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PAMPHLETS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE COUNTRY CHURCH 
 
 vol 
 
i_i J n/-. H I \J I 
 
 Massacliiisett^ i?:r]ci]]tr.nl College, 
 
 AMHERST. MASS, 
 
 ^he ]^ui[al (ghuiteh 
 and the Jpartmeit. 
 
 MOIRA, N. Y. 
 MATTHEW H. DOWD 
 
Methodist Episcopal Cliurcli, Moira, N. Y. 
 
Zbc IRural Cburcb 
 
 anb the ^farmer 
 
 Copyright, 1912, 
 Matthew H. Dowel 
 
 Endorsed, and publication authorized 
 
 by St. Lawrence District Conference 
 
 March 12th. 1912 
 
 Published by Matthew H. Dowd 
 Chairman Committee on District Evangelism 
 
 Moira, N. Y. 
 Price per copy 25c (coin). Five copies |i, 00 
 
Xk^ Rural (Jl^urct) and tt)e Farmer 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Preachment. 
 
 The editor of the American Review of 
 Reviews in the issue of March, 19 12, 
 writing on "The Church's Need of 
 the Efficiency Engineer," states : "Huxley 
 once characterized science as trained and 
 organized common sense. Recently the 
 business man is having his common 
 sense organized and trained to work in 
 ways similar to those of science ; and be- 
 yond the field of business into which the 
 scientfiic method is now pressing writes 
 Dr. Samuel Dike in the American Jour- 
 nal of Theology (Chicago) lies still an- 
 other which it must of necessity soon 
 enter." 
 
 Dr. Dike says : "The scientific method 
 has long been at work in biblical study 
 and theology, * * * but strange to 
 say it has made little progress in the kin- 
 dred study of Church organization * * 
 but no one who reflects on the subject 
 can fail to see that the same motives that 
 
have driven us to a large use of the 
 scientific method in matters of religious 
 thought, will inevitably compel us to take 
 it with us into the problems of practical 
 religious work." The Dr. adds : "Men 
 of affairs accustomed to methodical sys- 
 tems by which they have the oversight 
 of their own business easily arranged; 
 and carefully distributed; do not lift a 
 finger to secure like efficiency in their 
 own churches." 
 
 This is particularly true in the work 
 of the rural church; there is little or no 
 concentrated effort and no understanding 
 between the churches in neighboring vil- 
 lages as to what part of the rural districts 
 each shall be responsible for in their 
 ministry to the community. There is 
 cause for rejoicing because of the interest 
 in the social and religious life of our 
 rural communities by those who lead in 
 the study of agriculture. A notable in- 
 stance of this is the work done in the 
 annual conferences on the "Rural 
 Church," held during Farmers' Week by 
 the agricultural college at Ithaca. The 
 addresses at these conferences have been 
 of a high order, but the best thing in 
 connection with the work is the recogni- 
 tion of the fact that the social life of the 
 farmer is not complete when it is di- 
 vorced from the church ; or perhaps more 
 properly from the religion of Christ for 
 
which the church stands. Man is both a 
 religious and a social creature. He cannot 
 be at his best if he neglects the things 
 that have to do with completeness in his 
 soul. 
 
 The social life always involves the 
 thought of self-denial and vicarious sacri- 
 fice. Jesus came to magnify in his own 
 life both the religious and social elements 
 in the life of man. Socially, one of the 
 earliest acts of his ministry was to mirac- 
 ulously increase the happiness of the so- 
 cial hour at a wedding. In his teaching 
 he spoke of our filial relationship to God 
 and reminded his followers that their 
 fraternal relationship to mankind was 
 second only to that ; and it was always 
 to equal the desire for self-comfort and 
 happiness. This being the case the de- 
 velopment of man is not to be apart from 
 his God or from his fellows. 
 
 It seems to be generally conceded that 
 in a large measure aloofness has taken 
 place in the rural districts of our coun- 
 try, however, it must be said that such 
 a condition has come to pass not because 
 the country people have lost confidence 
 in the church ; but for some other rea- 
 son. Rare indeed are the cases where 
 sickness and death enter the home, that 
 the family do not turn to the church for 
 sympathy, aid, and comfort. The fact is 
 that while they appreciate the service the 
 
church can render, they have commercial- 
 ized their relation to it just as they have 
 their relation to the grocery store; that 
 is they purchase what they want; and 
 pay only for what they get; and have 
 no interest in it beyond that. 
 
 A gift to the pastor, who has called on 
 the sick, and in case of death conducted 
 the funeral, hardly approaches the con- 
 duct outlined by the teaching of Jesus. 
 If all the people should follow this ex- 
 ample the church of Christ would cease 
 to exist because the spirit of Christ would 
 have no place in the human heart. 
 
 During a ministry covering a score of 
 years the writer has talked with many 
 people of this class and almost invariably 
 they state that their alienation is caused 
 mainly by the fact that so many church 
 members claiming to believe in the church 
 and its mission, are so niggardly in fin- 
 ancial support of its work. However, so 
 far as our knowledge goes there is no 
 difference God's call to service is the 
 same to each ; and the right way to have 
 a harvest, whether spiritual, or material, 
 is to bring all the tithes into the store- 
 house. The business of the church and 
 the unchurched is to get together for the 
 common good. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Who Is To Blame f 
 
 The rural church is not blameless nor 
 does it claim to be ; and it has to its credit 
 the fact that it is awakening to a sense 
 of neglect ; and making an honest effort 
 to improve conditions in its own peculiar 
 field. In the midst of changing conditions 
 it is feeling its way but must not much 
 longer disregard the call to immediate ac- 
 tion; because of the irreligious condition 
 of rural communities, that are but slight- 
 ly remote from our villages. 
 
 We hear a clamorous call for activity 
 on the part of the church. God grant that 
 it may soon be seen, and its influence felt. 
 But may it not be true that the church 
 has been lacking in emotion. It seems 
 probable that there has been too little 
 preaching of the doctrine of the Holy 
 Spirit. L. G. Broughton in his book, 'The 
 Revival of a Dead Church/' writes, ''If 
 we eliminate all the supernatural from 
 our religion and our religious experience, 
 as many are wont to do ; we simply reduce 
 religion to a mere cold lifeless philosophy 
 which would be very little better than 
 that of Confucious or other teachers." I 
 do not mean that shallow feeling "which 
 
lacks the correlate of conduct; that hu- 
 man nature often assumes so readily; 
 which sometimes leads to the grossest 
 fanaticism ; but rather the kind "which is 
 directed toward right living," that comes 
 to thoughtful and devout believers ; who 
 study to see the deep things of salvation ; 
 and whose hearts become animated with 
 those profound feelings, which kindled 
 by Divine Fire, and fanned by a holy en- 
 thusiasm, urges us to the task of redeem- 
 ing a race." Might we not know an emo- 
 tion; that born of faith in God; and 
 moved with Christ-like compassion; 
 would cause us with heaving bosom and 
 trembling lips, to cry out it must be done. 
 
 The Rev. J. G. Patton, D. D. writing 
 to one of the religious journals enquiries : 
 
 ''Has the ministry grown insipid, in- 
 ane? Has it lost its savor? From some 
 of the criticisms found in popuar litera- 
 ture, one might conclude that such is the 
 case with many ministers. They, accord- 
 ing to their critics, have lost their grace, 
 their grit and their grip. This ''legion" 
 (we are not sure that we can call them 
 legion) has had no high ideals of their 
 ministry. They have not had a vision of 
 sin in the world. No more have they be- 
 held the glory of redemption. Some may 
 have entered the ministry with high 
 hopes, but have had hard places and have 
 battled by themselves without the aid of 
 
Almighty God, and have been worsted. 
 They have allowed their defeat to dis- 
 courage and break down their spiritual 
 ambition. They are contented to let the 
 world take the church; and are discon- 
 tented with their own chosen calling. 
 
 ''The real ministry has not lost its 
 place in the world and never will. So 
 long as sin and suffering by sin endure, 
 so long will the ministry be needed. Till 
 the flood gates of hell are closed the 
 church will have a warfare — both of of- 
 fensive and defensive. 
 
 "Heroic men must enter the ministry. 
 Their heroism must grow as they grow 
 in years of experience. 
 
 "The warfare of the church of the 
 present day is as strenuous as in any day 
 of the past. A godless commercialism 
 and materialism creeps over the people of 
 God and invades the public sanctuary. 
 Vast armies of men are too tired to go 
 to church and too indifferent to pray. 
 Their load is a heavy one, and in our 
 greed for money that load may grow 
 heavier. If men who are too tired to 
 go to God's house to pray, would spend 
 the hour of public service in their own 
 private rooms praying to God in secret, 
 the Church of Christ would not suffer so 
 much and the souls of these men would 
 not be in such danger of drying up. 
 
 "But greed and mammon are not the 
 
only foes the minister of to-day has to 
 battle against. There are a myriad of 
 foes — all alert and ready to stand in the 
 way of the kingdom of God on earth. 
 These foes are to be found everywhere, 
 in the city and in the country. We are 
 appalled at the awful sins of Africa. We 
 ought to sit in sack-cloth and ashes at 
 the sins in Christian America and in our 
 very churches sometimes. 
 
 'The man who takes up this work of 
 the ministry will find an enemy well 
 worthy of his highest ideal and strongest 
 nerve force. No matter where he chooses 
 his field, he will need to be courageous. 
 If he goes to the country to take charge 
 of a country field run down and out by 
 the going away of many of the old and 
 respectable church families, he will there 
 find a field where courage, real courage, 
 is needed as much as if he had chosen a 
 parish in China. In speaking to a re- 
 turned missionary from China, the writer 
 found that the missionary thought the 
 work of the ministry here in America 
 was just as hard as it was in China. 
 One's physical life is not so much in 
 danger here in America as in China, but 
 his spiritual life may be in more danger. 
 He is a hero who will battle against his 
 own inner spiritual foes. 
 
 "The country church offers a fertile 
 field for heroic effort. The young man 
 
who will devote himself to a country field 
 with the expectation of making that his 
 life-work and who is determined to build 
 up the church and make it the center of 
 religious life for the community is as 
 much of a hero and patriot as the man 
 who goes to a foreign field. It will require 
 high courage and consummate wisdom to 
 meet his daily problems. This country 
 pastor will train members for city church- 
 es. He will train foreign missionaries. 
 From his sowing the future ministry will 
 reap rich harvests." 
 
 In a recent issue of The Christian 
 Work and Evangelist, the editor inquires 
 *Ts the failure all with the church ?" He 
 writes : 
 
 ''Thus everywhere one is hearing of 
 the failure of the Church to meet the 
 problems of modern life. And the blame 
 is almost always put upon the Church. 
 One critic after another is shouting to 
 her, Why do you not adjust yourself to 
 the new day? Why do you not adapt 
 yourself to the people who pass you by? 
 Why do you not awaken out of your 
 lethargy? Why not bestir yourself and 
 conceive again a great revival of religion? 
 From every quarter the blame of the ap- 
 parent failure is put upon the Church. 
 
 "But is the failure all with the Church? 
 May it not be that the failure is more with 
 the people than the Church ? May it not 
 
be that it is the same old story of the 
 Gospels, where Jesus failed because of 
 the unbelief of the people? He could 
 not succeed, do all he might, because of 
 the unbelief of the multitude. We be- 
 lieve that never in any period of the 
 world's history was the Church making 
 more earnest effort than it is to-day both 
 to reach the people and to build the king- 
 dom of God. Men never preached the 
 real Gospel more earnestly. In half a 
 million churches next Sunday Jesus 
 Christ will be truly preached. There 
 never was so devoted and passionate hu- 
 manitarianism manifested than the 
 Church to-day is exercising. Never has 
 the Church shown such enthusiasm for 
 the kingdom of God in the world. But 
 how can the preacher move men if they 
 care nothing for hearing the Gospel? 
 How can the Church work miracles if in 
 all the people there is a deadening unbe- 
 lief ? How can the Church build the city 
 of God if the people prefer Vanity Fair ? 
 Let us be frank about this whole mat- 
 ter. Is it altogether the blame of the 
 Church that Christ is failing to-day ? May 
 it not be that it is because the people do 
 not want the Church nor its Gospel nor 
 its abundant life!" He concludes: '*We 
 get a little tired of all this talk about the 
 Church adapting her message and her 
 methods to the people as tho that were 
 
all. Where no religious faculty is left a 
 perfect Church labors in vain, just as 
 a perfect Christ could do nothing before 
 unbelief. A believing people would soon 
 discover a miracle working church. To a 
 people who desire Christ he will quickly 
 manifest himself in glory. There is much 
 talk about adjusting the Church to the 
 people. This is well and good. But how 
 would it do to talk a little more about 
 adjusting the people to the Church?" 
 
 The residents of our rural districts 
 have a responsibility toward the Church. 
 God calls them to serve him, as surely as 
 he calls any one now in his Church. Nor 
 can they without hurt to themselves shirk 
 from a strict performance of their duty 
 toward their neighbor. 
 
 Prof. Starratt says, "The farmers of 
 the land as individuals are not degener- 
 ates nor are they less religious than the 
 farmer of the past in the days of the glory 
 of the country church. He is still human 
 and humanity wherever you find it is re- 
 ligious. * * * * He (the farmer) is 
 too individualistic and seems to have lost 
 or has failed to develop the power of or- 
 ganization." 
 
 Our village churches for some years 
 have been busy with the struggle for a 
 bare existence, many of our young people 
 leave us for the city and the old "pillars" 
 of the church are dying. Congregations 
 
become pitifully small and many are dis- 
 couraged so that in the midst of perplex-, 
 ity the needy neighbor has been forgot- 
 ten. We recall the fact that when Job 
 forgot his own trouble; and in his 
 anxiety for his friends, interceded with 
 God for them; then the Lord delivered 
 Job. May it not be that the church has 
 been so absorbed with internal problems, 
 that the range of vision has been so nar- 
 rowed that external needs and problems 
 have been lost to the sight ; and is it not 
 just possible that its depleted ranks 
 would have been filled, if there had been 
 a consuming passion for the deliverance 
 of those who suffered on the outside? 
 
 It cannot be that the rural pastor is 
 entirely blameless; and yet it is possible 
 that he is more to blame, because he has 
 failed in promoting proper organization 
 of the forces about him, than in lack of 
 effort, for the rural pastor is usually a 
 hard- worker. He must take the initiative, 
 and if any construction work in the re- 
 ligious or social life is to be done, he has 
 to be the man of the hour. 
 
 He has his discouragements too. 
 Some time ago the "Standard" (Baptist, 
 Chicago) published part of a letter, writ- 
 ten by a discouraged pastor, who was 
 obliged to quit the calling, because of in- 
 sufficient support. Writing an old col- 
 lege friend: 
 
"He says he has found *not a few earn- 
 est, unselfish, consecrated Qiristians/ 
 and thinks he is 'not especially morbid or 
 unfair' in his estimate. But — 
 
 " 'Through all these years a conviction 
 has been growing within me that the av- 
 erage church-member cares precious lit- 
 tle about the kingdom of God and its ad- 
 vancement, or the welfare of his fellow 
 men. He is a Christian in order that he 
 may save his soul from hell, and for no 
 other reason. He does as little as he can, 
 lives as indifferently as he dares. If he 
 though he could gain heaven without ev- 
 en lifting his finger for others, he would 
 jump at the chance. Never have I known 
 more than a small minority of any church 
 which I have served to be really interest- 
 ed in and unselfishly devoted to God's 
 work. It took my whole time to pull and 
 push and urge and persuade the reluctant 
 members of my church to undertake a 
 little something for their fellow men. 
 They took a covenant to be faithful in 
 attendance upon the services of the 
 church, and not one out of ten ever 
 thought of attending prayer-meeting. A 
 large percentage seldom attended church 
 in the morning, and a pitifully small 
 number in the evening. It did not seem 
 to mean anything to them that they had 
 dedicated themselves to the service of 
 Christ. 
 
"I am tired ; tired of being the only one 
 in the church from whom real sacrifice is 
 expected ; tired of straining and tugging 
 to get Christian people to live like Chris- 
 tians ; tired of planning work for my peo- 
 ple and then being compelled to do it my- 
 self or see it left undone ; tired of dodg- 
 ing my creditors when I would not need 
 to if I had what is due me ; tired of the 
 affrighting vision of a penniless old age. 
 I am not leaving Christ. I love him. I 
 shall still try to serve him." 
 
 It would seem that the church, the min- 
 istry, and the people, ought to acknowl- 
 edge their fault and get together to work 
 for the glory of God and the common 
 good. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Country Church, A Statement of 
 Conditions. 
 
 By Prof. F. A. Starratt, Hamilton Theo- 
 logical Seminary. 
 
 That there is a problem of the rural 
 church or a rural problem of any kind, 
 seems to many strange indeed. That 
 there should be a city problem, is no more 
 than is to be expected, for do not all the 
 evil and troublous things flock into the 
 city? That they should arise there, out 
 of the unnatural crowding together of all 
 kinds of people, is not at all strange, but 
 that the country should offer problems 
 to be solved is altogether out of the na- 
 ture of things. W'e have always thought 
 of the people of the open country as the 
 backbone of the nation, the source of all 
 its strength and sweetness. Do we ever 
 fail to remember that it was the farmers 
 of Lexington who started the conflict that 
 brought us liberty ? Do we not constant- 
 ly recount the fact that all the good and 
 great of church and state have come from 
 the farm ? With this traditional ideal of 
 
the country before us it is difficult to ad- 
 just ourselves to the thought of a really 
 serious rural problem, especially one in- 
 volving moral and religious factors. And 
 yet there is a rural problem and there is 
 a very pressing problem of the rural 
 church. This fact may be brought to 
 our attention in various ways. There is 
 one fact, however, that brings it before 
 us in a concrete way, and forces us to 
 take it seriously. 
 
 It may be stated in a word; a very 
 small percentage of the farmers of the 
 land are in the habit of attending re- 
 ligious services of any kind. Organized 
 Christianity is fast losing its hold upon 
 the farming population of America. This 
 is true even of our own state of New 
 York. 
 
 As a result of the examination of the 
 reports of the country and village church- 
 es of six Baptist Associations in the 
 state of New York, it was discovered 
 that they had lost twelve per cent, in 
 membership during the last ten years. 
 The gain in membership made by this 
 denomination, during this period, was 
 made in the cities and large towns. In 
 the country the church had failed to 
 keep pace with the population. Reports 
 from thirty-two rural communities in 
 the state show that less than twenty-nine 
 per cent, of the population belong to any 
 
church. A careful examination of fifty- 
 three such communities in Pennsylvania, 
 shows a little better proportion of 
 church members, forty-two percent, but 
 only twenty-nine per cent, could be count- 
 ed as church attendants. A personal in- 
 vestigation of a section of rural Vermont, 
 showed an alarming falling off of church 
 attendance even where there was no such 
 proportionate decrease in membership. 
 The same general condition of things is 
 revealed in an examination of a consid- 
 erable country district of Missouri, which 
 was conducted with great thoroughness 
 by the Presbyterian Board of Home Mis- 
 sions. 
 
 Nor do these facts give the full signif- 
 icance of the situation so far as the farm- 
 er is concerned, for included in the 
 studies are many towns and villages of 
 five hundred and in some cases up to 
 twenty-five hundred people. Often there 
 will be a strong and prosperous village 
 church, surrounded by a large farming 
 community that is practically untouched 
 by the church influence, very few of the 
 farmers driving into the village for pub- . 
 lie worship. The empty horse sheds re- 
 veal the fact that the village church is 
 losing its hold upon the fanner. It is be- 
 coming ever more apparent that the pure- 
 ly rural church is in a weak and unhappy 
 condition. It would be superfluous to 
 
continue to mass evidence as to the con- 
 dition of the rural church in regard to 
 membership and attendance. The result 
 of all study of the matter point to the 
 one conclusion, that the country church 
 is losing ground, failing to meet its obli- 
 gations and facing a crisis in its history. 
 This statement of the surface fact does 
 not, however, make the situation clear, 
 nor reveal the actual condition. One 
 could conclude that the farmer is becom- 
 ing degenerate and that he is no longer 
 accessible to the Gospel or responsive to 
 the appeal of religion. Or one might ex- 
 plain the fact by saying that religion is 
 losing its power, that with the advanc- 
 ing civilization, man is learning to get 
 along without religion. The latter ex- 
 planation is refuted by the increase of 
 religion throughout the country general- 
 ly, and by the renewed interest being 
 awakened in practical religious move- 
 ments. The former explanation cannot 
 be accepted by any one who knows the 
 farmer as he is. The farmers of the 
 land, as individuals, are not degenerates 
 nor are they any less religious than the 
 farmer of the past in the days of the 
 glory of the country church. He is still 
 human and humanity wherever you find 
 it is religious. The American farmer is 
 not immune to religious influences, nor is 
 he less intelligent than his predecessors. 
 
It is true that there has been a progress 
 of selection going on in the farming 
 community for many years but it is not 
 evident that the resuh has been what it 
 is often supposed to be. In the Eastern 
 states two voices have sounded in the 
 ears of the young people on the farm ; 
 the voice of the new West and the voice 
 of the city. Many have obeyed these 
 calls. Some have chosen to go, some 
 have elected to remain. Sometimes it has 
 been the resolute and ambitious who have 
 been drawn away, sometimes it has 
 been the shiftless and unsuccessful. 
 \\'hile it is a matter that cannot be dem- 
 onstrated, yet it is not clear altogether, 
 that the individuals who have remained 
 are not, in point of native equipment the 
 equals of those who left, take them as 
 they run. 
 
 The development of the two classes 
 has, however, been different to say the 
 least. The rural section of the country 
 has not kept pace with the city in its 
 social development. The city, in its de- 
 velopment as a community, has forged 
 ahead, leaving the country behind. This, 
 however, may not be due, as is often as- 
 siuned, to the fact that the individual in 
 the city is so much more highly endowed 
 than his country brother. We are com- 
 ing to realize that environment has more 
 to do with the development of the indi- 
 
vidual than we had supposed. And it 
 seems to be true that the change that 
 comes over the country boy when he goes 
 to the city is due to the environment into 
 which he goes rather than to the fact 
 that he is made of better stuff than the 
 fellow who chooses to stay on the 
 farm. The decadence of the country 
 community and of the country church is 
 not due to the fact that there is not good 
 upon them by the various movements of 
 the past years. With the introduction of 
 natural material in the country, but due to 
 the conditions that have been forced by 
 machinery and the consequent revolution 
 in the industrial world, the centralization 
 of m.anufacturing, the bringing together 
 of great masses of people, there arose a 
 soicial condition that at once attracted 
 attention, and has held the attention of 
 the whole country ever since. It has not 
 been the achievements of the city alone 
 that has won for it this attention it has 
 been in large measure, the troubles of the 
 city, its unsolved problems, its threat- 
 ened dangers. But whatever the cause, 
 the fact is that the attention of the peo- 
 ple has been focused on the city. Its so- 
 cial problem was a concentrated one, and 
 one that demanded immediate action, so 
 that the best thought of the world has 
 been engaged upon its solution. Ques- 
 tions having to do with the great com- 
 
mercial and industrial centers have 
 monopolized the thought of the great 
 masses of the people. During all this 
 time the farmer has been living quietly 
 upon the land. He has had his troubles 
 also, but because these troubles were 
 widely distributed and did not lead to any 
 serious disorders, they received little or 
 no attention. In fact his own mind was 
 continually being drawn away to the city 
 questions. His newspaper brought him 
 chiefly news of his city brother, and the 
 city man's troubles were kept ever before 
 him and his own seemed small in com- 
 parison with those, which though affect- 
 ing in the aggregate, a less number of 
 people, yet because of being concentrat- 
 ed in a narrower compass seemed larger 
 and more important. As a consequence, 
 the city has advanced rapidly, in the past 
 years, in the understanding of its social 
 duties and responsibilities, while the 
 farmer has made practically no steps 
 toward the solution of his equally im- 
 portant though less spectacular problem 
 of social life. During the past ten years 
 the farmer has made progress financially, 
 he is making money, and as an individual 
 he is bringing into his life some of the 
 better things that belong to the modern 
 world, but the social condition of the 
 community in which he lives has made 
 no advancement but has rather gone 
 
backward. The modern conveniences, that 
 have come to him, have been of advant- 
 age to him individually, but it is ques- 
 tionable whether they have aided in any 
 way to build up the community in which 
 he lives. The free mail delivery brings 
 him in closer touch with the outside 
 world, but it does not often bring to him 
 anything very helpful for the world in 
 which he actually lives. The trolley takes 
 him to town for his recreation, and the 
 telephone gossip takes the place of the 
 old-time neighborhood visits. The chief 
 influence of these things seems to be to 
 make him more independent of his 
 immediate surroundings, whereas what 
 he needs is, to be thrown back upon them 
 more, so that he will take the trouble to 
 make them more attractive and service- 
 able. 
 
 The problem of the country is no long- 
 er chiefly, whether one can make a living 
 there, it is rather, can life be made as 
 rich and full, as well worth while, in the 
 country, as the needs of true human life 
 demand? Can the life on the farm be 
 made to contribute to the well-being of 
 man as is demanded by the best interests 
 of that life. This has not been done, and 
 is not now being done as a rule. Country 
 life is fatally at fault at this point. Life 
 on the farm is usually a weary round of 
 toil with few things to quicken the social 
 
or the intellectual nature. If these things 
 are felt to be needed, by any one then 
 the natural thing has been to look beyond 
 the country for them, to the city or the 
 large town. The fact that the farmer is 
 now able to go to the city for his pleas- 
 ures, has been hailed by him and his 
 friends as the dawning of a better day. 
 The result is, however, that there is no 
 serious attempt being made to supply 
 these things in the community in which 
 he lives and as a consequence the rural 
 community has suffered in its common 
 life, social institutions have fallen into a 
 state of decay, the church along with the 
 rest of them. 
 
 ^^'hile we recognize that there has been 
 a lack of attention to the social side 
 of his life, we must not conclude that the 
 farmer himself has not changed, for he 
 has. We must not overlook this fact. 
 \Yq need to clearly perceive that the 
 country church is confronted by a new 
 situation. The old days are gone and 
 they will never return. There is material 
 in the country for strong and vigorous 
 churches, but they will not be like the 
 churches of the fathers. The people of 
 the country have not been standing still 
 all these stirring times. They are a new 
 people and will have to be appealed to in 
 a new way, different from that to which 
 their fathers responded so well. 
 
The farmer has participated more or 
 less in the change that has come over the 
 world in the past twenty-five years. Only 
 once or twice in the history of man has 
 there been such a revolution in human 
 thought, as we have witnessed in our own 
 day. This change in the way of looking 
 at things has found its way into all class- 
 es of society. All people are not clearly 
 conscious of the change, nor in what it 
 consists, but they dimly feel it and its 
 presence can be detected, by observing 
 the different interests that appeal to 
 them.. It can be seen, too, in the attitude 
 which they assume toward many of the 
 questions of the day. Religion, as well 
 as other phases of life, has been affected 
 by this new attitude. While in its es- 
 sence religion is what it has always been, 
 yet in the way people conceive it, a great 
 change has come. If any of you feel in- 
 clined to doubt this statement, turn to one 
 of the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, 
 and imagine yourself reading it to a 
 modern congregation. Now the farmer 
 has entered more or less fully into this 
 new thought, he shares more or less ful- 
 ly with the rest of the world in this new 
 outlook upon the world in which he lives, 
 the world of religion as well as the world 
 of nature. This has been forced upon 
 him to some extent by the new method 
 by which he does his work. This has 
 
been admirably stated by Director Bailey, 
 (The State and the Farmer, 13). In 
 describing the changed method of farm- 
 ing, he says : ''This change is even more 
 remarkable in the farmer's attitude tow- 
 ard the reasons that underlie his work, al- 
 though this shift does not appeal much 
 to the popular imagination. His attitude 
 toward soil fertility has undergone a com- 
 plete change, so has his attitude toward 
 the feeding of animals, and the treatment 
 of their ailments ; so has it toward the 
 diseases of plants and toward insects. He 
 speaks a new language. Even when the 
 old farm shows no visible change in ex- 
 ternal matters, the farmer himself can- 
 not avoid attacking his problem in a new 
 way. Butter- fat is a reality. There are 
 new crops on the land. If he lives in the 
 northeastern milk-market section, he has 
 seen the red and brindle cow change to 
 the black and white ; he has developed the 
 winter production of milk and has made 
 the silo a part of the farm scheme. He 
 has a new conception of cleanliness, as a 
 result of his study of bacteria. He has a 
 rational outlook on potato-blight and oat- 
 smut and codlin moth. He has respect 
 for ideas in print, because the ideas are 
 worthy of respect. All this changes his 
 method of work." And all this changes 
 his attitude toward all the questions that 
 come to his attention. The farmer has 
 
not passed uninfluenced through the 
 changes that have been going on in the 
 world about him. He belongs not to the 
 world of the fathers but to this present 
 modern world in which we all live. Per- 
 haps he least of all is conscious of the 
 change that has come over him, but who- 
 ever is going to deal with him, will make 
 a tremendous mistake if he overlooks the 
 fact. But strange as it may seem, while 
 the farmer himself has changed, and the 
 method of doing his work has changed, 
 all in the general direction of the world 
 movements about him, the community as 
 such, in which he lives has not shared in 
 this general movement. 
 
 While in the new order into which he 
 has come, there is a strong emphasis 
 placed upon the social side of life, a 
 clearer recognition of the fact that man 
 is not an individual who can come to his 
 true estate by himself, but a person who 
 can only come to his best in social rela- 
 tions, by the help of his fellows, yet the 
 farmer has remained extremely individ- 
 ualistic in practice at least whatever he 
 may be in theory. In the old days, there 
 was none too much of social life but what 
 there was has been allowed to disappear 
 without anything coming in to take its 
 place. There used to be singing school 
 in the long Winter evenings, where the 
 young folks could get together and find 
 
social intercourse. There were apple- 
 parings and husking-bees, and barn-rais- 
 ings, and various other neighborhood 
 gatherings, these have all gone and the 
 average farming community is left bare 
 of any social interests at a time when 
 they are recognized as being real needs 
 of human life as never before. The 
 country community has disintegrated, it 
 is disorganized, and the farmer seems to 
 have lost or has failed to develop the 
 power of organization. 
 
 In this general neglect of social inter- 
 ests and the concentration of attention on 
 the purely individualistic side of life, the 
 church has shared the fate of other insti- 
 tutions. Its depressed condition can only 
 be understood in the light of the whole 
 situation. It has not failed singly, it 
 has not suffered alone, it has simply gone 
 along with the whole movement, the ten- 
 dency of which was not percieved until 
 its effects became only too apparent. 
 
 Now while the above statements are a 
 result of an inductive study of the facts 
 and it can be shown that the church has 
 actually waned with the falling off of the 
 social interest and continues weak wher- 
 ever the social instinct has no opportun- 
 ity to express itself, yet I think there is 
 a real connection between these two 
 phenomena, that they do not simply hap- 
 
pen to be contempory events but there is 
 a logical connection between them. 
 Religion itself is very closely allied to 
 the family and social life. The religious 
 feelings are intimately related to the feel- 
 ings aroused through social intercourse. 
 The yearning of the heart for God is 
 not unrelated to the yearning of the heart 
 for human sympathy and fellowship. 
 The dependence on God which we feel is 
 allied to the dependence upon one another 
 of which we are constantly aware. The 
 development of religion has been condi- 
 tioned in all its history by the social life, 
 especially is this true of the forms of 
 public worship. It is largely the social 
 instinct that brings people together for 
 worship. When there is a revival of 
 religious interest and an increase of the 
 religious impulse, it usually seeks to ex- 
 press itself in some form of social activ- 
 ity. Hence it seems to me, to be very 
 clear that there is a very close relation 
 between the two facts, that we have 
 found to be contemporaneous, the deter- 
 ioration of the social life in the rural com- 
 munities and the decline of the churches 
 in the same communities. The church 
 has accompanied the community in its 
 mistake, and shares in its punishment. 
 For it is to be noted that, during this 
 time, when the city was intent upon 
 social betterment, and the rural commun- 
 
ity seemed blind to its duty, the church 
 made no effort to supply the need. It 
 too appeared to be oblivious to the con- 
 ditions which were growing up about 
 it. It continued using only the old 
 methods of work, doing the same things 
 that had been done in the past, blind 
 to the fact that the conditions that made 
 them effective were passing away, and 
 also blind to the new needs that were 
 growing up about them. And even yet 
 only a few churches have come to see that 
 their own continued existence depends 
 upon arousing some sort of social feel- 
 ing among the people among whom they 
 work. 
 
 If this analysis of the situation is cor- 
 rect then we have the line indicated along 
 which the forward movement must pro- 
 ceed. If the welfare of the church is 
 bound up with the social condition of 
 the community, then the church must 
 for its own sake, if for no other reason, 
 set itself the task of social reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 This same conclusion can be arrived at 
 from another point of view with equal 
 force. The function of the church is to 
 build up the life of the community in 
 every way possible. It is to co-operate 
 with God in all his endeavor for the wel- 
 fare of men. Every activity for the bet- 
 terment of man lies within its sphere. 
 
The church should be behind every 
 movement for the good of the world, 
 directly, if no other agency is doing the 
 work ; indirectly by sympathy and co-op- 
 eration if some other organization is do- 
 ing the thing that needs to be done. Now 
 all students of the rural problem are 
 agreed that country life needs the spirit 
 that will make co-operation possible. It 
 needs the cultivation of the social side of 
 the farmer, something that will modify 
 his excessive individualism. If then the 
 church is ready to do the thing that most 
 needs to be done, on its own field it will 
 apply itself to the task of reconstructing 
 the social life of its community. The 
 rural church has not declined because 
 there is any less genuine piety in the pul- 
 pit or in the pew, nor because the lines 
 of work to which it has been accustomed 
 have been pushed with any less fervor or 
 consecration, but because the conditions 
 under which these methods of work are 
 effective no longer exist. A strong 
 church cannot develop in a place where 
 there is merely a collection of individuals. 
 It needs the social bond. 
 
 This being so the task of the country 
 church, as I conceive it, is to reconstruct 
 the social life of the community in which 
 it finds itself. Not to redouble its efforts 
 along the old lines, but rather to face a 
 new task, new for the country church of 
 
recent years, but not new in the history 
 of the church in the early days of Amer- 
 ica. In the days of the Puritans, back 
 to which we look as to the golden days 
 of the rural church, we find that the 
 church was the social leader, the influence 
 that moulded the public life of the early 
 township as well as of the state. So it 
 is not a new task but it is under new 
 conditions, and must be met with new 
 methods, methods that are adapted to the 
 new thought of the age that confronts us. 
 
 This task, of reconstructing the rural 
 community is one for which the church 
 is especially fitted. It is of the very es- 
 sence of the Gospel, and needs for its 
 accomplishment the spirit of the Christ. 
 
 It sounds like a formidable undertak- 
 ing, to talk of a church setting itself 
 the task of reconstructing the social life 
 of a community, and it is in one way, 
 it is a man's job, it requires tact, patience, 
 perseverance, and some degree of the in- 
 itiative. But it is not an undertaking 
 that demands a large outlay of money 
 nor the introduction of agencies not 
 already engaged in the ordinary church 
 w^ork. It calls merely for a new direc- 
 tion of these forces. It is a matter that 
 cannot be forced nor that can be foisted 
 on a people, it must grow up naturally 
 out of the situation. Some real and ob- 
 vious need must be supplied out of the 
 
resources latent in the place. Whatever 
 is done must be done with the material 
 at hand. The farmer is not an object of 
 charity nor is there any necessity of out- 
 side aid, it would not be of any per- 
 manent good if it were provided. One 
 thing the situation does need and that is 
 a leader. There are few leaders in the 
 country, few men who have won recog- 
 nition for themselves so that they can 
 wield an influence over their fellows such 
 as this movement requires. The farmer 
 is of all men hard to lead, his isolation, 
 his independence, his extreme individual- 
 ism, makes him suspicious of all at- 
 tempts at combination under the leader- 
 ship of another. This very thing has 
 prevented the farmer from forming com- 
 binations by means of which he could 
 make his influence felt and secure for 
 himself the recognition which his num- 
 bers and place in the world deserve. 
 Now the church has the power to bring 
 a man into the community, who has been 
 trained in leadership, or who should be 
 so trained. He is given a place in the 
 community where he can win for himself 
 the place of leadership, without arousing 
 suspicion or serious opposition. To him 
 in a peculiar way belongs the task of 
 leading in the reconstruction of the rural 
 community and the fate of the country 
 church is largely in his hands. 
 
In making this statement of the condi- 
 tions of the rural church problem, I have 
 confined attention to one element of the 
 situation because I feel it is the central 
 thing in the whole matter. I am not for- 
 getting that the ministry of the church 
 is a spiritual one, that it has to do with 
 the religious side of life, my contention 
 is, simply, that the conditions under 
 which the specifically religious or spirit- 
 ual work can be done to the best advan- 
 tage are not present now in the rural 
 districts, and that the decline of the rural 
 church is due to that fact. I wish further 
 to emphasize the thought that the sphere 
 of work that we call religious or spirit- 
 ual is perhaps broader than we have been 
 in the habit of thinking. That it includes 
 many of the elements that are now lack- 
 ing in the country communities. Hence 
 the need of reconsidering our church 
 work from the point of view of the 
 needs of the people among whom we 
 labor. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Factors That Determine the Efficiency of 
 the Country Church. 
 
 By Professor G. W. Fiske of Oberlin 
 College. 
 
 Before we can answer our question 
 with any degree of satisfaction, a point 
 of view must be agreed upon. We must 
 not begin to discuss factors until we ac- 
 cept ideals of efficiency. We must first 
 discuss the question What is Country 
 Church success f Then we shall be 
 ready to discuss the ways that win, and 
 the factors that must be made effective. 
 
 We could easily trace a real evolution 
 in the ideals of country church efficiency; 
 and several of the different stages may 
 still be found extant. The pioneer type 
 of the circuit-rider church may still be 
 found among the mountains. Its ideal 
 of success is very simple; a monthly 
 preaching service when the elder makes 
 his rounds; and an annual revival, or 
 protracted meeting, in which the leader 
 
"prays the power down" and all hands 
 "get religion," — presumably enough to 
 last them through the year. For this 
 kind of success only three factors seem 
 to be essential, a leader with marked 
 hypnotic power, an expectant crowd 
 ready to respond to his suggestion, and a 
 place to meet. But real results are often 
 meagre and the same souls have to be 
 saved next year. 
 
 ^lost churches have passed beyond this 
 low ideal of success. They plan a more 
 continuous work. They desire something 
 more than merely emotional results. 
 They appeal to intelligence as well as the 
 feelings, and plan definite courses of 
 Bible study. They appeal to the will and 
 make the culture of Christian character 
 the great objective. Such work is vastly 
 important and wins our respect as work 
 worth while. But a still higher standard 
 must be raised for country church suc- 
 cess. 
 
 A few weeks ago I received from an 
 ambitious and active country minister, — 
 who evidently wanted a city church, — a 
 tabulated, typewritten statement of his 
 work for the year. According to widely 
 accepted standards it was evidence of his 
 efficiency and the success of his church. 
 It gave the number of sermons he had 
 preached, the calls he had made, the 
 prayer meetings he had led, the Sunday 
 
School sessions attended, the number of 
 conversions and additions to his church 
 membership, the number of famihes add- 
 ed to his parish roll, the number of peo- 
 ple he had baptized, married and buried ; 
 the average attendance at all services, the 
 size of his Sunday School, the amount of 
 money raised for church expenses and 
 for benevolences, the sums expended for 
 repairing the property, — for all of which 
 we were asked to praise the Lord. It 
 was a praiseworthy record and on the 
 strength of it this particular country min- 
 ister was called to a city church! He 
 will not be any happier there, and his 
 salary will not go any farther there, and 
 he will probably have less influence there ; 
 but he has attained the dignity of a city 
 minister, the goal of many a man's am- 
 bition. Alas that so many ministers seem 
 to forget that the Garden of Eden was 
 strictly rural ; and that it was only when 
 mankind was driven out of it that they 
 went off and founded cities ! 
 
 I mention this case simply because it is 
 a typical one. We are still too apt to 
 reckon the success of a church in statis- 
 tics reported in the denominational Year 
 Book. The book of Numbers is a poor 
 Gospel. I would not for a minute dispar- 
 age the importance of adding forty peo- 
 ple to the church membership, or doub- 
 ling the size of the Sunday School, or 
 
tripling the benevolences, or increasing^ 
 the congregation. These things are all 
 splendid, every one of them, and indi- 
 cate a live church and an active, conse- 
 crated minister; but they are not ulti- 
 mate tests of a church's efficiency. 
 
 We shall be honest enough to admit 
 that the real business of a Christian 
 Church is not to swell its membership roll 
 or to add to the glory of its particular 
 sect or to raise enough money for its own 
 support and keep its property painted, 
 nor even to get the community into the 
 church. The business of the church is 
 to get the religion of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ into the community. If it is not 
 doing that it is not succeeding. It is cer- 
 tainly succeeding just in proportion as it 
 is accomplishing that ; for its business is 
 to Christianize that community. I be- 
 lieve Dr. Gladden is right when he says 
 that the test of efficiency of the church 
 must be found in the social conditions of 
 the community to which it ministers. To 
 be sure the church may well emphasize 
 evangelism and the need of church mem- 
 bership. Let it add to its strength, in or- 
 der to become a strong, effective organ- 
 ization. But let it remember that this is 
 but a means to an end. Let it keep in 
 mind the great object of its work, to 
 Christianize its community. 
 
 I would say then, a country church is 
 
efficient if it not only gets its people 
 "right with God" but also right with one 
 another; if it not only saves them for 
 the life of heaven, but helps them to be- 
 gin the heavenly life right now ; if it not 
 only furnishes opportunity for the wor- 
 ship of God, in simplicity and truth, but 
 also proves the sincerity of its worship 
 in deeds of Christian service; if it fur- 
 nishes spiritual vision and power, faith, 
 hope and love, those unseen things that 
 are eternal but also mints these essentials 
 of religion in the pure gold of brotherly 
 sympathy and kindness. 
 
 The efficient church will not only per- 
 form the priestly function of mediating 
 between God and men, until in the holy 
 place men feel the hush and peace and 
 power of God's presence. It will also 
 inspire men in a practical way to per- 
 form the duties of life. It will in- 
 crease the kindness and brotherliness 
 and sympathy of men and women to- 
 ward each other. It will stimulate 
 fair deailing in all business relations 
 and put an end to injustice toward 
 the weak. It will help to reduce pov- 
 erty, vice and crime. It will encourage 
 pure politics and discourage graft. It 
 will set a high standard for the play 
 life of the community and make amuse- 
 ments purer and more sensible. It will 
 even endeavor to raise the level of prac- 
 
tical efficiency on every farm, making 
 men really better because they are real 
 Christians. It will help to make more ef- 
 ficient homes and schools, to give every 
 boy and girl a fair chance for a clean 
 life, a sound body, a trained mind, help- 
 ful friendships and a useful career. 
 
 The efficient country church will defin- 
 itely serve its community by leading, 
 when possible, in all worthy endeavors 
 for the general welfare, in arousing a 
 real love for country life and loyalty to 
 the country home; and in so enriching 
 the life of its community as to make 
 "country living as attractive for them as 
 city living, and the rural forces as effec- 
 tive as city forces." 
 
 In a notable address at Oberlin Col- 
 lege two months ago Director Liberty 
 H. Bailey said: **I feel that the center 
 and the core of the Country Life Move- 
 ment is essentially religious. Whatever 
 your theory of life may be, every soul 
 must begin where Scripture begins: IN 
 THE BEGINNING GOD." He was 
 right. Fundamentally the Country Life 
 Movement is a great religious movement 
 for the redemption of the land and the 
 people who live upon the land, yes, and 
 the redemption of the nation, sixty per 
 cent, of whom still live upon the land. 
 Shall we not agree that the country 
 church is efficient in proportion as it 
 
serves God and the people in leading the 
 rural forces in this great redemptive 
 movement, and thus brings in the King- 
 dom of Heaven in the Open Country? 
 
 Surely this matter of country church 
 success is no simple, easy problem. It 
 is complex enough to be fascinatingly 
 interesting. Its very difficulty is begin- 
 ning to challenge strong men. Let us 
 look into the problem and see if we can 
 factor it. In enumerating these factors 
 which in my judgment determine country 
 church efficiency, I do not undertake to 
 mention any but the most essential. The 
 list might be continued indefinitely. 
 Neither do I mean to infer that many of 
 these important factors are absolutely 
 essential to a measure of success for 
 the church. Churches are fairly success- 
 ful that lack several of them. It is a 
 question of proportion. They would be 
 still more successful if they developed 
 these factors that they lack. 
 
 7. PEOPLE. 
 
 It is very evident that the first essen- 
 tial factor is PEOPLE. One reason 
 some earnest ministers prefer to work in 
 the city is because there are more people 
 there. A congregation to lead in worship 
 and to inspire with ideals for Christian 
 service is quite essential. A minister 
 must have people to whom to minister. 
 
Church can live without bells, organs, 
 pulpits, fine architecture, or even minis- 
 ters for awhile. We can sing without 
 hymn books or choir; pray without mis- 
 sal, prayer book or surplice; worship 
 comfortably without cushions or carpets; 
 commune without silver plates or golden 
 chalices or individual glasses; baptize 
 without any baptistery ; and pay the min- 
 ister "in kind" instead of money! The 
 one thing which is the sine qua non is a 
 congregation. The church must have 
 people. 
 
 This does not mean that success will 
 depend upon great numbers, though de- 
 pleted numbers cause serious discourage- 
 ment. A country minister has a splendid 
 chance for a thorough, intensive work 
 with individuals and families, which is 
 denied a pastor with a larger flock. Yet 
 the churches must have a constituency 
 or it is not needed and of course cannot 
 succeed. 
 
 2. LOCAL PROSPERITY AND 
 PROGRESSIVE FARMING. 
 
 Some one may say, ''Why haven't you 
 mentioned first of all the blessing of God, 
 as the great essential to success ?" Sure- 
 ly unless the Lord builds the house he 
 labors in vain that builds it. I am simply 
 assuming this as an axiom. I am not 
 enumerating it, for it would not be a con- 
 
structive suggestion. Our work must al- 
 ways be done in partnership with God. 
 Success itself is tlie evidence of His 
 favor. To win that favor we must take 
 the natural steps to win success. 
 
 ]Mv second suggestion is LOCAL 
 PROSPERITY AXD PROGRESSIVE 
 FAR:MIXG. Dr. ^^'ilson calls the coun- 
 tr}- church ''the weatlier vane of com- 
 munity prosperity.'*' It might be more 
 accurate to call it the barometer, for the 
 church shows promptly the degree of the 
 pressure of economy due to poor crops 
 or bad farming. Impoverished soil, 
 poor agricultural conditions and bad 
 farming explain the failure of many a 
 country church. You can build a city on 
 the rock (^like Xew Yorkl or even on 
 the sand i^like Gary) ; but you cannot 
 hope to build a prosperous country com- 
 munity or church on poor soil. 
 
 Professor Cars'er tells us forcibly that 
 ''the world will eventually be a Christian 
 or a non-christian world according as 
 Christians or non-christians prove them- 
 selves more iit to possess it, — according 
 as they are better farmers, better busi- 
 ness men, better mechanics, better poli- 
 ticians.'" It is certainly the wisest kind 
 of policy for the church to help to make 
 its conmmnit}* prosperous. It is not only 
 a fine way to sen-e tlie community. It is a 
 prime essential to its own ultimate sue- 
 
cess. Many a rural church is languishing 
 because of bad economics in the commun- 
 ity. Let it face the problem man-fashion 
 and do something besides pray about it. 
 Let it prove the sincerity of its prayers 
 by earnest plans and deeds to make its 
 community prosperous. 
 
 This is exactly what was done in a 
 certain Wisconsin village. By the fiat of 
 the railroad, which suddenly changed its 
 plans, half the people moved away in a 
 day, leaving community institutions 
 maimed and everybody discouraged. It 
 was the wise minister who saved the day 
 by organizing the farmers and planning 
 with them a new local industry. He in- 
 duced a pickle factory to build in the 
 community, provided the farmers would 
 raise cucumbers on a large scale. He 
 was even able to turn the village store 
 into a co-operative enterprise which suc- 
 ceeded in running at a profit. This min- 
 ister saved his church by saving the com- 
 munity. 
 
 That prince of country ministers, John 
 Frederick Oberlin. laid the foundation of 
 his 64 years of pastoral success in the 
 Vosges mountains in the new local pros- 
 perity which was developed under his 
 leadership. He was utterly unable to 
 succeed until he had taught his people 
 how to become better farmers, and thus 
 to rise above the low level of in compe- 
 
tence and ignorance which had kept them 
 almost immune to religious appeals and 
 had kept their churches pitiable failures. 
 His astonishing success won for him the 
 official recognition of the Legion of Hon- 
 or from the Third Napoleon. What he 
 was able to do under great difficulties 
 could be done to-day by thousands of 
 rural churches and ministers, if they de- 
 termined to do it. Let them first make 
 their community prosperous; then their 
 church will share the prosperity. 
 J. Community Socialisation. 
 Prosperous and happy rural commun- 
 ities have outgrown the selfish independ- 
 ence of the pioneer past and have learned 
 how to live together effectively in a so- 
 cially co-operative way. But a great 
 many rural places are still scourged by 
 grudges and feuds and other evidences 
 of individualism gone to seed. This ac- 
 counts also for many small churches, the 
 result of church quarrels. Many coun- 
 try churches cannot succeed until the 
 people learn how to live together peace- 
 ably and effectively, to co-operate in all 
 details of the community life, to utilize 
 the various social means for community 
 welfare. To be sure the church can 
 greatly help in this socializing process. 
 It can lead in making the local life co- 
 operative, educationally, agriculturally, 
 socially, morally; and, if it succeeds, it 
 
 I 
 
will be the first to reap the rewards of a 
 finer comradship. 
 
 4. A Community-Seri'ing Spirit. 
 
 Many a country church is dying from 
 sheer selfishness. The same of course is 
 true in the city. Many people doubtless 
 think the church exists for the benefit of 
 its members only. If this were true, the 
 church would be simply a club. Selfish- 
 ness is slow suicide for an individual. It 
 is equally so for a church. A self-serving 
 spirit in a church is contrary to the spirit 
 of Jesus and it kills the church life. It 
 is a bad thing for a church to have the 
 reputation for working constantly just to 
 keep its head above water, struggling to 
 keep alive, just to go through the mo- 
 tions of religious activity, yet making 
 no progress. Many a church is dying 
 simply for lack of a good reason for be- 
 ing. Can you not hear the voice of the 
 Master saying "The church that would 
 save its life shall lose it ; but the church 
 that is willing to lose its life, for my 
 sake, the same shall save it." 
 
 Let the church adjust its progress to a 
 larger radius. Let it be a community- 
 wide program. If there are other 
 churches, it will of course not invade the 
 homes of families under their care. But 
 aside from this, it will plan its work to 
 reach out to all neglected individuals as 
 
well as to serve all social and moral in- 
 terests of the community as a whole. Let 
 its motto be "We seek not yours but you." 
 The church will not be able to save the 
 community until its proves its willing- 
 ness to sacrifice for the sake of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 5. A Broad Vision of Service and Pro- 
 gram of Usefulness. 
 This next factor making for efficiency 
 is very closely related to the last. A use- 
 ful country church will not die. A church 
 that is really serving its community in 
 vital ways will so win the appreciation 
 of the people that they will support it 
 because they love it. Some churches and 
 ministers are too proud to include in their 
 program anything but preaching, pray- 
 ing, hymn-singing, with an occasional 
 funeral, wedding and baked-bean supper 
 to break the monotony. In a social age 
 like this, with multiplying human needs 
 such a church is on the way to death. 
 The church must recognize its responsi- 
 bility, as its Master recognized it, to meet 
 all the human needs of its people. Many 
 country communities with meager social 
 equipment, often with manifold human 
 needs absolutely unmet, demand the 
 broadest kind of brotherly service on the 
 part of the church, for their mutual good. 
 The church need not do everything itself 
 as an institution. Its work will ever be 
 
the work of inspiration. But where 
 there are serious gaps in the social struc- 
 ture, the church must somehow fill the 
 gaps. It must do the work or get it done. 
 It rejoices us to find many churches 
 all along the country side to-day that 
 have welcomed this great opportunity for 
 broad usefulness. We all know how 
 spendidly Mr. McNutt and his church 
 in Illinois have illustrated this, and have 
 gained a new vitality and an increasing 
 success by facing all the needs of the 
 community and broadening their vision 
 and program of service accordingly. 
 
 6. United Christian Forces in the 
 Community. 
 
 We are confronted now by one of the 
 most serious factors in our problem. The 
 pitiable sub-division of rural Christen- 
 dom into petty little struggling, compet- 
 ing churches makes religion a laughing- 
 stock and a failure. We are saddened 
 by it. We ought to get so ashamed of it 
 that we will stop it ! Many men of lead- 
 ership and influence are working on the 
 problem and we can see improvement in 
 many directions. 
 
 Wasteful sectarianism is a sin in the 
 city ; but it is a crime in the country. It 
 is a city luxury which may be justified 
 perhaps where there is a wealth of peo- 
 ple ; but it is as out of place among the 
 
farms as sheet asphalt pavements or 
 pink satin dancing pumps. Sectarianism 
 is not religion. It is merely selfishness in 
 religion. A sincere country Christian 
 will be willing to sacrifice his sectarian 
 preference as a city luxury which the 
 country cannot afford. 
 
 Blessed is the rural community that 
 has but one church. Where there are 
 several churches, let them work together 
 as closely as possible. They should pre- 
 sent a united front agdm^t the forces 
 of evil, in an aggressive divA optimistic 
 campaign for righteousness. Local 
 Church Federations, and township or 
 county ministers' unions gn atly help to 
 develop a real spirit of unity. A local 
 federation of men's church brotherhoods 
 which unites all the church men of the 
 township is a splendid thing and speedily 
 puts friendliness in the place of suspicion 
 and enthusiastic co-operation in the place 
 of jealous competition. 
 
 7. A Broad Christian Gospel in Place 
 of Sectarian Preaching. 
 
 One of the signs of a decadent church 
 is excessive emphasis upon sectarian 
 trifles. When adult S. S. Classes have 
 not studied the lesson for the day they 
 fall back on denominational hobbies ! A 
 holy zeal for righteousness costs some- 
 thing. The selfish zeal for one's sect 
 
 I 
 
is cheap. The countr>^ is scourged by- 
 petty sectarian teaching both in the pul- 
 pit and in the Sunday School, and the 
 country is very tired of it. Ordinary 
 mortals are simply bored by it and will 
 no longer come to hear it. 
 
 People are still hungry for the real 
 gospel. The great affirmations of relig- 
 ion: The priceless value of human life, 
 The reality of God our loving Father, 
 The immortality of the soul, The law of 
 the harvest, The gospel of a Savior, etc., 
 still challenges the attention and win the 
 hearts of men. Let us emphasize the 
 great Christian fundamentals on which 
 most Christian people heartily agree. Let 
 us add to these high teaching of univers- 
 al Christianity the simple social teachings 
 of Jesus, his every day practical teach- 
 ings for human life in mutual relations, 
 and we shall have a winning message for 
 the sensible minds and hearts of country- 
 people. 
 8. A Loyal Country Mi)iistry, Ade- 
 quately Trained and Paid. 
 
 This one of the ultimate factors in 
 our problem, perhaps the most difficult of 
 all. Leadership is always of utmost im- 
 portance in social problems. A splendid 
 leader often brings real success out of 
 serious difficulties. There are hundreds 
 of such splendid leaders in country par- 
 sonages to-day. Some of the most not- 
 
able illustraions are here in this com- 
 pany, and they deserve all the high ap- 
 preciation and cordial recognition they 
 have won. But when we consider our 
 70,000 rural ministers as a body, we find 
 three things to be true : They are miser- 
 ably paid. They are usually untrained. 
 Their pastorates are too short to be real- 
 ly successful. The churches are of course 
 more to blame for this condition than 
 the ministers. 
 
 We must have a permanently loyal 
 country ministry for life. Making the 
 country ministry simply the stepping 
 stone to the city church has been a most 
 unfortunate custom even up to the pres- 
 ent day. The country ministry must be 
 recognized as a specialized ministry, fully 
 as honorable as the city ministry, de- 
 manding just as fine and strong a man, — 
 possibly even more of a man, for many a 
 minister has succeeded in the city after 
 failing in the country. The country min- 
 ister must somehow get a vision of his 
 great task as a community builder; like 
 John Frederick Oberlin of whom we 
 were just speaking. He must find an all- 
 absorbing life-mission claiming all his 
 powers and demanding his consecration 
 as thoroughly and enthusiastically as the 
 call to the foreign mission field. Then 
 let him go into it for life, determined to 
 do his part, a whole man's part, in re- 
 
deeming country life and making it, what 
 it normally is, the best life in all the 
 world to live. Staying year after year 
 in the same parish is the secret of .-nic- 
 cess in the case of most of the con- 
 spicuously successful country pastors. 
 Only thus can a man really become the 
 parson of the village, a person of dom- 
 inant influence in all the affairs of the 
 people. 
 
 I am aware this ideal suggestion of 
 long country pastorates meets with two 
 objections. Some of you laymen are say- 
 ing, *'How can you expect us to keep a 
 minister after he has said all he knows ?" 
 And some of you ministers are saying, 
 "How can you expect us to stay on lesf 
 than a living wage?" Both objections 
 are perfectly valid. Too many ministers 
 are untrained men and therefore fail to 
 succeed for more than a year or two. 
 And certainly an underpaid minister can- 
 not be blamed for taking his family 
 where he can support them respectably. 
 
 As near as I can determine, about 15 
 per cent, of rural ministers the country 
 over (including all denominations) are 
 educated men ; though probably not over 
 5 per cent, of them have had a full pro- 
 fessional training. They are about as 
 successful as any other professional man 
 can be who lacks his technical training 
 for his life work. There is a great de- 
 
mand for trained ministers. I personally 
 receive fully 200 more requests from 
 churches in a year than I can furnish 
 men for. Yet the theological seminaries 
 are training few men for the rural 
 churches. Most of the graduates go 
 either to the cities or the villages, where 
 there is a living wage. Dr. Warren H, 
 Wilson figures that a country minister 
 with a wife and three children, in order 
 to educate his family, keep a team and 
 provide $100 annual payment for insur- 
 ance for his old age, must have at least 
 $1,400 salary. I know ministers who are 
 able to do this on less, but not very much 
 less. There certainly ought to be a min- 
 imum wage of $800 and a parsonage, or 
 $1,000 cash, for every minister. A 
 church paying less than this is simply 
 stealing from the ministers' family^ 
 Churches unable to pay this minimum liv- 
 ing wage ought to unite with a neighbor- 
 ing church or close their doors, except 
 for itinerant preaching. 
 
 p. A Liberal Financial Policy. 
 
 This reminds us very forcibly that one 
 factor essential to country church suc- 
 cess is a liberal financial policy. In 
 the smaller country churches we seldom 
 find any business policy; no plan at all 
 for the future. Their short-sighted 
 method is just the short-haul on the 
 
pocket, and inefficiency of course results. 
 The most common plan is the annual sub- 
 scription paper, with special subscrip- 
 tions for repairs or emergencies. The 
 motive is apparently strict economy 
 rather than efficiency. It never pays to 
 run a cheap church, for it cheapens the 
 whole enterprise. More and more the 
 weekly-payment pledge system is coming 
 into use and with it a careful piaruimg 
 of the budget at the beginning of the 
 year, guided by an earnest purpose to 
 keep the church business-like, the minis- 
 ter promptly paid, the properry well in 
 repair and the enterprise spiritually suc- 
 cessful. Often the new consecration of 
 the pocket-book has been the first 
 symptom of a thorough-going revival. 
 10. Adequate Equipment. 
 A large proportion of country church- 
 es are simply one-room buildings. This 
 explains many failures. In order to 
 serve the community at all adequately, 
 the church must have social rooms for 
 a variety of neighborhood purposes, and 
 it must make provision for its Sunday 
 School. About four-fifths of the boys and 
 girls in the Sunday Schools of America 
 live in the rural districts. They should 
 be given good rooms. Without an ef- 
 fective building for social and education- 
 al purposes, — a parish house or at least 
 a vestry, — the country church is serious- 
 
ly handicapped. With a good equipment 
 the church often becomes the social cen- 
 ter for the whole neighborhood. 
 
 II. A Masculine Lay Leadership De- 
 veloped and Trained. 
 
 It takes more than a minister to make 
 a church successful. The King's Busi- 
 ness requires MEN. Women are usually- 
 active and loyal. The men often are 
 just as loyal but less active because of 
 lack of opportunity. The most enthus- 
 iastic meetings I have attended for 
 months were in a rural county in Michi- 
 gan, a county without a trolley. The 
 meetings were held for three days under 
 the auspices of the Men and Religion 
 Forward Movement and all the 45 Prot- 
 estant churches of the county were rep- 
 resented by ministers and laymen. The 
 laymen outnumbered the ministers about 
 ten to one and they showed the keenest 
 interest in the proposition to make the 
 work of religion in their county a man's 
 job. Those men caught the vision of 
 service. 
 
 That was two months ago. There are 
 now being held, every month during the 
 winter, meetings led by laymen in every 
 school house of that whole county, carry- 
 ing the five- fold message of the great 
 Men and Religion Movement into every 
 rural neighborhood; the messages of 
 
personal evangelism, of definite Bible 
 study, of world-wide missions, of social 
 service to better their community, and 
 personal work to save their boys. This 
 is a program of religious work for MEN. 
 Only men can do it; but men can do it, 
 with a little training and wise leadership. 
 The results no man can foretell. But it 
 must result in great blessing for the men 
 and for their communities, and new ef- 
 ficiency and appreciation for their coun- 
 try churches. 
 
 12. A Community Survey to Discover 
 Resources and Commimity Needs. 
 
 Wtihout multiplying further these fac- 
 tors which make for efficiency, I mention 
 but one more. Until recently country 
 churches have been conducted on the 
 principle that ''human nature is the same 
 everywhere," and "one country village is 
 like all the rest." But scientific agricul- 
 ture has suggested to us that we must 
 make a scientific approach to our church 
 problem as well as to our soil problem. 
 Country communities are not all alike, — 
 far from it. Social, economical, moral, 
 educational, political, personal conditions 
 vary greatly in dififerent localities. 
 Churches miss their aim unless they 
 study these conditions. There is in prog- 
 ress now a religious survey of the entire 
 state of Ohio. Quite a number of coun- 
 
ties in Pennsylvania, New York, Mis- 
 souri, Indiana and elsewhere have been 
 carefully studied for religious purposes. 
 As most of my hearers doubtless know, 
 reports of these studies are available as 
 guides for similar work elsewhere. 
 
 The general purpose of the survey 
 hardly needs to be defended. It is simply 
 the application to the work of the church 
 of the modern social method of finding 
 the facts in order to prevent wasted ef- 
 fort, in order to utilize all available re- 
 sources and minister to all real human 
 needs. It augurs well for the church of 
 the future. 
 
 We have every reason to hope that 
 with the progress of the great Country 
 Life Movement the Country Church will 
 come to a new day of usefulness; with 
 people living under modern conditions, 
 with local prosperity and progressive 
 farming, with their communities well so- 
 cialized and co-operating, with a com- 
 munity-serving spirit in the church, guid- 
 ed by a broad vision of service and pro- 
 gram of usefulness; with united Chris- 
 tian forces and decreasing sectarianism; 
 with a loyal country ministry adequately 
 trained, and sustained by a liberal finan- 
 cial policy; with an adequate equipment 
 making the church a social center; with 
 an enthusiastic masculine lay leadership 
 developed and guided by a community 
 
survey to undertake the work which will 
 best serve the needs of their people, the 
 Kingdom of Heaven will surely come. 
 It sounds like the millenium ! perhaps 
 it will be, when it comes! But in many 
 respects we can see it comnig, as, one 
 after another, these factors come to stay. 
 May God speed the day of the broadly 
 efficient country church. It will mean 
 the redemption of the country. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 M^hat Shall the Church Contribute to the 
 Country Life Movement^ 
 
 K. L. Butterfield, President of Massa- 
 chusetts Agricultural College. 
 
 The genius of the country life move- 
 ment is people, not things. Its leaders 
 believe heartily in the need of economic 
 success as a foundation upon which to 
 build an adequate rural civilization. The 
 status of our rural people must be sat- 
 isfactory from the standpoint of material 
 goods before we can expect it to be sat- 
 isfactory from the standpoint of class 
 influence and class success. 
 
 But the country life movement gets its 
 impetus from the desire of the people 
 themselves to realize the higher ends of 
 living. The welfare of men and women 
 is of greater significance than the in- 
 crease of productivity considered as a 
 thing apart. 
 
 Now whatever our religious notions 
 may be, most of us will admit that if we 
 are to seek the welfare of the rural peo 
 
pie we ought to seek their highest wel- 
 fare. And we will admit that their high- 
 est welfare must be the outcome of their 
 highest aspirations. Hence, the crucial 
 test of the country life movement is the 
 quality of the ideals which it seeks to 
 realize in terms of the welfare of indi- 
 viduals and communities. 
 
 The ideals of the human race have 
 sprung from any sources, but a Chris- 
 tian civilization can hardly ignore the 
 origin of its idealism. The ideals of 
 Jesus represent the highest aspirations 
 of our Anglo-Saxon civilization. And 
 it must be remembered that these ideals 
 have been conserved and cherished and 
 promulgated chiefly by the Christian 
 church. 
 
 It is possible that in the future we may 
 find a better idealism than the Christian 
 idealism. It is possible, and indeed prob- 
 able, that the church of the future may 
 not be so exclusively as in the past, the 
 guardian of our ideals, but at the present 
 time, we have no institution that com- 
 pares with the church and its allies. The 
 Christian church is still the most effective 
 teacher of idealism. 
 
 The logic of all this reasoning, there- 
 fore, is that the church's chief contribu- 
 tion to the country life movement is to 
 furnish adequate and satisfying ideals 
 
for that movement. If the country 
 church cannot do this it is pretty sure to 
 lose its hold on our rural civilization. 
 And conversely, our rural civilization is 
 likely to suffer if that institution, which 
 for centuries has been the special guar- 
 dian of idealism, shall be no longer ef- 
 fective. Let us consider some of these 
 ideals which the church shall contribute 
 to the country life movement. 
 
 I. The church should contribute the 
 dominating ideals of personal life in the 
 rural community. 
 
 1. The first of these dominating 
 ideals is the ideal of righteousness. Do- 
 ing the right thing is fundamental to 
 personal integrity and personal growth. 
 A righteous community is the only sane 
 environment for a righteous individual. 
 Righteousness must be interpreted from 
 age to age in terms of existing but chang- 
 ing conditions. Probably the most 
 fundamental contribution which the 
 church can make to the country life 
 movement is to interpret to the rural peo- 
 ple day by day, and year by year, line 
 upon line, precept upon precept, the 
 fundamental righteousness of life. 
 
 2. The church should also contribute 
 as a dominating ideal of personal life 
 the thought of personal growth as a 
 great duty. The church, I fear, has 
 tended to minimize the dignity of the 
 
human soul and to magnify that type 
 of humihty which would make mere 
 worms of us all. The human soul can- 
 not well be conceited as it stands before 
 the mountain heights of universal mys- 
 tery. The summits are beyond human 
 ken. On the other hand, what excuse 
 is there for the completion of a human 
 life? What hope is there for immortal- 
 ity except that man's destiny is to grow 
 eternally? The increase of knowledge, 
 the development of intelligence, the en- 
 largement of manhood, the gaining of 
 keener insight into the meanings of 
 things, the mounting of aspirations, the 
 enlargement of spirit, are the only things 
 really worth while. It is a man's duty 
 to grow, and the church should insist 
 that the farmer must somehow find, in 
 his business and in his methods of life, 
 the means, or power, of personal growth. 
 3. Another dominating ideal of per- 
 sonal life for the rural man and woman 
 is the appreciation of the rural environ- 
 ment. \\'hat does nature mean to the 
 tiller of the soil? Does it mean a fiend, 
 an enemy, or does it mean a friend? 
 Shall the farmer be a fatalist and accept 
 with weakened will the chances of the 
 weather and the season? Do all these 
 processes and beauties that surround the 
 farmer at his work mean anything to 
 him as a human soul? Is there such a 
 
thing as the poetry of rural life? Does 
 the farmer get out of his surroundings 
 intellectual and spiritual food? Do his 
 surroundings contribute to his growth 
 and to his righteousness? Does he un- 
 derstand the movement of the stars? 
 Does he appreciate the resurrection of 
 the spring time? Does the winter's 
 frost preach a sermon of leisure and 
 meditation? The country church should 
 enforce the lesson that out of his sur- 
 roundings the farmer must get joy, de- 
 velopment, aspiration, growth, right- 
 eousness. 
 
 //. The church should contribute to 
 the country life movement also the ideals 
 of brotherhood. As the country people 
 live together, they ought to live together 
 in the spirit of brotherliness. This means 
 justice in the dealings of individuals, 
 kindliness of attitude and judgment, 
 helpulfness in service. The personal 
 life cannot come to its full fruition 
 life it be a self-centered life. It must 
 have a neighborly attitude toward 
 others or else it becomes warped and 
 shriveled. There is much of this broth- 
 erliness in all farming communities, but 
 there is also criticism, censoriousness, 
 bickering, injustice, unkindness, selfish- 
 ness. So long as these things exist the 
 church has a mission in attempting to 
 "break down all prejudices and passions 
 
that keep men from the brotherly life. 
 The rural community gives chances, per- 
 haps beyond any other community, for 
 the expression of the brotherly feeling. 
 The people have so much in common. 
 They ought to have a common instinct 
 of service to one another. 
 
 ///. The community-idea, or ideal, 
 is rapidly coming to dominate the coun- 
 try life movement. It is an expression 
 of the thought that we must hold in mind 
 the common welfare and not merely indi- 
 vidual welfare. It represents the best 
 good of all. We trust that ultimately this 
 means the same thing as the best good of 
 each. It means temporarily that each is 
 to sink an apparent good in order that 
 the common good may be realized. This 
 community-idea has undoubtedly sprung 
 into existence from that spirit of social 
 welfare which is so characteristic of our 
 time. Unquestionably it had its origin 
 in Christian teaching. The church ought, 
 then, to contribute to the country life 
 movement the very highest type of com- 
 munity-idea. It should enforce the 
 thought that the institutions of the coun- 
 try community, like the school, the 
 grange, and the church itself, should seek 
 the welfare of the community and not 
 their own aggrandizement. The com- 
 munity-idea leads naturally to the 
 thought of community building as the 
 
great purpose of the country life move- 
 ment. The country life movement does 
 not intend merely to help individuals here 
 and there, but it means to secure thou- 
 sands of rural communities dominated by 
 the ideals of brotherhood, justice kind- 
 ness, helpfulness,, peopled by indi- 
 viduals whose lives ar edominated by 
 thoughts of righteousness, personal 
 growth, love of the open country. On 
 the basis of an intelligent and success- 
 ful agricultural business the country life 
 movement would have erected a com- 
 munity life at once strong, closely-knit, 
 aspiring, efficient. Better than any other 
 institution the church may contribute the 
 highest ideals of community life. And 
 the reason for this is found in the fourth 
 contribution of the church to the country 
 life movement; namely, 
 
 /[/. The religious motive, or ideal. 
 The ideals of men may be governed by 
 various motives. Fundamentally most of 
 these ideals are essentially religious. 
 They all ought to be consciously relig- 
 ious. Country life can hardly develop 
 to its full proportions until the people 
 of the country realize their partnership 
 with God. The farmer deals, at first 
 hand, with the native forces of the uni- 
 verse — heat, light, air, sunshine, and the 
 lower orders of life are his constant 
 allies and companions. His whole task 
 
industrially is to manipulate these 
 forces. The church must preach that 
 these forces are simply God's method. 
 This partnership between man and God 
 is absolutely essential to the continuance 
 of human life on the planet. Hence, the 
 farmer occupies a place of unique sacred- 
 ness. His vocation is founded on his 
 partnership with God. 
 
 But the same religious motive should 
 mold him in his efforts for community 
 building, because a righteous and friend- 
 ly community is in itself the Kingdom 
 of God on earth. Just as the task of the 
 farmer is not merely to make a living, 
 but to live a life, so his objective is not 
 merely to feed his family but to create 
 righteous and friendly communities of 
 human beings. Hence, the farmer as a 
 member of his community is also a part- 
 ner with God. And it is only as he 
 realizes this partnership in the double 
 task of supplying food and community 
 building that he gains his greatest ef- 
 ficiency, either as a worker or as a man. 
 The church, then, should constantly hold 
 before the country people this religious 
 motive of life : namely, that the farmers 
 are workers together with God, both in 
 the work of the farm and in the com- 
 mon life of all. 
 
 V. Finally, the church shall con- 
 tribute to the countrv life movement a 
 
consecrated leadership. As in all other 
 realms where human progress is involved, 
 personal leadership is the key to the 
 country life movement. This leadership 
 ought to be a consecrated leadership. 
 Because the task is a difficult one we 
 need this consecrated leadership both in 
 the pulpit and in the pew. 
 
 Probably there is no work lying be- 
 fore the country clergyman that so well 
 sums up his opportunity as that of lead- 
 ership in rural community building. He 
 is the preacher of idealism. He is the 
 prophet of a better life for the individual 
 and the community. If the church is to 
 minister to the righteousness and growth 
 and enjoyment of individual farmers, the 
 preacher himself must be the leader. If 
 the church is to foster the ideals of neigh- 
 borliness and brotherhood, the preacher 
 must be the exemplar and leader. If the 
 church is to enforce the community-idea, 
 the preacher must lead the way. If the 
 church hopes to make farmers realize 
 their partnership with God, the clergy- 
 man must transmit the vision. If the 
 men in the pews are to consecrate them- 
 selves to the best leadership in the coun- 
 try' communities, they must get much of 
 their inspiration from the preacher. 
 
 But the preacher is not the only leader. 
 The farmer himself as individual, as citi- 
 zen, the teacher in the school, the house- 
 
keeper in the home, all, in fact, who have 
 ideals beyond their fellows and power of 
 personality, must become leaders. 
 
 The country church movement is root- 
 ed in the belief that rural life in America 
 must be made more prosperous, more 
 satisfying. The fruitage of the move- 
 ment is to be determined largely by its 
 ideals. The church, as the champion of 
 the highest and richest idealism that the 
 world has ever known, can contribute 
 more than any other institution, there- 
 fore, to the richest fruitage of the coun- 
 try life movement, by promulgating the 
 dominant ideals of personal life, by cher- 
 ishing the spirit of brotherhood, by en- 
 forcing the community-idea, by cultivat- 
 ing the religious motive, and by training 
 a consecrated leadership. 
 
CHAPTER VI, 
 
 The Farme/s Task. 
 
 K. L. Butterfield, President Massachu- 
 setts Agricultural College. 
 
 The primary task of the individual 
 farmer is to make a living for himself 
 and his family. This task is a funda- 
 mental duty. The opportunity to make a 
 living comes pretty close to being an in- 
 herent right. The machinery of civiliza- 
 tion is clumsy and poorly adjusted if it 
 does not give this opportunity to every 
 man. As the standards of living change 
 from generation to generation the ques- 
 tion, — what constitutes a living? — will be 
 answered differently ; but it must always 
 be answered in terms of reasonable satis- 
 faction with respect both to what econ- 
 omists call "material wants" and "culture 
 wants." 
 
 Furthermore, the culture wants of 
 man can be satisfied only when the mate- 
 rial wants are reasonably satisfied. A 
 cultural civilization can be built only on 
 
the foundations of reasonable material 
 prosperity. Therefore, the economic 
 success of the agricultural class condi- 
 tions in the main the quality of the more- 
 spiritual superstructure. Better farm 
 business must precede better farm liv- 
 ing. The farmer's duty to make a living 
 is, therefore, not only a personal obliga- 
 tion to himself and his family, but it is 
 also a primary duty to society. He must 
 "pull his own weight," as Mr. Roosevelt 
 has so often said. He can contribute to 
 a better rural civilization only after he 
 has contributed to his own economic suc- 
 cess. 
 
 The second task of the farmer is to 
 live a life. The only rational excuse for 
 making a living is in order that the man 
 himself may develop as a man. If he 
 merely makes a living, or if he makes a 
 living at the expense of his manhood, 
 why should he cumber the ground? If 
 the farmer cannot both make a living 
 and live his life to the full, there is mal- 
 adjustment somewhere. If the farm 
 business and the life in a rural environ- 
 ment do not give a fair chance to a man 
 to grow intellectually, morally, spirit- 
 ually, to the full stature of maniiood,. 
 then something is wrong with that busi- 
 ness and life, or else there is something 
 wrong with the farmer himself. No one 
 can question the possibilities of a coun- 
 
try life for the development of the full 
 man. The farm business itself calls for 
 high intelligence, broad knowledge, keen 
 judgment, personal initiative, thorough- 
 ness. No man can be a successful farm- 
 er unless he possesses all of these qual- 
 ities to a considerable degree. In the 
 main, the moral incentives of country- 
 life are good ; and, of all men, the farm- 
 er ought to be spiritually-minded because 
 he deals so intimately with these forces 
 and laws that we believe are merely ex- 
 pressions of the divine purpose and 
 method. 
 
 What the farmer should achieve for 
 himself in the way of personal growth 
 should be achieved also for his children. 
 A part of the farmer's task is to bring 
 up a family of children in such a way 
 that physically, mentally, morally, they 
 not only have a fair start in life, but 
 have also an unusual start, because rural 
 life, rightly lived, is the ideal back- 
 ground for the education of youth. 
 
 What has been said of the man and 
 and the children applies with even more 
 force to the woman. I have come to be- 
 lieve that the status of the farm home- 
 maker is the real test of our rural civil- 
 ization. Does she have a chance to live 
 her life? Does she have an opportunity 
 to grow mentally and spiritually? Can 
 
she do something more than help to feed 
 and clothe her household? Evidently 
 the farmer's task includes something far 
 more than merely making it possible for 
 himself and the members of his family 
 to subsist. He must do more than this. 
 He must make it possible for himself 
 and the members of his family to live 
 a life that approximates the ideals of 
 human welfare and destiny. 
 
 The farmer also has a task in the ful- 
 fillment of a trusteeship. Morally he is 
 not his own master. Society has given 
 to him the right of control of a parcel of 
 ground, the common heritage of the race. 
 God-given and divinely blessed. But 
 that right implies obligations, and in- 
 creasingly so under modern conditions. 
 In America we are rapidly approaching 
 a time when the non-producers of food 
 will exceed the producers of food. The 
 farmer must raise the wheat that makes 
 the bread for these hungry millions. The 
 old ditty is not mere words, "The farm- 
 er feed's us all." City dwellers must 
 have good food at moderate prices. The 
 farmer is trustee of nature's forces in 
 behalf of an adequate food supply for the 
 human race. He is the steward of the 
 Great Husbandman. He cannot live to 
 himself alone. 
 
 And he is trustee not merely for the 
 present generation, but for the future. 
 
For him life's fitful fever will soon be 
 over. Others will till the land that he 
 has used. He must pass on, to future 
 generations, this land of his with fertil- 
 ity undiminished. He has no right to 
 rob the soil. His obligation is not only 
 to his sons but to his sons' sons, and to 
 future consumers as well. 
 
 We may pass laws to conserve the 
 natural resources of forest, water power, 
 and mine, but the greatest resource of 
 all the food plant which is packed away 
 in the soil — can be conserved only 
 through a fulfilled trusteeship on the 
 part of the man who tills that soil. 
 
 Greater than the soil, greater than 
 food and clothing, are the man and 
 woman whose task it is to raise the food 
 and provide the raw materials for the 
 clothing. The farmers must live togeth- 
 er in communities. These communities 
 form an important part of our common 
 national life. If that national life is to 
 be thoroughly wholesome, it must be 
 wholesome in all its parts. We cannot 
 purge the cities of evils and still have 
 moral sewage carelessly distributed in 
 the country. It is not enough that the 
 farmer makes a living for himself or 
 even that he lives his own individual 
 life in a self-satisfying way, or even that 
 he realizes his trusteeship of the soil. If 
 we cannot build a strong, co-operative, 
 
alert, satisfying neighborhood life in 
 the rural region, we have not attained 
 the levels where we can hope to dwell 
 in safety. 
 
 In order to build this strong rural 
 community at least four requirements 
 are imperative : 
 
 1. There must be the best use of 
 every acre of land. Every acre should 
 contribute its maximum capacity of serv- 
 ice to human need. Every acre must be 
 so used by the man who works it that 
 it will yield not only a reasonable profit 
 to him but the highest and fullest satis- 
 faction to all. 
 
 2. There must be co-operation for all 
 good ends. No neighborhood can live 
 its full life unless there be present a 
 spirit of co-operation, and unless peo- 
 ple actually do work together for com- 
 mon ends. If the individual keeps be- 
 fore him only his own benefit, his own 
 growth, there can never be an adequate 
 rural life. In order to have a highly de- 
 veloped community, there must be a com- 
 munity of interest and labor. The good 
 of all must be conser^-ed as well as the 
 good of each. 
 
 3. Convenience and beauty must play 
 their part in the rural community. Con- 
 venience in order that unnecessary labor 
 may be avoided, and beauty in order that 
 
the rural life may minister to the high- 
 er part of the nature. 
 
 4. There must be strong, alert institu- 
 tions. Society is very much dependent 
 upon those social institutions that have 
 come down to us as an expression of 
 common need. In the country the 
 school, the church, the farmers' organiza- 
 tion — each has work to do, and if any 
 part of the work is neglected the com- 
 munity suffers. 
 
 Each of these institutions must, how- 
 ever, strive not to build itself up as an 
 institution merely for the sake of its own 
 prestige, but must, in season and out of 
 season, strive for the welfare of the 
 community. It must minister to common 
 need, develop common aspirations, seek 
 the common welfare. The school must 
 be the centre of knowledge; the church, 
 the centre of idealism; the farmers' or- 
 ganization, the centre of class power. 
 
 Now each farmers' task is to do his 
 part in making the best use of every acre 
 that he has under his control ; of working 
 with his fellows for all good ends ; of as- 
 sisting to make all community life more 
 convenient and more beautiful; of shar- 
 ing with others his time and energy and 
 money in maintaining strong, alert com- 
 munities. 
 
 And finally, the farmer's task is to help 
 solve the problems of the community. 
 
The farmer is interested in government, 
 not merely for the sake of the farming 
 class, but for the good of the nation at 
 large. His attitude towards state and 
 national legislation must be governed not 
 merely by his own interests but by the 
 national welfare and advantage. The 
 farmer, in common with other citizens, 
 must seek to lend his support to every 
 effort that will make for justice, right- 
 eousness, and peace. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Sunday School Worker's View of 
 Rural Problems. 
 
 By Franklin H. Beckwith, Field Worker 
 N. Y. S. S. Association. 
 
 In this brief article I shall endeavor to 
 give you my personal deductions made 
 from first hand experiences. The rapid 
 growth of the city with its industrial and 
 social advantages, has gradually attract- 
 ed the young life from the farm. These 
 farms are now occupied by old people, 
 by those who take little or no interest 
 in the religious life of the community, or 
 by those who hold different religious 
 views and refuse to co-operate with those 
 who are struggling to keep alive the 
 spark of religious life in the community. 
 
 This struggle is very short sometimes 
 and the community soon becomes ungod- 
 ly and heathenish. Sabbath day dese- 
 crated by all kinds of labor and sports, 
 family altars neglected and the Bible 
 scarcely ever used. 
 
I have found many such neighbor- 
 hoods in New York State as I have can- 
 vassed in the interests of the New York 
 State Sunday School Association from 
 Lake Erie to the JBerkshire Hills and 
 from the Pennsylvania State Line to the 
 Canadian Border. Every county visited 
 ed has one or more of these needy neigh- 
 borhoods. 
 
 People living in such communities are 
 themselves largely to blame for existing 
 conditions and yet they are powerless to 
 work out their own salvation. They need 
 a missionary or the influence of some 
 outside force to evangelize, organize and 
 educate them. 
 
 The denominations cannot lift them- 
 selves out of this difficulty unless they 
 co-operate and the time has come when 
 the church must co-operate or go out of 
 business. 
 
 A union Sunday School might be or- 
 ganized which would give temporary aid, 
 but a more definite and permanent work 
 is needed. A Sunday School that is a 
 mere moral training school is a failure, 
 the school cannot profitably exist without 
 the church and every officer and teacher 
 ought to be a member of some Christian 
 Church. 
 
 Best results have been obtained where 
 following methods have been used : 
 House to House Visitation is necessary 
 
to discover exact conditions. Informa- 
 tion gathered from the field is invaluable^ 
 if taken from statistics it is very mis- 
 leading. Even denominational annual re- 
 ports are incorrect. I found a church 
 reporting 151 members, when actually 
 they only had 91 resident members. Two 
 years ago I found a school district where 
 there was only one child of school age, 
 they had no day school or Sunday School 
 either. This last year both have been 
 organized and regular church services 
 are maintained, all made possible by fam- 
 ilies with large number of children, mov- 
 ing onto the farms. 
 
 Evangelistic Services are necessary to 
 revive the old indifferent Christian and 
 give the young people an opportunity to 
 decide for Christ. I found a good 
 Methodist brother that walked three 
 miles each Sunday afternoon to preach 
 to a small handful in the school house. 
 All efforts had failed to start a Sunday 
 School. His predecessor had let the 
 work die and the field was abandoned. 
 However, after this brother had held two 
 weeks rveival meetings he had sufficient 
 officers and teachers and the little school- 
 house well filled each pleasant Sunday 
 afternoon. 
 
 After the community had been thor- 
 oughly canvassed, evangelistic services 
 held, the church and school re-organized. 
 
with its Cradle Roll and Home Depart- 
 ment, with good superintendents and vis- 
 itors to keep alive the new-born interest 
 in the homes of the community, and ex- 
 tend the Pastor's Parish. After all has 
 been done to evangelize and organize, 
 some systematic plan of education must 
 be formed, first and best is the Denomi- 
 national Literature. Place the very best 
 in the hands of your teachers and schol- 
 ars not only to educate and train the 
 present workers to become better work- 
 ers but also educate and train the next 
 generation to successfully fill the places 
 rapidly being made vacant by the death 
 of the faithful pioneers. 
 
 Then an Interdenominational Associa- 
 tion should be organized in the township 
 or district of all the Sunday schools that 
 can easily and naturally come together 
 and hold semi-annual or annual meetings. 
 
 Through these democratic gatherings 
 Pastors, superintendents and other work- 
 ers are encouraged by becoming better 
 acquainted with each other, discussing 
 common problems and learning new 
 methods. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 An Inspiring Example of Successful 
 
 Country Church Work in the 
 
 State of Illinois. 
 
 The address given by the Rev. Mat- 
 thew Brown McNutt, at the recent "New 
 York State Country Church Confer- 
 ence, has been published and copy- 
 righted, so that we are not able to give 
 It in full. However, in this chapter we 
 will outline the work, as told by this 
 very successful Rural Pastor. The ad- 
 dress in full may be procured from the 
 Board of Home Missions of the Pres- 
 "byterian Church, 156 Fifth Ave., New 
 York. The price is 5c postpaid. 
 
 The DuPage Presbyterian Church, 
 Plainfield, 111., is one of the oldest 
 churches in the state. When Mr. Mc- 
 Nutt was called to this church, he found 
 them quite discouraged, the church 
 property in a neglected condition and ev- 
 erything badly run down. The pulpit 
 "had been supplied for 3 years by one of 
 the elders who was a farmer. No one 
 liad united with the church for 5 years. 
 
 I 
 
The only service the church attempted 
 was on Sunday for preaching and Sun- 
 day School. On the other hand the peo- 
 ple were thrifty and wealthy. 
 
 In carrying out his plans he undertook 
 the following: Organized an old-fash- 
 ioned singing school. This proved a 
 great *'hit." Out of it came, a chorus 
 choir, a male quartette, ladies quartette, 
 an orchestra and some good soloists ; and 
 in addition to that, it improved the sing- 
 ing in church, and Sunday school lOO per 
 cent. 
 
 He organized a gospel chorus to sing 
 in the homes of shut-ins'. He encour- 
 aged the athletic association, that already 
 existed; arranged for socials, (not the 
 money-making kind) where attention 
 was given to backward youths, and 
 strangers. 
 
 The women had a missionary society. 
 A girl's mission band was organized ; also 
 a young men's bible class. They conduct- 
 ed a lecture course; and a bureau of 
 publicity; having a printing press, and 
 they issue a local church paper ; while as 
 an aid in spiritual work they conduct 
 services in a grove during summer; and 
 in school houses during winter ; and in 
 the pastor's absence take charge of the 
 regular service. 
 
 They have the pledge system of finance 
 for local work, and benevolences; their 
 
ide-ol in nnances being ^ ? - -g"S from 
 ever}' nian. woman and chid. 
 
 Diiring the last ten years this church 
 had bcilt a Si coco church ediiice; re- 
 
 n)c>deied the manse, and otherwise iui- 
 prored th^ propertr. They have in- 
 creased the pastors salary 40 per coit.; 
 and given $5^70 to benevolences. 
 
 They h^ave had no evangelistic services, 
 but ernploy die one by c«>e m^hod. 
 Gre^t care is taken to press ihe ciaims of 
 Christ on the yonng, particxiiaiiy so in 
 the Sunday school classes, Hier have 
 few people in the parish over 16 years 
 and unde- r: ^-e;-5 ■-'■-: ~-f -r^ in 
 church. 
 
 They h.sve a very nne n-:ccm c:--,irch 
 having 14 rooms. Hie underhing prin- 
 ciple? of these methods are summed up 
 as the church should be a ministerir^ m- 
 stitunon. It must serve the whole man 
 physically, mentally and spiritually. 
 Distribute responsfDiIity : and get eveiy- 
 bodv busv. 
 
Scotch Presbyterian Church, Waddington, N.Y. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A Splendid Example of Successful 
 
 Rural Church Work in New 
 
 York State, 
 
 In the year 1908 the Rev. Jas. Robert- 
 son celebrated the 25th year of his pas- 
 torate of the Waddington Scotch Pres- 
 byterian Church. This eminently suc- 
 cessful church is located in the country. 
 Its membership is made up of well-to-do 
 farmers and their families. 
 
 During the quarter of a century the 
 pastor was never absent from his pulpit 
 on account of sickness. 
 
 During this time 310 had been received 
 into the communion, eleven elders had 
 been ordained and one installed. 
 
 One hundred marriages had been 
 performed, 107 of the contracting parties 
 being members of the church. 
 
 During this period $32,500.00 had been 
 contributed for congregational purposes 
 and about $26,000 for benevolences, 
 which with $1 1,000 for the present house 
 
of worship erected in 1891 makes a totd 
 of $69,000.00 contributed for all purposes 
 during this period. 
 
 The Sunday School was well organized 
 when he came here with 234 members 
 and 19 teachers, 8 of whom are now 
 dead, 5 not teaching, 3 in other churches, 
 and 3 still teaching, namely, Geo. F, 
 Rutherford, Mrs. Ruther A. Rutherford 
 and Mrs. James S. Fife. The present 
 grading of the Sabbath-school was ef- 
 fected after the erection of the new edi- 
 fice, since which time Miss Gertrude 
 Fisher has been primary teacher. The 
 teachers have been of great help to the 
 pastor in preparing the children for an 
 early confession of their faith in Christ 
 and an early union with the church. Less 
 than six young people between the ages 
 of 12 and 20 are unconnected with the 
 Church, whose parents are members. 
 Our Sunday-school comprises the entire 
 congregation, old and young. At the 
 present time we have 13 teachers and 243 
 scholars. 
 
 The pastor's Bible class, which met on 
 Friday evening in the early part of the 
 pastorate, gave place to the Young Peo- 
 ple's Society of Christian Endeavor. The 
 subjects treated in the Bible class were 
 justification, santification, the Lord's 
 Supper and baptism and the doctrine of 
 
the atonement. Essays were written by 
 some of the members and then these doc- 
 trines were discussed. There were 60 
 members with an average attendance of 
 30, and two of the members are now 
 ministers of the gospel. 
 
 The Ladies' Missionary Society was 
 organized Aug. 11, 1885. On account of 
 the congregation belonging to Brockville 
 Presbytery, the work of the Society was 
 on behalf of the negroes, supporting a 
 negro girl pupil in school. In 1891, when 
 the Church entered St. Lawrence Presby- 
 tery, the Ladies' Society became an auxil- 
 iary to the Presbyterial and have been 
 interested with them in their work, name- 
 ly, home and foreign missions. Their 
 contributions are included in the total for 
 benevolences named in the foregoing. 
 
 Every dollar of money raised through- 
 out the entire 25 years has been by vol- 
 untary contrilnitions, and not one cent by 
 speculation, such as paid entertainments, 
 sociables, etc. This Church needs no 
 Ladies' Aid Society. 
 
 The following statement will go far 
 to show that the country pastor need not 
 be isolated nor fail to win recognition in 
 the more general work of his church. 
 
 Besides the work in the local Church 
 the pastor has been chairman of the Syn- 
 
odical Committee and by virtue of that 
 chairmanship a member of the permanent 
 committee on Snyodical Home Missions, 
 and a member of the executive com- 
 mittee of the State Sunday-school Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 Besides the work in his parish the pas- 
 tor is filling a career of unusual useful- 
 ness and influence in the activities of 
 presbyterial and synodical association. 
 For 15 years he has held the office of 
 chairman of the Committee on Synodical 
 Home Missions, by virtue of which of- 
 fice he is also a member of the Permanent 
 Committee on Synodical Home Missions. 
 5 years ago he was appointed one of a 
 committee of five to revise the synodical 
 plan of home missions, which plan was 
 submitted to the Synod and adopted. His 
 chairmanship of the Adirondack mission 
 work entails a large amount of personal 
 attention besides much correspondence. 
 He has been a member for some years of 
 the New York State Sunday-school As- 
 sociation, being chairman for the fourth 
 district comprising eleven counties. He 
 also is secretary-treasurer of the local 
 district S. S. Association. None of these 
 are sinecures, as he attends faithfully to 
 the duties of every office which he ac- 
 cepts. In 1902 he was a delegate to the 
 International Sunday-school Association 
 at Denver and in 1903 a commissioner to 
 
the Presbyterian General Assembly at 
 Los Angeles. 
 
 This information was culled from a 
 copy of the Madrid Herald, mailed to us 
 by this modest minister of the gospel in 
 response to our request for information. 
 
 But to show the methods (which were 
 both conserv-ative and spiritual) which he 
 employed we take the liberty to quote 
 from his letter as follows: 
 
 "1 might call your attention to the 
 fact that I rarely allow any of our chil- 
 dren to reach the age of fourteen with- 
 out dealing with them personally in rela- 
 tion to their making a public profession 
 of their faith in our saviour. All our 
 evangelistic work is done by hand pick- 
 ing before they are out of their teens. 
 
 *'The fathers and mothers attend Sun- 
 day school which meets before the morn- 
 ing service and they all wait with their 
 children for the church service ; this is 
 the secret of our being able to keep young 
 men and women in the Sunday school. 
 We have children attending church serv- 
 ice who would cry themselves sick if 
 they had to stay at home from any of 
 the services. 
 
 "Of course we have not all received 
 our wings yet, but the only means we 
 use for their development is just the 
 
regular Christian work of a normal 
 church." 
 
 Facts to remember: 
 
 The spiritual Hfe was emphasized rath- 
 er than the social and yet they enjoy a 
 good social life. 
 
 The Doctrine of Atonement was kept 
 before the people. 
 
 Every Dollar was raised by voluntary 
 contributions. 
 
 Parents attend Sunday school with 
 their children. Young people urged to 
 make a public confession of faith in 
 Jesus. Personal work the pastor's method 
 of evangelism. 
 
 Nothing sensational just the regular 
 work of a normal church. 
 
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