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Text:—“And the King shall answer and say unto
them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren,
ye have done it unto me.”
N the last Sunday in January in each
year in our church we consider the ques
tion of our city mission work and the de
partment of charity that is connected
with it, and it so happens that on this
day this year all the churches, or a ma
jority of the churches of the city are
considering their relationship and re
sponsibility to the Associated Charity
O
work of the city. The Associated Charities have
asked that the churches consider this day as
a day set apart for. raising funds and increas
ing interest in the work of the Associated
Charities, and the vast majority of our churches
have consented and from the pulpits of these,
sermons will be preached bearing on this line
and carrying out as far as possible that suggestion.
I am not going to discuss the Associated Charities
nor to say anything about them. My position is al
ready understood, certainly by the church and by a
great many who are not of the church. It is
known pretty generally that I take no stock in the
Associated Charity movement, nor do I take any
stock in it as a department of church work. I do
not believe that the church of Jesus Christ has any
right to be suggested to or dominated by or feder
ated with anything that takes the crown off the
brow of the Lord. This is my decision and it is
well known.
I simply propose to follow out the plan that we
have had for a number of years of taking the last
Sunday in January as the Sunday to speak on our
City Mission and charity work as conducted by this
church. It is probably known by you that we have
such a distinct department in our church work and
that that department is now a well organized and
systematically conducted department of the work of
our church having an office in the church with its
doors open all the time, and the regular city mission
and charity work of the church proceeding from it
as a center.
BEGINNING OF THE WORK.
Some years ago when we began this work it was
to a great extent experimental on our part. The
church was young and inexperienced, and we had a
great problem on our hearts and hands and hardly
knew what to do, but were anxious to do something,
and we began hammering at these problems as best
we could. You will remember that during the early
days of this church history it was sought by all
classes and conditions of people. It sprang up like
a mushroom. We were full grown, in so far as
members were concerned, in such a short time that
we knew not how to handle the membership.
When we first began this work the distinct note was
sounded of helpfulness to needy humanity. We
stood as the friend to the friendless and the helper
of the helpless and if I may be pardoned for saying
it, it was the first note of this character ever sound
ed with such distinctness by any church in this city.
Other churches, t of course, were glad to have such
members, dependents, and help them as much as pos
sble, but there was never any general public procla
mation to this effect. That very note sounded in
the beginning of our church history brought to us
many people who never would have come to us other
wise. Many of them came s’mply seeking the loaves
and fishes that this proclamation guaranteed. About
that I feel quite sure. Bat we were not greatly dis
turbed by this because this was also true of the
Master when He sounded the same note. So we
had them on hand and had to deal with them. We
had a great mass of peop'e without any special sys
tem of living, faith, or hel : ef. They had simply
crowded into the church and welled the great mem
bership, and there we were nth those giant prob-
The Work of the Christian Church
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. Broughton, D. D.
Stenotraphically reported for The Golden Age. —Copyright applied for
The Golden Age for February 11, 1909.
lems on our hands and none of ous having much ex
perience or money, all of us being poor together.
Here we were with this great problem and many
of the nights that passed were so freighted with
problems as to prevent our sleeping, and we had to
set ourselves to the adjustment of this situation,
else we were going soon to be literally swamped by
it.
We were operating mission stations in different
sections of the city. They were largely the centers
around which this dependent class gathered; this
class without any special tie to bind them, except
the tie of need, and when that was broken they
were up and gone; and it was a great problem how
to deal with them. It was a problem that would
easily tax the genius of a wise man, and hence those
of us who can not lay claim to genius or wisdom
found ourselves more than taxed, and we began to
try to adjust it in some way, first to focus our work
as that it would oe unified and not scattered over a
great territory, failing to grip and instruct and edu
cate. The great problem is that of combining the
energies of the great crowds of people that had gath
ered together without any tie to bind; and with that
there came a certain disappointment to those who
were simply seeking help, which resulted in disaf
fection, and disaffection resulted in scattering and in
bringing us to the firm foundation that we have
reached, a foundation upon which we can hope to
build and permanently construct and everlastingly
mold character and shape destiny and be a help to
humanity. In the adjustment of this problem it has
become necessary that we should unify the work
around this central plant and the result has been the
building up of this city mission and charity depart
ment which is now recognized as a department of our
charity in the city of Atlanta that is well worth
stopping and paying attention to. Let me give you
something of the result of last year’s work.
There came to this office here last year between
fourteen and fifteen hundred persons seeking help.
Their names, the purpose for which they called, and
the disposition made of the case, are on the books
subject to inspection. These fourteen hundred odd
calls for help were not all calls for money, for cloth
ing, for positions or any one kind of help, but they
were all calls for help of some sort and had to be
personally dealt with; fourteen hundred people in
this city in one year at this one church seeking per
sonal aid of some sort. About five hundred of these
were persons seeking employment. The rest, about
one thusand, were seeking other kind of help—food,
clothing, medicine; they were all dependent persons
who had to be looked after. All the requests for
help that came could not be granted, but they were
met and dealt with as Christians would meet a needy
soul; they w’ere inquired after, investigated; and
what was found was recorded on the record books.
When the facts were brought out such help as the
facts warranted and as our ability enabled ns to
bestow was given.
CHARACTER OF THE WORK.
I want to give you just a sample or two of the
cases that called at our church last year that you
might see something of the character of the work
that I believe the church is set to do, that we may
have your sympathy and your prayers whether we
have your help financially or not.
Take, for instance, this case: Here is a woman
who calls at the office.; she says she has three small
children ranging from two years up to eight. She
is supporting these children by her own efforts. Os
course you may know that it is very meager sup
port, but she does it. But one of those children now
is down with scarlet fever and she has had to stop
work because, in the first place the officers of the
law will not let her go on the street and mingle with
other people with such a contagious disease in her
family, and besides that she has to look after the
little one. Her wage stops and of course when her
wage stops everything stops, for she has no credit to
speak of and so there she is. She is not a member
of this church. She is not a member of any church
in town. Her membership is still out in the coun
try where she came from. Somehow many people
of that class think that there is such a gulf between
them and the city folks that they don’t feel like
joining the church until they are hunted out and
assured otherwise. These facts are all taken down
just as she gives them, and then investigated. They
are found to be true. You can not pass such a case
as that by and look Jesus in the face and call Him
Lord and Master.
This is what is done. A nurse is called from the
Infirmary and sent down there at night to look after
that child and relieve the mother so that she can get
enough sleep to enable her to take care of the child
during the day. Three dollars is spent for coal, and
six dollars is spent for food—just that, and two
thirds of that is obtained from the coal dealers and
the people that live around her. But somebody has
got to do that begging that those coal dealers and
grocerymen believe in, and that they will know will
do the right thing. When that case has been relieved
and that child is well so that the wother can resume
her work, the whole sum spent to help that mother
is less than fifteen dollars, and two-thirds of that
has been donated by outside people.
Here comes another. I give these right out of the
records. Here is a man who makes one dollar per
day; just about thirty dollars a month. He has four
children. It is a very significant fact that the poor
er the people the more the children. I do not know
what would become of the race were it not for the
poor. This man came to the office.
“What do you want?” wag asked.
“One of my children has died and I want to
borrow a little money to buy a coflin; just an in
expensive one, but as nice as I can get. I hate for
the city to take my child and dump it into a box.”
That is a simple, illiterate man, but as good and
pure as any man I know. He can not make over one
dollar a day; he is not worth more, and yet he has
that house full of children. Can. you blame that fa
ther for wanting that little coffin? No, you don’t,
and if he had come to you, you w mid have wanted
to help him. Well, we are trying to do that for
you. You do not know about that man, but he
comes to us. It does not take so much money to buy
that little coffin, and soon it w T as obtained and the
little coffin purchased and the child was given a de
cent burial with Christian services. But that is not
all that was accomplished. Every one of those chil
dren were brought into this Sunday school and are
now being taught and trained and looked after. The
father and mother were brought s into the church
and a general spiritual atmosphere has been engen
dered in that home.
Suppose it had been said to them, “You are not
a member of this church and you will have to go to
some outside oragnization that makes no pretension
to religion.” What would have been the result?
He would have gone away and said, “Yes, that is
religion and I do not want it,” and that family
would have been lost to the church.
THE PROFESSIONAL ‘ ‘ BUM. ’ ’
Take just another case, and I think it is a very in
teresting one. A man comes to the office who is a
professional “bum” asking for help. You offer to
get him a job and he says, all right, but when it
gets down to the last analysis and you get ready
to find him a job he says that he wanted immediau
help and was not looking for work. Os course, you
must know how to deal with that man in the spirit
of Christ; you can’t take him up and kick him out
of the office. You have got to be frank with him in
stating your views of his case, but you have got to
be kind. He may go away even though you have
refused to aid him with a different feeling in his
heart owing to the way you have treated him.
