RELIGIOUS AGENCIES 335 



every newly occupied territory. In that impulse of Christian zeal 

 was embodied a sound statesmanship. Nothing has contributed 

 more to the peace, the thrift, the healthy development of this great 

 region whose festival we are celebrating, than the promptness and 

 thoroughness with which each new community has been supplied 

 with religious institutions and influences. 



Not only toward the frontier communities, but toward the needy 

 classes and races in our own country, the same impulse of good-will 

 has been reaching out. Several of the great denominations have 

 been moved by the conviction that the people in this land, who 

 through no fault of their own, are in the darkness of ignorance and 

 in the depths of moral and social degradation, are entitled to their 

 special sympathy and help; and they have organized methods by 

 which the needs of these people may be supplied. In behalf of 

 the Indians on the plains, of the Chinese on the Pacific coast, of the 

 mountaineers in the Appalachian fastnesses, and, above all, of the 

 nine millions of negroes not yet free from the burden and blight of 

 their slave inheritance, the compassion of Christian men has been 

 called forth, and strong efforts have been made to extend to all 

 these hapless multitudes sympathy and succor. Surely it is not 

 possible for the disciples of Jesus Christ to live on the same continent 

 with these people, and know their destitution and their darkness, and 

 not do what is possible for their enlightenment and salvation. 



The chief responsibility for the elevation of these unfortunate 

 people must rest, of course, upon the communities in the midst of 

 which they live, and must be discharged through political or public 

 agencies; but so far as the work has taken on a philanthropic charac- 

 ter, and has been done, not through taxation, but through voluntary 

 contribution, by far the largest part of it has been done by the 

 Christian churches. Some important aid has been rendered, in 

 recent years, by agencies not distinctly religious, but the great 

 majority of those teachers and laborers among these needy people 

 who have been supported by voluntary charity, have been sent forth 

 and maintained by Christian churches. 



More and more during the past century the emphasis of religious 

 obligation has come to rest upon philanthropic work, and the 

 churches, as religious agencies, have devoted themselves, with in- 

 creasing purpose, to the relief of human suffering and the ameliora- 

 tion of human conditions. Hospitals, asylums, orphanages, homes 

 for the aged, and institutions of all kinds for the sick, the infirm, the 

 friendless, and the unfortunate, have been erected in great numbers 

 in all parts of the land. I find a list of twenty-five hospitals in this 

 country erected and endowed by the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

 Several other denominations have made similar provision for the 

 sick poor. In this work, however, our Roman Catholic brethren 



