These two scrapbooks, compiled by Reverend Arthur Abraham, document the history of the Church Army in the U.S.A. from 1927 to 1932 with a 1980 letter. The British organization crusaded by doing "aggressive Evangelistic work under the auspices of the Episcopal Church of America." The scrapbooks contain many photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings, and pasted letters that provide a detailed account of the missionary work primarily in New York, though also in southern states like North and South Carolina.

The Church Army is an evangelistic organization founded in England in 1882 by Reverend Wilson Carlile. The goal of the organization was to bring together a team, primarily of soldiers and officers, to act as evangelists for the Church of England.

Arthur Abraham was an Englishman involved in the Church Army who was “preparing for a crusade ... to do aggressive Evangelistic work under the auspices of the Episcopal Church of America.” Cadet Abraham left London for New York on April 23, 1927, to demonstrate the English manner of evangelism to America. His work took him throughout the state of New York, into Connecticut and Rhode Island, and briefly down to North and South Carolina, where he played piano until he went back to England for further training in 1929.

When Reverend Abraham returned to America a few months later in 1929, he had been promoted to captain and led several missions, including the Diocese of Albany, New York. During the period before his 1932 retirement, Abraham assisted the Diocese in Vermont and helped construct a log church in Shinhopple, New York, where he baptized dozens of people. Throughout Reverend Abraham’s service in the Church Army, he maintained scrapbooks that document his experience, in addition to a 1980 letter of reflection he sent to a woman researching the history of the American chapter of the Church Army.