THE NEW BABYLON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 25, 14 September 1911, Page 6

THE NEW BABYLON.

There ;wa&, -recently in London a remarkable personality—the Rev.Clmrles, Stelzle—who realises that the ch,urchesi have their work cut out 'to make the great industrial classes listen to them. In the “Outlook” he tolls us how he himself essays the task in that New Babylon—New York—at his church, which he calls “The Labour Temple.” “The Labour Temple,” he says, “is a definite attempt to demonstrate what the church, may do in a very difficult field. It “is situated at the most strategic point in New York City for Btlph vatx ‘experiment. Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, where this enterprise is located, is the junction point of the East Side’s most popular thoroughfares. ■ At certain hours of the day there pass by this corner—on sidewalk and in street, car-—fully one thousand persons every minute. There;are only about a hundred cities in the United States', which have a populhtidh greater, tlnjn ,‘the number of 'who pass this', ; corner during such ain hour..nijid ■ WHERE TH E. WORKERS LIVE. “Here is the! ‘red-light’ district—- , apparently trailfeferrefl from up-town. Hie Temple is ih the midst of it. Then there are the jlance-halls—often hotbeds of vice and obsqnity. 1 There is a cheap,-Bohemia •thi<o'ijghout the district, which is ! Very ’'Attractive to the young'people who hpyi*.been engaged all day.pt hard work in the store and factory!" • This is not a ‘slum’ district—the residents ih the tenements are respectable, people; it is a neighbourhood composed of honest men and women, - who are. as human, as the rest of the wdrld, but with all the frailties ' of mankind in the midst of strong, constant temptation. Just beyond, and within a few minutes’ 'aValking distance, are'the great stores 1 and factories, which employ hundreds of thqusands of young girls as sales-womeri, shirt-waist makers, and operatives in the clothing indusi try. A CONGESTED DISTRICT. “To tbe south and east lie the almost staggering, tenement districts —the most congested section of the world. Within the Labour Temple’‘s parish of about a mile square there are, approximately four hundred thousand people; diving. There are twentyseven blocks each having between three :tud four thousand inhabitants; five have between,.four, and five thousand, and one block has-over five thousand. There is another block which has a density of 1434 persons per acre. And what aUlhUidl of tongues! Every country in the world is represented ii this unique, .parish. Originally there and Scotch and Irish. Then catnOqthe Germans. But there has bbeir a steady procession of races, iiiitil td-day the Russians, Hungarians, Italians, and Poles predominate. Most of these, however, are Jews, which decidedly -complicates the situations sc far as the Protestant Church is concerned. THE CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUND. “The children present an important problem. There are swarms of them. The street is their principal playground. This would not be so bad were it not for the fact that their play is not properly directed. The result is that many of them are arrested for ‘crimes’ which grow out of a perfectly normal desire for amusement. * Over fourteen hundred childrijji, ‘ wjqre , arrested in our parish in one yeaivi—about one-half of them for ‘disorderly conduct.’ The native-born children of foreign-born parents are the greatest ‘offenders’; the parents are too busy earning a living for the family, and-’they are often too ignorant of New York’s temptations, to care properly for their children. A TERRIBLE SITUATION. “But the problem which stands out above every other is the industrial situation—the question of getting a living. That’s why Socialism is so strong. Every summer night openair mootings are conducted upon the street corners, and during the winterseason tire Socialists hold their massmeetings in near-by halls. The ’Temple does not evade this issue. Without committing itself or the church to any particular economic system, it sympathetically talks out with interested

audiences the questions that perplex the workers.\

“This has been called ‘the most difficult field in America,’ ,and for this reason it was selected, because it was desired to make a demonstration of what the church may do in such a community. Naturally, the methods must be different from those employed in the family church. The situation demands an unusual programme. But here’s the point: the church has confessed that it lias practically failed in securing the attention of the people—the churches have either moved out or else they arc steadily losing their influence. We are trying to meet this terribly serious situation—and we use the word ‘terribly’ advisedly. It is just that.

SOMETHING ATTEMPTED, SOMETHING DONE, np; “Our success thus far seerns to indicate that we have struck upon the right principle. We are getting the people. We are winning their friendship. We are breaking down long-time prejudices against the church. We are showing Jew and Catholic, Protestant and Agnostic, just what practical Christianity means—that it’s a tiling which must touch them at every point in their lives seven days in the week. “While we are interested in social and economic problems, we would be untrue to God and to the people were we to evade or omit the distinctively spiritual aspects of life. We discuss religious questions without apology. Our people appreciate opr frankness. Men and women arc getting a new conception of the significance of the Old Gospel. They are being drawn nearer to God. The letters that come to us prove that this is so. “We are wearing out the old peiys. The carpet'is done for. The furnaces are beyond repair. They were old when we came in. The budding is far too small. It was never designed for the work we are carrying on. This work has been accomplished in the face of opposition—mostly from church people, however —and with the severest limitations in physical equipment. " “There is a tremendous hunger on the East Side for real religion. Nowhere else in the world is there so much striving after the higher things as here, and nowhere else is it so hard to satisfy this hunger.”