RELIGIOUS AGENCIES 337 



sexes which are under the patronage and direction of churches are 

 still very numerous, and of the colleges and universities much the 

 larger number are controlled by religious influences. Out of a list 

 of 592 colleges for men and women which I find in the report of the 

 United States Bureau of Education, all but 150 are assigned to the 

 care and control of some religious denomination. And many of 

 those labeled " non-sectarian/' like Princeton and Amherst and 

 Oberlin, are really the children of the churches and under their 

 constant care and influence. The colleges of this country are, to a 

 very large extent, the expression of the zeal for learning of the 

 Christian denominations, the provision which they have made that 

 the youth of the country may be trained in Christian ways of thinking 

 and living. To this high purpose hundreds of millions of dollars 

 have been devoted, and tens of thousands of men and women have 

 given their lives. 



I can only allude, in the briefest way, to one of the great features 

 of the life of the Christian denominations, their missionary work in 

 foreign lands. The fact that Christianity is a universal religion, that 

 it recognizes the brotherhood of man and gives to the word " neigh- 

 bor " the definition involved in the parable of the Good Samaritan, is 

 most clearly brought to light in the history of the American churches 

 during the last hundred years. The Christian denominations as 

 religious agencies have more and more strongly felt that the debt of 

 love was due from them not only to the needy in their own land, but 

 to all men everywhere; and they have gone into all the world, and 

 are seeking to preach the gospel to every creature. 



These missionary operations are at present nearly all connected 

 with the different Christian bodies, each of which has its own mis- 

 sionary board and its own fields of work in foreign lands. There are 

 one or two undenominational organizations, but most of the work 

 comes under the control of the different churches. It has not always 

 been so. Our oldest foreign missionary society, as its name indicates, 

 was at first unsectarian; the Congregationalists, the Dutch Reformed 

 churches, and the Presbyterians all united in its support; but the 

 Dutch and the Presbyterians withdrew, and the latter church divided, 

 so that the contributions which formerly flowed into one missionary 

 treasury are now divided among four. Each sect prosecutes its 

 missionary work in its own way. A fair degree of comity has, how- 

 ever, been observed in foreign lands, and the scandals arising from 

 the multiplication of missionary agencies, though sufficiently offen- 

 sive, are less flagrant than might have been expected. I have a 

 record of twenty-eight such foreign missionary organizations in this 

 country, employing white missionaries, male and female, lay and 

 clerical, to the number of 5740; and no less than 15,842 native help- 

 ers; occupying 9598 stations and outstations; numbering as com- 



