e way the great mass of the newcomers, where now it touches
comparatively few. There should be a great interdenominational
headquarters building, thoroughly equipped for every kind of helpful
service. A large force of trained workers of different nationalities
should be employed, so that all kinds of needs might be met. It is
entirely possible to establish a center that would powerfully impress
the immigrants with the worth and importance of the Christian religion.
But no small affair will do. Our great denominations have the money in
plenty, and certainly have the talent to organize such a work as the
world has never yet seen. And what a chance for personal service such an
institution would afford. This would be a living object lesson of
Christianity helping the world, that might fitly stand beside the statue
of "Liberty enlightening the world."

_III. Protestantism and the Alien_

[Sidenote: Present Work for the Foreigners]

How are the evangelical denominations meeting their imperative
obligation to evangelize the multitudes brought to their very doors?
When the immigrant has passed through the gates, what attention is paid
to him? Take it in the centers of population, where the mass of the
immigrants go, and the showing is not very imposing as yet.

[Sidenote: Abandoned Fields]

The truth is that as the foreigners have moved into down-town New York
the old-time Protestant churches have moved out, in great measure
abandoning the field, on the assumption that there was no constituency
to maintain an American church. It did not seem to dawn upon the rich
churches which moved up town that the new population needed
evangelization and could be evangelized. The result is that the
immigrant accustomed to imposing churches and splendid architecture and
impressive ritual, sees little to impress him with the existence of
Protestant Christianity. Go through that teeming East Side in New York,
and here and there you will find a mission supported in desultory
fashion by some church or city mission society or mission board, and in
quarters conducive to anything but worship or respect. There is nothing
to make the new arrival feel the presence and power of the religious
faith that created this free Republic and still predominates in its best
life. So it is wherever you go. The home mission work is in its
beginnings, and these are manifestly feeble and inadequate.

[Sidenote: An Example]

The Roman Catholics teach us some