Part 8 (1/2)
”The transition which is now going on from the old days of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng to the new period of commercial development throughout all Southeastern Alaska must have a profound effect upon the future of this people.
”More pupils applied for admission to the Sheldon Jackson School at Sitka this year than could possibly be accommodated. The industrial departments of this inst.i.tution have received careful attention.
The general claim of all this work is to give full practical and theoretical training, with a view to preparing the girls for the task of home-making and the boys as wage earners.” [Footnote: Woman's Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.]
This aim holds true also for the schools of all Protestant Missions in the far North.
Education is one of the expressions of the pa.s.sionate desire and purpose for betterment of those who gave their impress to our national life. Hamilton Mabie says: ”Among Americans education is not only a discipline, a training; it is also a symbol. It means living an ampler life in a larger world.”
The church-Home Missions--from the beginning has been the largest factor in the spread of schools and colleges--the greatest single educative force of this country.
The record of the Home Mission activities of the various denominations tells the story of the founding of academies and colleges, throughout the length and breadth of the land. In Kansas the State Normal School, State Agricultural College and the State University were founded by Home Missionaries.
Of the great Eastern universities and colleges it will be recalled that many were established by the Christian church. Among these are Harvard, Williams, Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Va.s.sar and many others.
Home Missions is still an active and deeply needed educative force. It brings the most powerful influence to the great groups of the neglected in our land, giving them visions of bettered physical conditions, yearnings after higher spiritual purposes, and determinations for a fuller realization of life in all its meaning, with the power of attaining these ideals.
IV
A HEALING FORCE
”During the spring months an epidemic of diphtheria and other infectious diseases visited a district of nine or ten villages in New Mexico. Many children succ.u.mbed to these diseases, the number of those who died being about one-tenth of the entire population of the district.
”No people in the world are kinder-hearted than the Mexican people. Everybody, even the children, visits the sick, and attends the _velorios_ (wakes) and funeral rites of the dead, without regard to the contagious character of the disease.
”This fatal custom is re-enforced by a fatalistic philosophy.
Whatever befalls one, he receives it with an '_Asi me toco_' (It was my fate). Whatever comes, he says:
”'_Es par Dios_' (It is of G.o.d). Each man has his appointed time to die. Until that time he is safe, and when that time comes nothing can save him. There is no such thing as contagion; disease strikes when and where G.o.d will. Medicine will cure, if it is the will of G.o.d. What the medicine may be is of little importance; a gla.s.s of water will cure as well as anything else, is a frequent saying, if it is the will of G.o.d.
”She, the missionary nurse, thereupon took up her station in the sick room, kept out the numerous callers, administered ant.i.toxin, and nursed the child back to life. She had saved the child. She gave the ant.i.toxin treatment in other cases where the parents were willing. She thus treated fifteen cases, losing only one.”
”The healing of the seamless dress, Is by our beds of pain.
We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again.”
Of all the compelling qualities that drew humanity irresistibly to Him, the compa.s.sion of the Christ was the most winning. This constraining love was the very heart of His Gospel.
The ma.s.ses of the suffering in His day knew only the ostracism of society because of their affliction.
The blind must sit idly through the glory of the day by the dusty road-side, begging bread from the pa.s.sing throng; the crippled lay in their misery and impotence at the gateways of the temples, sustained by the occasional coins tossed by the more fortunate as they hurried by. Nervous and mental sufferers must range through the wilds of deserts and waste places, or share the tombs where the lepers took refuge, being judged possessed of devils and fit only to be outcasts.
The pity of Christ, as well as His power to heal, disclosed a new force in the world-a love that could tenderly share the darkened outlook as well as minister to all the needs of such as these.
The compa.s.sion of the Christ reached and lifted the hopeless heart of suffering humanity as His touch soothed the torturing agony of disease and brought hope and healing into a world hardened to pain.