The Foreigner's Soul

Miss Alberta V. Connor
Blissfield, Mich.

This message was delivered at a Women's Missionary Association Branch meeting in Frontier, Michigan (North Ohio Conference) in 1920.

Why does the foreigner find America so different from what he expected? Ah, America is holding aloof from him, is saying by her actions, "Here, you can work for me, but you are nothing to me. You are beneath me. You can never be a part of me. Oh yes, I'll send missionaries to your own land. But you don't need the gospel here."

America is wide awake on most matters, but she has been sleeping for years as far as the foreigner is concerned. The foreigner is in our midst, millions strong, and is here to stay. We let him come only because we need his muscle and pay no attention to him as a neighbor, a needy brother, a human being with lonely, homesick feelings, a man with a soul to save.

He grubs away day in and day out knowing nothing of the inside workings of this Christian nation, living in huddled, filthy, tumble-down quarters. Never entering a true Christian home or church. Having no friendly interest shown him and rarely, if ever, receiving a friendly smile. Mingling only with the slums, and perhaps the first English word he learns to speak is a swear word.

No matter what his ambitions be, he comes home at night too weary to think about night school, even were there one within his each. The foreigner begins to think he has no soul. And if he has a soul, America apparently has failed thus far to discover the fact.

Let us acquaint the foreigner with America by doing as a Christian woman in Buffalo did. Instead of withdrawing before the incoming flood of Italians which surrounded her home, decided to remain and live her life among them as an interpreter of Christian America.

America is doing very little missionary work among the foreigners within her borders. Before we can help the foreigner, we must make him feel that we care more for his soul and body than we do for his muscle. We must make decent living quarters available to him. We must give him a square deal, treat him as if he were a human being. From neighbor, co-laborer, employer, policemen, trainmen, and others he must at least receive civil treatment. It is the life lived in their midst that counts.