Josiah Strong Quotations

If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the results of this competition of races will be the 'survival of the fittest?'

Furthermore, it is significant that the marked characteristics of this race are being here emphasized most.

For the same reason the saloon, together with the intemperance and the liquor power which it represents, is multiplied in the city.

Here, also, has been evolved the form of government consistent with the largest possible civil liberty.

Our fifty principal cities contain 39.3 per cent of our entire German population, and 45.8 per cent of the Irish. Our ten larger cities only nine per cent of the entire population, but 23 per cent of the foreign.

There is abundant reason to believe that the Anglo-Saxon race is to be, is, indeed, already becoming, more effective here than in the mother country.

The mission of the Anglo-Saxon has been largely that of the soldier; but the world is making progress, we are leaving behind the barbarism of war; as civilization advances, it will learn less of war, and concern itself more with the arts of peace, and for these the massive battle-ax must be wrought into tools of finer temper.

This is due partly to the fact that Americans are much better fed than Europeans, and partly to the undeveloped resources of a new country, but more largely to our climate, which acts as a constant stimulus.

America is to have the great preponderance of numbers and of wealth, and by the logic of events will follow the scepter of controlling influence.

It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxons for an hour sure to come in the world's future... the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled... .Whether the extinction of inferior races... seems to the reader sad or otherwise, it certainly appears probable.

Every one is free to become whatever he can make of himself; free to transform himself from a rail splitter or a tanner or a canal-boy, into the nation's President. Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers. Wealth, position, influence, are prizes offered for energy; and every farmer's boy, every apprentice and clerk, every friendless and penniless immigrant, is free to enter the lists.

There the union of Church and State tends strongly to paralyze some of the members of the body of Christ. Here there is no such influence to destroy spiritual life and power.

Nothing more manifestly distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon than his intense and persistent energy, and he is developing in the United States an energy which, in eager activity and effectiveness, is peculiarly American. This is due partly to the fact that Americans are much better fed than Europeans, and partly to the undeveloped resources of a new country, but more largely to our climate, which acts as a constant stimulus.

The city has become a serious menace to our civilization... It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.

In Europe the various ranks of society are, like the strata of the earth, fixed and fossilized. There can be no great change without a terrible upheaval, a social earthquake.

Long before the thousand millions are here, the mighty centrifugal tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the United States, will assert itself.

The city is the nerve center of our civilization. It is also the storm center,

It is not necessary to argue to those for whom I write that the two great needs of mankind, that all men may be lifted up into the light of the highest Christian civilization, are, first, a pure, spiritual Christianity, and, second, civil liberty.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

Not only does the proportion of the poor increase with the growth of the city, but their condition becomes more wretched.

Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely create widespread disaster.

As a rule, our largest cities are the worst governed.

It may be easily shown, and is of no small significance, that the two great ideas of which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent are having a fuller development in the United States than in Great Britain.

The city has become a serious menace to our civilization It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.

Heretofore there has always been in the history of the world a comparatively unoccupied land westward, into which the crowded countries of the East have poured their surplus populations.

There are many in the Church as well as out of it who need to learn that Christianity is neither creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitaly connected with a loving Christ.

The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history - the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled.

The Anglo-Saxon has established himself in climates totally diverse - Canada, South Africa, and India - and, through several generations, has preserved his essential race characteristics. He is not, of course, superior to climatic influences; but even in warm climates, he is likely to retain his aggressive vigor long enough to supplant races already enfeebled.

We have seen... that, although England is by far the richest nation of Europe, we have already outstripped her in the race after wealth, and we have only begun the development of our vast resources.

The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.

What if it should be God's plan to people the world with better and finer material?

There are no more new worlds. The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken.