By-products of the rural Sunday school

JAN 8 1917

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BY-PRODUCTS

OF THE RURAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL

BY

J. M. SOMERNDIKE

Author of

-ON THE FIRING LINE WITH THE SUNDAY
SCHOOL MISSIONARY"

Philadelphia

The Westminster Press

1914

Copyright 1914
By F. M. Braselmann

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I

UNMEASURED VALUES 3

CHAPTER II

THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF THE RURAL

SUNDAY SCHOOL 21

CHAPTER III

COMMUNITIES REDEEMED 43

CHAPTER IV

HOW CHURCHES ARE DEVELOPED 63

CHAPTER V

TRAINING WORKERS FOR THE KINGDOM 83

CHAPTER VI

RECRUITS FOR THE MINISTRY AND MISSIONARY

SERVICE 99

CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF RURAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL

WORK 115

CHAPTER VIII

WAYSIDE EVANGELISM 133

CHAPTER IX

SUNDAY-SCHOOL EXTENSION 151

m

INTRODUCTION

Increasi]s?g attention is being given to the Sunday
school. This is due to the recognition that it has
become the most important agency in the religious
instruction of our youth. We do not refer to the
Sunday school apart from the Church, but to the
Church working through the Sunday school.

We are beginning to realize that in America both
the Church and the nation must depend largely upon
the Sunday school for the Christian instruction of
our boys and girls, as well as for the Bible study of
our adults. Earnest efforts are being made to render
our Sunday schools more efficient, so that better and
more abundant results may be obtained from the
work done in them. Consideration, however, has
thus far been given for the most part to the larger
schools in our towns and cities.

It is well for us, therefore, to have our attention
directed to the smaller rural schools. The majority
of our Sunday schools are of this character. In
many cases these schools are taking the place of
churches in scattered communities. A church could
not be supported, but a Sunday school can be carried
on by the people themselves, and may become the
center of the religious life of the neighborhood.

The opportunities for Bible study and the develop-
ment of Christian character in these schools are in
many ways superior to those in the larger city
schools. Few of us realize how vital and far-reach-
ing is the influence emanating from these little
schools. ]\lany of our leading pastors, prominent

V

vi Introduction

church workers, missionaries, and teachers received
their first spiritual impressions in Sunday schools of
this nature.

Mr. Somerndike, in his book, "By-Products of
the Rural Sunday School," has made a valuable
contribution to our knowledge and appreciation of
Sunday-school work in general, and particularly as
carried on in the little country school.

No one who is interested in work of this character
can fail to read this book with pleasure and a grow-
ing recognition of the important results that are
being achieved. We hope that it may come into the
hands of many who are living in these rural com-
munities, that they may be encouraged to undertake
such work for their neighborhoods.

We should be glad to have the attention of Chris-
tian men and women, living in towns from which
nearby rural communities can be reached, directed
to a method of work that yields such abundant, sat-
isfactory and enduring results.

We feel sure that, as this book is read by large-
hearted men and women interested in the religious
welfare of their own land, and seeking opportun-
ities for profitable investment of the means the Lord
has intrusted to them, they will feel more than ever
inclined liberally to support the Church in carrying
on this vitally important service that is accomplishing
so much directly and indirectly for the salvation of
souls, the building up of Christian character, and
the progress of Christ's Jiingdom.

Alexandek Henry.

UNMEASURED VALUES

1. The school that changed the name of "Hell-for-Sartin. "

2. The Sunday school that caused the countryside to turn out and build nine

miles of good roads.

3. A homesteader who is superintendent of two Sunday schools and assists four

others.

CHAPTER I

Unmeasured Values

The direct results of Sunday-school missions may
readily be tabulated. Since the aim of this work is
to place the opportunity for Christian instruction
within the reach of the children and youth of Amer-
ica, by establishing and maintaining Sunday schools
in localities where they are lacking, it is a matter of
simple arithmetic to arrive at the figures showing the
number of Sunday schools organized, the number of
persons enrolled in them, the number of pastorless
families visited, the Sunday-school conferences and
institutes conducted, and such other totals as would
be necessary to show the volume of work accom-
plished by the field force of one hundred and twenty-
five Sunday-school missionaries.

The direct output or product of Sunday-school
missions is found in the Sunday schools organized
and revived ; the persons who have been enlisted in
Christian service as Sunday-school officers and
teachers ; the improvements effected in the ideals
and methods of the Sunday schools in a given dis-
trict ; the boys and girls gathered for Christian in-
struction ; the character that is being shaped by the
faithful work of self-denying Sunday-school teach-
ers ; and the transformations wrought in the life of
those who have found Christ and who have been
made whole by his gracious touch. But in performing

3

4 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

these labors there are bypaths that must be traversed ;
and the Sunday-school missionary finds himself
touching and influencing the life of the people on his
field in many other helpful ways. Indeed, it is fre-
quently the case that the forms of service from
which he derives the greatest encouragement and
inspiration may be those which would be regarded
as secondary to the ultimate goal he has in view.
Again, we should remember that the full value of
the mission Sunday school cannot be determined
merely by what it is doing for the neighborhood in
which it is situated, but that its influence reaches as
far as its members may be scattered as they pursue
their life work. The teaching in a rural Sunday
school on the prairie frequently has been known to
bear fruit in missionary service in distant lands.

The direct product shown by statistical reports is
not the only measure of efficiency in missionary
work such as this. The value of the by-product is
worthy of equal consideration. In commercial enter-
prises, the by-product is frequently of greater value
than the principal article manufactured. Certain
commodities are made not so much for the profit
which they will bring to the manufacturer, as for
the sake of the secondary product which is of greater
worth and which cannot be obtained without the
process required in order to produce the output that
appears to occupy the place of chief importance.

The immediate product of Sunday-school missions
is seen in the hundreds of little Sunday schools that
are springing up, many of them in obscure rural

Unmeasured Values 5

neighborhoods back from the main lines of travel
in which a multitude of boys and girls are being
taught the principles of morality and religion, and
directed toward the surrender of their lives to their
Saviour and Lord, consecrating themselves to his
service. Thus the Sunday-school missionary, may
proudly point to a dozen, or, sometimes, to as many
as fifty mission Sunday schools within the bound-
aries of his field, which can be depended upon to
meet regularly for the study of the Word and in
which faithful work is being done. This, he will
tell you, is the result of his missionary labors, be-
cause it is his business not only to organize schools
but to keep them alive and in good working condi-
tion as far as it may be within his power. But for
what purpose are these Sunday schools established ?
Do they not exist primarily for the molding of
Christian character, and is not Christian character
the foundation of all that is good and virtuous and
uplifting in any community? The by-products of
character-building are innumerable. The wise and
careful investor would not consider the possession
of property in a neighborhood that was notoriously
vicious, a safe asset ; neither would such a place be
likely to be selected as a desirable community in
which to live and rear one's family. But the exist-
ence of a Sunday school or a church in a community
alw-ays stands as an assurance of its stability, even
though some forms of evil may be knowr to flourish
there. The presence of the Sunday school in hun-
dreds of neighborhoods of doubtful reputation has

6 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

been the means of effecting changes in conditions of
life and environment, that could not be traced to any
other source than the influence of the Christian
character of those who had been brought into con-
tact with higher motives and impulses through the
Sunday school's work, "Hell-in-the-Woods," a little
village along one of the mountain streams in Ten-
nessee, became Helenwood after the Sunday-school
missionary had established and nurtured a little Sun-
day school there. It was composed at first of rough
mountain boys and girls, and when the missionary
began his work those who were opposed to the
Sunday school would shoot out the lights. It was
only by tactful, persevering work that a school was
started. But they responded to the quickening touch
of Christian teaching, many of them finding salva-
tion with newness of life and purpose in Jesus Christ.
Thus, from the little Sunday school an influence is
radiated so far-reaching in its effect as to be immeas-
urable. Such is the value of the Sunday-school by-
product.

Such work cannot always be computed in figures.
We cannot measure the extent of an influence for
good which may be started through the planting of
a little Sunday school in some sin-darkened neigh-
borhood, nor can we record the direct results of a
chance meeting, a wayside visit, or an encouraging
word. This is a service in which personal work
looms up in large proportions ; and the Sunday-
school missionary soon learns the importance of
seizing every chance meeting or conversation as an

Unmeasured Values 7

opportunity of witnessing for Christ The Sunday-
school missionary, driving along the road on a visit
to a new neighborhood, stops at a wayside home for
a friendly greeting, and to talk about the Sunday
school. The husband is at work on the farm, but,
as it is about the noon hour, the missionary, who is
always a welcome visitor, is invited to join the
family in the midday meal. Years have passed since
their home has been visited by a Christian minister.
After he asks the blessing upon the humble repast,
the mother exclaims, "My husband used to do that,
but he gave it up long ago." Then the missionary
hears the story of their hardship and struggle, how
the discouragements and the absence of any Chris-
tian influence in the neighborhood have caused them
to become indifferent to the inner voice which at
first reminded them of their religious duties, but
which had grown dumb because of their heedlessness
and neglect. The old trunk is opened and the reHcs
of former days exhibited to the missionary's view.
Among them are some devotional books, and, still
more surprising, a local preacher's license which had
been granted to the husband years before. Then the
rest of the story is told ; how easily they had fallen
into the godless ways of their neighbors, sacrificing
all to the lust for possessions. The missionary yields
to the entreaty to remain with them for the night,
feeling that in the face of such a providential oppor-
tunity he cannot resume his journey without rebuild-
ing the family altar in that home and bringing them
back to God. After the chores have been done, the

8 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

husband and wife are seated about the fire with the
missionary, and as they talk ov€r their experiences,
confessing their backsHding, they face the great
need. The missionary leads them to the throne of
grace and there this preacher-farmer again finds his
voice in prayer and pledges renewed allegiance to
his Lord. He promises the missionary that he will
conduct and keep alive the little Sunday school that
has been started in the community, and that he will
faithfully hold up the standard of righteousness be-
fore that people.

Thus, a work of grace has been started which may
directly influence not only the lives of scores of per-
sons, but which eventually may transform the life
of the entire neighborhood. It was just a wayside
call, and the Sunday-school missionary could have
found many reasons for passing on, but, following
the example of the Good Shepherd, he could not be
satisfied until he had brought these wandering sheep
back into the fold. He went to this neighborhood to
organize a Sunday school, and that is the product he
reports ; but who can estimate the value of the by-
product of souls reclaimed and a community re-
deemed? Only the Book of Life can contain a
record of the results of such labors.

It is not unusual for neighborhoods in a newly
settled district, into which the forces of evil so often
find their way with the first newcomer, to be com-
pletely dominated by the degrading influence of the
weekly dance, the gambling den and the saloon.
The establishment of the Sunday school in such a

Unmeasured Values 9

community at once causes a line to be drawn clearly
and distinctly between those who are interested in
the development of religious life among the people
and those who are indifferent or opposed. The
Sunday-school forces, though feeble at first, find
themselves engaged in a conflict with these agencies
of destruction, and in hundreds of instances the sa-
loon eventually has been obliged to close its doors
and the dance hall has been converted into a place of
Christian worship.

A Sunday-school missionary in northern Wiscon-
sin recently had the experience of seeing two sa-
loons closed and the third almost completely aban-
doned, Sunday baseball discontinued and the town
"cleaned up" through the persistent labors of a
few faithful men and women who have been con-
ducting the Sunday school which he established.
When he first visited this locality on a Sunday after-
noon, he found a ball game in progress, and the
saloons wide open. When he spoke to them about
having a Sunday school they declared that such an
institution had never been known in the place. In
canvassing the homes, the missionary found only a
few who were willing to lend their assistance, but
as the school grew, the interest of the entire neigh-
borhood began to be aroused because the good influ-
ence of the little school was being seen on every
hand. Some of the money that the saloon keeper
formerly received has been diverted into better
channels, for without any outside aid they have
built a commodious chapel, The missionary says

10 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

that this little school is known all over the county
for the good work it has performed.

As the Sunday school develops, the community
begins to have social interests that are more profit-
able than the weekly dance. The craving for hu-
man fellowship which brought the people from their
lonely, isolated homes "to meet folks" at the dance
hall, can now be satisfied by the Sunday-school serv-
ice which old and young attend. The good liter-
ature which the Sunday school brings into the
homes awakens higher ideals and stirs the youth
with the visions of higher and better things than his
neighborhood with its meager advantages and in-
ferior associations, is capable of providing. He
begins to see the value of an education, ambitions
and aspirations are awakened, and he longs for a
chance to take his place in the great world about
which he reads.

xA.gain the Sunday school brings a new interest
into the home life as the Bible becomes the daily
portion of the family, as they learn the Sunday-
school songs and read the Sunday-school library
books.

As the school develops new features, with its
Cradle Roll for the babies, its Home Department
for the "stay-at-homes," and its parents' or Adult
Bible classes, it becomes the center of community
interest. In one locality the whole countryside
turned out with shovel and scraper to build a better
road several miles in length leading to the little
chapel which had been erected to house their

Unmeasured Values 11

Sunday school. It had wrought a mighty work in
the community, and they had learned to appreciate
its value.

Thus the Sunday school becomes more than a
religious force. Its influence permeates the whole
social organization. It is the saving salt of hun-
dreds of neighborhoods, in the sense that it is the
preserver of that which contributes toward the sus-
taining of spiritual life, at the same time arresting
the inroads of moral decay. The Sunday school
frequently stands alone, representing the only reli-
gious work in the township and sometimes in an
entire county. It bears up the whole task of reli-
gious education. Its membership is not limited to
children of church members nor does it require the
acceptance of the tenets of any particular denom-
ination. Not only does it make its influence felt
as a social force, but the entire locality may come
together under its banner to teach and to study the
Word. From the school a church may develop,
in the course of time, whose denominational affili-
ation will be determined by the will of the majority ;
but in many places the community cannot support a
church and there the Sunday school stands In the
place of the church, feeding the spiritual life of the
people, developing character among the youth, and
ministering in many helpful ways to their moral
uplift. The organized church, however, should be
considered one of the most important of the by-
products of Sunday-school missions. The rural
Sunday schools have been the foundation of at least

12 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

eighty per cent of the new churches placed upon
our roll in missionary synods during the past twenty-
seven years.

Not only does the Sunday school exert its influ-
ence in the immediate locality in which it is situ-
ated, but it becomes the training school for Chris-
tian workers in our city churches. In scores of
instances it has been found that the most faithful
officers and members of city churches formed the
great decision which led them into Christian life
and activity in some little Sunday school in an ob-
scure neighborhood. It is well known that the trend
of life is toward the city. It is the custom of Dr.
John Timothy Stone, of the great Fourth Presby-
terian Church of Chicago, to give a Christmas din-
ner to the men of his congregation who are boarding
in the city and who cannot get home to the country
districts to spend Christmas with their families.
On one of these occasions he found that twenty-
seven states were represented. If inquiry were
made, doubtless it would be found that many of
these men received most of their religious training
in little Sunday schools in the country districts. It
is by no means an idle speculation to say that in
providing for the religious instruction of the coun-
try boys and girls by planting mission Sunday
schools, within their reach, we are contributing in a
substantial degree toward civic betterment. The
pastor of a large city church of national prominence,
in addressing a conference of Sunday-school mis-

Unmeasured Values 13

sionarles, said : "You are purifying the stream that
flows into the cities. We are receiving into our
city churches young men and women who received
their first impulse toward the Christian life in the
rural Sunday schools which you have planted."

Again, the rural Sunday school has furnished
a considerable percentage of ministers, missionaries
and teachers. The far-reaching effect of the prod-
uct of the little Sunday school from this viewpoint
alone cannot be measured or even estimated. One
little Sunday school, which for years has been the
only religious influence in a country neighborhood,
has produced forty-three ministers.

Many of the boys and girls in our rural Sunday
schools are going to the Presbyterian colleges for
their education, and here again the influence of the
faithful work of consecrated Sunday-school teachers
in the back-country districts, is seen in the charac-
ter of those who compose the student body in such
institutions. They contribute in a large measure
to the Christian atmosphere of the college, taking
an active part in the religious activities, some be-
coming candidates for the gospel ministry and oth-
ers preparing themselves for other forms of service
for the advancement of the kingdom.

The little Sunday school which has but a tempo-
rary existence must be considered, also, in such a
survey as this. Those who are familiar with con-
ditions in frontier districts, the future of which is
often speculative, are never heard to say that the
efforts of missionaries in localities which do not

14 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

promise the organization of permanent churches,
are lost. If we were to measure our work for
Christ and our fellow men by any such standard the
religious needs of hundreds of neighborhoods that
now enjoy the blessings of the church and Sunday
school would have been ignored by the missionary
for years, and a multitude of souls eternally lost.
If missionary money expended in the unpromising
places is wasted, then what is the use of sending
missionaries into the lumber camps or into the
mining districts of the United States or Alaska, to
follow the gold stampedes, where cities may spring
up in a night with no assurance of permanence?
They may last a year or five years ; who can tell ?
But shall they be neglected because of such uncer-
tainty ? Some of the most encouraging experiences
in missionary endeavor have come from work
started under the most trying circumstances. The
Sunday-school missionary especially, can point to
some of the best results of his ministry as the out-
growth of a feeble work which Hved but a short
time and has long since disappeared.

A Sunday school was established in a new lumber
town in northern Wisconsin several years ago. It
represented the only religious influence in that
neighborhood ; and through its work many of the
boys and girls were led to confess Christ. The
vast forest has been removed ; the lumber men have
moved on ; the town is deserted ; and the little Sun-
day school has been discontinued. But the good in-
fluence goes on and bears fruit elsewhere. The

Unmeasured Values IS

Sunday-school missionary was surprised one day to
receive a letter from a sixteen-year-old girl who had
given her heart to Christ in this "backwoods"
school, informing him that she had started a Sun-
day school in the new village to which her family
had gone ; and as no one would take charge of it,
she was acting as its superintendent. She added
that recently five of her pupils had become Chris-
tians. Similar testimony could be given concerning
scores of other places. In fact, the whole history
of missions at home and abroad furnishes many
illustrations of the indirect results of time and en-
ergy expended in cases where from a human stand-
point they seem to have been lost.

Our faith is weak indeed, if we hold back because
we cannot see the end from the beginning. If the
opportunity to minister to the needy and to save
souls does not outweigh the credit of reporting per-
manent organizations effected, then we have de-
parted far from the viewpoint of the Master when
he gave the "Great Commission" to his disciples.
It was the need that they were to consider and en-
deavor to supply. They were to sow the seed, rest-
ing upon his promises for the results. Spiritual
values cannot be appraised by material standards,
and they do not always make good statistics. An
editorial from a well-known religious weekly accu-
rately describes the situation as it is found in certain
sections of the West, peopled by homesteaders, in
the following:

16 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

"In a state as well churched as Kansas even,
there is one whole county — Grant — which has no
church organization, Haskell County has only two
ministers ; Morton County only one. In Washing-
ton there is a valley six miles wide and sixty miles
long already well filled with settlers, and of them all
not one-fifth are to-day within any reasonable reach
of Christian worship — to say nothing of Christian
pastoral services in their homes. These are but
samples of a condition quite common through the
West — regions of wide extent wholly neglected in
home-mission enterprise, while there is an absolute
scramble of rivalry to keep a footing in other
places that would be better ofif with less attention.
Of course, the neglected districts are those less
promising of growth and wealth — less likely to
develop 'self-supporting churches.' But on that
very account the struggling settlers need the com-
fort of religious ministrations all the more. All
the home-mission agencies of the nation, in fact,
ought to have an infusion of more courage to un-
dertake work never expected to 'come to self-sup-
port.' The great construction camps along irriga-
tion and railroad projects, for instance, are tem-
porary communities soon to disappear, but they
ought to have religious opportunities while they
last. Many a mining camp, even though perma-
nent, is passed by because there aren't enough
Christian people in it to make a church organ-
ization."

Unmeasured Values 17

While it probably would be difficult to provide
churches or preachers for such places, it is possible
to maintain Sunday schools and thus keep alive a
religious influence until the time shall arrive when
a church develops and the way is prepared for the
settled pastor. But let us remember that even the
temporary, short-lived Sunday school has possibil-
ities which cannot adequately be determined, and its
by-products can be known only by the wise Prov-
idence who controls men and circumstances, assur-
ing us that "no chance with Him is lost"

Thus we find adequate ground upon which to
base our consideration of the value of the by-
products of Sunday-school missions. By concrete
instances we shall proceed to discover how the little
Sunday school is ministering effectively to the
spiritual and social necessities of thousands of fam-
ilies whose religious welfare would otherwise be
neglected, and how its influence reaches out, touch-
ing life at every point, helping to solve some of our
most troublesome social and economic problems,
and how it is contributing in large measure toward
the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of our Lord.

THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF THE
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL

A Sunday school which meets m a railroad station.

Temporary building which housed a rural Sunday school in the northwest
when almost the entire neighborhood opposed the work.

This Sunday school closed the "pool-hall" and the weekly dance.

This chapel and Sunday school are the result or a beginning made with a few-
children in a Tennessee mountain hamlet.

CHAPTER II

THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF THE RURAL SUNDAY
SCHOOL

At a Children's Day celebration in a little rural
district in Wisconsin, a tableau showing the change
which the Sunday school had wrought was ar-
ranged, without aid or suggestion of the Sunday-
school missionary, as an object lesson to the people.
The first scene showed the condition of the com-
munity before the Sunday school was organized.
Young men and women were seated about tables
playing cards and drinking; others were dancing
and still others showed evidences of intoxication.
The second scene presented a picture of an ideal
home. The parents and children were seated about
the family table, reading the Bible and the Sunday-
school library books, and studying the Sunday-
school quarterlies. The public drinking house and
the dance hall had disappeared, homes had been
restored, and families reunited. The same picture
would illustrate the change that has been experi-
enced In many places where the Sunday school has
stood as the only influence for righteousness. Wher-
ever the little Sunday school has been planted it has
taken a firm position as the enemy of the saloon
and of every other evil that preys upon the youth.
The Sunday school aims to construct Christian

21

22 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

character. The saloon and the dance hall, which
so frequently go hand in hand, depend upon se-
curing new victims from among our boys and girls
— the same boys and girls whom the Sunday school
aims to reach. This brings them into direct con-
flict, and those who are interested in the little Sun-
day school soon find that they must take a decided
stand. Some of the finest examples of Christian
heroism have been found among the superintendents
and teachers in rural Sunday schools who have
fought bravely and successfully against the evil
conditions which surround them.

The Sunday school teaches abstinence from the
standpoint of the Scriptures. Intemperance is held
before the pupils as a sin not only against oneself,
but against God, and the warrant for such teaching
is found in his Word. "Take away the Bible from
us, and our warfare against intemperance and im-
purity and oppression and infidelity and crime is at
an end. We have no authority to speak, no courage
to act," said William Lloyd Garrison.

The influence of Bible instruction as it is given
in the little Sunday school has awakened many a
neighborhood to see the moral ruin for which the
saloon is responsible and the moral wreckage which
it has strewed in their midst. It has stirred them
to action. It has made the saloon question vital in
the community and has called upon everyone to de-
clare himself for or against it. One of the strongest
factors in the progress of the anti-saloon campaign
all over our land has been the little rural Sunday

Expulsive Power of the Rural Sunday School 23

schools, situated in localities where the issue has
been closely drawn, and no quarter given. One or
the other must go, but usually it has been the saloon,
with all the other evils that it encourages.

It is invariably the case, where churches and Sun-
day schools are lacking, that the forces of evil are
doubly active in taking advantage of the situation.
The Sunday-school missionary in such places finds
that he must meet these foes. He has something
far more serious than indifference with which to
contend. Here the saloon and the pool room be-
come the favorite meeting place lor the men and
boys; and the Saturday night dance is the social
center of the neighborhood. To attend their orgies
the people come from a distance of many miles, and
with a plentiful supply of liquor, they hold high
carnival until the dawn of the Lord's Day. "Pray
for Pine Ridge," pleads a Sunday-school mission-
ary. "They have put up one of the bravest fights
against great odds that I have ever witnessed. In-
stead of staying with them one day as I had planned,
I spent five days encouraging them in every way I
could. In this community there is a Saturday night-
Sunday morning dance which demoralizes the
whole country round about. They dance from nine
o'clock on Saturday night until five, and sometimes
until seven, o'clock on Sunday morning. A great
deal of liquor is consumed; and the stories of evil
that I have heard in connection with these perform-
ances make me heartsick. Evil reigns supreme.
They even have a 'relief band' whose object is to

24 By-Prodiicts of the Rural Sunday School

relieve anyone in the neighborhood who may be
experiencing temporary prosperity. The school
board in the adjoining district west of this com-
munity was obHged to take the doors, windows and
stove out of their new schoolhouse during the vaca-
tion season, and store them away for safe keeping,"
The Sunday-school missionary was tempted to
abandon the work, but as he said, "It looked so
much like saying to the devil, Tt is too hard for
God, so you may have it,' " so he determined to
help them fight it through. As the time came for
him to leave the community the few who were in-
terested in religious things came to him saying:
"Now, don't give us up, and quit coming, even
though it is discouraging. We wouldn't be so bad
if we could keep this Sunday school going. Won't
you help us all you can?" The latest reports indi-
cate that this school is growing. They were en-
couraged by being able to have services every Sun-
day throughout the winter, in spite of zero weather.
A little Sunday school in the sand hills of western
Nebraska succeeded in driving out the dance hall
in a unique manner. After the Sunday school had
been organized, the missionary arranged a series of
evangelistic services with the hope of arousing
deeper interest among the people. While the meet-
ings were in progress in the schoolhouse, a dance
hall was being erected about a quarter of a mile
distant. Nothing was said against the dance hall,
but as the interest in the Sunday school developed
the dance hall began to fall into disrepute. Then

Expulsive Power of the Rural Sunday School 25

the people wanted a church. Some of the men of
the community who had subscribed for stock in the
dance-hall enterprise came and offered to donate
their holdings to the church; others found it in-
jurious to their reputation to be known as dance-
hall stockholders, for the sentiment of the entire
community had undergone a change, and they sold
out. Finally, those who were interested in the
church found that they, owned a majority interest
in the dance hall, so they decided to convert it to
better use. The building was plastered and painted,
seats and pulpit secured, and thus it became the
church home for the little congregation, dedicated
and set apart to the worship of God. The entire
community rejoiced in the transformation that had
been wrought.

In nearly every community, no matter how god-
less, it is possible to find some one who longs for
better things and who nourishes the hope that some
day the missionary will come their way and estab-
lish gospel privileges among them. Possibly it is a
mother whose boys have fallen victims to their
evil surroundings and who looks upon the coming
of the missionary as an answer to her prayers.
"We have never had a Sunday school here," writes
a woman from a remote Wyoming settlement. "Our
neighborhood is twenty-eight miles from the near-
est town, but there are at least fifty families within
a radius of ten miles who should be interested in
religious work. Some of these people have no\
been to church for seventeen years. I, myself, have

26 By-Products of tJu Rural Sunday School

not heard a sermon for seven years, as it is twenty-
eight miles to the nearest church, but when a dance
is given at a ranch house the people come from
twenty-five to thirty miles and farther. Frequently
they have from one hundred and fifty to two hun-
dred people in attendance. I have long wanted a
Sunday school but no one is willing to lead the
movement." It is the Sunday-school missionary
who must organize the work and find leaders to
carry it forward. In such places it takes consider-
able courage for anyone to come forward as a leader
in a movement which will antagonize the existing
forms of evil and questionable amusements of which
the people do not want to be deprived. But after
the Sunday school has had an opportunity to dem-
onstrate its value to the neighborhood, many of
those -.vho at first were indifferent or opposed to it,
have become its supporters.

In a country neighborhood in northwestern Mis-
souri, where a Sunday-school missionary had been
at work, some evangelistic meetings were held.
During these services a number of young people
professed conversion, among them being a young
man who had been the organizer and leader of the
neighborhood weekly dance, besides enjoying the
distinction of being the champion pool player for
miles around. The dances have been discontinued
and this young man has centered all his interests
in the Sunday school. With his own hands he made
a pulpit for the little chapel, and he is present with
his children at every session of the Sunday school.

Expulsive Pozcer of the Rural Sunday School 27

The dance hall and the saloon go hand in hand.
Where the one flourishes the other thrives, and the
Sunday school, especially in new communities, thus
finds its evil foes doubly fortified against any re-
forms which it may hope to effect. A little cross-
roads Sunday school was started about twelve
miles from the nearest town in a needy section of
Minnesota. The community could not support a
church, and the Sunday-school missionary was the
only pastor they knew. A little distance down the
road were two saloons, both doing a good business.
Side by side these agents of Satan and of Christ
worked for three years, each striving to overcome
the influence of the other. But the little Sunday
school won the fight, and now the boys and girls
are being trained for Christian living instead of
for the saloon, since both saloons were obliged to
close their doors. Another little Sunday school in
Minnesota had a prize fighter for its first superin-
tendent. The people felt that in a community so
irreligious, force rather than religion would be
needed in maintaining the Sunday school. Later
the prize fighter became a new creature in Christ
and this neighborhood lost its reputation for god-
lessness — another by-product of the rural school.
In the far West among the ranchmen, the Sunday-
school missionary sees everywhere the degrading
effect of liquor traffic. Here he meets fine speci-
mens of young manhood, who, finding themselves
far removed from the restraints of the more thickly
settled parts, with no recreation or amusements, and

28 By-Products of the Rurcd Sunday School

no one to uphold high ideals, soon fall into loose
habits and become victims of drink. An Idaho
Sunday-school missionaty had an interesting experi-
ence in a ranch community, which illustrates in a
very striking manner the power of the Sunday
school and the by-product through which its influ-
ence will go on in ever-increasing service for the
kingdom. Let the missionary tell the story:

"Some time ago I visited a new frontier village,
in a cattle country, where thousands of cattle
roamed over the plains, and through which a rail-
road had just been built. Being informed of the
godless character of the place, and the need of gos-
pel work in the community, I dropped in and found
three saloons and two general stores, a blacksmith
shop, a small drug store, and a few other stores
doing business in tents. There were several fam-
ilies, some living in small houses, others in tents.
The saloons were well patronized day and night by
the cowboys from the surrounding cattle ranches.
The town had been 'shot up' on several occasions
by drunken cowboys. A small building had just
been erected for school and church purposes ; there
were two or three Qiristian families in the com-
munity that were hoping for the time to come when
they could have Sunday school and occasional
preaching service. We held a few meetings and
organized a Sunday school. Early one morning a
business man, w^ho conducted one of the stores,
went to the depot to inquire about some goods he
was expecting. As he turned to go back to his

Expulsive Pozver of the Rural Sunday School 29

place of business he saw two young men dressed in
cowboy attire sitting on the depot steps. He stepped
up to them and inquired if they would be in town
overnight. Both were under the influence of liquor,
having spent the night in the saloons. The larger
of the two replied that they came in yesterday from
the cattle ranch, that they spent all night in the
saloons, and that they might go back to-day and
might not for two or three days.

" 'Well, boys,' said he, *if you are in town to-
night come up to the little chapel yonder. We are
having gospel services there every night, the first
we have ever had, boys, in this part of the country ;
and everybody is coming.'

"'What,' said the cowboy, 'preaching? I didn't
think there was a preacher within a hundred miles
of here. No,' he continued, 'we couldn't go to
preaching, we are too rough.'

" 'Now, boys,' said the business man, 'I am in
earnest in this matter ; I want you to come. Where
will you be this evening at 7: 30?'

" 'If in town, likely in the saloon,' said the cow-
boy.

"That evening before service the business man
went to the saloon and found the young men.

" 'Now, boys,' said he, 'I have come after you,
and I want you to come with me to the service.'

"They tried to excuse themselves by saying that
they had nothing but the cowboy clothing that they
had on, and couldn't go in that condition.

30 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

" 'Never mind your clothes,' said the business
man. 'Throw off your cartridge belts and put your
guns behind the bar, and come as you are ; you will
be welcome/

"I shall never forget that evening when that man
came into the little chapel with the two cowboys,
taking a seat by their side on one of the wooden
benches in the rear of the room.

"The service had not yet commenced, and as I
looked into the face of the larger of the two, al-
though the marks of dissipation were plainly visible,
beneath were the lines of character; and I said to
myself, 'There is a diamond in the rough, and by
the grace of God we must get it out.'

"As I preached that night I prayed. The cow-
boy was restless at first ; but soon after I began my
address he turned his eyes upon me and never took
them off until I was through. At the close of my
address I saw that he was deeply interested and
greatly agitated, and when I gave the invitation to
stand to all who would forsake their evil way and
confess the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour from
sin, a number arose. Among the first to stand
was this cowboy. He came out from his seat and
up the aisle to the platform and, with tears stream-
ing down his cheeks, he put out his hand to me
saying, 'Parson, will you let me say a word?'

"He turned to the audience and began to speak.
He hadn't spoken but a minute until it was evident
that he was an educated young man ; his grammar
was perfect. He told of his boyhood home and his

Expulsive Poiver of the Rural Sunday School 31

past life ; he was the only child of well-to-do parents
in old New England. His parents had given him a
fine education. He graduated with high honors
from one of our largest Eastern colleges. His
parents wanted him to enter the ministry. 'But/
said he, 'I was never converted; my heart turned
away from the ministry, and soon after my gradu-
ation I ran away from home and came out to this
Western country, and for years I have ridden the
range, and gone to the depths of sin. For five
years I have not written my mother, and she doesn't
know but what her boy is dead.'

"When he mentioned the name 'mother,' he broke
down and cried, 'My God, have I killed my poor
mother ?'

"I have witnessed many touching scenes m my
twenty-eight years of pioneer mission life in this
Western country, but seldom have I witnessed a
more touching scene than this. There wasn't a dry
eye in that audience, and the Holy Spirit's power
was wonderfully manifest. The cowboy fell upon
his knees in front of the platform, pleading with
God for mercy, and asking forgiveness.

"That business man, God bless him, came and
knelt by his side ; others came and gathered around
that group, and before he arose from his knees the
pardon of God came to him; and as he arose he
threw his arms around his friend exclaiming, 'God
bless you, sir, for bringing me here to-night.'

"The business man said to him, 'Come home with
me to-night ; I want you to spend the night with me.'

22 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

" 'Thank you, sir,' said the cowboy, 'but no sleep
for me until I know if mother is alive. If mother is
dead, sir, I never can forgive myself. I have killed
her. God has forgiven me, sir, but I can never for-
give myself if mother is dead.'

"He went to the little station, and this message
flashed over the wire to the old New England home :
'Your long lost boy is found and saved. Answer
quickly. Charley.'

"He walked the floor of the little station that
night for the return message. About ten o'clock
the next morning it came, and the first words of
the message were these: 'Thank God, our boy still
lives. Come home at once. Father, Mother.'

"The young man leaped for joy, praising God that
his life had been spared to his dear mother, and
that she would see her boy saved and in his right
mind. The next evening he came to the service
nicely dressed. That dissipated look was gone, and
the love of God shone in his countenance. He
brought with him to the service two young men,
former companions whom he had helped to drag
down in sin.

"In the after service that evening, he gave a testi-
mony of wonderful power, and getting his two
companions on their knees in prayer he never let
them rise until he led them to Christ. The third
day he took the train for the old New England
hom-e to bring cheer and comfort to the dear par-
ents who had mourned their only child as lost.

Expulsive Pozver of the Rural Sunday School 33

"He remained at home some time, entering with
all his heart and soul into Christian work, and later,
carrying out the desire of his parents, he began
to prepare for the ministry. Already he has been
the instrument under God of leading many souls
to Christ."

That godless frontier village is to-day a pros-
perous town of more than two thousand popula-
tion; a peace-loving and God-fearing people. That
little Sunday school has grown to a strong, self-
supporting church, sending out its beneficent rays of
blessing throughout all that region of country.
This is the result of a little Sunday school in a
rural settlement.

In a little town in a northwestern state where a
comfortable little Presbyterian church stands to-day
as the direct outgrowth of the work of a little Sun-
day school, we have a splendid illustration of the
triumph of the Sunday school over the saloon.
When the Sunday school was organized, there were
fifteen saloons and a population of about three hun-
dred. The outlook was most discouraging. The whole
neighborhood was completely under the control of
the liquor men. When the missionary visited the
people for the first time they advised him not to
attempt any work among them. One storekeeper
took him aside and said, "I would dislike very much
to see you leave town discouraged, so in my judg-
ment the best thing for you to do is to leave town
before you undertake to do anything." The mis-
sionary said he would stay and fight it out. "If yon

34 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

feel that way about it," he said, "you can depend
on me, and I will do all I can to help you."

True to his promise, the missionary began to look
about for a place of meeting. He finally secured
the use of a room, and then started out to invite
every one to attend the service. After doing all this
he felt that one thing more must be done to stir
the people. So he took his stand on the street cor-
ner between two saloons and sang a gospel song.
Then as the men gathered about him, he invited
them to attend the meeting. The attendance was
not large but sufficiently encouraging to go on, so
he advertised services to continue every night for
the remainder of the week. The interest increased
and on Sunday the first Sunday school in that en-
tire district was organized. Men who had been
notorious characters were present at that service
and expressed their determination to lead better
lives and to support the good work. A physician
who had lost his reputation and practice through
drunkenness became a new creature in Christ. He
was among the first to urge the organization of a
church in addition to the Sunday school. Later he
was elected as chairman of the building commit-
tee. He superintended the building of that church,
and when not engaged in his practice, which he had
largely recovered, he could be found with hammer
and saw, hard at work on the building, trying to
honor Him who had saved him from a life of sin.
But what happened to the saloons? A few weeks
ago they held an election to vote on "no license,"

Expulsive Power of the Rural Sunday School 35

and the saloon interests were completely over-
whelmed.

In missionary work among the mountaineers of
the South, the Sunday-school missionary finds that
the greatest hindrance to his work is the saloon and
the "blind tiger." Probably nine-tenths of the
crimes committed in that region can be traced di-
rectly to strong drink, but even there where drink-
ing is so prevalent, the Sunday school in many in-
stances has succeeded in restraining it to a large
degree, and in some cases in removing it completely.
In a mountain village along one of the creeks in
east Tennessee a distillery and saloon had been doing
a thriving business for fifteen years or more. Un-
der the "four-mile law" this saloon was compelled
to close. Our Sunday-school missionary, seeing in
this circumstance the opportunity for which he had
long been waiting, immediately canvassed the en-
tire community and made his enterprise doubly
sure by renting the saloon building for the first
session of the Sunday school which he intended to
organize. The people responded heartily and the
school grew very encouragingly. After the school
had been carried on for some time the Sunday-
school missionary held evangelistic services, as a
result of which fifty persons confessed Christ, most
of them uniting with the Presbyterian church three
miles distant. The need of having their own build-
ing became more pressing week by week. The peo-
ple were very poor, but after all had subscribed they
found that more than fifty dollars had been raised,

36 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

The Sunday-school missionary undertook the task
of helping them erect a chapel, and in a few days
succeeded in securing a donation of a piece of
ground in a central location. It was impossible to
raise enough money to buy new lumber, so the
missionary opened negotiations with the owner of
the saloon, purchased it for seventy-five dollars
and moved it down to the ground that had been
donated. With the help of a few friends, they
reconstructed it, placing a small steeple on the front,
and there it stands to-day as a Presbyterian church.
As soon as it was completed, special services were
held and twenty-nine more persons confessed
Christ. This little mountain village has shown evi-
dences of complete transformation. It is a re-
deemed community, families that were estranged for
years have been reunited and the children are being
trained in the fear of God.

A little town of about three hundred people had
been in existence for twenty-three years without
churches or Sunday schools. Alinisters of all de-
nominations had passed it by as hopeless. Its repu-
tation for lawlessness was known everywhere. Il-
licit distilleries did a thriving business and shooting
affrays were frequent. The Sunday-school mission-
ary was warned not to attempt any work there, but,
true to his duty, he felt that the children, at least,
should have some opportunity to rise above their
evil surroundings. A Sunday school was organized
without any encouragement from the community.
The missionary cared for it, visiting it as often as

Expulsive Power of the Rural Sunday School 37

possible and gradually its influence began to be felt.
The people became more interested, as they dis-
covered what a firm hold the Sunday-school teaching
had taken upon their children. Gambling was
stopped by common consent. The illicit distilleries
found their business declining and soon they were
obliged to move out. The necessity for a chapel
building became very pressing, and in response to
the missionary's appeal eleven hundred dollars was
contributed to erect a comfortable house of worship.
The church was organized and regular preaching
was maintained. Even the traveling men who visit
this town remark concerning the change that has
taken place since the Sunday school came in and
caused the liquor interests to move out. Doubtless
this neighborhood would have gone on for years in
its degraded condition, but for the little Sunday
school. A church could never have been started
without its preparatory work. This is a fine illus-
tration of the expulsive power of the Sunday
school. A veteran missionary who has planted hun-
dreds of Sunday schools in destitute neighborhoods,
said recently, "In many a western settlement I have
seen the little Sunday school drive out the saloon,
the pool hall, the weekly dance and the gambling
den."

These illustrations show what the rural Sun-
day school can do in a neighborhood where the
forces of evil have been in possession. In hundreds
of cases where similar conditions have prevailed,
the uplifting influence of gospel teaching in the lit-

38 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

tie Sunday school has gradually made itself felt
throughout the entire community. Nowhere do we
see the parable of the leaven so forcefully illus-
trated as in missionary work of this kind. Again
we are reminded of the words of the Psalmist, "The
entrance of thy words giveth light." How often
the rural Sunday school has been as a light shining
in darkness, but growing brighter and brighter until
its glow is diffused in every comer, dispelling dark-
ness, radiating warmth and bringing new life to
thousands who have been dead in sin and indiffer-
ence ! Does it not revive our faith and strengthen
our purpose in Christian work when we see how
effectively God uses even the humblest effort put
forth in his name to overcome evil? Some one has
wisely said that the secret of all social reform is to
"empty by filling." We are told that nature abhors
a vacuum. "We cannot pump darkness out of a
room ; we must empty it by filling it with light. One
tallow dip will do more to exclude darkness than
a thousand steam pumps. The only way to shut
out disease is to fill the veins with health. In mor-
als we must banish the degrading by the elevating."
We must crowd out the saloon, the dance hall and
kindred evils that are undermining the characters
of our boys and girls, especially in neighborhoods
where there is no restraining influence, by introduc-
ing the Sunday school with its Bible lessons, its
wholesome literature and its exalted ideals.

A pastor making an earnest appeal for Sunday-
school missionaries to labor in a needy district of

Expulsive Pozoer of the Rural Sunday School 39

the northwest, states that there are "four hundred
neighborhoods without churches or Sunday schools."
The writer adds : "In ten to twenty years, if the
gospel is not given these places, a generation of
children will grow up knowing very little of Chris-
tianity, of Christian life, but a great deal of vice
which seems to take root in this virgin soil, as do
the noxious weeds and brambles in a neglected
field. Saloons, roadhouses and dance halls are
planted everywhere long in advance of the coming
of the missionary. What will you do with these
four hundred villages and hamlets?"

This work is fundamental to the success of many
other forms of service. Through Sunday-school
missions we not only bring the boys and girls into
contact with regenerating influences, but we are in-
directly aiding the cause of temperance and pro-
moting a higher social morality. These by-products
of the rural Sunday school are placed first because
they are the first steps toward a redeemed commu-
nity. Let us look farther and see how the Sunday
school changes home life, and how neighborhoods
have been transformed by its renovating work.

COMMUNITIES REDEEMED

1. An oil camp made over bv the Sunday school.

2. The school that transformed a degraded negro neighborhood.

3. Some pupils in a rural Sunday school, thirty miles from the nearest church.

4. This home furnishes four devoted Sunday-school workers who walk eleven

miles to the schoolhouse every Sunday.

CHAPTER III

COMMUNITIES REDEEMED

Along the banks of the Little Kanawha, which
winds its way in and out among the foothills of the
Blue Ridge, a primitive people had been left to
dwell unmolested for generations, with no knowl-
edge or vision of the great world beyond the tower-
ing hills. But the silence of centuries has been
broken by the invasion of a great industry. Here
the geologist has laid bare hidden treasures, which
mean untold wealth to the capitalist. All over those
steep hillsides they are boring deep into nature's
treasure house; and, dotted here and there, the
pumps and derricks may be seen, bringing the oil to
the surface, where it is sent forth by pipe line to
the world's market.

One day the news came that "a gusher" had been
opened some fifty miles up the river. The rush
began, and a town sprang up, as it were, in a night.
The rougher element were in possession. There
was no Sabbath, for every day was alike. There
was neither church nor Sunday school to counteract
the wide-openness of this town in the midst of a new
and promising oil field. Two young fellows ofifered
the prosecuting attorney twenty-five hundred dol-
lars if he would prevent an indictment for six
months, that they might sell whisky. Conditions

43

44 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

were degrading in the extreme. But, as in Sodom,
there were a few faithful people who had succeeded
in resisting the temptations with which they were
surrounded. Among these were several good wo-
men whose help could be depended upon, and at the
suggestion of the Sunday-school missionary they
gathered together a company of little children in
one of the homes to make arrangements for a Sun-
day school. Under great discouragement, and fear
of opposition, they decided to make the attempt to
maintain a Sunday school ; and that decision marked
the beginning of a new era for the whole district.
At first they labored against great odds, but soon
their example and their faith began to impress even
those who were opposing the work. There was a
noticeable difference, too, in the character and be-
havior of the children. Thus the Sunday school
gradually came to be looked upon as a real benefit
to the community. They found that it was teaching
the children things that made a difference in their
home life. Ambitions were awakened, the Sunday-
school literature was taken into the homes and was
eagerly read by the parents as well as by the chil-
dren. Soon an adult class was formed in the Sun-
day school, and thus the interest developed to such
an extent that the people refused to be satisfied
with a Sunday school only, but clamored for preach-
ing services besides. A pastor was secured, and the
little organization began to be the center around
which the interest of the entire community was en-
circled. To-day a comfortable chapel stands on the

Communities Redeemed 45

hilltop as a monument to the work of the little Sun-
day school which, in the beginning, stood bravely
and alone, as the representative of a higher standara
of life and conduct, against almost an entire neigh-
borhood that had yielded itself to the forces of
evil. It tells the story, too, of hundreds of com-
munities whose redemption may be traced to the
coming of the Sunday school into their midst.

On the western plains, in districts where people
are living long distances apart, and where no one
has ever had the courage to try to start a church,
the Sunday school represents the only gospel influ-
ence that the people are privileged to have. They
are too poor and too scattered to support churches
that would warrant preachers in locating there. A
Sunday-school missionary who has planted a num-
ber of rural Sunday schools in such districts, tried
the plan of holding Sunday-school conventions for
the benefit of those who are the workers in the little
schools which he has started, and for any others
who were interested. In describing one of these
conventions which was held in a schoolhouse, far
out on the prairie, a missionary tells us that at the
afternoon session the little room was packed, about
one hundred and twenty-five people being present.
The missionary was surprised to see such a large
gathering in a region that seemed to be so sparsely
settled. "Where did all these people come from?"
he inquired. He was told that, many of them had
driven distances of from fourteen to twenty miles,
and some had come thirty, miles. Thus do they ap-

46 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

preciate such opportunities, and they are deeply in-
terested in what the Sunday school is doing for
them and for their children. The Sunday school
has been the means of setting up the family altar
in many a sod shack and one would be surprised
to find such spiritual fellowship as may be experi-
enced among these people. These Sunday-school
officers and teachers carry the whole community
upon their hearts. This incident is related not be-
cause it is isolated and striking, but because it fairly
illustrates what the rural Sunday school means in
such places, and what a large place it occupies in
the life of the people scfattered over these western
prairies, where there is not a church within reach
and only occasionally is a minister seen. To see the
wholesome effect of the little country Sunday school
upon these prairie settlements, gives one a deeper
conception of the invaluable service which it ren-
ders to the citizenship of this nation. What does
the Sunday-school missionary say about it?

"Away down in the southwest, along the Cimar-
ron River, I walked over the sand hills, through the
sagebrush and soap weed, where there are miles
between the scattered homes. People are living in
dugouts, half dugouts and shacks, holding down
their claims — some of the finest people I have
known. We organized a Sunday school, a wee bit
of a school with two classes. It has come up through
hard struggles, but is winning out and getting on its
feet. It is the whole religious life of the commun-
ity. Wl^t would they do without it! There are

Communities Redeemed 4?

many just like it." This is the testimony of a man
who has seen homes and entire neighborhoods
brought to the feet of Jesus through the work oi
the little Sunday school.

Sometimes the coming of a Qiristian man or
woman into a neighborhood gives a new start to
the Sunday school and enables it to minister in an
effective way to the life of the people. A little town
in Iowa had been in a state of religious stagnation
for nearly thirty years, with no apparent hope of
improvement. This neighborhood had an unsavory
reputation. It had earned its bad name by the
drunkenness and crime that had become so com-
mon in it as to be of almost daily occurrence. Be-
fore the Sunday-school missionary found this place
an effort had been made to conduct a little Sunday
school, but it had not made any impression upon the
life of the people. The missionary saw the oppor-
tunity, and knowing what the Sunday school had
accomplished in other places, started out to discover
some one who would take hold of this feeble Sun-
day school, revive it and make it a neighborhood
affair. He succeeded in enlisting the interest of a
physician and his wife, both of whom were Chris-
tians, and who had but recently moved there. They
have a Sunday school to-day with a member-
ship of more than one hundred, and a Presbyterian
church with an attendance of from seventy-five to
one hundred. It is the usual thing to find that one-
half of the attendance is composed of men and boys.
Intemperance, Sunday baseball, hunting and horse-

48 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

racing, as well as low dances, have been compelled
to give way before the splendid work of this little
Sunday school. The life of the entire village has
been reconstructed. Even the highways have been
improved. Through the encouragement given by
this consecrated physician and his wife, a course
of free lectures and entertainments is conducted
during the winter. Church services are held in the
Odd Fellows' building, in a room formerly used for
a saloon. The doctor is helping them, not only with
his medical knowledge, but with his wise advice
and excellent judgment, to build up the work upon
a permanent basis. No call goes unheeded if he
feels that by responding to it he may be able to
awaken the young people, and adults as well, to see
their opportunities and to take advantage of them.
The day is not far distant when the community will
demand a house of worship in place of the present
room, where, under the faded paint on the front
door, one reads, "No minors allowed."

Again the rural Sunday school discovers people
who, years before, in their former homes, had been
Christians, church members, and sometimes active
church workers. There are thousands of people
living in rural parts of America, who, upon moving
into new neighborhods, have not had sufficient
strength and grace to take a stand for Christ in
their new environment, and have fallen into the
easy, careless ways of those about them, concealing
the fact of their former church connection. It has
frequently occurred that the visit of the Sunday-

Communities Redeemed 49

school missionary and the planting of a little Sun-
day school have brought back to such people the
teachings of the early days. They have been led to
come out on the side of truth and to exert their in-
fluence upon the neighborhood in the direction of
higher and nobler ideals. A Sunday-school mission-
ary in Idaho recently had an interesting experience
of this kind. He was prospecting the Medicine
Lodge country near the Montana border, which he
was told had never been visited by a Christian min-
ister or missionary. He tells the story of the re-
claiming of a backslider and the redemption of a
community. "After leaving the railroad and driving
by team more than thirty miles over desert plains,
through valley and caiion, I found people living all
along the valley, some having been there for twenty-
five years. One Sunday morning we had service in
the little schoolhouse, the first gospel service in all
that region of country. About twenty persons were
present, more than half of them children. A well-
to-do ranchman, one of the oldest settlers of the
valley, in whose home I stayed overnight, attended
the service with his family. He had given no indi-
cation that he had ever been a church member, but
before I was through with my address I saw that he
was interested. At the close of the ser\nce I went
to his home to get my grip. He followed me in,
went to an old trunk and took out a copy of a worn,
leather-bound Bible, opened it and took from be-
tween its leaves a church letter and handed it
to me, It was his letter of dismission from his old

50 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

church in Scotland, recommending him to the
church in America. It was dated 1880 and signed
by the pastor of the church. I could speak but a
few words to him as he turned away to conceal his
emotions. For thirty-three years he had wandered
and drifted from the teaching and profession of his
boyhood years. As I started to drive away he took
me warmly by the hand saying, 'Come again.' We
organized a little Sunday school there at the close
of that service, and the superintendent writes me
that this man is teaching the adult class, and is an
excellent Bible student." He is a leader in
the neighborhood ; and since he has shown an active
interest in the Sunday school the morals of the
whole region have shown a decided change for the
better. The by-product of redeemed neighborhoods
is one that is of incalculable worth.

A Sunday-school missionary in the Middle West,
in canvassing a portion of his field, discovered sev-
eral neighborhoods, situated in a rich agricultural
district where the people were prosperous but god-
less. Anti-religious societies flourished among them,
and they boasted that no minister could do anything
in their midst. In fact they had driven out every
minister who had attempted even to hold services.
One man said, "We have about as much use for a
minister as we have for smallpox." The Sunday-
school missionary was not easily discouraged and
in a tactful way set to work to win them through
the children. After visiting among them for two
or three weeks and succeeding in winning some to

Communities Redeemed 51

the support of his plans, he organized a Httle Sun-
day school. It grew from the very beginning, and
is becoming more and more a power for good among
them. The infidel societies are weakened and al-
most ready to disband. The sentiment of the neigh-
borhood has completely changed. The social and
moral chaos into which the people were plunging
themselves and their children has given place to
quiet, well-ordered homes and to ideals of civic bet-
terment that will make this neighborhood not only
a safe place in which to live, but a blessing to hun-
dreds of lives.

Probably one of the most encouraging illustra-
tions of the social transformations that have been
effected through the instrumentality of the rural
Sunday school is seen in work among the southern
negroes. One of our efficient Sunday-school mis-
sionaries who has carefully studied the problem in
a southern state and who has applied himself intel-
ligently and energetically toward its solution makes
this statement:

"The negro Sunday-school missionary is not only
confronted with problems similar to those of other
fields, but with these plus others that are character-
istic of the negro alone. The word 'destitute,' as
applied to the regions in the West, means a com-
munity without Sunday schools, without a church,
without God. But among the negroes it often means
a community with plenty of churches of different
creeds, but without Sunday schools ; church mem-
bers with no conception of the real, Christlike reli-

52 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

gion, but who think that they are as good as it is
necessary for them to be. While these churches in
such communities are numerous, the pastors, as
you can imagine, are inferior men. Anyone who
sees that he can have it comparatively easy by being
called to preach, 'hears the call,' takes charge of the
church and becomes the leader of the community,
which will rise no higher than he. Often they are
bad men at heart, very ungodly in conduct and to-
tally ignorant. These are the fields the mission-
aries find the most fruitful, but certainly the hardest.
They have the largest number of criminals, the larg-
est number of lynchings, the largest number of im-
moral homes, the largest number of premature
deaths. The census of one hundred and twenty-
five men on the chain gang was taken, and only five
had ever been to Sunday school. In another com-
munity, out of ninety such men only three could
read and write. In that same community a Sunday
school was organized with fifty-three members, but
only two could read fairly well. In this community
are eight churches. The missionary was not cordi-
ally received in one of these communities, but with
tact and prayer he gained the confidence of the peo-
ple. They will read his literature, if they can, and
listen to his message." Two of these communities
in Georgia have been completely revolutionized in
the last three years. In one, the missionary had to
be guarded ; in another he had to get the consent
of the white plantation owner before he could go
on the premises.

Communities Redeemed 53

In another case the conversion of a negrc boy
whom the Sunday-school missionary met on the
road to the schoolhouse, was the means of beginning
a work which resulted in the transformation of an
entire neighborhood. He in turn brought his com-
panions to the Sunday school. Special meetings
were held, and during their progress this young
negro boy found Christ. Then he brought friend
after friend to Jesus. His zeal for righteousness
and his childlike faith have been the means of work-
ing a complete transformation in that village. The
missionary reports that upon his last visit he found
to his amazement that all the boys and girls in that
locality had become members of the little Sunday
school and were faithful in attendance. The father
of this boy was converted, family prayers are now
held regularly ; the cabin is kept clean and neat, and
others have been stimulated to do likewise.

In the mountain hamlets of the southern Appa-
lachians we may find many instances of transformed
homes and lives, the study of the Bible in the Sun-
day school resulting in an elevating of the entire
social organization. One superintendent of a new
school came for five or six weeks in his shirt sleeves,
overalls, and with bare feet ; the secretary, a woman
of about forty, came with bare feet. But soon the
superintendent had on new shirt, new trousers and
shoes, and the secretary had a new hat and a pair
of shoes. The Sunday school incites to better things
in every direction. One old man said, "I'm mighty

54 By-Prodiicts of the Rural Sunday School

glad you come, you done a heap for my old woman
(she was converted), and you've raised the price of
land."

One of the most encouraging features of the work
of the little Sunday school, especially in the moun-
tains of the South, is the change which it is the
means of producing in the home life of the people.
The little cabins are cleaned, curtains appear at the
windows ; the children dress better and habits of
personal cleanliness are developed,

A Sunday-school missionary in the Cumberland
Mountains of Tennessee recently discovered a neigh-
borhood where there were about one hundred and
fifty people living in a very destitute condition.
They were fifteen miles from the nearest town.
They had neither church, Sunday school nor day
school. The nearest district school was situated on
the opposite side of a high mountain which was
four miles across. Their isolation was complete.
No one had ever attempted to provide for their
spiritual or educational necessities, and the entire
neighborhood had fallen into careless ways. The
missionary canvassed the situation thoroughly and,
although no one seemed to be very enthusiastic about
having a Sunday school, he felt sure that the need
warranted some expenditure of time and effort upon
his part. Then he was encouraged by the village
blacksmith who said, "just you come over to
Shackletown, and have a meeting with us. We
hain't got no church nor nary schoolhouse, but I'll
clean out the blacksmith shop and we can meet

Communities Redeemed 55

there." The missionary accepted the offer and told
the blacksmith to advertise the meeting. On rue
following Sunday the missionary found that the
blacksmith had been true to his word, and the house
was filled with men, women and children. The
hastily improvised seats were not sufficient to ac-
commodate all who attended, and many of them
stood through the service. Afterwards, when the
missionary asked them to vote on the question of
having a Sunday school, they were unanimous in
their desire for it, electing the blacksmith as their
superintendent. The problem of a building was
difficult, but under the missionary's leadership they
secured a small plot of ground, hauled the lumber
and erected a plain boxed house with a little steeple
over the doorway. This building serves their needs
for church, Sunday school and day school. Preach-
ing services are held once a month and the Sunday
school is growing steadily. How did this school
show its effect upon the neighborhood? First of
all, the people became dissatisfied with the name of
their village. They had changed, the reputation
which the neighborhood had earned in former days
applied to them no longer, so they came together
and voted to change its name to Philadelphia. This
was not the only change. The missionary tells us
that since the Sunday school has been at work here,
dilapidated log cabins have been repaired and made
more attractive inside and out. Fences have been
rebuilt and the entire locality has assumed an ap-
pearance of thrift and cleanliness which it never

56 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

before possessed. This community may never be
any larger than it is to-day ; it may never be able to
support a church ; but the influence of the little Sun-
day school planted in its midst has changed the en-
tire aspect of that district.

The Sunday school in its study of the Bible brings
to these people the supreme incentive which they
need, an ideal of life, creating within their hearts
the impulse toward it. It restores the sanctity of
the Sabbath, it stimulates the private study of the
Scriptures, and they strive to apply the truths of the
Word to their own lives. A little mountain town in
eastern Kentucky which was notorious for its illicit
distilleries, its feuds and frequent shooting affrays,
was visited by a Sunday-school missionary. He found
it without any religious influence, but, realizing the
possibilities of establishing a Sunday school in their
midst, he and his devoted wife took up headquarters
there and began to hold Sunday school in their lit-
tle home. The interest grew, and it soon became
necessary to hold the meetings of the Bible class on
week nights. Meetings for prayer and Bible study
were held as frequently as practicable, and it was
not long before a number of the young people came
forward, seeking to make a public profession of
their faith in Jesus Christ. They soon had a nucleus
for the organization of a Presbyterian church ;
a chapel was erected, educational facilities im-
proved, and regular church services held.
The Bible class by this time had grown until it
had an average attendance of forty-five, and, during

Communities Redeemed 57

the six years of the missionary's residence there, it
continued its enthusiastic interest in the study of the
Word. A flourishing young people's society was
maintained, and through its work the youth of the
entire community were reached with good reading
matter; social meetings were held and, before long,
the life of the entire community centered about the
little chapel on the hillside. Most remarkable, how-
ever, was the fact that of the sixty members of the
little church, everyone but three could take part in
the meetings by leading in prayer. The family altar
was kindled in nearly every home. What effect did
all this have upon the community life? Feuds of
long standing were healed up, and whereas the town
had been noted for its lawlessness, it now gained a
reputation for quietness and decency in public and
private life. At a public meeting held in this church,
a county judge arose to testify to the change which
had been wrought through the introduction of Bible
study into that region. He said that before the
coming of the Sunday school, his court had been
busy with trials for murder and nearly every other
crime on the calendar, most of the culprits coming
from that very neighborhood, but since the Sunday
school had been doing its work among them, he had
rlmost nothing to do in the way of meting out pun-
ishment. He characterized the change as miracu-
lous and gave the credit to the interest in religious
things which had been developed among that people.
This is not by any means an isolated case. Scores
of mountain communities have undergone a similar

58 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

change through the work of the little Sunday school.
In a mountain hamlet in West Virginia where there
is a flourishing church with an average attendance
of more than one hundred, and a still larger Sunday
school, of which the church is the outgrowth, a re-
markable work of grace has been accomplished.
When Christian work was begun here, every reli-
gious service would be broken up by a neighborhood
fight. For generations a family feud had been in
progress and had terrorized the whole region. The
missionaries even carried bandages with them to
every meeting, because they were sure to need them
in caring for the wounded. To-day it would be dif-
ficult to find a more orderly neighborhood. It was
a long time before the feudists would give in, but
gradually their enmity toward one another cooled,
and the leader of one of the fighting families became
an elder in the church. During some revival meet-
ings, the leader of the opposing family, his wife
and several of their children, professed conversion.
The communion Sabbath came and this family ex-
pressed the desire to be received as members of the
church. It was a day of rejoicing and blessing to
the whole neighborhood. When this big moun-
taineer stepped forward and accepted the right hand
of his former enemy, in Christian fellowship, the
congregation was moved to tears. In the presence
of God and his people, a covenant of peace was
sealed between the contending families as they gath-
ered about the Lord's table. All the trials of the
former days in endeavoring to keep the Sunday

Communities Redeemed 59

school alive in that neighborhood, against fearful
odds, faded into insignificance in the joy that they
experienced in witnessing the transformation that
had taken place.

Numerous illustrations could be given to show
the effect of the little Sunday school upon godless
neighborhoods, wherever our Sunday-school mis-
sionaries have been at work. But, after all, the
Sunday school is merely the human agency through
which the work has been done. It is the power of
the Word, the transforming grace of Jesus Christ
and the work of his Spirit, that has brought about
the redemption of these distorted souls and recon-
structed these sin-cursed neighborhoods. The gos-
pel is tested by its influence upon the lives of the
people to whom it is proclaimed, by the changed
social conditions which result from faithfully teach-
ing it. If our faith in the regenerating power of
the Word has been weakened by the multitude of
new ideas and theories that have been advanced dur-
ing these latter days for the betterment of social
conditions by scientific or psychological methods
alone, we may find refreshment in studying the ef-
fect of the gospel, taught in all its simplicity, in the
mission Sunday schools where thousands are being
directed Christward, and neighborhoods remade.

Nowhere may we witness more encouraging evi-
dences of the social effects of the teaching of the
Word than m Sunday-school missions. There are
hundreds of places where similar work could be
done if the men and means were available. It is

60 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

the Sunday school that has been the entering wedge
for the gospel in places where the church would
have been excluded. Shall we not put forth re-
doubled efforts to give to every unreached com-
munity the opportunity of Bible study by sending
Sunday-school missionaries to establish Sunday
schools in their midst ?

HOW CHURCHES ARE DEVELOPED

1 . The home of a rancher who gave $2500 toward the building of a church.

2. The outgrowth of a Sunday school in a frontier neighborhood.
.3. A Sunday school that changed the life of a negro community.

4. A Presbyterian church which grew from a frontierSunday school in a
ranch settlement.

CHAPTER IV

HOW CHURCHES ARE DEVELOPED

Twenty-three hundred churches in twenty-six
years ! This is one remarkable by-product of the
work of Presbyterian Sunday-school missionaries.
Sixteen hundred and fifty of these churches are af-
filiated with the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.
Since the beginning of this work, each year has
shown an average of eighty-five churches estab-
lished as a development of rural Sunday schools.
The outposts planted by the Sunday-school mission-
aries at strategic points are thus becoming perma-
nent centers of Qiristian influence. Localities which
in many cases had been neglected for years by the
missionary pastor as being hopeless from a spiritual
standpoint, are now being blessed, and are blessing
others, through the pioneer work of the mission
Sunday school. The minister of a leading
Presbyterian church on the Pacific Coast recently
stated that nearly ninety-five per cent of the new
work opened in his synod during the past
decade is due to the energy and labor of the
Presbyterian Sunday-school missionaries. There
are only three or four of the Presbyterian churches
which have been organized in that district during
the past ten years, which have not grown directly
or indirectly from this work,

03

64 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

It has been conservatively estimated that at least
eighty per cent of the new Presbyterian churches
organized in missionary districts in the United
States during the past quarter of a century have
been the direct outgrowth of the rural Sunday
school. Attention has been called to the large re-
turn that has accrued to the Presbyterian Church
in property acquired through the organization of
these churches. An approximate calculation shows
that the value of church buildings erected by these
congregations exceeds one and a half millions of
dollars. This represents about seventy-five per cent,
of the total cost of Sunday-school missionary work
during the years it has been in operation.

It should be clearly understood, however, that
tlie aim and purpose of the Sunday-school mission-
ary is not to organize churches. Although he and
the Board which sends him forth, rejoice in the fact
that the seed they have sown in the organization of
rural Sunday schools comes to such an abundant
fruitage, it must be considered a by-product. The
Sunday-school missionary enters a neighborhood
for the purpose of gathering the children and young
people together for Christian instruction, with much
the same motive as that which impelled Robert
Raikes, more than a century ago, to establish his
'"ragged schools." In many neighborhoods he finds
the children in a condition of spiritual desti-
tution similar to that of the children of old Glou-
cester in those early days. He has in view the
formation of Christian citizenship, the building of

How Churches are Developed 65

character in the Hves of those whom sin has not
yet claimed.

The whole story of Sunday-school missions is a
splendid illustration of the leading of a little child.
Beginning with the repeating of the little prayer
that has been taught in the Sunday-school, the child
of the godless home is taking the first step toward
leading its parents to God. The Christian literature
which the child brings from the Sunday school and
in which he finds so much that interests him, at-
tracts the father and mother; frequently they are
importuned as only a child can importune them, to
read the stories aloud. In this way hundreds of
hearts have been touched. As the parents become
interested they demand preaching services. The
Sunday-school missionary cannot localize himself
by agreeing to conduct church services regularly ;
he therefore reports the circumstances to the proper
committee of the presbytery, whose business it is
to provide pastors for rural congregations, to advise
with reference to plans of church organization and
the building of a house of worship.

In tracing the development of churches and the
erection of houses of worship as the outgrowth of
rural Sunday schools, we may find some very in-
teresting and inspiring illustrations of consecration
and service. In a little Colorado settlement situ-
ated out on the plains in the eastern section of the
state, the Sanday-school missionary planted a Sun-
day school. The neighborhood was without any re-
ligious Opportunities when the missionary dis-

66 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

covered it, but new people were moving in and
with their coming new agencies for evil were find-
ing a foothold. It was with some misgiving that
the missionary left the neighborhood after opening
this school, fearing that the little light which had
been kindled might not survive even a brief absence
upon his part. He succeeded, however, in interest-
ing a young ranch-owner and his wife and they
promised to do their utmost to keep the school alive.
Assisted by occasional visits from the missionary,
they succeeded, and the light began to burn brighter,
sending its purifying rays into the homes of many
who had wandered far from God, The missionary
was not slow to seize the opportunity for developing
a permanent preaching point here, and he made
arrangements for periodical services. From that
time the work continued to grow until a Pres-
byterian church was organized and a church
building erected. The young ranchman whose
example had done so much for the neighbor-
hood was the first elder of the little church. Al-
though he lives in a little house worth not more
than five hundred dollars, he contributed twenty-five
hundred dollars toward the erection of this church
building. This organization ministers to a large
section of country, being the only church of any
denomination for a distance of many miles, and it
has become the center of the life and interest of
scores of families.

During the past fifteen years this Colorado
Sunday-school missionary has established one

Hozv Churches are Developed 67

hundred and sixty-one new Sunday schools among
the homesteaders of the plains, and in the mining
camps of the Rockies. In the majority of cases he
was the first representative of any evangelical de-
nomination to visit these neighborhoods. Twenty-
eight Presbyterian churches, with their own chapel
buildings, erected at a cost of sixty thousand dol-
lars, bear effective witness to the wise planting and
nurturing care of this faithful missionary. But
with all this he has not yet covered his entire field.
He writes of districts in which no work has yet
been attempted by the representatives of any de-
nomination. The development of the work at N

is typical of the manner in which many of our
frontier Sunday schools have prepared the way for
permanent churches. This town is located thirty
miles north of Greeley, Colorado, on the Union
Pacific Railroad. When the missionary first vis-
ited this locality he could find no public building in
which to hold a service. Permission was obtained,
however, to hold a meeting in a new livery stable,
and here a Sunday school was organized. Later the
Sunday school moved into a tent which had been
provided by the Sunday-school missionary and
within a short time the people petitioned the pres-
bytery to organize a church. Twenty-five persons
were received as charter members. In about a year
after the Sunday school began its work a building
was completed at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars.
This church is doing an excellent work in the com-
munity.

68 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

It would take volumes to tell the story of all the
churches that have developed from rural Sunday
schools. Some have come into existence through
trying experiences, frequently discouraged and
ready to die, but the Sunday-school missionary came
to their rescue and succeeded in reviving them. One
of these missionaries who is now doing faithful
work in a needy field in one of the Pacific Coast
states was surprised recently to receive a newspaper
clipping from a neighborhood in Montana in which
he formerly had labored, containing the notice of a
public election to decide upon the organization of a
Presbyterian or Congregational church. This Sun-
day-school missionary had been the only minister
these people had known during the years he labored
in that region. He looked upon the community as
one that probably would never be able to support a
church ; indeed it was difficult even to maintain a
Sunday school. The influence of his work not only
remained with them after he had left that field, but
it grew among them, and the little Sunday school
flourished. A town meeting was called and a com-
mittee was appointed to conduct an election, all
agreeing to be governed by the will of the majority.
When the vote was counted, it was found that the
greater number desired a Presbyterian church. It
is encouraging to the Sunday-school missionary to
know that his work among them in former years
has borne fruit in this way, and that the influence of
his labors was the chief factor in causing them to
affiliate with the Presbyterian denomination.

Hozv Churches are Developed 69

Report of Committee on
Church Election

The church election held at the
Earllngburt Hall, Jan. 7th, result-
ed as follows :

Total votes cast, 115.
In favor of Presbyterian church,

69.
In favor of Congregational church,

46.
Majority in favor of Presbyterian

church, 23.
C. C. AYERS, M. H. HELDMAN,
MARTIN E. ROCKWELL, Com.

70 By-Prodncts of the Rural Sunday School

We may go a step farther and see an entire
presbytery erected as the outgrowth of rural Sun-
day schools. In 1902, the Presbyterian Church of
Miles City was the only church of that denomination
between Bozeman and Dakota, in the Helena Pres-
bytery, a distance of four hundred and three miles
by rail. For several years there has been a rapid
increase in population, owing to new railroad build-
ing. Many new towns have sprung up ; Sunday
schools have been organized in many of them, some
of which have grown into Presbyterian churches
under the nurturing care of the Sunday-school mis-
sionaries. This development of the pioneer work,
together with the enormous expense of travel due
to long distances and the imperative need for more
local activities to foster future growth, made it
necessary to divide the Helena Presbytery by form-
ing another called Yellowstone Presbytery, with six
ministers and nine churches.

It has been said that it is impossible to determine
the far-reaching extent of a religious influence in-
troduced into a community with the coming of the
mission Sunday school. The organization of a
church is only the beginning of still greater by-prod-
ucts which continue to appear as the years come
and go. An illustration of this is seen in the case

of a Sunday school organized in the C G

district. A few months afterwards, when meetings
were held in the missionary tent, there was a gen-
uine revival and a unanimous desire for the organ-
ization of a Presbyterian church, which soon fol-

How Churches are Developed 71

lowed. A commodious house of worship was
erected, the people of the community paying the
entire expense. Among those who united with the

church were Mr. and Mrs. B . The former was

elected a trustee. Soon after his election to that
office he went to a meeting of the presbytery ; and
not being aware that only elders or ministers were
allowed to become members of that body, he took
part in all the proceedings, a right he thought he
possessed because he was a trustee. His wife at
the same time was enjoying the women's missionary
meeting. In the morning a pastor saw him at the
hotel and was surprised to hear him say that it was
his purpose to spend the night there. He was con-
strained to return to the home to which he and his
wife had been assigned while presbytery was in
session. After the meeting of presbytery had ad-
journed Mrs. B told the minister why her

husband wanted to stay at the hotel. He was afraid
that his host would ask him to say grace at the
breakfast table. His fears were not without foun-
dation ; for as they sat at the table the next morning,

his host turned to him and said, "Mr. B , please

express our thanks." Speaking about this after-
wards to a friend he said, "I thought of my Httle
church and did not want to disgrace it, so I asked
the blessing." And he added, "When I went home
I did the same thing and also established the family
altar."

Not long after this a movement was inaugurated
to raise funds to endow tlie chair for Bible study in

72 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

a western college. This good man was asked to
make a contribution and some ten days later he
went to the office of the president and gave his
check for one thousand dollars. At one time there
were seven young people from this church and
Sunday school attending Presbyterian colleges.

A Sunday-school missionary in Colorado was in-
vited to preach the anniversary sermon in a church
that had grown from one of his little Sunday
schools, and to break ground for the building of a
manse. The event was one of unusual interest, be-
cause it demonstrated in an impressive manner one
of the by-products which a little Sunday school is
capable of developing.

When he firsfvisited this field it was a churchless
and godless community and when the Sunday school
was first organized, both workers and attendants
were few. Among the few attending was a boy
from an irreligious home. The father professed to
be an infidel, and the mother, though reared under
Roman Catholic influences, had begun to share the
spirit of her husband and had become indifferent
to religious things. About three months after the
Sunday school had been organized, the lad, who had
been a regular attendant, was taken ill. His illness
soon became serious, and the parents, in alarm, sum-
moned the nearest physician, who lived ten miles
away. After diagnosing the case, the physician
gave the parents no encouragement to hope for the
patient's recovery. Without being so informed by
the doctor, the boy himself came to realize the hope-

How Churches are Developed 73

lessness of his condition. Calling his mother close
to him he said, "Mother, I will not be with you
long; I know I will die soon. I am glad the Sun-
day school was started before I got sick, and that
I had the chance to attend it. Down there they told
me of Jesus, and that he died on the cross to save
people from their sins. They say he loves every-
body— even boys — and that for those he loves and
who love him, he is preparing mansions in the sky.
I believe it, mother, and when I die I believe I will
see Jesus, and believe that he will take me to his
home in heaven. But before I die there is one thing
1 want to ask you to do. Will you do it?"

Through her tears the mother replied, "Yes, son,
whatever you ask of me I will do if I can."

"Promise me that, after I am gone, you will at-
tend the Sunday school," he pleaded.

The mother gave her promise.

To the father, a little later, the boy practically re-
peated what he had said to his mother, and exacted
from him also a promise to attend the Sunday
school.

After the body of the boy had been laid away,
the parents, not yet because of any interest on their
part in the study of the Bible, but remembering the
promise to their boy, began to attend the Sunday
school. It was not long before both were converted.

When this incident became known throughout the
community ethers began to repent of their indiffer-
ence toward God and the Sunday school. Hearts
were softened and opened to the reception of the

74 By-Prodncts of the Rural Sunday School

gospel. Revival meetings were held and several
people were converted. The organization of the
church followed, and about the same time a building
was erected. Since that time steady progress has
marked the work. The minister of this church is
himself a trophy of the work on this field. This was
the first Sunday school he ever attended. It was
here he came to a saving knowledge of his Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, and here he heard the
call to devote his life to the gospel ministry. His
wife also is a token of the blessing of the Lord upon
the work of the rural Sunday school. The first re-
ligious influence that came into her life was through
the Sunday school and there, she too, found her
Saviour.

Not all the churches developing from our rural
Sunday-school work are Presbyterian. When a mis-
sion Sunday school is planted, the Sunday-school
missionary does not demand that it be designated
a Presbyterian school. He is interested primarily
in having the people study the Bible and teach its
truths to their children ; so many of our new rural
schools are called "Bible" schools. By this method
all can unite in helping to carry on the work of the
school, regardless of their denominational prefer-
ences. If the work developes into a permanent
church organization, even though it bear the name
of another denomination, we may rejoice in the fact
that the Sunday school has so influenced the neigh-
borhood that such a result has been possible.

Hozv Churches are Developed 75

It is usually found that the school that is the
most difficult to maintain is that which is located in
the most needy place. The lack of leaders, the in-
difference of the people and the discouragement of
the surroundings make it all the more important
that the children, at least, should be brought into
touch with something better than their environment
affords, so the Sunday-school missionary gives such
localities a liberal share of his attention. People
are always attracted to the man who refuses to rec-
ognize defeat, and eventually his enthusiasm and
persistence not only win friends to himself, but
helpers to the cause he represents. This is why the
Sunday-school missionary wins where others have
failed. Some of the most inspiring victories have
been achieved in the face of conditions that would
have quenched the enthusiasm of one who was not
controlled by the spirit of unselfishness and faithful
perseverance. They tell a story in a little town in
southwestern Kansas about the way in which the
Sunday-school missionary, who knew their need
better than they, literally compelled them to have
the Sunday school. He has gone from that field,
but his name is honored throughout that whole re-
gion because it was through his determination to
save them from the consequences of their own in-
difference that the marvelous things which they
have done were made possible. This is what they
said about it :

"Wood came down here to Mulberry and organ-
ized a little Sunday school, but it didn't last long.

76 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

We couldn't keep up a Sunday school here at Mul-
berry. But Wood came again, pulled us together
and reorganized the Sunday school. The second
Sunday school died as had the first, and then we
were sure we couldn't have a Sunday school at Mul-
berry. But Wood kept coming. We don't know
how many times he organized that little Sunday
school during the years he stuck by us. Finally we
did come to have a regular Sunday school in the
little schoolhouse."

Soon afterwards Mr. Wood succeeded in having
the nearest Presbyterian minister go to Mulberry,
a sixteen-mile drive each way, to hold occasional
preaching services. This opened the way for or-
ganizing a church, and they voted unanimously to
make it Presbyterian. Later this young minister,
to whom they had become greatly attached, was
called to go to China as a foreign missionary. Be-
fore leaving them he urged them to build a house of
worship. Under his leadership this was done.
Besides raising money for the church, they united
with the two other country churches that were
under this pastor's care, and contributed four thou-
sand dollars to build a hospital in the locality to
which he was going in China. One of the young
women of Mulberry went to China with him as his
life partner. What a change had taken place ! A
neighborhood that could not support even a Sunday
school, now has a flourishing Sunday school and a
working church with a missionary representative in
a foreign land, all growing out of the perseverance

How CJiurches are Developed 77

of the missionary who Icept the Sunday school going
at a time when no one cared. "If it hadn't been for
the way Wood stuck by us during the trying times
of those early years, we never would have had any-
thing here at Mulberry." It will be seen from these
illustrations that the rural Sunday school is a most
effective entering wedge for the church in places
where church organization is a possibility.

The Freedmen's Board renders helpful serv-
ice in its special field by following the work of
the negro Sunday-school missionaries. A few
years ago a negro Sunday-school missionary was
working in Burke County, Georgia, where appall-
ing destitution prevailed. After traveling for
several hours afoot through a district untouched
by the railroad, he stopped at a large planta-
tion. He visited the cabin homes by the way,
talking about the Sunday school, but everywhere he
received the same reply, "We don't want no new
religion here." At the plantation the response was
equally discouraging. At length he was directed to
call upon old Aunt Sylvia, a leader in the neighbor-
hood, who informed him that the only religious
services they had were the "big meetings held out
of doors in summer." The missionary found Aunt
Sylvia interested in religious things, however, and
finally proposed that a Sunday school be organized,
to meet in Aunt Sylvia's house. This she at once
refused to do, saying that she was the "mother of
Noah's Ark Baptist Church" and therefore could
not consider such a proposal. The missionary then

78 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

began a careful canvass of the entire neighborhood
in search of some one to take the lead in conducting
the Sunday school. Finally he was directed to "a
fine Baptist preacher" as being the man most likely
to assist him. The missionary found him plowing.
and after stating the object of his visit was informed
that his new-found friend was not a "book-leanu
preacher" but a "powerful Baptist gospel preacher.'"
The plantation overseer interrupted their conversa-
tion, attempting to drive the missionary away, bui
he was not to be diverted so easily. He requested
that he be permitted to help the preacher in his plow-
ing. When the day's work was done the missionary
accompanied the preacher to his humble home and
before retiring asked him to read a portion
of Scripture. So illiterate was he that he took
up an old hymn book, instead of a Bible, opened it,
and holding it upside down, began to quote a pas-
sage of Scripture as though he were reading it.
By tactful reasoning the missionary finally suc-
ceeded in securing his cooperation, and he prom-
ised to win Aunt Sylvia's assistance. The Sunday
school was organized and met in Aunt Sylvia's lit-
tle house. Boards were laid across chairs, for seats,
and at every meeting the room was overcrowded.
Later a Presbyterian negro minister was assigned
by the Freedmen's Board to preach for these people
occasionally and the response was far beyond their
highest hopes. The little company was soon
compelled to move from Aunt Sylvia's home,
and for some time the services were held in a bush

How Churches are Developed 79

arbor. From this beginning two good Presbyterian
churches have grown, besides an academy where
the boys and girls for miles around are being edu-
cated. The work developed so encouragingly that
the Freedmen's Board bought one thousand acres of
land, divided it into ten-acre farms, erected small
but convenient homes and sold them to negroes who
were ambitious enough to want homes of their own,
establishing a model community. To-day it is a
clean, orderly, well-regulated Christian neighbor-
hood. The Sunday school, the church and the
academy are the centers of interest, and hundreds
are being helped toward useful careers.

It should be emphasized at this point that the
object of the Sunday-school missionary is not to
organize Sunday schools only where he believes
they will grow into churches. He labors from an
entirely different standpoint. He is commissioned
to take the means of religious teaching and training
to the boys and girls who are not within reach of
churches already organized. He gathers groups of
twenty, thirty, forty or more children and young
people, into the district schoolhouse or some other
building, organizes them into Sunday school, places
Christian literature in their hands, introduces the
gospel into their homes and thus sets up a standard
higher than they have heretofore known. It is the
need of the children who are without Christian in-
fluences that impels the Sunday-school missionary
to press forward. He must organize Sunday
schools, irrespective of the possibility of their

80 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

growth into churches. True, he is ever on the alert
to note and to encourage any movement toward de-
velopment into church organization, and he advises
the presbytery with reference to such possibilities,
but the Sunday-school missionary is concerned
chiefly and exclusively with the establishment of
agencies for religious instruction (Sunday schools)
and in helping them to adopt such plans and meth-
ods of work as will enable them to minister most
helpfully to the spiritual and social needs of their
neighborhoods.

The organized church, therefore, is a by-product
of the rural Sunday school. Probably it is the most
valuable by-product so far as such values may be
measured. We cannot but rejoice in the wise reli-
gious strategy which has been exercised by our pres-
byteries in following the labors of the Sunday-
school missionaries and in developing Presbyterian
churches in so many places. It will be seen also,
that in addition to the growth of Presbyterianism
which inevitably results from the planting of rural
Sunday schools, other denominations share in this
by-product. Thus Sunday-school missions in the
name of the Presbyterian Church are making a great
contribution to the cause of Protestantism in general.

TRAINING WORKERS FOR THE
KINGDOM

A Sunday school in the Tennessee mountains which has pro-
duced many consecrated Christian workers.

The product of a little mountain Sunday school. Now a school
teacher and a Sunday-school superintendent.

Xegro girls who have pledged themselves to engage in Sunday-
school work during vacation, in their home neighborhoods.

CHAPTER V

TRAINING WORKERS FOR THE KINGDOM

One of the chief benefits resulting from the plant-
ing of a Sunday school in a neighborhood where
no religious work has previously been attempted, is
seen in the number of persons who for the first time
in their lives are enlisted in Christian service as
Sunday-school officers and teachers. When the
Sunday-school missionary organizes a school, he
chooses the best material available for his officers
and teachers, but he cannot always take the high
ground that is held by the church Sunday schools
in the larger towns and cities, where they insist, as
they should, that only church members shall be per-
mitted to be officers and teachers. It frequently
happens that the missionary is unable to find one
Christian man or woman in the neighborhood. In
one case a missionary was obliged to place a four-
teen-year-old girl in charge of a little Sunday
school. With the help of an old Scotch woman she
kept the school together, and the work prospered.
Within a short time her helper died, and the little
girl was left with the entire responsibility of the
school. She went on bravely, and her little school,
which had grown to sixty members, began to make
such an impression upon the community that those
who had been indifferent before, now ofTered their

83

84 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

assistance. Evangelistic meetings were held and
twenty persons professed conversion, after which a
church was organized.

This scarcity of workers is one of the most dis-
couraging problems of the Sunday-school mission-
ary. Sometimes he is obliged to reorganize a school
several times before he is able to find anyone who
will be faithful, whose sincerity is beyond doubt,
and whose life in the neighborhood is sufficiently
exemplary to command the respect of the other
families. A Sunday school in a rural district in
Minnesota had for its first superintendent, a prize
fighter. Under his leadership the school lived but
a few weeks. The missionary revived it with a
young lady school-teacher for superintendent. She
was unwilling to give up her Saturday night dances,
and soon the school closed again. Once more the
missionary brought them together and they chose
one of the leading men of the neighborhood for su-
perintendent, but the missionary was not very hope-
ful because he was inclined to be profane, and had
never shown any interest in religion. He possessed
many good qualities, however, and the missionary
realized that the school would succeed under this
man if he would become a Christian ; so he laid his
plans to win him to Christ. With the help of the
Spirit, he led this man to make a profession of his
faith, and through his efforts the entire community
experienced a revival. The prize fighter and his
wife, as well as the dancing school-teacher, were
among those who found salvation. Since that time

Training Workers for the Kingdom 85

the Sunday school has never missed a session and
these people are faithful teachers of classes. Thus
the mission Sunday school develops its own work-
ers. One cannot serve in a position of such respon-
sibility without experiencing a personal blessing.
Every Sunday-school teacher realizes how, in the
preparation of the Sunday-school lessons, his own
spiritual life has been developed. How much more
must this be true with reference to those who are
enlisted as teachers in these little schools in destitute
places, and who for the first time in their lives are
brought to study the Bible and the lesson helps with
which they are provided, finding that the truths
which they must teach to others are equally appli-
cable to their own lives.

A Sunday-school missionary in the southwest, in
organizing a Sunday school, could find but one wo-
man in the neighborhood who would consent to be a
teacher, but she was unwilling even after the mis-
sionary had appealed to her, to give up the habit
of smoking a pipe, which she had practiced for many
years. The missionary was obliged to accept her
services ; but later, upon visiting the school, he
learned to his great delight that in preparing the
lessons from week to week she had come to realize
her depraved condition and her injurious example
before the children of the Sunday school and had
voluntarily given up this disgusting habit. Very
often public school-teachers who never before have
fehown any interest in Sunday-school work are
pressed into service, They find many compensa-

86 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

tions in this work ; and in some cases the experience
gained in the rural Sunday school has been a prep-
aration for larger service elsewhere in later years.
Several years ago a missionary organized a school
in a destitute West Virginia community. The only
available person to act as superintendent and teacher
was Qinton G , a young fellow who was teach-
ing the district school. It was his first experience
in Sunday-school work, but soon he became deeply
interested. Several years later when visiting in
one of the largest cities of the state the missionary

met Mr. G . He took him to the largest church

in the city where he now conducts the largest organ-
ized Bible class of the city. Mr. G 's op-
portunity of to-day had its beginning in the little
Sunday school back in the hills.

The greatest work of the rural Sunday school,
however, is the training of boys and girls who be-
come Christian workers in churches and Sunday
schools in other localities. Thousands of the young
people from the homestead farms go to the towns
and cities to enter business and professional careers.
What do they take with them ? What shall be their
influence upon those with whom they associate in
their new surroundings? Will they ally themselves
with the church or will they avoid it? It is almost
invariably true that the boys and girls trained in
rural Sunday schools seek the church in the city
which represents the denomination whose mission-
ary organized the Sunday school for them, and

Training Workers for the Kingdom 87

eventually they become its most faithful workers,
especially in the Sunday school.

Not long ago a Sunday-school missionary was
visiting a city church, and at the close of the service
two young ladies came forward, whom the pastor
introduced as "two of my best workers." They
asked the missionary if he remembered them, but
he was unable to recall any previous meeting. Then
they told him that they had been pupils in a little
Sunday school which he had organized and fre-
quently visited, back in the pine woods. "It was
there that we got the desire for something better,
and we have been in Sunday-school work ever
since," one of them declared. At that time they
were attending the State Normal School, preparing
to become public school-teachers.

A number of years ago a Sunday school was
organized in a small neighborhood in northern
Iowa. To strengthen the work, the missionary held
evangelistic meetings during the following winter,
and a number of the people professed conversion.
Among them were a man, his wife and their entire
family, including three sons. Afterwards they sold
their farm in Iowa and moved to Ottertail County,
Minnesota. Our Sunday-school missionary in that
district found them in their new home and organ-
ized a Sunday school near them, enlisting them as
leaders in the work. He declares that it would have
been impossible to have had a Sunday school with-
out their help, as they were the only Christians
tliere. As the children grew, the need of educating

88 By-Prodncts of the Rural Siuiday School

them became more and more apparent. So they
sold out their farm and home and moved to St.
Paul, where the young people could have the ad-
vantages of a college training. Here again they be-
came workers in one of the leading churches. The
last report that comes from this interesting family
is that three of the sons are now ministers.

A Wisconsin Sunday-school missionary adds to
this record of by-products of rural Sunday-school
work the story of a young man who was brought
into a Sunday school which he organized in a rural
settlement where the greater part of the population
consisted of Germans. The boys of the neighbor-
hood made it a practice to play ball on Sunday after-
noon on the school grounds, during the Sunday-
school hour, thus making it almost impossible to
maintain interest and attention in Sunday school.
The superintendent in great discouragement wrote
to the missionary about his trouble, so he arranged
to visit them. He called at the home of three boys
who seemed to be the leaders. The mother told him
that he need not trouble himself to call upon them,
as they were Catholics, and politely showed him the
door. He went out to the barn, however, and there
he met Chris, the oldest boy. Engaging him in
conversation he told him what the superintendent
had written, and asked him if he would not give up
the ball-playing and attend the Sunday school, in-
stead. As he was the leader, of course it would de-
pend upon his actions whether or not the other boys
would come. At first he hesitated, but at last he

Training Workers for the Kingdom 89

promised that he would make the effort. He kept
his promise and it was not long before Chris became
a Christian, the other boys soon following- his ex-
ample. For over a year he was a teacher of the
boys' class in that school. Now Chris is engaged in
business in the city, where he is the superintendent
of a flourishing Presbyterian Sunday school, which
has an enrollment of more than one hundred and
fifty pupils. One of the other boys is studying for
the ministry and three other boys in that class are
attending college, fitting themselves for their life's
work.

In such experiences as these the Sunday-school
missionary finds much encouragement. The knowl-
edge that the boys and girls he gathers into the
Sunday school to-day will be the men and women
who will help to sustain churches and Sunday
schools in other places in future years, and thus
be the means of leading others into the ways of
righteousness, is a constant source of inspiration to
him. The story is told by a Colorado missionary
of a chance meeting with a man whom he had
known years before as the storekeeper in a little coal
camp where a Sunday school representing the only
religious influence in that region, had been main-
tained. "I have been away from Colorado for al-
most seven years," said the missionary as he greeted
him, "and have not kept in touch with things here
during that time. You had two boys in whom I
was interested. I would like to ask you about them.
When I organized the Tunday school there they at-

90 By-Prodiicts of the Rural Sunday School

tended it. And whenever I visited the place they
helped me by ringing the bell, filling the lamps with
the oil v>^hich you furnished, and having the school-
house swept and in readiness for the service. What
became of your boys? Did they stay with the
teachings of the Sunday school and take Christ as
their Saviour and example, or did they, like so many
of the coal-camp boys, form habits of drunkenness,
gambling and indulging in other vices?"

"They stayed with the Sunday school," replied
the man. "Neither of them drink.^ or uses tobacco.
I am proud of my boys. After completing the com-
mon school course they went to high school, and
then through college. One of my boys is here visit-
ing me now."

Hearing the conversation, the son, who was
standing near, came forward. He was a fine, large
fellow with a frank, open countenance, and hand-
some features. Approaching, he took the mis-
sionary's hand and said, 'Yes, I am one of the little

boys who attended your Sunday school in C .

Come and see me when you are in my town. They
call me 'professor' down there. I am principal of
the schools and have ten teachers under me."

"What about your brother?" the missionary in-
quired.

"He is a chemist for the U Company."

"I am glad to learn that you have both done so
well. You are not sorry you went to Sunday school,
are you ?"

Training Workers for the Kingdom 91

"No indeed. That was the start to a better life.
But for that school we might still be in the mining
camp, digging coal, drinking whisky and wasting
our life and opportunities." Both boys are leading
workers in church and Sunday school, one of them
being an elder, and the other an officer in the Sun-
day school.

Among the negroes of the South, the missionaries
find it difficult to maintain some of their Sunday
schools because so many of the boys and girls go
to the towns and cities just at the time when their
presence and influence could be helpfully exerted as
Sunday-school teachers in their own neighborhoods.
It is encouraging to know, however, that, wherever
they go, the spiritual impressions received in the
little Sunday school at home are not lost, and that
their early training leads them into good associ-
ations in their new environment. One negro mis-
sionary who has kept in touch with some of these
young people testifies that in nearly every case they
have united with Presbyterian churches, and be-
come Sunday-school teachers and leaders of Bible
classes. At a Sunday school convention in North
Carolina this missionary met a young man who had
been a pupil in a little negro school in Virginia.
He learned that upon going to his new home he
had united with the church, and was an active Sun-
day-school worker. "Almost every Presbyterian
church in the Presbytery of Southern Virginia is
constantly receiving persons who were members of
our mission schools in the rural districts," said the

92 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

missionary. "So I find that the apparent loss to
the mission schools is often a gain to the churches
in the towns and cities. In our mission schools they
acquire the habit of Bible study, and ideals of Chris-
tian living. They begin to hunger and thirst after
righteousness. I find that the missionary work in
the rural districts is a feeder to the Presbyterian
churches in the towns and cities."

A negro Sunday-school missionary who was in
charge of the "Negro Section" of the great mis-
sionary exhibit, "The World in Oiicago" in the
spring of 1913, was greeted one day by a young
negro woman who reminded him that she had been
a pupil in a little Sunday school which he organized
in a destitute neighborhood in Georgia, several
years before. She told him that this Sunday school
had given her the ambition to do something useful
and that she had been educated and was now a
teacher in a negro school in Chicago.

Similar testimony is furnished by missionaries
who labor among the southern mountaineers. One
of these workers, who has been the means of gath-
ering hundreds of boys and girls from lowly moun-
tain homes into mission Sunday schools, makes this
statement: "In the past twelve years there have
gone out from our work here about fifty men and
women who are now holding lucrative positions in
seven or eight different states, and are doing ex-
cellent Christian work. This is hard on the work
here, for just as soon as these boys and girls are
educated enough to do Sunday-school work, and

Training Workers for the Kingdom 93

become of age, they leave home and seek associa-
tions more congenial to their new life. Never has
one whom we have brought up in the Sunday school
brought dishonor upon the work ; but wherever they
have gone they have been noted for their strict ad-
herence to the teaching of God's Word."

During the few months of Sunday school held
under a tree in a Kentucky mountain village, two
young men were led to Christ. They went to Pike-
ville to school, and to-day one is county superin-
tendent of public instruction in Pike County, Ken-
tucky, and the other is a successful business man in
Cincinnati. Both are deeply interested and active
in Christian work.

In another mountain Sunday school a young man
learned to read, beginning by spelling out the let-
ters in the Bible, the only book he possessed. He
has since become a local preacher and everywhere
he goes, he testifies to the fact that it was the Sun-
day school which started him upon his work for
Christ. From another little Sunday school in Ten-
nessee a young man went to school. After he grad-
uated he moved to a community in which there was
not a church building, although it was the county
seat. His influence there, in behalf of the Sunday
school, was the means of beginning a work which
has wrought many changes among that people. He
is now a teacher in a government school in a west-
ern state and there, too, he is witnessing for Christ
and active in Sunday-school work. "Everywhere I
go," said a mountaineer missionary, "I meet young

94 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

fellows who stop and tell me about the little Sun-
day school back in the country, of which they were
members and which I organized. In every case
they seem to be doing well, and I am always glad
to find that they are still interested in the Sunday
school."

Correspondence from the field brings hundreds
of illustrations of the results of the work of the rural
Sunday school appearing in distant places. One
missionary who has kept in touch with many of the
children who have been gathered into Sunday
schools through his efforts, takes pride in pointing
to the number of boys and girls coming from un-
promising localities, who have become faithful serv-
ants of the King in the places to which they have
gone to engage in business and professional life.
"About seven years ago," he writes, "I visited a
godless neighborhood, where I found only one
mother who really wanted a Sunday school. While
visiting from house to house, I stopped at a place
where the family were all away from home except
the father and one boy about twelve years of age.
The little fellow was too bashful to come near mj
buggy until I called him and told him that I was
going to hold a gospel service at the schoolhouse
and organize a Sunday school the next Tuesday
evening. He said, 'Will there be anything adoin'
before Tuesday?' He was there on time and at-
tended quite regularly for three years, and then be-
came a teacher of a class of boys. Soon afterwards
he was elected superintendent of the Sunday school.

Training Workers for the Kingdom 95

About two years ago he went to Montana to visit
a brother who was holding down a claim and while
there, he would gather a small company around him
each Sunday and talk to them about the Sunday-
school lesson, sometimes having as many as forty
people present. His work soon developed into a
Sunday school and not long afterwards a minister
came to preach to the people. The young man did
the work of a missionary among the people, and is
now looking forward to going into the ministry,
to which he feels that the Lord has called him.

"A few years ago two girls were brought into
another of our Sunday schools, out on the prairie.
They lived in a claim shack and worked hard every
day, helping their father to carry away the stones,
to break up the new land and to put in the crop.
While doing all this they learned the Shorter Cate-
chism in one week, and recited it, for which they
each received a Bible given by the Board. They
became very active in the Sunday school and last
summer they both went to Montana, where each
took a homestead. They are now teaching school
and have organized Sunday schools in the districts
in which they are teaching. They write me fre-
quently, telling me how well the Sunday schools are
prospering."

One of the chief elements of Sunday-school ef-
ficiency is the training of lives for Giristian service.
In this respect the rural Sunday school meets the
efficiency test. The rural Sunday school cannot be
judged by its attainments with reference to "front-

96 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

line standards," nor by its system of gradation of
pupils and departments, but what it lacks from a
pedagogical standpoint, is outweighed by the splen-
did contribution which it makes to the Church and
the nation, in laying foundations of Christian char-
acter. "By their fruits ye shall know them." To
such a test the rural Sunday school can bring a bril-
liant array of Christian men and women, whose in-
fluence for good has extended beyond the ability of
man to measure.

RECRUITS FOR THE MINISTRY
AND MISSIONARY SERVICE

The Sunday school in a Colorado coal camp- The superintendent Ijeeame a
successful Sunday-school missionary.

The cowboy who became superintendent of a rural Sunday school, took a train-
ing course and is now an efficient Sunday-school missionary.

This isolated rural Sunday school has produced two ministers.

CHAPTER VI

RECRUITS FOR THE MINISTRY AND MISSIONARY
SERVICE

"As the result of our little Sunday school, there
is a young man who is the pastor of the Presby-
terian Church at F ; two more who are study-
ing for the ministry at Maryville College ; another
in a law school, and still another taking a medical
course. A young lady graduated last year from
Miami University, another is teaching school in an
eastern state, and two or three others are taking
special courses in well-known colleges. I can give
you the names of these young people if you want
them."

This encouraging statement was made by a mis-
sionary with reference to a little Sunday school
which he had established and nurtured in a godless
neighborhood in eastern Kentucky. If a careful
investigation were made, doubtless similar results
would appear from the work of many other little
Sunday schools, concerning whose existence the
world may never hear, but whose spiritual impres-
sions will continue to bear fruit among succeeding
generations.

Not only does the rural Sunday school train
workers for the churches of the towns and cities,
but it furnishes the impulses to a complete conse-

99

100 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

cration of life to the service of Jesus Christ, in pro-
claiming his truth to others. Doubtless it would be
found that at least three-fourths of those who are
rendering faithful, devoted and self-denying serv'ice
in mission fields, received the incentive and the en-
couragement to undertake this work as their life vo-
cation, in some obscure rural Sunday school. Led by
the Holy Spirit, they have gone forth to receive an
education in Christian colleges and training schools
for this specific task. It cannot be claimed that this
is the result of special missionary teaching, because
in most cases these young people received their re-
ligious instruction under untrained, humble-minded
men and women, who probably were not in touch
with the sources of missionary information. Is it
not, rather, due to the fact that these young lives,
in spite of their disadvantages, were being thor-
oughly impregnated, by teaching and example, with
the simplest forms of gospel truth, which when they
have gripped a life, are irresistible in their demands
for expressions ? "Tell the good news to others," is
the first command which the gospel brings to us,
and it comes with special force to those who are
so circumstanced that they have seen and experi-
enced its transforming power.

A missionary who had given many years of
faithful service in the Sunday-school cause recently
said:

"I have preached in localities and organized
schools and churches where children ten, twelve,
sixteen and even nineteen years old were growing up,

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary ServicQ 101

who had never been in a church and had never
heard anyone preach but myself, and out of these
very places have come many of the choicest experi-
ences of my ministry and some of the most prom-
ising and permanent results. Work in many of the
isolated communities does not mean permanency,
but it does mean blessing. In such places, and
through our work, many of our country boys and
girls are sent out for an education. Many of these
sturdy fellows have gone into the ministry and
other professions, and many of the girls have en-
tered upon useful and happy lives."

A Sunday-school missionary in the Northwest,
who had a large number of rural Sunday schools
under his care, became greatly concerned about one
of these schools which he had experienced much
difficulty in keeping alive. It would live for two
or three months and then lapse, the missionary go-
ing each time and reviving it with new leaders. He
realized that steps must be taken to produce a reli-
gious awakening in the neighborhood before any-
thing of a permanent character could be done, so
he announced that he would come to them to hold
a series of evangelistic services. At first the peo-
ple were inclined to ignore the effort and only a
few attended the services. The missionary perse-
vered, however, and before the meetings closed
several had professed conversion. Among them
was one little girl, the only member of her family
who was brave enough to come forward ; she asked
to be baptized and received as a member of the

102 By-Products of tJic Rural Sunday School

church in the next town. For a number of years
afterwards this missionary was out of touch with
this neighborhood, but one day while visiting the
minister of a prominent church in Minneapolis, he
was shown a photograph of a young woman dressed
in Chinese costume. "Do you know that young
lady?" the minister inquired. The missionary con-
fessed that he had no recollection of ever having
seen her. "Don't you remember the little Sunday
school at K , and the little girl who was con-
verted in your meetings there? She came to the
city to be educated, united with my church, and now
she is a missionary in Qiina," said the minister.
"It was in that little Sunday school that she first
experienced the desire to go to the foreign field."

Recently a young lady who graduated from the
College of Idaho was accepted by a foreign mission
board for missionary service in India. She came
from a rural Sunday school in a Colorado settle-
ment. Another young lady from the same institu-
tion, who had come from a little Sunday school
planted several years ago in a Rocky Mountain
mining town, has become a missionary teacher.
She declared that she received her first desire to
become a missionary when she was led to Christ by
a consecrated teacher in that Sunday school.

From another Sunday-school missionary, who Is
laboring in a southern state, comes the report of a
girl who had been reared in a godless home, in a
neighborhood which had never experienced any
Christian influences, who gffered herself for for-

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary Service 103

cign missionary service. She is now being trained
for her hfe work in one of the Presbyterian colleges.
Some of the finest examples of Christian consecra-
tion have come from the most unpromising places.
The bad boy who is finally induced to come to the
little Sunday school and whose presence in the
school is a great trial to the superintendent and
teacher, in the providence of God, may be a Robert
Moffat or a Robert Morrison or another Alexander
Mackay. Perhaps the neighborhood which the min-
ister passes by as hopeless, may contain boys and
girls whom God has chosen for large tasks in pro-
moting his kingdom, and who await the coming of
the Sunday-school missionary to establish a Sun-
day school for them. Thus the spiritual qualities
which God has implanted in their hearts may be
quickened into noble impulses.

Not only have rural Sunday schools been the
means of producing missionaries for the foreign
field. There are several instances in which the
gospel candle which has been lighted in an obscure
community has sent forth its rays of lighthouse
power and penetration into many a dark place in
our own land, through the medium of a life trans-
formed. In one case a little Sunday school made
out of one of the worst boys in the neighborhood
a most efficient Sunday-school missionary. This is
how it was done.

At the age of twenty-five he could read but little
and was notoriously wild and wicked, but he was
quite regular in his attendance upon the Sunday

104 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

school which was held in the log schoolhouse. The
missionary was holding gospel services and when,
at the close of one of the meetings, he asked all
who wanted Christ as their Saviour to stand, this
young man, with a look of determination on his
face, arose. He said, "I do want to accept Christ,
but it 'pears like sumthin' just keeps a holdin' of
me back." But two or three weeks later, in spite of
the jeers of the boys, he stayed after Sunday school
to seek the Lord. He had waited for that "quawr
feelinV' but finally came, just as he was, took Christ
at his word, and soon was praising God for saving
his soul. At once he was filled with an overwhelm-
ing desire to know the Word of God and teach it.
He said, "I want to get an education so that I can
teach the true Word of God." He was given a
class of boys in the Sunday school and labored
earnestly for the salvation of each one. He learned
to read, chiefly from the Bible, spelling out the
words as he went along. He worked at logging
with an elder brother and two other wild fellows
who tried in every way to get him to swear, to
drink, or in some way to "break over," but the
Lord kept him.

The next spring he went to live with an uncle in
a western state, but before going he visited every
home in that neighborhood, begging the unsaved
ones to accept Christ. From Illinois he wrote: "My
uncle and aunt is awful kind to me. They didn't
have nary Bible in their house when I came here.
Uncle is a sinner, but she belongs to the church. I am

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary Service 105

going to try awful hard to get uncle to give his self
to the Lord. There has been just one meeting here
since I came, and I get so lonesome when I can't
'tend meeting and Sunday school," But he went to
work, and soon he wrote, "Well, we've got a prayer
meeting started up here and a Sunday school, and
I am a teacher."

He persevered in his detennination to get an ed-
ucation, working his way and hoping some day to
be able to lead others to Christ in missionary serv-
ice. Later he entered Moody Bible Institute, where
he studied nearly two years, fitting himself to be-
come a Sunday-school missionary. Through his
labors scores of Sunday schools have been planted
and hundreds of lives have been blessed.

A young man studying for the gospel ministry in
a western theological seminary, came from a little
mountain Sunday school which a Presbyterian Sun-
day-school missionary organized a number of years
ago in a notoriously wicked neighborhood. It was
with great difficulty that the missionary succeeded
in maintaining this school, largely because of the
feuds that had existed among the leading families
for two or three generations, making it almost im-
possible for him to obtain the consent of anyone
to take charge of the work. The young man was a
member of one of the feudist families and had
been wounded several times in attacks that had been
made upon him. Under the regenerating influence
of the Word as he had been taught it in the little
Sunday school into which he was induced to come,

106 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

he found Christ and resolved to seek an education
in order to prepare himself for the Lord's service.
He proved to be an earnest student, and made rapid
progress. In the seminary he was said to be one
of the most capable young men of the entire student
body. During his senior year he received a number
of flattering invitations to accept calls to churches
where he would have every advantage, but he de-
clined them all, saying that he had resolved to go
back to his own people and devote his life to serv-
ice in their behalf, in spite of the meager support
and self-denial which such a course must involve.

The little Sunday schools in the southern moun-
tains have been most prolific in furnishing men of
this type. A most remarkable record is that of two
rural Tennessee Sunday schools. From one of
these Sunday schools forty-three ministers have
come, twenty-six of whom were Presbyterian, and
they are all making good. During the past twelve
years they have been without a pastor about one-
half of the time, but the Sunday school goes on
without interruption. The other Sunday school
points to twenty-five of its young men who have
become Presbyterian ministers.

In the Kentucky mountains, Perry Abbitt, the
son of a widow, had the reputation in the neigh-
borhood of being a "powerful bad boy." He had
never been subject to restraint and he delighted in
disturbing meetings by firing a revolver and throw-
ing stones. A Sunday school was organized in
that neighborhood and the missionary conceived the

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary Service 107

idea of engaging Perry to help him keep order
among the boys. He accepted the responsibility and
the plan worked admirably. If a boy was disorderly
Perry took him in hand and it was not long before
all disturbances were suppressed. Three years later
Perry was one of twenty-three who made a pro-
fession of religion. Soon afterwards this young
man felt called to the ministry, and he is now the
successfr.l pastor of three churches which were or-
ganized largely through his efforts.

Two young men in a Missouri town situated far
back from the railroad were set to work by a Sun-
day-school missionary, who, finding that they were
interested in Bible study, placed them in charge of
a new Sunday school he had organized. One was
appointed superintendent and the other undertook
the care of a Bible class. Although they were
obliged to walk many miles each Sunday, they be-
came increasingly interested and through their ef-
forts the little Sunday school soon doubled In mem-
bership and attendance. In the Bible class, teachers
were trained for other classes. Besides having a
transforming effect upon the community, their work
in this little Sunday school developed the spiritual
life of these .two young men. One of them, who
had a good position as an expert electrician, re-
solved to devote his life to the gospel ministry and
is now pursuing his studies in a western city. The
other young man, who was leader of the Bible class
and who was studying law, changed his plaps and

108 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

entered upon his preparatory course for the rain-
istry.

Possibly one of the best ways to overcome the
scarcity of candidates for the gospel ministry is to
give our Christian young men some local mission-
ary v^ork to do. There are hundreds of churches
in the larger towns that could be sustaining mission
Sunday schools in rural neighborhoods within a
radius of a few miles, thus providing for the spirit-
ual needs of people who cannot avail themselves
of the opportunities which the church offers to
those who are living in the towns. At the same
time it would open an avenue of service for the
young men and young women of the church who
could be placed in charge of such schools. In this
way they would become zealous for the service of
Christ. The mere urging of our boys to choose the
ministry as a vocation will not produce any material
increase in the number of candidates offering them-
selves ; but if we give our young men a taste of
the joys and blessings of Christian service through
such opportunities as a mission Sunday school af-
fords, the attractiveness of the ministry would be
irresistible. Then we may safely leave it to the
wise operation of the Spirit of God to call out from
among them those whom he has chosen for such
service. A young man who was a member of a
Presbyterian church in Denver was placed in charge
of a little Sunday school in a coal-mining camp
several miles back in the mountains. He impressed
that entire neighborhood with his fine Christian

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary Service 109

spirit and example, and the Sunday school grew
most encouragingly. Although he occupied a good
business position he felt more and more impelled to
give his life to the work of winning children to the
Sunday school, and was willing to make sacrifices
in order to do so. After some special preparation
he began his work as a Sunday-school missionary
in a western state and has been unusually success-
ful.

Another young man who owned a horse ranch in
eastern Colorado became the superintendent of a
little Sunday school near his home. He became
converted, and expressed the desire to devote his
life to some form of Christian service. The Sun-
day-school missionary who started the school saw
the possibilities in him, and persuaded him to take
a course of study preparatory to becoming a Sun-
day-school missionary. He was delighted with the
suggestion, sold his ranch and took a year of special
training, upon the completion of which he took
up the work of organizing Sunday schools in a
frontier field in the far West.

Besides the missionaries and ministers who come
from its ranks, the rural Sunday school develops
many Christian teachers who find abundant oppor-
tunity for missionary service in the rural neighbor-
hoods to which they are assigned as public school
teachers. A Sunday-school missionary in south-
eastern Missouri has taken several young women
from mission Sunday schools into his own home in
the city, where they have the opportunity of a nor-

1 10 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

mal-school course. Girls who were being reared in
humble homes in the back country regions, with
but two or three months' schooling each year, have
been filled with the desire for an education, and the
big-hearted Sunday-school missionary has helped as
many of them as his meager salary would allow.
When these girls complete their education and go
out as teachers, every one of them becomes in a
sense a Sunday-school missionary. Realizing what
the Sunday school has done for them, they embrace
every opportunity to teach the Bible and impress
its truths upon the lives of the boys and girls whom
they are appointed to teach in the day school. One
of these girls wrote to the missionary regarding her
experience in a rural district where she had gone
to teach school :

"Before Christmas we had no Bibles nor much
material to work with, but we just made the most
of what we had. We began with the Lord's Prayer.
I had all the children memorize it ; and we all
stand and repeat it every morning. They think the
day is not started right if they do not have that the
first thing. One morning a pretty little five-year-old
fellow fell of¥ the steps as the children were march-
ing in for 'time books' at nine o'clock. He really
had a bad cut on his head and I was considerably
worried about it. His mother lived near and I had
her come for him. The result of it was that school
began thirty minutes late. I knew it would be a
hurried morning and so I began by telling the chil-
dren abruptly that they must get to their studies in

Recruits — Ministry and Missionary Serv'iCQ 1 1 1

order to get through with all our morning work.
Not a book came out ! Disappointed faces were on
all sides. Almost instantly, however, one Httle fel-
low blurted out, 'Say, ain't we goin' to have our
Lord's Prayer this morning ?' We had it.

"Our Christmas tree, the children's first Christ-
mas tree, will, I think, be long remembered by them
all. Many of them learned for the first time what
Christmas means in its deepest and truest sense.
The children's program was well attended and we
tried to make it count for Christ. Since Christmas
we have the Bibles, Scripture calendars, and those
pretty little red Gospels of John that you provided
us with. Those little red booklets took! On the
cover of the booklets these words are printed:
'Carry this book in your pocket.' They follow out
the rule to the very letter and now, wherever you
see one of my boys and girls you also catch a
glimpse of red peeping from an apron or overalls
pocket. They don't carry them in their pockets
all the time. No, indeed ! Even little six-year-old
Cortney spells out every word and can read, sensi-
bly, parts of the first three chapters of John. At
various times during the day, in spare minutes, the
children can be seen poring over these little books.
Some of the children can read a good portion of
them already."

One of the most encouraging things about the
Sunday school, especially the rural Sunday school,
is the way in which its work and influence multiply.
A little school in a remote district may be the means

112 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

of setting in motion spiritual forces that will have
a far-reaching effect upon the progress of the king-
dom. One little boy brought to Christ in a little
Sunday school becomes the spiritual leader of thou-
sands ; another becomes an organizer of Sunday
schools where a multitude of boys and girls are led
into paths of righteousness and service for Christ.
A little girl becomes a missionary in a heathen land,
leading darkened souls into light ; another is a Chris-
tian teacher in a destitute neighborhood, all multi-
plying many hundredfold the good influence and
teaching of the rural Sunday school where they
received their first glimpse of better things and
where the ambition to attain them was awakened.
Aside from those who have given their life serv-
ice to the Master's service, there is yet a greater
company of men and women engaged in useful pur-
suits who are practicing in business and professional
life, as well as in their homes, the principles of the
gospel teaching they received in the rural Sunday
school of their childhood days, where the founda-
tion stones of their characters were laid. They are
church workers, Sunday-school teachers, leaders
and helpers in every good cause. Do we look for
the social influence of the gospel? We may find it
here. Do we need evidence as to the social effect
of missionary activity? We may find it in abun-
dance in the great outreach of the work of the
rural Sunday school.

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF RURAL
SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK

1 . A contrast to the condition in wliich the negro Suudci\-scliool Missionary found

them.

2. High school which resulted from the awakening of^a community wrought by

a little Sunday school on the plains

3. The home of five orphan girls found in destitute circumstances by the Sunday-

school missionary who supplied their needs.

4. The Sunday-school Missionary and helpers taking Christmas to destitute

families in the Southern mountains.

CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF RURAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK

A little cowboy town on the plains of eastern
Colorado furnishes ideal conditions for demonstrat-
ing the value of Sunday-school missions in unifying
the social forces of an entire community. The
student of the country-church and rural-life problem
would find in this neighborhood an encouraging il-
lustration of a religious monopoly, where the one
Christian organization ministers to every phase of
community life. The Sunday-school missionaries
of the Presbyterian Church are exceedingly careful
not to encourage the development of churches in
communities already supplied with churches, of
other denominations. Indeed it is hardly possible
for "over-churched'' conditions to develop from the
Sunday-school missionary's efforts, because his
work is confined almost exclusively to the regions
that are unchurched and pastorless.

The country round about this town is settled
largely by homesteaders who located their claims
several years ago, and have been devoting them-
selves faithfully to the development of homes in
compliance with the homestead laws of the country.
The Sunday-school missionary visited this commun-
ity with the intention of establishing a Sunday
school and rendering such other assistance as might

116

1 16 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

be necessary. He was surprised to learn that the
women of the community had organized and incor-
porated an aid society, the purpose of which was to
raise funds for the erection of a church. It de-
veloped that they had been engaged in this enter-
prise for some months when the missionary found
them, and that they had accumulated a substantial
fund. It happened that on the very day the mis-
sionary reached the neighborhood the ladies were
holding a meeting at one of the ranch homes. This
seemed to be a providential opportunity, so he drove
out to have a conference with them. After learn-
mg their plans he pointed out the advantages of
becoming affiliated with the Presbyterian Church.
They readily agreed to the proposition and shortly
afterwards the organization was effected, the money
in the treasury of the society, together with title
to six good lots, being contributed, and plans
adopted for the erection of a beautiful little pressed-
brick building. This was completed a few months
later at a total cost of about thirty-five hundred dol-
lars. Special services were held, as a result of
which twelve persons were converted and the en-
tire community deeply stirred. The building has a
well-equipped basement, and a number of the ranch
people living from four to fifteen miles out of town,
bring their lunch baskets on Sundays, and at the
close of the morning service retire to the basement,
spread the tables, and sit down together for an hour
of Christian fellowship. Some of those who come
the farthest remain during the afternoon, serving

Social E ifects, Rural Sunday-School Work 117

an evening lunch, in order that they may have the
benefit of the services of the entire day.

A Senior Endeavor Society of thirty-two active
and fifteen associate members has been organized,
and a Junior Society of about fifteen members. As
there was no suitable reading matter available for
the use of those who spent their afternoons in the
chapel, a library, consisting of well-selected books,
together with religious papers and magazines, was
secured. The local Grange holds its meetings in
the basement of the chapel. The village brass band
of twenty pieces meets there for practice every
Thursday night, one of the elders of the church act-
ing as leader. Those who are ill or in distress of
any kind are cared for, whether they are members
of the organization or not. Recently, the ladies,
hearing that a large family in which there was sick-
ness, needed assistance, took several of their num-
ber, with a sewing machine, in a farm wagon, and
drove six miles to spend the day with the mother of
this family, to help her with the housework and do
her sewing. In another case a neighbor was taken
sick. In order to help him with his farm work,
the young men arranged to spend an afternoon
hauling fodder for the stock on his ranch. Such a
helpful Christian spirit, manifested in these prac-
tical ways, has made this organization the center
about which the life of the entire community clus-
ters. There is no need for any other church. Few
of these people were reared in Presbyterian families,
but they arc glad to be affiliated with the denom-

118 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

ination that showed an interest in them in the time
of their need.

Similar conditions are found at B , another

frontier town, seventeen miles from the railroad.
This neighborhood consists of a country store and
post office with but the one religious organization.
The Sunday school ministers in a most effective
manner to the needs of the people for a distance of
many miles in every direction. One feature of the
work is an institute which is held once a year and
which all the people are invited to attend, bringing
samples of vegetables, grains and flowers, to dis-
play the products of their labors. A large quantity
of vegetables and grains is brought in and artisti-
cally arranged about the room and on the platform.
These institutes are attended by one hundred and
fifty or two hundred people.

At noon a large tent is erected, under which the
tables are spread. In the afternoon a game of ball
is arranged for all who wish to participate. While
this is in progress, the regular program for the day
is taken up for the benefit of those who are not in-
terested in the ball game, and at least two hours are
devoted to the discussion of practical Sunday-
school topics. At the conclusion of the ball game
the players and their friends come into the chapel
to hear an evangelistic address. The spirit of the
whole occasion is beautiful to witness, and the peo-
ple depart to their homes with the feeling that they
have spent a profitable day, under Christian au-
spices, not forgetting to recognize the bountiful hand

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 119

of the loving Father who crowns the labors of their
hands with such an abundant harvest. The neigh-
borhood was first discovered by the Sunday-school
missionary when he was driving over the plains one
day with his buckboard and ponies. The present
ideal country community is the outgrowth of his
labors among them.

Another example of a frontier community whose
needs are being effectively served through the work
of the Sunday school may be found in a new town
in the Northwest, located in a region which has but
recently been opened to settlement. Farmers seek-
ing cheap land poured into this region and took up
quarter sections. All the discouragements of pio-
neer life entered into the experiences of these people
during the first two or three years, but the little
Sunday school organized by the Presbyterian mis-
sionary held them together during those trying
times. The superintendent of the little school and
his wife, by their example of devotion and unselfish-
ness, made the Sunday school an institution of com-
munity interest and popularity. Many of the new-
comers were inexperienced in country life, but in
every need they found a helpful friend at the home
of this Sunday-school superintendent. Scarcely a
day passed but some one in need of some assistance
came to this home, and none was turned away
empty. It might be that a neighbor's horse was
sick, or the little baby of a family three or four
miles away had the whooping cough, or perhaps
still another neighbor's horse had a barb wire cut,

120 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

and danger of blood poison was threatening; no
matter what was the nature of the trouble, it was
to these good people that the whole neighborhood
went for assistance. Not only were they called
upon for help during the day, but also in the night,
and there was always the same cheerful response.
They had no funds with which to erect a chapel,
so they cleared out the loft of a corn house and
converted it into a meeting place. Although the
families were widely scattered, the attendance at
the Sunday school averaged more than one hun-
dred, at every session. All through the long, severe
winters they kept the Sunday school in existence.
During the summer a student preacher gave them
occasional services. A men's club was organized,
which included in its membership the men from
nearly every homestead for miles around. This club
provides concerts, literary entertainments, suppers
and debates, and in spite of the fact that no outside
talent is available, they have made these occasions
exceedingly enjoyable. But the Sunday school is
the center of the entire work. Attendance at the
Sunday school is considered a part of the educa-
tional program of the men's club. A large men's
Bible class has been formed, and is taught by a
woman who is homesteading, but who has been
trained in scientific farming, and who, by profes-
sion, is a veterinary surgeon. In a new country
like this a woman of such qualities merits and re-
ceives the respect and esteem of the frontiersmen.

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 121

In spite of the long distances that must be trav-
ersed, the young people come together for musical
training for two hours every week, and seldom do
they miss a single meeting. They have a good choir
and an orchestra for every religious service. A well
equipped library has been secured and is patronized
by every family. There is no other church or Sun-
day school in this entire neighborhood.

Nor is there any need for any additional religious
organization. This one school reaches all the peo-
ple, provides religious education for the children
and young people, besides social life and recreation
for entire countryside. This is being done in a
community without any of the modern conven-
iences, with no church equipment, not even a chapel.

Another very interesting illustration of the com-
munity service of a rural Sunday school is seen in

the work at L , one of the oldest towns in

northern Colorado. For many years the different
pastors of a neighboring town visited the commu-
nity in turn and held religious services in the school-
house, maintaining a Sunday school during portions
of each year with varying success. Occasionally
evangelistic services were held by an itinerant
preacher and an effort made to crystallize the re-
sults into church organization, but for some reason
all such attempts were fruitless, and the community
went on as before, without even a Sunday school,
the children roaming about or picking berries on
Sunday, just as they felt inclined.

122 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

The Sunday-school missionary had been carefully
watching the situation as he passed back and forth
through the town on his trips from the plains to the
mountains above, and early one summer he visited
the people and announced a meeting at the school-
house to consider the question of organizing a Sun-
day school. A former superintendent was sought out
and invited to be present. He promised to come
with the distinct understanding that he was not to
be asked again to take charge of the school. Ac-
cording to appointment sixteen came together, and,
after a season of prayer and singing, it was decided
to have a school. No one could be found who
would accept the position of superintendent. Fi-
nally the missionary agreed to come each Sunday
and conduct the school until a suitable person could
be secured to take the place. In less than a month
a young man volunteered to undertake the work,
and very soon the attendance grew to fifty.

In the fall a series of meetings was held in the
schoolhouse. Upon the missionary's arrival an ef-
fort was made to secure a boarding place for him.
He found that the people were quite indifferent.
Sixteen families were visited before either room
or board could be obtained. At the beginning
of the meetings some of the boys in the com-
munity who had not been attending the Sunday
school, determined to break up the services. They
came early, climbed in and out through the open
windows, shouted around the outside of the build-
ing, whispered and laughed during the services un-

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 123

til it became necessary to call an officer to quiet the
disturbance. The missionary persevered, however,
and determined to put forth every effort in their
behalf before he would give up the fight against
those evil surroundings. The interest increased as
the days went by, and at the end of three weeks
thirty-eight persons expressed a desire to make a
profession of their faith in Christ. They now have
a Sunday school numbering seventy-five with a
Home Department and a Cradle Roll. They are
also conducting a mission school at another point,
where a chapel building has been erected. These
people have a missionary vision and have found a
blessing in passing on to others the light that they
have received. The community now has a reputa-
tion for Sabbath observance. The people are or-
derly and respectful in the house of God. Nearly
all of the large company of young people are ear-
nest, active Christians. So, from the small, unprom-
ising beginning, has grown an organization which
under the directing hand of God, is molding and
shaping the character and destiny of a community
of at least six hundred souls, making them not only
law-abiding, but worthy to become citizens of the
kingdom of our Lord.

The Sunday school not only develops the reli-
gious life of the community, but it has awakened
them to their needs in other directions. Previous
to the arrival of the Sunday-school missionary there
were no district schools, and the children were de-
pendent upon the town schools several miles away

124 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

for their education. Consequently many of them
received no schooling at all. The coming of the
Sunday school created the demand for a day school,
and the people persevered until they obtained it.

Very recently the four school districts centering
about this place have been consolidated, and a beau-
tiful building has been erected at a cost of twenty-
five thousand dollars, and fully equipped. There
are now more than two hundred and fifty pupils en-
rolled in this school, fifty of whom are in the high-
school department. A home for the superintendent
has been erected on the grounds, and the entire
plant is modern in every detail. People are now
moving to this community because of the opportu-
nity afforded to educate their children and the many
other advantages which accompany these improved
conditions. Thus this Sunday school is widening
its scope of influence year by year, and working
hand in hand with the public school, providing the
religious training which the latter cannot give.

In several instances the coming of the Sunday
school into a community has been the means of
creating a demand for better educational facilities.
In a mining town of Arizona where a missionary
experienced considerable opposition upon the occa-
sion of his first visit, and where he could not find
a home that would entertain him overnight, the
Sunday school, which eventually was organized,
opened the way for the establishment of a day
school. As the missionary called on the people they
told him that they had no public school, and as the

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 125

township had not yet been districted there were no
funds for school purposes. The mining company had
promised to give them a place to school their children
but had not done so. Investigation revealed the
fact that there were at least fifty children in town
who ought to be in school. The missionary called
upon the officers of the company and made ar-
rangements for the erection of a chapel, which
could be used for Sunday school and day school as
well. The missionary in the meantime took the en-
rollment and a teacher was employed.

In several little mountain towns in eastern Ken-
tucky where mission Sunday schools were estab-
lished, day schools soon followed, and thus the boys
and girls from those mountain cabins, who pre-
viously were without any adequate educational op-
portunities, have been given a start which has led
many of them into useful careers.

A negro Sunday-school missionary makes the
statement that one-half the negro children get no
schooling whatever. Careful analysis of the re-
ports of state superintendents showing the attend-
ance by grades, indicates that the average child,
Including whites, who attends school at all, stops
with the third grade. In North Carolina the aver-
age citizen gets only 2.6 years ; in South Carolina,
2.5 years; in Alabama 2.4 years of schooling, both
private and public. In these states, in small, crude
schoolhouses, under teachers receiving an average
salary of twenty-five dollars a month, children have
been receiving an average of five cents' worth of

126 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

education a day for eighty-seven days only, in each
year. Here again in some cases the educational
institution has followed the opening of the Sunday
school. The first negro Sunday school in a Georgia
county was organized by a Sunday-school mission-
ary several years ago. Out of this Sunday school
an academy has grown, and under the wise direc-
tion of our Freedmen's Board, it is doing a remark-
able work among the negro boys and girls of that
region. The consensus of opinion is that this whole
county, and the adjacent counties, as well, have
been greatly blessed and benefited by the organ-
ization of Sunday schools. All agree that these
Sunday schools have developed the spiritual and
intellectual life of these needy negroes, leading the
way to better social conditions.

It has been truly said that in hundreds of cases
the Sunday school stands in the place of the church,
and does the work of the church. This statement
must be interpreted, of course, in the light of the
broader conception of the church's function in a
community. The Sunday school cannot, of course,
provide regular preaching services, although the
Sunday-school missionary holds a preaching serv-
ice every time he visits the neighborhoods where
Sunday schools have been planted. At such times
the people crowd the little schoolhouse to overflow-
ing, even on week nights. The Sunday school
serves the community in the largest sense by the
Christian standards which it sets up, the Christian
principles which it teaches and the Christian prac-

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 127

tices which it encourages. In new neighborhoods
especially, opportunities for Christian service are
constantly arising, and the spirit of neighborliness
is being put to the test almost daily. The sharing
of mutual blessings, and hardships as well, the sym-
pathetic interest that is developed as they come to
know one another more intimately, all center in the
little community Sunday school which binds them
together in a bond of mutual helpfulness and de-
pendence.

A Sunday-school missionary in a southwestern
state tells of the work of a Sunday school which is
located one hundred and twenty miles from the
railroad. There is but one Christian family in the
entire neighborhood. The father superintends the
Sunday school, buries the dead and, by virtue of his
civil office, performs marriage ceremonies. A wo-
man in one of the small mining camps in Arizona
is the only Christian in the entire district. She is
superintendent of the Sunday school and is called
upon to conduct funerals. One day she was asked
to conduct the funeral of one of the roughest miners
in camp. At first she shrank from the task, but she
could not permit the man to be buried without some
sort of religious ceremony, so she finally agreed to
conduct the service.

Very helpful service is frequently rendered by
the Sunday-school missionaries in relieving the
material necessities of families in their fields who
are in distress and want, through failure of crops
or other misfortune. Quantities of clothing are

128 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

shipped to them during the winter months by
churches in eastern states, and many a discouraged
family has thus been assisted in a time of urgent
need. Following a severe drought one of our Colo-
rado missionaries organized a committee consisting
of representatives of all the Presbyterian churches
of Denver, and practical methods were devised for
gathering funds, and distributing food, clothing and
fuel to the worthy people on the homesteads, whose
crops had failed. During the winter at least five
thousand garments were sent directly to the homes
of these people. One hundred families were pro-
vided with groceries and fuel for almost three
months. These people were very grateful for this
timely assistance and were enabled to remain on
their homesteads, planting their crops with good
prospects for fair returns the next season. As a
direct result of this ministry, there was an increased
interest in the organization and maintaining of new
Sunday schools in all these communities.

On another occasion this missionary received word
that two young people and a married woman living
in three different communities where he had la-
bored were in the hospitals of Denver for oper-
ations. During the woman's illness three of her
children were buried, out on the plains. A number
of visits were made to these people, words of
comfort and cheer spoken, and other helpful
ministrations given. A missionary in western Kan-
sas gives us an interesting description of similar
work which he has done among needy families on

Social Effects, Rural Sunday-School Work 129

his field; and points to some of the good results
that have followed : 'Tor three years they have been
'going out,' " he writes. "Each year it has been a
little harder on the Sunday schools out there and
each year some of them have had to give up because
there were not enough people left. In spite of this
situation there are little neighborhoods here and
there where the people are holding on, and staying,
and intend to stay, and many of the people are
making good and can stay. Many of these com-
munities have had no religious services but the Sun-
day school. They have appreciated what we have
been doing to help them and what we have
been doing has been 'doing good.' In one of our
neighborhoods, the superintendent who has been
doing a self-sacrificing work for the last six years,
where he has had strong opposition because of his
upright life, said: The people out here are acting
differently from what they did. They are talking
differently, too. They are treating me differently
and they are taking a different attitude toward the
Sunday school. I don't know what did it. The
only thing that I can see that could be the cause of
it is the clothing and things that you have been
sending out here for the past three years. The
folks have needed those things badly and they have
appreciated them and the way they were sent out.
I don't see anything else that could have made the
cliange in the folks here and I believe that these
kindly ministrations have been the caq^e of their
changing feelings.' "

130 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

Again the Sunday school brings improvements
into the homes. The missionaries who labor among
the southern mountaineers give repeated testimony
to the improved conditions of the little cabin homes
of those who come under the influence of the Sun-
day school, and this is one of the most effec-
tive ways of spreading the influence of the Sun-
day school among those who are inclined to be in-
diflferent toward it. Though some may oppose all
innovations, they cannot fail to see the improve-
ment which takes place in the homes of those who
are connected with the Sunday school. Curtains
appear at the windows, better furniture is pur-
chased, fences are repaired and yards cleaned up.
The children are cleaner, the women are neater in
their dress, and gradually the aspect of the entire
community gives evidence of the new and higher in-
fluence that has come into their lives. Here again
we may see some of the transforming social effects
of gospel teaching. The development of a neigh-
borly attitude ; the awakening of the desire to ren-
der service to others in the commonplace things of
everyday life ; the joy that is found in every oppor-»
tunity to do good ; all bear testimony to the fact that
the Word has gripped human lives, bringing them
into vital connection with Him who teaches his fol-
lowers that even so small a service as the giving of
a cup of cold water shall not lose its reward.

WAYSIDE EVANGELISM

Nl.

1. The Sunday-school Missionary and his camping outfit, equipped to spend

weeks on the road.

2. The superintendent and two teachers in a Sunday school on the Kansas plains.

3. The only literature they receive is the Sunday-school paper.

4. A welcome wayside visit to an isolated family.

CHAPTER VIII

WAYSIDE EVANGELISM

A feature of rural Sunday-school work which
makes it a most helpful form of evangelism is the
house-to-house visitation. The successful Sunday-
school missionary finds this one of the most fruit-
ful and refreshing of the many and varied services
which he is called upon to perform. He is the pas-
tor of scattered flocks who have no other pastoral
care. Often he is called upon to minister to the
sick and the needy; to cheer those who have be-
come discouraged ; to relieve those who are in pov-
erty, and in various other ways to emulate the ex-
ample of Him "who went about doing good." It is
frequently his privilege to be the first representa-
tive of the gospel to visit the lonely, isolated homes
of those who have gone out as pioneers into the
newer parts of the country. Families who are liv-
ing in localities far removed from any church or
other Christian influence, and who have fallen into
the careless ways that are the result of spiritual
neglect, are brought back to the days when they
were interested in church work in their former
homes, and enjoyed the blessings and privileges
which the church with its various activities brought
to them. If the Sunday-school missionary did noth-
ing else but minister in helpful ways to these "mar-

133

134 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

ginal peoples," as one missionary has characterized
them, his services would be worth while, and
worthy of the denomination that sends him forth
upon such a mission of love and mercy. Homes
where the name of God never was uttered except
in profane speech have been transformed by the
visit of a Sunday-school missionary. Family altars
have been erected and a Christian atmosphere has
been created ; gentleness and forbearance take the
place of crudeness and unkindness. Children are
reared to love and study God's Word. The Sabbath
is restored and God is recognized as the head of
the household.

When a "Home Department Quarterly" was
handed to a woman living in a little shack on the
Wyoming border, she said to the Sunday-school
missionary, "I am so glad you called ; I was just
wishing for something of this kind." She had gone
there from Florida to take up a homestead claim,
and he was the first Christian worker she had met.
In another home he called before the family had
finished breakfast. When he mentioned the sub-
ject of the Sunday school they said, "Why, we have
just been talking about the need and the possibilities
of having a Sunday school out here." At another
home which he visited, where he found both the
husband and wife at home, he was told that the
man had run away from a Christian home when he
was thirteen years of age, and had drifted into that
new country. Here, under various circumstances,
he had remained for twenty-six years. He said

Wayside Evangelism 135

that for some reason he had always felt a re-
straining hand whenever tempted to indulge in
the excesses of frontier life. Now, in middle life,
as reverses had come, he and his wife had felt the
need of better things. "What a joy," said the mis-
sionary in referring to this incident, "to talk freely
with these dear people and to kneel in that humble
home for a little talk with the heavenly Father and
our blessed Lord. After nearly three years of serv-
ice in this large field of far-scattered people I am
coming to realize how much it means to be a pastor
to shepherdless people and as far as possible a
friend to all. May the Lord help us all to be
faithful to the simple, plain tasks which are always
ours."

A missionary who has an extensive territory to
cover in the southeastern section of Washington
and who never neglects an opportunity to speak a
word of cheer in the homes he passes on his jour-
neys, describes frontier life in that region in a way
that reveals the need of such a system as our church
is maintaining through its rural Sunday-school
work. "The summers are short," he writes, "and
they must make hay while the sun shines. The
winters are long, the snow deep, the mountains im-
passable and of necessity as well as from inclination
they must remain buried throughout the long win-
ter in their snow-bound canons. So generous was
the spirit and grace of hospitality among the people
I visited without hope of reward, and always with
such kindness and consideration, that it more than

136 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

compensated me for the long tramps, rough climbs,
discomforts, drenches and dangers which I experi-
enced in visiting them. It was worth 'hitting a
trail' of over one hundred and thirty-five miles,
bHstering one's feet, and dodging the ubiquitous
rattlesnake in these hot carions."

It may be difficult for us to imagine what the
visit of the Sunday-school missionary means to
people who are so isolated, and so unprivileged with
reference to religious things. The men come in
from the field ; they bring in the children ; and all
listen reverently while the missionary reads a por-
tion of Scripture and prays with them. It gives
them new courage for their struggle.

Quite recently a letter was received at the office
of the Board which sends out these Sunday-school
workers, from a woman who, through a chance
meeting, directed one of these missionaries to a
neighborhood where the people were in great need
of encouragement. Coming from one who wrote
from actual knowledge of the situation it forms a
very valuable contribution to this consideration of
the benefits of the "wayside evangelism" which is
peculiar to the work of the Sunday-school mis-
sionary. This is the letter:

"Last summer, a man sent out by your Board
held a meeting in the sand-hill country of eastern
Wyoming, concerning which I have had it in mind
to write you ever since I came to learn what that
meeting had meant to the people there, it being my
thought that my doing so would help you to under-

Wayside Evangelism 137

stand how your work does bless the lives of the
people of these isolated districts, and that it would
give you pleasure and encouragement to be made
acquainted with the little incident that I shall relate.

"My mother, two brothers and myself reside on

homesteads in G County, Wyoming, not far

west from the Nebraska line. The country is new,
its resources limited ; the struggle for existence a
real struggle. The settlers are scattered, in strait-
ened circumstances, with the exception, now and
then, of a well-to-do cattleman. There is no social
life and considerable lack of neighborly interest and
loyalty as yet.

"On a train one day, I met your missionary. I had
recently come from my homestead and my heart
was full of the thought of the needs of the people
of that valley. At once I spoke to him of the need
of some one who could carry to them the message
that Christian people beyond the hills inclosing that
little settlement were interested in them, cared for
them, and that God cared also. He responded to
my statement with a hearty, T will go myself.' He
kept his word, going into the valley and meeting in
their homes as many of the people as he could, and
on Sunday preaching to them in their schoolhouse.

"Where life is so great a struggle, where people
are so isolated, they become careless, discouraged,
indifferent, selfish, drift very far away from the
things of God. I had the feeling that the people of
this particular settlement would be hard to reach,

138 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

but those who came in contact with your missionary
were all won."

In this feature of rural Sunday-school work, the
distribution of religious literature plays an impor-
tant part. Through the visitation of scattered homes
the Sunday-school missionary is able to place the
Sunday-school lesson helps and story papers, as
well as tracts and leaflets, in the hands of those who
do not have the advantage of free libraries and who
in many instances, are financially unable to sub-
scribe for current magazines. A Sunday-school
missionary asked a boy to whom he had "given a
lift" along the road, if he had a Bible at home.
"Yes," replied the boy, "we have two," mentioning
the names of two large mail order houses whose
catalogues are found in nearly every homestead
shack.

It means something, also, to have literature com-
ing into these homes, bearing the imprimatur of a
religious organization. It is an introduction at
least, if nothing more, to the spiritual forces that
are at work in the land and an indication that they
are endeavoring to reach out, even in this small
way, after those who are temporarily beyond the
influence of the Church, Sunday school and the
other blessings which the permanentl}'^ establishec
forms of Christianity would bring to them. Thou-
sands of pamphlets and Sunday-school papers are
distributed in this wav durinp- the course of a year's
work. The small editions of the Gospels have been
found particularly useful.

Wayside Evangelism 139

Some of the missionaries keep a record of the
names of the families they visit and mail Sunday-
school papers to them occasionally. In regions
where the mail service is irregular and where very
little good reading matter enters, these silent mes-
sengers of the gospel are appreciated and are fre-
quently the means of bringing many a lonely man or
woman back to God. One of these missionaries, in
traveling over a section of country where he had
been obliged to walk more than one hundred miles,
saw a man some distance away slowly making his
way down the rocky trail, leading his horse. As he
came nearer, the missionary greeted him, calling
him by name, having seen it on the letter box which
he had passed a short while before. He seemed
startled and yet pleased at being addressed by a
stranger. The missionary then introduced himself
and told him his mission. He found that the man
was interested in better things. He said he had
always attended Sunday school and church when he
was "at home in New York and Philadelphia." He
had homesteaded, and "up there over the ridge" he
was trying to build a home. His father had come
out to live with him, but ill health had overtaken
him, and he died. This man had been his father's
nurse and undertaker. He had laid his companion
to rest among the rocks of that isolated homestead.
"Yes, it gets lonely sometimes," he said, but a smile
crossed his lips as he changed his narrative. "I had
a strange thing happen to me the other dav," he
continued. "I came down for my mail and some one

l40 By-Products of tie Rural Sunday School

had sent me a magazine. It had a sphinx head on
the cover, I opened it and found it was a Sunday-
school 'Quarterly.' Don't you know, it sort of got
me for a few minutes. We fellows out here get
careless and forget about Sunday — and I guess
everything else that's good. I had not been reading
my Bible. Well, it just brought back to my mem-
ory those dear old days in New York when I used
to be a regular attendant at church and Sunday
school. How did they know I was out here and
lonely? How did they find out about me? I tell
you I thought I was forgotten — but some one must
have cared. It helped me to get back into a little
different way of living." It was this very mission-
ary to whom he was talking who had mailed the
"Quarterly" to him. The silent but none the less
forceful message of the printed page has been the
means of leading many a soul nearer to its God,
bringing peace and comfort in times of distress and
grief, and restoring those who have grown cold
and indifferent in their service of Christ.

The Sunday-school missionary finds many oppor-
tunities in his visitations for personal work with
the unsaved. He seizes every opportunity to im-
press upon hearts that never have been touched by
the call of the Saviour, the gracious invitation to
accept the salvation which is so freely offered to
all who will believe. Many hopeful conversions
have resulted. One of these missionaries whose
field of labor is among the hill dwellers of West
Virginia reported twenty-five such conversions

Wayside Evangelism 141

within a single month. In every home he read
carefully selected passages, offered prayer and con-
versed with the people with reference to their per-
sonal salvation. "I went into a home with sand on
the floor instead of carpet," he writes, "where
thirty-seven children and grandchildren were gath-
ered. In one home I baptized the entire family,
receiving the father and mother into the church.
The condition of another family was distressing in
the extreme. All the furniture that I could see was
two beds and two chairs. The mother was pale
with consumption, a child of three stood clinging to
her lap and a girl of nine stood at the window,
bearing all the evidences of having contracted the
same dread disease. In another home we found
the mother propped up in her chair, her children
gathered about her, her neighbors giving her
things to eat, with not one cent for medicine.
We helped them as far as we were able. So we
visited, so we worked. I wish you could have heard
some of the prayers the converts made, as they
pleaded with God for forgiveness for the past and
light for the future. They came from hearts that
liad been touched by the Spirit of God."

Another experience from the diary of a Sunday-
school missionary who labors on the western prairie
among newcomers shows how helpfully his energies
are expended in behalf of those who would be ut-
terly neglected without his pastoral care: "Some
kind friend? who are very much interested in the
missionary work in North Dakota presented us with

142 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

a good, young horse and a new buggy, which have
proven a great blessing to us, helping us to reach
many people without the expense of livery rigs —
people who are so isolated that they never see a
minister or hear a gospel song. We believe this
gift is a direct answer to prayer. We drove sixteen
miles one afternoon to visit one of the homes,
where we found the mother and four bright
little girls. The baby organ was a wonder to them.
We sang gospel songs, read the fourteenth chapter
of John and prayed with them, and before we left
we taught the little girls the song, 'All the Way to
Calvary.' We gave each child a Testament. As
we started away the mother cried and said, 'We will
never forget your visit ; won't you come again,'
Since then we have been sending them our little
missionary magazine, which I am sure they enjoy
very much. The next day we drove ten miles in the
opposite direction, to visit" another neglected fam-
ily living in a sod house. We spent the night with
them. In the evening after the men had come in
from their work, we sang and read the Scripture,
and all kneeled end asked our heavenly Father's
protection and care."

We should remember that the people thus reached
are by no means inferior. Many of them can look
back upon days when the Church and its services
held a large place in their lives. Their present con-
dition is simply due to lack of opportunity, an ^.
with no restraining influences it becomes a very
easy matter to yield to the temptation to put away

Wayside Evangelism 143

the teachings and practices of earlier years. It is
because of the lack of any standard. The coming
of the Sunday-school missionary and the introduc-
tion of the Sunday school establishes the gospel
ideal. Under the influence of the study of the Word
the backslider frequently is reclaimed. A Montana
missionary gives us an illustration of this in writ-
ing about a visit to a remote district into which a
number of new families had moved, where he was
making a canvass with the hope of planting a little
Sunday school. Calling on a Sunday morning at
the home of a middle-aged couple who had recently
come from an eastern state, he found the wife quite
willing to help in maintaining a Sunday school.
"We have always been religious people," she said,
but the missionary noticed that she seemed rather
uneasy. Upon inquiring for her husband he learned
that he was out at work on the farm.

"My husband is working to-day for the first
time on the Sabbath," she began to explain, "but
he doesn't like it a bit. He is up the gulch there,
around that point. I wish you would go and see
him." When the missionary went out and intro-
duced himself a few minutes later, the man literally
wilted, and sat down on a rock, his face covered
with shame. Finally, he looked up and said,
"Brother, I am ashamed of myself ; I hate this Sun-
day work." Then he looked down and said thought-
fully : "What is a fellow going to do when he can't
get a job unless he works on Sunday? I'll give you
fifty dollars if you will tell me where I can get a

144 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

job at carpentering without being compelled to work
on Sunday. Well, no, I can't afford that much,
either, but I would like to get work somehow. I
have been unhappy all the morning, just miserable;
this is the first time I ever worked on Sunday; I
think it will be the last, too."

He could not attend the service that was held
that afternoon, but his wife was present, and she
was elected superintendent of the Sunday schoo!.
The next week the husband wrote to the mission-
ary ; "I worked only the Sunday you saw me ;
however, I had to quit the work I had, as they
kept no one except those who can work on Sundays.
Yet I am proud to say that the loss is gained in an-
other way, for I have the proud honor of being
teacher in the senior class of the school."

Another frontier missionary was stopping over
night at a ranch house where he met "Rattlesnake
Joe," who has figured quite prominently as the hero
in recent novels dealing with western life. When
the missionary first met him he was leading a dance
at the ranch house. The next morning the mis-
sionary engaged him in conversation and gradually
turned his thoughts toward spiritual matters. At
Joe's request the missionary wrote the Lord's
Prayer on a slip of paper and handed it to him.
Joe read it carefully two or three times, then turn-
ing to the missionary, said, "That's pretty fine lan-
guage, must have been written by an eastern dude."
(All eastern tourists are designated by the ranch-
men in this country as dudes.) "Yes," the mission-

Wayside Evangelism 145

ary replied, "it was written in the far east. It is
the prayer of our Blessed Lord. Come to the school
on the Sabbath Day, I have something that I want
to tell you about, the One who gave us this prayer,"
Rattlesnake Joe was there, with many of the boys
from the round-up.

Who can say what may be the result of this word
spoken to one who had wandered far from God
and from the teachings of his boyhood home? The
direct results of such service as this are seldom
seen, but the fruitage will appear in days to come
and in ways that bring blessing to many.

One of the most interesting phases of this serv-
ice is seen in connection with the lumber camps of
the Northwest. As the missionary talks to the men
gathered around the bunk-house stove after the
day's toil is over, he finds earnest listeners and seek-
ers after truth. The missionary's words bring back
sacred and tender memories of saintly parents ; and
the Christian teachings of other days, from which
they have long been separated. Many have been
brought under deep conviction, confessing their sins
and resolving with God's help to lead sober, Chris-
tian lives.

"In one of the large lumber camps I visited,"
writes a Sunday-school missionary, "it was my un-
usual privilege to persuade the 'boys' to give up the
Saturday night dance, so that the late hours would
not interfere with the Sunday service. I make bold
to say that this indeed is a rare instance of self-
abnegation, especially in the woods of Idaho, where

146 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

dancing is the 'rage' and the only recreation. And
yet this sacrifice is easily accounted for in their
desire to hear the gospel. It did one good to see
these hardy men of the forest take their lanterns
that night and trudge through the woods in slush
and mud to tell the 'fiddlers' not to come to the hall,
as there was going to be preachin' to-morrow. And
a crowd was there on the morrow ! All the benches
of the mess house were taken to the hall. It was
filled to overflowing, many looking in through the
windows. It was indeed a red-letter day for the
women and children of the camp, for a Sunday
school was organized and the jacks, or the "bo-
hunks," as they are called, bought and paid for the
Sunday-school hymn books that night. Oh, how
great is the need of the Sunday school in this camp
and scores of others just like it ! I wish that I could
minister to such places more often.

"During my last visit at the camp, the 'boys' told
me of a Massachusetts man only three days out
who had gotten seriously hurt in the woods. 'You
had better "talk" with him,' they said, 'as the doc-
tors have given him up.' Going up to the young
man's bunk house the next morning, I was glad to
be apprised before entering that the doctors enter-
tained hopes of his recovery. After greeting the
young fellow I asked him, after a few moments'
conversation, if he would not like to have me write
to his folks in the East. 'No, no,' he said. 'Surely
I'm not going to die.' 'No,' I said, 'I have been
given every assurance before I came in that you

Wayside Evangelism 147

will recover, and yet don't you think you ought to
tell your folks about your sickness?' *No/ he re-
plied, and in this I saw he was obdurate. 'Well,'
I said, 'how would you like me to read the Bible
and pray with you?' 'Well, I won't mind that at
all,' he said. 'Just go to it' "

What are the rewards of such service? Here
are some extracts from letters received by one of
the missionaries engaged in this work: "Dear
Brother in Christ, I do not think that I have ever
spent a week any happier than the one just passed.
Of course some of the old temptations arise, but I
have labored hard against them and it is getting
easier all the while to down them. Have not seen
Florence (another convert, a girl of eighteen who is
laboring hard to live the Christ life alone in a fam-
ily of fourteen) this week but have prayed that
God would strengthen and keep her, for the poor
girl has a hard row to hoe. Am longing for your
return. I pray God to help me to be a help to you
here and to fight the 'licker traffic' " This came
from a young man of twenty-five, living among
stock men and sheep men. Pray for him. A
mother of eleven children writes, "I feel as if I can
sing for a month since you came here." From an-
other, "Thank you so much for the gospel you
brought us."

The faithful, heroic men who are engaged in this
service, find joy in this wayside ministry to the out-
cast, the neglected, the destitute, because of the con-
sciousness that somewhere the precious seed they

148 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

are sowing will spring forth into bountiful harvests.
From the standpoint of statistics, such work is
discouraging, at times and the man who is zealous
for a record may become disheartened, but to the
brave soul who is willing to endure the hardship and
isolation, sharing the joys and sorrows of these
marginal peoples, it is a service that brings a con-
stant supply of spiritual refreshment and power.

SUNDAY SCHOOL EXTENSION

The first Children's Day in a town five years old where the Sunday school

is the only religious influence.
A Sunday school fifty miles from a railroad, which meets in a claim shanty.
The entire community looks to this Sunday school to uphold the standard

of Christian living.
One of our Sunday-school Chapels in Idaho. An entire valley taken for Christ

through the work of rural Sunday schools.

CHAPTER IX

SUNDAY-SCHOOL EXTENSION

In the foregoing chapters the rural Sunday school
has been referred to as the material from which
many valuable by-products are obtained. In ap-
plying the efficiency test we have found that the
success of the rural Sunday school is not measured
by its possibilities of growth into a church organ-
ization, desirable as that may be. The experience
of those who have been in closest touch with rural
Sunday-school work proves that some of the best
results, from a spiritual viewpoint, have been pro-
duced through the work of Sunday schools situ-
ated in places where church organizations would be
impracticable. Neither do the instances recorded
in these chapters necessarily apply to Sunday
schools that have had a permanent existence.
The aim has been to show the value of Bible
study and teaching, even under conditions that
would seem to many to be inimical to the at-
tainment of results that would be of any real and
permanent value. The crude surroundings, the
meager equipment, the untrained leadership, the op-
position of the forces of sin, the discouragement of
small numbers, frequently make the possibilities of
the rural Sunday school most unpromising, and yet,
despite such hindrances, effective work has been
done in developing the highest form of Christian
character.

151

152 By-Prodiicls of the Rural Sunday School

The subject resolves itself into a question of the
relative value of formation and reformation in the
task of evolving a citizenship that is actuated in all
its processes by the Christian motive. While we
spend our millions upon reclaiming the lost, shall
we not exercise the same if not greater liberality
in providing for the purifying of the stream at its
source? Profiting by the endless task of reforma-
tion we are learning the value of prevention. We
are realizing the importance of safeguarding the
character of our boys and girls against the pitfalls
and the dangers that await them. As Joseph Malins
says :

'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,

Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant ;
But over its terrible edge there had slipped

A duke and full many a peasant ;
So the people said something would have to be done,

But their projects did not at all tally.
Some said, 'Tut a fence round the edge of the cliflf" ;

Some, "An ambulance down in the valley."

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,

For it spread through the neighboring city.
A fence may be useful or not, it is true.

But each heart became brimful of pity
For those who had slipped o'er that dangerous cliff ;

And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,

But an ambulance down in the valley.

Sunday-school Extemion 153

Then an old sage remarked : "It's a marvel to me

That people give far more attention
To repairing results than to stopping the cause,

When they'd much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief," cried he ;

"Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally:
If the cliff we will fence we might almost dispense

With the ambulance down in the valley."

The fact that twelve millions of children and
young people in our land are without the oppor-
tunity of Christian instruction and training is one
that should awaken us to renewed activity in send-
ing forth workers who will win them to the study
of the Word. It is true that many thousands of this
number may be found in our cities, where the pro-
portion of foreign population is large. Little has
been done in the way of an organized, systematic
and persistent effort to gather them into Sunday
schools, despite the well-organized Christian forces,
that are at work in the metropolitan centers. Mak-'
ing liberal allowance for this element, we still have
from nine to ten millions of boys and girls scattered
throughout the United States, mainly in the rural
districts, who have not been brought into Sunday
schools. It is to will such that we must send forth
our Sunday-school missionaries, penetrating the re-
motest parts, and laying the foundations for Chris-
tian life and service in small Sunday schools lo-
cated within convenient distance.

154 By-Prodiicts of the Rural Sunday School

One who is familiar with the situation in the
South and Southwest, tells us that in seven states
there are four million children and young people
without Christian opportunities. Concerning one
of the districts in this section of the country, a
pastor gives us a more detailed description of the
conditions. This is his statement:

"During the last thirteen months I have con-
ducted meetings in ten needy fields, I mention this
to show that I have gotten fairly close to the heart
of the situation here. I want to declare that I
positively have never seen anything that even ap-
proached the urgent need of work done by a Sun-
day-school missionary as it is here. This is an old
country ; some of it has been settled for a hundred
years; nearly all of the people are natives. (I am
speaking of the rural and isolated stretches.) The
soil is quite good and will grow anything if worked.
The climate is good. One still sees the farmer here
plowing with his one mule, between the trees.
Some farmers told me they did not handle more
than twenty-five to fifty dollars the whole year.
Every member of the family, in many instances,
goes barefooted most of the year. In one com-
munity where I conducted some services I entered
about twenty-five homes, and in only four did I
find anything but homemade chairs ; none of the
houses had paint. The public schools are few and
of little consequence. The day that my meeting
began a Baptist brother closed one in the small
schoolhouse. The good man actually could not read

Sunday-school Extension 155

the Scriptures in public, so illiterate was he. Yet,
to use his words, 'They had been swimming in
glory for a week.' The only light we had in the
schoolhouse was one gasoline torch. There were
always twice as many people present as the house
would hold. Their religion runs to extreme emo-
tionalism ; still they listen with great earnestness to
a man who, as they say, 'can learn them some-
thing.' "

Commenting upon these conditions of Sunday-
school destitution, extending over eleven southern
slates, one of our field superintendents who has
made a careful study of the situation writes:

"A part of these figures represents those having
privileges not appreciated, though by far the larger
part is that of absolute destitution, because of lack
of Sunday-school organizations, representing those
needy and neglected communities that are lacking
in Bible instruction and the systematic opening of
the Word on the Sabbath. Nearly all classes of
people are represented in these needy districts —
the mountain and hill people, the poor tenantry of
the plantations, the lumber-mill families, the home-
steaders and the mining population. . . . There
is a district in middle Tennessee, comprising some
ten counties, in which there are practically no Pres-
byterian churches, where nothing is being done by
any denomination in planting Sunday schools among
those destitute of gospel privileges."

The mountain districts in themselves present a
most needy field for Sunday-school work. There are

156 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

more than a million hoys and girls living in the
mountains of the South who are ignorant of the
Bible and its teachings. In eighteen mountain coun-
ties, covering 6,692 square miles, with a population
of 250,000, there is but one Sunday school to each
1,200 inhabitants. The total Sunday-school enroll-
ment is 14,000, less than six per cent of the popula-
tion. In some counties there are but one or two
educated ministers.

In many places the people are without any reli-
gious services. Many villages and communities are
without a church of any denomination ; no Sunday
school, prayer meeting or other religious influences
of any kind. Another great misfortune suffered by
this section is the fact that the most promising
young men who are called into the ministry are
forced to go elsewhere for an education, and when
they are equipped for their life work they almost
invariably accept a call to some other field. Many
of them to-day are occupying important pulpits in
city churches. The result is that the cause of reli-
gion among the mountaineers suffers for the lack
of men who are able to bring things to pass. This
mountain country has been furnishing pastors and
business men for the larger towns and cities, and
receiving little in return. If the churches really
understood the situation they would put more men
and money into this field.

The mountaineers are very susceptible to gospel
influences, and very emotional in their worship. A
sermon, to be enjoyed by them, must appeal to their

Sunday-school Extension 157

emotional nature = The preachftr who does not ciy
as he talks, occasionally at least, and the church
member that does not shout during the "revival
meeting" have little or no religion, in their esti-
mation.

Most of these native preachers serve without
compensation, some receive from fifty cents to a
dollar a month. They do no pastoral work and, as
they are obliged to labor during the week to sus-
tain their families, they naturally are able to do very
little in developing the various departments of reli-
gious activity which are usually associated with the
church. At least fifty per cent of these primitive
mountain congregations do not have Sunday
schools. This is a district which promises an abun-
dant harvest from the seed-sowing of the Sunday-
school missionary.

Another inviting field confronts us among the
southern negroes. Only one negro child out of
every ten is enrolled in Sunday school. Thirteen
negro Sunday-school missionaries are engaged in
planting and sustaining Sunday schools in ten
states. Two of these field workers give their at-
tention largely to Sunday-school development work,
assisting in the holding of institutes, conferences
and schools of method in connection with the day
schools under the care of the Freedmen's Board. In
these day schools there are about sixteen thousand
pupils, many of whom will go out as teachers of
negro district schools in all parts of the South.
Therefore the importance of training these young

158 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

people for intelligent and aggressive Sunday-school
work may well be emphasized. It is our aim so to
instruct them with reference to the best plans and
methods of Sunday-school organization and work,
that they will not only be zealous for the Sun-
day school wherever they may go to enter upon
their life work, but capable, also, of conducting a
Sunday school in an efficient manner.

Experience has taught us that the most effective
way of reaching the negro boys and girls is through
the Sunday school. If we help the negro we must
begin with the boys and girls. They must be in-
structed in the fundamentals of Christianity; they
must be taught the true meaning of religion, and
its precepts must find an entrance into their hearts.
They must be taught the value of character and
their individual responsibility to God. How much
better it is to save the negro boy and girl by such
a course of teaching than to spend our money upon
institutions for reforming them after they have
growm to maturity !

The negro Sunday-school missionaries have about
four hundred mission Sunday schools under their
care, in which about twelve thousand negro pupils
are enrolled. They are constantly adding to this
number by organizing new Sunday schools in needy
places. When we consider that this represents prac-
tically all the Christian training w^hich these chil-
dren receive, we can appreciate the value of such
work and its effect upon the future of the negro
race.

Sunday-school Extension 159

To relate the many interesting incidents con-
nected with this work, showing how neighborhoods
have been transformed, Httle Sunday schools be-
coming permanent centers of Christian influence
and souls born into newness of life, would require
many pages, but it would form a chapter of thrilling
missionary information. One negro Sunday-school
missionary in Georgia reports seven Presbyterian
churches and a large day school as one outgrowth
of Sunday schools organized during the past eight
years.

But we have only scratched the surface thus far.
Alabama and Mississippi each have but one negro
Sunday-school missionary ; Kentucky has a large
negro population almost completely neglected reli-
giously, to whom a Sunday-school missionary
should be sent. Our force of negro workers should
speedily be doubled.

The western states also are rich with opportun-
ities for this kind of pioneer service. Great stretches
of country far removed from the railroads are peo-
pled here and there by families who have been at-
tracted by the possibilities of extended agricultural
development through irrigation enterprises ; others
are trying the dry farming "experiment" and many
others are engaged in the mining and lumber in-
dustries. One Sunday-school missionary, located
in the San Joaquin Valley of California, has been
endeavoring to meet the need of that district, which
is as large as the entire State of Indiana. He de-
scribes a situation which should fill the Church of

160 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

Christ with a burning zeal to furnish the means to
support workers who could plant scores of Sunday
schools. These schools would become centers of
Christian influence for the youths who are living
there and who are now without any one to provide
for their spiritual needs.

"Along the southwestern part of the valley bor-
dering the Coast ranges for over one hundred miles
lie the greatest oil-producing fields in the world,"
the missionary writes. "They carry a migrating
population of from twenty to thirty-five thousand
people. This I consider the greatest and most neg-
lected mission field in the West. The valley proper
is about two hundred miles long and one hundred
miles wide — level and fertile, the greatest irriga-
tion region in America — the Eldorado of intensive
farming. Hundreds of thousands of acres are being
brought under irrigation every year. New towns by
the score are being settled. It is estimated that
about fifty thousand people came into this valley
last year, to make homes for themselves, and the
tide is rapidly rising. Recently the great Chow-
chilla Ranch of one hundred and eight thousand
acres was thrown open to settlement by a big east-
em syndicate. Special trains were run from Los
Angeles, Fresno, Stockton and Sacramento, and
over three thousand people were on the ground.
A new town is laid out, streets graded, sidewalks
laid and everything ready for business and business
is already there. In five years it will be a little
city.

Sunday-schoul Extension 161

"The whole floor of the valley is beginning to
teem with new life. Cities and towns and new
rural communities are springing up with magical
swiftness. It is the land of specialized farming,
where a few acres will sustain a family. It is in-
creasing in population so rapidly that your mission-
ary is utterly unable to keep track of the new com-
munities, much less to organize them in religious
work. This valley alone will easily sustain five
million people and feed five million more when it
is all brought under intensive cultivation. This
two hundred and fifty miles of foothills and moun-
tains have innumerable little hamlets untouched by
the gospel. Children are growing to maturity here
without ever seeing a minister or hearing a sermon,

"I have been traveling at the rate of fifteen hun-
dred miles a month and have not yet gotten over
all my field. So you see that the first Sunday
schools that I organized will have children in the
primary grade, who were born since I organized the
Sunday school, before I can get around to visit the
school again. Talk about 'circuit riding' in the pio-
neer days of the Middle West ! Why, the Sunday-
school missionary in southern California has them
all beaten. I take the railroad as far as it goes,
then the stage as far as it reaches, then the pack
train as far as it goes, and finally I take to my heels
for the rest of the journey. And there is much heel
work both on the plains and in the mountains."

162 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

Five Sunday-school missionaries should be placed
in this field to overtake the immediate, pressing
need.

The Northwest also is experiencing extensive de-
velopment and here, too, a force of efficient Sunday-
school workers should be placed to provide for the
needs of the newcomers. A Sunday-school mission-
ary, who planted twenty-two Sunday schools in one
year, in one part of his field in eastern Washing-
ton, writes :

"My work calls me into the remote and outlying
districts sometimes ten, fifty, one hundred miles
away from the railways and beaten paths. It calls
me into communities where the preacher and his
nfessage have not been heard for years, where chil-
dren stand in wonder at the preacher 'talking to his
plate' (saying grace) before meals; where boys and
girls in their teens have come to attend the Sunday
school for the first time in their lives ; where young
men and women have lived in their canons all their
lives without ambition enough to discover what lies
beyond their circumscribed horizon ; where boys and
girls are living absolutely destitute of all religious
and moral training, and succumbing to immorality,
vice and shame."

A recent survey of a similar district in Oregon
revealed the fact that in a territory covering one
whole country of ten thousand six hundred square
miles and two-thirds of the adjoining county to the
east, with an additional area of six thousand square
miles and an approximate population of eight thou-

Sunday-school Extension 163

sand people, there is but one Protestant minister.
Pie is supplying the only Presbyterian church in this
district, and is located in a town of less than one
thousand population. Only one other Protestant
church, and that vacant, is situated in the same
towa Aside from three rural points where small
Sunday schools are being maintained with a small
enrollment in each, no other form of religious work
is carried on — the large majority are scattered over
this vast interior region neglected by the churches.
So far as the people themselves are concerned, the
great majority of them are as well educated, as
refined in their moral tastes, and just as deserving
of spiritual attention as people anywhere else in
this western country.

Montana, the third larger state in the Union, is
sharing in the great developments that are taking
place. One of the large railroad systems has sur-
veyed the line of an extension, the construction of
which has already begun. Twenty new town sites
have been plotted, and it is predicted that within
a brief period ea.ch wall have a population oi
from three to five thousand persons. This branch
road pierces a rich agricultural and stock-raising
district where material prosperity will be the certain
reward of the pioneer.

In the Rocky Mountain states also the new set-
tler finds inviting opportunities. In a recent issue
©f a Denver daily newspaper the following an-
nouncement appeared :

164 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

HOMESEEKERS RUSH
TO COLORADO FOR
BIG LAND BARGAIN

Offering of 3,000,000 Acres of School Lands Under
Easy Conditions Draws Attention of the Nation and
State Register Hoggatt Is Swamped With Applica-
tions of Earnest Settlers— Great Influx Soon.

In one large county in Colorado, we are told
that there is but one Protestant minister. There
are twenty-eight school districts in this county, and
in only five of them is any attempt being made to
carry on any religious work.

With these glimpses of the vast field that lies
before us, let us consider how we may provide for
its most pressing need. These districts cannot sup-
part churches or pastors. Yet the Church is under
obligation to help fehem by giving them that form
of Christian influence which every community can
sustain ; namely, the Sunday school. It will be a
misfortune, indeed, if the Church's vision of world-
wide missions becomes so broad as to overlook these
great needs at home, while providing liberally for
needs afar off. It will be a great spiritual loss also
if the Church's missionary outlook should become
so contracted as to regard lightly the needs of the

Sunday-school Extension 165

rural population in our own land, too poor in many
cases, and too widely scattered, to promise much in
the direction of church organizations, but whose
spiritual necessities are greater, on that account. It
is incumbent upon us to establish within their reach
such Christian agencies as are best adapted to their
condition and circumstances ; and this can most ef-
fectively be accomplished through the establish-
ment of Sunday schools. The gratifying results
of years of such service in behalf of similar neigh-
borhoods elsewhere and a consideration of the by-
products of these labors, should furnish convincing
proof of the value of the little Sunday school as an
indispensable factor in accomplishing the Church's
mission to evangelize the homeland.

There is no danger of overchurching these
districts, because practically nothing has been done
to provide the means of grace for them. There may
be no immediate prospect of organizing a church in
many of these places and the attempt to do so
would. In the majority of cases, result in defeat.
For this reason these outlying districts are not
reached by the home-mission pastor. The Sunday
school, however, appeals to them because it requires
no subscription to a denominational creed or form
of government, but holds before them the advan-
tages of regular Bible study for the children and
adults as well. Thus it acts as a unifying force,
bringing the people together for a common purpose.

All the denominations are realizing as never be-
fore the necessity of extending this phase of their

166 By-Products of the Rural Sunday School

Sunday-school work, and they are making earnest
appeals to their churches to support a larger force
of missionaries.

More than a quarter of a century of experience
upon the part of our Sunday-school Board in this
pioneer work and the gratifying results that have ac-
crued to the Presbyterian Church through these ef-
forts have vindicated the wisdom of the policy that
has been pursued.

Time, money and energy have been conserved,
and the work has been established upon an efficient
and permanent basis. The agent of an undenom-
inational enterprise, however worthy its object may
be, is always at a disadvantage. He lacks the back-
ing of the organized forces of a denomination which
is prepared to furnish equipment, aid in the develop-
ment of the work, assist in providing a house of
worship, give it pastoral care and make it a part
of the great body of believers who form its commun-
ion. Denominational cooperation and support ac-
count largely for the success of Presbyterian Sun-
day-school missionary work. The Sunday-school
missionary is being looked upon more and more as
an indispensable field worker, if our Church is to
continue to be an aggressive force for the extension
of Christ's kingdom in America.

If we are going to do this work among the rural
people it must be done through the Sunday school ;
it must be done by a representative of our own de-
nomination who goes forth with presbyterial sanc-
tion and cooperation ; it must be done with a true

Sunday-school Extension 167

missionary' spirit, which has for its motive only obe-
dience to the divine commission to give the gospel
to all who need it. The returns may not be imme-
diate, and discouragements may lie by the way, but
we go forward in the strength of the promises of
God, concerning his Word ; and such faith is never
disappointed. It is only as we go on faithfully
sowing that we may expect harvests to be garnered
for the King.

It should be emphasized also that this is a work
which, although closely related to the other benev-
olent agencies of the Church, stands alone in its
distinctive aim and purpose. Home mission boards
were carrying on their splendid work for gener-
ations before our Church inaugurated Sunday-
school missions, taking the gospel to thousands of
persons in localities where churches could be organ-
ized, and helping to sustain pastors for them, but
no attempt was made to provide for the religious
welfare of the multitude of boys and girls who were
living in remote parts. The placing of the ban
upon religious instruction, and even upon Bible
reading, in the public schools, together with the de-
cline in family religion, made the problem of char-
acter development among our youth one to which
the Church was forced to give serious attention.
To meet this situation the Presbyterian Church re-
organized its Board of Publication and Sabbath-
School Work, making the work of caring for the
religious nurture of America's youth its chief con-
cern. From year to year this Board has developed

168 By~Products of the Rural Sunday School

this work as a distiticti'^''e missionary enterprise, pre-
senting to the Church the appeal of the needy chil-
dren, of whom our Saviour said it was not the will
of the Father that one should perish. It has not
dealt with churches, but with the unchurched re-
gions where Christian privileges are lacking. In
recent years the work has broadened to include
efforts looking toward the betterment of the Sunday
schools already organized.

We are not reaching these schools by correspond-
ence, but we are dealing with them at close range.
In visiting Sunday schools our field workers do not
leave without having a conference with the officers
and teachers, leading them up, by degrees, to a
higher standard. They show them how they may
have a Cradle Roll, a Home Department an adult
class and even a teacher-training class. Some-
times they teach a specimen lesson from the teacher-
training textbook. Thus they inspire enthusiasm
for these improvements, which, if presented in the
form of a letter, would meet with indifference.

Everyone who has familiarized himself with the
present situation with reference to the whole prob-
lem of religious education realizes that this Board
of our church has a large and needy field of serv-
ice before it, not only in providing religious instruc-
tion for the multitudes outside of Sunday schools,
but also in studying how it may encourage the pro-
gressive development of these schools in ways that
are within their reach and adapted to their limited
opportunities.

Sunday-school Extension 169

It follows most naturally and logically that the
Board which brings new Sunday schools into ex-
istence, and provides the Sunday-school literature,
should be the agency to whom the Sunday schools
should look for assistance in developing their work.
The improvement of Sunday schools must go side
by side with the work of organizing new Sunday
schools. The work is one. It is missionary and
it is educational. Viewed from every standpoint
the entire field of work of this Board stands as a
specific task, and it is of such proportion and im-
portance that it may rightly be regarded as one of
the chief agencies of the Church. It is a task that
is sufficiently large to occupy the best thought and
attention of this Board, which for so many years
has aimed to serve the Church along the specific
lines of work which the General Assembly has com-
mitted to its care, and in the successful prosecution
of which the General Assembly has so frequently
commended it.

Date Due

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