INTRODUCTION BV2810 Ar the request of the Home Mission Board, the Rev. R. G. MacBeth prepared for the Presbyterian Summer School a series of lectures on the history and progress of our work in Canada. Through residence and travel in different parts of the Dominion, intimate association with various departments of the Church and considerable research in connection with other literary work, Mr. MacBeth has special qualification for the undertaking. As the Board has been in receipt of many requests for a Home Mission textbook, proposal was made that the lectures be published for use throughout the Church. Mr. MacBeth has kindly placed them at the disposal of the Board without any financial interest in their publication, and the Board now issues them in book form with the hope and prayer that the Great King and Head of the Church may bless all efforts made to deepen interest in the tremendous work we have to do in Canada. ANDREW S. GRANT, Convener Home Mission Board. 069 OUR TASK IN CANADA CHAPTER I. VALUE AND USE OF THE CHURCH. OUR interest in Christian missions turns on our estimate of the Church of Jesus Christ. Our day is sceptical in some directions as regards the Church, yet professes much respect for Jesus Christ; but in a day when we consider organization one of the most highly necessary elements of success, business or political, our respect for Jesus Christ should make it obligatory on us to believe that He would found an organization to disseminate His ideas. Our appraisement of Jesus Christ should compel us to believe that He organized something for that purpose, even if we had no record of its inception. But the Holy Scriptures do not leave us in any uncertainty here. God's most ancient organizations on the earth are the family and the Church. The family precedes the Church, and to this day the Christian home is the citadel of the nation. But religion, which is the intercourse of the soul with God, and the activity resultant from that intercourse, had to be propa 5 |