26 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE [1914

those who opposed union with all that courtesy which our
Christianity demands — and will go even beyond this.
Evangelistic work in the district is encouraging. Perhaps
no single year has witnessed so many and so successful evan
gelistic meetings as this. Large accessions have been made
to our churches and there seems to be an evangelistic spirit
not hitherto known. In June a campaign was made in Miss
issippi, in connection with the representative of the Foreign
Board for the district, in the interest of "Evangelism and bet
ter financial system." The effort was cordially received by the
people, the attendance upon the conferences was encouraging;
but it will take time to install new methods in church finance
where old ones have been employed for so many years and
where people do not take quickly to innovations. There is
ground for encouragement however that real advance will
be made in this department of the work.
There is an increasing efficiency in the way presbyterial and
synodical committees are attacking the problem. In an in
creasing number of the presbyteries of the district, group con
ferences are held between field representatives, home mission
committees, home missionaries and representatives from their
churches. In these conferences the needs of the various fields
are carefully studied, the wisdom of the grouping carefully
considered and changes are made wherever they should be
made in the interest of economy and efficiency.
At the meeting of the synodical committees, instead of re
viewing the estimates of needs of individual churches as pre
sented by presbyteries, only the bulk estimate of a presbytery
was considered and this was compared with the grants made
last year, what is being used by the presbytery this year and
what response the churches of the presbytery have made to
the claims and calls of the Board of Home Missions. Then at
these committee meetings policies were discussed, methods for
improving the situation carefully studied and plans laid for
a larger development of the field than heretofore. One of the
questions considered was the advisability of disorganizing
small churches and attaching their members to a single church
in a strategic center, from which these communities where the
smaller churches are located shall be served by the local home
missionary.
In December a rather extensive itinerary was made in the
Presbyteries of Oklahoma and Tulsa in the Synod of Okla
homa. Something like thirty churches were visited and a
hasty survey made of the community in which they are lo
cated, including an effort to find whether there was overlap
ping in these communities. The deliberate conviction was
reached that few communities are over-churched, if we ap