At the opening of the nineteenth century three per cent. of the people
of this country lived in cities, ninety-seven per cent. in the
country. At the rate migration is now going from country to city in
twenty years there will be ten millions more people in the cities than
in the country. This means a change of civilization, and new problems
to solve. It means a day when cities will control in state and
national elections, and if ignorance and vice control our cities, then
virtue and intelligence as saving influences will not suffice to save
us. The ignorance prominent in the machinery of large cities is
illustrated by the police force of New York City. When applicants for
positions on the police force were being tested a few years ago, the
question was asked: "Name four of the six New England States." Several
replied: "England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales." Another question was:
"Who was Abraham Lincoln?" As many as ten answered: "He was a great
general." One said: "He discovered America;" another said: "He was
killed by a man name Garfield;" and another's answer was, "He was shot
by Ballington Booth."
The growth of large cities means the growth of slum-life. Hear me, you
who live out in the uncrowded part of the country. Maud Ballington
Booth tells of finding five families, living in one attic room in New
York City, with no partitions between. Here they "cook, eat, sleep,
wash, live and die," in the one room. In our large cities are armies
of children, whose shoulders "droop with parental vice," whose feet
are fast in the mire of miserable conditions, whose hovel homes line
the sewers of social life, and who are cursed and doomed by
inheritance.
Some twenty or more years ago, a Chicago paper that had money behind
it, and could have been sued for damages said: "The man who controls
the purse strings of this city, the school board and board of public
works, is the vilest product of the slums, a saloon keeper, a gambler,
a man a leading citizen of this city would not invite into his home."
That man then controlled the purse strings of the great city of
Chicago. I am glad to say a better man holds the place today. Hannibal
could not save Carthage; Demosthenes could not save Greece; Jesus
himself could not save Jerusalem. Can we save the cities of this
republic?
Yet our lads and lassies are eager to leave the country and go to
large cities, where gas-lit streets are thronged with humanity and
entertainments provided every hour.
A country boy said to me: "Mr. Bain, you go everywhere; you see
everything; I live out here in the country and see nothing." I have
tried it all. For about twenty-eight years I lived in the country.
Since then my life has been in cities and on railroad trains between
the oceans. My experience is, there is no life that keeps the heart so
pure and the mind so contented as life in the country.
Some years ago I gave two addresses at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on
Saturday evening a popular lecture, and on Sunday an address to young
men. I had the popular lecture made but not the Sunday talk. For three
months I promised myself to get that lecture but kept on delaying. As
I neared the time I hoped something would prevent my going. The time
came, I was at Ocean Grove, knew I would have a great audience, for
the day was ideal, and still I did not have the lecture except in
skeleton form. After breakfast Sunday I began to walk the floor,
working out clothing for that skeleton and racking my brain for
climaxes. My wife was with me and she never would worry over my having
nothing to say. Into every sentence I would weave she would inject a
piece of her mind about home or children or some woman's dress or
bonnet. I said: "This is a trying time with me, won't you take a
stroll along the beach and let me be alone today?" Like a good wife
she gratified my request, and left me to work and worry over that
lecture. At four o'clock p.m., I could not see daylight, and in the
darkness cried out: "O Lord, if you will help me this time I won't ask
you again for awhile." The Lord did help me. My friends said I never
did so well as that evening. At the close of the lecture the audience
arose and handkerchiefs, like so many white doves, fluttered in the
air. In the midst of that scene, an old superannuated minister of the
New York Methodist Conference planted a kiss on my cheek, and I have
wondered often, why a man should have thought of that instead of a
woman.
At the close of the service a friend said: "That must have been the
proudest moment of your life, for surely I never witnessed such a
scene."