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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