ART. VI. EUXINE CHRISTIANITY AND THE EPWORTH LEAGUE1

MR. PRESIDENT, AND ALL PROSPECTIVE PRESIDENTS: My theme is Euxine Christianity and the League. What does "Euxine" mean? Perhaps you have searched Webster's International for the word but been unable to find it. Then you have turned to the Supplement, with its tens of thousands of latest coinages of English, but in vain. Then you have gone to the two great folios of Funk and Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary, but even here it was missing. Everybody has heard of the Euxine Sea, but our dictionary-makers seem never to have heard of anything else that could be called euxine. If I had here a young Greek from our youngest mission over in Lowell, he would very quickly enlighten you. He would tell you that "euxine" is a Greek word for which the English language has no equivalent. It expresses an active and habitual friendliness toward aliens. The Greek term is often translated "hospitable," but it means much more than this. It means, for example, the spirit manifested by the Good Samaritan toward the poor alien who in going down to Jericho fell among thieves. But while I should call the Good Samaritan a notable example of a euxine gentleman, the word properly covers a yet broader meaning, for it expresses not merely the friendliness which is prompted by compassion for a person in distress, but also the friendliness which is prompted by an honest appreciation of the excellencies and the achievements of the foreigner. Obviously a Christian people like our own greatly needs a word of this precise meaning, and if ever I prepare a dictionary of English you may be sure of finding "euxine" inserted in its proper place.

What is meant by "Euxine Christianity" in my theme is now plain. It is an active and habitual Christian friendliness to the foreigner, whether this friendliness be prompted by admiration for his excellencies or by compassion for his distresses. But why now do I couple with this the Epworth League? For three reasons. First, because the League is striving to reach the highest

1 An imaginary address, prepared for a not-yet-scheduled Convention of all Epworth League Chapters within the bounds of the United States

attainable type of Christian character and anything short of the euxine type is not entitled to be called Christian. Second, because, from the promptings of compassion, the League has a call to cultivate euxine Christianity-a call never before equalled in urgency. Third, because, from the promptings of appreciation for the foreigner, the League has a call to cultivate euxine Christianity-a call never before equalled in urgency.

The just limits of the present address forbid the attempt to explain and enforce these three propositions. On the first I will only remark that one of the two all-summarizing commandments of our Lord is that we shall love our neighbor as ourselves, our neighbor being any human creature who has any need of us. Even in the ancient Jewish law it was written: "The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." My second proposition I pass with the simple reminder that there is not a pagan foreigner in all the world who should not excite our compassion by reason of his ignorance of God and his ignorance of his possibilities of fellowship with God; and that there is not a Mohammedan or Christian foreigner who is not to be pitied-if for no other reason, because of political disabilities and because of laws requiring of him two or three or more of the best years of his life in compulsory military service, often in support of rulers whom he cannot respect or willingly obey. Every missionary address to which you have ever listened has been an enforcement and reinforcement of my second proposition. To the third, then, let us turn our attention. Leaving aside all promptings of Christian compassion, let us ask ourselves what other voices are calling upon us to cultivate friendly feelings and active helpfulness toward the foreigner who may come within the range of our possible personal influence. Let us inquire what facts creditable to the foreigner emphasize the duty of our League to honor him and to seek his good.

In pursuing this inquiry I shall assume that the overwhelming majority of my present hearers are native Americans. Not a few of you are of New England birth. You are proud of the Puritan stock which made New England world-renowned. You are proud of the influence which New England has exerted upon

the literature and laws and life of the American people. You and I have inherited a deep conviction that no nation on the face of the earth can for a moment compare with the one which is ours by birthright. In our view it is preeminently the land of liberty, of popular intelligence, of invention, of moral ideals and of pure religion. We look askance at the immigrant whatever his nationality. We do not consciously grudge him a place and a chance under American conditions, but we wish to have as little as possible to do with him. We hope some missionary will draw him into his mission-hall and minister to his religious needs, and that in case he or his family fall sick some devoted deaconess will discover the case and minister to him. We are willing to send annually a few dimes to the missionary and our castoff clothing to the deaconess, but beyond this we prefer to have nothing to do with the business. We are native Americans, these immigrants are of a different caste, they belong to "the foreign-born."

Alas, alas, how quickly we have forgotten that Miles Standish, and John Alden, and the fair Priscilla were also, all of them, in the ranks of the foreign-born. And how wickedly have we forgotten that many of those of whom we, as New Englanders, are most proud, were not of Puritan lineage, or even of English speech. Is New England proud of her "Cradle of Liberty," Faneuil Hall? It was the lame and orphaned son of a poor French immigrant who gave it to us. Do American patriots thrill at every recital of "the midnight ride of Paul Revere"? Remember that he, too, was the child of an immigrant Frenchman. Does every Epworthian prize his heritage in Longfellow and Whittier and Julia Ward Howe? Each of these was in part of Huguenot ancestry, and was proud to have it known. It will do us good to remember that America has never produced a great poet, or a world-famed writer of any description, whose ancestry was not at a slight remove of foreign birth.

If from literature we turn to music our dependence upon foreign peoples is even more manifest. What American composer has a name outside of the United States? The founder of the first Conservatory of Music in our country was Eben Tourjee, an American Methodist, but the son of an emigrant from France, and

as poor as the poorest. Theodore Thomas, Carl Zerrahn, George Henschell, Walter Damrosch, Alfred Hertz, Carl Faelten, Wilhelm Gericke, Frank Kneisel, Clara Baur, Gustav Stoeckel, P. A. Schnecker-such are the best known of our great names in this field, and not one of them is of American, or even of English descent. One honor we might be thought to have won. The great world has applauded our "Jubilee Singers"-but even these were descendants, not of the ancestry in which we glory, but of black men wickedly stolen from their homes in darkest Africa.

In military achievement Anglo-Americans may well be humble. All authorities agree that but for the timely aid of Lafayette and Rochambeau our fathers would never have won their freedom from Great Britain. But for Baron Steuben's drill, and Muhlenburg's pluck, and De Kalb's strategy, and for cannon cast in German-American foundries, the rude armies of the great and good Washington would assuredly have failed. In our Civil War the services of our foreign-born soldiers were of incalculable value. To-day two of our Brigadier Generals are Germans. It may well be doubted whether among our generals of any grade even one can be found of purely Puritan ancestry. Our navy has a glorious history, yet its supreme achievement, the one which, as has been said, "compelled the reconstruction of all the navies of the world" -I mean the introduction of the turret-type of warship, was the work of one humble immigrant from Sweden and his name was John Ericsson. Remember this whenever in an immigrant crowd you see a Swede. But you are getting restive. You feel like protesting against my unwelcome facts. You interrupt me, saying, "Surely we may be proud of our American inventors. No people has produced such inventors as we." Your patriotic feeling is creditable, but let us not to be too confident. We may have failed to give to the foreigner his just due in this field. Yankees are not the only people who invent. Neither telescope nor microscope is of our invention. Three weeks ago I asked the proprietor of a great factory in Massachusetts to show me his waterwheel. He took me to the pit in which it was at work, and in answer to my question explained its points of superiority over all the old-fashioned types, over-shot or under-shot. But who was

its inventor? He named a Frenchman. Even the man who figured out the angular belting by which the power of the French waterwheel was carried with least possible loss, to its Yankee shafting, was an engineer who got his instruction in Heidelberg, Germany. So the owner told me. Then I thought of the great turbine waterwheels at Niagara, the most powerful in the world, and I said to myself, Surely, there my countrymen must have triumphed. Alas, when later I investigated the origin of those great turbines, I found that they were designed and built by Swiss engineers selected after a competition in which the highest engineering skill of the five leading nations of the world was represented. Our Yankee nation failed to win.

Then I was further sobered by remembering that the first trolley car I ever saw was in Germany, and that the first automobile was built not in America, but in France. Also the first dirigible balloon. As Americans we claim the telephone, and what is so wonderful as that? It was indeed a Boston invention, the marvelous work of Professor A. Graham Bell, at that time a professor in Boston University. Alas, I must add that this wonderful inventor also was not a native American, he was one of the foreign-born, a son of rugged Scotland. Shall we turn to Nikola Tesla, of New York, to make good our national credit? Alas, he is only an immigrant boy of Croatian birth. Ask the General Electric Company the name of their most eminent electrician and the answer will be C. P. Steinmetz, a German. If in this field anything excels the telephone, it is wireless telegraphy; and who has given this to the world? Not your Yankee inventor, but Marconi of Italy.

By this time the great thought must have pressed in upon you that every people is entitled to our honor, and that the American people, more than any other, is a debtor to all. The true American does not glory in so petty a thing as a personal pedigree, even though it run back to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. He remembers that brave Dutchmen from Holland colonized Manhattan before ever the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, and that long before the arrival of the Dutch the Spaniards had founded Saint Augustine and Pensacola. He recalls the curious fact that the first white child born in the settlement of the Hollanders on