Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1912 — Missionary Work in Chicago’s Slums [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Missionary Work in Chicago’s Slums

CHICAGO.— -A great religious movement has been started in this city by the Presbyterian Church Extension board, and its example is likely to be imitated in other big cities of . the world. The Extension board has asked for 1,000 volunteers to carry the message of the Gospel to the natives of many distant lands —to followeis of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Mohammed end of many pagan gods. These worked are asked to give their time without recompense, other than the consciousness of work well done. They are expected to enter into dark places to spread the light, brave pestilence, heal the kick, and establish places for physical and mental recreation, where nothing but drudgery and care is now known. ... But with all this there are few dangers. None of the volunteers will be eaten by cannibals; none will be staked out on the desert sands to die of heat and thirst; none will be crucified, burned at the stake or impaled. For all will-do their work right het'e in Chicago. Modern industrialism has brought sail the world to Chicago. Almost every under the sun is represented jhere, and it will be the work of these to Christianize the resi-rdents—-and especially the children|of the Persian colony, the Chinese col-

ony, the Arabian colony and all the other colonies of foreigners which go to make up the cosmopolitan city. The appeal for workers to labor in this field is made on the ground that unless American Christian ideals govern the lives of the foreign born, the ideals of Americans will in a generation be supplanted by those of Europe or Asia, because the children of foreign parentage far outnumber the American born and will in a generation outvote them. Already there are on the staff of the extension board 680 volunteer workers, while 50 others are employed as experts in conducting the various kinds of work —evangelistic, Bible in manual training, sewing and English for those employed during the day, and kindergartens for the children in the daytime. There is a vast field for the work of the missionaries in the congested districts of the city, where the bulk of the aliens live.