Top 26 Quotes & Sayings by Josiah Strong

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American priest Josiah Strong.
Last updated on November 9, 2024.
Josiah Strong

Josiah Strong was an American Protestant clergyman, organizer, editor, and author. He was a leader of the Social Gospel movement, calling for social justice and combating social evils. He supported missionary work so that all races could be improved and uplifted and thereby brought to Christ. He is controversial, however, due to his beliefs about race and methods of converting people to Christianity. In his 1885 book Our Country, Strong argued that Anglo-Saxons are a superior race who must "Christianize and civilize" the "savage" races, which he argued would be good for the American economy and the "lesser races".

Furthermore, it is significant that the marked characteristics of this race are being here emphasized most.
As a rule, our largest cities are the worst governed.
Not only does the proportion of the poor increase with the growth of the city, but their condition becomes more wretched. — © Josiah Strong
Not only does the proportion of the poor increase with the growth of the city, but their condition becomes more wretched.
Here, also, has been evolved the form of government consistent with the largest possible civil liberty.
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?'
Long before the thousand millions are here, the mighty centrifugal tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the United States, will assert itself.
There are no more new worlds. The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken.
Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.
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.
The city has become a serious menace to our civilization... It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely create widespread disaster.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The city has become a serious menace to our civilization It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant. — © Josiah Strong
The city has become a serious menace to our civilization It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.
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.
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