Rev. John Edwards has begun work in the eastern part of the island. There are few missionaries here and the opportunities for evangelistic work are pressing. The following interesting facts were received under recent date from Mr. Edwards: He writes from Fajardo, eastern Porto Rico, "There are many circumstances attending the work here that are very trying and require the greatest of patience. Still, on the whole, there is great encouragement. I have rented a building here at Fajardo, to occupy as the centre of missionary work in this region. I ordered a dozen benches with backs, to be used for public service. A little table stands at the end of the room, on which I place the Bible and use as a pulpit. It is my intention to develop fully the promising conditions both here at Fajardo and also at Humacao, where I have found a warm welcome.
"I understand the best time on Sunday for public worship is in the evening. The young men are most of them occupied during the day. Sunday is their busy market day until three or four o'clock in the afternoon, when the market and stores close and all are free to go whither they like. Some of the young men told me that a number would attend our meetings in the night, that could not come during the day. Of course, this is a condition unfavorable to such Christian work, and yet I hope to be able to gather considerable audiences and reach this needy people with the living gospel of Jesus Christ. I speak in Spanish with comparative ease. We held services Sunday morning, at which I preached. We then sang several hymns which the people are rapidly learning. We need hymn books to offer them for sale, that they may be used in our meetings."
A STREET IN SANTURCE—A SUBURB OF SAN JUAN.
From this letter it will be seen that work is opening hopefully before our evangelist. As the work develops it will demand a reinforcement of preachers capable of doing the same sort of earnest, evangelistic work. The demand in every department of this new island territory is pressing and imperative. Surely the churches of our Congregational fellowship will see to it, each one of them, that the work is fully and cordially supported.
But a very natural question remains to be answered, namely, why have these missionaries gone to this island field? The answer is easy and natural. In the first place, Porto Rico is the only territory that has come under the immediate direction and control of the United States government as a result of the war with Spain. It is emphatically a home missionary field. The responsibility of our American churches is immediate and direct for the spread of the gospel among the inhabitants of this island, who are even now our fellow citizens. The American Missionary Association follows the flag. By the adjustment of work suggested by the churches years ago, at which the Association surrendered its foreign field and took the work among the Indians as a legitimate department of its home work, it has confined its missions to the territory of the United States. Patriotism reinforces the demands of Christianity for the physical, intellectual and religious development of the people in Porto Rico. The time is immediate and the command imperative. It is the command of our country as truly as of God.
Churches, expressing their views through resolutions of local conferences and associations, urged upon the A. M. A. to occupy this island field. This was another reason for going.
The appeal put before the churches in behalf of this important new work met with immediate and hopeful response. Ten thousand dollars are still demanded in order to put the work upon a proper and permanent foundation. Buildings should be erected for the schools, and this immediately. Also homes for the teachers, where model housekeeping can reinforce the instruction of the schoolroom and industrial class. Has not some friend, who reads these messages from Porto Rico, the ability and desire to send a check to our treasury at once, to put one of these mission schools in permanent quarters and thus greatly reinforce the present work and secure its permanency?
Little by little, as the evangelistic movements progress, chapels will be needed for the accommodation of audiences that gather for Christian worship. Here again is a large increase upon the demands of Christian people for this new work of the American Missionary Association.
Surely this little band of heroic Christian missionaries and teachers who have gone out from their homes and from our shores, responding at once to the call of the Master to enter this important and large field, will not be forgotten by Christian men and women in our churches. The work must not suffer. It should be reinforced promptly and largely. In God's providence, mysterious and incomprehensible, this island has become a part of our country. The call now comes to occupy the field, not with armies and military movements, but with the peaceful influences of Christianity. The intellectual and moral quickening of the youth and children through the Christian institutions planted among them, and the preaching of the simple gospel of Jesus Christ to this destitute people, create a responsibility which our Congregational churches must meet courageously and generously.