Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/36

24 eighty buildings, worth more than $3,000,000, while as many more have land or building-funds. Third, how blessedly this sets forth the vital unity of Christ's church, "that they may all be one," and also distinguishes them from all other religious bodies. "Come out from among them and be ye separate."

This association work is divided into local (the city or town), state or home mission, the international and foreign mission.

The local is purely a city or town work. The "state," which I have called the home mission, is thoroughly to canvass the State, learn where the association is needed, plant it there, strengthen all existing associations, and keep open communication between all. This is also the international work, but its field is the United States and British Provinces, under the efficient management of this committee.

As has been said, the convention of 1866 appointed the international committee, which was directed to call and arrange for state and provincial conventions. This is the result: in 1866, no state or provincial committee or conventions. Now, thirty-three such committees, thirty-one of which hold state or provincial conventions, together with a large number of district and local conferences.

In 1870, Mr. R. C. Morse, a graduate of Yale College, and a minister of the Presbyterian Church, became the general secretary of the committee and continues such to-day. Of the missionary work of the committee the most conspicuous has been that at the West and South. In 1868, the convention authorized the employment of a secretary for the West. This man, Robert Weidansall, a graduate of Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, was found working in the shops of the Pacific Railroad Company at Omaha. He had intended entering the ministry, but his health failed him. To-day there is no question as to his health—he has a superb physique, travels constantly, works extremely hard, and has been wonderfully successful. When he began there were thirty-nine associations in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee. There was only one secretary, and no building. Now there are nearly three hundred associations, spending more than one hundred and