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4 , THE PRESBYTERIJ
LOUISIANA AND HOME MISSIONS.
Louisiana is a combined Home Mission and Foreign
Mission field. It has within its borders large areas without
a Protestant church of any kind. Immediately adjacent
to the great city of New Orleans arc two whole
parishes, or counties, utterly untouched by the Protestant
faith, while only a few months ago there were three
C11 nortnUrtrt -.11 '1 ' '
[m. I3UV.-3, an wunin distant view from the towers
and skyscrapers of the city.
In the State there are not fewer than 200,000 Frenchspeaking
people, and 50,000 Italians, all Romanists.
These people are in the southern and southwestern
parts of Louisiana, in the main. The northern and
northeastern parts were settled from the older States,
and the characteristics of the people are the same as
throughout the rest of the country. In the southwest
and west are found many people who have recently
come from the North and West, attracted bv the rrrent
* ? development
of the rice, oil and lumber interests.
Three Presbyteries occupy this great field, in a population
of more than a million and a half. Their aggregate
strength is 46 ministers, 97 churches, and 8,186
communicants. Louisiana Synod is third from the
smallest in our Church in membership, and better off
than Florida alone in ministers. Above half its communicant
strength is in New Orleans Presbytery. In
New Orleans our 3.900 communicants are in the midst
of 181,000 Roman Catholics!
The Synod's 97 churches, the majority of them feeble
in numbers and means, gave last year to the Assembly's
Home Missions, to help other sections of the Church.
<c-> ,...1 1?' tt ?
a.ivi i?j locai nome .Missions, 57,814, a total of
$10,118, as compared with $10,727 to Foreign Missions.
Of the sum contributed to the Assembly's Home Missions,
a small part, but all that was asked, came back
into the Synod in two Presbyteries.
In Red River Presbytery, occupying the northern
third of Louisiana, there are 25 parishes, of which 13
have 110 Presbyterian church, and five only one each.
Fourteen churches need aid from mission funds. There
will be five ministers needing to be supported in part
as soon as all the fields are supplied. Growing towns
and developing population cry for more workers.
In Louisiana Presbytery, occupying in the main the
central part of the State, all the way from the eastern
boundary to the western, and reaching down to the Gulf
in the extreme southwest, there are 19 parishes, some
verv lnrrrp *?icrVif r\f ?"lt ' - "
?0~, man wiuiuui a rresoytenan church,
and tliree without any Protestant organization. One of the
latter is just across the river from Baton Rouge, the
capital. One of the parishes, Calcasieu, is as large in
area as some States. The promise of these fields is very
great, but the means to support workers are lacking.
Five men and not less than $3,000 a year from the Assembly's
Committee, to carry on the work vigorously
and intelligently, would quickly show results. Opelousas
has 5,000 inhabitants, and is growing rapidly. We have
twenty members there. Plaquemine has 6,000 people
and a handful of Presbyterians. We have a good building
at Whitecastle and a few members. Donaldsonville,
with 8,000 inhabitants, has only about 200 Protestants,
of whom our 15 are unable to carry on the work
alone.
OF THE SOUTH. * March 17, 1909.
In the southwestern part of the Presbytery strong
churches have been organized wherever there have been
funds to make the effort. Lake Charles, Crowley> and
Alexandria are comparatively new churches, and show
what can be done when we half try. Welch is only two
years old, and is now self-supporting. A strong church
was organized at Dc Ridder and a good house built, but
for lack of a pastor and a little additional support for a
short and critical time the work was stopped and the
building sold to the Methodists.
The Presbytery of Louisiana has seven men engaged
wholly, or for a part of their time, in Home Mission
fields, and the cost of the work now in operation is
$2,016.
New Orleans Presbytery stretches from the southeast
nearly to the southwest corner of the State, embracing
19 parishes. In several of these there is found
1
w.iv. i. mii cii oi our iaitn, in several more, none, and
in eight no Protestant church. Of the Presbytery's 34
churches, about one-half are in or closely adjacent to the
city of New Orleans. They contributed last year about
$4,000 to local Home Mission work and gave $400 to
help the Assembly's Home Missions. The Presbytery
supports or aids 11 men in the home work, four in the
city, and the others outside. It conducts work among
the negroes, Chinese, Italians, Hungarians, and French.
Five new church buildings have been erected in its
Home Mission fields in the past three or four years, and
three of the formerly aided churches have in the same
time become self-supporting.
In many localities in this section the religious conditions
are about the same as in Brazil or Cuba, where our
Church spends thousands nf t* *1 ?
uv.mia. 11 IIIC worK could
be carried on as it is conducted in Brazil the results
would be even larger. A great difficulty lies in getting
men to take up Home Missions as a life business. Men
are needed who will learn to speak foreign languages
and who will consecrate themselves to work amongst
the multitudes of foreigners who live together in great
colonies in Louisiana. We have few such men, and the
Church is making no effort to get them. The best, and
only the best, men are needed here, and can bring success
to the work.
God is blessing the work all over the Synod wherever
it is vierorouslv Dressed. Fvcrvttiinn "
^ . ?. vin-uuid^cs cixorc
and hope. The need is the sympathy of the Church at
large, more men, and more means to give them a living
while engaged in this promising work.
NOTES IN PASSING.
By "Bert."
John 6: 38. "I came not to do mine own will, but the
will of Him that sent me.'' . Christ sets 11s the example
of recognizing a great supreme Authority. In worldly
affairs you cannot always choose whom you will serve,
but you may always choose whom you will not serve.
In spiritual affairs theVe are only two possible* masters;
one or other of these you must serve.
Our Lord presents to us a life whose motive was the
Hr.5r.rr r.f f ".Ml r-- J - - .-r - - -
wni wi uuu; a lire so tun ot power and
helpfulness; a life so overflowing with the most gracious
influences; a life so magnetic in its charm; so
inspiring in its spirit that it claims for itself the center