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6 THE PRESBYTERIAh
Missionary
THE GROWTH OF HOME MISSIONS.
By Rev. John A. Williams.
The month of January is one of the two months of
the year in which our General Assembly directs that
an offering shall be taken throughout the Church for
the cause of the General Assembly's Home Missions.
Those who are specially interested in this cause look forward
to the outcome of the January collection with
grave concern. The financial stringency through which
the countrv has hppn nncsinor f/-wr ninrln O ~" -
j ? *w* nvoiij a \ v.ui iiao 1CU"
dered money more difficult to secure for the benevolent
causes of the Church. Our Home Mission treasury in
Atlanta has several calls for every dollar that it receives.
Our two Secretaries, Dr. Morris and Mr. McMillan, are
straining every nerve to push the work entrusted to
their care and to raise the money needed for the work.
We have put them where they are and said, "Make
brick." They are making them faster than ever before.
We must furnish the straw or tell them to quit making
SO manv hrirk Never Kefnro Vioe ?
J . v? wtwi V 1100 niv XXU111C iVlldaiUU
work of the Southern Church grown as it has in the
last seven years. It is still growing just as fast as men
and money can be obtained to supply fields which are
inviting us to enter. One worker in Oklahoma says he
can organize twenty new churches within six months
if we can supply them with preaching. The work in
Oklahoma has grown since 1902 from twenty-seven
churches to sixty-five or seventy churches; from 925
incmDers to aDOut i,ooo; trom property valued at $io,ooo
to property estimated at $75,000; from one Presbytery
to' three Presbyteries, with the Synod of Oklahoma
formed October 7.
The brethren in Texas have a similar story of growth
?not quite so rapid because of different conditions
?and a similar opportunity for growth. Dr. Doggett
has published an interesting article telling of the wonderful
era of development which is opening in southwest
Texas, while multiplied train-loads of home-build
ers are pouring into northwest Texas, and a brother
writing me recently from there avers that the Panhandle
country is to become the garden spot of Texas.
Hundreds of these new towns have no Presbyterian
church. The field is white for us to enter. Shall we
tie the hands of our Committee in Atlanta by a meagre
collection, or shall we honor their zeal and faith and
encourage their hearts by putting into their hands a
large donation with the command, "Continue to go forward"?
Our secretaries of Foreign Missions are deluging the
Church with appeals for more money with which to
prosecute the foreign work. They are doing right. Let
the Church respond. I would not turn a dollar asit^e
from their treasury. But while we are zealous for^p
foreign work we must not, must not, fail to push
the Home Mission work. If we are to evangelize our
part of the foreign field we need to evangelize our part
of the home field as a base of supplies for men and
I
I OF THE SOUTH. January 6, 1909.
money. One perceives at a glance that an increased
work abroad demands an enlarged base of supplies at
home. Is the Southern Presbyterian Church going to
repeat the error of the Moravian Church, which, in its
noble zeal for Foreign Missions, neglected to develop the
home field, until today it has a very few members from
which to draw its support in prosecuting Foreign Missions?
Let the September collection indicate the answer.
The Laymen's Missionary Movement of our Church
in its convention at Greensboro declined to embrace
Home Missions in its scope. It is a foreign missionary
movement, pure and simple. I do not question the wisdom
or the righteousness of their decision, per se. But
if that decision meant that the noble body of men composing
that movement do not realize the importance of
Home Missions and would give tHxs department of
\ ? - -
v^nurcn work a position ot minor importance then it is
imperative that those who do discern the vital necessity
of aggressive Home Mission effort redouble their
energies and enlarge their contributions. Really, the
two are only departments of world-wide evangelistic effort.
They are divided only for convenience of administration.
There ought to be no conflict between them,
only a healthy rivalry between those entrusted with the
administration of each department. The man who gives
to one ought to give to the other. But if, with holy
zeal, some of the brethren, and sister#, are emphasizing
4.u~ r :? * ? - -
me lurcign worK 10 tne neglect ot the heathen at our
door, then of necessity, others must enlarge their gifts
to Home Missions in January, or that work will suffer.
Durant, Okla.
DURANT COLLEGE.
By President E. Hotchkin.
It is thought that a brief history of the growth and
development of Durant Presbyterian College, together
with the progress of events in the State of Oklahoma,
would be of interest to many in the Church.
The college had its beginning in Calvin Institute, a
mission school established by the Executive Committee
in Atlanta, Ga., in the year 1893. After the third year
the school grew rapidly and soon reached an attendance
of two hundred and fifty.
In 1900 a move was made to the oresent site in the
northwest part of the town, and the name was changed
to the Durant Presbyterian College. The old school
building was moved to this site and fitted up for a dormitory.
A new college building was erected at a cost
of $12,000. School was opened in it in September,
1901. In 1902 a dormitory for boys was provided, making
the plant worth altogether $25,000.
The material progress of the institution never at any
time outstripped the physical and moral side of the
school. Every year found the accommodations inadequate,
and many pupils who sought eagerly for places,
were turned away, and this too with an equipment not
up to the ordinary. Calvin Institute was open to Indians
and whites alike, and the patronage from each