They build large
and impressive churches for the immigrants. They abandon no fields, and
immediately occupy those left by Protestants. They expend money where it
will go furthest. The Protestants of New York should have been
far-sighted enough to plant strong evangelistic and philanthropic
institutions in the fields from which they withdrew their churches.
Valuable ground has been lost for want of this missionary insight and
impulse.
[Sidenote: Need of an Awakening]
The conditions in New York are symptomatic of those obtaining generally,
in country as well as city. The Protestant churches, not recognizing the
supreme home mission opportunity to Christianize the immigrants, have in
many cases become weak where a zealous evangelism would have kept them
strong. Too many of the American Churches have been satisfied with their
own prosperity and unmindful of the growing need of the gospel all
around them. As a missionary worker says:[93] "There are plenty of
Christians who believe that the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation in a vague and general way; but there are not enough people
who clearly believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
to the Italian working on the railroad, or the Hungarian in the shops,
or the German on the farm.
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