AGRICULTURAL PJ7 5 §H §111 1P*1| l^^^^pp^ «?T^^pJ^*y < S^ tf* i )i^^f^3SP ; lip This book may be kept out TWO WEEKS only, and is subject to a fine of TWO CENTS a day thereafter. K ,„;ii u„ j.._ . the day indicated below DATE DUE CARD m ■ m Jl « PAMPHLETS ON THE COUNTRY CHURCH Volume 3 6 3 0.30*. I * v Federal council 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 MclTutt , 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 Taf t , A, B. The mistress of the rural manse Taf t , A. B. The tent mission Taylor, G. Basis for social evangelism with rural applications Wells, G. F, An answer to the New 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* .5 college CD t— ^ co Wilson, W. II. Getting the worker to church Q_ UJ V) Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/churchcountrylif03pres Wilson, W. H. The girl on the farm Wilson j W. H. How to manage a country life institute :lson, W. II* "Marrying the land." Wilson, W. H» tTo need to he poor in the country Wilson, W. H. Synod's opportunity Wilson, W< H. What limits the rural Evangel »«*»9*a«» The church and country life. Pamphlet issued hy the Board of Home Missions of the Presby< terian Church. CHURCH and COUNTRY LIFE THE RURAL CHURCH 1Fn some great bap. 1f speeb everpman Jibe Country Cburcb 1fn bis bope anb plan mm finb its voice Bnb follow bis bag witb tbe sun : Bnb it will sap.: Bnb grasses anb trees, "11 stanb in tbefielbs Gbe birbs anb tbe bees TWlbere tbe wibe eartb ptelbs 1F Rnow anb feel ev'rp one. IHec bounties ot fruit anb grain: TlXUbere tbe furrows turn "Bnb out of it all Gill tbe plowsbares burn Bs tbe seasons fall Bs tbep come rounb anb rounb again: Wbere tbe workers prap 1T butlb mp great temple alwap ; 1f point to tbe sRies, IMttb tbeir tools all bap :JBut mp footstone lies 1Fn sunsbine anb sbabow anb rain. 1fn commonplace worR of tbe bag; jfor H preacb tbe wortb "Bnb 1T bib tbem tell ©f tbe native eartb— ©f tbe crops tbep sell XLo love anb to worR is to prap." Bnb speaR of tbe worR tbep bave. bone: Liberty H. Bailey The report of the Executive Commission at the last General Assembly and the discussion following it, brought the Department of Church and Country Life noticeably before the Church at large. Many are seeking knowledge of this work. To these we commend the following articles. Each is contributed by one who is working, or who has worked during the past year, under the Department. Taken together they give an accurate sketch of several lines of the Board of Home Missions, country life work. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Religious Leadership of the Farmer WARREN H. WILSON IN the past the farmer built the churches, inspired the ministers and initiated the revivals. The forms of all American religious movements, till the days of Christian Science, and Dowieism, have been rural. Until now a great majority of the ministry, and of the leading laymen, are country born and bred. This was natural in those times. There is no promise in it that the future reli- gious leadership will be rural. The country church was first, because the farm preceded the store, the mill or the factory. The oldest churches in the cities were usually founded by farmers, before the growth of cities. These old rural foundations were the mothers of churches. The membership of mother church and branches was recruited, as the city grew, from rural congregations. The forms of rural life, moreover, prevail in city congregations. Little has the city done to modify the country type. Elders and dea- cons still rule the churches on the avenue ; as they led the village congregation. The minis- ter still labors, as a rule, without assistants, because in the country he needs none. What was serviceable in the country still has to do in the city church: because the membership continue to think of religion in terms of the country, where they got their profoundest religious impressions The city has not been a fertile field of reli- gious experience, as the country has. It has embodied few new ideals, as yet, in adequate church forms, but is still following the lead of men who thought and wrote in peaceful scenes, where family life was complete in itself and the individual, not society, wrote the philoso- phy of life. This leadership has passed from the country. In its place the country church, except in some of the old, eastern states, is frequently strug- gling for mere survival. Its highest ideal is now often narrow because of the economic poverty of the country, and because of the exodus which has exhausted rural society. Often the people- are discouraged, because theirs is the toil, and to others belong the gains, of producing wealth. They are few in number. Each census records the astounding rate of national increase; but of late each decade dis- closes a rural decline. Occupations, even more than men, have left the country. Nearly all the trades are moved irom rural shops to city factories. Only the working farmer has been left, generally, in the country. Religion does not thrive among a diminished people, to whom others dictate prices, whose sole pre- vailing occupation has undergone depression for three successive decades. The story of the struggle of the rural church for survival, in the great agricultural states, is told elsewhere in this issue. Now has come a time of rural revival. For twenty years farmers have been struggling for a better country life. The other occupations, once rural, have given no assistance. Mer- ' chants, bankers, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors, even ministers, have been engrossed with the building of cities. In "boom" times the farmer has had to fight even for his home- stead. The church and school alone have stayed with him and suffered with him. Twenty years, whose history will some day be written in heroic letters ! For five years this struggle has commanded national attention. It's beginning to win. These five years have been marked by the leadership of educators and ministers. The country movement is a teaching and a prayer. It has found its pedagogues and its priests. Rural hymns are written and inspired men, dedicating their lives to the country, have be- come prophets of a new order. There is a general agreement among those who lead in this work for country life that it will win only when it becomes a religious movement. These leaders are godly men and women, — almost all taught in the churches, with homely, simple faith. They believe that God is the Provider. Some of them have been poor, and they know what it is to pray for daily bread, for a job, for an income to feed and cloihe a family. They naturally think of the farmer as God's hired man, a provider like God Himself. They long for a religious motive power, given by the Holy Spirit, to arouse the farmer as a national leader, and inspire him as a servant of the commonwealth. Ministers of all denomina- tions, in the country, have been quick to catch this inspiration and powerful in communicat- ing it. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE The signs of this revival of rural leadership in things of the spirit are many. One of them is the unusual interest in rural institutions as centers of inspiration. The church and the school have become the centers of a new rural evangel. A larger idea of God is preached from many pulpits. Pages of the Bible, long omitted from reading, are filled with meaning. Conferences and Institutes' on rural matters use Scriptural language, and return to Scrip- tural ideals with profound satisfaction. If the American and the Protestant, instead of the immigrant from southeastern Europe, shall win in the struggle for satisfactory life on American soil, it will be through this reli- gious awakening. Only as a religious experi- ence can the American change his heart from the love of money to the love of the land God has given him. Jews, and Poles and Italians — as Swedes and Germans before them — have shown that they love land better than money. Those who shall own the land shall build the churches. Those who build the churches in the country will determine the religion of the whole people I believe that our churches, of the Protes- tant type, will win in this great revival, that they will retain sufficient numbers of their people in the country to evangelize those who shall come and that, strengthened by this struggle, and brought near to the Almighty Spirit by victory over poverty, discouragement and depletion, they will learn new lessons in the divine obedience Complexion of the Country Church Field LOIS NEFF THE first purpose of the Department of Church and Country Life is to serve the churches which minister to the farmer. In order to fill this purpose we must know how many of our churches perform such a service. One could safely make the assertion that the number of Presbyterian country churches is legion because there is such a host of coun- try churches. It would be quite possible for one to convince himself of this fact by first finding out the number of country churches in a few representative presbyteries. But if the question, How many Presbyterian country churches are there? is asked, a mere estimate is not sufficient. In the first place a definition of "country" is necessary. The census report regards all towns of 2,500, or less, as "rural." For our classification of churches we have used the definition as given in the census report. At first thought this classification will appear un- fair. To be sure, there is a large number of towns of not more than 2,500 people that have urban characteristics. On the other hand, many towns with a population of more than 2,500 have churches whose membership is re- cruited largely from rural districts. Thus a certain balance is secured. In separating country churches from the entire number of Presbyterian churches, the Minutes of the General Assembly for 1912 and the 1910 Report of the Census were our guide. After finding out which churches were in towns of 2,500, or less, there were remaining many churches whose addresses were un- noticed in the census report. We dared not assume that all these churches were in the open country, for might they not be in vil- lages that were not incorporated, or in sub- urban towns, the inhabitants of which were included in the population of a nearby city? To make sure of the location of the churches of which we were in doubt, inquiry was made of some one whose knowledge included not only the location of certain churches, but also the conditions found in the places where these churches were located. Through cooperation with men on the field, we were able to learn which churches were found in suburban towns, as well as the ones which were located in mining, lumbering and summering places. To synodical superintendents, pastor evangelists, home missionary chairmen, stated clerks and pastors who responded so generously to our request for information, we are deeply in- debted for the data furnished us by them. Inquiry was made of some one in each pres- bytery. Reports were received from 269 pres- byteries. These reports showed that 70.7 per CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE i i CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE cent, of all the churches in those 269 pres- byteries were country churches. Of the 6,751 country churches, 4,185, or 61.9 per cent, are in villages, and 2,261, or 33.6 per cent, are in the open country. The remaining 305, which constitute 4.5 per cent, have been abandoned. The location of the abandoned churches was given in only a few instances by those from whom inquiry was made. The fact that the names of only a few of the places where these abandoned churches were located were given in the census report, gave us reason to believe that the large majority of abandoned Presby- terian churches were found in very small vil- lages or in the open country. In addition to the number of country churches of our denomination, we were inter- ested to know how many of them had the services of a minister. We learned that 4,863, which is 72.0 per cent, of the entire number of country churches in those 269 presbyteries, had a minister. 1,583, or 23.5 per cent, of them were vacant. The remaining 4.5 per cent, is ac- counted for by the 305 abandoned churches to which reference has been made. Of the 4,863 country churches which had the services of a minister, 3,280 were in vil- lages and 1,583 were in the open country. That is, 78.4 per cent, of the village churches have a minister, 21.6 per cent, have none. Of the open country churches, 70.0 per cent, have a minister, 30.0 per cent, are vacant. Another matter in which we were interest- ed was, How many country churches have a resident pastor? We found that 2,855 of the 4,863 churches that had a minister had him living in the parish. 74.6 per cent, of the village churches that had a minister were so fortunate as to have him residing within the parish, whereas only 25.8 per cent, of the open country churches had a resident minis- ter. In other words, 3 out of every 4 vil- lage churches with ministerial service had a resident minister, but only one out of every 4 open country churches had a resident min- ister. Not all country churches that had a min- ister had the privilege of all of his time. In fact many churches so favored as to have a resident minister must share him with one or more churches. Only 33.8 per cent, of all the country churches had the full time of the minister, 23.4 per cent, have one-half of his time, 10.4 per cent, have one-third and 4.5 per cent, manage to exist with one-fourth, or less, of the minister's attention. The accompanying map shows the percent- age of Presbyterian churches which are coun- try churches. In New England there are but fifty Presbyterian churches, mainly located in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Relatively few of these are rural, as appears from the fact that Massachusetts is left blank on the map, Presbyterian organizations in that state being properly ranked as city churches. The four or five Presbyterian churches in Maine are in more important centers, and are not made the basis of any showing for that state. In the southeast this map makes no reckon- ing of the organizations of the Presbyterian Church U. S. (Southern Presbyterian), but it does include the U. S. A. churches organ- ized in the Negro Synods. The inclusion of the negro churches justifies estimating con- ditions in Georgia and South Carolina, where- as, the small number of white churches would le^ve them in the same category with the blank New England States. Louisiana is or- ganized with the Synod of Texas in U. S. A. churches, and the small representation of our branch prompts leaving that state blank. Further west in the south those familiar with social and economic conditions will un- derstand how even churches reckoned as rural in New Mexico and Arizona may minister mainly to a population depending upon min- ing rather than agriculture. Particularly notable is that fact m the case of Nevada where a high percentage of rural churches is indicated, whereas few or none minister large- ly to an agricultural population. GO, REAPER Go, reaper, Speed and reap, Go take the harvest Of the plough: The wheat is standing Broad and deep, The barley glumes Are golden now. Labour is hard, But it endures Like love : The land is yours : Go reap the life It gives you now, O sunbrowned master Of the plough! — Seosamh MacCathmhaoil. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE The Survey for Evangelism RALPH A. FELTON THE Presbyterian Church is putting a new emphasis on its belief that Christ came to call sinners to repentance. This new evangelism stands for a living, fer- vent, aggressive Christianity. It means that the Church should forget its interest in self- preservation, and should minister to the most needy among men. The Presbyterian Church is studying the religious needs of the rural districts, and is seeking to meet these needs. This study is called a survey. The Department of Church and Country Life has undertaken several such surveys. Last summer 19 counties of Ohio were sur- veyed, and a study was made of 1,515 country and village churches. Of these churches slightly less than one-third were found to be growing, while the rest were either standing still or losing ground. There is an average of ten abandoned churches to each county, making something like 800 in the entire state. There are causes of this decline outside of the church. One is the decrease of the farm population. Another is the increase in ten- antry, for the church has not learned how to reach the tenant farmer. In Butler county 41 per cent, of the farmers are tenants while only 22 per cent, of the farmers on the church roll are tenants. In some counties it was found that the church is declining because the farmers in the community do not have an ade- quate income to support the church. In order that the church may evangelize the community, it must be an efficient working organization. We need to know how we can improve our methods of church administra- tion. One of the reasons for the decline of the country church is the lack of ministers who serve only one church each. Of the churches situated in the open country cov- ered by the survey, only 6 per cent, have min- isters giving full time, 26 per cent, have min- isters for half, time, while the remaining 68 per cent, have one-third to one-sixth of a minister. One minister was found who was trying to serve seven churches scattered all over a county. Of the churches having a minister for full time, 60 per cent, are grow- ing, while of those churches which have one- fourth of a minister or less, only 26 per cent. are growing. The survey shows that evan- gelism suffers when part of a man is sent to do a whole man's job. The residence of ministers is another fac- tor in evangelism. Where there is a resident pastor, 51 per cent, of the churches are grow- ing. Where the minister is non-resident, only 26 per cent, of the churches are growing. This naturally means that country churches should pay more toward the salary of min- isters. As a result of the findings of the Ohio Rural Life Survey, an effort is being made in a district of a certain denomination to raise the salaries of all country ministers to a minimum of $1,000. Every member of the church in that district has been asked to' contribute the proceeds of one day's work to- ward this raise. The size of the membership of a church has also been found to have a bearing upon its chances for growth. Of churches with a membership of 25 or less. 2 per cent, are growing 26-50 17 51-100 34 101-150 48 151-200 ....59 200 or over 79 In order that more people may be brought into the Kingdom our smaller churches need to combine or federate. The problem of evangelizing the rural com- munity must be through cooperation on the part of the religious forces in the commun- ity. Hitherto each denomination has consid- ered itself responsible for the work of evan- gelism regardless of the other denominations in the community, and the result has been a waste of money, time and energy. An illus- tration of this waste is seen in a village of 475 people in one of the best farming sections of Ohio. In this village there are five church buildings, two of which are now abandoned. Last year three of the churches (including one since discontinued) received a total of $675 aid from home missions and from churches- outside of the community. All the churches together through their divided ef- forts have managed to reach only one- fourth of the people in the community. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Besides affecting the Church as a whole, this work of survey has a great influence in making efficient the work of the individual minister. Too many country ministers think only of the membership of their several churches as their field, and the new recruits gathered from their annual revivals. The average country minister serves three churches. In these he preaches, on the mem- bers of these he calls, their children he bap- tizes and teaches in the Sunday school. Few of our country ministers have been able to serve an entire community. Parishes overlap, and members of several churches are scatter- ed over the same neighborhood. Many people have been overlooked, and have not been reached by the revival meetings. Some of these are former members who have lost in- terest ; some hold membership in distant churches, while some do not feel free to at- tend church for financial reasons. The sur- vey maps and diagrams the parish and charts the ministers' task. By a survey or canvass of his community the minister is given a chance to see his task in a way that he has never seen it before ; sometimes he goes into homes into which no minister has ever gone. He takes the gospel to those who will not come to him. He finds out their needs, in order that the church may serve them, and in order that they may be enlisted for the service of others. The effect upon the minister is often great- er than upon the people. He is often sur- prised to learn of the great proportion of people in his community who have not been touched by any church. The following in- stances illustrate what the survey has been able to accomplish toward the evangelization of the local community. Three ministers thought that nearly every- body in their township belonged to church; but after making a house-to-house canvass, found that only ten per cent, of the people were members of any church. One minister as a result of his canvass found a large unchurched community. He has since organized a Sunday school in a school house which has an enrollment of 60. His church in the village has discontinued its evening service in order that he may attend this Sunday school, and hold preaching ser- vices in a church that had been abandoned. Another minister after making a survey, made a map of his community in which the houses were colored according to whether the people belonged to church or not. In this way the religious condition of the community is kept vividly before the church members, and they are able to work more intelligently and earnestly for the evangelization of the whole community. After the survey showed that in a certain district of a hundred square miles only 3.4 per cent, of the people belonged to the churches of the district, a young minister was sent into the community, and a thriving church has since been organized. The ministerial association of one county of Ohio is making a survey of their whole county, visiting every house, in order that they may know their problem better. Four- teen country ministers are working together on this task. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Conditions Which Affect Country Church Growth HERMAN N. MORSE A CHURCH was made to grow, not to stop" — if one may adapt a familiar sentence. The population in the rural districts of our older states is diminishing; changed methods of farming and an altered standard of living are responsible for that. In an average country community the member- ship of the churches represents not more than one-third of the population; it is often much less. Hardly more than one-fourth of the churches in the open country and two-fifths of the village churches which minister to the open country are growing, either in numbers or efficiency. A large proportion are steadily declining. Every year scores of churches find their way into the ecclesiastical graveyard which already numbers its head-stones by the thousands — a great multitude of abandoned country churches! 800 in Ohio; 1,700 in Illi- nois ; 750 in Missouri ; so the list reads. While the country churches which are really eminent in success are few. This compels us to con- sider what conditions affect church growth. The difficulty seems to arise usually from one condition. The country church is facing a new situation which has arisen within two de- cades and which has changed the problem and hence the task of the church, both in form and in content. This has rendered the old methods of church work wholly inadequate, has put a new aspect on the problem of main- tenance and made for the church a new test of success. The factors responsible for this we can only mention in brief. Rural society is passing through a period of readjustment which is affecting all the most vital processes of its life. Both the community and economy of the old type of American farmer have been disrupted and we have not yet reached the type of organization which is to replace them. The church is not an isolated institution; it is a social institution and fits into a complicated social situation. It cannot remain unaffected by the far-reaching social and economic changes which have affected its community. The type of church which satisfied the needs of the rural community of fifty years ago is no more sufficient for our changed needs than is the type of farm implement then in use, or the type of rural school. Moreover, in a time of transition it is inevitable that old sanctions should lose power. Institutions which would survive must find new sanctions to control society. This transition in itself constitutes a chal- lenge to the church because of the importance to the community of the factors involved. But the church as a whole has shown itself pos- sessed of neither the inherent strength and flexibility of organizations, the program of work, nor the necessary equipment properly to re-adjust itself and so maintain its strength unimpaired. Instances of the sort of condi- tions which the church has been unable prop- erly to deal with are very near at hand. In many places an impoverished agriculture, a general increase in the standard of living, without a corresponding increase in the means to satisfy it, an increasingly uneven distribu- tion of prosperity, the increasing predominance of the upper age classes in the country, the decay of wholesome community life and the rapid increase of tenantry on the farms. These are conditions of vital importance to the com- munity. The average country church does not reach either the tenant or the man living near- est the poverty line to the same extent that it reaches his more fortunate brother. Social improvements, better buildings, better salaries, support of missionaries, are not possible with- out a constant income. The church has an uncertain future in a population of relatively few young people, with a social life approach- ing stagnation. The inability of the church to handle these problems is reacting strongly both upon the church and the community. Facing such conditions, the organization of the country church in general shows a three- fold weakness. In the first place there is the lack of an adequate resident leadership. It is not only that there is a great dearth of men properly trained and equipped for ministry in a rural parish, but even more there is a dearth of men of any sort. Country churches are suffering from an extended experiment in ab- sent treatment. The Circuit Rider built most of these churches, built them by splendid con- CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE secration and untiring service. But he worked under entirely different circumstances and owed his success to conditions which no longer exist in the country. He lived with the far- mers; the modern minister is a town man. The churches which he built the absentee can no longer maintain. In Ohio, an average state, only six open country churches out of every hundred have resident pastors serving them on full time. Only a resident minister can have that minute and sympathetic knowl- edge of the local parish which is the first re- quisite of a successful ministry. Without it the peculiar needs of the church are to him a closed book. What has been termed "mail order preaching" 19 killing most country churches. The resident pastor holds the key to the situation and the future of the country church rests with him. In order to secure this resident leadership the religious forces of the country community must be co-ordinated. This lack of co-ordina- tion is the second great weakness. The reli- gious forces of the country are ineffectual because scattered. An average mid-western county has about eighty country churches where a fourth of that number would be ade- quate; the result is small, languishing church- es. The greater proportion have less than 100 members each. At least one-fourth have less than twenty-five members each. This system is wasteful and extravagant because of the needless duplication, and unsuccessful because the small church is not an efficient working unit. The great over-multiplication of small churches can mean nothing but wide-spread inefficiency. As a result the small church is almost invariably a dying proposition. In the third place country churches suffer from too narrow a field of interests and work. "He that saveth his life shall lose it" is as true of churches as individuals. The energies of most country churches are expended largely in the effort to perpetuate their own organiza- tions. Their work ends where it begins. The successful country church as a rule de- votes itself to everything of fundamental im- portance to its people. Churches which have suffered least from economic changes are those of the Amish and Mennonite type, churches which bind religion close into the vital forces in the lives of their people. A country church if it is to survive must do this. It must permit nothing good in the community to be without its sanction and influence, nothing evil to be without its protest and resistance. The pro- motion of musical culture, sanitation and re- creation and the condemnation of reckless, wasteful farming may well be among its most important projects. To correct these three weaknesses, to give the church a united front, a resident leader- ship and a broad, adequate program will go far toward equipping it to maintain itself through change and transition and to maintain a vital religion in the country. The generalizations made in this paper are all based upon the results of studies in coun- try communities made by the Presbyterian Department of Church and Country Life. The evidence supporting them is set forth in full in these reports and may be examined there. Lastly, the country church must recognize that it will not be possible much longer for country people to resist the strong current now running toward cooperation and organiza- tion. Everywhere cooperation is in the air. Almost every issue of the leading farm jour- nals discusses it. Numerous conferences and conventions are being held to further it. The government is appropriating funds to advance its interests. The country church should be in on the ground floor of this reorganization, but whether or not it takes an active part, this reorganization will go on. The Hicksite Friends' Meeting at Sandy Spring, Maryland, has for more than one hun- dred and fifty years been the central influence in that community's life. The result is a thor- oughly religious community and a thorough community church, which cannot possibly suf- fer while the community remains. This is what will happen generally, if the church is the fostering agent in the reorganization of the community. What will happen if it takes no part, whatever, is in a measure problemati- cal, but the answer is not very hard to guess. "In a peculiar way the church is intimately related to the agricultural industry. The work and the life of the farm are closely bound together, and the institutions of the country react on that life and on one another more intimately than they do in the city. This gives the rural church a position of peculiar difficulty and one of unequalled opportunity. The time has arrived when the Church must take a larger leadership, both as an institu- tion and through its pastors, in the social re- organization of rural life." CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Rural Churches of Distinction MATTHEW BROWN M'NUTT DURING my travels the past year as Field Assistant in the Department of Church and Country Life I have had the privilege of meeting and visiting a good many rural pastors and churches in various parts -of the United States. This has afforded me opportunity to study the methods employed in our country parishes. I have found some rural churches that were almost a total failure even with a pastor working sincerely and heartily; others have been strikingly successful although often not known outside the limits of a comparatively small area. In the brief space allotted to me I can describe only a few of the churches that have appealed to me as doing especially efficient and successful work. Middle Creek Middle Creek Church is in the open country five miles from Winnebago, 111. It was organ- ized fifty-eight years ago by some Presby- terians from Pennsylvania. Rev. J. S. Brad- country schools are good, this being Prof. O. J. Kern's county. The Grange and co-operative creameries are features of the industrial life. Scientific farming has a sympathetic hearing. The young people, in goodly numbers, are at- tending high school, normal school, and college. Middle Creek is the only church in the com- munity. Not all of the people go to church but this is largely a church-going community, of old American families with a sprinkling of Germans and Swedes. The summer Sunday morning congregations number 250 people. The evening congregations vary from 75 to 125, mostly young people. In both services men and boys predominate. The church build- ing was remodeled in 191 1 so as to give special rooms for Christian Endeavor, Sunday school work and social gatherings. The Sunday school has 200 members, missionary society, fifty, Westminster Circle, twenty-four mem- bers. During the winter, mission study courses are followed by the young people. The THE REV. B. S. JOINtEIS AMD FAMILY. MR. JONES IS 'PASTOR OF THE CHURCHES AT KEEINE AND CLARK, O. dock, D.D., was pastor for forty-two consecutive years. Rev. H. P. Armstrong is the present pastor and is in his fifth year of service. This parish is five by twelve miles in extent. It is thickly settled by prosperous far- mers who are for the most part keeping step with the advance of rural civilization.. The young men and boys support a brass band and the C. E. a Lyceum Course. The present membership of the church is 152, to which frequent accessions are being made and from which there are few dismissals. The offer- ings last year were most encouraging, amount- ing to $600.00. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE THE EDGiEIBET JUViEINLTjE BAu\D Edgeley Edgeley Church is situated in a town of 600 people in the state of North Dakota with a good farming community around it. Rev. J. C. Engel, the energetic pastor, by mean of an Indian motor cycle, visits all the homes within a radius of seven miles and many others outside of this radius. He has, also, been preaching in school houses in connection with Sunday schools almost every Sunday after- noon since Christmas. His church has been co-operating with the School Superintendent of the town in conducting a Lyceum Course which has been a great success. The next move contemplated is to assist the school in placing a moving picture machine. The Metho- dist church of the village is also cooperating in this. Mr. Engel has organized a boys' brass band which promises to be a large factor in helping to solve the boy problem. All the reli- gious services of this church are well sus- tained. Mr. Engel and his people represent a type of minister and church that are doing wonderful service in helping to mould aright the life of this new country. The Keene-Clark Charge These twin churches located respectively in the inland towns of Keene and Clark, Coshoc- ton County, Ohio, nine miles apart, have been serving their communities, the one ninety-five years, the other eighty-three years. For a greater part of the time they have been linked together in one charge. The combined parish covers a strip of territory seven by eighteen miles, or 126 square miles. This is a hilly country but the soil, with careful cultivation, yields good crops. It requires watching to conserve the fertility and to keep the hills from washing. The people are home-loving folk, Scotch-Irish and German predominating. Almost every farmer owns his land, and works it. Many of the farms have been held in the same name for generations. A wholesome and satisfying social life is afforded by the various activities of the church, public school and Grange. This has done much to induce the people to remain on the farms. The village of Keene has plans ready for the immediate erec- tion of a modern $14,000 school building. The Duplex Envelope System was introduced in this parish a year ago, which has resulted in much increased offerings especially for benevo- lences. Successful revival services were held during the winter. The church at Keene last fall formed with the Methodist people a Vil- CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE lage Prayer Meeting Association which has successfully been carried on ever since. Its purpose is to cultivate the spirit of cooperation among the Christian people of the community and to secure more efficient service. Rural Life Institutes were held in both churches last summer under the direction of the Department of Church and Country Life. Another insti- tute will be held this summer. Rev. B. S. Jones is the leader of this flourishing work. He lives at Keene and uses an automobile in his parish work. Marietta and Colon This twin parish is in Saunders County, Neb., and has a record of four decades. Marietta Church is in the open country three miles from the village of Colon, the pastor living at the country point. The rural congre- gation has just enlarged and remodeled its building so as to afford good Sunday school plied chiefly by an active C. E. Society. Inter- est in and gifts to' missions have steadily in- creased. Efficient growing leaders are in every organization. Special efforts are being made to help the young people and children. The membership has steadily increased and is larger now than it has been for several years. Rev. N. P. Olney is in his fourth year with this church. He attended the Summer School at Columbia, Mo., in 1912, under the auspices of the Department of Church and Country Life and says he "came home with a new vision for work in the rural churches." The Rural Department in the County Sunday School Association was created in order to give him a chance to work out the country life movement in and through the Sunday schools of the county. Panama The church in Panama, Neb., a village of /_ ~;"_, •^^^^V'^^HpMH fjglvjjU Hp r r ^**mt--i 'k,^ «. > i.'^r^' *«iUP S^iKC^vl Ryfl ~^^MJ01$ B rj ...,-yVl -..'v ./:l ^ ' ' - • ^h^HhwIh flBpil j L .'wAv/ im. B ■ jj| 1 v "■ B IE *"* *" J ^k * ^H ^H^'K NO DTMiL TIMES HiE.RCE and social facilities. A large majority of the families of the congregation own and work their farms. The renters are mostly sons of the owners and men of the church. The com- munity is prosperous and progressive. Men and boys are always present in the services in large proportion. The boys' class, all church members, have a base ball team and sentiment favors a Saturday half-holiday for sports and recreations. A wholesome social life is sup- 300 people, ministers not only to the village but to the surrounding country. Its young men conduct a successful Lyceum Course. The work of the church is hampered by having no suitable meeting place for social gatherings. This difficulty is soon to be overcome, how- ever, by a $5,000 parish house which is being planned. The Sunday school has increased nearly fifty since the first of the year. Forty persons were added to the membership of the CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE 13 church last year, thirty-four of these on pro- fession of faith. Both the morning and even- ing preaching services are well attended, the audience ranging from 125 in the morning, to 175 in the evening, which number fills the church. The Department of Church and Country Life assisted in a Rural Life Insti- tute in this community last December. The pastor, Rev. Cecil Phillips, writes concern- ing it, "I am very sure that the institute was a fine .thing for this community, for from that time the people began to see a vision of what might be done." In all these parishes certain things are no- ticeable : These churches have resident ministers. Special attention is given to the training of the children and youth. Provision is made for wholesome recreation, entertainment and social intercourse. Social service is emphasized. Better farming is encouraged with the result that the fertility of the soil is preserved and the farmers are prospering. There is no difficulty in raising the ministers' salaries. The owners are being held on their farms. These churches are serving their respective communities according to the needs of our time and are constantly growing in numerical, financial and spiritual strength as well as in efficiency. Our Church in the Southern Mountains 0. F. WISNER THERE is a mountain population in eight states of the South variously esti- mated at from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000. A century and a half of living apart has made them backward in proportion to the degree of their isolation. In occasional fertile valleys prosperity has maintained culture, comfort, and religion at a normal level. The mass of the population, however, lived in seclusion, poverty, and ignorance. Within a generation this seclusion has been invaded by the railroad, the postman, the tele- graph, and the telephone. Lumber companies have brought new ideas and new wants, and, in exchange for. land, lumber, and labor, have poured a sudden stream of ready money into part of these richly timbered mountains. The mountaineer can no longer, as formerly, dis- pense with an income. He no longer produces everything he needs in the way of food, cloth- ing, shelter, furniture, and implements. The loom has passed. The log cabin is being dis- placed by the frame cottage. The steel range, sewing-machine, and organ are coming into use. Once these people were producers of all they used, now they are consumers of other men's goods. A cash income is now a neces- sity, but is not yielded by unintelligent farm- ing, on poor or exhausted land, and this makes poverty pinch today where it was not felt before. The problem is fundamentally indus- trial and economic, and the church which does not show a very close connection between reli- gion and farming can not permanently hold this field. This, then, is the present religious situation. A new era has arrived, — an economic and so- cial crisis, in which the life and thought of the people is immeasurably enlarged, and in. which religion must have new interpretation, to show its fitness to the needs of modern life. Man here has ceased to be merely an individ- ual, and has become a member of society. His- gospel must speak to him in terms of his whole nature. If it fails to do this, it will not reach him where he is. Preachers usually live long distances from their preaching ap- pointments. Their pay, as a matter of princi- ple, is small or nothing, and helpful books and magazines are an impossibility. They can do little or no pastoral work. Their ministra- tions consist solely of preaching Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning once a month at each of four or five widely separated ap- pointments. Such preachers cannot be expected to organize the life activities of a commun- ity about the church as a center. As would be expected under such conditions the great mass of the people are not identified with the church. After a personal and careful study of fifteen communities in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee the writer found less than half the population on the church rolls of the twelve denominations 14 CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE A PRESBYTERIAN CENTRE represented. In one township forty-eight per cent of the population were church members. From this high water mark the percentage fell away until low tide was reached at nine per cent ! The average for the whole region was twenty-nine per cent. There is still room for evangelistic effort. The old religious forces are demonstrably unequal to the de- mands of the new times. Are Presbyterians any better able to cope with the situation? In every Presby- terian congrega- tion much effort is expended in culti- vating the social and recreational life of the people through picnics, socials, and neigh- borhood gather- ings, with a view to knitting the community togeth- er and binding it to the church. Very little of this is done by other denominations. A survey of 115 churches showed a total of. eighty- five organizations within them, other than Sunday schools, for doing Christian work. Of these fifty-five were in twenty- two Presbyterian churches, and the remaining thirty were distributed among ninety- three churches of cither denomina- tions. We have used education as an important arm of the church's ser- vice to the com- munity. We have a number of educated minis- ters devoting their whole time to intelligent organi- zation and direction of the church's activities. I was told by a mountaineer in surprised confidence that one of these ministers "must have a whole sled load of books." The very fact that most of them are "furiners" (i. e., do not belong to the mountains) probably enables them to see the needs of the field bet- ter than the natives can. Our church makes large use of schools. In fact most of our A MOTJ/NTAINEEIR'S HOME CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE churches have grown out of our schools. The Presbyterian schools have set the standard of education for this whole section of country. More than one community admittedly owes to the presence of the Presbyterians its good school, its improved community and family life, and its better organized church activities. I stood in the central square of a county seat on court Monday and observed the crowds of people from the surrounding country as they soberly and quietly transacted the busi- ness which calls them together on those days. and a residence. Today she has the best country school in the county, is the loved and respected leader in the community, has her dresses, her window-curtains, and her cakes copied by all the women for miles around, is the accountant and adviser of the men of the district, has been elected by them secretary and treasurer of the largest Farmers' Union in that part of the country, and has gathered about her half a hundred members of the Presby- terian church, making this branch church stronger than the main church. FORDING A by-standing citizen said to me, "Ten years ago you would have wanted to seek cover on such a day as this. This square was scarcely a safe place to be. Drinking, fighting, and shooting were the rule. The Presbyterians founded a school here, and now you can see how orderly and peaceable the place is." A country community fourteen miles from the nearest village was without a school, and was rent by a feud that led men to fill their pockets with weapons even when they attended church. That was ten years ago. The Pres- byterians sent a "wisp" of a young woman there to teach a day school and conduct a Sunday school. She went, and how she did it who shall say, but in six months the feud was dead, the people had subscribed labor and ma- terials and built her a two-room school house Presbyterians have done nothing in these mountains of which to boast. They have just touched the rim of the things that ought to be done. A body of Christian workers is de- manded, who will preserve the large vision and the sweet spirit of Christ, and courageously labor on, bearing, believing, hoping, and endur- ing all things for the love of the Master. The pioneer in the mountains has been the Woman's Board. Their work is still the most stimulating and the strongest influence for good. The whole Church owes a debt to the pioneer women missionaries, who invaded the mountains with spelling book in hand, to send the pastor who shall teach to a people, no longer illiterate, the gospel of the community, the nation and of the missionary kingdom of Jesus, the Saviour of the world. *6 CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Practical Evangelism for the Country Church CLAIR S. ADAMS WE will speak of such forms of practi- cal evangelism as have been intro- duced under the inspiration of our department during the past eight months in the Salt River Presbytery, Missouri ; our especial charge during this time. The six counties making up this presbytery have lost over five per cent in population in the last ten years, and our church over twenty per cent in membership. The chief reason for this is that there are so few pastors in these churches, only ten in all. Out of the forty- two churches in the presbytery, only two have preaching every Sabbath, one has three Sab- baths out of the month, seven have preaching twice a month, and the rest once a month, or none. All these are country churches save one, twenty-four of the churches are out in the open country and the remainder in small villages and towns usually overchurched. The ministers live in the towns and cities, in some cases many miles away from their churches, which are like "sheep without a shepherd." Quoting from the survey of Rev. Anton T. Boisen taken a year ago of this presbytery, "the nine ministers who serve the country churches use up each month twenty-one days in getting back and forth to their appoint- ments" not only time wasted but money, since "five of the ministers pay out $175 a year for traveling expenses to their churches," a sure case of "running .to and fro in the earth." But worse than all else, no pastors; and an absentee ministry is as unprofitable to the soul as absentee ownership is to the soil. There is probably no presbytery in our Church where there is such a church decline, and yet here is a fine, generous people, ready and willing for leadership. We give these details that you may know the condition with which we have to deal. We began this part of our department work in the presbytery by holding evangelistic ser- vices with seven of the churches, or as long as good roads continued and farmers were not too busy. Six of these churches were in the open country. One hundred and fifty-two ser- vices were held with seventy-one decisions for Christ, fifty-eight of these uniting with our churches, thirty of them being heads of fami- lies and nineteen new families being brought into our church membership. Most delightful social and community fellowship was strength- ened and the churches encouraged. We have emphasized this part of our plan, for the whole purpose of our department is to bring our country people to realize that bring- ing men into the Christian life is the first and greatest business of the church. After this has been done other work for the upbuilding of the community must be added, for religion consists not alone in the worship of God in a one-room building once a month. The finances of a church are generally sensi- tive subjects, but we are readjusting these and placing the churches on the budget plan, and introducing the duplex envelopes as fast as we can. The once-a-month churches have paid the highest salaries for preaching; too high, in fact, for what they have received. Three hundred dollars a year is often paid for this fractional service (revival of two weeks thrown in) with no pastoral work, and no institution or direction of church organiza- tions. Several woman's missionary societies have been organized and the young people are also finding an outlet for their activities in newly organized societies of various kinds. One of the best things we are doing in our ministry is holding Farmers' Institutes, meet- ing in the churches. Seven of these meetings have been conducted within the past few months. The first meeting of this kind held in the state, under the direction of the church, was in this presbytery in connection with this movement. There are usually several speak- ers, Board of Agriculture men, teachers and ministers ; so that we can present the four leading departments of rural uplift, viz., the farm, the home, the rural school, and the church. Thus we bind the factors of the rural life problem together in sympathy and cooper- ation, with the Church instituting and direct- ing it all, her rightful position, since she is to spiritualize the material, and touch all the "whatsoever ye do" of life. Usually our insti- tutes have been held for a day in each church, beginning with a morning session of about two CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE 17 hours, then a basket dinner for everybody in the church or on the grounds ; a fine social leaven for any community. In the afternoon about three hours is given to speaking and conference; schools in the neighborhood being dismissed and meeting with us; then the ad- dresses in the evening. Just to show how much interest such meetings arouse, this past April we held four such institutes in the busi- est time of spring work, the week of oat- sowing, yet we had an average at- tendance at each church of eighty- five. All these meetings are open- ed with devotional services, and religion is presented in a large way, irrespective of denominational lines, so that farmers see that sal- vation not only concerns the souls of men, but also the soil from whose bountiful gifts mankind lives. This larger conception lifts the minds of men Godward, and "the man with the hoe" becomes a co-worker with our Father in heaven. Already we can see a more responsive spirit towards the church, on the part of non-church- members, as they catch this larger conception of the ministry of the Church, than just the praise and worship of a Sabbath day. A Boy Scouts organization in one of our groups, directed by one of our department pastors has ral- lied the boys of the community, and already a camp has been held with great success, and larger plans for the coming year are be- ing enthusiastically entered into. In another rural church, a traveling library has been secured from our State Library Commission, and the people thus have the advantage of the reading of good modern books Preliminary steps have been taken towards the organization of various societies in several other communities, as activities of the church's life. We must not forget to mention the school house preaching that one of our pastors is doing on Sabbath afternoons, out from his town church with the greatest acceptance by the country people. This pastor already has three of these outstations, in districts that are far removed from other churches, and it is his purpose to tie these places to the town church, and make this work permanent. This kind of service has the "Go ye into all the world" ring to it, that cannot but build up God's kingdom. These activities of our churches out in Missouri may seem unimportant to some, but when we remember they are being introduced into communities where the Church stood only for once-a-month preaching, and with BiDBSSBD BY RRJEIS'BY'TiEiRIAIN INiFiLUIENCS scarcely any life except the annual two weeks' revival, where denominationalism is still ram- pant, and preachers do not live with their people, where economic conditions are largely back in the pioneer period, where the population is decreasing and the churches discouraged and dying; then we can see what larger meaning these forms of service have to the communities in which we are in- troducing them, and what a higher and more helpful vision of the place God means His Church to have in her ministry to the world. CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE Results of Special Training ANNA B. TAFT THERE are two impressive facts that stand out clearly to those who come closely in touch with the work of country ministers. The first is the splendid consecration, sacrifice and tireless labor in- vested in this form of Christian service. The second is, that failure to build an efficient church in the country lies in large measure, so far as the pastor is concerned, in a lack of knowledge of the problem and the want of clear vision as to the possibili- ties of the country church. To help live country minis- ters to be mas- ters of their problem the Department of C h u re h and Country Life has held each summer Post Graduate Courses for Country Minis- ters in cooper- ation w 'i t h Summer Schools of dis- tinction. No part of the Department's work is so inspiring as this for those who serve under it, for no other brings such quick and graphic returns. Nearly 400 country ministers, selected on the basis of their possibilities for leader- ship, have been brought to these Summer Schools during the past three years. A letter was recently sent to about fifty of these ministers who had had at least a year's work since attending the summer school, ask- ing what results in their work were directly traceable to the summer school. The response was so generous and hearty that it is impossi- ble in the limits of this brief article to give more than a few short extracts from the let- ters received. A minister from Pennsylvania writes : "My attendance upon the summer schools of the Department of Church and Country Life has been of great advantage to me as an COUNTRY PASTOR'S AT A SUMMER SCHOOL, inspiration and as a means of acquiring knowl- edge and receiving suggestions. Being in a very much overchurched community, with Presbyterianism not strong enough to domi- nate, I have not been able to follow my ideal; but I have sought to preach the old Gospel in terms of country life; and my people have in various ways testified that my preaching has very much improved. In fact this testimony has been so strong that, if I had no personal desire to attend the coming ses- sion of this school at Au- burn, I should have hesitated to remain away lest I should not be able to satisfy them in the future. In addition to my preaching here, I have by ser- mons in other pulpits and at Grange Har- vest Home Ser- vices, by ad- dresses at Sun- day scHool Conventions, and by articles in our local newspaper sought to awaken a new interest in the country church by calling attention to the sacredness of agriculture and the dependence of the Church on its prosperity and to the larger opportunity for evangelism through the church's taking an interest in the whole life of the people. Of course this has been largely sowing- seed where I could not expect to reap the harvest ; but I have had some evi- dence that it did not all fall on stony ground. Whatever I have done I have been led to chiefly by my attendance at Auburn." Another minister from the same state says : "As one of the country ministers who at- tended the summer school at Auburn Semi- nary, July, 1912, I am glad to say that this school had and is having a direct, positive influence in furthering the work in my field. The splendid instruction, the interchange of CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE 19 experiences and the splendid fellowship, all combine in communicating that impression which is so necessary to the country pastor that he is not working alone but is working with others who are trying to meet the same problems. "It is my opinion that nothing in recent times has been so .helpful to the country minis- ter as these summer schools and Country Life Conferences." - Another contribution from Pennsylvania comes from a man who is not at present a country pastor, but holding a home mission position in his presbytery. He writes : "The opportunity I have had for testing the value of the summer conferences has been an unusual one. I was fortunate enough to be present at the first of these which was held in connection with the Home Mission Board, and have found it to be specially helpful in the following ways : "In giving a clear vision of what the move- ment really means. "Those who have never attended any of these conferences can form no idea of their inspirational value in this direction. I had been a student of the problems of the country church before, but the lectures and discussions at the conference gave me a much better con- ception of what these problems are, and how they should be handled. "In formulating in a definite and concise program those lines of activity which need to be emphasized in the life and work of the country church. "Such a program has been of inestimable worth to me, and has been adopted by the presbytery. It has been successfully appealed to again and again in defense of the methods which the presbytery has used, and has been a most effective instrument in securing aggres- sive and concerted action." So many ministers from New York state who have had the exceptional advantage of attending the Auburn Summer School of Theology wrote in response to our inquiry that it is possible to quote from only a few. "Personally, the summer school brought me a greatly enlarged vision of the possibilities open to me and my people, and so, of course, a new and increased sense of responsibility. It showed me that some things must be at- tempted, which before had not appeared as part of my pastoral work, and it showed to some extent, how to tackle those jobs." Another minister says : "I believe the Board of Home Missions has done wisely, to seek to help the church through this training of workers and sugges- tions of the best methods." Again we have this word : "As neither my university nor seminary gave courses in "Country Life," I had no opportunity of studying the subject. But when I entered the summer school I began to see things in a new light. The least I can say is that Dr. Wilson gave me a vision of what a minister may be and do in a country com- munity. To a very large degree it is his program I am following in my work." From New Jersey a country pastor, writes : "Let me say a word concerning the value of the summer school. I attended a summer school three years ago and found it to be of great inspirational value 'to me. I was at that time at work upon the problems of the country church and of the country community, and the contact with others who were engaged in the same work encouraged me greatly to develop and enlarge the scope of the work already begun." A country minister from Ohio, doing excep- tionally fine work, writes : "I could write eloquently of the new inspira- tion that came to me as a result of my atten- dance at the summer school at Grove City, — one of the new sense that we country preach-' ers were being recognized in our work, of a new discovery that our work was important in larger ways than we had realized, of a new affection for the Church that was possessed of the love and statesmanship to get us to- gether and encourage us in a new and broader understanding of our country problem, a new prayer for all the country fields, a new in- telligence in regard to books on country life and successful forms of country work in various places." Another from the same state says : "I have never had such conceptions of church work before. I had never followed and studied as I have the past three years. It is far greater delight to attempt to do the work of a community seeing that according to this new way I can make my church and thus my own labors contribute to the welfare of the whole community as I had never con- ceived of doing before." All of our summer schools have not been in the East. In 1912 and again in 1913 we have CHURCH AND COUNTRY LIFE had a summer school at Estes Park, Colorado, in connection with the Y. M. C. A. Conference. One of the students at this summer school says briefly and right to the point : "I re- ceived inspiration and information and then used it. I spent much of my time in personal work and the response was very gratifying." A LIST OF BOOKS Recommended by the Department of Church and Country Life Anderson, Wilbert L. The Country Town. Baker Taylor Co. Ashenhurst, J. O. The Day of the 'Country Church. Funk & Wagnalls Co. Bailey, L,. H. The Country Life Movement. The Maemillan Co. Bailey, L. H. Nature Study Idea. The Maemillan Co. Bailey, L,. H, Outlook to Nature. The Maemillan Co. Bailey, I* H. The State and the Farmer. The Mae- millan Co. Beard, A. ~F. The Story of John Frederick Oberlin. The Pilgrim Press. Butterfield, Kenyon L,. Chapters in Rural Progress. University of Chicago Press.* Butterfield, Kenyon L. The Country Church and the Rural Problem. University of Chicago Press. Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics. Ginn & Co. Coulter, J. E. Co-operation Among Farmers. Stur- gis & Walton. Foght, H. W. The American Rural School. The Macimillan Co. Haggard, H. Rider. Rural Denmark and Its Les- sons. Longmans & Co. Kern, O. J. Among Country Schools. Ginn & Co. McKeever, W. A. Farm Boys and Girls. The Ma,c- millan Co. Plunkett, Sir Horace. The Rural Life Problem, of the United States. The Maemillan Co. Taft, Anna B. Community Study for Country Dis- tricts. Missionary Education Movement. Van Hise, C. R. The Conservation of the Natural Resources in the United States. The Mae- millan Co. Wilson, Warren H. The Church of the Open Coun- try. Missionary Education Movement. Wilson, Warren H. Quaker Hill. Privately Printed. Wilson, Warren H. The Evolution of the Country Community. The Pilgrim Press. Country Life. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Report of the Country Life Commission. Sturgis & Walton. Carney, Mabel. Country Life and the Country School. Row, Peterson and Company. Fiske, George Walter. The Challenge of the Coun- try. Association Press. Gill, Charles O. and Pinchot, Gifford. The Country Church. The Maemillan Company. Gillette, John M. Constructive Rural Sociology. Sturgis and Walton Company. MacDougall, John, Rural Life in Canada. The Westminster Company, Toronto. Copyright by Albert Smith. Used by permission. 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