Modern cities and their religious problems

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

MODERN CITIES

BY

Introduction

The city is the Gibraltar of civilization. It is not because our urban population is nearly or quite one-fourth of the whole that it is being made the object of special study. The writer of this book sees that the city is strategic ; and in directing our attention and effort to the strategic point, we are following a divine example. When God looked down upon this earth to select a native land for Christianity, he laid his finger on that country in which the highways of the nations met. The world's altar was erected at that point — the point where the three great civilizations which were to exert the profoundest influence upon the world, the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman, came into the completest conjunction. That fact was illustrated by the inscription over the Cross, written in Greek, in Hebrew, and in Latin, that all the motley crowd might read. The place where the Cross of Christ was planted was a strategic point. The Lord Jesus Christ set us this example when he bade his disciples begin at the metropolis. That word was remembered by the Apostles when they went forth to plant churches in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Athens, in Corinth, and in Rome.

The city is the great centre of influence in modern civilization, as it has been in all civilizations. In the city is massed the mighty power of wealth, wdth its f arreaching influence. In the city are located the great corporations with their marvelous power over the whole land. In the city live the owners of most of the mining and railway stocks, and from the city these mines and railways, with their armies of employes, are controlled. In the city is the press — that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, whose leaves are not altogether for the " healing of the nations." The city, then, is the great center of influence, both good and bad. It contains that which is fairest and foulest in our civilization. It is the mighty heart of the body politic, which sends its streams of life pulsating to the very finger-tips of the whole land ; and when the blood becomes poisoned, it poisons every fiber of the whole body. Hence the supreme importance of city evangelization.

But there is special need of evangelizing the city because the city is exposed to special perils. There are great perils threatening our Christian civilization, such as wealth, its worship and its congestion, anarchism and lawlessness, intemperance and the liquor power, immigration and a superstitious Christianity; all these threaten the land as a whole, and these are all massed in the cities. And not only so, but in the city every one of these perils is enhanced. Take as an illustration, immigration, which is intimately connected with most of the other perils. Our ten larger cities contain only nine per cent, of the entire population, but nearly one-quarter of the foreign. A little less than one-third of the population of the United States is foreign by birth or parentage, but this element rarely constitutes less than two-thirds of our larger cities and often more than three-fourths. That is, whatever strain immigration puts upon our institutions is more than twice as great in the cities as in the country. The fact that foreigners are thus massed seems to some an occasion for congratulation. It certainly affords a great opportunity and lays on us a great obligation, but it increases the peril. When foreigners are scattered among the native population, each being surrounded by Americans, they are forced to learn our language and are soon led to adopt our ideas and habits — in short, are speedily Americanized. But when massed in cities, they gather in quarters occupied often exclusively by their own nationality.

Our language is not a necessity; they come but little in contact with our life, and old habits and ideas give way but slowly before American influence. If a thousand anarchists were scattered throughout a State, they would be harmless; but when these firebrands of society are brought together in the city, they inflame each other. "Whether the massing of the enemy is an advantage or disadvantage to us, depends on the relative strength of the two armies. " Stonewall " Jackson, at the head of 3 3,000 troops, defeated four armies with an aggregate force of 64,000 men in about a month. His generalship showed itself in striking his enemy when separated. "Divide and conquer." Had the Union armies in the Shenandoah Valley been massed, Jackson would have been helpless save to retreat. If our forces are tenfold those of the enemy we may congratulate ourselves that by massing his men he has made their capture easy. But what if his forces are tenfold greater than ours? In six Assembly Districts of New York the aggregate population is 360,000, for which there are thirty-one Protestant churches and 3,018 saloons. For the whole country east of the Mississippi there are nearly as many churches as saloons, but for this population — larger than Cincinnati — there are nearly one hundred times as many saloons as churches. In the First Assembly District of New York there were, in 1880, 44,030 people, seven Protestant churches, and 1,072 saloons — one hundred and fifty-three saloons for every church. These churches are open, probably, seven or eight hours a week, the saloons sixteen or more hours a day. While the Gospel of cur Lord Jesus Christ is preached from one church seven or eight hours, the gospel of death and hell is preached from each of a hundred or a hundred and fifty of these " synagogues of Satan " a hundred hours I And the saloon is only one of many arms of the devil's service. We do not giye the Gospel the half of a fair chance. What a forlorn hope is a struggle against such odds. To congratulate ourselves before an enemy thus massed is to rejoice in our own defeat, unless we are prepared to order up adequate reinforcements.

It might be shown that each of the perils mentioned above, is much greater in the city than in the country, -^but it is sufficiently manifest thai the city is peculiarly endangered. It is here that we should bring to bear most powerfully the conservative influences of society. The good general strengthens his line opposite those points where the enemy's lines are the strongest. But how is it in the city? Do we find, as a matter of fact, that the two great conserving influences of society — namely, the home and the church —are correspondingly, powerful in the city? as much stronger there than in the country, as these perils are there greater than i where ? In the country, the groat majority live in homes of their own; in the city, the small minority.

In 1880 there were two hundred and forty-three thousand families in New York City, and it was estimated that only thirteen thousand of them lived in their own homes — a fact, which in its bearing on the morals of the city, contains a whole volume of meaning. And as land appreciates in value with the growth of our cities, the relative number of renters will increase. Thus in the city the institution of the home is weak and growing weaker.

As for the church, there are from three to six times as many churches for a given population in the country as in the city; and in our great cities there are large populations nearly or quite destitute. For the twentieth Assembly District in New York, with a population of over sixty thousand, there are but three Protestant churches. In the whole country, for every sixty thousand people there are one hundred and twenty evangelical churches. For one district in New York of fifty thousand souls there is but one Protestant church; and it is said that in the heart of Chicago there are sixty thousand people without a single church, either Protestant or Catholic.

In reply to the assertion that the city is not so well supplied with churches as the country, it is said, and truly, that the city churches are much stronger than those in the country. But it is also true, and decisive of the point in question, that the proportion of evangelical church members is only from one-half to one-fifth as large in the great cities as in the country. And with rare exceptions, if any, church provision seems to

INTRODUCTION.

be steadily falling behind the growth of urban population, as indicated by the following table.

, JERSEY CITY, NEWARK, N. J. N> J< '

BROOKLYN.

NEW YORK.

1 Prot. Ch. to

1 to 827 souls. 1 to 935 souls.

1 to 1,873 souls

If the growth of our great cities were suddenly arrested, there would still be a grave responsibility resting on the churches to evangelize neglected districts; and on the other hand, if our cities had no slums, no churchless multitudes, their rapid growth would demand a greater Christian activity than now exists, simply to provide for the new-comers. There is a city of I thirty-five thousand added to Chicago, and one of fifty thousand added to New York every year, for which there must be Christian provision. In 1880, as we have seen, there was in New York one Protestant church to every three thousand people (one-sixth of the average for the whole country). Simply to have held our own, without taking one step forward, there should have been added during these six years one hundred Protestant churches to the Christian forces of the city.

* Present population estimated at 1,500,000. But the city directory just issued makes the population 1,600,000, which gives 4,000 souls to every Protestant church.

INTBODUCTION. 11

Not one-half or quarter or tenth of that number have been organized. To meet the needs of these three hundred thousand souls ouljfour churches have been added. Doubtless there are cities better off than New York, and there are others which are worse. It is true of all the cities whose religious statistics the writer has looked up, that their church provision is falling behind the growth of their population.

It is evident that the evangelization of our cities is exceptionally important ; that the cities are exceptionally exposed to perils ; that in them the great conservative influences are exceptionally weak. This volume shows, by it3 analysis of the social composition of American cities, that in their evangelization we have exceptional difficulties to overcome. What then ? Do such facts justify discouragement ? A discouraged Christian is a spectacle for angels. Every believer has a right to take Paul's sublime declaration of confidence as a

formula in which to write his own name, " I,

, can do all things" required of me, "through

Jesus Christ, which strengtheneth me." To a mighty faith the heaping up of obstacles is only a stimulus ; the higher they rise, the greater the inspiration.

This volume not only points out the necessity and magnitude and difficulty of the work to be done in our cities, but abounds in valuable suggestions touching methods of work. Because English civilization i3 older than ours, the problem of the city arrested attention and attracted study sooner there than here. In the work of city evangelization we have much to learn from the Christian workers of London and the McAll mission in Paris. This book enables us to profit by their experience and success. Its author, after five years' experience in city work, which made him a good student of its problems, spent the greater part of a year in the heart of London, making himself thoroughly familiar with English methods of city evangelization. His presentation of facts is worthy of all the confidence to which careful observation and accuracy of statement are entitled.

It may be objected that English character and conditions so differ from ours that we should not find their methods applicable here. In answer be it said, that Rev. Dr. Rainsford's remarkable work in St. George's Church, New York, affords a practical demonstration to the contrary. His experience shows that English methods are quite adapted, or at least adaptable, to American cities ; and the sooner our churches accept the conclusions of this book, and act on its valuable recommendations, the sooner will the "threat of the cities " cease.

Josiah Strong.

Chapter I. The Growth Of Modern Cities

This, the age of great cities — Size and growth of London and English cities, of Glasgow and Scottish cities, of Berlin, Paris, and Continental cities — Increase of cities in the United States — Attractive power of cities — Natural limits to their growth — Law of the growth of cities — This illustrated in the history of London— Reasons for their remarkable increase during the nineteenth century : the introduction of the steam-engine and mechanical invention resulting in increased wealth, increased population, improved sanitary conditions, rapid transportation, cheapened food, increased demand for work and workers within the towns, the expansion of commerce, and changed methods of agricultural labor — The cities of the future, 17

Chapter II. The Social Composition Op American Cities

The proportion and condition of their inhabitants engaged in each of the three kinds of work : production, distribution, and (personal and professional) service — Term worMngman explained — Proportion of workingmen to whole population in American cities — Separation between working-class and other classes— This aggravated by conditions of modern life and differences of race, language,

14 CONTENTS.

and religion — Proportion of foreign-born inhabitants in our cities — Nationalities of our foreign-born citizens — Distribution of tbe various foreign elements among our cities — Proportion of Roman Catholics to Protestants among foreign-born population — Homogeneousness of London and Continental cities contrasted with our own condition, .......... 54

Chapter III. The Threat Op The Cities

Dependence of Christian civilization upon the Christian religion — Danger attendant upon the corruption or decay of faith in any class of society — Failure of the American Protestant churches to win the workingmen in cities — Abandonment of down-town churches— Strength and weakness of foreign Protestantism — Progress of the Roman Catholic Church — Insufficiency of church accommodations in the poorer parts of our towns — Reflex influence upon the churches of the absence of workingmen from their services — Reasons for alienation of the poorer class from American Protestant churches : foreign birth and training, strife and jealousy between labor and capital — Tokens of disintegration of Christian civilization j in the cities consequent upon the alienation of the masses

J from the faith of our fathers : corruption of municipal government, drunkenness and the saloons, increase of crime and pauperism, decay of the Christian Sabbath, progress of anarchic social theories, . . . .76

Chapter IV. Christian Work In London— The Church Op England

Central position of London in world-struggle between good and evil, and consequent importance of its religious life to the student — Peculiarities of its social and religious problem — Elements possessed in common with our own cities

CONTENTS. 15

—Number of churches and benevolent enterprises— The Church of England— Cathedrals and their use — Choral music — Services of parish churches — Retreats — Parochial missions — Guilds — Number of clergy and others employed by single churches — Lay-helpers' association — District visitors — Mothers' meetings — Girls' Friendly Society — Deaconesses and Sisters of Mercy — Friendly Societies — Temperance Societies — White Cross movement — The work and methods of St. Anne's, Limehouse— Of St. Mary's, Whitechapel— Of St. Jude's, Whitechapel — Free Exhibition of Fine Arts — University Extension Society and Toynbee Hall — Oxford House — The East Enderies, 107

Chapter V. Christian Work In London— Dissenting Churches- Other Movements

Number and denomination of dissenting churches in London — Noticeable features in their regular religious services and evangelistic work — Account of the work and methods of Highbury Quadrant Church and its missions — Tolmer's Square Church, and Tolmer Institute — East London Tabernacle and the work of Rev. Archibald G. Brown with his missionaries among the destitute of East End — Oldenham Institute — London City Mission — Street Preaching— The Salvation Army, 135

CHAPTER VI. THE McALL MISSION

The " Man of Macedonia," and the call of the modern apostle — The commencement and expansion of the McAll Mission — Religious condition of France when the work began—Decay of Catholicism — Weakness of Protestantism — "Oblivion "of the Bible — Deadness of conscience — Fantastic notions of religion — Religious condition of working-classes in American cities compared with that

16 CONTENTS.

of Paris — Peculiar conditions gave rise to peculiar methods — Size and character of salles or mission-halls, and their advantages — Doorkeepers and their duties— Value of Christian songs— Speakers and character of addresses — How the appointments are made — Time and number of religious services — Societes Fraternelles : Results and value of the work — Effect on French Protestantism, . 163