In this work the interdenominational comity and coöperation represented in the federation of evangelical churches would secure the best covering of the whole field, in the true fraternal and Christian spirit. What all desire supremely is the salvation of the immigrants. And only a united Protestantism can present such a massive front as to impress the world. This work must be large enough to be self-respecting. At present it is extremely doubtful if there is enough of it to make individual members of the churches feel its worth and importance. There should be a mighty advance movement, calling for millions of money and thousands of missionaries, and reaching into a multitude of places now destitute of gospel influences. Then the alien in America would realize the American spirit and purpose and interest in him, and the birth of a new citizenship would begin.
Planning Large Things
This is the day of large enterprises. The home mission movement for the evangelization of the foreign peoples in America ought to be in the forefront of the great enterprises. The real hope of America lies in the success of this work. The best brain of the Christian laity should be engaged in this business.
A Million a Year in New York
In New York City alone the Christian denominations ought to raise and expend at least a million dollars a year for the next ten years for city foreign evangelization, and this would be only a start in a work bound to extend indefinitely. The demand is imperative. The fields are ripe for harvest. We have seen that the old religious ties are not only weakened by the Atlantic voyage, but often broken altogether. In some nationalities this tie is strong, in most of them not very binding. The great bulk of the new immigration is Roman or Greek Catholic. Thousands of these nominal church members drift into open infidelity or schools of atheism, or else into nothingism. Their former Church does not keep them, and Protestantism does not get them. It is a question whether their new condition is better or worse, religiously, than it was in the old country. We should remove that question by surrounding them with such Christian influences and institutions as will make it impossible for them to escape the Americanizing and evangelizing environment. Why should not Christian philanthropy, for instance, build a block of model tenement-houses in the Italian district, and give the income from rentals as a permanent endowment for Italian mission work? This would be a double blessing.
How to Use Wealth for Country
There is a magnificent opportunity, an opportunity to fire the heart of the men who have means to carry out whatever they devise. The evangelical denominations should establish in the heart of the East Side, where are gathered a dozen little nationalities, not simply one great establishment of distinctively religious and educational character, but a number of such institutional churches, costing anywhere from a million to a million and a half each, and sustained in a thoroughly business-like way. Christianity should permeate the entire work. We ought to be working for to-day and for the future. The Home Mission Boards in coöperation should be asked to lead forward in this, the greatest task of the twentieth century. There is nothing sentimental or impracticable about these suggestions.
A Work for United Protestantism
Here is a work that demands the moral strength of Protestant union. Let us seek to make the foreigners Christian, give them the Bible, and set them an example of the brotherhood of believers. Then the immigrants will become believers and join the brotherhood.
What the Local Church Can Do