Rev. Joseph Smale, pastor of the First Church, I heard at night. It was a plain, gospel sermon, delivered in an earnest, impressive manner. His church is probably the largest and richest on the Coast. The pastor and his assistant are both Englishmen. I met with the Pastors' Conference. The Baptists hereabouts seem to be numerous and influential. They have a vigorous, aggressive ministry, who speak hopefully of the prospects. I was assured that the religious element was quite strong and pronounced in all Southern California.
ONE SERIOUS QUESTION
agitating the brethren on the Pacific Coast I found to be: The multiplicity of agents to represent the various denominational interests. This gave especial interest to my talk before the Pastors' Conference at Oakland. It seemed to be a new thing with them that one man should represent all the mission interests in one State, as we do in Alabama. The Missionary Union (their Foreign Mission Board), the Home Mission Society, The American Baptist Publication Society, each have a man to represent their interests, and besides these I think the two Woman's Societies have special agents also. The Northern Anniversaries, with which the churches on the Pacific Coast affiliate, have appointed committees on co-operation, but the jealousies existing between the societies stand in the way of their accomplishing anything toward consolidation. There is no question in the minds of any, North or South, but that our Convention plan is better to bring about concert of action. I should have been delighted to have studied closer the Baptist situation and cultivated the brethren in California, but my time was too short. They are struggling with unsolved problems on that side as we are on this side.
May Heaven help them and us with that wisdom that comes from above.
Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.
Mismatched quotation marks were not corrected if it was not sufficiently clear where the missing quotation mark should be placed.