THE KING’S BUSINESS
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per cent! The average for th^,whole re gion was twenty-nine per cent. There is still room for evangelistic effort. The old religious forces are demonstrably unequal to the demands of the new times. The problem of evangelizing the rural community must be through co-operation on the part of the religious forces in the com munity. Hitherto each denomination has considered itself responsible for the work of evangelism regardless of the other de nominations in the community, -and the re sult has been a waste of money, time and energy. An illustration of this waste is seen in a village of 475 people in one of the best farming sections of Ohio. In this village there are five church buildings, two of which are now abandoned. Last year three of the churches (including one since discontinued) received a total of $675 aid from home missions and from churches out side of the community. All the churches together through their divided efforts have managed to reach only one-fourth of the ’ people in the community. Twenty-five thousand people of forty-five nationalities scattered in forty-odd coal camps throughout the bounds of the Pres bytery of Pueblo. The Presbytery of Pueblo wanted to know the actual conditions among these people and its responsibility toward them, so it appealed to the Immigration Department for assistance; which is the why that the “Colorado Camp Expedition” consisting of Mr. W. F. McDermott, a stu dent in McCormick Seminary; Mr. Joseph Leksa, a student in Dubuque Seminary; Mrs. Yergin and the writer, have been spending twelve weeks in the coal camps of southern Colorado. The purpose of the expedition was two fold : to hold evangelistic services in strategic centers, and to study physical, moral and religious conditions in as many adjoining camps as possible. Services, totaling seventy, have been held in eight camps, and surveys made of twenty-six camps.
the prohibition amendment to the state con stitution. But now, he said, his firm would give $15,000 to oppose any movement to annul the amendment. The marked im provement in their business and especially the better condition of their employes had led them to this change of mind. Facts tell. Prohibition does work .—Presbyterian Banner. On July 1 the thirty-five liquor saloons in the Panama Canal zone were closed and henceforth none will be licensed. The North American in a recent issue remarks: “Judging from their cries of distress at the prohibition of booze in the Canal zone, the brewery interests must have thought they were to have the privilege of filling the canal with beer.” Theosophists have fallen afoul of an em barrassing hindrance to their plans for pre senting to thè world a reincarnated Christ. The young Hindu lad, Krishnamurti, whom they have had in training in India for this role—“Alcyone” Mrs. Besant had named him—has been taken away from theoso- phist control by an order of British courts and restored to his father. The father al leged that the boy was being taught evil habits by his theosophical instructors. The judge considered the proof offered in sup port of the complaint good enough to justify the father’s anxietv. There is a mountain population in eight states of the South variously estimated at from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000. A century and a half of living apart has made them back ward in proportion to the degree of their isolation. In occasional fertile valleys pros perity has maintained culture, comfort, and religion at a normal level. The mass of the population, however, lived in seclusion, poverty, and ignorance. In one township forty-eight per cent of the population were church members. From -this high water mark the. percentage fell away until low tide was reached at nine
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