There are about twenty-two millions of Protestant church-members in the United States and nine hundred thousand in Canada, about twenty-three millions in all. In order to secure the required number of missionaries American churches must send out and maintain about one in 1,150 of the membership. This is clearly possible and has been largely exceeded by the Moravian Church. This leaves 1,149 out of every 1,150 church-members to carry on the work on this continent.
A majority of the volunteers will come from the colleges and theological seminaries. There were 195,724 students in these institutions in the United States in 1909–10. It would therefore take about one in fourteen of these students to furnish the 14,000 workers required to secure America's share of the missionaries.
As far as the financial problem for America is concerned the support of 14,000 new missionaries involves increasing our annual offerings from about $15,000,000 a year to approximately $43,000,000 a year. When reduced to actual figures the average per church-member is pitifully small. To secure the entire budget for 20,000 missionaries would require an average gift from the twenty-three millions of church-members in the United States and Canada of a little less than two dollars per year or two postage stamps a week! And this for the redemption of the world! Many thousands of Christians and hundreds of churches should go far beyond this average.
"Shall America Evangelize Her Share of the World?" This is the ringing challenge flung down to American Christianity.
O America, America, stretching between the two great seas, in whose heart flows the rich blood of many nations, into whose mountain safes God has put riches of fabulous amount, in whose plains the Almighty has planted the magic genius that blossoms into harvests with which to feed the hungry multitudes of earth, nursed by Puritan and Pilgrim, defended by patriot and missionary, guided by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, sanctified by a faith as pure as looks up to heaven from any land, O America, let thy Master make thee a savior of the nations; let thy God flood thee with a resistless passion for conquest; let thy Father lead thee over mountains and seas, through fire and flood, through sickness and pain, out to that great hour when all men shall hear the call of Christ, and the last lonely soul shall see the uplifted cross, and the whole round world be bound back to the heart of God!
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING
Love, J. F., The Mission of Our Nation. Fleming H. Revell Co., 158 Fifth Avenue, New York. $1.25.
Coolidge, The United States as a World Power. Macmillan Company, 64 Fifth Avenue, New York. $2.00.