McALL MISSION (Mission populaire 5vangelique): A French undenominational, evangelistic mission founded in Paris in 1872 by Robert Whitaker McAll (q.v.). The immediate impulse to this act was the remark of a French working man that the French common people, though opposed to an imposed religion of forms and ceremonies, were ready to hear, if some one would teach them a religion of freedom and earnestness. The mission is addressed, not to Roman Catholics, but to free-thinkers, whether atheists or well disposed to religion, but it is conscientiously opposed to the Church of Rome. Some converts from Roman Catholicism have been made, but the majority of the converts are from the ever-increasing clean in France which has broken with all religion.

The opening, Jan. 17, 1872, of a small shop as an evangelistic hall in Belleville, the communistic quarter of Paris; was the pioneer act of modern city missions in any country. French Protestant pastors and church officers welcomed it and freely lent their aid; the government, still guarding itself sedulously against the dangers inherent in meetings of working men, was quick to perceive that the Mission attx ouvriers, as it was at first called, tended to order; and authorized McAll to open as many halls se he would. In 1888 the work attained its largest number of halls, 130; forty-two being in Paris and its environs, and the others in thirtythree departments, Algeria, Tunis, and Corsica. In 1908 there were but fifty-eight halls, a number of those formerly worked by the mission having been taken over by Protestant churches, and others closed in the interest of better methods. The work is thus far more extensive than in the days of more mission halls, in part owing to boat work and itineracy, in part to larger and more varied use of the belle.

Sunday-schools were introduced into the mission in Jan., 1873, and immediately afterward McAli took advantage of the Thursday half-holiday to open supplementary schools for religious instruction, an example followed by the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The first adult Bible class in France was established in a McAll hall. The Christian Endeavor movement was introduced into France by C. E. Greig, then in charge of work among the young in the mission halls, and, after McAll's retirement, the director of the mission. The Christian Endeavor Society is of inestimable value in regions where there are no Protestant churches with which the converts may unite.

Although the one purpose of the mission is evangelization, many agencies contribute to this end. The halls are centers of temperance and dispensary work, mothers' meetings, fraternal societies, lending libraries, Bible and tract distribution, and an extensive domestic visitation. The first industrial school in France was established in a McAll hall in 1874. The first social settlement in France was founded in 1899 in connection with the work of the mission in Roubaix, and several others have since been opened elsewhere.

In 1878, 1889, and 1900 the McAll Mission, in cooperation with the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the French and the London Tract Societies, carried on evangelistic work in conneotics with the expositions of these years, with continuous religious meetings and an extensive sale and distribution of religious literature.

In 1882, desiring to put the work upon a permanent basis, McAll formed s Board (Comity de direction) of French, English, and American residents of 'Paris. At that time the name of the work was changed from Mission attx ouvriera de Paris, which it had hitherto borne, to its present name, Mission Popttlaire grxingaique de France. The board, however, wishing to associate the founder's name with the work, voted to add the sub-title "The McAll Mission." The president of the board was a prominent business man of Paris, Louis Saalter.

In 1885-88, the London Seaman's Mission lined one of its boats to McAll for work in the coast cities, several permanent stations being the outcome. One of these boats, going up the seine to Paris, aroused an immense interest there. Subsequently two chapel boats, Le Ban Measager and La Bon- Notcvelle, were built for service in the inland waterways of France, and have carried the gospel to many sequestered villages, in some of which permanent work has been established. In

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numerous cases they have been the means of recalling to their ancestral faith the scattered descendants of Huguenots, for generations destitute of religious privileges.

The McAll Mission neither invests money in buildings nor founds churches. Its halls are hired shops, its converts are sent to join the nearest church, in many cases forming the major part of the new accessions. Certain of the converts, mainly Roman Catholics of advanced age, prefer to remain in their own communion, though regularly attending the mission meetings. Exceptions to the rule not to establish churches have been found necessary in Corsica, and in certain parts of France where no Protestant church existed; but in these cases the converts themselves have supplied the funds for building.

The mission is supported by voluntary contributions from Great Britain, America, Protestant Europe, the descendants of Huguenots in South Africa, and an ever-increasing amount from the Protestants of France. In 1883 the American McAll Association, numbering in 1906 sixty-one auxiliaries, was formed to collect funds for the mission, and similar associations have since been formed in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada.

The economy with which this mission is worked is without precedent, due in part to the large proportion of unsalaried workers, and in part to the marvelous genius of its founder for organization. At no time has the average expenses of the halls exceeded a thousand dollars a year, including rent, salaries, running expenses, the due proportion of administrative expenses, and of the extensive itinerating and boat work.

Not being an effort to convert Roman Catholics, and polemics being rigidly excluded from the halls, the mission has been wonderfully exempt from opposition. Through all the evidences of animosity to religion manifested in the French Parliament in recent years no opposition to the mission has found expression. In the early days some atheists of the Belleville quarter made an attack upon it. They were frankly answered and became stanch supporters of the work. In 1898-99, during the virulent anti-Protestant campaign, the mission received some small share of abuse, but it was so strongly entrenched in public confidence that the attack fell powerless.

On Jan. 17, 1892, the twentieth anniversary of the mission was celebrated with signal evidences of the gratitude of the community and the appreciation of the State. Shortly after, McAll resigned the direction of the mission into the hands of his colleague, C. E. Greig, and removed to England. So well had he established the mission that its success has continued to increase and its importance to be recognized. In 1905 the Board of Direction gave to Greig a colleague, S. de Grenier Latour, a young man of noble Huguenot extraction, and created the office of Foreign Corresponding Secretary for America, to which they called Henri Merle d'Aubigne, son of the historian of the Reformation, and for years a worker in the mission.

Louise Seymour Houghton.

Bibliography: H. Bonar, The White Fields of France; or the Story of Mr. M'All's Mission, New York, 1879; idem, Life and Work of Rev. G. Theophilus Dodds ... in Connection with the McAll Mission, ib. 1884; Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire; Records of the McAll Mission, ib. 1887; Mrs. L. S. Houghton, Cruise of the "Mystery" in McAll Mission Work, ib. 1891.