only, and is subject to a fine of TWO 
 CENTS a day thereafter. T f ,„;n u„ j.._ __ 
 the day indicated below 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CARD 
 
 m 
 
 Z^MMS&tiFxmEJ®®, tfjaSftEWBLW^r t,w •*»&>' ^v^-v-^w 
 
PAMPHLETS 
 OH 
 
 THF COUNTRY CHURCH 
 
 » * 9 9 
 
 Volume 3 
 
J <£v 
 
 ( o 9 
 
 v. 3 
 
Federal souneil of the churches of Christ in 
 America, What every church should know about 
 its community. 
 
 General Association of Congregational Churches 
 of Massachusetts • Advance reports of various 
 committees, 1908 and 1909 
 
 McElfresh, F, The country Sunday school 
 
 MclTutt, M. B. Modern methods in the country church 
 
 McNutt , M. B. A post-graduate school with a purpose 
 
 Massachusetts Federation of Churches- Quarterly 
 "bulletin* Facts and factors. October 1910 
 "The part of the church in rural progress as 
 discussed at the Amherst Conference . w 
 
 Root, E. T* State federations 
 
 Taft, A. B« The mistress of the rural manse 
 
 Taft, A. B. The tent mission 
 
 Taylor, G. Basis for social evangelism with rural 
 applications 
 
 Wells, G. F, An answer to the Hew England country 
 church question, 
 
 Wells, G* F. What our country churches need 
 
 Wilson, W, H. The church and the transient 
 
 Wilson, W. H* Conservation of boys 
 
 Wilson, W. H. The country church 
 
 Wilson, W. H. The country church program 
 
 Wilson, W* H. Don't breathe on the thermometer 
 
 Wilson, W. H. The farmers' church and the farmers* 
 ,'v college 
 
 co Wilson, W. II. Getting the worker to church 
 
Wilson, W, H. The girl on the farm 
 
 Wilson, W. H. How to manage a country life 
 institute 
 
 Wilson, W. H. "Marrying the land." 
 
 Wilson, W. H. ITo need to "be poor in the country 
 
 Wilson, W» H. Synod's opportunity 
 
 Wilson, W. H. What limits the rural Evangel 
 
 «3«9 3?«<» 
 
 The church and country life. Pamphlet issued 
 "by the Board of Home Missions of the Presby- 
 terian Church. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/synodsopportunit03wils 
 
Department of Church and Labor, the Board of Home Missions 
 of the Presbyterian Churchinthe U.S.A. ,156 Fifth Ave., NewYork 
 
 Synod's Opportunity 
 
 By WARREN H. WILSON, Ph.D. 
 
 The state of the country churches 
 offers to the great Synods of the Pres- 
 byterian Church the opportunity of 
 their history. The country churches 
 are said to have supplied two-thirds of 
 the ministers and three-fourths of the 
 elders in the city churches. Some 
 among them maintain the spiritual 
 strength of the past. A few country 
 churches are leading in financial and 
 moral influence as in the old time. The 
 greater number, however, of the coun- 
 try churches are in distress. Their min- 
 isters are so ill-paid as to be almost en- 
 slaved, while the communities in which 
 the churches are placed have prospered 
 greatly. The changes in population 
 about the country church have altered 
 the position once held by these 
 churches and disturbed the forces of 
 the community in a way to which the 
 country churches have been exceed- 
 ingly sensitive. A complete reconstruc- 
 tion of country churches is needed in 
 the leading agricultural states. 
 
 In these leading states the Synod is 
 a missionary organization independent 
 of the Board of Home Missions. These 
 great Synods have their opportunity in 
 
the fact that the problems of the coun- 
 try church differ in a sufficient degree 
 throughout the country so that a pecu- 
 liar solution is needed for each of the 
 great states. The problem of the 
 country church is too great for the 
 Presbytery, because generally the 
 Presbytery is either wholly relieved 
 from this problem by the urban char- 
 acter of its churches or is wholly im- 
 mersed in this problem when its 
 churches are rural, and the Presbytery 
 is helpless in the face of a problem so 
 extensive and so uniform throughout 
 the whole State. The agencies of the 
 General Assembly, moreover, are too 
 purely national in scope to do more 
 than initiate a policy for the solution 
 of the country church situation. The 
 Board of Home Missions can provide 
 expert assistance in training men for 
 service in the various states, but in 
 these prosperous agricultural states 
 the missionary responsibility belongs 
 to the Synods. 
 
 For this service the Synod is pre- 
 cisely fitted. It has sufficient author- 
 ity with which to impress the churches 
 of a community and if necessary to en- 
 force its policy in co-operation with 
 the Presbytery. The Synod's duty 
 to minister to missionary situations 
 throughout the State is recognized. 
 
 The reconstruction of country 
 churches may be effected by the em- 
 ployment of rural revivalists under the 
 
direction of the State Superintendent. 
 These men should be trained for their 
 work, and unless they can perform that 
 task they should not hold their jobs. 
 Their task should be the conversion of 
 the country church through the revival 
 of individual souls to a higher standard 
 of country life. The rural revivalist 
 should spend about a fortnight in each 
 community in order to reach every re- 
 motest member of the church and of 
 the countryside. Coming to a decadent 
 church in a prosperous community 
 after two weeks' service he should 
 leave a regenerated church supported 
 by an enthusiastic, inspired and in- 
 structed people. 
 
 These men, the agents of the Synod, 
 should be experts not only in personal 
 religion — for they must be men of de- 
 voted evangelistic spirit — but in a new 
 Standard of Life for the country com- 
 munity. 
 
 First — In the financial reconstruc- 
 tion of the habits of the people they 
 should consecrate the new economic 
 prosperity which is coming to the 
 farmers. Systematic giving is funda- 
 mental to church life in modern or- 
 ganized society. Thus the country 
 church which languishes through bad 
 methods and untrained consciences 
 shall become the training school for 
 benevolence on the farm. 
 
 Second — The rural revivalist shall be 
 an ethical leader. He shall know thor- 
 
oughly the meaning and the future of 
 temperance reform. He shall under- 
 stand the value of the Sabbath to work- 
 ing people. He shall be able to guide 
 a community sinking in impurity into 
 a sane and well-ordered moral life. He 
 shall be a moral prophet and guide, 
 able to put the stamp of God's approval 
 upon a contrite population. 
 
 Third — The rural revivalist shall 
 teach the Church her duty not merely 
 to souls, but to institutions. He shall 
 be an expert in federation and shall 
 guide the regenerated country church 
 into co-operation with the other 
 churches of the community, with the 
 Grange, the Farmers' Union and the 
 Public School. He shall be an expert 
 in the problem of consolidation of rural 
 schools and shall make plain to the 
 farmers their duty to their children 
 and to future generations. 
 
 Fourth — The rural revivalist shall 
 remind the country of her former popu- 
 lation and shall show to the country 
 church how tenacious is her hold upon 
 old members. Perhaps his revival shall 
 end in an "Old Home Week" Reunion 
 of former members, or appoint it 
 within the year following. The great- 
 est resource on which the country 
 church can draw is the loyal sentiment 
 of her former members, which is 
 usually neglected. 
 
 Fifth — The revivalist of the country 
 community by means of the country 
 
church shall know the value of recre- 
 ation as a form of public moral disci- 
 pline. He shall be able to teach to 
 the Church her duty to the social life 
 of the people, not merely by denounc- 
 ing the sins which go with rude, rustic 
 amusements, but by advising in the 
 constructive promotion of the ethical 
 life of the people through sane and 
 wholesome recreations. 
 
 Only the Synods can supply for the 
 country churches of their respective 
 districts this supervision and recon- 
 struction. The Presbyterian Church 
 has laid upon them the missionary duty 
 within their territories. For the con- 
 ditions peculiar to each State men 
 should be specially trained. For the 
 supervision of country churches the 
 best of men should be selected. 
 
 The training of these men will in- 
 volve a special problem in which the 
 Board of Home Missions can render a 
 service, because of its national scope. 
 The problem of the country church 
 should be presented to the theological 
 seminaries and constantly agitated 
 throughout the country in order to 
 draw to the service of the country 
 church those men who love the coun- 
 try rather than the city. Annual Coun- 
 try Life Institutes should be held 
 through the co-operation of the Board 
 of Home Missions and the Synods, 
 which are responsible for this problem 
 in which a thorough training in the 
 
problem of country life may be given 
 to the men who offer themselves for 
 service in supervision and reconstruc- 
 tion of country churches and for the 
 country pastorate. 
 
 The whole policy contemplates a 
 new Standard of Country Life. It 
 means the use of the splendid Presby- 
 terian organization to create a new 
 state of mind throughout the rural dis- 
 tricts. It is a task as great as that ac- 
 complished in the past twenty years by 
 the temperance reformers, but, with a 
 machinery already prepared and provi- 
 dentially fitted for this very task, it 
 should be accomplished in far less time 
 than the results, great as they are, 
 which the temperance reformers have 
 brought about. The promotion of the 
 moral, social and spiritual life of coun- 
 try people through the widely extended 
 agencies of the Presbyterian Church is 
 not impossible. It is worthy of the de- 
 voted energies of all the aggressive 
 agencies of the Church, because the 
 attainment by the country churches of 
 a higher standard of life in harmony 
 with modern scientific agriculture is 
 fundamental to the prosperity of the 
 Church in America and will be largely 
 influential in creating the type of citi- 
 zenship for the next generation. 
 
 TEE WILLETT ffcESS, N. Yi 
 
ASS 
 
 l» 
 
 jjlf 
 
 "tjMlji . liTiii': 
 
 Ml 
 
 BlilSi 
 
 i?U 
 
 /oFnl'-'jSra 
 
 
 ^^S 
 
 •wXj 
 
 
 
 
 4P 
 
 *\J5jii/ 
 
 
 
 
 ; jijre 
 
 J) 
 
 *?jgpsp 
 
 iij 
 
 
 
 W&& 
 
 W 
 
 
 r) 
 
 
 Isgilfffi 
 
 ^•W ^V-'x'' 
 
 ^s 
 
 IHB 
 
 ^s^ 
 
 i vL^o32/'i. 
 
 3^3^ 
 
 ^55S?^& 
 
 ^rU yi*\ 
 
 P& 
 
 
 u> 
 
^/ 
 
 *Q 
 
 .•€> 
 
 
 
 
 ^^fej^ot 
 
 
 life 
 
 Wm 
 
 
 (iHJiR^ 
 
 w*^f#f^S 
 
 Pfel&i