The
great bulk of the new immigration is Roman or Greek Catholic. Thousands
of these nominal church members drift into open infidelity or schools of
atheism, or else into nothingism. Their former Church does not keep
them, and Protestantism does not get them. It is a question whether
their new condition is better or worse, religiously, than it was in the
old country. We should remove that question by surrounding them with
such Christian influences and institutions as will make it impossible
for them to escape the Americanizing and evangelizing environment. Why
should not Christian philanthropy, for instance, build a block of model
tenement-houses in the Italian district, and give the income from
rentals as a permanent endowment for Italian mission work? This would be
a double blessing.
[Sidenote: How to Use Wealth for Country]
There is a magnificent opportunity, an opportunity to fire the heart of
the men who have means to carry out whatever they devise. The
evangelical denominations should establish in the heart of the East
Side, where are gathered a dozen little nationalities, not simply one
great establishment of distinctively religious and educational
character, but a number of such institutional churches, costing anywhere
from a million to a million and a half each, and sustained in a
thoroughly business-like way.
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