USA > New York > Our diocese : a study of the history and work of the Church in the Diocese of Central New York > Part 6
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In the fourth place, the Missionary in charge at St. Philip's is a genuine pastor, a devoted priest and faithful
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preacher-a man who commands respect wherever he goes.
In the fifth place, St. Philip's people give to others. They give generously to the Nation Wide Campaign, more generously than some parishes. The Woman's Auxiliary pays its pledge toward the work of that organization regu- larly and has over twenty United Thank Offering Boxes out. In the first half of the year, 1922, they contributed $26.28 toward this fund, one woman offering five dollars that she had earned taking in washing.
Lastly and best of all, St. Philip's is growing constantly, growing in numbers and usefulness. St. Philip's will con- tinue to grow in numbers and usefulness so long as she is willing to lose her life for the Savior and his children.
And what is true of St. Philip's is equally true of any other such church which may be started. Syracuse has probably more colored people than any other city of the diocese, and the established religious agencies were inade- quate. In other places, the wiser plan may be to minister to them through one of the established parishes. It is, however, a practical example of the way missionary enter- prises are begun and fostered until they have acquired strength enough to stand alone.
CHAPTER VIII
INSTITUTIONAL WORK
F ROM the earliest times of the church, when the general orders were given, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations," schools have been one of the most important methods of Christian propaganda. In the Mission fields today, whether in China, in Mexico, or among our own Negroes, Indians, and Mountain Whites, the church schools are often the beginning of Christian education in morals and right living. Nor has this factor been overlooked in the country as a whole. From Maine to California, in almost every diocese the Bishop has at some time started schools for either boys or girls so that Christian ethics as well as the ordinary rudiments of learning might be instilled into the future members of the church.
But partly because of the development of secular schools and partly because of the failure of parents truly to appre- ciate the relative value of Christian ethics, most of the church schools have failed to survive the ever-present com- petition of the more popular public and private schools and one after another has closed its doors after a prolonged struggle to pay expenses. The result is that the youth of the country are growing up with little or no religious and moral training since the teaching that the church naturally gives in her schools can no longer come naturally as a part of a school curriculum, because it is either forbidden or frowned upon in schools depending on popular support. In this diocese of ours, one school only is left, a school for boys at Manlius, a few miles from Syracuse.
St. John's School, Manlius, was founded in 1869 and, unlike so many other church schools, has grown steadily until today it is giving its training to about 400 boys. It is distinctly a college preparatory school working under most
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favorable conditions for instruction, study, and character building. Superimposed on the regime of the ordinary school is a military system of high grade and of great value in installing habits of precision, intensity and regularity. At Manlius, it has been from the first the law and method of government to appeal through the military system to what is best and loftiest in the pupil, to his honor, his ve- racity, his candor, his self-respect, his loyalty, rather than to fear or comfort or popularity or promotion or any moral reward. A resident clergyman holds services in the school, has a class in church catechism and gives careful prepara- tion for confirmation to all who desire it. Bishop Olmsted is President of the Board of Trustees and five out of thir- teen trustees are clergymen. Bishop Huntingdon, speak- ing of the school once said : "It is now a principle under- stood and accepted in education that it must be an education of the whole man. . Naturally, intellectual culture takes the lead and there are still those who think of educa- tion as only the feeding and training of the mind. But that work is reaching out in two directions, downward and upward toward the perfecting of the body by athletics and of the soul by religion." St John's, on its one hundred and twenty acres has generous athletic fields and wise supervis- ion of exercise and competitive sports. The stature of the perfect man, perfect in body, mind and soul, is the ideal of the school.
St. Faith's School, Saratoga Springs. Indirectly, as a part of the second province we have formally agreed to adopt and support a church school for girls-St. Faith's at Saratoga Springs. This school, with about sixty girls is under the direction of a Board of Trustees largely appointed by the conventions of the eight dioceses. It is avowedly charged with furnishing at moderate cost, without profit, a Christian education equivalent to that given in the best high schools. It has been very successful in training
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young womanhood to a keen sense of high ideals and its motto-" Ecce aucillam domini ", "Behold, the hand- maiden of the Lord ", is an index of its spirit. In the list of national priorities for the years, 1922-25, there was in- cluded $30,000 for a much needed study hall which the moderate fees are quite inadequate to provide.
St. Stephen's College, Anandale. Another provincial institution, to which this diocese is committed is St. Stephen's College at Anandale, about twenty miles north of Poughkeepsie. Under the able and stimulating guidance of President Bernard Iddings Bell, this old church college, a few years ago nearly defunct, has taken on new life and offers all the liberal arts training that the best small college of the country gives. In addition it has an unmistakable church atmosphere, free from sentiment and mawkishness, but prevading the place with a sense of the beauty of Christian service. The priority budget just referred to contains items amounting to $110,000 for buildings and maintenance.
St. Luke's Home and Hospital, Utica. There are in the diocese three institutions not educational which are dis- tinctly and directly under the fostering care of the church,
-
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the largest and most important being St. Luke's Home and Hospital in Utica. Started as a home for old ladies by the Rev. Edward Van Deusen, rector of Grace Church, Utica, in 1869, it gradually, with the introduction of nurses to care for the inmates, assumed the role of a hospital, and in 1903, through the generous gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Proctor a real hospital with a capacity of 150 beds was provided. The home accommodates fifteen, and church women of the diocese who can pay the small charge for board are given the preference. The hospital has 32 nurses and in 1921 there were admitted 2,588 patients. The trustees and other officers of the institution must al- ways be members of the church and preference is given to churchmen in selecting the executive officers.
House of the Good Shepherd, Utica. Another most ex- emplary church institution in Utica is the House of the Good Shepherd, a home for destitute and friendless children. This was started in 1872 with five children oc- cupying two rooms in the upper part of a house on Bleecker St. The number gradually increased and in 1903 the corner stone of the new building on Genesee St. was laid.
BE
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The grounds and the north wing of the present building were gifts of the late Thomas R. Proctor. At present there are about 170 children in the home and it is expected that from 75 to 100 more will be cared for in the future. All non-Roman children, if not already baptized, are baptized and brought up in the church, the majority of them being confirmed before they leave the home. Regular services are maintained Sundays and there are usually from 50 to 75 communicants in residence. Children are committed by the County authorities from the central part of the State. Children are also admitted as boarders when the parents or friends are able to pay. A lay reader, a devoted church- man of Utica, has for many years given largely of his time and effort to these children, instructing and teaching them as well as officiating at regular services. It is worth noting that in 1921, in addition to the regular even-song every day, there have been 120 other services and twelve celebra- tions of the Holy Communion, and that there were nineteen baptisms and twenty-one confirmations.
The House of the Good Shepherd, Binghamton. A third eleemosynary institution of the church is the House of the Good Shepherd at Binghamton. This is a church home for old ladies and was started in 1870 by the Society of Mercy of Christ Church, then composed of active, energetic women of earnest faith. It was planned that no one who was sick, hungry or in need should ever be turned from its doors and these ladies by their own voluntary offerings raised $2,400 by which a building was erected on a lot given by the heirs of Colonel Hazard Lewis. A chapel for the home was begun the next year on an adjoining lot given by Mrs. John A. Collier, the building itself being provided by Mrs. Helen S. Wright. The chapel has since been separately administered and is now an independent parish church with more than 200 communicants, and the Home has, after a temporary association with a hospital after the manner of
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St. Luke's Home, Utica, limited its field to the care of old ladies. There is an admission fee of $485 which includes a fund for burial. Only communicants of the church in good standing, residents of the diocese, are eligible to ad- mission, and the trustees are nominated by the rectors of the three city parishes. The house is maintained partly from the income of invested funds amounting to about $10,000 and partly by contributions from the three parishes of Binghamton.
Colleges and Universities. There are in the diocese several colleges and universities, and for many years the diocesan authorities have been concerned with the obvious responsibility of the church for the thousands of young people at those institutions. Even when brought up in church families a young man or woman, amidst the dis- tractions of the new surroundings and alive to the many influences that come from new truths presented in lecture and class rooms, is likely to forego church attendance for a time even if church allegiance is not definitely discarded. Church clubs, for discussions, for addresses and for social purposes have generally been found inadequate even for maintaining interest. Some dozen years ago Bishop Olm- sted provided a considerable sum of money by means of which a large hall was equipped at Cornell University as a home for church students, with the idea that their common love for the church would hold the thirty residents to their faith, and even perhaps through study classes and special services promote the cause of Christianity. But it was not successful, it failed to attract the church students and the responsibility for the building, which was purchased for the diocese by local trustees, has been a heavy burden on those interested.
In the last few years, however, through the Board of Religious Education, a saner and more promising attempt has been made to extend the influence of the church among
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college students under the direction of the Department of Collegiate Education. The primary object of that Depart- ment has been to find and place the right men in churches of College Communities, and to assign definitely the respon- sibility for religious instruction in colleges and universities to a rector or an assistant specially qualified. In certain colleges it is possible for the ministers of the college com- munity to give religious instruction which is credited toward degrees. But the greater amount of such teaching must be given to students who voluntarily present them- selves. These voluntary classes can be organized in or out of the Sunday School as seems best. Much can also be done in the meetings of church societies or religious discus- sion groups. Especially may the annual confirmation class be looked upon not merely as a chance of instructing new candidates, but also as a means of reviewing former instruc- tion with those already confirmed.
The Department of Collegiate Education has large plans for the church and the results of its thought are already evident. In this diocese, the department, with the coopera- tion of the diocese, maintains at Cornell University a student pastor, associated with the local Ithaca parish but devoting himself entirely to personal work among the stu- dents, both men and women. He regularly visits the five or six hundred church students, establishing so far as he can, a pastoral relation with each. He offers his home to all of them and entertains them individually and by groups as far as his means will allow. He has Bible classes in fraternity houses and at his own home and presents large confirmation classes regularly from the student body. He has a special corporate student communion service weekly with an attendance of about seventy-five, the social break- fast following being doubtless an attraction. His personal work is aided by the many letters that are brought or sent to him from the home parishes. The value of this kind of
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follow-up work cannot be over emphasized. Some clergy of the diocese regularly correspond with every member of their parish absent in college, and doubtless such letters are a strong inducement to those students to remain faith- ful to their home ties and teaching. It has also been sug- gested that students, temporarily separated from their home parishes should be especially under the care of the
HOME OF STUDENT PASTOR, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Bishop who might send out pastoral letters to his Student Congregation.
But in general the care of the student body must rest on the local parish priest, who must thus add to his regular parochial work the special, peculiar burden of the hundreds of young people temporarily in his community. In spite of the inherent difficulities, much good work is being done. Thus at Colgate University, the rector is known to be a
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true friend to all the church students and has a real influ- ence over them. So in Elmira College for Women, where one of the local clergy knows all the church girls, has Bible classes and confirmation classes for them and through whom the church is a vital factor in the religious life of the college. This is also true for the other woman's col- lege in the diocese, viz., Wells College at Aurora. For Syracuse University the diocese grants a small sum to one of the city clergy, who is thereby aided in the large amount of merely clerical work involved in keeping track of the large number of church men and women in that great Uni- versity. At Hamilton College, conditions are such that the work is not so readily undertaken but the local rector does all that is possible.
In all this matter the church faces a great responsibility. If the University is rightly looked upon as the center for the formation of ideals in a democracy, then the church must uphold Christran ideals in the University itself. In times like these when conflicting voices are proclaiming widely varying standards, the student has a right to look to the minister of the church he attends as the champion in no uncertain voice of Christ and his Eternal Truth, and the church is under no uncertain obligation to see that her spokesmen are truly fitted both temperamentally and intellectually for such strategic posts.
Reform and Penal Institutions. There is still another obligation resting on the church to which a few words should be devoted, viz., that of caring for her children segregated in the many public and semi-public reform and penal institutions of the diocese. What shall the church reply when she hears those words, "I was sick and in prison and ye visited me not," unless she has at least tried to bring the offices of the church to these unfortunates. Every county has its poor house and its jail, the former often so far away from any parish as to make its personal
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oversight a doubtful responsibility and so be neglected by all. Hospitals in small cities and villages are seldom neglected by the parish priests, especially when their own parishioners are involved, but the large city hospitals are often sadly lacking in systematic parochial care. The various societies of the church, the Men's Guild, the Broth- erhood of St. Andrew, etc., in many parishes assume charge of services at Jails and Homes, (but it is not done through any diocesan organization.) Up to the present the Diocese has done nothing really constructive to obviate the church's neglect of her children in such institutions as the above. The Department of Missions is striving to over- come the deficiency, however, and, it is to be hoped, will in time, shepherd all those of her fold who are living in both public and private institutions. At the George Junior Republic for example, where there are a hundred and thirty boys and girls, some of them sentenced for minor offences and learning by the spirit of the Republic that service is the prime requirement to happiness and right living, no regular church teaching is offered to the children that may be there from Church homes. Largely through the efforts of the late Bishop Alonzo Potter, a beautiful chapel has been built on the grounds and a clergyman from the neighboring parish of McLean holds occasional services. But the church should do more. Then there is the large reformatory at Elmira and the State Prison at Auburn. At this latter, through the work of one of the local priests, a chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew has been formed among the prisoners and a number have been confirmed. At Elmira, where a reformatory for about a thousand young men is located, one of the local clergy does all that he can to minister to the unfortunate children of the church confined behind the stone walls of the great institution. But it is plain that one man who attends faith- fully to his pastoral work in a city parish with five hundred
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communicants can have little time or strength left for the needs of the reformatory.
Other state institutions, each receiving more or less attention from the nearest clergyman according to his inclination, are the Syracuse State School for Mental De- fectives, (634 inmates), the Rome State School for Mental Defectives (2304 inmates), the Oxford State Women's Relief Corps Home (170 inmates), the Binghamton State Hospital (2770 patients), the Utica State Hospital (1867 patients), the Willard State Hospital (2499 patients). Perhaps not much can be done by the church for all those sick, mentally and physically, in the way of Christian teaching. But each one of the hospitals and institutions has in it many of her children in whom she is or should be interested and should therefore maintain a loving oversight. Now, too often, those who in their early years were baptized and confirmed breathe their last alone and unattended and are committed to a numbered grave without the precious services of the church. Shall not the Missionary Spirit of the church be awakened so that these sheep too may be fed ?
CHAPTER IX
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
T HE most natural picture of religious education is al- ways visualized by an artist as a little child at his mother's knee. And rightly, for in no other place and by no other instructor can a child come so readily to know all the things that develop the perfect man. At first the child walks by faith and love. Then the love of God appears as a compelling motive. Finally a sub-conscious moral code is constructed with these others as a background. Such edu- cation is progressive and complete.
But it presupposes two conditions : first that the mother has the inclination and takes the needed time for that tender moral upbringing ; and second that the child is so trained to loving conformity that he is willing to be brought up.
It is scarcely necessary to point out how sadly lacking are both of these conditions in many homes today. The mothers either have too many social and domestic duties, or are far too many hours a day in the army of the world's workers, to have time for regular, continuous, religious education. Gradually, generation by generation, the grasp of families and of individuals on christian verities has lessened until the mother, confronted with the problem of training a new life and, realizing her incompetence, shrinks from even an attempt and sends the child to some sub- stitute.
It is such a feeling indeed that leads parents to say, "We will not hamper our children religiously-they shall not be forced but shall be free to choose for themselves." It would be comparable for them to say, "My children may lie and steal all they please provided they are not found out. We are not sure why stealing is inherently a wrong act and our children may steal or not as they choose."
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Obviously, Society cannot exist on any such basis. Parents must educate children in religion as well as in mathematics. The right way of living, the blessing of service, the nobility of duty, the optimism of faith, and the everlasting reward of the faithful servant are fundamental concepts that parents are bound by the needs of the society
DIAGRAM SHOWING INCREASE IN NUMBER OF
26000
COMMUNICANTS & S.S.SCHOLARS
24000
DIOCESE OF
22000
CENTRAL NEW YORK
20.000
18000
160
14000
NUMBER
12000
10000
SUNDAY SCHOOL SCHOLARS
8000
6000
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
COMMUNICANTS
they live in to pass on to the next generation. And the children in so many cases are ever more and more inde- pendent ; they mature rapidly with almost no childhood to look back upon ; they scorn advice and disregard criticism ; they aim apparently at full self-expression and laugh at parental ideas of self-effacement. Noise, numbers, and nuisance are too often their watchwords. During this
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period of progressively relaxed influence, the Church Sun- day School has continued to move but with less and less momentum.
The children who once attended as a matter of course of late have gone only as they found the classes attractive. The parents have exerted no compulsion, if indeed they have not been themselves responsible for absences. The parents have had no interest in the lessons assigned and the scholars seldom pretended to study. Available teach- ers have become more and more scarce and, with of course notable exceptions, have been often young and inexperi- enced. Small wonder is it that the number of scholars has decreased to the point where in many parishes the school has vanished altogether.
The diagram shows, together, the number of communi- cants in this diocese and the number of Sunday School scholars. It is a striking evidence of the effect of the forces that have been described.
Of course all this has not gone on unheeded by the church. Missionaries have built up parishes from success- ful Sunday Schools. Christianity is even yet taught in out of the way places to boys and girls rather than to adults. And clergy who realize that the continuing life of the church depends on the training of the younger generation will always have large, well-taught Sunday Schools. But in many established parishes, even in this diocese, the Sunday Schools, like parish suppers, are, or have been, a burden on the clergymen, swamped with his many parochial duties. He is too ready in his desire to get along easily to pass over his God-given task of "Feed my lambs" to any substitute who accepts teachers on the same basis, and who allows them to tell stories or discuss baseball during the lesson hour and considers her the best teacher who offers the most attractions to the class, no matter what her teach- ing amounts to.
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No wonder that the church in its late reorganization con- stituted a Department of Religious Education in order that further chaos might if possible be averted, and it is the carefully considered plans of this Department that every parish is now asked to adopt.
The keynote of the new plan is Christian Nurture instead of teaching : for it recognizes that training in religion must include moulding the child's character, teaching him the Bible in its relation to his daily life, leading him in the ways of the Church, fostering his spiritual life and training him in Christian Service.
The series of lessons recommended are found in the so- called Christian Nurture Series of Lessons, prepared for the Department by skilled teachers of experience.
These lessons are all systematically arranged in five parts, or with five aims. In every lesson there is some memory work, some Bible or church information, some appeal to church loyalty, some teaching of devotion and some sug- gestion of practical Christian Service. They are so system- atically arranged in sequence as to secure an orderly advance from course to course, each one being built upon previous instruction and leading up to what follows. Each lesson has a specific aim stated and these aims in succession make a clearly defined pathway up which the child is led to the goal appropriate to each period of his development.
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