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March 13, 1912] THE
IMMIGRANT MISSIONARIES.
Statistics luinudi us with the number of imuiigiaiiis
who become emigrants by returning to
their native laud, liiis numoer is aurprismgiy
large and or. oosiah Strong, a lugu autnority on
great moral and rengious subjects uses the
hgures winch he has comuned to enrorce an able
and conclusive argument, to tne euect tiiat ttie
evangelization ot loreiguers, temporarily resident
in America, is one ol tne keys to tne solution of
tiie hoieign Atission problem. lie gives attention
to ttie immense sums that are being contributed
to tiie ioreign woik, and then gives
these hgures indicating the number ot ioreigners
who have been in nominal contact with our Uhristian
civilization and have returned to their native
lands with good impressions or evil, ot the
religion that we proiess.
4'in the liscai year ending June 30, 1910, there
J j .
ueparieu irum tne United btates, 20Z,4o6 emigrant
aliens returning Lo tneir iiouie lauds. 'Ibis
uas over one-nim ox tue numbered immigrant
aliens admitted. 'Hie equivalent, therefore, of
one in nve oi tne immigrants lo U>is country in
tlial year, alter a lunger or anorier slay witu us,
returned to tne lanu oi nis nativity, borne of
tliese undoubtedly nave come back or wui come
back to tne United btates, but almost the wboie
number, z02,4oo?lor lew ol tnem were tumors?
mignt nave returned to tiieir domes as miosiouariesol
tne United btates. 41,< tZ were boutneru
Italians; lb,do4 were Boles; 10,odd were diagyars;
y,^ob were biovaks; 6,di4 were Uireeks;
i ,ldd were Croatians and blavuians; o.bbJ were
Hebrews; 5,bad were Kussianst 4,dH were
Japanese; d,add were Chinese; d.Obb were of the
Turkish Umpire; bdb were negroes; dU,b44 were
not specified."
Dr. btrong then argues that the returning
thousands should carry with them a missionary
force that wouid be a mighty factor in the evangelization
of their own people, lar surpassing the
ehicieucy of any American missions in tnose
lands. But he is compeded to deplore the fact
that usually they return with unfavorable impressions
of our religious faith and character and
utterly ignorant of the principles which we
cherish and would transmit to ail mankind. We
quote his words:
' Painfully, laboriously, slowly, we send out
Americans as ioreigu missionaries, 'these mis*
sionaries nave to spend inng mourns and years in
learning tne languages, ways, nam is oi muni, and
religion oi the peopie among wnoiu they work.
Rarely, if ever, do tney become one wun tne people
to wnom tney go. Returning alien immigrants
have no suen obstacles, 'iliey are already
one with and a part of the peoples to
whom tney return. They go right to tneir homes
and live among them, in every part and portion
of their respective countries.
'' (Jan one imagine a mightier missionary force,
provided that all of these 20U,0(J0 returning
aliens a year were missionaries? But what message
did many of them carry to their home lauds?
Not a few, undoubtedly, returned dissatistied
nri+U tU. l-ll. I Ll.-i 1 '1 ... ...
"hu me uiiilcu oiaies, anu mere lore, prouuDiy,
with the religion of the United States. Most immigrants
who are satisfied with the United States
stay here. It is mainly those who are dissatisfied
who return. Even of those who are not dissatisfied,
and who leave this country because they
have prospered and are able to return to live in
their own country in relative wealth?even of
this number, we say, a very large number must
go back with conceptions of this country not very
favorable to the country. Such people usually
conceive of the United States mainly as a country
where money can be made. Such people have
usually lived in this country intent principally
upon making or saving money. They have spent
in this country, usually, years of privation, and,
above all, of very intense work. They have seen
the country mainly upon its materialistic, moneymaking
side. They are often satisfied with the
United States only from this aspect. 'America
is good to make money in,' they frequently say;
'Europe is better to spend it in.' Thus many,
PVOn r\f tkna. ?W?? 3 ? * 1 *
L---** uumc ?*nu nave prospered, go ua?:K 10
their home country because they prefer theirs to
urs.
Many and many am American missionary in
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
foreign lands finds his work made immeasurably
more difficult because of evil reports as to the
morals, business and industrial methods in the
United btates, made by these immigrant aliens returning
to their homes. Probably to-day, for evil
or for good, the mightiest force issuing trom the
United Btates, in many foreign countries, is the
character given to it by the immigrant aliens who
return to their country after a residence brief,
or more or less prolonged, in the United States."
THE BURDEN OF THE BAR-ROOM.
FROM "THE PRESBYTERIAN," ONTARIO.
The charge brought against the bar-room,
backed by generations of sorrowful history, is,
that it is the breeding-place and rendezvous of a
community's vulgarity and hoodlumism. To that
impeachment there may be added that the business
of the bar-room is, by its very nature, an industrial,
social and moral burden on the community
that supports it, for which no license
revenue compensates in the least degree.
It is truly wonderful for how long a time the
bar-room has been able to bind the community to
the burdensome character of its operations. And
yet it is everywhere and always . an economic
burden. It is a sound maxim of political economy
that anything which does not produce something
valuable or stimulate the production of
something valuable is burdensome in its operations.
Apply the maxim to the mills and factories
and industrial trades and they stand its
tests, for they all take raw material of little value
and convert it into articles of increased value to
the community; they produce something valuable.
Apply that maxim to mercantile institutions, to
the grocery store or the dry goods house or the
machinery wareroom, and they meet its demands;
tliey stimulate the pioduction of something valuable.
So do the educational institutions, the art
galleries, the libraries, the colleges and the
churches; they create higher ideals and awaken
loftier ambitions and inspire to worthier service;
they stimulate the production of something valuable.
But apply that maxim to the bar-room
and it is found wanting. The bar-room does not
produce the liquors with which it trades. Neither
(InM it.il trnHn lioln tho nrn<lllnli?fl T\r\ nf ! ?
wvav VUV j/ivuuviiTg pv/ngi ui IW
customers by giving strength to the hand or
steadiness to the eye or clearness to the brain or
courage to the heart. It neither produces, as the
manufacturer does, nor stimulates useful production
as the merchant does, nor inspires to
worthier living as the teacher does. It is an
economic burden on the community that supports
it.
Not only so, but the bar-room has everywhere
and always proved itself a positive enemy to society
and to all the social and industrial enterprises
of the community. Every dollar spent in
the bar-room is at the expense of home improvement
or' of benevolence, or is withdrawn from
the capital of legitimate business, and no return
is made either in service or in life. Every patron
?e iU_ l i-x? - -? *
ui Lite uanwiu is, auuuer or iait;r, uiLsieaaiea in
his habits, reduced in his working force, robbed
of physical, mental and social power, made less
useful to his family and to the community. And
every victim of the bar-room's success has been
taken from the ranks of the community's workers
and changed from a producer whose life was
a blessing, to a parasite whose life is a burden.
The thousands who have lost their situations
through intemperate habits, the thousands of
drunken and dissolute out-of-works who depend
on friends or on public charity for their support,
the thousands of criminals who crowd our gaols
and prisons and f)enal institutions, brought there
directly or Indirectly through drink, the thousands
and tens of thousands of the unfit and the
unfortunate, in our asylums and out of them,
who have inherited the drunkard's entail of diseased
blood and shattered nerves and imbeeile
0 Xt T fl (349) 11
brain and defiled heart?all these might have
been brain-workers or bread-winners, contributing
their quota to the country's wealth; but they
were seduced by the bar-room, and now they are
not only a burden but a curse. Is it any wonder
that, sanfl mptl urhrt thinlr at all cawftnal.. oKnnt
..Uw v-amu ui. uii uv*ivuoij auvut
problems of population and industry now pressing
upon Canada, Bliould ask that no quarter be
given to an institution that destroys thousands
of the population we have, that handicaps our industries
by making their managers incompetent
and their workmen unsteady, and that unhts the
sons for taking the places from which their fathers
have fallen 1
And that is not all. The moral burden which '
the bar-room lays upon the community is heavI.
i _ ?* _ 11 mi_ _ i -
iwsl ui an. mere may De oar-tenders who have
kept themselves unspotted, their lips clean, their
minds unsoiled, their hearts pure, even as there
are those who have touched pitch without defilement
or who have walked in fire without being
burned. But the barroom trade is twice cursed;
it curses him who gives and him who takes. How
many of Ontario's three thousand licensed barrooms
have no dark tragedy in the record of
those who have managed the business! Every
bar-tender not only withdraws his service from
the country's crying need, but stands to suffer
moral deterioration and loss beyond all repair.
And the influence of every bar-room, both positive
and negative, in city and in country, is antagonistic
to whatever things are true and honest
and of good report. The headquarters of a community
's deviltry and the breathing-place of
what is most corrupting in its life is the bar-room
with its coarse jests and vulgar story and dissolute
ditty. Is it any wonder that sane men
who are taxed for the support of schools and
libraries and institutions of intellectual and
Mturtu cuuure oDject to the perpetuating of an
institution which breeds vulgarity and strengthens
the things that make for shame?
We are not now discussing the question of how
the social needs which the saloon meets hurtfully
may be helpfully met. Neither are we arguing
for total prohibition or for State ownership
or for any other alternative. The one point
pressed into prominence is that the bar-room as
a licensed institution is an economic, social and
moral burden, proved by all its record to be a
curse, and incapable of reform, and that the one
reasonable, business-like, prudent course is to cut
it out of the way without compunction and without
compassion.
nrv.i 1 J
wuuiu our distant relatives across the
waters, the Britishers, do if they couldn't draw
on the Presbyterian stock of the Empire for their
statesmen, philosophers, scientists, and leaders in
general. They would never have conquered the
Boers but for the daring of the Highland brigades.
It was the same story in Crimea, India,
and so on. Now we are told that Mr. Bonar Law,
who succeeds Mr. Balfour, the Scotchman, as
leader of the opposition in Parliament is a Presbyterian,
the son of a Presbyterian minister, and
is active in church work,, attends regularly on
public worship and keeps the Sabbath. These
Presbyterian people are a blessing to the whole
world. May they continue to be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it.
T71 n ? -
.runner rremier uannerman was a Presbyterian
and Premier Asquith is a congregationalist, of
close kin.
Creed and character have much to do with
i each other. Then character and conduct have
i the same relation. Then creed and conduct are
not so far apart. Strong and sound beliefs transi
muted into practical doing make the latter sub,
stantial and strong. A creedless man and a
characterless man are apt to be one and the same
i person.