SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA
J. G. SHEARER
The Presbyterian church in Canada does social service work through its Department of Social Service and Evangelism. Efforts are directed along several lines.
Social surveys of both urban and rural communities are conducted, considering not only religious and moral, but also social and economic conditions. An expert is employed who gives all his time to the work. He secures the co-operation of a large number of volunteer helpers, many of whom are proficient in various phases of social service work.
The problems of the city are studied and practical solutions sought. This is attempted in the following ways:
By evangelical social settlements, of which there are one in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg. Eight or ten others in the not distant future are planned for various other growing cities in the Dominion, especially where non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants are numerous. Our organizer and supervisor of this work is Sara Libby Carson, founder of Christodora House and various other settlements in New York, St. Christopher House, Toronto, and Chalmers House, Montreal. We also have established a training school for settlement workers, in connection with St. Christopher House, Toronto.
By securing the co-operation of churches and sympathetic organizations in every variety of general social betterment effort.
By establishing special redemptive and social missions on the crowded thoroughfares. The first of these was Evangel Hall, Toronto, in which evangelistic work, as well as various sorts of social work, is carried on.
The department has taken up in a large way redemptive and preventive work in the interest of girls, and associated with that educational work along the line of sex teaching among boys and men. There are five homes which are called social service houses, in which girls and women requiring special help are taken care of. Fifteen trained Christian women give their time to this phase of the department’s endeavor, and there is also a large army of volunteer helpers. In connection with this work an educational campaign through pulpit and platform and the distribution of literature throughout the Dominion is carried on. From time to time legislation, federal or provincial, for the more adequate protection of girls and women is sought.
In co-operation with other interested bodies the department keeps up a steady campaign for the suppression of gambling, intemperance, sale of immoral literature, unclean theatricals, the social vice, and the promotion of the positive virtues, the opposite of these.
Special attention is being directed to positive effort and constructive work along all lines aiming at social uplift, and a good deal of legislation toward this end has been successfully put through.
The department has established a lantern slide and film service, and is endeavoring to supply through illustrated means elevating entertainment as well as information and inspiration.
All the evangelistic work of the Presbyterian church is done through this department, so that evangelism and social service are kept in close association in all effort undertaken.