Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

demanding real food for thought. There must be Churchmen who read such journals as North American Review, Scientific American, and Nineteenth Century, but they do not often come in the way of the C. P. C. A recent visitor to some of our Southern missions reported the great value of C. P. C. gifts with the added comment, "The best is none too good for the work that is being done and the workers."

"What do you know about B.?" asked a Bishop in response to an inquiry concerning mission work recently begun in his diocese. "More than anyone else," was the prompt reply, "the C. P. C. opened the way." And indeed in many directions the C. P. C. does just this, opens the way, for the girl to go through High School and for candidates working in the field to prepare for Holy Orders, for whole communities to rise from degradation to decency and for isolated missions to grasp the reality of the Catholic Church. A picture postcard with the blessing of GOD may turn a mountain boy into an honored member of one of the learned professions or may break down the barrier between a dying man and the hospital chaplain. A Church paper may be the instrument to bring a man to Confirmation or to establish a new mission of the Church. When even the war pictures in our Sunday papers become the determining factor in bringing a Japanese school boy to Christianty, we must stand in awe before the power of the printed page and our responsibility for its use.

MARY E. THOMAS,
Executive Secretary.

A Day's Work at the Church Missions

A

House

LL baptized members of our Church have a proprietary interest in The Church Missions House. Although built with money given by private individuals, it was erected for a special purpose, in order that the Church at large might be able in an efficient way to obey her Lord's command to

carry His Message to all His creatures. It is the headquarters from which the Church's representatives go out to every part of the world, and into which flow, from all parts of the country, the means which enable them to go. Some little account of its activities may be of interest to those to whom the words "Church Missions House" mean nothing more than the address to which their payments on the apportionment must be directed.

From the two rooms in the old Bible House of thirty-five years ago the work of The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (its cumbersome but legal title) has grown to such dimensions that it now occupies the greater part of a large building at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-second Street, New York. Under the same roof are housed the offices of the Secretaries of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, the Church Building Fund Commission, the Social Service Commission, the Church Periodical Club, the Girls' Friendly Society and the Daughters of the King. The work of the missionary society is carried on in many departments, foreign, domestic, Latin-America, forward movement, educational, the treasury, the Women's Auxuliary and editorial, the latter including the publication of The Spirit of Missions and the numerous other publications of the Board. Each department is in charge of a secretary, while the president, Bishop Lloyd, has general oversight over all.

Perhaps no better idea of the scope and diversity of the work can be had than by a glance at the mail, with the opening of which each day's work begins. The letters come pouring in, early in the morning and all day, from all quarters of the globe and from all sorts and conditions of men and women! In the president's office missives from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop on grave matters of state may be opened side by side with the pitiful story of a struggling little mission in the mountains; one letter contains a check for a thousand dollars for the One Day's Income plan, the next literally the widow's mite; a western missionary bishop writes for counsel, an industrial school among the negroes in the South

for help; the head of a hospital in the Orient tells of the need for nurses, a woman writes making the offer of her life for the Church's need. The letters of the foreign secretary and the secretary for Latin-America bring news of progress in churches, schools and hospitals abroad, and too often tell of opportunities that cannot be grasped for lack of funds. The treasurer's mail is more prosaic but it makes possible the romance of missions; through it the "apportionment" is made a thing of life, the means of carrying light to "them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death." With the educational and forward movement secretaries we are in touch with the leaders of mission study classes and "every member " campaigns; there are requests for duplex envelopes and lantern lectures; books are wanted from the lending library and information about summer conferences is in demand. Reports from the Pilgrimage of Prayer as it sweeps across the country come to the Woman's Auxiliary, and the hard-pressed wife of a western missionary writes of her relief at the prospect of a "box." The mail of The Spirit of Missions is diversified: requests for renewal, articles, photographs, "letters to the editor," words of appreciation or criticism, appeals for information-the thousand and one things that come to a man who edits a magazine.

The mail has been opened in less time than it takes to tell about it and the business of the day begins. In a dozen offices letters are being dictated to stenographers; typewriters are clicking as the orders for leaflets are being made ready for the shipping department, which is busy making up packages of literature. Lantern lectures are being overhauled and sent away. In the editorial office The Spirit of Missions is going to press; the editor and his assistants are making up dummies and reading proof; printer's and lithographer's boys are rushing in and out with copy and cuts. Just as the magazine is ready for the press a telegram comes in telling that one of our veterans at the front has dropped on the field of battle; the forms must be held, an editorial written and fitting tribute paid. And so it goes, on each and all of the five floors is heard the hum of business.

At noon the bell rings, business is suspended and the staff gathers in the chapel for noonday prayer for missions. Often missionaries returning from or going to the field are present. A hymn is sung, a psalm and a few prayers are said, and then the routine of the day is resumed.

Once a week the president and his staff of secretaries meet as a Council of Advice. They have before them all matters requiring adjustment which have come up during the week. If of minor importance they are settled in the Council, but the majority of affairs are passed on to the Executive Committee of the Board, representing all parts of the country, which meets once a month. Questions of policy and the larger matters of state are referred to the Board which meets in February, May, October and December.

Often there are visitors and they are always welcome. It is the desire of the officers that Church people generally should feel when they come to the Missions House that they are not visiting but coming home. It is the Church's house, built for the dispatch of the Church's business, and all who labor in it are the servants of the Church at large. It would be gratifying to those to whom the Board of Missions has entrusted the details of its business if our Church people would more geneally realize this and familiarize themselves with the life at the Church Missions House. Kathleen Hore.

Christianity is no appeal to selfishness, but a call to selfsurrender and self-dedication. It appeals to men only in so far as they "lose" themselves and lay aside all self-seeking. Nor is it, as some have contended, merely an individualistic religion, as if its mission were exhausted in the "saving" of individual souls. Its message is essentially social, and concerns the present order and present needs of the world. The salvation of a soul means something nobler and wider than mere deliverance from personal consequences of sin in a future state.-R. L. Ottley, D. D.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

TEMPLE PUBLISHING CORPORATION

93 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y.

President: GEORGE A. ARMOUR, Princeton, N. J.

Vice President: GUY VAN AMRINGE, 31 Nassau Street, New York
Secretary: THE REV. CHARLES C. EDMUNDS, D.D., 4 Chelsea Square, New York
Treasurer: HALEY FISKE, 1 Madison Avenue, New York

Business Manager: The Rev. WILLIAM H. A. HALL, 93 Nassau Street, New York

EDITORIAL COUNCIL: Charles S. Baldwin, Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric, Columbia University; the Rev. J. G. H. Barry, D.D., Rector of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York; the Rev. Charles C. Edmunds, D.D., Professor of New Testament Literature, General Theological Seminary; the Rev. Hughell E. W. Fosbroke. D.D., Dean of the General Theological Seminary; the Rev. Francis J. Hall, D.D., Professor of Dogmatic Theology, General Theological Seminary; the Rev. Arthur W. Jenks, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History, General Theological Seminary; the Rev. William T. Manning, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, New York; the Rev. John Mockridge, D.D., Rector of St. James Church, Philadelphia; the Rev. Ralph B. Pomeroy, B. D., Rector of Trinity Church, Princeton, N. J.; Chandler R. Post, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Greek and of Fine Arts, Harvard University; Robert K. Root, Ph.D., Professor of English, Princeton University; the Rev. Hamilton Schuyler, Rector Trinity Church, Trenton, N. J.; Chauncey B. Tinker, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature, Yale University; the Rev. Lucius Waterman, D.D., Rector of St. Thomas Church, Hanover, N. H.

[blocks in formation]

A

EDITORIAL COMMENT

N authentic incident of recent occurrence suggests itself as apropos of the spiritual crisis of the moment. A Church lad, well brought up in the Faith, while away from his parents was under necessity of an immediate and critical operation. No time could be allowed for friends or relatives to come and the surgeons proceeded with their preparations for operating. The anaesthetic was about to be administered and the doctors directed according to their habit that the boy should count as he inhaled the ether. But the boy, clearly understanding the seriousness of the situation and that he might never recover consciousness in this world, replied to the doctor, "This is no time for counting. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," and so on with the Apostles' Creed, until the anaesthetic took effect. What

« AnteriorContinuar »