For 1908 we would have to use eight pennies to represent those who came, and to remove six of these pennies to represent the numbers that returned home that year.
I am sure this will surprise some of you. You did not know so great a multitude returned to Italy, or Russia, or elsewhere, yet every year anywhere from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand leave our shores for home. That makes us feel the truth of the song we all know,
“Be it ever so humble,
There’s no place like home.”
Influence of the Returned Immigrant. What effect has this home-coming multitude upon towns and villages all over the world?
When Stefano came to America he could neither read nor write. One day a friend said, “I know a church where Italians are taught to read free of all expense.” Stefano was sending money home to his mother each month, so he was glad to know of a free school. One night the leader of the school said, “We shall have a short session to-night because we are to have a prayer-meeting after school.” Stefano and fifty other young Italians remained for the prayer-meeting. At home Stefano had ceased going to church after he had been confirmed, except sometimes on feast days. He remained to the prayer-meeting, not because he wanted to but because all the others stayed. He listened with great attention to the speaker; he had never heard such an earnest address as the pastor gave that night. It seemed as if some one must have told the preacher all about him. All through the week he thought of the prayer-meeting and after he had attended a few times more he came to the preaching service on Sundays, and then Stefano became converted.
When he returned home he was on fire with the new religion he had found. His heart was full of love for everybody. But he was saddened when he saw how little the people of his village knew about God. One night he determined to tell them how he had found Christ in America, and so he called them together in his mother’s home and told his story. When he had finished what was his surprise and delight to have three other men rise and tell how they had found the same Christ in golden America.
Every one was interested. The villagers said, “Some of these men were bad men when they went away; they are now good men.” You will be glad to know that whole villages in Sicily have become Protestant and Christian by the preaching of just such returned immigrants as Stefano. Last year eighteen Protestant Churches of one denomination were founded in Sicily by returned immigrants converted in America.
This shows us the wonderful opportunity we have of being a good neighbor to one part of the world by being good neighbors to the Italians who live near us.
What has caused so old and conservative a nation as China to change to a republic? The leaders of this revolution are Christian men. If we asked them they would say, “We saw that the cities and towns and schools and churches and men and women and children of Christian lands were different from those of China. We believe the reason they are better is because they know Christ and are following Him.”