelical Churches moved out of the territory indicated, and that this is typical of what has been going on in almost every large city during the last quarter of a century. The fact is, we have pursued the line of least resistance. We have been fussing around looking after our mem- bership and immediate constituency to the utter neglect of the unrelated masses in the community. In other words, we have played the coward, and instead of courageously undertak- ing a solution of the problems, we have dodged the issue and shunned the responsibility. Let me ask: Must God fail to take part in some great forward movement in these congested districts because of our incompetency? Must Methodism be relegated to the background as an antiquated institu- tion totally disqualified to adapt her life and policy to the conditions pre- vailing in this great new day.f* It is for us to speak this word of failure or success. Thus through this inventory, and in cooperation with some of our best men throughout the country, we have wrought out a program which we con- fidently believe will solve the city problems and make the church a po- tent factor in the redemption of society. This program provides the following specific items: First, a great institutional, social and community church in the heart of the city. This church will be the dynamo through which will speed the spirit of the true evangel, quickening and vitalizing the life of the whole people. It should furnish a forum where the minister and his advisers can discuss the civic, political, social, and industrial questions of the time, compelling the body politic to right- eousness in personal life and commun- ity relation. It should be the place where the young people, not only of the immediate section, but of the whole city, can receive training for scientific and effective community service. It should also constitute the agency for replenishing the future life of the church, for keeping it alive at the top. Down in the lower part of the city are living the clerks, bookkeepers, stenographers, doctors, lawyers and skilled men and women. In other words, the future business and pro- fessional men of the country, who will direct its political and moral destinies, are living in these boarding house, rooming house, hotel, flat, and apart- ment house sections. Every possible effort should be expended to win this class if the church hopes to survive. In these great centers the work, which must be kept at 100% effi- ciency, is not only that of the old rescue mission, which saves the indi- vidual from present difficulties, but in addition a community settlement activity which builds for a new and permanent manhood, through the larger social agencies such as gymna- siums and clubs. Jesus said: "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." The church must prove conclusively that she is both willing and able to render such sacrificial service as shall win all to the truth. We must devise the means which will enable us to build up into strong, conquering manhood the down-and-outer. We must in Christ's ministry was largely devoted to the city Are the saloon and a foreign language the best elements America has to offer her foreign born citizens? some way compel the heterogeneous, nondescript population to a realiza- tion of God and the beauty of clean moral living. Jesus was not compla- cent or indifferent concerning any class. He struggled with like passion to grip the soul of Nicodemus, the woman at the well, Zaccheus, the Pharisee, the leper, the lame and the blind. He forgot altogether to classify men either socially or financially. A Gospel that cannot reach all classes is disqualified to reach any class. A Gos- pel that is able to reach and deliver one man from the thraldom of sin is able to reach and deliver all men. It is the business of the church, under God, to be the channel for the inflow of that Gospel. Secondly, the Church in the indus- trial community demands attention. The industrial classes are alienated from the church. There are three mil- lion trade-union men in the United States of America, and the number affiliated with the church is practically negligible. The Bolsheviki, the I. W. W., the Trade Unions and all other representative labor bodies are not only indifferent, but positively antag- onistic, in spirit, to the Christian Church. The vital life of the Church is inseparably connected with the problems and interests of the com- mon people. Eliminate the great in- dustrial element from our church program and our God-given commis- sion is largely rescinded. Therefore we must install a great plant and project a great program of social ser- vice together with a mighty evan- gelistic propaganda that will win these workers to the Christ. Thirdly, we must include in our program the evangelization of the dif- ferent groups of foreign-speaking peo- ples. About 40% of the total popula- tion of the United States at the present time is of foreign birth or parentage. This fact alone consti- tutes a tremendous challenge to Amer- ican Christianity. These people, for the most part, come from countries where the standards of life are low, comparatively speaking. For cen- turies manyof them have been directed in moral life and spiritual thought by the Roman Catholic Church. Either we must grip the hearts of these people and lift them to the standards of Christian thinking or they will in- evitably drag us down. How shall we best reach, Americanize and Chris- tianize these peoples .'^ How shall the Methodist Episcopal Church approach these particular groups? We cannot evangelize them through absent treatment. Neither can it be done through the conventional meth- ods of church procedure. I seriously question if it can ever be done in a large way through the pronouncement of the individualistic Gospel message. We do not know how to run a city. Nobody does yet ^atje tlje Citp We must seek to lead the individual to accept Christ, but we must, at the same time, through social agencies, seek to inject the spirit of our Chris- tian civilization into the life of the en- tire group . I have sometimes thought, perhaps foolishly, that if we could adopt and carry the community meth- od forward successfully we might reach and redeem these people in blocks. I am perfectly aware that some do not believe in the block sys- tem, but to such I cite the India "Mass Movement," where great blocks of the natives are ready for Christian baptism and reception in the Church. If we do not avail our- selves of the block movement in India, the time may come when those multi- tudes now clamoring for God and spiritual direction will turn in con- tempt from Christianity to atheism and the church will have lost her great opportunity. I am perfectly con- vinced that the heart of the foreigner is open to the Gospel message if our church people would carry it to them in a fine, big, brotherly, sympathetic way. Therefore we are planning in all our city programs to connect each for- eign group , whenever possible and ad- visable, with some English-speaking church, hoping thereby, ultimately, to weld all together in one great spiritual brotherhood. Then we have the call from the con- gested and polyglot communities. This is the call that vexes the soul. Many of these sections have from 15 to 50 different latiguages, types and races living in the territory. Race antipathies, prejudices and jealousies abound. The task may seem utterly hopeless, but still we maintain God holds Methodism responsible for a solution without which ultimately the nation and the world are lost. In each of these communities we should plant our Church of All Nations with a The mothering of children in crowded neighborhoods eventually may become the largest factor in winning the city for Christ great staff of specially trained workers to cultivate the individual and the home life of the people. Finally, we must see to it that the suburbs are not neglected. New or rapidly growing sections must be pre- empted, strong churches organized and commanding edifices erected. In other words, we must see to it that the home base is not only occupied, but that it is strongly fortified. The quickest and easiest way to save the foreign lands is to save and spiritually vitalize the home land. And now, brethren, back of this program, through it and in it, pos- sessing it fully and directing it wholly, must be the spirit of true evangelism. Not a shouting, jerky, spasmodic, in- sipid, occasional evangelism, on two weeks in the winter time and then off eleven months and two weeks, feeding itself on transient emotions; but a sane, sensible, enthusiastic, passion- ate , sacrificial , e very-day, well-rounded The great cities are masters of our national destiny ^atje tilt Ci'tp evangelism. A personal evangelism under the inspiration of which not only the minister, but each layman in the church, shall press the claim of God on the hearts of the men with whom he comes in contact from day to day. An evangelism whose spirit shall penetrate the life of the Sunday School, the Ep worth League, the reg- ular services, the prayer meeting and pastoral visitation; which shall in time control the office, the shop, the bank, and the home. An evangelism that will literally compel men to God. Then and only then will the life of God be projected into the heart of the world; then and only then will de- mocracy bring larger liberty and secur- ity for all the nations. Save the City StixtcJiing upward and expanding with phenomenal rapidity the city is a challenge to the church and God''s plan of redemption AMERICAN Methodism in down town sections of the city has been failing. It would be a false prophet who would rise to proclaim that our de- nomination has been fully meeting her responsibility even so recently as with- in the last decade. Methodism has done probably as much as any other Protestant church, it is true, but Protestantism itself is decadent in the congested section of the large centers of population. In spite of notable exceptions, the evidence is everywhere that the churches are retreating. For instance, in the down-town sections we have yielded before the invasion of the in- dustrial types, or the polyglot popu- lation that swarms today in the very heart of many of our cities. Whole districts, where the number of inhabitants has quadrupled, are left to the devil, and the one-time strong churches of Methodism, now with sadly depleted membership, scramble in confusion to leave their changed environment and follow the wealthy and fashionable members to more select surroundings . That church is unfit that does not adapt her activi- ties to the needs of those about her. It is in no harsh spirit of fault-find- ing that these facts are noted. Amer- ican Methodism in the city may have been failing, but American Methodism has not utterly failed. The Centenary Survey, the most accurate and comprehensive ever made, has taken inventory of our weaknesses and also of our resources. Our resources are adequate; our forces are getting into alignment; and the city is to be reclaimed. In every de- partment of the Centenary movement there is one slogan that is always capi- The sexton's sign is the liveliest feature of some churches All memories of hymn-singing are drowned in the uproar of motor trucks which make this abandoned church their home. But, like a ghostly reminder of the preaching and teaching of bygone ministers, a sign on the wall says sternly — "No Smoking" talized in print and that is: "IT CAN BE DONE!" It is already being done. Yet it is a shock to read of forty Protestant churches passing out of existence in the lower East side of New York within a generation, while there is an increase of 300,000 souls in that section. Add to this fact the still more significant one that the raw material of our urban citizenship is no longer even remotely predisposed to be Protestant, or even religious, and some idea of the magni- tude of the challenge of the city to Methodism can be gained. Hereto- fore, our appeal has been to English, German, and Scandinavian newcom- ers. Today we find a human sea surging around the very doors of many of our down-town churches with southern European groups predomi- nating. We cannot condemn city Methodism for pausing in her work before the kaleidoscopic change that has been effected recently in some of her most notable metropolitan par- ishes. She has not yet recovered from her surprise. The world is our parish, however, and just as long as we con- tinue to be a missionary church, so long will it be incumbent upon us to minister to these people, who carry this challenge to the very foot of our altars. Methodism has gone on record that she will accept the chal- lenge . Now an increase of population is not necessarily an evidence of pros- perity. Superficially viewed, this, and industrial development, are sup- posed to be a basis for civic pride. In any city where the individual and his rights have been lost sight of, the very things that some call blessings will tend in themselves to hold back real civic advancement. The Church is the one organization that can grip the individual heart and minister to it; so then, wherever the Church has re- treated in the city, material prosper- ity is indirectly lessened. By pros- perity we do not mean the reaping of wealth by any favored class, but the general welfare of every class. At the opportune moment, the Cen- tenary program was inaugurated. In some instances, by means of the most revolutionary tactics, the cities are The modern city is a problem, an opportunity , and a test now being saved for Christ. As an example, we have had to confess that the Institutional Church is a defeated church, but one that has failed while fighting hard. In the first place, it arrived too late to meet the need for which it was planned. The duplica- tion of equipment and consequent ex- pense made it impossible to continue, but it was most largely condemned because it tended to minimize the spiritual phase of its program. Thus the Institutional Church was pro- nounced obsolete, and the revolution- ary plans of the Centenary project include the "neighborhood idea," with its spiritual emphasis, to supersede the inefiiciency of yesterday. The Institutional Church failed while fighting. This much is to be said to her credit. Some other Meth- odist churches in down-town sections with less generous programs fared even worse. Unfortunately, it can- not be disputed that, in a number of cases, trustees have opposed any attempt to open the doors to the new inhabitants of the neighborhood, and, with a dying constituency, mortgaged the property to meet the current ex- penses, in violation of disciplinary rules. This is the sin of self-destruc- tion, which brings its own retribu- tion. Still other churches struggled on with an ever-shrinking membership, anxiously attempting to minister to the neighborhood but without funds to launch any enterprise. Such or- ganizations, and they are legion, are unwillingly contributing also to the defeat of the Kingdom of Christ in the city. Their buildings are antiquated and constructed for a form of service that belongs to a bygone century . Upon many of them may be seen an under- taker's sign, and the address of the sexton, all of which conforms to the general appearance of a sepulcher that the whole plant suggests to the passer- by. The people who walk upon the streets that skirt such city churches are generally those who come from lands where the church building is the center of light, and dignity, and rever- ence. Neither the lonely desolation of a locked and neglected church, nor the tawdry attempt to compete with com- mercial amusements, which is the other extreme to which Protestantism now runs, holds any religious appeal to those whose delicacy of taste in ecclesiastical matters is a rebuke to our indifi^erence or shallowness. Providential Opportunities TN spite of the fact that there are ■■■ many more Methodist congrega- tions assembled for worship every Sunday outside of the great cities than in them, the city problem is the most complex of Home Missionary prob- lems, and, indeed, the ultimate fate of our denominational life will be de- cided upon the measure of our success in meeting the challenge of urban life. If all the inhabitants of the United States now living in cities were to march in single file past a given point, abreast with a line of residents from the towns, villages, camps, and rural sections, these two lines would be of equal length. Although every second person in this country lives in the city, only four per cent of the mem- bers of the Methodist Church belong An abandoned church preaches a poor sermon to that half of the population. And within a generation, at the present rate of increase, three-fourths of the nation's population will be urban, with no appreciable advancement on the part of Methodism. Such a ratio constitutes one of the multitude of difficulties that City Missionary Societies, pastors, and Home Missionary workers have to meet. The wealth of the nation may gravitate to the centers of population, but the major financial resources of Methodism are not to be found there. The need of a great outlay strategi- cally expended at this critical moment cannot be met if the whole burden is to be carried by the local city societies, or the already over-burdened city Missionary Societies. If it is true that to save the world we must first save America, and to save America, we must begin by sav- ing the cities, then the Centenary project to make an unprecedented drive to win the city on the very eve of defeat is providentially opportune. Typical New York "Cp VERY problem that confronts vast difference that exists between the Methodism in every other city in ancient and the modern cities. Athens, America can be met with in New Rome, and even London are what York. writers have called "mother cities." This metropolis is typical of the They have sent out colonists and they Jetterson f ark Church, in the Italian section of New York is literally "planted in the market place." This row of push carts, selling everything from cocoanut milk to suspenders, is just across the street from the church Courage! Modern cities are less depraved than ancient cities These little vacant-lot gardeners have "Mary, Mary quite contrary" beaten by a good deal. No such indigestible products as "silver bells and cockle shells," but good solid, Hooveresque vegetables make up their crop have spent of their own resources in following such a policy, but New York only illustrates in the most marked degree the tendency of all American cities to draw in and absorb rather than to give out. Again, Babel the ancient city was uniglot and all activity ceased when the many strange tongues were heard. Just the opposite is true in the case of New York. With the coming of the confusion of tongues came also the great skyward reach of the tall build- ings, and the growth that is a new challenge to God and his redemptive plan. New York grows in every direction. Human mites travel almost fifty stories heavenward in lightning ex- press elevators. They go down into the bowels of the earth in concrete burrows. Floods of people pour out of ferry houses, railroad terminals, subway stations, and elevated stair- ways. Offices and homes are piled one on top of the other, and every year 135,000 more people are added to her permanent population. In the five million inhabitants of lesser New York only one out of every hundred persons happens to be a Methodist. To present to the reader a more graphic conception of this startling fact it was intended to show two figures on the opposite page of this booklet representing the comparative sizes of the city population and Meth- odist membership. It would be im- possible, however, to place upon this page any pictures showing the propor- tion of membership drawn to scale that would raise Methodism into a larger place than that occupied by the smallest point in this type. Seven million souls in Greater New York is the mass that the little leaven of Methodism is to permeate. The restlessness of the city has been bewailed as a barrier to evangelism. In a spirit of pessimism one writer has cried: "Nothing ever stays fixed in New York." But we look to the Orient and view the flux and change in India that ushered in the God-given moment when the Mass Movement broke the barriers of centuries. The prophetic soul of Methodism faces an overwhelming responsibility, but ex- ults in the opportunity to win the plastic masses in the cities for the Kingdom of Christ. We are afflicted with the bad citizenship of good men The Centenary Program for the Down- Town Church VyHERE the down-town church has continued, and attempted, in the face of untold difficulties, to react on its community, it has been signally- successful . The Morgan Memorial in Boston, and Central Church, Detroit are notable examples so familiar that to mention them suffices. In the former society fifty religious meetings are conducted every week. An Outstanding Pulpit Voice The great preachers are to return to the same pulpits occupied by the great preachers of a generation ago. In all probability the Centenary leaders of the city work will emphasize the power of the pulpit above all other factors. They have realized that the men who are doing the biggest things in the churches of America are invari- ably strong in pulpit work. Indeed this rule applies in other countries also, as such names as Hugh Price Hughes and Sylvester Horne would suggest. The Independent several years ago said in an editorial: "The workingman will not be won to Christ by doles of charity, or by professions of sympathy with Trade Unionists and strikers, or by an acceptance of a socialistic creed . Those who nowadays live in habitual neglect of Church and its worship will be drawn back to the Church when the Church offers to them every Sunday morning something which they feel they cannot afford to miss or to live without." Educational Work Not only in the down- town church, but in many other Centenary projects, the work of the Director of Religious Education will be a new but impor- tant feature. Such a teacher will be a psychologist, but more than anything else will he or she be an evangelist, versed in the Scriptures and the .hearts of men. Under trained leadership will be arranged lectures, and the forum and night schools, including trade and citizenship classes. All energies bent in this direction are only to be a means toward this one end, to accom- plish the salvation of the individual. Comiiiunity Welfare Much that was helpful in the old institutional church must be retained. Dispensaries, clinics, baths, nurseries, gymnasiums, fresh air outings, are only a few of the items included in the welfare program. Recreation Closely related to, and to some ex- tent overlapping the Community Wel- fare department, is the much-needed recreational aspect of Christian serv- ice. Industrial Relief Still connected, and still overlap- ping as local conditions vary, is the constructive type of industrial relief. Such work will be modeled largely upon the principles tested in Morgan Memorial and other successful down- town churches. The evangelistic note will be em- phasized in every department, so this is not classified as something apart, but rather constitutes the main task of the whole plant. The church is the city's home of brotherhood The Suburban Church *'TN the suburbs almost everyone ex- ■'■ cept the minister is running for trains." The divided interest of the suburbanite increases the difficulty of introducing spiritual matters to his attention. His zeal may run to effi- ciency in the busy mart or it may find vent m village politics, but wherever the church is ministering in a suburb, it is competing with some other interest. The dweller in the suburb is often generous with financial aid, but he has little time or energy to devote to the church unless he has been linked up with a society of unusual power and attraction., It has been pointed out that to save America we must save the cities. Amory Bradford carries this respon- sibility back further and says, "The problem of the city church in America will never be solved until the suburbs realize that they have responsibilities to the cities." Where club life, fraternal orders, Sunday visitation, and ambitious en- tertaining — with a little gardening that may violate the fourth command- ment — ^are all drawing the people, there is no time left for participation in a church program that reaches beyond the suburban environs. Then, there is as much variety to be found in the suburb as has been dis- covered in the city, and every suburb presents distinct, complex, and dif- ferent conditions and problems. Some residential neighborhoods are built around universities. Some are completely populated by industrial workers. Some are aloof and wealthy, and in the case of several cities the About seven hundred people — a popula- tion as large as that of many a New England village, are crowded into this one block in New York's Little Italy. But while the New England village 6ften boasts two or three churches, there is only one Methodist pastor to serve this block and many more like it. He often uses his head to save his heels and devises short-cuts from one parish call to another by means of fire-escapes and adjoining roofs Make the church a door into good society Sewing classes, cooking schools and training for little mothers will do much toward creating a healthier, happier city population very slums have spread out into sub- urban districts. One of Chicago's suburbs has become so polyglot that at least twenty-one languages have been identified as being spoken there. Every variation of conditions adds to the perplexities of the Centenary workers who are devoting their time to minister to the suburban church and have her measure up to the re- sponsibility that rests upon her to help reclaim the city for the Kingdom of Christ. There can be only one program for the suburban church, whether it be a long established church or an unde- veloped field. That must be a modern program adapted to local necessities, but never without a definite task in the city as a means of saving itself from such a fate as has befallen many down-town churches. The Neighborhood Idea nPHERE is a No-Man's Land in the field of church work in the city. The down-town church and the subur- ban church present such distinctive difiiculties that they can be catalogued and easily recognized. There is an- other type that does not conform to either of these mentioned and yet is so commonplace as to be generally overlooked. It is the church, not quite a family church, and far from being an institutional church, or even needing to adopt any such policy. It may be found in a foreign-speaking community, but is discovered any- where in the city. It is so situated that it cannot be a community church, as that term is generally understood. It may be a dying church, but it is a church that requires a changed atti- Plant the church in the market place ^atie tf)e Citp Once a Methodist church, this building on East Seventh Street, New York City, has donned a number of cupolas and become the meeting place of Greek Catholics tude, and a changed policy in response to a now-changing environment. It is a strategic point where Christianity may be entrenched, and disgraceful retreat made impossible. Such a church adopting the Cen- tenary program becomes a "Neighbor- hood Church." In an undertaking of this nature the object is not to make any organization supreme in influence in the neighbor- hood. As far as the Centenary pro- gram is concerned there is a positive avoidance of competition between the church and other agencies for good. Where the social, industrial, and rec- reational needs of the neighborhood are being adequately supplied by the school, city, Y. M. C. A., or by other churches, the neighborhood church will waste no resources by attempting "Z must preach . to duplicate the service. Where there is any lack of needed ministration, effort is concentrated at this one point by the church that has the neighbor- hood idea. The emphasis in every activity, however, is laid upon per- sonal evangelism. The Neighborhood Church at- tempts no mammoth undertaking. It appeals to the smallest possible local social unit — the neighborhood; and the need for such a church exists, because while there may be a com- munity organization and conscious- ness, this is generally absent in the small neighborhood. It is true that here may be found people of the same social class, and sometimes groups of the same voca- tional class, but without other com- mon bonds and interest. Proximity is opportunity, and no- where should personal contact and influence be more effective than here. Touch and sight — these physical con- tacts — are the basis for the first and most elementary of human relation- ships. The neighborhood work offers untold possibilities in this respect in the development of the hand-picking process of soul winning. Neighborhood child life may be- come the largest factor eventually in winning the city for Christ. Fifteen thousand children marching in an annual Sunday-school parade of Brooklyn become a mere handful, compared to the hordes of wild little urchins of the street that have never entered a church. There are more than half a million children in New York City receiving no formal religious instruction in Jewish, Roman Catholic or Protestant institutions. In New York City every third person is a Roman Catholic, and every fourth person a Jew. The passing of the home in great American cities is having a reaction . . to other cities" upon spiritual life. Many apartment houses make no provision for children — they don't want any. The ever-in- creasing number of buildings devoted to catering to the class that patronize furnished rooms is tending to make large districts absolutely homeless. The city children of the rich or of the poor have one common playground — the streets and parks. It is true that in one case the child may lounge in a limousine rather than ride on the step of the ice- wagon, or be accompanied by a nurse instead of by the little mothers of the slums, but the houses in either case were not built for them. Break down the home and you break down the Church. The Neighborhood Church proba- bly can gain access to a far greater number of children than any other type of city church where the con- stituency is as migratory as the Arabs of the desert. The importance of this trust and opportunity cannot be over- estimated. Grafted on to the old family style of worship must be a service planned to touch the varied needs of humanity. If the fruit is not gathered immediately by the Cen- tenary methods, we have at least laid the foundations for a living church to minister a thousand times more effect- ively to those generations following us . There never will be a solution of the Once a house of God; now a busy garage. When its original congregation of Amer- ican famihes drifted to another section of the city and the neighborhood was swamped with a sudden flood of foreign- ers, this Methodist church was not pre- pared to meet the emergency. Today, children who might have attended its Sunday school loiter around its doors, watching the autos come and go and incidentally picking up all varieties of profanity problems confronting us today till trained workers are put at every strategic point to pre-empt the field for Christ. The Church in the Industrial Community nPHE following quotation is from a ^ noted leader in labor circles, and may serve to indicate the attitude of the workingman towards the Church. "The Church has nothing to give that we care to receive. It has nothing to teach that we care to know. We are very well satisfied to have working- men out of touch with the Church." It is rankly unjust, of course. It is unreasonable too, but it is a challenge to Christendom. The workingman in so many instances may be more narrow-minded in his bitterness The city church must not only hold a ser:ice, hut render service For many a city boy this is the only kind of gymnasium available. He does spiral ascents and descents on the fire-escape, "chins himself" on the battered gate and emulates the rope walker on the uneven top of the fence towards organized Christianity than the most sectarian Protestant, yet no attitude of his, be it indifference or opposition, justifies a laissez-faire policy in the Church. As the increase of urban hfe is coin- cident with the growth of manufactur- ing industries, the problem of the unchurched workingman is primarily a city problen. It constitutes a chal- lenge that must be faced by Method- ism in the city. A settlement of this question can never be gained while the Church mis- understands the industrial worker, or fails to get at the fundamental causes of his alienation. In justice to those that condemn the church it must be admitted that the workingman, generally speaking, lacks any childhood religious training, and the usual tendency on his part is a development of prejudice, or at best an indifference or preoccupation that may carry no intentional antagonism. Again, many men have grown hard under bitter conditions, and think of God as unjust or unkind, if they admit that there is any God. They believe that the church exists for their employers, and one-time op- pressors, and that all religious privi- leges must be purchased. Through no fault on the part of Methodism at large they have grounds for their belief. There is also a grain of justice in the plea of the workingman that his labor occupies so many of his working hours that he must enjoy needed rest and recreation even at the expense of church attendance. It is not for Methodism to submit to any policy that would detract from the holiness of the Lord's Day. While granting every possible concession, that she may better approach the question from the workingman's standpoint, she will meet her chal- lenge only by a removal of his diffi- culties, and not by ignoring them. To this end the Centenary Program A great city is a little world is attempting that near-hopeless task of reconcihng labor and the Church. Billy-Sundayism and noon-day shop meetings will not do it. Socialistic preaching has failed as a substitute for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But so- called "Gospel Sermons" have failed also, possibly because they have not reached the ears of the industrial classes, or possibly because there are inconsistencies too glaring to be over- looked. To fail the workingmen of today is to fail Jesus, the carpenter of Naza- reth. There is only one solution to the labor problem — the application of His principles to modern industrial life. Workingmen are essentially practical. A religion of words, no matter how eloquent, can find no place in their lives. The accusation of insincerity which many of them bring against the Church is founded on the failure to link up the doctrine of Sunday with the practice of every day in the week. Socialservice which springsfrom neigh- borliness rather than from a rigid sense of duty; help in the struggle for in- dustrial justice; and evangelism that proves its sincerity by more than the thunder of a pulpit voice are neces- sary if the workingman is to realize his kinship to another worker of many centuries ago. The factory has gotten too far away from God. The Cen- tenary must bring it back. In the night school of the Church of All Nations in New York, Tom, Dick and Harry of the Bowery have an opportunity to acquire knowledge, perhaps not so thrilling, but ultimately more useful than that picked up on the streets and in cheap movie shows The city need not be a Sodom The Boy Scout Movement is a great transformer of city boys. After their hikes out into the parks and the open country, and under their training in obedience and self-discipline, you would scarcely know these brown, wholesome lads for the lawless, pallid urchins of some months ago Giving God a Chance npHE sweeping power of the Cente- nary and its reaction upon the cen- ters of population as well as upon the Church itself was summed up in these words at the 1918 Council of Cities: "The Church has been altogether too much concerned about saving herself and too little concerned in the re- demption of the community. It goes without saying that just the moment the Church becomes more interested in her own life than she is in the life of the people, she is at once disquali- fied for rendering efficient service for the uplift of the world. "The Centenary is furnishing a magnificent opening for the Church to discover herself, her interests and ambitions, her abilities and dis- abilities, her purposes and designs for and on the race. It is also furnishing a splendid opportunity to make a statement of program for cities throughout the land, and to press the challenge of God down upon the people in a way commensurate with the need. God has, perhaps, never had a fair opportunity to force his claims on men. In this Centenary for the first time He will have a fair chance to make an impression on the heart of the world." In the city, too, ahideth faith, hope, love Facts Concerning Cities IN congested and polyglot communi- ties there are often from 15 to 50 different types and races living to- gether. Although every second person in this country lives in the city, only four per cent of the members of the MethodistEpiscopal church belong to the city. Within a generation, at the present rate of increase, three-fourths of the nation's population will be urban, with no appreciable advancement on the part of Methodism. The influence of wealth is increasing much more rapidly than the popu- lation and is being concentrated in the city. In this country public opinion is only less mighty than omnipotence . . . and the press which educates and sways public opinion is located in the city. The moral development of the Amer- ican city has not kept pace with the material. In 1905 there were more than a mil- lion churchless Protestants in New York alone. The field for city workers of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church includes 50 cities and stretches from coast to coast. Nearly one-third of all the men and women in all the industries of the United States in 1910 were em- ployed in the manufacturing and mechanical industries, which means in the city. While the population of one section of Philadelphia increased fourfold, 25 Protestant churches died or moved away. On the lower East Side in New York is a ward which contains over 80,000 people, and has only one Protestant house of worship. In Philadelphia there are seven and a half times as much crime to a given population, and in Pittsburgh and Alleghany City nearly three times as much, as in the average rural county of Pennsylvania. The number of killed and injured in the industries of the United States is upwards of 500,000 annually, a number larger than the average an- nual casualties of our Civil War, plus those of the Russian and Japanese War. In Chicago, of 35 boys and girls who applied for admission to the Joseph Medill Summer School, 19 had never seen Lake Michigan and 80 had never been in the woods. Department of City Work Board of Home Missions and Cliurcli Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. %f)t Centenary ^ome 3SoarD Booklets; Prepared by the Joint Centenary Committee for the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Three Outposts of Liberty Porto Pico, Hawaii and Alaska Jl^umliet Ctoo Save the City A discussion of the problems confronting the Church in reaching the industrial and foreign-speaking groups of the cities jBumfier Cftree The Stranger Within Our Gates A Study of the Americanization problem Broken Trails on The Frontier A view of the work in remote border settlements Jl3umliec JFitie Off The Highroad An inquiry into the rural situation in connection with the work of the Church J13umtjer John Stewart's Kinsmen A survey of the needs of the Negro Price five cents each 3foint Centenary Committee 111 Jfftftij Attptiur. Nrw fork