Amerikai Magyar Reformátusok Lapja, 1912 (13. évfolyam, 1-52. szám)

1912-12-28 / 52. szám

AMERIKAI MAUYAR REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

■ >'2. sz. December 28.

come. The effection which binds you to the country of your birth is a proof of that capacity for love which will make you a valuable citizen of the new land. I reverence the spirit which is enting back today Greeks and Bulgarians to fight the battles of their fatherland. My own grandfather was born in Wales and never lost his love for the country of his birth and I to-day feel a sense of pride in a great Welshman like Lloyd-George of the British Cabinet, but yet America has a right to demand that all of our affection be not turned back; that we care not merely for the country of our ancestors but also for the country of our descendants; that to this land which gives us our bread and butter we should give some measure of devotion. After all none of our immigrants came here under compulsion but voluntarily to better themselves and America has a right to demand of them some loyalty 'the sake of their own well being äs well as hers. There are injustices here which cry aloud for ■\redress but the,,

of foreigners bu. -MCe of

citizenc.

I am sure that you will agree with me in this and yet the fact remains that not all of our Protestant churches among foreign speaking people are doing anything like their full duty toward making America God’s country. For instance, I am told that only the other day a certain foreign speaking pastor, not of our own denamination ,in his pulpit thanked God that he had been a resident twenty years in America without being naturalized and advised his people never to be naturalized, and yet that man for all those years had eaten the bread of America and had been paid by an American church! Surely common gratitude alone should have been j sufficient to prevent such remarks. Perhaps this is a rare instance, but there are sins fo omission as well as of commission. Are we here doing all that we might for this cause of goood citizenship? How many of our church publications in foreign languages had one word to say last week about the duties of Christians j citizenship just before a presidential election, or how many of our pastors i referred to the subject in any way to their people? Yet this is a matter of far greater importance to all who live in the United States than any discussion of affairs in j Europe can be. Self preservation alone ought to lead us to put our churches in line with the forces that make for Americanization. The churches in this country which refuse to give English any part in their service or in their Sunday School almost without exception weaken

and die. Even if some few survive, they lose hundreds of their young folks who drift into religious indifference. We sannot expect and we ought not desire to naintain Italian churches or Hungarian -hurches where the emphasis is primarily oá the country from which the members have come. Christ’s great saymg that vko oever saveth his life must lose it applies not merely to individuals but to churches, and hard as it may be for some of us to see the gradual loss of the peculiar national features in our church life, we ought to rejoice that we are fulfilling our ministry; for in the measure in which we lose our distinctive organization for Italians or Hungarians as the years roll on we may be able to introduce into the American churches elements of •eauty and a fullness of life which it has not now. Let us therefore while we carry on our service in foreign tongues, prepare ! while yet there is time for the entrance especially of the young people into the ( noblest Ámen'1*- life' for, maik my words, in spite of ourselves, especially in his yreat city, our young people will be \mericanized The question is what sort of Americans will they become, Americans of the semi-criminal gangs of the streets or Americans of the home and of the rliurch. We cannot save souls in a vacuum All salvation is for service. We cannot preach a gospel which has no reference to affairs of cleanliness, of law and order, of the well being ot the neighborhood in which we live. The way in which men express their for Christianity must be in their good citizenship, and good citizen- hip means something more than devotion to the past—a backward look to the country which we have left. We must, if we are Christians, care for the conditions around about us here in America. We must give curselves in service to this land in order that it may become a country of God.

I am sure you will agree with me in n this land yet you may think that I have spoken somewat warmly. Remember how you might feel were conditions reversed.

If, for example, there were a great American immigration into Italy or Hungary, would not you be concerned that the ministers whom you employed in the churches among the Americans in those countries should promote an actively sympathetic attitude toward the land in which they were living? As passionately as any of you love beautiful Italy, or Hungary with its long record of national life, or Bohemia with its years of resistance to persecution, so passionately do I, so passionately does the Presbyterian church love America and we plead for our country. We plead for

our country because we love the world and we believe that God has a destiny for America greater than any of our dreams. We belive that she is chosen by Him to be a servant proclaiming righteous brotherhood and democracy to all the nations of the earth, We love our country because of her fertility, her breadth, and her beauty. We love her because of her history, but we love her still more because of our hopes. We love her most because of our conviction of her destiny among the nations, and to realize that destiny requires the ardent devotion of us all

In this spirit our conduct of classes in English and for naturalization becomes holy into God, because behind them as behind all uor work is a loying to deep for full ulterance, that our country may be God’s country.

Norman M. Thomas.

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Fentebb közöltük a magyar reformatus- ság igaz barátjának. Rev. M. Thomashak nagyérdekü cikkét, miután óhajtjuk, hogy olvasóink is ismerjék meg, mint vélekednek az amerikaiak Amerika jövőjéről.

A TANULÁS A BOLDOGULÁS ÚTJA.

Tisztelt Szerkesztő Ur!

A múlt levelemben, melynek becses lapjában szíveskedett helyt adni, azt fejtegettem, hogy miként lehet szegény szülőktől származott ifjaknak és hölgyeknek középiskolában tanulni. Ebben a levelemben arra a kérdésre óhajtok megfelelni. hogy miért szükséges az. hogy az amerikai magyar ifjak és leányok gimnáziumban és egyetemen tanuljanak.

Sokan- vannak a magyar szülők között, akik azt állítják, hogy ha az apa szegény, legyen a fia is szegény: szégyen volna egy közönséges paraszt fiúnak vagy leánynak középiskolába menni! Tanulni csak uraknak kellene.

Az ilyen okosodás helytelen, sőt vétkes. Igen, vétkezik az a szülő, aki megvonja gyermekétől az alkalmat arra, hogy magát magasabb polcra emelje. Minden ' : jó szülőnek arra kell törekedni, hogy gyermekét a megélhetés ösvényére vezesse. S ha, például, két ösvény van a kezdő előtt: az egyik erős, a másik könnyebb; miért ne választhatná ő a könnyebbiket?

Ha egy gyári munkás látja, hogy fiát orvosnak, ügyvédnek, papnak vagy más hivatalnoknak nevelheti, miért kárhoztatná őt az izzasztó gyári munkára ? Azért, mert az apja is gyári munkás?

Avagy a tanulás csak az uraknak való mesterség? Nem! A tudományra a szegény embernek több szüksége van, mint a gazdagnak. A gazdag megél tudomány