The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and FlowSteiner, Edward Alfred
History
The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow
Steiner, Edward Alfred
United States -- Emigration and immigration
discontinued; it has its place and its value; but it ought to be
supplemented by this better and, as I believe, more effective
method which you have in mind and which you propose to our churches
for adoption.
Sincerely yours,
PAUL FOX.
I do not quote this letter because it approves my plan; for I do not
hold dogmatically to any one method. The work of saving men is
desperately hard and there are a thousand ways of doing it.
More important than any plan is a right attitude; for in all human
contact it is the spirit within the man or institution which counts, and
not the precise method of approach.
Wherever an approach has been made in the right spirit towards the
foreigners, they have responded in kind, and many Protestant churches
have been enriched by their presence, by the ardour of their faith and
their willingness to sacrifice for their convictions.
There is, as I have said before, no institution in the United States
which will be so profoundly affected by the immigrant as the Protestant
church. Without him she will languish and die and with him alone she has
a future.
Already the Roman Catholic proclaims the conquest of America, and while
that conquest is not complete, it soon will be, unless Protestantism
wakens to the wealth of its heritage and its great opportunity; unless
with a real sympathy and passion it teaches, preaches and practices the
religion of Jesus.
The Protestant church need not rival the Roman Catholic church in
building stately places of worship, or clothe herself in gorgeous
vestments, or read ancient liturgies.
The immigrant comes from just such environment, and nothing that the
Protestant church can do in this direction will be as beautiful and as
impressive as that which he has left behind.
The one way and the only way in which she can enter into a successful
rivalry with the ancient, Apostolic church, is in reviving the ancient,
Apostolic passion for humanity.
Having quoted so many letters, I may perhaps be pardoned for quoting a
small part of one written long ago, at a time when the church faced a
crisis not unlike the one which she faces to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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