BOOK 261.B836 c. 1
BRUNNER # CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
M,''
153 D00b7071 3
CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
The Committee on Social and Religious Sur-
veys, which is responsible for this publication,
was organised in January, i()2i. The Commit-
tee conducts and publishes studies and surveys
and promotes conferences for their considera-
tion. Its aim is to combine the scientific method
with the religious motive. It cooperates with
other social and religious agencies, but is itself
an independent organisation.
The Committee is composed of: John R.
Mott, Chairman; Ernest D. Burton, Secretary;
Raymond B. Fosdick, Treasurer; James L. Bar-
ton and W. H. P. Faunce. Galen M. Fisher is
Executive Secretary. The offices are at S/o
Seventh Avenue, New York City.
CHURCHES ©/DISTINCTION
IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
EDITED BY
EDMUND deS. BRUNNER
With a Foreword by
EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
AND MAPS
NEW Xar YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. II
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
By Edward Alsworth Ross
professor of sociology, university of wisconsin
Some day there will be sociologists from China, India,
Iraq, Egypt, visiting us — men with a Confucian, Buddhist,
or Mohammedan background. How will they react to what
this book describes? What will they think of rural com-
munities knit together by religious ideas and organization?
I fancy the sight will warm their hearts as it warms mine.
For your true sociologist is enchanted to see men and women
cooperating in the pursuit of the higher interests. These
chapters picture for us real communities, tasting some of
the sweetest of human experiences — fellowship, social sym-
pathy, harmony, teamwork on behalf of the finer aims of
life. It is plain that the country churches here described
are fulfilling an ennobling and socializing mission. Where
they function the farmers will never become animalized
peasants like those repulsive creatures Zola describes in
"La Terre." How many youthful aspirations would wither
but for them! How many rare and noble spirits on the
farms these churches reach are cheered and made glad by
fellowship in the quest of the noblest ideals that have been
set before men ?
Consider the rubbish the ordinary newspaper spreads be-
fore its readers. Mark the trash displayed on the stand in
the station waiting-room. When I note what the people on
the trains read, I wonder whether the warfare on illiteracy
is worth while. But when I contemplate these live, vigor-
ous Christian churches promoting acquaintance with the
Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles — the best
that has ever been said or written — I cheer up. After view-
V
vi FOREWORD
ing the sporting page, the comics, and the pictorial maga-
zines, I am grateful for the pulpit and the Sunday school,
particularly in the open country where, owing to cultural
barrenness, it is easy to lose sight of the things of the spirit ;
and I think the sociologist from Sian Fu or Bagdad would
feel the same.
These stories show the technique of serving the com-
munity by means of a church. They make clear just what
may be done to stimulate the higher interests — intellectual,
social, religious — in the countryside. There must be thou-
sands of struggling rural churches which, from these pages,
may learn how properly to fulfill their task.
PREFACE
During 1922 the Committee on Social and Religious Sur-
veys undertook to make a first-hand investigation of the
forty most successful town and country churches which
could be found anywhere in the United States. The methods
of work employed by these churches and the basis adopted
by the Committee in selecting the forty from the hundreds
of prominent churches in the country are treated in a com-
panion volume, "Tested Methods in Town and Country
Churches." The present volume contains the stories of
fourteen of the forty, chosen, not necessarily because they
were in all respects the best, but because each of them illus-
trates some particular condition or problem and its suc-
cessful solution. They are published in the hope that they
may be of assistance to leaders who are facing similar
problems.
Although these fourteen stories deal with churches of
various sizes and denominations and situated in various cir-
cumstances, they show that success comes by the discerning
application of a few basic principles which take shape in
differing methods for each situation. It is hardly likely that
any reader will be tempted to apply slavishly the methods
described. Any such attempt would probably be unfortu-
nate. He will be able, however, to seize upon the under-
lying principles involved and regard the methods as sugges-
tions which may be adapted freely to his own needs.
Each of the stories is the result of a careful investigation
by an employed field worker over a period of from eight
days to a month. The final chapter, dealing with Middle
Octoraro, is more elaborated than the rest in order to indi-
cate something of the type and scope of the investigation
conducted in each place. In addition to its own staff, the
Committee was fortunate in being able to avail itself of the
viii PREFACE
services of certain individuals loaned to it by the courtesy
of other organizations. Rev. H. N. Morse, of the Presby-
terian Board of Home Missions, and Dr. U. L. Mackey, of
the Presbyterian Synod of New York, are each responsible
for one chapter, while fifteen churches, three of which are
included in the present volume, were studied by Mr. John
Myers and Mr. Ernest Brindle, of the^Home Mission^ Board
of the Reformed Church in
CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword by Edward Alsworth Ross . . , v
Preface vii
CHAPTER
I Modern Methods on a Circuit — Centerton,
Arkansas 17
Marjorie Patten
II A Case of Self-Determination — Parma,
Idaho 27
Helen O. Belknap
III Much in Little — Canoga, N. Y. . . .42
Elisabeth Wootton
IV Digging Out the Boys — Bingham Canyon,
Utah 49
Marjorie Patten
V Ministering to the Migrant — Larned,
Kansas 60
Ernest Brindle
VI The Larger Parish — Collbran and Mon-
trose, Colorado 67
^ Elizabeth Wootton
VII An Indian Example — Sacaton, Arizona . 82
Helen O. Belknap
VIII The Old Order Changeth — Gonzales,
Texas 95
Marjorie Patten
ix
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER J'AGK
IX Where the Church is Everything — Buck-
horn, Kentucky . . . ' . . .112
U. L. Mackey
X The Church at the Center — Davis, Cali-
fornia 123
Marjorie Patten
XI Self- Americanization — Stanton, Iowa . 135
John Myers
XII The Church with a Purpose — Dayton, In-
diana 147
John Myers and Grace Fairley
XIII The Village Church — Honey Creek, Wis-
consin 160
Helen O. Belknap
XIV Two Centuries of Success — Middle Octo-
RARO, Pennsylvania 171
H. N. Morse
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
centerton's "fight fans" watch an exhibition
bout by boys of the athletic club ... 24
the sunday school orchestra of seventeen pieces 24
kirkpatrick memorial community church . . 32
boy scouts of the parma troop about to start on
a camping trip 32
THE BOY SCOUT FLOAT AT CANOGA's FOURTH OF JULY
CELEBRATION 44
THE LITTLE COMMUNITY, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF
THE CHURCH, SUPPORTS A FLOURISHING DRAMATIC
ASSOCIATION 44
THE PASTOR, WHO IS ALSO SCOUTMASTER, AND HIS BOYS 56
WHAT THE BOY SCOUTS FIND AFTER HIKING TWO MILES
THROUGH A TUNNEL — A WELCOME CHANGE FROM
THEIR TREELESS CANYON 56
THE LONG UNLOVELY MAIN STREET OF BINGHAM
CANYON STRAGGLES ALONG FOR THIRTEEN MILES IN
THIS CLEFT BETWEEN RUGGED AND PRECIPITOUS
MOUNTAINS 57
ONE OF THE FOUR CHURCHES ON THE LARNED CIRCUIT . 64
A DISPLAY OF GARDEN PRODUCE AT THE BOOTH FESTIVAL 64
THE RODEO THE EVENT OF THE YEAR AT COLLBRAN . 72
PICNIC OF THE PLEASANT VIEW SUNDAY SCHOOL, COLL-
BRAN 72
THE PRIMARY CLASS OF THE CASA BLANCA CHURCH IN
THE SACATON FIELD 88
xi
xii ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
PAGE
IF THE HOUSE OF A WIDOW FALLS INTO BAD REPAIR
HER FELLOW CHURCH MEMBERS FIX IT UP FOR HER 88
THE SACATON PIMA CHURCH BUILT AS A MEMORIAL TO
DR. COOK 89
AND ONE OF THE ELDERS 89
THE PASTOR AND HIS CONGREGATION ENJOY AN AL
FRESCO BANQUET 96
TWO PARISHIONERS OF MONTHALIA .... 96
THE BUCKHORN SETTLEMENT 116
THE PASTOR MAKES HIS ROUNDS AND THE SUNDAY
SCHOOL TEACHER RIDES TO HER CLASS ON MULE
BACK 116
ABOVE IS A GROUP OF URCHINS WHO HAVE RECENTLY
BEGUN ATTENDING THE CHURCH SCHOOL. BELOW
ARE TWO SENIOR STUDENTS JUST FINISHING THEIR
COURSE 117
DAVIS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 128
THE DAILY VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL FOR THE TEACHING
OF WHICH THE EX-SERVICE MAN ON THE LEFT HAS
VOLUNTEERED HIS SERVICES 128
THE BIG WHITE CHURCH IN THE LITTLE WHITE TOWN 144
THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE DAYTON CHURCH, UNDER THE
LEADERSHIP OF THE PASTOR, FORM THE FIRE-FIGHT-
ING FORCE FOR THE COMMUNITY . . . .152
THE CHURCH BULLETIN BOARD 152
A VIEW OF HONEY CREEK VILLAGE
164
AND SOME OF THE INHABITANTS — MEMBERS OF
THE LADIES' AID 164
THE SUMMER CAMP IS ONE OF THE ACTIVITIES OF MID-
DLE OCTORARO CHURCH . . . . . .176
THE TWO-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD CHURCH OF MIDDLE OC-
TORARO 176
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS xiii
MAPS
PAGE
THE BUCKHORN PLANT 117
TRADE COMMUNITIES AND NEIGHBORHOOD FROM
WHICH THE CHURCH DRAWS, MIDDLE OCTORARO . 176
THE CHURCH PARISH, MIDDLE OCTORARO . . .176
MAP SHOWING DISTANCES OF HOMES OF CHURCH MEM-
BERS FROM CHURCH, MIDDLE OCTORARO . . . 177
CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
Chapter I
MODERN METHODS ON A CIRCUIT
CENTERTON, ARKANSAS
The story of how modern methods of country church work
were successfully applied to a circuit.
It has been truly said : "There is nothing that counts so
much in country Hfe as good neighborship."
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Centerton,
Arkansas, owes its very life to its Gospel of Neighborliness.
Through it, town and country barriers have been broken
down and better farms, homes, and schools have developed.
By helping others, this church has outgrown its circuit and
become a strong independent organization. Every one in
its parish, every one in the parishes of the four neighbor-
hood churches, calls it Friend; for it has not only given
encouragement to religion but has aided in the solving of
land problems, has trained new leaders, has enlisted the
young people for service and pointed out to Centerton the
main road to success.
A great revival meeting was held in a church of the
Middle West some time ago at which Dr. Warren H. Wil-
son astounded a large congregation by turning the church
pulpit over on its side and placing on it a cream separator.
He followed this by a demonstration of what could be done
with the separator; and some of the more conservative sis-
ters and elders were quite overcome by the unconventional
methods of the preacher. It happened, however, that this
meeting resulted in one of the greatest religious revivals ever
ir
18 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
held in that part of the country ; for it brought the farmer and
the farmer's church into closer relationship and made both
aware that each could help the other, since, after all, their
problem was a common one.
In much the same way the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, at Centerton, came into its own. Two years ago the
people of this little Ozark plateau village of northwest
Arkansas had the "blues." Their great apple crop, which
had always been their main source of income, had failed.
Bank resources had shrunk from $137,000 to $91,000.
Farmers talked of the hard times and of harder times still
to come. Town and country were separated by barriers of
suspicion and misunderstanding.
In a normal year apples earn $800,000 for the com-
munity; and in the shipping season wagons wait their turn,
in a line nearly a mile long, to unload at the depot. But
in 1921 a frost destroyed nearly all the fruit, and Centerton,
having no other crop to fall back on, naturally got the
*^lues."
Church life was at low ebb. The building of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, South, stood neglected, pooirly
equipped and in poor repair. It was indifferently sustained
and indifferently attended. Program there was none; and
in fact there never had been one. Church funds were han-
dled in a hit-or-miss fashion. The pastor had never re-
ceived more than $1,000 salary from the entire circuit,
which at that time included Centerton and three open coun-
try churches at New Home, Osage Mills, and Droke. Mount
Hebron church has since been added to the circuit. At
Centerton, the Baptist and Christian churches were weak
and without regular pastors. Services were held irregu-
larly and denominational feeling ran high.
No young people's work was in progress, and no groups
were organized either for service or sociability, at the Meth-
odist church. The church Board of Stewards was inactive
and without a head. Leadership was entirely lacking. And
the open country churches in the circuit were all in the same
state of inactivity. Their memberships were small and scat-
tered and their services poorly attended.
MODERN METHODS ON A CIRCUIT IQ
CURING THE "bLUES"
Just at this time the Reverend W. J. Le Roy was sent to
the Centerton Circuit to build up a "demonstration parish."
To this optimistic, friendly pastor it was clear at once that
before he could hope to rebuild the church organization he
must cure Centerton's "blues." It was not long before he
had become a friend of farmer and business man, of boys
and girls, of every one in his parish. Centerton is an ail-
American village of 350 inhabitants, with a surrounding
country population of about 850. Conservative folk of fine
southern stock, villagers and farmers alike, saw that the
pastor was ready to do all in his power to help solve their
problems; and, therefore, they gave him their support
wholeheartedly.
Believing that "if God's house was to prosper, the soil
must be kept fertile, the flocks and herds built up and the
farm home made contented and happy," he made an in-
tensive survey of the parish to learn actual existing condi-
tions. The results surprised even the farmers themselves.
He found that farms averaged in size about eighty acres
and that land was valued at $125 an acre; that the average
wealth per farm was $7,000; that only 2 per cent, of the
220 farms within a six-mile radius were operated by ten-
ants; that there was more wealth among these people than
among his former parishioners in even larger centers. About
the countryside he found prize stock, up-to-date equipment,
tractors, many automobiles and comfortable farm homes.
The pastor carried this information from farm to farm and
soon people began to think that perhaps they were not so
poor after all. Little by little they began to regain confi-
dence in themselves and in their fellow men.
REACHING OUT TO THE FARMS
Through the influence of the County Farm Bureau, in-
terest in diversified farming was growing rapidly, and Mr.
Le Roy worked with the County Agent in the conviction
that "better farms make better folks." Together thty
20 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
preached the value of raising cattle, hogs and poultry. They
encouraged farmers to plant berries and vegetables ; to raise
apples for a profit crop, but to raise other crops to live on.
At Springdale a new plant was being erected by a grape
juice company which promised to buy all the grapes the
farmers in the district could raise. Mr, Le Roy urged the
planting of vineyards.
Each community in the county chose a committee to look
after grape interests ; Mr. Le Roy is at the head of the Grape
Committee for Centerton. When a meeting was held in
1922 at Tontitown to give farmers an opportunity to view
the vineyards there, the pastor was present with the largest
single delegation.
A new spirit of cooperation developed which resulted in
the planting of acres of strawberries. This venture proved
such a success that a Marketing Association for berries and
beans was formed. By June, 1922, the organization had a
membership of twenty- two and more than 117 acres of ber-
ries had been signed over for marketing.
Dairying has developed to such an extent that a coopera-
tive shipping association has been formed. This came about
partly through Mr. Le Roy's influence, for when plans for
the organization were being laid, the men interested said
to him: ''Look here, we can't form anything if you don't
come along." So the preacher jumped into the automobile
and went with them all over the countryside encouraging
the farmers to make the association possible by their co-
operation.
It is the men Mr. Le Roy met in the fields and barnyards
that now swell his congregations. They call him the "horti-
cultural preacher." He and Mrs. Le Roy have visited in
homes within a radius of from four to six miles, in homes
where a Methodist preacher had not been for many years.
This friendly man of God claims that a "visiting pastor has
a church-going people" ; and his present congregations seem
to prove it true. He says, "Let the pastor associate himself
with the daily life of his people and they will attend his
services."
MODERN METHODS ON A CIRCUIT 21
CENTERING ACTIVITIES IN THE CHURCH
While Mr. Le Roy was helping the farmers with their
land problems, he was laying foundations for a strong
community church organization. He appealed to his people
on this score: "Whatever you are denominationally, while
you live in a community live up with whatever church is
there. All are united in business and education. Unless
we are united in religion we are like so many stragglers.
Without cooperation in religion, there is no more hope for
success than for a disorganized business project." First the
church board was reorganized and meetings were held
monthly, after which the plans for the church program
were laid before the people for discussion and criticism. In
this way the pastor made his parishioners feel that they
counted and were actually necessary participants in the
activities of their church.
Then he went out after leaders and when he found them
he saw to it that they were given their church jobs. A
weekly teacher-training class was introduced in order to
develop efficient leadership among the young people.
Centerton's play life was almost an unknown quantity
until two years ago. Boys and girls were not organized to
do anything — but Mr. Le Roy was determined to make his
church the center of Centerton and he and Mrs. Le Roy
set out to organize every age-group and sex-group for
service not only in the church but in the community.
First an athletic club was formed. Mr. Le Roy said,
while the club was being organized, that he had to trust in
the Lord to find some one to direct the work. A leader
was found in the person of an ex-army man who freely
offered his services during spare time. At first a small
store was used for meetings. It accommodated only about
twenty boys. The membership increased so rapidly that
the club soon outgrew the building and began having drills
in Main Street. But the street was not a satisfactory place,
so the boys went to an apple-packing station generously
placed at their disposal by a prominent citizen. Apparatus,
22 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
including boxing rings, a wrestling mat, punching bags,
trapeze and horizontal bars, were purchased; games, calis-
thenics, running matches became popular ; and once a month
a community social was held. To this affair came even the
older people from miles around. One of the oldest members
of the church said one day, as she watched her grandson
wrestling on the church lawn: "I don't know as I like to
see a relative of mine mixed up in this sort of thing; but
I suppose it's all right after all." And that is the way all
Centerton came to feel about it. It was all right if Mr.
Le Roy said so. The athletic club membership is now sev-
enty-five and a real force in community life.
Young married women and girls organized a group known
as the Pollyannas. This club has interested itself in civic
improvement and cooperates with the athletic club in keep-
ing the village in a sanitary condition. The Pollyannas
have done much toward the beautification of Centerton and
have encouraged their neighbors to plant more flowers.
They met one day with the Mayor and Council with a
petition to have a dilapidated building near the depot torn
down and suggested to the authorities of the Frisco Rail-
road that a packing house be erected in its place for the
shipping of berries and fruit in season. They plan to lay
out a little park on a triangle near the station which has
long been an eyesore, an ungraded plot of ground over-
grown with weeds. With the center of the village thus
transformed, other improvements are sure to follow. The
Pollyannas have also furnished funds for volley-ball,
tennis, and croquet equipment for the church playground.
They meet once a month with the home demonstration
agent who comes from Bentonville to teach them sewing.
This is a real church community club and Mrs. Le Roy
says "it is the prize."
Then there are the Hustlers, an organization of girls
whose program consists of socials and athletics. When
the athletic club is not using the hall, the girls go down
there in bloomers and middies, go through their drills and
do stunts to their hearts' content. They are learning to
stand and breathe properly.
MODERN METHODS ON A CIRCUIT 23
Twenty-eight Scouts found an ideal leader in their
pastor, who teaches them scoutcraft and laws of health;
and who camps and fishes with them every year over at
Osage Mills by the creek.
The Ladies^ Aid furnishes one good reason why an old
resident remarked : "We live at home and board at the same
place." The ladies make doughnuts and dollars. 'They
do things and they don't gossip," is a saying in Centerton.
The Epworth League is well organized, and in addition
to its religious program holds monthly socials. Sometimes
the members drive out four or five miles into the country
for meetings.
THE MAGIC OF NEIGHBORLINESS
In this way barriers are broken down and people forget
whether they belong to town or country. Country homes
are ever at their service for lawn parties, ice cream socials
and good times in general.
One of the greatest influences for tying together town
and country interests was the organization, by the pastor's
wife, of a Community Mission Society. It is made up of all
women interested in the entire parish of the five churches.
Monthly meetings are held in the individual neighborhoods
and union quarterly meetings are held at the time of the
Conference.
A neighborly spirit is the keynote of Mr. Le Roy's
services both in Centerton, the base of the operations, and
out in the open country. For a time he alone ministered
to the entire circuit ; but this past year activities at Centerton
have made it necessary for an assistant pastor, residing in
one of the open country church neighborhoods, to attend to
the work of the outlying districts. This enables Mr. Le Roy
to preach at one open country church once a month, when
he exchanges with the assistant, and each of the churches
can hold at least two regular services a month.
From time to time the country congregations go over
to Centerton to service, or the Centerton people attend one
of the country churches. They get acquainted; and pro-
24 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
grams carried on in both village and country obtain new
life from the exchange of ideas.
Having reorganized the churches, Mr. Le Roy deter-
mined to set them on a firm financial basis. A regular
budget plan was introduced and the first annual every-
member canvass will be held next year. The church sup-
ports the Sunday school at Centerton in the belief that **to
make a Sunday school support itself is too much like treat-
ing it as a stepchild."
MUSIC PLAYS A PART
Emphasis was placed upon the Sunday schools. Study
groups were organized and suitable books were studied and
reviewed. Then came into existence the famous orchestra
that now has seventeen members and is in constant demand
for miles around. The pastor is a lover of music, but when
he suggested the organization of an orchestra many of the
young people who responded could not read the notes for
any instrument and had no choice as to what they would
play.
That orchestra now has six violins, three cornets, a saxo-
phone, which is played by the pastor's daughter ; a clarinet,
trombone, tuba, drum, piano and two 'cellos. The players
are not only learning good music and getting enjoyment out
of their musical education but are giving to Centerton and
surrounding communities what is usually so badly lacking
in the average rural parish. The leader, a professional
musician of wide experience, gives each member two pri-
vate lessons a month, for which each pays $1.00 monthly.
Weekly rehearsals are as eagerly attended as any social
club meetings could possibly be.
For several years a project to organize a singing society
had failed. In 1921, under the leadership of a former
evangelist-singer, new interest in singing began to grow,
and to-day Centerton has a chorus of fifty voices. A girls'
quartette and two or three men's quartettes are trained and
are always in demand at community functions.
In April, 1922, after a successful year with a community
CEXTERTOX'S "fIGHT FANS" WATCH AN EXHIBITION BOUT BY BOYS OF THE
ATHLETIC CLUB
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ORCHESTRA OF SEVENTEEN PIECES
MODERN METHODS ON A CIRCUIT 25
program, a cyclone suddenly hit Centerton and destroyed
the church building, leaving only the new $75 cement steps,
a recent gift of the Ladies' Aid. It was only a little more
than a month later that the leading citizens of the town
completed the digging of the new basement for a new com-
munity church building. They even said regarding the
storm: "It must have been Providence, for we've been
needing a larger building for years." Each organization was
eager to do its bit toward the new church. The Ladies' Aid
chose to be responsible for the furnishing of the basement.
Mr. Le Roy has made his members feel that they have a
very real share in the plans. In the basement there are club-
rooms, social hall and kitchen. The main auditorium, seat-
ing 225 people, is flanked by several separate Sunday school
rooms. The grounds have been carefully laid out so that
playgrounds and picnic space and driveways shall all have
their places. While the new building has been under con-
struction, services have been held in the high school building.
COMMUNITY PROGRAM IDEA SPREADS
The community program has come to stay ; and the coun-
try churches on the circuit have been encouraged by it to
plan community programs of their own. Oakley Chapel at
Broke is raising funds to build a new basement for social
purposes. People of several denominations are working
together in this Broke church. The teacher of the men's
class is a Baptist. Close by is a new, modern school build-
ing, which, together with the church, forms a real progres-
sive community center.
At Mount Hebron there is an unusually large number of
young people. Twenty girls in one Sunday school class
there are clamoring for club activities and the wife of the
assistant pastor has gone to the rescue.
At Council Grove the people are ready to take hold of
anything that makes for the good of the community and
church. They attend services as a matter of course and it
is not an unusual occurrence for the church to be crowded
on a Sunday morning. The Sunday school is large, with
26 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
an attendance sometimes of seventy-five. Daily Bible read-
ing is stressed in many homes in this neighborhood.
Throughout the circuit, if one church has a strawberr}'
festival or other gathering, there will surely be found there
folks from all the other four points.
The program of the community church covers every
part of Centerton's life. The results of the past year show
"a cleaner town, a better understanding among the people,
more people doing church work, more family altars than
ever in the history of the community, and, last but not
least, thirty young men and young women who have given
their lives to the Master." Two hundred and sixty-five
people, 22 per cent, of Centerton's population, are members
of this church ; the total enrollment of the other two churches
in the village being less than one-half this number. The
total enrollment of the entire circuit is 551. Last year there
were altogether fifty additions by confession of faith, while
forty-seven became members by letter. Fifty-one adults and
two infants were baptized.
The community church has become the central radiating
force of Centerton. It has grown strong in giving help to
others. It has, in fact, outgrown its circuit; and hence-
forth will be an independent organization with a full-time
resident pastor. Perhaps Oakley Chapel or the church at
Council Grove may become a nucleus for the building of a
community program. Though Centerton has outgrown its
circuit it has not outgrown its Gospel of Neighborliness !
The friendship of town and country has been permanently
established; and through it five churches in "the apple
orchard of America" have become active, progressive, going
organizations.
Chapter II
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION
THE KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL CHURCH OF
PARMA, IDAHO
A conspicuous example of a denominational community
church made strong, serviceable and self -sup porting by
the will of the community.
The Kirkpatrick Memorial Community Church of Parma,
Idaho, is a church of unusual beginnings. It was not formed
by the coming together of a number of different organiza-
tions, nor by the efforts of a single denominational group to
widen the field of its service, but developed out of a local
community impulse.
The settlers of Parma were forced, almost at the outset,
into a cooperative movement essential to the prosperity of
the little town and its tributary farmlands. The church is
an expression of the community spirit developed by that
experience. But it was the women of Parma, not the men,
who really carried the idea of cooperation over from the
economic field into the church.
Parma is in the lower end of the Boise Valley, in Canyon
County, about four miles from the junction of the Boise and
the Snake rivers. This part of the country was settled
first by miners attracted by the discovery of gold in the
Boise basin. Not satisfied with the work in the mines, they
began to settle on the land and to raise hay and grain.
Then gradually came pioneers from the east, crossing the
plains in canvas wagons in search of new homes. Among
these earliest settlers around the Parma that was to be were
broad-minded men and women who wished to build for the
future, and down through the years have come others like
27
28 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
them. The result is the Parma of to-day, a community
which has accomplished much because it pulls together.
LESSONS IN COOPERATION
Of course, irrigation, without which no land in Parma
community is farmed, gives a steady, every-day lesson in
cooperation. The early settlements were all in a narrow
strip along the river. It was thought that the higher land
and hills never would produce anything but sagebrush.
With irrigation, however, came development. To-day, the
Farmers' Cooperative Ditch, which waters most of the
Parma land, is one of the best managed systems of irriga-
tion in the state, because the directors are public-spirited
men, willing to give of their time without stint.
The question of a church came up early in the history
of the community. In the beginning Parma experienced
various denominational trials: Methodists, Baptists, Chris-
tians, Presbyterians and others, all tried and failed. It
was the usual story. Only those who belonged to the par-
ticular kind of a church making the struggle would be
interested. All the rest were on the side lines watching
the show. An attempt was made at least to keep a Sunday
school going, but there were long stretches of time when
there was nothing whatever in the way of religious ministry.
At last, some of the mothers determined to have a con-
tinuous church organization and a regular Sunday school,
and they invited President W. J. Boone, of the College of
Idaho, in Caldwell, to come down and help them establish
a permanent church. A Presbyterian church was organized
on the seventh day of May, 1899, with thirteen members —
eleven women and two men. There were few, if any,
Presbyterians in this early group, and perhaps for that
very reason people of many denominations found it possible
to agree on this church. The important point is, however,
that from the very first there was a vision of a real com-
munity church. Here was a group of people willing to
sacrifice their denominational connections in order that
the community might have a church. There were objections
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 29
to a union church because there would be no church board
behind it. But the people knew that they needed an organi-
zation "broad enough to get away from denominationalism."
THE FIRST BUILDING
The next problem was a church building. In the fall of
that year a call was issued to all women interested in the
advancement of the community to meet and consider, first,
the ways and means for providing a home for the new
church organization, and, secondly, the question of raising
the moral standards of the village. With the coming of
the railroad, some years previously, the little settlement had
developed into a village, with the drawbacks that usually
accompany the mushroom growth of a frontier community.
A saloon had been started, gambling was not prohibited and
municipal regulations were conspicuous by their absence.
The community was at the mercy of the lawless.
Ten women became the charter members of the Amphic-
tyonic Council, or Council of Neighbors, and made it the
center of cooperation in all matters concerning the general
welfare of the village. The campaign for a church building
seemed a heavy task and meant earnest effort and hard work
for so small a company, but the women were all enthusiastic
and it was they who did most of the soliciting. A general
merchandise store had been started in 1898, and traveling men
were beginning to come in with goods to sell. When these
salesmen received an order, the storekeeper would tell them
of the work for a new church and usually a donation was
forthcoming. Winter was coming on. The women realized
that they would need a stove in their new building when it
was completed and appealed to a hardware firm in Boise.
Not only did the firm send them a stove, but with it a note
praising the grit of a little place the size of Parma in start-
ing a church. There were discouragements naturally, but
in due time and with some help from the mission board,
the church was finished and dedicated without a dollar of
indebtedness.
The real growth of the village began in 1900, with an
so CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
influx of people from the middle west and the east, the
greater proportion coming from Illinois. One man, in
particular, a former resident of Illinois, believed in the
church idea. Previous to their starting, he said to the
cousin who had interested him in going west: "Before we
go out to Idaho to help develop that country, I want a
distinct understanding that we join the church and boost
that too. I do not want to raise my children without a
good church. We all want to get in and help." That man
is now Lieutenant Governor of Idaho. The next February,
eighteen newcomers, representing a number of different de-
nominations, joined the church, which thus received a great
impetus.
BEGINNINGS OF SELF-SUPPORT
Up to this time there had been no resident pastor. There
was preaching once a week, on Sunday night, and the
members paid $100 a year towards the pastor's support.
Owing to its inability to afford a pastor of its own, the
church had been grouped first with the Tucker and later
with the Roswell church. It was felt, however, that the
church needed a preacher who would live in the community,
and by "raking and scraping and planning," as one who
joined at that time described it, the members finally got
$900 pledged for a full-time minister. At the same time
the church became self-supporting, relinquishing the home
mission aid it had previously received.
The people of Parma, as has been seen, had wanted a
community church from the first and the realization of their
ideal was finally made possible by the generosity of a Mrs.
Kirkpatrick who, after the war, offered $20,000 towards a
new building. It was agreed, under the leadership of the
Rev. Paul Gauss, who had come to the pastorate in 1917,
that the new church should be more than ever a real com-
munity church, though still retaining its Presbyterian alle-
giance. The pastor pointed out that if the community idea
was to be carried out, the members of the United Presby-
terian Church, which had been started some years previ-
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 31]
ously, must be invited to join. The situation was not with-
out delicacy, but all difficulties were tactfully overcome,
most of the members of the United Presbyterian Church
were transferred to the new community church and all of
the elders of the smaller organization who joined the larger
received similar office. The new church plant, including
a community house, was completed and dedicated on October
31, 1920, and in the two years following this dedication the
number of members nearly doubled.
A VILLAGE CHURCH PLANNED TO MEET VILLAGE NEEDS
This is indeed a church of the open door, for any organi-
zation or individual can use any part of the church or com-
munity house without charge. It is a quiet, practical place
of service. The substantial church building is of white
brick and stone, with stained glass windows. The Sunday
school assembly room is in the basement. Here also are
classrooms which can all be thrown open, making, with the
assembly room, a dining-room large enough to seat two
hundred and twenty-five people. The kitchen, in the fur-
nishing of which all the women's organizations in the church
helped, is equipped with everything a kitchen should have —
electric range, tables, shelves, cabinets, sink and a water
heater. Six dozen of everything needed for serving meals
and refreshments are stowed away in its drawers and
shelves.
There are classrooms in the gallery of the main audi-
torium and in the space beneath, making, with those in the
basement, sixteen in all. The restful tan and brown audi-
torium upstairs seats two hundred, but with the gallery and
the classrooms below the gallery, seats may be placed for
six hundred. All large gatherings such as farm meetings,
the Lyceum lecture courses and the Chautauqua, are held
in the church building, the community house filling other
needs. Probably the most unusual feature of this church
is its baptistry, the very presence of which in a nominally
Presbyterian church indicates the wide hospitality that is
offered. The architect was opposed to this being put in,
32 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
but the pastor and the building committee were convinced
of the very real need for it, for this is a church not simply
of Presbyterians.
The church equipment includes a stereopticon and re-
flectoscope, but not a moving-picture machine. The pastor
has an unwritten agreement with the local movie magnate
that, so long as he does not run pictures on Sunday night
and leaves poor pictures alone, the church will not compete
with him. This is not an agreement that the church will
not buy a moving-picture machine, but only that it will not
run pictures on regular show nights. The result of the
agreement is clean movies in Parma, and a dark moving-
picture house on Sunday nights.
The tan-colored community house stands beside the
church, a well-kept lawn and hedge between them. Behind
are two graveled tennis courts. In the basement of this
building, which measures thirty-eight feet by sixty feet, is
the gymnasium, which has a basketball floor, handball courts
bowling alley and balcony. The gymnasium is used by
young and old, high school and graded school, Boy Scouts
and Camp Fire Girls, and is kept in order for constant use.
It has gymnasium mats and horse, basketball, volley-ball and
bowling-alley equipment. There are shower baths for men
and boys across the hall and for girls upstairs. On the land-
ing going upstairs is a glass-enclosed cabinet where the out-
side "jackets" of new books in the library are posted. Up-
stairs, a number of rooms open from a central hall, one of
which is the girls' clubroom, cozily furnished with leather
couch, wicker chairs and a blue and brown rug.
There is a pleasant room where boys play checkers and
other games by the hour on long winter evenings. A small
assembly room is nominally the "Friendly Men's Room,"
but other organizations may use it, commercial, civic, in-
spirational, educational and philanthropic meetings of every
kind being held there. The Lettuce Growers' Association
even "slipped over" a meeting in this room one Sunday
afternoon. The public library of the village, which was
started in an early day by the Amphictyonic Council, has
its home in the community house, the village paying a small
KIRKPATRICK MEMORIAL COMMUNITY CHURCH
^s^
BOY SCOUTS OF THE PARMA TROOP ABOUT TO START ON A CAMPING TRIP
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 33
rent. Next to the library is the Radio room, where every
night an absorbed audience of boys, members of the Radio
Sunday School Class and their buddies, gather to "listen
in." Lastly, there is the pastor's study and office, undoubt-
edly the busiest room of all. The community house is the
one common meeting place in Parma. Open every day in
the week, it is the center of the life of the village, thirty-
five thousand visitors passing through its door annually.
The land owned by the church is valued at $2,300, the
church building at $34,000 and the community building at
$17,000. The pleasant bungalow manse is valued at $3,000.
There is a $15,000 church debt to the Presbyterian Board
of Church Erection on which 4 per cent, interest is paid,
and a certain amount of which is paid off every year. A
total amount of $32,000 insurance is carried — $7,500 on the
community building and $24,000 on the church.
HOW THE BILLS ARE PAID
The church is supported by practically the entire com-
munity, the whole project being financed by an annual com-
munity canvass. No money-making schemes, such as
bazaars or socials with a price attached, are employed, nor
is a charge made for any meetings held in the church. That
is against the policy of the church. Everything is covered
by the budget. It is even the ideal of the church to include
the entire expense of the Sunday school in the church
budget, so that the Sunday school may give all the money
it raises to benevolences.
A definite time is set apart in the program of the year
for the budget drive. The three boards of the church,
Session, Trustees and Deacons, meet and formulate budgets
of local expense and of benevolence. The former contains
the following items: pastor's salary, janitor's salary, fuel,
light, Sunday school, telephone, printing, choir leader and
music, manse note, insurance, buildings, upkeep, water and
miscellaneous.
A special Sunday is appointed for the budget drive.
Preparatory work is done from the pulpit for several Sun-
S4 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
days beforehand, and people are informed as to the date of
the canvass through a letter to them during the week pre-
ceding, a card being enclosed presenting the amounts needed.
Last year an advertisement on "What the Budget Means"
appeared in the Parma Review the week before the canvass
and was then printed separately and handed out at church
services.
The budget is presented to the congregation publicly on
the Sunday morning of the canvass. No one is solicited at
that or any other service. The people who are to make
the canvass, about thirty-five in all, meet at two o'clock
that afternoon. The details of the work are explained to
them and any special matters pertaining to the solicitation.
They then go out in teams of two, with pledge cards on
which is printed "This pledge is purely voluntary and may
be recalled at any time by giving notice." The village and
the surrounding country directly tributary to Parma and
included in Parma community are divided into districts for
this "every resident" community canvass. No family is
passed by unless it is helping to support one of the two other
churches in the village — the Catholic, which has seventy-
five members, or the Nazarene with nineteen resident mem-
bers, or one of the three small country churches in the area
tributary to Parma. Every one else is seen. The can-
vassers explain that the budget covers the entire work of
the church — salaries, incidental expenses and community
house operating expenses for the coming year, as well as
benevolences; and that if the budget is raised, no further
appeals for any of this work will be made through the year.
They also explain that the church treasurer will remit
benevolence money to any denominational board desired.
MEMBERSHIP — ^DIVERSIFIED BUT UNITED
The membership of the Parma Church is significant of
the breadth of its appeal. Among the four hundred and
fifteen members are to be found representatives of sixteen
different denominations or sects: Methodist, Lutheran,
Christian, Baptist, Congregational, Dutch Reformed, United
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 35
Brethren, Episcopal, Church of the Brethren, Nazarenes,
Church of England, Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Sal-
vation Army, Catholic and Mormon. The ideal of the
pastor is to make all Protestants feel, when they join this
community church that they are not becoming Presby-
terians; they are retaining whatever denominational alle-
giance they may have professed in the past, or may revert
to in the future, but for the time being, so long as they
are living in Parma, they are members of a church that is
doing the work of the Kingdom in that community. The
way the pastor put the matter to a Disciple who joined
the church was that he wanted the man's membership not
to make him a Presbyterian but to make him a better Dis-
ciple, and that he would feel disappointed if, when at any
time he left Parma and went to a place where he found a
Christian church, he failed to join it.
This fellowship in the Parma church of men and women
of all denominations is made possible because the emphasis
is placed upon those things which all have in common, while
special denominational beliefs are kept in the background.
"There is," the pastor declared, "enough of the Gospel of
Christ universally accepted to make a vital appeal. The
minister who tries to ride theological hobbies will not be a
success in a small town community church. The moment
you get a man with a hobby you will find some one in the
audience to disagree with him. I don't believe, for in-
stance, that a dozen people in this community know whether
I am a fundamentalist or not. I don't preach special doc-
trines but I do preach the Kingdom of God as well as I
know how." The Parma church, however, goes farther than
mere avoidance of possible points of difference. It en-
deavors in a positive manner to make members of different
denominations feel as much at home as possible. Thus, as
has been seen, for the sake of its immersionist members a
baptistry was installed at considerable expense; for mem-
bers of liturgical denominations there is a greater frequency
of communion than is usual in most Presbyterian churches,
while various types of prayer meetings are adapted to the
needs of various groups of members.
36 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
A more detailed analysis of the membership only em-
phasizes the wide appeal of this church. Here is no marked
disproportion between the sexes, since men make up 44 per
cent, of the total membership. Nor, as is so frequently
found, is the membership overweighted with older age
groups. Here one-fourth of the members are less than
twenty-one years of age. Again, the common distinction be-
tween active and inactive members is hardly applicable here.
Of the three hundred and forty-nine resident members all
but seventeen take an active part in the church life and work.
The wide reach of the church is indicated by the fact that
forty-seven of its one hundred and sixty-seven member-
families live more than one mile distant.
Results like these are not brought about by accident.
The membership is carefully shepherded according to defi-
nite plan. The church parish is divided into nineteen sepa-
rate groups and each group has its leader. Twice a year
these group leaders make a survey of the entire community,
getting a record of each person's church interest. A card
is made out and kept up to date for each family in the
community. The group leaders keep in personal touch with
the people in their respective groups by calling frequently
and by inviting them to all special meetings. If they hear
any complaints by members, whether trivial or otherwise,
they report them at once so that the matter may be fol-
lowed up and adjusted immediately.
SYSTEMATIC EVANGELISM
Evangelism is carried on quietly, but with enthusiasm.
The church members make it a definite responsibility of
their own to bring in those who are not in the church.
A farmer, approaching middle age, joined the church last
year. His family were church members but he had never
joined. He was brought into the church simply by a group
of men seeing him often, explaining what the church and
their belief meant to them, telling him why they felt a man
should get into the church, showing him he was wanted.
Evangelistic meetings are never held more frequently than
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 37
once a year, nor for twelve years has any outside help been
called in. On the whole, it seems to this church the better
plan to manage and carry on its own meetings. Too often
sensationalism is the dominant note struck by an evangelist
imported from the outside. Evangelism in Parma, the
members feel, is their own job. The people to be brought
into the church are their own friends and neighbors. Why
send for a stranger to reason with them ? Careful prepara-
tion precedes the meetings. The matter is presented to the
congregation, dates are announced and people are asked to
keep that period free. On Sunday evenings from January
to Easter, the service is made particularly evangelistic and
invitation is given to those who are willing to make a new
stand for Jesus Christ. Each Sunday evening those who
made their declaration the week before are received into
church membership, and there is constant opportunity for
reconsecration of those that are already members. A letter
concerning these meetings, containing practical suggestions
as to how each individual can contribute to their success, is
sent out early in January.
The regular series of meetings comes the last two weeks
in March. They are well advertised by paid advertise-
ments, pamphlets, bulletin boards and personal invitations.
"The Life and Purpose of the Church" was the general topic
at a recent series of meetings. The pastor did the preach-
ing. The choir leader led the singing. The group leaders
gave the general invitation. Personal work was carried on
through the period of meetings by a special Personal Work
Committee, which received a list of names from the pastor,
talked privately with each person quietly, and then reported
back to the pastor, leaving him to complete the work. These
meetings are well conducted and accomplish much. But the
real secret of the success of this church in winning new
members is that evangelism is looked upon by the members
and the pastor as an "every-day" rather than as a "once-
a-year" job.
S8 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
REGULAR RELIGIOUS MINISTRY
The work of the church can be grouped almost entirely
under four heads which are keynotes in its program. These
are Evangelization, Social Service, Missionary Work, and
Religious Education. The Community House has its place
under two heads of this program — chiefly under Social
Service, of which the large end is recreation, but also under
Religious Education.
The morning and evening services held each Sunday have
an average attendance respectively of one hundred and fifty
and one hundred and seventy-five. From thirty to thirty-
five were attending in the evening when Mr. Gauss came.
He has brought the average attendance up to one hundred
and seventy-five by emphasizing that service and by adver-
tising his themes. Thirty per cent, of the morning audi-
ence are men ; 40 per cent, at night are men. Women make
up 40 per cent, of the attendance at both services. In the
morning, 15 per cent, of the audience are young people;
at night, 20 per cent. Children make up 15 per cent, of the
morning audience, and for their benefit there is a children's
sermon. Ten per cent, of the audience in the morning and
20 per cent, at night are non-church members.
Bible school comes at ten o'clock, before the morning
service, and is so well attended that the classes overflow into
the community house. Music is furnished by the regular
Sunday school orchestra, and the singing is enthusiastic.
Out of a total enrollment of three hundred and fifty-five,
the average attendance is two hundred and twelve. Eleven
of the nineteen classes are organized, and every class has
a separate meeting place. Thirty-five names are on the
Cradle Roll, and forty on that of the Home Department,
which was started fourteen years ago with three members.
Regular teachers' meetings are held once a month, and
the course for the Teachers' Training Class is varied from
year to year to avoid monotony. This year's plan embraces
a series of six teachers' conferences at which outside
speakers talk along special lines, a discussion following.
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 39
These six conferences come after a supper for the teachers
on Wednesday nights.
A Vacation Bible School with six classes was held last
summer for the first time, general invitation being extended
to all the children in the village. The course included Bible
instruction and craft work, and at the end of it came "com-
mencement," with a demonstration of the work done, fol-
lowed by a picnic the next day. Fifty-two children remained
throughout the two weeks.
Two classes of the Bible school stand out as distinct
organizations of the church. The Loyal Sisters' Bible Class
of seventy-two members does the work of a Ladies' Aid
Society, and the Friendly Men's class of sixty-five occupies
the place of a Brotherhood. Both of these organizations
have regular class sessions every Sunday and a business
meeting once a month.
Two nights in the week, the Friendly Men's Room in the
Community House is reserved for choir practice. The
church music is taken care of by a regular paid choir leader.
Here again the church and the school and the village work
together. The choir leader who has been there nine years
is also the music director of the village schools and of sev-
eral country schools.
All church meetings and events are well advertised. The
church believes in letting every one know everything that is
going on. The publicity is conducted on a sort of give and
take plan. Mr. Gauss will write up a wedding for the
editor and the editor, in turn, will give him space for pub-
licity. At one time, Mr. Gauss carried on the paper for
six weeks while the editor was away. Letters and postals
are used for anouncements of special meetings and special
issues before the church. Paid advertisements are often put
in the paper. Other advertising devices are bulletin boards,
big charts, window cards and dodgers. One Sunday night a
month is "request service," a request being made for sug-
gestions of definite themes for that night.
40 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
ORGANIZATIONS ON THE JOB
Outside of the Sunday school, there are eleven church
organizations with a total enrollment of three hundred and
seventy-three. One hundred and fifty-six of the members
are women over eighteen. The rest are under that age;
one hundred and six being boys and one hundred and eleven
girls. About one-third of the total number live in the coun-
try. The church is not overorganized. There is a place
for every one. But no organization is allowed to function
after it has outlived its usefulness.
The total receipts of the organizations amounted to
$1,042.43 last year; the total expenditures were $1,008.15.
A total of $465.20 was devoted to missions (including mis-
sion study books) and $176.60 to other benevolences and
for local charity.
All of the organizations have their various committees.
One of the most helpful things in the working of these
organizations is the plan of "sponsoring," by which each
older organization "sponsors" a younger one. The Ladies'
Missionary Society, for example, "sponsors" the Senior
Christian Endeavor Society, and because last year the young
people had a hard time collecting money for refreshments,
the women are now providing the refreshments for their
socials. The plan of sponsoring is helpful to both parties :
it steadies the younger organizations and it brings the older
groups into contact with the younger.
It is true, of course, that Parma has been unusually for-
tunate in her pastors. Mr. Gauss' predecessor, Mr. Griffin,
made a notable record during the six years of his pastorate
in organizing and developing the spirit of loyalty to the
church. Mr. Gauss has carried on and amplified the work
so ably begun, infusing it with the spirit of his own en-
thusiasm. Nevertheless, the feature that calls for most
emphasis in the Kirkpatrick Memorial Church of Parma Is
that it is in no sense a "one-man" enterprise. No rural
church is better adapted to profit from the energy and en-
thusiasm of its pastor, but the driving force behind the
church is the community itself and the cooperative spirit
A CASE OF SELF-DETERMINATION 41
which has developed in the fcommunity. The people of
Parma, as this story has shown, knew precisely the kind of
church that they wanted and they did not rest until they
got it. They know also precisely the kind of pastor that
they want, and they would be satisfied with no man who fell
short of their standard. For these reasons the church at
Parma may perhaps be best described as the outstanding
instance in rural America of a community's self-determina-
tion in its religious affairs.
Chapter III
MUCH IN LITTLE
CANOGA, N. Y.
Proof positive that even in a small community, which can
never grow larger, the church can yet grow in service.
The little hamlet of Canoga, in Seneca County, New
York, is picturesquely situated on the northwestern point
of Cayuga Lake. It is a small agricultural community of
about four hundred souls, with twenty-five families living
in as many homes built about its only street. Its public
buildings comprise the Presbyterian Church, the Town Hall,
the District School and the Community House. The name
Canoga, or "Sweet Water," is derived from the spring just
outside the hamlet, where Iroquois Indians used to camp,
and near by stands a monument to the memory of Red
Jacket, a Seneca chief famous in Revolutionary days. Soon
after the Revolution settlers started coming from New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts, grad-
ually displacing the Indians who had formerly cultivated
the region, and by the late 'fifties of the last century the
white men had developed a prosperous farming community.
That, in brief, is the whole story of Canoga, and in the
past sixty or seventy years there has been little to add to
it. The industrial development, through railroads and a
canal, of Seneca Falls, seven miles away, effectually ar-
rested the growth of its smaller neighbor. Canoga re-
mains to-day what it has always been — a little hamlet en-
tirely engrossed in agriculture. The march of progress
seems to have passed it by ; its farmers go to Seneca Falls
to do their trading ; its population has declined and is likely
to grow smaller rather than larger ; the best it can hope for
42
MUCH IN LITTLE 43
is a continuation of its present modest competence as a
farming community.
THE DILEMMA OF THE SMALL CHURCH
There was a time, before the industrial revolution, which
exalted Seneca Falls and depressed Canoga, when the little
hamlet supported two churches, a Methodist and a Pres-
byterian ; but by 1919 all that was left of the former were
some ruins blackened by fire, while the latter stood bleak,
unpainted and almost forgotten by its congregation.
Canoga, in fact, presents in rather an acute form a re-
ligious problem that is a commonplace of rural America.
Here was a little place, apparently too small to support a
church with a full-time minister, and with no hope of in-
creased population. What could it do about its spiritual
life?
There are two obvious answers to that constantly re-
curring question. One is a circuit or a student ministry,
perhaps assisted by a minimum amount of aid from the
home mission board; the other is home mission aid suffi-
cient to make possible a full-time minister. Canoga, for
some years, had chosen, rather half-heartedly, the former
answer. Since 1825, thirty-one ministers had served the
Presbyterian church, and only five of them had been in-
stalled or ordained. Of late years students from Auburn
Seminary had conducted services at irregular intervals, this
spasmodic ministry being partially supported by an annual
grant of $100 from the home mission board. Beyond the
privileges of irregular Sunday worship, the church had no
organization, nor had it any regular budget for main-
tenance. For the year 1917-18 the total contributions for
benevolences amounted to sixteen dollars, while $200 was
raised by the church membership to pay for the irregular
services of its student-pastors.
It was a discouraging situation, and it was hardly sur-
prising that the two dozen members listlessly regarded a
full-time ministry for their church as a possibility too re-
mote to be worthy of serious consideration. They may have
44 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
hoped one day to be able to supply their church not only
with the coat of paint it so sorely needed but also with
a cellar and a furnace, which would have added considerably
to the attractions of the occasional winter services ; but for
a resident, full-time minister it is safe to say they had
never even dared to hope. The privilege of instilling this
hope into the hearts of the people of Canoga was reserved
for the last of the long line of student-pastors.
A FULL-TIME PASTOR
During the summer that he served as the incumbent of
Canoga church, young Howard Mickelsen, a student of
Auburn Seminary, became interested in the place and the
people. A farmer's son himself, he loved the land and knew
the way to the hearts of an agricultural community. To his
enthusiasm there seemed nothing strange or impossible in
the idea of this picturesque little hamlet, with its four hun-
dred souls and its historic past, being ministered to by a
permanent, resident pastor. Accordingly, in the spring of
1919, Mr. Mickelsen, having graduated and married, went
to the home mission board of the Presbyterian Church and
asked for a grant which should make it possible for him to
undertake the pastorate of the church at Canoga. The
board granted $400, and young Mickelsen took up the work
that he had chosen.
In the first year of Mr. Mickelsen's full-time pastorate
the thirty-six members of the church raised $600 or $16.66
per capita. During 1920-21 the membership increased to
forty-three and the budget to $800 or $18.37 per capita.
During 1921-22 the membership climbed to seventy-five and
the budget to $1,365 or $18.20 per capita. Canoga doubled
its contribution by doubling its membership. While in 1921
it contributed $1,365 against $800 of the preceding year,
yet the per capita share was seventeen cents less in 1921. In
other words, while it is a poor community and has no pros-
pect of becoming richer, yet it increased its budget by in-
creasing its membership and thereby reduced the average per
capita contribution.
^^m*<K^M%,^m
T"l<-?^^k^r^>S4M:
THE BOY SCOUT FLOAT AT CANOGA S FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION
1 ^^^^k^hh^^^^^'^/I^L'^ 'S^^K^^ jKi^Ib'
'i
\
I'^S^^pifli
,1
l-l 'i^iv ^'fi
- :' ~ '-: W ' r._.. -.:* jf"
THE LITTLE COMMUNITY, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH,
A FLOURISHING DRAMATIC ASSOCL\TION
SUPPORTS
MUCH IN LITTLE 45
When the pastor first laid the budget of $600 before the
church in 1919, his tiny congregation said: "It can't be
done." With preliminary training in the duties of stew-
ardship, however, the congregation was prepared for the
every-member canvass, and before the day of the canvass
one-fourth of the church membership had signed steward-
ship cards. Then, one Sunday morning, Canoga was sur-
prised to find that it had raised more than its quota for the
church as well as special funds for the Red Cross, the
China Famine Fund and local relief.
FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH
Going from one phase of organization to another the
Canoga congregation next considered a Ladies' Aid Society.
But Canoga had no vestige of activity that could be so
utilized. Invitations were accordingly sent asking all the
women in the community to meet at the parsonage. Twenty
responded, and were duly organized under an efficient presi-
dent. The Ladies' Aid Society had enough to occupy it
after the long period of neglect the church had known.
This organization provided Canoga church with an indi-
vidual communion set, new hymnals and a furnace. The
church was painted for the first time in many years. The
Ladies' Aid also encouraged community interest in dra-
matics, and plays were staged not only in Canoga but in
three neighboring towns and return engagements were
booked. This society also conducted a church bazaar that
netted $225. During the summer the beautiful Lake Cayuga
at their doors provided an ideal playground for the church
members, and shore suppers and picnics participated in by
the congregation as a corporate religious body became a
regular part of community life.
MEN AND women's ORGANIZATIONS
If Canoga's size is predetermined by outside economic
influences, there are no limits to the activities of its church
members under the broad, constructive policy of its newest
46 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
pastor. The physical content of the one-room church build-
ing was the first index to the increased activities of its
members. It suddenly became too small for the various
meetings, and while there were no available funds for the
ambitious project yet the congregation began to think of
a community house. A sad reminder of economic decay in
Canoga was an empty, well-built two-story building of brick,
formerly a store, which lent itself ideally to the purpose.
While the Geneva Presbytery was being entertained in
Canoga the visitors heard of the desire of their hosts and
presented them with $700. The first floor of the building
was divided into a kitchen and a larger room with a mov-
able platform and chairs. The upper story, with a thirteen
foot ceiling, was reserved for basketball.
The men of Canoga parish were not to be surpassed by
the women. Besides supporting the new program they or-
ganized themselves into a Bible Class with a membership
of fourteen, after they felt they had outgrown a large mixed
class under their capable leader. It is to the Men's Sunday
School Class that the church owes its basement with a
cement floor, as well as the cement walk outside the build-
ing. This class has successfully linked the life of the com-
munity to the church by arranging meetings in the com-
munity house to popularize the work of the Farm Bureau.
About the same time another example was furnished by
a community leader whose hobby is farming on the latest
scientific principles. This progressive leader employed a
trained farmer, from the Agricultural Department of Cor-
nell University at Ithaca, to take charge and to cooperate
with the County Agent. This demonstration of the ways
and means of up-to-date agriculture, of improving and in-
creasing the output of a typical Canoga farm will have
its influence in the community. The County Agent has ex-
pressed his expert opinion that Canoga*s ideal situation be-
tween Cayuga and Seneca lakes dowers the little farming
hamlet with fertile soil. This advantage promises a future
development that is in keeping with Canoga's economic life,
which may find the proximity of a large urban center a boon
instead of a menace.
MUCH IN LITTLE 47
THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SHARE
In these various economic and social ways leaders have
emerged in the little community to link its secular life with
that of its church. But having enlisted the support and
loyalty of the elders in the hamlet the pastor turned his
attention to that important nucleus, the younger generation.
For the first time Canoga found its church offering a con-
tinuous, well-organized Sunday school, with age and sex
groups that would ensure a supply of leaders. The Sunday
school to-day has four organized departments with graded
lessons, a three-year training course for teachers, and a
Home Department for invalids and those unable to attend.
The Sunday school has an enrollment of eighty-four of all
ages against the adult membership of the church which
amounts to seventy-five.
The pastor has also utilized his religious organization for
social and recreational purposes. Nothing was easier than
to enroll the boy's Sunday school class into a Scout Troop,
or for the pastor's wife to organize the girl's class into the
Bluebird Club. The Boy Scout Troop of fourteen members,
and the Bluebirds with nineteen, constitute the nucleus of
all the social activities of the young folks. In the Christian
Endeavor Society a membership of forty brings these two
clubs into contact with the rest of the junior church mem-
bers, and as a body they arrange suppers, special picnics,
athletic events and financial campaigns as their share of the
church program. The funds derived from one of the ban-
quets has enabled them to send delegates to a Young People's
Conference.
THE CHURCH LEADS THE COMMUNITY
With the church as a touchstone for the life of Canoga
it is natural to find the community availing itself of the
church's powers of organization. The community now
takes part in socials, lake-side picnics, dramatics, athletics
and economic conferences that concern the needs of the
sole industry of Canoga. A notable social event was the
48 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Fourth of July celebration, when a parade of floats deco-
rated by the church and community represented the mani-
fold activities of all ages and groups in Canoga. The first
motion-picture exhibit in Canoga was shown on a screen
stretched along the wall of the church community house,
and proved an attraction for people living in all the neigh-
boring villages. The experiment has worked. Neither the
people nor the home mission board would go back to the
old plan of hit-or-miss preachings. It is worth while for
the people, the minister and the board to cooperate in mak-
ing the church central as it now is in Canoga's life.
This inspiring story of service to its community by the
church is one of humble and small beginnings. Canoga had
reached a stage when it was content to hold itself together
in an economic way, with no future of any sort, with an
uninspiring present. But the sudden revival of its church
has put a new spirit into the community. Even its agricul-
tural assets may look to increase in value with the adoption
of scientific farming methods. What the church has done
for Canoga the community may now learn to do for itself.
If Canoga once felt hampered and depressed by larger and
more flourishing neighbors, her church has now taught her
to use that rich and large service which brings perfect
freedom.
Chapter IV
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS
BINGHAM CANYON, UTAH
The story of a drab rural-industrial community and of what
one church has accomplished, especially for the boys,
in the biggest copper camp in the world.
In the agricultural community, men live on the land be-
cause they love it. The population is usually unshifting
and stable, except for some of the young people who "seek
their acres of diamonds" in the city. A certain spirit of
community pride is in the air and leading citizens are found
encouraging their people to make their "home town" a better
place to live in. In such a community a church may grow
and become the center of all activity. It knows its people
and can depend upon them from year to year. But what
of the church in a rural-industrial mining community that is
here to-day and gone to-morrow — in population as shifting
as is the tide? Men live there not because they want to.
They care nothing for civic betterment. They come to dig
and to get out. They have no ties, no responsibility, no
permanent desire for a better place to live in. If the mines
here close, others are opened elsewhere; and almost over-
night, perhaps 80 per cent, of the population moves away.
On such a foundation what kind of a church can be built?
The Methodist church of Bingham Canyon knows only too
well.
"Bingham Canyon is the toughest town in Utah," men of
the canyon said, and they said it proudly. This greatest
copper camp in the world lies deep in a narrow gorge of
the Oquirrh Mountains, twenty miles south of Salt Lake
City. Along the one street that snakes its crazy way for
49
50 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
thirteen miles through the canyon live the nine thousand in-
habitants, one-half of whom are foreigners and 30 per cent.
Mormons.
On either side of the canyon rise bald, brown peaks,
some six thousand feet above sea level, and on their tree-
less slopes great mining corporations are engaged in literally
"moving mountains." Continuous terrific blastings loosen
thousands of tons at one bombardment. High above the
dismal town on a cable reaching from Bingham to the
smelter of Garfield eight miles away, the ore buckets con-
tinually ply forth and back. The railroad, with its high
trestles and its two hundred miles of trackage winding about
and crosscutting the mountains looks like bands around the
peaks; the engines and cars on the upper levels seem just
toy trains and the men mere pigmies.
When one visits the camp for the first time, having
traveled through the fertile irrigated lands of the beautiful
Salt Lake Valley, with its fine crops, orchards, and lines of
tall, slender poplar trees, one is at first overcome by the
strange, austere raw wildness of the place. The huddled
rows and tiers of little unpainted tumble-down shacks look
as if they might have been hurled down from the moun-
tains in chaotic confusion and been fortunate enough to
have lodged somehow in the sands right side up. Between
the rows of houses are steep wooden steps, some of them
making one almost dizzy to climb. Backyards are gaudy
with a variety of apparel strung along on sagging, over-
worked clotheslines. The doorways of the front row of
houses along Main Street open onto the very sidewalk.
The gorge is less than three hundred feet wide and the
street in some places is so narrow that autos can hardly pass
one another. Here and there, where the mines have hurled
great heaps of rocks and dirt down the gully, huge walls of
log cribbing have been thrown up to keep it from falling
into Main Street. Pool-rooms, homes, city hall, post office,
more homes, cribbing, movie-theaters, restaurants, stores —
all are shuffled in together. There are no lawns, no yards,
no trees nor gardens, nor any places for them. Along the
street on one side, under the three- foot board sidewalk, runs
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS 51
Bingham Creek, a narrow coppery stream that rushes down
through the canyon, serving as a sewer for the camp and
as a bathing place for the numerous pigs that run loose in
Lower Bingham;, and becoming, in the spring, a torrent that
strikes terror among the people when houses are wrecked
by its treacherous floods, great gutters and holes are gorged
out of the road, and lives endangered.
A FLEETING CONGREGATION
In 1919 Bingham was a "wide open" town where poverty
was eating its way into the hearts of men. Gambling, card-
playing, vice and drinking were all prevalent; gangs of
boys were perpetrating all sorts of crimes, with head-
quarters in an abandoned mine tunnel not a mile from the
Methodist Episcopal Church. And the church itself? It's
building was new but scarcely better than a barn — just a
two-story, gray, ugly structure with an auditorium seating
one hundred and fifty and on the first floor a bleak little
study, a social room whose only modern conveniences were
electric lights, a drinking fountain and a very small kitchen.
Next door, an old shack with two dark rooms — dark because
a mountain of dirt backed up to them — had until then served
as a parsonage — a ramshackle cabin with two smelly damp
rooms, wedged in between the church and the mine dump-
heap.
A new parsonage was being built just behind the church,
but to enter it one must go through the church, for the back
door of the church is only eight feet from the front door
of the manse, and the only place from which a picture can
be taken of it is the roof of the church or the side of
the mountain. In this church there were, in 1919, four
active members, one with a broken hip. On the church roll
there were forty-six names and thirty-three of them were
those of persons who no longer lived in the community.
There were six members living in outlying districts who as-
sisted in neighborhood Sunday school work but who never
got to church. More than half the rest frankly admitted
they were no longer living Christian lives.
52 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
There was no systematic handling of church funds. No
attempt was being made to reach foreigners and no clubs or
societies were organized for sociability or service among
the various groups. The church was practically a dead or-
ganization in the heart of an indifferent, unwieldy parish.
Added to these difficulties the mines were running on a
three-shift schedule, so that men worked Sundays as well
as week days and at night as by day. The population was
made up of cliques and non-cooperative groups that were
as shifting as the sands of the Sahara.
THE NEED TO REACH THE BOYS
Into this treeless camp, with all its bitterness, roughness,
restlessness and indifference, with its lack of stability and
ideals, came the Rev. Lester P. Fagen, pastor, painter, na-
ture lover, authority on birds and trees and a student of
natural science and sociology — a man of dynamic personality
and a born "builder of souls," unafraid of the truth, a
trained and experienced man among men. The first de-
cision he made as he surveyed the situation was that what-
ever else he accomplished he must in some way reach the
hoys, and in spite of the barriers that looked as high as the
Oquirrh peaks about him, he set out to "break through."
Side by side with the miners who went daily to dig out
copper underground went Mr. Fagen to dig out boys—^
throughout the length of the canyon.
And while he was getting acquainted he was beginning
the reorganization of his church, which was to become
known as the "House of Happiness." Seven weeks of cot-
tage prayer meetings were held, after which a great revival
took place. At the beginning, forty were converted and
twenty-two became church members. Later, forty more
were converted and more than a score joined the church on
confession of faith.
Meanwhile the new parsonage had been completed and
Mr. and Mrs. Fagen kept open house with special invita-
tions to the boys of the canyon. A systematic handling of
finances was introduced and an every-member canvass was
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS 53
made. All money has ever since been raised by a regular
budget system and duplex envelopes are used. Five years
ago the total amount raised for benevolences v^as $91, but
in 1922 it amounted to $731. Salaries in 1917 were only
$546; last year the figure was $1,739. To interest Bingham
Canyon in a get-together program, a direct appeal was made
to every group — old and young, men, women, boys, girls,
little folks and foreigners. Wherever the pastor found a
common interest even smoldering, he formed an organi-
zation around it. He found a group of boys and girls going
off Sunday afternoons and taking pictures, some of them
neither artistic nor particularly desirable. One day he asked
them how they would like to have a camera club. They at
once grew enthusiastic ; the group was organized and began
to learn to do expert photography, to take freak pictures and
to make slides.
Mr. Fagen is extremely adept at character-reading, and
last year he formed a study group in this subject, among
those interested being several school teachers, who in turn
told their pupils about it. Before he knew it, the pastor
was swamped by appeals for interviews. Pupils were even
excused during leisure periods to go from the school to
the pastor's study. This character class was the indirect
means of bringing to him every senior and junior and more
than half the rest of the high school pupils. Mormons
came and Roman Catholics and children of various denomi-
nations, and for weeks every minute of every available hour
was filled with these interviews. The problem of the young
people was in a fair way to solution.
Meanwhile the Ladies' Aid and the Mission Society were
reorganized and both began to raise money for carrying on
their respective work. The two deaconesses and the assist-
ant parish worker, who are all members of the church staflf,
began classes in sewing, basketry and whittling.
And chief of all — the Boy Scouts were organized. One
by one the boys of the canyon became interested, for Mr.
Fagen is an experienced scout master. Many of the boys
of the old tunnel gang became scouts; and in two years
twenty-four of them became church members. Girl Scouts,
54 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Mountain Boys and Pioneer Girls were also organized and
are the most active young people's groups of the church.
Regular weekly athletic periods are conducted under Mr,
Fagen's leadership. Once a year a demonstration week is
observed when the people of the canyon are shown what
the boys can do. There are drills and yells, cheers and
scout craft exhibitions. Mr. Fagen says his scouts are his
best advertisers.
THE WAY TO THE PROMISED LAND
After the pastor had his scouts ready for action he was
without any place to hike with them. To study nature
where there were no trees was impossible. Camping trips
must be taken ; but no suitable camp ground was to be found
in this dingy copper camp. Then came a solution which
was a triumph in every way. On the other side of West
Mountain was Middle Canyon, a wild, green country of
pines, quaking aspens and alders, where a stream wound
its way through a beautiful valley, where berries grew abun-
dantly and belonged to whoever might pick them.
There also were the State Epworth League buildings
which were well equipped for campers and available at all
times. To reach this playground the pastor and his scouts
must hike through a mine tunnel two and one-half miles
in pitchy darkness. But what should a group of sturdy
lads care for that? They slosh through the muddy hole in
the mountain with their little carbide lights and actually
enjoy the trip. Even the girls go over to Middle Canyon
from time to time for picnics. This, then, became Bing-
ham Canyon's playground and the scene of many bacon bats,
of nature study talks and of story-telling, and where Mr.
Fagen and his boys went over their problems together and
became fast friends. This Utah Metals mine tunnel, which
is closed to the public except during the hours before the
morning and evening shifts go into the mines, has served,
like the Red Sea of old, to lead the boys of Bingham Canyon
into a wonderful land, which they have found as beautiful
as was the Promised Land to the children of Israel.
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS 55
An every-day-in-the-year program was adopted as soon
as the groups were organized, in which was included every
kind of entertainment from a formal reception to an egg
hunt. Special days are celebrated. Ghost parties, picnics,
hikes, father and son and mother and daughter banquets,
May breakfasts, flower parties, chicken dinners, council
meetings, and numberless other social occasions are enjoyed
by old and young.
While the work was being developed at the "House of
Happiness" the two deaconesses and the assistant were re-
organizing Sunday schools at Lark and Highland Boy, two
neighborhoods of Bingham, in two little one-room buildings
which, as the pastor says, are "a shame to Christianity,"
but which are the best to be had at present. At Highland
Boy most of the members are little foreigners, including
Spanish lads, Austrians, Finns, Japanese, Greeks, Serbians
and Italians. Adequate helpers and equipment are lacking
in both Sunday schools. The memberships of the three
schools at present number as follows :
Membership Av. Attendance
Bingham 208 85
Highland Boy 100 45
Copperfield 60 35
368 165
The Sunday school at Bingham has a membership twice
the size of the church enrollment, though fifty-four of its
members are also members of the church, or are on the
preparatory membership list. Eight are Roman Catholics
and thirteen are Mormons.
In the spring of 1921, when the community program had
been in motion for eighteen months, Mr. Fagen made a
survey of the community.
He learned that the population was 10,200, of whom
4,000 were unmarried men and all but 1,550 foreigners. Of
the adults, there were 2,000 nominal Catholics and 2,500
56 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
nominal Mormons, leaving 1,700 Protestants, Christian
Scientists, Unitarians and Orientals. The number touched
by the work was 750, of whom 320 were Americans. Five
hundred and eleven attended services and included:
275 Americans.
65 English.
20 Scotch, Irish, Welsh.
50 Italians.
30 Finns.
8 Greeks.
3 Japanese.
60 Others of nine nationalities.
511 Total.
One hundred and forty-three were church members, and
thirty-four of these were foreigners. Groups were well
organized. The church was well supported and growing.
THE CONGREGATION VANISHES
Then like a bomb explosion the mines shut down sud-
denly and 80 per cent, of the population moved away. Of
the new church members, all but two left town. Money
grew scarce again and people once more became down-
hearted. Attendance at services dwindled. Leaders were
lost. Mr. Fagen had especially stressed leadership train-
ing. The class had been selected from the scouts of fifteen
years or older. There were eighty-five present in 1920 at
a big father and son banquet, including forty-three men
and forty-two boys. Before the next banquet was held the
mines had closed and twenty-two of the boys had left the
canyon, the results of their training lost, at least to this
church and community. Before he could once more start
the organization on the up-grade, Mr. Fagen was called
away from the parish on an extended field trip and by the
time he returned the church was again almost powerless,
like a rudderless ship in a rough sea.
THE PASTOR, WHO IS ALSO SCOUTMASTER, AND HIS BOYS
WHAT THE BOY SCOUTS FIND AFTER HIKING TWO MILES THROUGH A TUNNEL
— A WELCOME CHANGE FROM THEIR TREELESS CANYON
^^r-^^'f^ -'.v^^. '.^^^^mmmmm^^g^mS
THE LONG UNLOVELY MAIN STREET OF BINGHAM CANYON STRAGGLES ALONG
FOR THIRTEEN MILES IN THIS CLEFT BETWEEN RUGGED AND PRECIPITOUS
MOUNTAINS
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS 57
But Mr. Fagen is an optimist and not to be daunted.
The mines were now reopening and new people were com-
ing to Bingham, though in smaller numbers, for the wage
scale had been lowered considerably. New boys found Mr.
Fagen still scouting for scouts, and in order to avoid losing
the interest of the older scouts who were left, he divided
them into three divisions, so that all might proceed with
their instruction. Foreigners were coming in rapidly and
Mr. Fagen endeavored to interest them in his program,
though with varied success.
Unusual ways of interesting newcomers were tried out.
One Sunday night the young people of the Epworth League
decided to have an out-of-door meeting. There being no
place out of doors to hold it they decided to make an "out-
of-doors" indoors. They brought a pile of logs into the
social room and with the help of a red light bulb they made
their camp fire. Cones and pine branches from Middle
Canyon were strewn over the plank floor. Rugs were laid
in a big circle, and to finish the setting they put up a huge
out-of-door scene, painted on oil cloth not long before by
Mr. Fagen to advertise Boy Scout Week. It was a scene
typical of Utah, with buff -colored background of mountains
and in the foreground a lake, rocks, waterfalls, and a few
slender pines. About thirty were present and all sat cross-
legged about the fire. By the dim light the young people
lost all sense of embarrassment and made some really fine
talks. Taps followed the singing and the meeting was dis-
missed. It had been a helpful, impressive, live service.
GETTING ANOTHER START
And the Methodist church is to-day on the up-grade once
more. Its membership numbers one hundred and seven and
there are twenty-three boys and girls in a preparatory class.
In the three years, there have been three hundred conver-
sions and more than one hundred and fifty have become
church members. The memberships and average attend-
ance of the various organizations are shown as follows :
$8 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Average Meetings
Organisations Members Attendance a Month
Ladies' Aid 20 6 4
Mission Society 36 15 1
Girl Scouts 15 7 4
Boy Scouts 48 32 4
Pioneer Girls 18 12 4
Mountain Boys 35 9 4
Bluebirds 18 9 4
Epworth League 25 12 4
Character Club 14 12 4
Camera Club 12 9 4
Sewing Club 51 16 4
Whittling Club 42 11 4
Mothers' Jewels (infants) 19
The Sunday schools at Lark and Highland Boy are grow-
ing and the average attendance of the school at Bingham is
eighty-five. A successful Daily Vacation Bible School was
held this year at Highland Boy with an enrollment of one
hundred and fifteen and an average attendance of sixty-
four, despite the lack of adequate equipment.
Bingham Canyon says of Mr. Fagen: "He can do any-
thing." Men are his friends, though few in the Canyon
are his followers. If by chance he goes into a pool-room,
some one inevitably taps him on the shoulder and says:
"Hello, Fagen, how are you ? What are you doing in here ?
This is no place for you." But the hoys are different. They
are his pals. They have hiked with him, played with him,
prayed with him and learned from him to love good books
and life at its best. They are his sworn friends and he is
their champion.
Plans are on foot for a new $10,000 community building
now necessary in order that crowding may be eliminated
and that a more direct appeal regardless of denomination
and nationality may be made to the very heart and soul of
Bingham Canyon. And though the life of the "House of
Happiness" has been full of ups and downs, yet under the
leadership of this fearless, dynamic builder it has never
allowed the Cross to retreat.
DIGGING OUT THE BOYS 59
The abandoned mine tunnel is abandoned still, haunted
only by the ghosts of the old-time gangs. One thing is
certain. Said an influential banker of Bingham Canyon:
"The life of the boyhood of this camp has been completely
revolutionized."
And what of the Bingham Canyon community church of
to-morrow? Who can tell? The average church aims to
become a permanent organization with a membership which
will remain to share the responsibility of its support from
year to year. All that this church can hope for is to keep
alive, join hands with the people passing by, encourage
them to fight on and give them its blessing — "a house by
the side of the road," and in deed and in very truth a
"friend to man."
It may never grow to be a great institution in number
of members. Leaders will be trained here whose services
may never help to develop a Bingham Canyon church — but
elsewhere, as the continual shifting of population goes on,
many a church will be the stronger because of the leader-
ship of those who once lived in the greatest copper camp
in the world.
Chapter V
MINISTERING TO THE MIGRANT
LARNED, KANSAS
What the Church can do for the quarter of a million migrant
harvesters that annually follow the wheat crops from
Texas northward.
Very seldom is it that the average rural circuit, of three
to five churches, loosely organized as perforce it must be,
can come forward and assume not only local but state-wide
leadership in the solution of a problem which has vexed
the minds of both public and church officials. Yet this is
just what the Methodist Circuit around Earned, in Pawnee
County, Kansas, did.
The problem that was faced was the problem of the
modern Ishmael, the migrant laborer who is the backbone of
the wheat harvest. Year after year, when the wheat belt
sends out its call for help it is the migrant who responds.
To him wheat is just one interest, for the real migrant
helps in such varied harvests as the fruit and vegetables of
the Pacific Coast, the beets of Colorado, the cranberries
of New England, and in winter he cuts the ice that is stored
for those summers when he is sweating in the wheat fields
of Kansas.
To the Kansas farmer, on the other hand, the migrant
is all important, for it is he who fills Kansas with the
finest wheat. Yet to the average farmer the migrant is a
necessary evil. He is adjudged a radical, a negligible factor,
unstable. He receives small consideration, and those who
most depend upon him for emergency help are most re-
joiced to see him leave when the necessity for his assistance
has passed.
MINISTERING TO THE MIGRANT 61
It was in April, 1920, that the Kansas State College of
Agriculture began to explain to the farmers that harvest
hands must be treated like human beings if they were ex-
pected to return year after year to help Kansas to pros-
perity. It was one thing to tell the farmer to treat his
casual laborer humanely; it was another thing to explain
just what this changed attitude entailed.
THE APPEAL TO THE CHURCH
As one approach to the problem the college sent an urgent
letter to all the clergymen in the State's wheat belt stating
the problem and asking them for help. Every county agent
was advised of this letter and instructed to cooperate with
the clergy. There followed, as in the case of all such ap-
peals, the usual period of doubt and hesitation that passes
for consideration, but in Pawnee the county agent found
one pastor and one circuit that was ready, the Methodist
Circuit of Larned, Kansas, Rev. P. W. Mawdsley, pastor.
This church was ready because under the leadership of
a shirt-sleeved pastor, who himself had worked as a hired
hand, the circuit of four churches had for some years been
doing things. All of them had grown from small groups,
the oldest founded only in 1873, to congregations that well
deserved the time and energy of a man like Mr. Mawdsley.
Young and old have followed his leadership in all four of
the churches. Much was made of social life. Even the
annual improvement day of the churches became a social
event when all the parish families collected around their
church enjoying work as well as the meals together. Much
was made of the Epworth League which was the young
people's society. Here leadership was developed, frequent
socials were held. Many unique ideas were tried out at
these occasions which proved of great value when the cir-
cuit's peculiar opportunity came.
Two features of the program give an insight into the
work and methods of this circuit. Instead of the old-fash-
ioned Harvest Home the Larned people have a Booth Fes-
tival under the management of the Epworth Leagues of the
62 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Circuit. On the first day of October the people bring to
the County Fair Grounds their vegetables, flowers, fruits,
poultry and needlework. Ribbons are the only prizes, the
proceeds going to the Conference Hospital. There are ath-
letic contests, including a baseball game and a track meet.
There are other healthy amusements. All contestants must
be members of the church, Sunday school or Epworth
League of one of the congregations of the circuit.
Another unique feature of the program is the evangelistic
work of the circuit. Evangelistic meetings are held in each
of the churches every year. For the pastor to carry the full
burden would require nearly two months' time. Mr.
Mawdsley conceived the idea of making the people their
own evangelists. A leader was selected in each church and
he, in turn, selected lieutenants. Themes were prepared and
the leaders were instructed. There was the usual spiritual
preparation such as the holding of cottage prayer meetings.
When the campaign opened in a circuit for one week each
church conducted its own services. The second week it had
the leadership of its pastor. The services were so arranged
that the weeks which the pastor gave were consecutive. The
whole campaign was over in one month and in at least
one of the churches there were conversions during the week
when the unassisted local leaders were in charge.
It was to a pastor and people such as these that the
county agent turned with the appeal that had come. The
situation was peculiarly aggravated, as is indicated by the
summary of that official, which is typical of many crises
that occur annually throughout the wheat belt :
"There was a steady demand for men from the first of the
month for general farm work at $2 per day or $50 per month.
Early in the month about 40 college boys from Indiana came
to Lamed in a body and that more than supplied the demand
for three or four days.
"By the 15th of the month the weather conditions threat-
ened to dry up the wheat prematurely and on the 16th the
agent sent a call to the employment agencies at Hutchinson,
Kansas City and Topeka for 1,000 men. On the 17th the
weather changed and about a week of cool weather followed.
MINISTERING TO THE MIGRANT 63
This delayed the harvest from a week to 10 days, and we had
a surplus of from 100 to 300 men all the rest of the month."
THE RESPONSE
Pastor and county agent immediately began earnest co-
operation. They presented the case to the mayor of Larned
and the Business Men's and Farmers' Organizations and to
the churches.
The condition of large groups of homeless strangers stand-
ing idle in any town, depressed by a hostile environment,
irritated because they are not hired immediately upon their
arrival, is not at any time enviable. Their influence upon the
town is not good because such conditions are not likely to
bring out the best that is in them. The influence of the town
or the community upon them is equally negative, because the
town in self-protection will have raised a protective barrier
between its best classes and its stranded, unhappy guests.
Despite its economic aspects the situation really should rest
upon a basis of broad humanity, such as concerns a church.
The town of Larned appointed a committee, and soon had
the county agent's oflice furnished as a welfare room for the
harvest hands, with a telephone, an attendant, tables, chairs,
stationery, games and reading matter. The services of a
county nurse were included. The expenses were underwrit-
ten by the business organizations, and the town council con-
tributed $22.50 for an attendant.
Since the hotels and rooming houses of Larned were taxed
to the utmost by those of the harvest hands fortunate enough
to possess funds to bridge the idle interval, this room at
night became a dormitory for those who were not prepared
for the emergency. When the rush was over the janitor
removed from the room over six hundred pounds of waste
paper, which consisted of reading matter collected for the
men, and which had later been used by them as bedding.
Pastor Mawdsley spent all the time he could spare ar-
ranging programs and conducting meetings in which one or
more of his rural churches took part. The home ties of
the men were renewed. They were persuaded to write to
64 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
their friends and relatives on special stationery that drew
attention to Larned in many a far-away home whose bread
came from this Kansas circuit. Many men were obliged to
wait more than a week for employment. Those who were
penniless were given an opportunity by the town to work for
their board.
Pastor Mawdsley set the precedent of bringing the home
and church life of Larned to the harvest workers. Musical
numbers and concerts, with singing by the workers, were
rendered by a group of young people from Lamed and its
circuit. For many of these entertainments the harvest
workers furnished talent. This policy drew the following
note of thanks from one of the men :
"We certainly appreciate the kindness shown us by the
young ladies to come and entertain a bunch of strangers and
rough-necks as they did Tuesday night. I have tramped
from coast to coast, but have never been in a community
where they treat harvest hands as they do in Larned, Kansas.
They sure try to make one feel at home.
"I want to especially thank Miss Pierce for the splendid
reading she rendered, and the other young lady whose name
I don't remember. I have never been in a town in harvest
where they furnish you books, games and music. Larned,
Kansas, is on the top round of the ladder when it comes
to welcoming harvest hands.
*T don't want to forget to thank the county agent, Mr.
Schnacke, and his associates in the office for their kindness."
As this harvest hand testifies, the rural employer gen-
erally regards the migrant worker as a worthless member
of society, to be used only to meet the harvest needs and
then cast out as soon as possible. This also is the attitude
of the employer's family toward the migrant. Mr. Mawds-
ley, as a field hand, had learned this by experience. What
was done by Larned to lessen the migrant's trials and dis-
comforts was excellent, and an example for other towns in
the wheat belt.
The social as well as the religious atmosphere of harvest
communities is too often hostile to the "foreigner'* and his
W'''
ONE OF THE FOUR CHURCHES ON THE EARNED CIRCUIT
A DISPLAY OF GARDEN PRODUCE AT THE BOOTH FESTIVAL
MINISTERING TO THE MIGRANT 65
tired soul. Mr. Mawdsley insisted upon the development
of a community feeling that should make the harvester feel
as if he were among his own folk and friends, a guest in
the sort of home and church that he had left behind on the
long trail of his economic Odyssey. Larned and Its circuit
began to treat the once hated "grasshopper" as a tempo-
rary neighbor and co-worker ; above all, as a Christian.
One of the homely customs in the four churches of the
Larned circuit during the hot summer weather is for the
pastor to enter his pulpit in shirt sleeves and preach to a
coatless congregation. When Pastor Mawdsley invited the
harvest hands to come to his four churches, he cordially
reminded them that Larned was more interested in the man
than in the clothes he wore. "Come just as you are !" was
the urgent request. On Sunday afternoons he took repre-
sentatives of his four congregations to the welfare room in
the Larned Court House and conducted services.
During the three harvest-Sundays of Mr. Mawdsley's
first year there were three hundred and sixteen men present
at the six religious services ; during the second harvest-year
there were three hundred and thirty-five, and during the
last year, when the harvester-welfare work was established,
there were four hundred and eighteen present at the serv-
ices. Meanwhile, those laborers on the surrounding farms
of the circuit were not neglected. Farmers arranged to
drive the harvesters to church, and Mr. Mawdsley sent the
men post-cards with the circuit church program. Many
a harvest hand who had not entered a church since boy-
hood, who had learned, during hia rough wanderer's life,
to suspect the church as the source of all that discriminated
against him socially, renewed his church ties.
It is small wonder that Larned gave up its custom of
keeping open its stores on Sunday for the harvest hands.
The monotony of a holiday, a Sabbath or a day of bad
weather, has been banished in Larned. Those who went
to town to loaf found instead a place to rest, to write
letters home, to read and spend their time profitably until
the evening service in which they chose and sang their
favorite hymns. Or the farmers took Mr. Mawdsley's text
66 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
of sociability and entertained their help in their ovm homes ;
or joined with neighbors in a picnic or a joint church-going
party.
GO THOU AND DO LIKEWISE
So successful was the work, so cordial the response of
the men, that Mr. Mawdsley has been sent to no fewer
than seventy other communities to tell the story and en-
courage similar work; for he has found the solution of a
problem that has ever burdened the church and church
leaders. There have been pastors who closed their churches
during the wheat harvest and left on vacations when the
migrant came to town. The Methodist circuit at Larned,
Kansas, has taught a better way ; and has made the Gospel
a more vital and living thing both to the strangers tempo-
rarily there and to the permanent residents to whom these
strangers bring prosperity.
Chapter VI
THE LARGER PARISH
COLLBRAN AND MONTROSE, COLORADO
The story of the old circuit system with twentieth century
emendations, in which the church at the center is not
content to stay there.
A decade ago the neglected fields survey of the Home
Missions Council showed that hundreds of people in the
valleys of the western slope of the Rockies were living with
little or no opportunity to attend a church service or a
Sunday school. There were countless communities where
the church-going habit was extinct; there were school-
houses which could be developed into live community
centers with help from the outside. There were two
churches in Colorado, one at Montrose, a town of 3,500,
and the other at CoUbran, a village of 300, which found
themselves surrounded by conditions such as these. Out
of them grew a vision of larger service which has changed
the lives of these churches, and with the aid of their de-
nominational boards they have gone far toward the solu-
tion of their particular problems and toward serving as
models inspiring to others.
Montrose and CoUbran are situated on the western slope
of Colorado, a part of the country where all is bristling
with new life. Within an area of 104,000 square miles,
the segment of the Rockies lying within the state boasts of
155 mountain peaks, each more than 1,200 feet above the
arc of the sea. A series of deep valleys, once lake basins,
lies encircled by ranges of mountains. Within these valleys
are rolling mesas and fertile stretches, and in two such
67
68 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
valleys, Uncompaghre and Plateau, lie Montrose and
Collbran.
In 1858 prospectors began to trickle into these hard-
locked highlands in search of gold, driving the red men of
the Ute tribe, who generations ago made this their home,
to a wilderness farther on. "Lured by the mystery of the
West and challenged alike by its wilderness and its possi-
bilities," homesteaders from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and
the Atlantic states, as well as families burned out in the
prairie fires of Kansas straggled in. Conditions changed
fast in the new West. Soon the whistle of an engine
sounded in the region of Montrose, which to the pio-
neers who were fighting sagebrush, the desert and solitude,
meant civilization and a future market for crops and
cattle.
Montrose and Collbran are separated by the Grand Mesa,
known as the Mesa of a Hundred Lakes, which forms the
horizon line for miles. In spite of this situation the settle-
ment of Collbran, at the foot of the western slope of Grand
Mesa, and that of Montrose, in the valley at the foot of
the eastern slope, up to a certain period developed along
identical lines. It was, as will be seen, a topographical di-
vision that brought the railroad to one town and increased
the isolation of the other. They were formed about the
same time by the same type of settlers. They enjoy the
same physical and natural advantages, and up to a certain
period they developed the same problems. These home-
steaders from the East found rich black loam for their
crops and pastures for their cattle, but it was hard, pioneer
life. Long hours and seven days a week were needed to
clear away the sagebrush and provide the means of exist-
ence. The church-going habit that many of these pioneers
should have inherited from their fathers was lost. Their
god was work. But now the battle has been won. The
desert is reclaimed; the valleys are rich with fruit, alfalfa
and potatoes; on the mountains and mesas graze herds of
fine cattle, and in the heart of these mountains are stores
of gold, radium and coal. The first settlers went into
Colorado for gold, but to-day the annual output of the state's
THE LARGER PARISH 69
irrigated farms is more than ten times as great as that of its
gold mines.
COLLBRAN
Collbran, the geographic center of Plateau Valley, nestles
in the great horseshoe bend of Battlement Mesa Forest,
six thousand feet above the sea, on the western slope of
Grand Mesa. The village itself is flat and uninteresting:
"it just growed," and its appearance is typical of its growth.
A man named George Hall staked the first claim and built
a store near the creek which now runs through the town.
Englehart and Parkinson in their turn built a store with a
hall over it. A blacksmith named Gillum settled near the
creek. Later a schoolhouse was built, a hotel, a post-office
and in recent years the church, the bank, an auditorium, a
community house and now a union high school. Except by
stage, Collbran is unconnected with the outside world.
DeBeque, the nearest railroad station, is twenty-five miles
away, and Grand Junction, the distributing center of that
section, is forty-five miles distant and reached only by a
winding canyon road. Protected, with no competition and
no exposure to outside influences, Collbran developed into
a static community, non-churchgoing and non-social.
Life in Plateau Valley, however, is picturesque, Ameri-
can and exclusively rural. Men prefer horses to automo-
biles and still wear the big-four Stetson and the red ban-
danna. Of the three thousand inhabitants, Joe Jim and his
wife, Ute Indians, are the only reminders of the earlier
civilization. Of these three thousand people, 95 per cent,
of whom are American bom, twenty-two hundred live on
ranches or farms ; fewer than six hundred live in the vil-
lages of Collbran, Mesa, Plateau City and Molina; the
others live in small communities called Basins.
The church had little influence in the development of the
valley in pioneer days, and up to two years ago found itself
making not even a dent in the every-day life of the valley.
It had trained no leaders ; it had no way of proving its
practical and spiritual worth in the community.
70 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
MONTROSE
From the time the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad
crosses Marshall Pass and crawls slowly down the moun-
tains in great horseshoe curves to Montrose, distant peaks
and canyons are pointed out to the traveler. There is
Ouray, the Switzerland of America and the beauty spot of
the San Juan mountains. To the south and west are Verde
National Park and the Cliff Dwellers' Ruins, and westward,
just outside of Montrose, is the Gunnison Tunnel, the larg-
est irrigation tunnel in the world. As in Collbran, the
Grand Mesa is a striking feature of the horizon. As the
train pulls into the station at Montrose, modern and at-
tractive, with its wide concrete street and its ornamental
lighting stretching through the center of the town, it is
difficult to realize that it was only in 1883 that "the whistle
of the first engine" was heard in this region. With the
railroad came exposure to outside influences and contacts.
It was followed by a continual influx of new settlers that
has resulted in a population of thirty-five hundred as com-
pared with Collbran's three hundred. It made Montrose
accessible for three hundred foreigners, while Collbran drew
none.
With this influx came people of varying desires and
ambitions, out of whose presence grew the over-organiza-
tion of the town socially and religiously. The church at this
time, instead of being a socializing force, had become un-
social and parochial in its outlook. It reflected the selfish
aims of its small congregations and stood in the way of
cooperation.
Grand Mesa, great divide that it is, gives to one town all
the opportunities of intercourse and contact with a pro-
gressive world and shuts away another from all these
advantages.
Yet social and religious conditions in both were prac-
tically identical, lacking leadership and cooperation. Both
started in the same way, settled by people in search of a
new home, developed by people who found that home worth
having. Collbran and Montrose were founded and de-
THE LARGER PARISH 71'
veloped together. Collbran stood still while Montrose grew,
but in growing Montrose became merely a collection of
Collbrans.
To these two churches, one static, making no inroad upon
the life of the community and the other limited in its out-
look, came the vision of something new and of greater
service — the vision of serving, in addition to their im-
mediate communities, the people in the outlying communi-
ties, in religious, educational, social and recreational lines;
the vision of a larger parish.
THE PLAN
The larger parish plan as it is to-day is a plan which
"specializes in a ministry over areas as well as churches."
It is a plan by which a church at the center of a wide area
with a scattered population can serve that population by
sharing with it the advantages of its equipment and its
personnel.
The program is determined by the needs of the com-
munity. It is, therefore, elastic and may be applied suc-
cessfully with equal value to varied situations. But the
objectives of the plan and its basic methods are everywhere
similar. It calls for the centering of the work of the area
at one point, from which the work is extended throughout
the territory. It calls for more than one worker. For-
merly several ministers lived at the center from which they
went out to the churches on their circuit. Preaching was
the beginning and end of their program. Under the larger
parish plan, instead of these several ministers of dif-
ferent denominations giving intermittent attention to their
churches, there are several workers of one denomination
integrated in one staff carrying a social and individual min-
istry throughout the entire area. What this ministry shall
be, especially on its social side, depends on the community,
the local leadership, the general religious situation. In a
well-developed community, with an excellently equipped
consolidated high school, with a social vision, the program
is different from the program in a place where there is
72 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
nothing or next to nothing save the church. But always
the ideal is to serve the whole area and all within it, to
meet all unmet religious and socio-religious needs.
A larger parish plan demands from the community in-
terest, a willingness to cooperate, and financial support. It
is a plan that takes years to prove — "an ideal to be worked
toward rather than to be fully attained." As the years roll
on it becomes ever more clear that people of all faiths can
cooperate and that the plan is demonstrating what can be
done in a selected parish with adequate equipment, per-
sonnel and finance.
This chapter, then, tells the story of the application of
this flexible plan to two different communities. It shows
that things quite often attempted only in more closely knit
and densely populated localities can be applied to whole
areas when there is the proper integration of staff and the
proper cooperation on the part of the people.
THE PLAN IN PRACTICE
When this larger parish plan came to these two parishes
separated by Grand Mesa, at the request of the people them-
selves through the proper channels of the Congregational
Church and its Home Mission Board, it brought solutions
peculiar to the needs of each. Collbran, isolated from the
world, had the problem of setting its rusty wheels to work
and following up and expanding the work started by its
early leaders. Montrose, on the other side of Grand Mesa,
had a more elaborate set of problems. Because of its ex-
posure to the outside world it had acquired all the ills of
over-churching due to over-socializing forces. It had to
enlist new interest in conditions outside of the boundary of
the town; it had to create a spirit of cooperation between
town and country. The larger parish plan was able to solve
these two separate or dissimilar sets of problems.
Collbran and Montrose people as the larger vision and
plan developed became interested not only in the plan but in
their part in carrying out of the plan. They began to say
"only the best is good enough for us" — the best in equip-
THE RODEO THE EVENT OF THE YEAR AT COLLBRAN
PICNIC OF THE PLEASANT VIEW SUNDAY SCHOOL, COLLBRAN
THE LARGER PARISH 7S
ment and in personnel. If the early leaders who had grad-
ually widened the scope of their ministry by conducting
preaching services and Sunday school in surrounding com-
munities had been supported by this enthusiasm, they need
not have gone alone Sunday after Sunday, but could have
been accompanied by laymen filled with a desire to carry
this extended ministry still farther.
That this is true was soon proven, for the little church
was no longer adequate for Collbran's needs. It was a one-
room, one-day-a-week church, with no equipment for work
outside of the village.
Montrose was planning a new building, and to the plans
were added a gymnasium and clubrooms for community
service. The church was able to undertake this building
project alone, but received aid from the Congregational
Home Mission Society for an extension secretary and equip-
ment. Collbran needed aid for both a building and equip-
ment, and this was given after a survey had been made.
Collbran people contributed in cash, paint, work and keen
interest.
The community house, which is attached to Collbran
church, includes a library for the use of all, a boy's club-
room, a men's clubroom, an office, a gymnasium to be used
also as an auditorium, two shower-rooms, a bowling-alley,
a dining-room and kitchen.
More than one worker is essential to a large parish, for
Plateau Valley, the larger of the two, embraces one hundred
and fifty square miles, and both parishes are in a country
where distances are great and communities isolated. The
Montrose staff consists of a minister, in charge of the Con-
gregational Church at the center, a full time business secre-
tary, a gymnasium director and an extension secretary. In
Collbran there are two ministers, one in charge of the church
at the center and one the director of the larger parish.
These workers are aided by four cars, in Collbran, a Reo
Speed Wagon and two Fords, and in Montrose a Ford built
to carry a Delco Motor and a portable picture machine.
In the division of the work in these parishes the ministers
at the centers have full charge of the Congregational
74 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
churches there. In Collbran the director of the larger parish
has charge of all the extension activities. His headquarters
are at the community house and of this house he has full
charge — its upkeep, its program, the financing of the larger
parish and the holding of religious and socio-religious serv-
ices at the extension points. It is a ministerial partnership.
In Montrose the minister at the center has charge not only
of the Montrose church but has general supervision of the
extension work, which he and the extension secretary carry
out together.
With this equipment was begun the task of ministering
over areas as well as churches, of serving all the people and
all their interests.
QUICKENING INTEREST
In all of Plateau Valley and the outlying districts of
Montrose, the early pioneers who had had the habit of
church attendance had lost it. The new generation never
formed it, but the people in these valleys are friendly, and
interest and better attendance are coming as the church
proves itself. The program of the larger parish, as broad
as the valley, is overcoming the accumulated indifference of
years.
In Collbran the Congregational church, before the new
program was in operation, had twenty-five members. To-
day, two years after the inauguration of the program, the
roll tells a different story — one hundred and three members,
eighty-nine of them resident, a net gain of thirty-one in
1921.
The spirit of the community has already changed. In
earlier days if a man went to church he was laughed at by
other men. But when thirty-two men were needed to soHcit
funds for the program in 1922 not one man refused. On
one team were a Roman Catholic and an ex-Methodist min-
ister, and one man, not a church member, declared that "it
was no longer embarrasing to canvass for the church in
Plateau Valley." It was an every-family canvass, seeking
community support rather than support from church mem-
THE LARGER PARISH 75
bers only, and 50 per cent, of the total subscription for 1922
was from non-members.
In Montrose, the community service ideal has interested
a group of followers almost as large as the church mem-
bership, who support the program financially and in per-
sonal effort. This group, with the church members, control
four-fifths of the financial support of the town; they are
represented by three out of four on the school board, by a
large majority in the Chamber of Commerce and in the
Rotary Club by all but five out of a membership of thirty-
three.
In 1921, the net gain in church membership was forty-
nine, making a total of three hundred and twenty-two, and
of the two hundred and forty pledges secured on the every-
member canvass, one hundred and twenty, equaling 43.25
per cent, of the total subscriptions, were made by non-
members.
THE CHURCH PROGRAMS
Both churches have programs in which each group has
a part. On Sunday each has a morning and evening service,
and in each case the evening service is the more popular.
In Collbran it is of interest to the entire community, as for
instance, an illustrated lecture on "The Passion Play," and
in Montrose usually a moving-picture with a short address,
interesting to both old and young. The programs of two
Sundays evenings will illustrate. Both opened with congre-
gational singing, followed in one by a Farm Bureau picture
showing the advantages of consulting a trained man. Be-
tween Parts 1 and 2 of the picture was a short address.
The pictures used at these services are not always religious,
but have good moral and educational values. The second
service was quite different. The program opened with a
fifteen-minute organ recital, followed by congregational
singing and practical questions and demonstrations for the
benefit of the young people in the front row.
In Collbran a Children's Church is held each Sunday
between the Sunday school and the morning worship, and
76 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
in both churches the Sunday school is active, well-equipped
with both rooms and materials. The Vacation Bible School
supplements the Sunday school work in CoUbran. Here,
too, the Christian Endeavor is particularly active, drawing
young people from all parts of the parish. These young
people have done especially good work in conducting re-
ligious meetings at outlying points, thereby extending the
larger parish activities and in arranging a course on voca-
tional guidance. The doctor, the nurse, the banker and the
lawyer each gave a lecture on their profession to help these
young people decide upon their secular pursuits, while the
church, in giving them charge of a Western Slope Confer-
ence, entertained at Collbran, gave them a taste of religious
leadership.
Socially the week at the Collbran community house is
full. The Scout Troop has its regular meeting in the boys*
room, which is also headquarters for a young men's Bible
class. The troop is well led and is making a place for the
boys in the community. The biggest event of last year was
the Junior Rodeo, a small edition of the biggest event of
Plateau Valley. It was thus described in the Plateau Voice:
"It came and went in a blaze of glory and the junior cow-
boy talent of Collbran and vicinity has done their 'dads'
proud." A radio-phone outfit has been ordered, and news
and stock bulletins will be issued daily.
The men's club meets every week during the summer and
every other week in the winter for chess, checkers, pool and
billiards, and a special feature such as a movie or a talk
from a man from outside. The central purpose of the club
is social, with the "good of the church" as one of its recog-
nized aims. Men from all parts of the valley attend — men
of all creeds and of none.
An anti-fat class for ladies meets three times a week in
the assembly room, members following exercises to music.
Every Friday a feature moving-picture is shown in the same
room. The Ladies' Aids in both places are interested in
the usual activities of Aids and are the home-makers of
the churches. In Montrose the organization is called the
Women's Union and includes all women interested, non-
THE LARGER PARISH
77
members or members. The membership is divided into nine
parts called circles, the chairman of which, with the of-
ficers, constitute the Executive Board. There are two meet-
ings a month, one a missionary meeting in charge of the
Missionary Committee, the other social.
A daily program of the activities of the CoUbran com-
munity house shows how truly it is a community center :
Morning: Office hours of pastor and extension director
Club room and women's rest room open
Afternoon: Women's rest room open
Men's club room open
Billiard room open, 1 to 5.30
Reading room open, 1 to 5.30
Library open for drawing books, 3.30 to 5
Assembly room always available
Evening: Men's and women's rooms open
Reading room open, 7 to 9
Billiard room open, 7 to 9
Schedule of Meetings
Monday :
Teachers' Training Class, 7.30
Tuesday :
Scouts, 7.30
Wednesday :
Fortnightly-afternoon-Ladies' Aid
Christian Endeavor, 7.30
Men's Club, 8.00
Thursday :
Choir practice, 7.30
Friday :
Community night entertainment
Saturday :
Camp Fire Girls, 2 P.M.
Sunday :
Sunday school
Children's church
Worship nursery
Morning worship
Evening worship
78 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
In Montrose the activities of the gymnasium take a big
place in the program. It is accessible to every one in the
larger parish and to the young people in Montrose. No
charge is made, the only qualification being regular attend-
ance in their respective schools. The physical director is
in charge and has on an average twenty classes a week.
Competitive athletics have been organized between classes
of the Sunday school and other Sunday schools of the town.
WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY
Both churches fit as a whole into community programs.
Agriculture is promoted through the Extension Department
which aids the county agent in his drive for Farm Bureau
memberships; education is fostered by the cooperation of
the churches in securing Chautauquas, lectures and musical
features; in Montrose a program of relief is carried out
through a Young Women's Bible Class at the County
Home.
The Collbran church regards itself as a part of the World
Kingdom and supports missionary representatives in the
foreign field. The work of the Rev. and Mrs. Leonard
Christian, in Foochow, China, is supported by contributions
from the parish. Collbran also has a personal interest in
home work through Mr. Fred White, in Florence, Ala.
At home the Red Cross drive for Plateau Valley was
conducted by the church. Church leaders were instru-
mental in securing the Chautauqua ; they were interested in
clean-up week and children's week. They work coopera-
tively with the Farm Bureau and plan next year to operate
a labor exchange in haying time, and to furnish hot lunches
for those school children who come long distances. A com-
munity park with playground for little children, a tennis
court for adults, and a meeting ground for outdoor services
are being prepared. These improvements have come about
as a direct result of the interest of CoUbran's leaders in the
larger parish program. These people had been thinking and
planning on a large scale for years in terms of steers and
irrigation ; now they are also thinking on the same scale of
THE LARGER PARISH 79
the church and the well-being of their community. From
this center the director of the larger parish plan sets out to
transplant the new interest and enthusiasm to eight isolated
basins and valleys in the hope that history will repeat itself
on a smaller scale in each community.
One of the most significant events in the history of the
larger parish was the surrender of the work at Plateau
City by the Methodist Episcopal Conference at the inaugura-
tion of the larger parish program. A Congregational church
was organized with the full consent and approval of both
the District Superintendent and the local congregation. The
extension director is minister of this church. It is an inde-
pendent church with a preaching service and an organized
Sunday school of its own, but nevertheless a part of the
larger parish in interest and in its financial support.
EXTENSION WORK
In addition to the work at Collbran and Plateau City, the
extension director preaches fortnightly at two places, con-
ducts organized Sunday schools at three others, and has
organized a Christian Endeavor. In several of the basin
day schools he is carrying out successfully a week-day re-
ligious program, giving also instructions in physical train-
ing and public school music, distributing library books, using
visual instruction through the use of Perry prints and oc-
casionally taking his portable Acme and showing educational
films. The latest plan for extension work includes the ordi-
nation of "lay preachers" with the adoption of the slogan
"one service in every schoolhouse each month.**
The ministers in larger parish work have need of all their
enthusiasm and faith. The events of a not very exceptional
day in the life of the director of the larger parish illustrates
this : "He began the day (a Sunday) preparing the Collbran
church and community house for services, Sunday school,
worship nursery; at ten-thirty he drove to Plateau City to
conduct morning service and Sunday school. At two o'clock
he changed from janitor and preacher to an assistant under-
taker, bringing a casket to a funeral service and to the
80 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
cemetery. At three-thirty he held a Sunday school at Pleas-
ant View. At seven-thirty he became a chorister, helping
with the music of the evening service. During the worship,
a man came in to say that an old man had been seriously
hurt when some horses ran away. The truck became an
ambulance and carried the dying man to the nearest hospital
in Grand Junction, forty-five miles away."
Into five neighborhoods the minister of the Montrose
church, with the extension secretary, has gone with preach-
ing services, Sunday school or community programs, and in.
some cases with all three. A characteristic community pro-
gram on the subject, say, of "Better Roads," would run
somewhat as follows: "Community singing; three five-
minute talks on *How to Improve the Roads in Our Com-
munity'; one-reel movie, entitled 'Gravel-Road Construe-
tion' ; one-reel movie, 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' " At other
times the program may be purely social, with the man from
the center acting as social engineer.
ELASTICITY THE KEYNOTE
To some friends the larger parish director wrote: "If
success is measured by the distance traveled rather than
the point attained, then this work has been abundantly suc-
cessful. It would have been difficult to find a spot where
organized religion was of so little concern to the people in
general as in this valley three years ago."
One of the values of the larger parish plan, as has been
pointed out, is the elasticity of its program in meeting the
needs at hand ; its adaptability to competitive and non-com-
petitive situations. The Plateau Valley larger parish has a
clear field with no conflicting social or religious forces. But
the plan at Montrose has a competitive field shared by many
denominations and agencies, and is trying to shoulder its
responsibility in the solving of a general problem of develop-
ing spirit, increasing efficiency and stimulating ideals within
the outlying communities.
Such is the new type of ministry attempted by this twen-
tieth century version of the old-time circuit — a ministry
THE LARGER PARISH 81
which serves an entire area, not simply parishioners within
it ; which has substituted the auto for the horse and saddle-
bags ; which is meeting men on the level where they live and
work, and which is gradually supplanting a weak and in-
conclusive program with a virile and comprehensive Chris-
tianity that compels the attention of townsman and cowboy
alike.
1554 i
Chapter VII
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE
THE PIMA MISSION AT SACATON, ARIZONA
A church that has made itself the focal point of an Indian
tribe.
A church which has entered into the whole life of its
people is the Presbyterian, at work among the Pima Indians
in Arizona, centering at Sacaton. The leaders of this work,
both Indian and white, have, in fifty years, led a whole
tribe from semi-barbarism into a Christian community.
The results show the aptitude of the Indians for Christian
civilization, if Christian ideas and ideals are presented in
the right way. The field takes in four hundred and six
square miles, all of the Gila River and part of the Papago
reservations. The mission has grown until it now includes
nine churches and stations scattered over this area. The
white missionary in charge has nine full-time Indian helpers
and one part-time man.
A BOLD PIONEER
The beginnings of this enterprise were a far cry indeed
from the mission as it is to-day, with its more than thirteen
hundred members. Fifty-three years ago young Charles H.
Cook started the work on his own responsibility. The mis-
sion boards had no money for such an enterprise, for Indian
affairs in Arizona were at that time in a very unsettled state.
The Government at Washington warned him that it would
be dangerous to go. But Cook went, working his way out
and preaching whenever opportunity offered. He arrived at
the Agency on December 23, 1870, with two dollars in his
pocket. On January 1st, he was on the pay-roll of the
82
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 83
Government as a teacher with a salary of $1,000 and all
expenses paid, a good income for those days.
From that time until he was an old man. Cook worked
with the Pimas. During the earlier years he could do his
mission work only on Sundays and at night, for he had to
earn his living on week-days. It was after he had been
working on the reservation about eight years that the Pres-
byterian Board undertook his support so that he was able
to devote all his time to the mission work. At first he
talked and preached out in the fields, because it was there
that he found the Indians. Sometimes he would talk in the
little round dwelling-places called "kihs," where one must
stoop to enter and sit with lowered head because of the
smoke. Sometimes he preached in the village counsel-
houses, and if the people were friendly, the village captain
or sub-chief would call them together for the meeting. His
addresses were always interpreted during the first years, but
he studied the language and worked out for himself a dic-
tionary of Pima words, so that before long the Indians
could understand him. He taught much and he won the
children at first by giving them cubes of sugar and pieces of
bread. "That's the way he catch 'em," said an old Indian.
As soon as the children learned English, they could interpret
for him.
Cook's courage and patience were proof against all dis-
couragement. It was twelve years before he made his first
convert and nineteen years before his first church was or-
ganized. The work grew by the conversion of one Indian
here, another there, then a whole family, then several
families. The next step would be the organization of a
church. So it went. The first church was organized at
Sacaton on April 3, 1889. The Gila Crossing Church was
organized in 1894, the Blackwater in 1900, and the two
other churches, Casa Blanca and Maricopa, were organized
in 1902.
Cook ministered to the whole man. He taught the Pimas
the simple story of Christ, and he also taught them better
ways of living; he worked to protect their water rights just
as faithfully as he preached the Ten Commandments. The
84 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Pimas grew to love and trust this earnest white man, and
gradually began to take all their problems to him and to
put his words into practice. As a result of his wise deal-
ings with these people the church to-day is so woven into
their lives that one cannot mark the place where its influence
begins or where it leaves off.
THE INDIANS' LAND AND WATER
The land of the Pimas is sandy desert country, fertile,
indeed, with water, but absolutely unproductive without it.
The water question has been a burning one for years, for
the Indians are dependent for their living upon the land.
From prehistoric times they have understood the practice of
irrigation, the Gila River affording plenty of water for their
needs. But as the white men settled in the valley far
above, they gradually diverted the water to their own use.
In the days when the Apache was on the war path, the
Pimas helped to protect the white man, but when those
dangerous days were over the white man expressed his
gratitude by taking the Indians' water. Some wells were
put in which provided water for part but not all of the
reservation. Many of the Indians have had one crop failure
after another, year after year. Is it any wonder that the
Indian says: "When the white man begins, he takes all"?
Charles H. Cook, however, was one white man who never
let the Government or the public forget the injustices done
to the Pimas. It is safe to say that had not this guardian
of their interests been at hand to checkmate these efforts
to despoil the Pimas of their heritage, they would long ago
have been objects of charity.
It was a long hard fight, but as a result of years of agi-
tation, effective measures have at last been taken to secure
adequate water for the Pimas. In 1921, a dam across the
Gila River above Florence was completed and a smaller
dam is now being constructed across the Gila River near
Sacaton. These diversion dams will help, but the water
question will not be finally settled until the Government
builds a reservoir for the impounding of the flood waters.
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 85
This will be the San Carlos reservoir which has been con-
sidered for so many years. "Cook agitated the Pima's need
and laid the foundation for the remedy of that need; the
work that he did pointed the way to what was needed,"
said the present secretary of the Indian Rights Association.
Dr. Cook also fought to keep the Pimas' land for the
Pimas, and his successor has carried on the struggle. Much
of the 1,200,017 acres of the Gila River reservation is
irrigable, valuable land, and because of the adaptability of
this land to the growth of long staple cotton, the whites have
coveted it. At one time there was a plan on foot to move
all the Indians into one district and appropriate the best of
their land. But through the efforts of Cook and other
friends of the Pimas whose aid he enlisted, this plan was
frustrated.
Another attempted injustice was prevented recently by
Dr. Cook's successor, the present missionary. Dr. Lay. The
Pimas first heard of a scheme to lease fifty thousand acres
of their land in January, 1920. Under this lease the Indian
was to be deprived of the use of his allotment, consisting
of twenty acres for each member of the tribe, was to wait
ten years before he received any "rental" under the terms
of the original lease, and was to have no voice in saying
whether the lease should be renewed. Dr. Lay called the
Indians together from all over the reservation to talk about
the lease. He told them how the Sioux had started leasing
and now had very little land left, and pointed out that when
the white man gets a good start on a reservation, he is
likely to end up by taking the whole thing. The situation
was fully discussed, and when the matter was finally put to
a vote, only one Indian approved of the lease. The aid of
the Indian Rights Association was enlisted, and as a result
of these efforts the lease was cancelled in January, 1921.
THE CHURCH AS MONEY-LENDER
"I want the Pimas to value their land," says Dr. Lay.
"I do not want them to forget that many of their fathers
and grandfathers died to keep the Apaches away." One of
86 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
the chief obstacles to the Indian's keeping his land else-
where has been his lack of appreciation of the fact that
an unpaid mortgage means the loss of his land. When the
Indian receives his property, he is apt to get a mortgage on
it and to spend the money without realizing that one day he
must pay. To impress upon the Indian the idea that he
must pay what he borrows, Dr. Lay has instituted a system
of church loans. He started the Church Loan Fund as an
experiment about six years ago, and it has been wholly suc-
cessful, not a single Indian having failed to pay his in-
debtedness. The fund has now grown to $5,800, and eighty-
three Indians have loans out at present. The largest amount
loaned so far has been $5,000, which sixteen Indians at
Blackwater borrowed to pay for a pumping plant and well
to water two hundred acres.
A special cotton loan of $5,000, which could have been
considerably increased if required, was made by the Good-
year Company during the cotton boom. The white traders
on the reservation did not favor these loans, for they had
themselves been marketing the cotton raised by the Indians
and making a good profit. The conditions of the loan
were ideal, and the Indian could sell when he got ready.
The only thing specified was that he deliver to the Good-
year. Serving unofficially and without remuneration. Dr.
Lay acted as the agent of the company, reporting the condi-
tions and stand of the cotton. Collections have been poor
on this loan, for the cotton crash came just as the cotton
was ready to be marketed, but if the company could have
taken all of the cotton and paid a fairly good price for it
the loan would all have been paid promptly.
The First National Bank of Casa Grande has also started
a loan fund for Indians. Fifteen hundred dollars was given
for this purpose by people who, through Dr. Lay, had be-
come interested in the problems of the Indian. The bank
also set aside $2,500, so that a total fund of $4,000 is
available. When an Indian on the reservation wants money,
he goes to Dr. Lay and, if he is worthy of help. Dr. Lay
gives him a note to the bank. Eighty Indians have loans
out now, on which they pay 10 per cent, interest. "It is
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 87
not only helping them out temporarily, but it's teaching them
to be good citizens," said the president of the bank. "As a
result of these loans, twenty accounts have been started."
SOCIAL HABITS
In other ways also Dr. Cook and his successor have
served the temporal interests of the Pimas. With the
Christian Indians as leaders, the recreational and social life
of the Pimas has gradually been changed. Standards of
family life, the marriage law and the position of women,
ever a determining factor among Indians, are now those of
the average white community. The church is the main in-
fluence in directing public opinion and the old Indian re-
ligion commands no followers.
Years ago, the first native policeman to attempt to en-
force the laws against drinking on the reservation was one
of Dr. Cook's earliest converts. At that time, the Indians
used to make intoxicating wine in big jars called "olios."
On these occasions whole villages would get drunk, and
often there would be fights. "We would see a man all cov-
ered with blood, his clothes all bloody," said an old Indian,
adding reminiscently, "and once in a while a murder."
Indian policemen, sent to break the "olios" and stop the
drinking would usually end by joining in the celebration.
Finally, the agent appointed a new chief of police and put
new men under him. The son of this chief of police tells
what happened. "My father," he said, "had become inter-
ested in the story of Jesus before this; he had commenced
to attend church and had been baptized. He went out with
his men and they didn't get drunk like those others did.
They smashed the 'olios' with the wine in them. That was
the beginning of stop make that stuff. My father was the
first Indian policeman to enforce the law against the drink-
ing in any village." The reservation is now a model of
sobriety.
Recreations, too, have changed. Formerly the foot and
horse races between villages were the excuse for heavy
gambling. "The women," an old Indian declared, "would
88 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
even bet the skirts they were wearing." Recreational life
now centers in the church and the Government schools.
Villages compete in clean athletics, and the policy of the
Mission includes a definite program of recreation. The
Pima Athletic Association, which now has seventy mem-
bers, was organized by Dr. Lay seven years ago. A foot-
ball league is controlled by the Athletic Association. Dr.
Lay, who coaches one football team and referees most of
the games that are played, began from the first to work for
a clean game and the reservation now has. a reputation for
clean play and for observing the rules. The rule against
swearing on the field, for instance, overlooked in many foot-
ball games, is scrupulously enforced in the games which
the Pimas play.
As time has gone on, more and more responsibility in
the various organizations of the Presbyterian Mission has
been accorded to the Indians. Often the outstanding weak-
ness of a work of this kind is that everything is managed
for the Indian, he himself contributing nothing. Here, on
the other hand, the management of affairs has been grad-
ually turned over to the members, until at present they take
as much responsibility as do the members of the average
white church. When, for instance, the site of the new
Sacaton Church was chosen. Dr. Lay would have liked it
to have stood on the site of the old church, but the building
committee, after a protracted discussion, decided on a dif-
ferent location, and that settled the matter. "It would have
been easy for me to get what I wanted," said Dr. Lay, "but
it wouldn't have been serving the Indian."
THE MEMORIAL CHURCH
This Sacaton Church, which was built in 1918 as a
memorial to Dr. Cook, is the central and largest church
building. The Indians and their white friends all worked
together to raise the funds and obtained $17,000 of the
$25,000 needed. The building committee then appointed
the church treasurer and Dr. Lay to ask a bank in Casa
/^^K^#**5
THE PRIMARY CLASS OF THE CASA BLANCA CHURCH IN THE SACATON FIELD
vl
^^^P »irv i^ '^
I £^
II- iHh. HuLMv UF A WIDOW FALLS IXTO BAD REPAIR, HER FELLOW CHURCH
MEMBERS FIX IT UP FOR HER
THE SACATON PIMA CHURCH BUILT AS A MEMORIAL TO DR. COOK
— AND ONE OF THE ELDERS
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 89
Blanca for the remaining $8,000 on loan, and the request
was granted with no other security than "the face of an
Indian." The building is of gray stucco. The church audi-
torium seats five hundred and the basement is divided into
different classrooms and a kitchen, furnished with a stove
and dishes and silver for one hundred people.
Eight other buildings are scattered over the mission field.
Four are the homes of regular church organizations, one
is a mission and the rest are small chapels located in
parishes which are so large that it is more convenient to
have two places of meeting. The chapels are used for
Sunday evening meetings, prayer meetings, and Christian
Endeavor meetings. The total value of these "outpost"
buildings, which were all built by the people themselves,
even to the adobes, is $8,000. Four have outdoor arbors
where summer meetings are held. There are two manses,
one at Sacaton and one at Gila Crossing, and there are
also two houses for workers on that part of the Papago
reservation which is included in this field.
WORKING TOWARD SELF-SUPPORT
That the Indians are assuming more responsibility all the
time is shown in the way the churches are growing toward
self-support, and in this connection it should be borne in
mind that because of the whites taking their water, many
of these Indians are not as well off financially as they were
thirty years ago. At present this is still a home mission
field, a little more than $4,600 having been received in
1922-23 for the support of the work from the Presby-
terian Board and from some outside contributors. There
is little doubt, however, that when the Pimas all have water,
the work will become entirely self-supporting. In 1922, the
churches raised $432 for home missions, ^3S for foreign
missions, $120 for evangelism, $50 for other church causes
and $126 for miscellaneous benevolences. In 1902, twenty
years earlier, they raised only $138 for home missions, $14
for foreign missions and $29 for all other church and
90 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
benevolent causes. In 1922, $1,275 was raised for con-
gregational expenses; in 1912, $450 was raised for this
purpose, and in 1902 only $127.
Collections are taken up at all meetings. Each church
uses the budget system and makes out its own budget. An
every-member canvass is made every spring by the group
leaders. The people promise to pay something, but they
rarely pledge actual amounts because they cannot tell in ad-
vance about their crops. They give what they can.
Membership of the churches increases steadily. In 1902
the total membership was 896; in 1922 it had grown to
1,382. The present membership is distributed as follows
among the five organized churches :
Sacaton 526
Gila Crossing 308
Casa Blanca 247
Blackwater 233
Maricopa 68
This represents a higher membership average than in any
other group of Indian churches in the United States. The
total number of members equals 22 per cent, of the total
population.
Care is taken to keep track of every church member and
a regular "ever-follow" system has been worked out. Each
elder is supervisor of a district and watches over every
church family in his district. When the weather begins to
get cold, he sees that all of his families have enough wood.
If a home is without wood and has not the money to
buy any, he calls the men of the church together and they
cut and haul wood for that family. Or, if the house of a
widow or sick family is letting in the rain and cold, the
men of the church take time to rebuild the house. Further-
more, in every village there are group leaders each of whom
has a list of people for whose attendance at meetings he
assumes responsibility. These group leaders come together
once a month in the Religious Council, which was organized
two years ago to discuss general policies, methods and plans.
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 91
Members have a real feeling of responsibility toward
those who are not members of any church. "If one of our
neighbors is not a member of any church we have to go
to him and hold a little meeting at his house," said an
elder, "then we just keep on going until he say he is glad
to see us, until he wait for us to come back again. We talk
to him about the Gospel and keep on coming again and
again. Then when Communion is coming, I have to go to
him and ask him how he feel now. I say, 'If you want,
come to Communion.' He say, *A11 right, I go.' Then I
report to Dirk Lay who goes and sees him. Maybe the next
Communion he join, or the next one after that."
THE CAMP MEETING
The chief evangelistic effort is made at the yearly camp
meeting, held in the large arbor at Casa Blanca. These
camp meetings were started by Dr. Cook fifteen years ago
and have been held every year since. They are now man-
aged by the Indians themselves through the Elders' Asso-
ciation (which includes elders from all the Indian churches
on the Gila River and Salt River reservations).
In order to obtain good speakers for the camp meetings,
a kind of plan of exchange is worked, Dr. Lay speaking
in some big city church and the church sending their min-
ister out to the camp meeting. Two thousand Indians from
all that section of the country came in wagons and on horse-
back to the last camp meeting, which started on Thursday
evening, October 12th, and lasted through Sunday night.
In the morning there were classes on methods in Sunday
school work and Christian Endeavor. The general meet-
ings came in the afternoon and evening. People were asked
to come up and take a stand for Christ on all but the first
day. If an Indian has not been living right during the
year he feels called upon to take a stand at the camp meet-
ing. On the last days there is always a big collection which
amounted at the last meeting to $431.94. Expenses came
to $289.56, and the balance was sent as a contribution to
home missions.
92 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS
The first Sunday school was started by Dr. Lay in 1913
with three pupils; now every church member is enrolled
in some one of the six Sunday schools. The total enroll-
ment is 1,580. Years ago Dr. Cook started to teach the
Bible to school children once a week. This work has grown
until now regular catechism classes are held every Tues-
day night at Sacaton in which all the Presbyterian school
children in the Government boarding school are enrolled.
Once a year the children in these classes are asked if they
would like to join the church. At present one hundred and
seventy-seven are enrolled in these classes, all but one of
which are taught by Indian men members. After the class
period is over, Dr. Lay conducts a training course for
teachers and any one else who is interested.
The nine Christian Endeavor Societies — six senior, one in-
termediate and two junior — have a total enrollment of two
hundred and forty-two. Regular meetings are held on Sun-
day morning or evening, and each society has socials through
the year. The senior societies often go almost en masse to
other villages to help organize Christian Endeavor Societies
if there is none or to encourage a society already organized.
Other organizations include an Old People's Society at Casa
Blanca of twenty-five members ; a Y. M. C. A. with twenty
members at Blackwater, and women's missionary societies,
with thirty-five members, at Sacaton and Blackwater.
The people have a social program in connection with their
churches and chapels which they plan and carry out them-
selves. On special days there are open-air feasts in the dif-
ferent villages, to which every one in the village is invited.
On Christmas Day, the feast is followed by an entertain-
ment at which there is a tree and a Santa Claus to distribute
the presents. On the Fourth of July, some one village en-
tertains all the rest, and there are typical round-up sports.
To be at Sacaton and see the services through a Sunday
convinces one that this church has somehow given the
Indians a real vision of a living Christ. Church services
at Sacaton come in the afternoon and the scene resembles
AN INDIAN EXAMPLE 93
the grounds of a state fair with teams and riding horses
fastened all along the fence about the church grounds.
The bugles sound from the school grounds directly in
front of the church; the boys in one line, the girls in an-
other, spick and span in their Sunday dress, march over
two by two. In they come, children in front, men on one
side, shawled women with their babies on the other, until
the large auditorium is full. The choir, whose leader is the
grandson of the old chief of the tribe, take their places in
the choir loft. The service begins. Dr. Lay preaches in
English, the Indian interpreter by his side translating the
sermon sentence by sentence into Pima. The congregation
exhibits intense earnestness and a deep interest in what is
being said.
The number of mission workers this field has produced
shows how the message has touched the hearts of the Pima
Indians. Six have gone into the ministry in the last five
years. In the last ten years, a total of eighteen have de-
cided to dedicate their lives to Christ. All of the nine native
assistants and the part-time worker came from this field.
Three of these men are stationed on the Papago reserva-
tion. One of the mission workers tells of the instructions
Dr. Cook gave to him when he started off to do his first
preaching. "Take care of yourself," Dr. Cook told him.
"You are like an open book in the eyes of your fellow
men. People will come to hear you preach. They will read
your every-day life and see whether you are trying to lead
the kind of life you are talking about. They will read your
conduct, your conversation and your actions. So I say,
take care of yourself."
THE WAY TO THE INDIAN'S HEART
The missionary in charge, Dr. Dirk Lay, has the absolute
confidence of his people. "There are more than five hundred
Indians here that Lay could take straight to hell with him
if he wanted to," is the way one of his Pimas put it. He
loves the Indians like brothers, and they love and trust him
in return. "The elders and I have a perfect understanding,"
94 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
said Dr. Lay. "When I came I told them that I was
going to treat them like white men and I wanted them to
treat me like their own people. I told them that I wanted
their respect; that I would not stay unless I had it. If I
do something they don't like, they tell me about it and I
do the same with them. You must have faith in your
people or they will not have faith in you." The elders once
told their white pastor they thought he was devoting too
much of his time to athletics, to baseball especially. They
talked the matter over pro and con and Lay explained to
them carefully that in those places where church people did
not go in for baseball there were often Sunday games.
"You see, we go in for ball at Sacaton," he told them, "and
we don't have Sunday ball." Since then he has never heard
another word against athletics.
This mission has done what it set out to do. Dr. Cook
realized that Indians, like white men, are reached not in
masses or by wholesale legislation, but only as the mass is
broken up and touched as individuals. "The first white
man that gave us a chance to believe was Cook," said one
of the elders; "then, when we old Indians learned Chris-
tian ways, we helped too. Together we worked, trying to
do what is right, help others, pushing right on and going
right ahead."
The Presbyterian Mission at Sacaton has shown the
capabilities of the Indians for civilization and for Chris-
tianity. It has shown what can be accomplished by Chris-
tian men of large and humane views, following a Christian
program. Part of this program has been the difficult task
of trying to persuade the American people that the Pimas
had rights which the white man was bound to respect.
Largely as a result of the missionaries' efforts along this
line, the outlook for enough water for all the Pimas is
favorable, the Pima lands have been allotted and they have
not been leased. On the reservation, white leaders and
Indians together have worked out an adequate program for
a rural people living in small villages scattered over a large
area. It is a program which has reached the whole Hf e of the
Indian and centered it in the church.
Chapter VIII
[THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
GONZALES, TEXAS
How two colored churches, hy helping their people to help
themselves, lifted two little cotton-field communities out
of their ruts and raised them to the status of inde-
pendent, progressive, self-respecting neighborhoods.
From the road, Lone Oak and Monthalia appear very like
hundreds of other little cotton-field neighborhoods of the
great Lone Star State. The traveler speeding over the old
Spanish Trail, the Middle Buster and other roads in South-
west Texas, continually passes country lanes that lead in-
evitably to these little scattered communities each with a
name of its own, where groups of farmers are tilling the
rich soil of the river valleys, raising their cotton crops and
shipping their products to market.
The country around Lone Oak and about Monthalia is as
level as a floor and the roads are lined on either side with
purple thistles and wild sunflowers. Mocking birds sing in
the great moss-hung trees by the Guadalupe River. The
*1awn mower" frogs call out to remind you that this indeed
is the "Sunny South." In the midst of a cotton, corn or
sorghum field you catch a glimpse of a little cabin, the home
of a Mexican tenant and his large family who all come out
and look wonderingly after your car.
You travel through mesquite groves, through avenues of
great post oaks with their trailing vines ; you gaze off over
miles of open spaces where the cotton fields and the horizon
meet, over a country of sunshine, blue skies — of music.
There is no hustle and bustle. Tractors go snailing up
and down the rows of corn. Mule teams plod along the
highways with loads of grain. Colored drivers, leaning com-
fortably back in their high seats, feet high on the dashboard,
95
96 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
sing as they go. If the price of cotton goes up — well and
good; if it slumps, they sing just the same.
Lone Oak and Monthalia are both little cotton-field neigh-
borhoods of Gonzales, the county seat and central trading
point of the county of that name. The history of this region
goes back to the earliest settlements of Texas, is linked with
the story of the new-old city of San Antonio and the war
of independence between Mexico and Texas.
The white residents of Gonzales are very proud of their
history and their ancestry. They come from fine old South-
ern stock; conservative, aristocratic, successful and inde-
pendent they are, as were their forebears, wealthy planters
of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia, who once came to
trade in cotton at Gonzales.
After the Civil War, when, for the second time, the popu-
lation had been thinned out by war, many of the ex-slaves
settled down in the open country where they had labored;
and they and their families to-day make up virtually 75 per
cent, of the population of communities like Lone Oak and
Monthalia.
When the driver stops the car and announces: "This
is Lone Oak," you wonder where even the tree is that gave
it its name, for there are no traces of a community center,
no buildings, no houses visible. Far back on the hill stands
an old white meeting house and behind it a little cabin
parsonage — and this is Lone Oak. You must go "cross
lots," through the cotton fields, and in among the mesquite
trees to find the homes of the four hundred people who
live here. Three-fourths of them are colored and 60 per
cent, of them are under twenty-one years of age. Some are
old settlers of Civil War days and all are happy on the
land. At least 70 per cent, of the white farmers own their
land free of debt and few there are who are not boosters
for Lone Oak. Their farms average sixty acres and the
land is not for sale. The population of Monthalia is seven
hundred and forty-three, nearly five hundred of whom are
colored. Most of the farm owners here are thrifty Ger-
mans from the north who fortunately have been very lenient
with their colored neighbors, have encouraged them to buy
THE PASTOR AND HIS CONGREGATIOX ENJOY AN AL FRESCO BANQUET
TWO PARISHIONERS OF MONTHALIA
'%^
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 97
land and allowed them to pay on time at low prices. If
payments could not be made when due, these good folk have
been patient and have allowed the purchasers to hold the
land with the payment of interest alone; for the Germans
understand what land ownership means to all people. So
far, however, only one colored farmer in Monthalia owns
his farm clear of debt, though a good number are working
toward ownership. Many are very old and are related to
one another. Debts have weighed them down ever since
Civil War days. To pay the old debts they have become
indebted to new creditors, or have paid in labor and have
never been able absolutely to free themselves.
On these fertile lands along the Guadalupe River there
are also groups of Bohemian, Polish, and Belgian farmers
recently arrived who by their thrift and modern farm
methods, learned in so very short a time, have also encour-
aged their colored neighbors to work toward independence.
A DISHEARTENED PEOPLE
Home ties are strong in these neighborhoods. The main,
and in fact the only, centers of activity are the churches;
and herein lies a story of two colored religious organiza-
tions in the open country that have indeed learned the full
meaning of the word spirituality and radically changed the
life of Lone Oak and Monthalia. From a state of almost
complete stagnation they have become vital forces in their
communities and have fulfilled, in each case, not only the
spiritual needs of the parish but have lifted the people to
higher personal and community ideals and service.
Five years ago these two little colored churches stood im-
potent, lacking in leadership, poor, unequipped, battered and
weatherbeaten. The former pastor of this circuit had left
in the middle of the year, discouraged and downhearted.
His people were indifferent; memberships were decreasing.
There was no money and there was no method of raising it
or of spending it. The church had no program nor societies
for young people or old. Now and then a small group gath-
ered for Sunday school but there were no regular services,
98 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
nor was there one to lead them if services had been held.
No one visited any one else. Each farmer and his family
raised a little cotton and cotton only. Every cent the
farmers made they spent on themselves for clothes and good
times, frequently driving over to Gonzales, upon which city
they were dependent for supplies. They had no confidence
in themselves nor in one another. Suspicion and ignorance
were everywhere in evidence. Ambition they had none.
Life seemed to them no better than slavery; for, after all,
they were bound by debt and still dependent on the white
people on whose farms most of them worked as tenants.
Then came a new pastor to Lone Oak and Monthalia.
The Reverend John L. Sullivan Edmondson, with his wife
and small family, moved into the tiny cabin parsonage at
Lone Oak on the hill back of the rickety little church ; and
things began to happen. Reverend John L. Sullivan Ed-
mondson came straight from Gammon Seminary — a man
with a clear young brain ; a fearless fighter for the right ; a
believer in work and one who knew the meaning of it, for
in order to pay his way through college and seminary he had
cooked for the whole student body.
The first thing this pastor perceived was that his people
were broken in spirit. He found there were few white
people in the two communities included in his pastorate,
that these few were friendly and unlike the white residents
of Gonzales and larger towns where the colored folk were
treated with indifference and contempt; and he concluded
that here he could build up real self-respecting communities
if only he could restore confidence in the people and help
them to help themselves.
WORKING TOWARD ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE
To do this, he and Mrs. Edmondson adopted a program
intended to minister to every need of every colored person
in their parishes. "Until my people can become indepen-
dent, that is — until they do not have to depend on some one
else for their food and living," he said, "they cannot be
helped. The whole trouble throughout the South comes
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 99
from the fact that although they are slaves no longer, my
people have still been bound. They have borrowed money
and have had to pay it back in labor." Seeing the Pole
and the German, who had been there only a short time,
making good and becoming independent, he set out to con-
vince his people that they too might become independent.
And he preached the gospel of "Raise what you eat and eat
what you raise."
In order to encourage his parishioners to become their
own masters, he purchased a ten acre farm at Lone Oak and
a sixty acre farm at Monthalia and set certain days when
all the men in the respective communities should work the
land, with the promise that all who worked should share the
harvest. Men became eager to buy their own homes, A
large part of the Monthalia farm is, however, still pasture
land. Formerly the landlords furnished no places for the
tenants to keep horses and cows ; hence many farmers were
without cattle or means of conveyance. They lived too far
from the church to walk to services and simply stayed at
home. Now they have the use of the church pasture and
have bought horses. Wood at one time cost so much to
haul and was cut so far away from the colored sections that
the colored folk usually went without it. Now they are cut-
ting their wood from the church land. The purchase of
the community farms marked the beginning of cooperation
and team work for Monthalia and Lone Oak.
Diversification of crops was encouraged. Mr. Edmond-
son found one man planting only cotton year after year and
making little money. This man lived in a one-room shack
over in the hills. The preacher talked turkeys to him until
he decided to raise a few. Gonzales is the greatest turkey
market in the world and the man made $400 clear on turkeys
the first year. The next year he raised more. He now
lives in a modern, up-to-date bungalow across the road from
his former cabin. He is independent. Though he still raises
some cotton, his main income is from his turkeys.
This pastor knew that in other communities prizes were
given for fine hogs, poultry, vegetables and gardens. To
encourage better farming he organized clubs, a poultry club
100 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
of ten girls, and a garden club of ten girls, a corn club of
eight and a pig club of six boys. All met regularly at the
church to learn the best methods. They began to get ac-
quainted and to enjoy getting together to talk things over.
The boys and girls winning the first prizes for the best pig,
garden, chickens, or corn are given free trips to the annual
Conference at San Antonio. Every one believes that these
prizes are v^orth trying for and is out to v^in.
SETTING NEV^ STANDARDS
A regular clean-up vireek was introduced and is held each
year. Prizes are offered for the best-kept homes and yards.
The preacher has tried to improve the personal habits of
the people. Through the church he is developing higher
ideals, encouraging neatness and better personal appearance.
When his parishioners go to town they are more and more
particular to "clean up" and dress as they should. "Just
any old thing" is no longer good enough. Home life has
been enriched and a spirit of neighborliness is growing.
Whole families turn out to services and visit one another.
In order to increase attendance at church, the pastor
started house-to-house prayer meetings. The people then
began to attend church regularly. Better housing conditions
were encouraged. Sometimes nine persons were found liv-
ing in a one-room cabin. There are no such cases now.
Three new houses have been built recently and five have
been enlarged and remodeled.
Mr. Edmondson came to the parish with the understand-
ing that the board would soon find a city charge for him;
but when the call from a city came in August, 1918, after
he had been four months in Lone Oak and Monthalia, he
refused it flatly, because these people needed him. With
quick, hard work, this live-wire preacher has so rallied them
that when the district Conference was held they had raised,
in the four months, their whole annual quota for benevo-
lences ; something they had not accomplished in any twelve
months before in the preceding thirty years. Mr. Edmond-
son saw what could be done if proper leadership were given
and knew that his people had long been waiting for just the
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 101
sort of program he had set in motion. He and Mrs. Ed-
mondson then proceeded with the work along other Hnes.
They opened a day school in the Lone Oak church where
any one who desired to study English, arithmetic, writing,
or other subjects, might come. Men, women, and children
eagerly attended these classes and many at Lone Oak can
now read and write very well. The people were impressed
with the value of education and public school attendance
was increased.
Next a first aid headquarters was opened at the parson-
age. Lessons were given ; and during the "flu" period both
Mr. and Mrs. Edmondson were community doctors and
nurses. "Regular good Samaritans, they were," an old man
said. Even now, in every case of sickness, some one goes
running to the parsonage. All think the pastor ought to
have every kind of medicine there is; and they have abso-
lute faith in his remedies.
A community park was the next project. At the foot of
the hill where no crops are planted there is a grove. Here
picnics are held, sometimes lasting all day. The Monthalia
people drive over and community events take place fre-
quently; thus the two communities have been drawn closer
together socially and in other ways as well.
One secret of the success of Mr. and Mrs. Edmondson lies
in their genius for promoting friendliness. The first year
they lived in the little Lone Oak cabin they found the people
never visited one another. They bought an ice cream
freezer ; and with it packed, and in their buggy, they would
start out to visit their people. Milk and cream could be
had for the asking ; so the pastor furnished the ice, and the
people furnished the cream, for a social afternoon that could
be enjoyed with no embarrassment and no timidity, with
every one taking part in the "entertaining of the pastor and
his wife," while refreshments were served de luxe.
NOT FORGETTING THE KITCHEN
Going about the parish, the preacher seldom saw canned
fruits and vegetables in the homes ; and he found that those
102 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
who ate meat at all were having difficulty in keeping it
fresh. He went away to summer school in 1920 and took
special courses in canning, preserving, and meat-curing.
Already he was an expert cook. When he returned from
summer school he invited the women folk to the parson-
age and showed them how to can fruits and vegetables, how
to make jellies and to cure meats. Now their cupboards are
well stocked. There are shelves upon shelves of berry
preserves, canned fruits and vegetables, all labeled and wait-
ing for "special occasions."
During all the while he was developing this many-sided
social program, Mr. Edmondson was preaching straight
from the shoulder. He was talking independence, the value
of a bank account, better citizenship; he was urging upon
the older men that it was up to them to make the new
generation better than their own, up to them to make better
provision for their children than had been made for them-
selves when they were young. He urged: "Don't sing,
Where is my wandering boy to-night?' but *Where is my
wandering boy — and his father?'"
Mr. Edmondson had endeavored to feed his flock not
only with the material food they were learning so well to
raise, but with the spiritual food necessary for the building
up of their moral, educational, social and economic life.
Said he: "My people know that I can borrow money from
a Gonzales bank just as well as any white man there — not
so much as some, but as much as any white man of equal
resources. And they know why. Because I always pay it
back on time. I always pay my debts. Independence of
livelihood and only that can set my people free." And this
is the goal for which he is working — not for Lone Oak and
Monthalia alone but for all his people everywhere.
EQUIPMENT
Both the Lone Oak and Monthalia colored churches are
still in dilapidated condition, are valued at only $300 and
$400, and seat only two hundred and one hundred and
twenty-five people respectively. The little cabin parsonage
is valued at only $200. Ten acres of land at Lone Oak are
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 103
valued at $1,500 and the sixty acres at Monthalia at $3,500.
Both churches are one-room buildings with only rickety
chairs and benches and rude pulpits. Nearly every pane of
glass is broken or entirely gone from the windows. A storm
has undermined the Monthalia church and set it at a queer
angle; but new equipment has been promised by the Cen-
tenary Fund and as soon as possible will be forthcoming.
In the meantime the church program is in full swing despite
the inadequate equipment.
ON A SOUND BUSINESS BASIS
From no financial system at all to an A-1 budget system
of raising funds these churches have proceeded during the
last five years. Both use duplex envelopes. An every-
member canvass is held annually. All money is raised by
subscriptions of which there are one hundred and ten in
Lone Oak and one hundred and eight in Monthalia, only
fourteen in each place coming from non-members. About
10 per cent, of the total money pledged comes from non-
members. The church then has set the example of proper
handling of money.
The Lone Oak church has a small debt of $400 incurred
in 1921 for purchase of land. Thirty-two dollars a year is
being paid as interest, the money being raised by pledge.
Monthalia owes on its land $2,000, which debt is being paid
at the rate of $170 a year. The current expenses, itemized
below, are met without a deficit.
Expenditures L
Salary
Benevolence
Local benevolence
Repairs and interest ....
Other salaries
General maintenance ....
Other expense
$697 $946
one Oak
Monthalia
$300
$400
105
120
20
186
($32
190
($170
on land)
on land)
56
106
50
50
60
104 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
WORSHIP
Preaching services are held in Lone Oak every other
Sunday morning and evening. Every Sunday afternoon
there is either a meeting of the Epworth League or the
Farmers' Improvement Society. Two midweek services,
one a meeting of the teacher training class and one a regular
prayer meeting, are regularly held.
At Monthalia preaching services are held every other Sun-
day morning and afternoon, and each week the church is
open for prayer meeting.
The morning services at the two churches have an at-
tendance of about one hundred and twenty-five each. At
Lone Oak about eighty is the average attendance at evening
services, while about one hundred attend the afternoon meet-
ings in Monthalia. The percentage attending each church
according to sex groups is as follows :
Lone Oak
A.M. P.M.
Men 25 50
Women 40 40
Young people 20 10
Children 15 x
Attend one of the services on a sunny Sunday morning.
As you approach the shabby little building it seems to you
that every one in the community is heading for the church.
Out through the cotton and corn fields come groups of
women and girls dressed in their best spic and span or-
gandies of every hue imaginable, their broad-brimmed
shade hats trimmed with bright flowers. Down the road
and through the lanes come people, old and young, afoot,
on horseback and in buggies, and even in well-filled lumber
wagons. In the churchyard under the trees, the horses
are unharnessed and turned loose to keep cool and to graze
during the service. Saddles are removed from the ponies
and thrown over the limbs of the trees. The little old bell
rings out its invitation to worship.
Monthalia
\.M.
P.M.
30
35
50
40
10
15
10
10
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 105
There is no organ prelude. There is no organ — nor is
there need for one. Some one starts to sing, others join in.
Soon all the congregation is assembled and the service
begins. A chorus sings "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and
other well-known and dearly loved spirituels like ^'Vm go-
ing down to de River Jordan one of these days," *'Lord, I
want to be a Christian in my heart," ''My Savior, my Lord,
my Jesus is makin' up my dying bed." The preacher leads
in the singing of "Steal away to Jesus." Beneath the or-
derly, reverent service runs always a rhythm. As the ser-
mon leads up to its climax, many feet begin to patter, one
sister weeps softly, another continues to say in a quiet chant-
ing voice, "Well yes, well yes." There are occasional amens.
Then suddenly, as at the moment when a driver throws
out the clutch and the car spins quietly off down the road,
the preacher calmly finishes his sermon, mops the perspira-
tion from his brow, and announces the singing of more
songs. After this he says: "Now let's open the door for
the Lord," and the collection is taken. After the benedic-
tion, when the people are dismissed, dinner is served on the
lawn; and later another service is held despite the fact that
the thermometer runs over one hundred in the shade. These
folk care not for heat, in fact the hotter it is the better they
sing.
Mr. Edmondson's sermons never beat around the bush.
As he says, "My name isn't J. L. Sullivan for nothing."
One main purpose runs through his work in this parish — to
make his people aware that there are some rights in this
country that are theirs, theirs though they may never exer-
cise them; that when their boys and girls grow up and go
out into the world they should be such as to cause people
to say simply — "There goes a man, or there goes a true
woman.'' "We're black, yes," says this pastor, "but we can
be men and women." Better citizenship, better homes, better
farms, better people — better conditions all along the line —
these are what he is working for in Lone Oak and Mon-
thalia.
106 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
MEMBERSHIP
The total enrollment of the two churches is two hundred
and thirty-eight, as follows :
Males .
Females
Number under 21
Number 21 to 46
Number over 46 .
Lone Oak
Monthalia
39
46
77
76
85
153
35
27
23
73
58
22
Forty-five per cent, of the total number are less than
twenty-one years of age and it is to them that Mr. Edmond-
son has paid special attention in laying out his program.
Only twenty-six of the members joined the churches by
letter, two hundred and twelve by confession of faith.
Twenty-eight per cent, of the colored population of Lone
Oak and 26 per cent, of the colored population of Monthalia
are church members.
The total gain last year was twenty-three and the total
loss ten, leaving a net gain of thirteen members. Of the
total gain only two were by letter and of the twenty-one
joining by confession six were adult males, ten adult
females, three boys and two girls.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
The membership of each of the two Sunday schools is
still only half that of the church; but both are growing.
Lone Oak Sunday school has five and Monthalia four
classes, with memberships of forty-five and forty, respec-
tively. All the members live on farms. The average at-
tendance at both ranges from thirty-five to forty. Accord-
ing to classes they are divided as follows:
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
Lone Oak Monthalia
B. G. B. G.
Beginners 3 5 5 6
Primary 5 4 3 6
Intermediate 3 5 4 4
Senior 5 9
Adult Bible class 5 1 4 8
107
Total
B.
G.
8
11
8
10
7
9
5
9
9
9
21 24 16 24 37 48
Grand Total 85
The Beginners' class at Lone Oak has week-day craft
work lessons and some of the pupils have made very fine
baskets, etc. In the primary department drawing is taught.
Over at Monthalia needle work is included in the week-day
program of the Sunday school.
One of Mr. Edmondson's chief interests has been that of
leadership training. The Sunday school superintendent at
Monthalia is a model. He is a recent convert to this church.
The preacher, on taking up his work here, found this man
one of his "hardest customers." When the pastor made him
superintendent, people laughed and said: *'He won't ever
'mount to nothin'." But he has become Mr. Edmondson's
right-hand man, leads the singing and manages the school
adequately. And every Sunday he attends a large class
which the pastor teaches.
The cradle roll at Lone Oak has seven and at Monthalia
five members. At Lone Oak a teacher-training class of
eight meets weekly with Mr. Edmondson. The course of
study is that prescribed by the Board and consists of a
four-year course. To increase attendance, membership con-
tests are held frequently. Sunday school picnics are for
every one in the community. There are also quarterly so-
cials for the whole school. A fine baseball team at Lone
Oak, and a baseball team and a tennis team at Monthalia,
furnish a good bit of sport for the two communities. The
players are whizzes at games, which are the chief events
of all big gatherings. The girls are good supporters of the
teams and give their yells and sing and cheer.
108 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
At some of the community gatherings as many as three
hundred are present. They are just big family affairs where
groups get acquainted ; mothers talk over their problems and
swap recipes; farmers talk crops and discuss the value of
^'dipping" their cattle ; young folks play games ; and always
there are plenty of ''eats" — ice-cream cones, soda, pop be-
tween meals; at noon, regular banquets with fresh fried
catfish from the Guadalupe, fried chicken, which is Sister
Moses' specialty, salads, pies, cakes. Finer cooksjwould be
hard to find, and they know it and are proud of it. De-
cision Day is observed with good results. Quarterly mis-
sion periods are held and regular mission offerings are sent
to the M. E. Board. Three Monthalia pupils attend Sam
Houston College and one from Lone Oak has entered Chris-
tian work during the last five years.
Four representatives from each school attended the dis-
trict conference last year, their expenses being paid by the
Sunday school. Both schools are self-supporting. Lone
Oak school cost for running last year $41 and Monthalia
$52.
ORGANIZATIONS
The list on page 109 shows the successful result of Mr.
Edmondson's attempt to build up a well-organized com-
munity program.
The church program includes the development of the
spiritual, social, economic and physical life. Weekly and
quarterly socials are held for the young people. House to
house family socials are popular. Special community days
and regular holidays are observed — especially Thanksgiving,
Emancipation Day and Christmas. An annual Rural Life
Institute is held in the interest of better farms and homes.
Special lectures on health are given from time to time. The
church and its various organizations care for the sick and
the poor. Home and Farm Improvement lectures and mis-
sion talks are given; study classes meet with both Mr. and
Mrs. Edmondson.
Minstrel shows furnish funds for special needs. The
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
109
MONTHALIA
Name
Ladies' Aid .
Brotherhood . . .
Epworth League
Members
9
. 24
. 14
Aver.
Attend.
9
20
12
Meetings
a Month
1
2
4
Ages
20 up
20 up
9 to 20
LONE ^ OAK
Aver. Meetings
Name Members Attend, a Month Ages
Epworth League .9 9 6 11 to 20
W.H.M.S 8 6 2 20 up
Ladies' Aid 6 6 2 20 up
Poultry Club .... 9 9 1 7 to 18
Garden Club .... 10 8 1 9 to 17
Corn Club 8 8 1 11 to 17
Pig Club 6 6 1 9 to 16
men of the church have helped to improve the roads. At
Monthalia entertainments are continually being given, in-
cluding concerts, plays and literary entertainments. The
pastor works here also with the boys' and girls' clubs for
better gardens and live stock ; and special Bible lectures are
given through the winter. To help in the work of the cir-
cuit, Pastor Edmondson has the following standing com-
mittees :
1. Apportioned Benevolences.
2. Christian stewardship.
3. Foreign Missions.
4. Home Missions and church extension.
5. ReHgious Instruction.
6. Tracts.
7. Temperance.
8. Education.
9. Hospitals.
10. Education for Negroes.
11. Church records.
12. Auditing accounts.
110 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
13. Parsonage and furniture.
14. Church music.
15. Estimating ministerial support.
16. Examination of local preachers.
From this list will be seen another point stressed in Mr.
Edmondson's ministry. He believes in placing responsibility
upon the many, not only to lessen his own load but more
especially to impress upon his people that they are really
necessary parts of the organization.
PUBLICITY
The pastor^s mimeograph is a busy machine. Announce-
ments are sent out repeatedly for special services. A weekly
parish paper is sent into every colored home. Every one
looks for this "Gonzales Circuit Rider." Some of the folks
save the numbers and bind them at the end of the year. The
paper is full of news, of church announcements, of inspira-
tional paragraphs. The pastor is the editor, illustrator and
publisher, and signs himself "Uncle Munn." There are
Bible quotations, with short explanations and examples given
below. There are paragraphs written in by members of the
two churches, experiences and what these have meant in
their lives. Sometimes a Sunday school lesson is explained
in this paper. It says: "Your Uncle Munn will welcome
your news — opinion — advice or anything you want pub-
lished. Send them in early. This is your paper."
A RESOURCEFUL LEADER
The Reverend J. L. S. Edmondson lives at Lone Oak.
He receives as salary from his two churches $700 and from
the church boards $300 a year. His buggy is the most fre-
quently seen conveyance in Lone Oak and Monthalia.
This pastor is a Mississippian by birth, is country-raised
and naturally fits a rural field. He has worked and cooked
and thought his way through the George R. Smith College
at Sedaha, Missouri, and through Gammon Seminary; has
studied agriculture at the Lincoln Institute and taken special
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 111
summer courses in canning, preserving and meat-curing at
Wylie School for pastors.
The Lone Oak-Monthalia charge is his first appointment
and he has been there five years. Looking back at the little
cabin where Mr. and Mrs. Edmondson and their three
young children live, one remembers first the friendliness of
them all. Mrs. Edmondson has a ''How-do-you-do ?" and a
friendly smile for every one she meets. Mr. Edmondson is
serious-minded ; but he knows how to laugh. At a baseball
game he is the liveliest man on the bleachers. He is a born
leader, a genial, human, understanding soul; and he has
succeeded through sheer work. And he is not afraid. From
morning till night this pastor and his wife are engaged in
the business of serving others and they will tell you ''it has
paid." They have lifted Lone Oak and Monthalia out of
age-old ruts and made their people hold up their heads.
They are proud of the people, whom they have found so
loyal and so ready to cooperate when given a little help and
encouragement.
They are looking forward to better days when, with the
land free from debt and with new church equipment, they
may the more independently carry on the great work so nobly
begun.
They are out for better schools. The dark little one-room
shacks, each with one teacher and many pupils — eighty-five
at Lone Oak and seventy-six at Monthalia — are no longer
good enough. One improvement begets another; and now
that these small cotton field communities have begun to
come into their own, each with a well-developed leader-
ship, a real neighborhood program, independence of liveli-
hood and a renewed assurance that it really counts — surely
better days are ahead.
The people market their crops and go to the movies at
Gonzales, and from Gonzales they receive their mail ; but at
home in Lone Oak and Monthalia they have found that a
church in a rural community can minister to the develop-
ment of every phase of community life, as well as afford
religious instruction, if only, as Mr. Edmondson puts it, "the
shepherd and the sheep will travel along the same road."
Chapter IX
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING
BUCKHORN, KENTUCKY
A church that is responsible for everything, from the saw-
mill to the college.
This is the story of a leavening influence in a section of
America jealously guarded by the hand of a prodigal
Nature, of men and women whose ancestors preferred
these almost inaccessible pockets of our Southern Appa-
lachian mountains to the lure of our western prairies. This
mountain chain was settled by a purely American white
population of English and Scotch ancestry. Perhaps the
latter element predominates in their conservative individual-
istic temperament, for instances are found of families that
migrated westward after the Civil War, but who soon re-
turned to their native Highlands.
This primitive region of about two hundred and fifty
counties, with heavily forested mountains teeming in coal
and mineral riches that await development, is incongruously
described as "the backyard of the South." The neglect im-
plied in this phrase is largely due to the fact that these
scattered settlements along the banks of creeks and rivers
and among precipitous mountains have no political signifi-
cance. Were their votes more effective these "backyard"
citizens would receive more attention, but until the treasures
of their mountains, the timber and minerals, are made ac-
cessible, "backyard" citizens they will remain.
Meanwhile their history and customs, their primitive and
secluded life, their folklore and ballads, and especially the
fervor and tenacity of their Protestant faith, compel admi-
ration. It is this primitive American civilization, rather than
the human passions and feuds which have given this region
112
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING 113
publicity and obscured the sterling qualities of the people,
that commends the Southern Highlander to our attention.
Our social and religious traditions have been so profoundly-
modified that it is good to rediscover their original flavor.
THE CHOICE OF A PARISH CENTER
The scene of this story is laid in the Allegheny-Cumber-
land belt of the Southern Highlands. Buckhorn, in Perry
County, Kentucky, is close to the conjunction of Perry,
Clay, Leslie, Owsley and Brethitt counties. The nearest
station is Altro, Kentucky, on the Lexington, Jackson and
McRoberts Branch of the Louisville-Nashville Railroad,
one hundred and thirteen miles southeast of Lexington. The
journey from Altro is one of eight miles in the saddle over
the mountain trails and precipitous valleys with their rush-
ing alpine streams. In such inspiring scenery live the
parishioners of Buckhorn. It is a surprise to find a strug-
gling valley settlement at the junction of the Middle Fork of
the Kentucky River and Squabble Creek, lighted by elec-
tricity, with many houses furnished with baths and run-
ning water, a modern group of buildings whose saw- and
grist-mills and barns are so much better than any others
encountered in the region.
If this parish center had been selected for its natural
scenery alone none could have been more ideal. But other,
more practical, considerations entered into this choice of
Buckhorn. Here was a settlement, a trade center, water-
power, an unusual amount of arable land, which is a prime
factor in this mountainous country, timber and coal in
abundance. The chief advantage lay in the fact that as the
valleys are the travel routes, they converged upon Buckhorn,
which is one of the most accessible points in a difficult
region.
It is now twenty years since the Rev. Harvey S. Mur-
dock first came into the region to investigate some mission
work that needed funds. He had completed his college and
seminary courses and was serving his apprenticeship in a
branch of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, of
114. CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Brooklyn, N. Y. His report on this field among the South-
ern Highlanders was so favorable that the necessary funds
were granted, and the young pastor received and accepted
the call to his life work. To-day Buckhorn church has a
membership of seven hundred and four, a group of buildings
that are rendering a great service to the far-flung mountain
community, a valuable tract of land for agricultural demon-
stration purposes and recreation, a loyal group of supporters
and workers, and a growing army, whose numbers unfor-
tunately have not been recorded, of those who have passed
through its school and church influence and are spreading it
in less favored communities.
NATURE A STERN NURSE
The social and rehgious conditions of the people among
whom Mr. Murdock began his life work were primitive.
The extreme isolation developed and concreted certain opin-
ions, practices and characteristics that had grown to menace
the people of the region. This was due to the general condi-
tion of illiteracy and the lack of remedial education. More
than 20 per cent, of the voting males were illiterate and a
much higher proportion of the women and children. The
local schools were of the most primitive character, and even
now, as then, the children are kept from school for seasonal
harvests or labor.
Certain advantages among a primitive society like this
commend themselves to the attention, and part of the suc-
cess attained by Mr. Murdock's work in Buckhorn and its
vicinity is due to utilizing them. Necessity and close con-
tact with a relentless nature have given these people an
elemental wisdom in the use of their natural resources*
Coal is cropped from the surface of the mountains, and
nearly every family has its little mine. The highlanders
have learned to satisfy their wants and needs as far as pos-
sible from their environment, and while their environment
has at the same time closed them in from the progressive
world, it has compensated for this by developing a sturdy
character that is instinct with self-reliance. They have, how-
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING 115
ever, for so long done things for themselves that theory,
v^^hen applied to such problems as their unsanitary condi-
tions, their physical and mental disabihties, is not always
cordially received.
This intense individualism has shaped the ethical and
social standards of these southern mountaineers. In their
isolation they have for so long waged warfare in order to
survive against the laws of a relentless, prodigal nature
that, having triumphed and successfully controlled them,
they are not readily amenable to the laws of man. They
have for so long been a law to themselves in the course
of their long isolation in these mountain fastnesses that
the slow and distant machinery of law and justice irks
their sensitive and passionate temperament. Crimes of vio-
lence and feuds are common in so primitive and individual-
istic a society. When the whole mountain population is so
closely interrelated that the accused must of necessity be
tried by a jury consisting of his own or his victim's rela-
tions, there is little prospect of obtaining justice from a
court. The same condition has led to their reputation as
^'moonshiners." Being individualists, they are not easily
convinced that, because one has money with which to secure
a license to distill whisky, he has therefore the right to
make and sell it, while a poor man unable to purchase a
license must be punished.
Into this society the modern world must bring its eco-
nomic, social and spiritual resources. Until the great natural
wealth in timber and minerals brings the railroad and im-
proves communications, these little isolated communities
must depend on outside agencies to bring them into touch
with the privileges and benefits they need. At present they
subsist on farming; corn, potatoes, sorghum and garden
vegetables, with very little fruit, constitute their entire out-
put. Sheep furnish them with food and clothing.
In these homes the spinning wheel is still in use for
blankets and articles of domestic use. Their quilts are
elaborately made and together with baskets have become
articles of export trade. Manufactured clothing is preferred
to the homespun garments of their forefathers, but at Buck-
116 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
horn efforts are being made to encourage the weaving of
tweeds as the fireside industry for which their Scottish an-
cestors are still famous. Besides sheep, which thrive among
their mountains, the small amount of low-lying land avail-
able for cultivation and grazing limits their stock to mules,
pigs and a few cattle. Their homes require sites on this
precious land so that the average tillable land per farm is
two to three acres, with additional cultivation running up
and down the mountainside at sharp angles. These slender
agricultural resources keep the people poverty-stricken, espe-
cially as families average six and one-half persons.
Through the long years of their isolation these moun-
taineers have made their rehgious beliefs an important part
of their narrow intellectual and emotional life. What forms
of worship they brought into these mountains, or such as
have found their way into their fastness to modify pro-
foundly the original belief and practice, are now jealously
guarded. The old toiler-preacher was their only pastoral
experience. Being of their own soil and tradition he brought
them nothing that would lift them out of themselves.
"a community of idealists"
For the type of Christian service required in such com-
munities the worker must possess special qualifications. The
pioneers of the Buckhorn work were people who loved
nature and the simple people who lived so close to
nature. They learned to appreciate the silence of the great
mountains and little valleys or bottom lands along the creeks
and rivers where the settlements lay, the trees, birds and
flowers. A few years ago Newell Buck, the author of "The
Call of the Cumberlands," visited this little community
center, and wrote: "I found at Buckhorn a company of
idealists who were attempting the impossible, and the strang-
est thing about it is that they are succeeding." How well
they have been succeeding the Buckhorn of 1922 must an-
swer, if only in part.
These workers relied upon the deep religious conviction
of the people and their response to the Gospel of Christ as
THE BUCKHORN SETTLEMENT
THE PASTOR MAKES HIS ROUNDS AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER RIDES
TO HER CLASS ON MULEBACK
ABOVE IS A GROUP OF URCHINS WHO
HAVE RECENTLY BEGUN ATTENDING
THE CHURCH SCHOOL
BELOW ARE TWO SENIOR STUDENTS
JUST FINISHING THEIR COURSE
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING 117
.f6Tis+ Mill ^^^
'•{Saw Mill ?r Elec+ric Plc.n+. 10. Boys Dorm i+ory. f3 stones)
2.Church. M. Presidents Home.(3 s+ones)
3.6\rnncs'iurr). 12. ResCTvoir.
A.i^afa^eHe School HaM (astoriesj 13. Hospi+al. {2 stories) lo Beds.
5. Manual Training Hail 14.. Girls Home. U* Stories)
6. Primary Hall. 15. 6»rls Dormi+orY. (3 Stones)
7. Kindergarten. 16. Dinmg Hall. U Stones)
8. Boys Home. C^ ster.cs") IT. Domestic Science Hal! U stones)
9. Vice Presidents Home. (2 Stories)
THE BUCKHORN PLANT
118 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
preached by the Protestant Church, in whose traditions they
and their ancestors are steeped. With this common Chris-
tian understanding the workers at Buckhorn have slowly
gained the confidence of this shy, suspicious, individualistic
people by their economic, social and religious services to
Buckhorn as well as those communities in the vicinity. They
have created a new center out of Buckhorn, grinding corn
and sawing lumber, caring for the sick folk and educating
the young people. But the church has been the real center
of all these services and activities. The ideal of Christian
brotherhood and service is the only one wherewith to combat
the religious and social demarcations, that begin with re-
ligious dissension and narrow sectarianism and end in family
feuds and a non-moral atmosphere of law-breaking and
prejudice against all forms of enlightenment.
The Buckhorn parish is organized and incorporated under
the laws of the State of New York as the Buckhorn Asso-
ciation. The church, however, does not belong to the Asso-
ciation, but to the community : even though it was built out
of the same funds that created the other buildings, it stands
outside the enclosure. The school buildings, together with
a saw- and grist-mill, the farm and its barn, electric light and
water plants, are all the property of the Buckhorn Associa-
tion, with offices in New York. The Dr. Brainard Memorial
Hospital was established by a friend of the Buckhorn work
in 1910. It has a doctor, ten beds and a paid nurse with two
special nurses to help her. During a year about two thou-
sand treatments were given in its clinics. The doctor is paid
partly by the hospital and partly by the community. The
farm is demonstrating the possibilities of the soil.
THE PLANT AND EQUIPMENT
The church school is independent of the state, but the
state avails itself of the efficient staff and modern equipment
by paying Buckhorn school $1,000 to $1,190 a year for
taking over the pupils of the district school for seven
months. Buckhorn has its own permanent educational pro-
gram interpreted by a staff of twelve to fifteen teachers, with
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING 119
buildings that house teachers and pupils. In this school
pupils of both sexes are taught from kindergarten through
high school and prepared for college. The natural aptitude
of the children of this independent, self-reliant race schooled
in adversity, is exploited by Buckhorn to the utmost. The
children, like their parents, are accustomed to make nearly
all the implements of daily life, and full scope is given to
this genius under expert teachers in the technical courses of
the Manual Training School, a building 30' x 22', equipped
with tools and simple machinery. The girls also receive
technical training in the Domestic Science Hall, 36' x 40',
and two stories high. There are also a Primary Hall,
36' x 44', with two rooms ; a kindergarten, 22' x 34', equipped
with the latest educational devices; a two-story home,
40' x 50', for small boys orphaned and stranded in the moun-
tains; a three-story dormitory, 88' x 36', for seventy-five
older boys, with a two-story addition, 32' x 14' ; a two-and-
one-half story home, 54'x68', for little girls; a three-story
dormitory, 54' x 48', for seventy-five older girls ; and a two-
story building, 88' x 48', used as a dining-hall.
The children of these mountaineers, doing their share of
labor from an early age, know how to work, but they must
learn to play. The school plant now includes a gymnasium,
103' 5" x 7V 5", with basketball for the girls and young boys
and other organized games. The pastor is an old college
"fan," and it is natural to find a good baseball team whose
prowess is known in Lexington, Winchester, and other urban
and mountain centers. The pastor has personal charge of
its training, and it is in the difficult role of umpire that his
associate is spreading the code of sportsmanship among the
children who did not know how to play, and to whom the
idea of competition or rivalry raised the latent passion of
family feud.
WHERE THE POPULATION GOES TO CHURCH
It would not be fair to say that every one reached by
Buckhorn parish is a worshiper, but it is accurate to say
that wherever the church has had a preaching point for
five or six years, practically every one attends church. This
120 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
is chiefly a tribute to the deep religious sentiment that is
one of the marked characteristics of these mountaineers.
Buckhorn's church auditorium comfortably seats about three
hundred and fifty people, but it is a common thing to find
seats for an overflow amounting to about four hundred and
seventy-five. The regular attendance averages three hun-
dred and fifty out of a membership of seven hundred and
four. Besides the Wednesday evening service, with an at-
tendance of two hundred and fifty, Buckhorn church con-
ducts a series of evangelistic meetings which last for a week
or more in every preaching point of the parish. Its Sunday
school, however, has the phenomenal total membership of
one thousand and thirty. This is due to the fact that the
adults attend Sunday school and remain for the church
service which follows. Buckhorn has a Christian Endeavor
Society meeting with a membership of about two hundred.
Buckhorn village has increased about 100 per cent, during
the twenty years of parochial work. As indicated, the work
is not confined to Buckhorn proper. Every neighborhood in
the vicinity is served by the two ministers, aided by teachers
from the school. Nearly a dozen preaching points are in
active operation, and the total Buckhorn parish enrolls nearly
a thousand members, with eighty-nine added during the past
year. This is in a community of about two thousand people.
The evangelistic services conducted by Buckhorn at these
various points are not through imported evangelists but by
the ministers of the parish, of whom two are stationed at
Buckhorn and one at Cow Creek. The latter parish is not
strictly a part of Buckhorn, though it is the result of Buck-
horn endeavors. Cow Creek school was built and organized
by the Buckhorn Association, which is now organized as a
congregation. This has been the history of all but two or
three churches within the Presbytery, which bears the name
of the parent church — Buckhorn.
FINANCES
For a short period, $2,400 was received from the Board
of Home Missions, specially designated by the Lafayette
WHERE THE CHURCH IS EVERYTHING 121
Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., for Buck-
horn parish. This method of support continued until five
years ago, when the work was incorporated as the Buckhorn
Association under the laws of the State of New York. The
State of Kentucky contributes about $1,000 for the seven-
month school service, and the people, in proportion to their
limited means, pay their share, amounting to about $1.08
per capita. During the past year Buckhorn parish itself has
contributed $334 for benevolences. There is no general
appeal for funds outside of the parish. Mr. Murdock an-
nually presents his budget and explains the needs to the
friends of the parish, most of whom are in the Lafayette
Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., and the
sum, amounting to about $25,000 per annum, is sub-
scribed.
The Sunday services are not, however, the full extent of
the religious work. All the pupils in school attend chapel
services at eight o'clock in the school hall before the classes
begin for the day. In each class the teacher has a period
for the study of religion and the Bible. This religious train-
ing is in the mountain tradition where the daily life of the
people is full of Biblical maxims and texts. Thus the school
avails itself of this tradition and relates the religious train-
ing to all the subjects, especially in domestic and social
science. It would be hard accurately to assess the rich fruit-
age of this work. The records of graduates have not been
fully kept. Hundreds have passed, during twenty years,
through the school and church influence of Buckhorn, going
as preachers, teachers or home makers to the farthest re-
cesses of the region and beyond. Some idea can be obtained
by the fact that during these twenty years more than four
hundred of these pupils became teachers. Moreover, the
Vice-president of Buckhorn, the heads of the departments
of manual training, agriculture, mathematics, English and
history are all mountain boys graduated at Buckhorn. Not
such a large proportion of women teachers are so trained,
but all have a sympathetic understanding of the people. It
has been found necessary to decline pupils owing to lack of
accommodation. At present about four hundred students
122 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
are educated annually from kindergarten through high
school.
WHEN THE ANGELUS RINGS
The best evidence of the work and its influence in the
region is the social and religious spirit that is a precious
Christian leaven in a great wilderness. But it should be
remembered that these people have long preserved a religious
spirit, through years of isolation, which was their only solace
and comfort in a hard life of adversity. One has merely to
hear the angelus which calls the parish to prayer every day
to understand this fervor. There is no fixed time for the
angelus, but an elderly woman for many years has rung
the bell, and as its first stroke echoes up and down the
wooded valleys every man, woman and child for a few
moments bows the head in reverence. There may be a
clatter of dishes and a babble of conversation in the dining
hall, or cries of children in the playground, or a lonely
man or boy working in a patch on the mountainside. But
all heed the angelus and cease for a moment's prayer. It is
a beautiful custom, and one that is naturally and essentially
the outward sign of the soul of these Southern moun-
taineers.
Chapter X
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA
Where the church has become the hub of a perfect wheel,
whose rim encircles the entire community with all its
agencies.
"We put the churches at the bottom of the list as a kind
of Christian foundation to the general business of the town,"
says an early history of Davis, California, in true New Eng-
land fashion. Had the historian visited this prosperous little
community in the Sacramento Valley in 1919, just fifty
years after the organization of its one permanent Protestant
church, he would have been surprised to find that the
church had just begun to fulfill its responsibility to Davis
as a "Christian foundation to the general business of the
town."
Religious services, prayer meetings, Sunday school and
occasional socials were being held, it is true; but in this
educational center, which was growing chiefly because of the
development of its agricultural college there was no pro-
gram equal to the need. There was no special connecting
link between the church and the community. As for busi-
ness relations, they had never entered Davis' church-con-
sciousness. Descendants of easterners who flocked west in
1849 in search of their "place in the sun" and who found it
not in the gold fields but in the fertile valleys of the Sacra-
mento River, the people of Davis to-day are proud, prac-
tical, conservative, and prosperous. The community grew
up with the idea that "good fences make good neighbors"
and cooperative development was almost unknown before
the coming of the College of Agriculture in 1910. When,
123
124 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
from seventy-seven tracts under consideration, Davis was
chosen as the location for this institution, the sleepy little
village began to show its first signs of progress. From that
time on the population steadily increased. Up-to-date busi-
ness and farming methods fostered by the college were ex-
tended throughout the community. New life in Davis gave
this all- American village something to live up to. Its 75 per
cent. Protestant population early learned the lesson of ''less
church, more religion." Religious competition, church feuds
and denominational antagonisms have been entirely lacking
in its history.
Davis is unusual in that its eighteen hundred inhabitants
are served by only two churches — the Roman Catholic
church, with a small but constant membership, and the Com-
munity Presbyterian church which is now the very hub of
the community, vitally connected with every agency and
interest in the town. The present building, which bears wit-
ness to the forward-looking spirit of the people who planned
it, has beneath its bungalow roof, a well-equipped audi-
torium, a social hall, seven separate Sunday school rooms
and a businesslike little office. Evidently its builders hoped
that some day a real community program might be carried
on, though until recently there were few who believed such
a program possible. Leadership there was, but not in action.
Church funds were not systematically handled. The organi-
zation, like every other institution in Davis, was looking out
for its own ends and quite indifferent to its responsibility
beyond teaching religion.
READY TO start; BUT STALLED
It was in 1919 that Rev. Nathan Fiske became pastor
of the Presbyterian church and student pastor of the College
of Agriculture. For years this man had dreamed of serving
an entire community through the well-rounded program of
just one strong central church organization; and here in
Davis he found his opportunity to make his dream a reality.
He noted the church equipment, reasonably adequate for
the housing of his program; the church's location, in the
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 125
very heart of Davis ; the kind of people who attended serv-
ices ; the well-organized groups of men and women, students,
professors, business men, Bible class and Ladies' Aid — all
progressive, with unlimited possibilities for leadership if
united in a common purpose. He noted the new $100,000
school building, new homes being built and new people com-
ing in; the growing college and the leadership it repre-
sented; the prosperous farms; the splendid location of the
community with regard to markets. He found that each day
thirty-four stages and thirty-six passenger trains passed
through Davis. He visioned the sort of future this com-
munity had every right to expect, with greater San Fran-
cisco less than one hundred miles to the south and Sacra-
mento just next door. The fact that the Pacific and the
Lincoln Highways crossed each other at Davis and that
here was the junction point of the Union and the Southern
Pacific railroads, meant inevitable progress to this pastor,
who was also a shrewd business man. But he saw also
that the business men were proceeding without reference to
the surrounding farmers, who, for the most part, were still
working out their problems alone. The community was
running at loose ends. The task presented to Mr. Fiske was
that of tying this central community church in some way
to every agency in the village; and he determined to treat
his problem as a business proposition.
His first move, then, was a challenge to the leadership of
Davis which, as he expected, immediately rose to its feet,
100 per cent, strong. It was as if the citizens of the com-
munity had been waiting for his coming. Soon after Mr.
Fiske came to Davis, a meeting was held to talk over plans
for the sewerage system for the village. County and state
officials were present and citizens heard much helpful dis-
cussion. Yards had open cesspools, some of them so many
that their owners knew not where to dig another. At the
close of the discussion not a citizen of Davis had anything
to say, and the motion was made to adjourn. Even then no
one said a word. Mr. Fiske, though a newcomer, could
stand it no longer. He rose to his feet. He spoke only a
few words but they were scathing ones. The sewerage system
126 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
was to cost only $5,500 and he asked those present why
they were going to allow a delay in putting through this
project so sorely needed. He asked which of those men was
wilHng to lose one of his own children for the sum of $5,500,
and told them what a plague of typhoid might mean to
Davis and perhaps to their own families if they did not
take immediate action toward bettering sanitary conditions.
Before he had finished, three men were on their feet ready
to talk. They had been wanting to say something all the
while but were unaccustomed to speaking and each had been
waiting for the others. A vote resulted in a decision which
in short order put through the sewerage project.
A BUSINESSLIKE START
One of the first developments at the church was the
introduction of a systematic method of raising money.
Twenty teams were sent out for the first annual every-mem-
ber canvass. The work was quickly accomplished, for every
one was found ready and willing to cooperate in the cam-
paign, and 50 per cent, of the total amount subscribed came
from non-members. Since 1920 benevolences have tripled,
and all because of organized effort.
Up to two years ago the business men had had an organi-
zation to which only business men could belong. They
looked out for their own narrow interests, and that was all.
When Mr. Fiske arrived, they saw that he meant business
and began to get acquainted with him; they saw that he
would be a valuable member of their organization and de-
cided to stretch a point and ask him to join. After all, was
he not a business man with a very real business at the com-
munity church ? He was admitted. Then later the question
arose as to whether or not farmers should be classed as
business men. And then came the college professors. Were
they not business men ? Well, the question was duly argued
to a finish and the result was that all were asked to join
the business men's organization, which learned many things
from its new members with their varied experience. Before
anybody knew it, this organization had become a full-fledged
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 127
chamber of commerce. Prejudices, once strong between
town and country, were broken down, and the farmer and
the business man found that their problems were, after all,
each other's. Suspicions died a natural death.
Next Mr. Fiske became chaplain of the Masonic Lodge,
and thus was made a connection between church and lodge
activities. To forward civic improvement as rapidly as
possible, he accepted the office of Board Director of the
Community Service organization. Meantime he was visit-
ing throughout his parish. He could talk chickens with the
farmers because he had raised chickens and in fact had paid
for his first automobile with egg money. He had preached
the Gospel to the lumberjack, the cowboy, the city man and
the farmer, and was at home with them all.
TYING UP WITH THE COMMUNITY
An opportunity soon offered itself for the linking of
church and school. Only a few of the pupils who went
regularly to the high school at Woodlands were from fami-
lies owning automobiles ; and those who had machines were
accustomed to crowd the others into their cars and race all
the way to Woodlands. It was a dangerous proceeding and
each day the parents became more worried. Mr. Fiske, with
the school principal and a few leading citizens, conceived the
idea of forming an association and purchasing a school bus.
Every child's parent had to join this organization before the
child could ride on the school bus. Every member was
asked to go on a note at the bank for $3,000, with which a
truck was purchased; and a top was made to order under
the personal supervision of the pastor. A driver was hired
at $100 a month, who should be responsible for the trips
and report any misdemeanors. Every member agreed to
stay by the association, unless he moved away, or until his
child should leave school. The bus, driver and children were
all adequately insured — the children against accident and
death and the car against accident, fire and theft. Then
those in charge went to the high school in Woodlands and
obtained from the authorities an appropriation of five dollars
128 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
for each child riding. Ten dollars a month per child was
paid by the association, making a net cost of five dollars
per child for the parent. At the end of the first year, in
addition to paying the driver, upkeep and insurance, the
association had paid $1,400 on the original note. This year
an effort is being made to obtain the services of a Wood-
lands teacher who will ride back and forth on the bus and
act as supervisor. The association agrees to pay for her
board and room. The charge per child will not be in-
creased and the same rebate will be received from the high
school at Woodlands; but the remainder of the debt will
be paid in part this year and in part next. By a third year,
transportation costs can be reduced and the remainder of the
debt easily paid.
Day school and Sunday school began to join annually in
a great picnic. Last year this real young people's com-
munity celebration began with a big parade. There were
class yells, and one of the business men furnished a band
for the affair. Then off they all went in trucks, banners fly-
ing, the cars all decorated, to the picnic grounds near the
canal. "They painted things red. It was a humdinger
picnic," said the pastor. The community is behind school
development, body and soul. "We're all one" is the spirit.
Mr. Fiske is a member of the Parent-Teachers' Associa-
tion, which has become very active in Davis and which
last year put in cement walks around the new school build-
ing and furnished funds for free lunches. The lunches were
much needed, for the county nurse found 60 per cent, of
the children under weight, despite the fact that they live in
the healthy climate of this wonderful valley. It was the
Parent-Teachers' Association which, with the help of the
Community Service organization, bought the new play-
ground apparatus.
A Daily Vacation Bible School was successfully held in
1922 with an enrollment of fifty-five. The school authorities
offered the use of the building for the course, and one busi-
ness man was so interested that he asked Mr. Fiske if he
might have a moving picture made of the activities of the
school. He came early one morning and did not leave until
DAVIS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
THE DAILY VACATION lllllLi: SCHOOL FOR THE TEACHlXc; OF WHICH THE EX-
SERVICE MAX ON THE LEFT HAS VOLUNTEERED HIS SERVICES
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 129
long after noon. A hundred-foot reel was made, showing
all that happened during the session. This reel was shown
at the Synod meeting at Pasadena and was found to be the
only one of its kind in the country.
WIDENING THE FIELD OF SERVICE
When the school opened it was thought that if fifteen
pupils enrolled it would be all one could hope for. But the
membership grew daily. The children were delighted.
There were classes in handwork and sewing; there were
story hours, with perhaps a real parade down to the church
for a movie ; there were games and yells and songs. Some-
times, during the surprise period, they all went downtown
for ice cream cones — in short, the D. V. B. S. became the
most popular place in town during the entire term. The
best advertising possible was done by the children them-
selves, who were heard to say : "Come on — we have movies
there and everything!^
The school building is also available for moving pictures
and stereopticon lectures. Here, too, are held the "Y
Mixers," for the school has by far the finest auditorium
in Davis. Gradually the church began to belong to all who
affiliated with Protestant Christianity, cooperating with the
Baptist and Congregational organizations, though officially
connected with the Presbyterian body, in order adequately
to meet the needs of an educational center. The aim was to
unite all Christian forces of the community in the develop-
ment of Christian leadership and citizenship. To carry on
the work the church staff was increased. A Y. M. C. A.
man, a college graduate, became a co-worker with the pastor
with headquarters at the college. He has lined up the boys'
work and is the connecting link between the two institutions.
He has charge of "Y Mixers," encourages right friendships,
runs an employment bureau in connection with the co-
operative store. On Sundays and one evening each week
he has charge of discussion groups. He receives part of his
salary from the Y. M. C. A. and part from church boards,
and is the pastor's right-hand man.
ISO CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
With a view to lining up the entire parish for service and
sociability, a trained parish worker was added to the staff.
Mrs. Goodman has had wide experience in girls' camp and
Y. W. C. A. activities and knows her work from A to Z.
She has done a great deal during the past year in making
the parish coterminous with the community by the working
out of a new parish visiting plan.
In order to make ''everybody acquainted with everybody
else," the Ladies' Aid voted to cooperate by following a
program of interchanging calls. The whole community was
divided into block divisions with a captain over each di-
vision. The duty of the captains is to report to the church
office the coming of any new families, any change of address
by a family, any case of sickness, or anything else that may
afford the church an opportunity to render service. They
are to see that every one in each district is acquainted with
every one else, and especially they are to welcome and assist
newcomers in ways that will make them feel at home in the
Davis community family.
DEVELOPING A UNIFIED PROGRAM
While the organization work was proceeding success-
fully, a unified program was being projected. The Ladies*
Aid was reorganized and membership grew to one hundred
and twelve — the leading woman's organization of Davis.
The men's Bible class, with a new lease of life, became
known as the Citizens' Class and practically supplanted the
work of the Community Service organization. With a
membership of fifty, this group of Davis ptizens began to
meet regularly for social and community activities as well
as on Sundays for Bible study. The chairman of the County
Board of Supervisors is an active member, as are nearly all
the leading business and professional men of Davis. County
officers and specialists along various lines address the men
from time to time. The subjects presented are very varied.
Public health, civic welfare, community needs, economic wel-
fare, public morals, law enforcement, charit}^ and correction,
education, recreation, religious cooperation and public wor-
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 131
ship are all discussed. New plans are under way. There
are hopes that soon the two farm bureaus may be united
in one good strong organization at Davis. The committee
on schools has been suggesting school consolidation. It is
the first effort along this line and although the suggestion
was defeated this year still, as the men say, "The ball has
been set rolling. Speakers from Berkeley have laid the
question before the people and when the time comes it will
surely go through." The Citizens' Class is also interested
in a project for a high school for Davis. The cemetery
committee has succeeded in getting a list of signatures suffi-
ciently large to satisfy the County Board of Supervisors
that Davis should include in its taxes a fund to keep the
cemetery in repair.
Another activity of the class has been the education of
voters. At election time four men were stationed in dif-
ferent parts of the town to give voters information and
otherwise aid them. It was announced in church just where
each of the workers would be on that day. Through this
plan Davis cast a 90 per cent, vote, a higher proportion than
at any previous election.
Other projects are under way, including the organization
of a debating club among the college boys who are to come
frequently to service and discuss moral problems.
Plans for the future look toward the organization of a
junior church and an orchestra. The church plans to hold
public health meetings at which county hospital men will
speak. The whole aim is to tie up all the agencies of Davis
in one way or another to the community church. Denomi-
nationalism has been forgotten. One of the elders is a
Congregationalist. The chairman of the Board of Trustees
is a Baptist. A Disciple teaches the intermediate boys' class
in Sunday school. Another trustee is a Methodist — yet all
are right-hand men as well as are others of the Presby-
terian denomination.
Every Sunday morning and evening preaching services
are held at the community church with an average attend-
ance of one hundred and fifty and seventy-five, respectively,
except when pictures are shown, when the evening attend-
132 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
ance averages two hundred. The midweek service is held
regularly. Mr. Fiske feels that the title "prayer meeting" is
obsolete and has therefore changed the name to "church
night service." Services are straightforward and Mr. Fiske
uses no pulpit and no notes. He just talks to his people and
what he says goes straight home to every person in the
congregation. "Prayer meetings are all right," said the
pastor, "but nowadays the few faithful people who would be
interested in a prayer meeting are not the ones that need
one. A midweek service must make an appeal to the people
who need to pray, who need to be helped to learn the value
of week-day religion."
Thirty-five per cent, of those who attend services, evening
as well as morning, are non-members; 60 per cent, are
men, 25 per cent, women, 10 per cent, young people and 5
per cent, children. But nearly all who attend are members
of some church and are gladly affiliating with the Davis
church while living in the community. Occasional services
are held by an Episcopal rector for those who wish services
of this denomination. The Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese
came once during last year for such a service.
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES
Every year many special days are celebrated. Soon after
college opens a faculty day is observed. Following the
special service, luncheon is served in the social room. Each
person brings a basket lunch, the church furnishes coffee
and dishes. At this service last year fifty-eight faculty
people and thirty-eight of their children were present.
Every professor is invited, so is every faculty family. After
luncheon there is a social conference at which is discussed
the question — "How can we, as a faculty family into whose
hands California has given its boys, develop moral fiber?"
This conference brings about a consciousness of fellowship
between the church and college faculty wherein they share
each other's responsibilities.
Another meeting held each year is that of Farmers' Day,
coming soon after the harvest is gathered, when farmers
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 133
from miles around come in for a real community meeting.
At Christmas time a community Christmas service is held
at the school to which every one in Davis is invited and in
which every one is interested. Once a year a great congre-
gational dinner is served to all church members. The mem-
bers' reception, held annually, serves as a sort of Decision
Day. Just now the pastor is holding a series of services
especially for students and considering various subjects,
such as, ''Is the Bible True?" Mr. Fiske is an ideaHst, but
an idealist with both feet on the ground and his eyes ever
watching the future in order that his church shall in no way
fall short of fulfilling every need of the community. Men
who have been off hunting with Mr. Fiske say : "This
preacher is a 'crack shot.' " His gospel is not only "reading
the Bible, but behaving it." He believes in the church as
an organization of "not hearers only but doers." He says,
"Wherever there has been failure in the rural ministry it
has inevitably been caused by discouragement. The rural
pastor has never before had the means whereby he could
accomplish what he desired. If he ever had any dreams of
success, scarcely ever has he had the wherewithal to make
them come true."
At the State Fair at Sacramento every one in the rabbit
exhibit building was asking : "Who is Fiske of Davis ? Who
is Fiske of Davis?" It seems that this pastor entered nine
rabbits at the fair and took nine prizes, notwithstanding
the fact that he spent no time in preparing for them. On
the day the fair opened the pastor remembered that he had
promised to exhibit his rabbits. So he grabbed them out of
the hutches, packed them into his car and, without even
combing out the old fur, landed them in the exhibit. The
woman of whom he bought the rabbits some time ago won
only nine points on her exhibit and the pastor won fifteen.
The crowd wondering about Fiske of Davis did not know
that he was the moderator of the Presbytery of Sacramento,
the vice-president of the Davis Parent-Teacher Associa-
tion, a member and director of the Business Men's Associa-
tion, chaplain of a Masonic Lodge, member of the Board of
Directors of the National Community Service Association,
134 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
chairman of the Administration Division of the Sacramento
Presbytery, member of the Advisory Board of the Y. M. C.
A., an assistant scout master, member of the Board of Direc-
tors of the High School Bus Association, a member of the
State Synodical Committee on Education, vice-president of
the North CaHfornia Rabbit Breeders' Association, member
of the Synodical Field Council, pastor and student pastor of
Davis and pastoral counselor of the Yosolano Christian En-
deavor. This last-named position he feels is most important ;
for as a result of this contact with the Christian Endeavor
organizations of the two counties he has been able to bind
together all the communities. He attends all executive meet-
ings and helps with their programs.
Just now a project is under way to add to the church,
already so serviceable, a $25,000 wing for community activi-
ties; and also to build a temporary $6,000 building at the
college for Y. M. C. A. headquarters.
During the last year thirty-three people became members
of the church, twenty-three by letter and ten by confession
of faith. The total present membership, including twenty-
four non-residents, is one hundred and seventy-four. The
average attendance of the Sunday school is larger than the
entire church enrollment, the total membership being two
hundred and thirty-six, of whom fifty are from farm homes.
There have been many changes in the once sleepy little
town since Mr. Fiske came. Everywhere is evidence of a
big future for the community because the people have fully
awakened to the situation, have caught the vision of the
progressive church and are ready to pull together for greater
social, economic, educational and religious development. As
Mr. Fiske has said : "It's all one job, this work of the King-
dom, and the sooner we stop splitting it up into many jobs
the sooner will we begin to accomplish something."
Chapter XI
SELF-AMERICANIZATION
STANTON, IOWA
A liturgical church, which still uses a foreign language for
some services but which with real vision is holding to-
gether and helping to blend the old and the new.
The Mamrelund Lutheran Church of Stanton, Iowa, pre-
sents an example of a transplanted foreign community
gradually absorbed into its American environment while
retaining the rare qualities of its European heritage. The
little colony in Stanton was 100 per cent. Swedish when it
came at the call of its forerunner, the Swedish-American
pastor, Rev. B. M. Halland. This pastor, then serving the
Swedish-Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America in
the parish of Burlington, Iowa, heard of an impending land
settlement along the Burlington railroad in Montgomery and
Page counties. The railroad was being built from Creston
to Omaha, and Pastor Halland secured a two-year option
on land on both sides of the tracks in the two counties, he
to have full charge of the placing of settlers.
As was natural, the pastor immediately thought of his own
flocks, people of his own race and faith. At Andover, Gales-
burg and other points in Illinois, were recent settlements of
Swedish-Lutherans. In the homeland overseas were more
men and women of a type the pastor wanted for so arduous
and uncertain an adventure. Though the first excursions for
these Swedish settlers ran into Page and Montgomery coun-
ties in 1869, Pastor Halland was discriminating in his selec-
tion of those who formed the nucleus of his colony, and
it was not until 1870-71 that his painstaking efforts brought
notable results, and a great influx of settlers followed. Hav-
135
136 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
ing set the tone he had small cause to fear the coming of
undesirable elements. The pastor, with the vision of the
Stanton that was to be in his mind, met and ministered
to the incoming flocks in primitive fashion — in English
in the tents of the railroad crews, and in Swedish at the
sod huts of his Swedish settlers. Before any idea of im-
proved shelters and physical comforts, came the idea of a
church like the church in the homeland overseas. The con-
gregation was incorporated by Pastor Halland, June 25,
1870.
THE OLD AND THE NEW
Never was a more indigenous spiritual organization. It
was in form and character Swedish; but it received a new
birth on American soil, so that to-day the church at Stanton,
with its traditional European social and religious back-
ground, is as richly American as any native institution.
The charter members of this American rural church com-
prised forty-three communicants and thirty-one children.
That was half a century ago. The story of the West has
been one of unrest, of constant migrations, as the trails
have opened on more alluring vistas or rumors have flown
of gold and silver bonanzas; yet this little community re-
mained steadfast to its new church and home — "the big
white church in the little white town."
The settlers were turning the sod and making the best
of living in sod houses. There was neither time nor call
for more elaborate habitations. A greater need of the com-
munity was its spiritual satisfaction. And so the Mamre-
lund church was the first elaborate building erected. It was
built by joint effort and dedicated to public use.
In 1878 a religious revival swept the community, and a
theological point of difference led to the secession of those
who believed that an individual and personal religious ex-
perience should prove the method of admission to the church.
It was more or less an inherited controversy from the home-
land, constituting a disavowal of the traditional teaching of
the State Church of Sweden. On April 3, 1879, the dis-
SELF-AMERICANIZATION 137
senters founded the Swedish Evangelical, or Lutheran Mis-
sion Church. With a church building capable of accom-
modating four hundred and fifty, its diminished congrega-
tion of one hundred and thirty-seven now represents only
the village. No farmers from the surrounding country be-
long to it, as the increased social and religious facilities of-
fered by the original and larger church prove more attrac-
tive. No vestige of the original controversy survives be-
tween the two churches to-day, the little church working in
harmony with the Mamrelund church in serving Stanton
village.
The first structure of the Mamrelund church was true
to its pioneer environment, and reflected the character of
its congregation. It was built thirty-two feet wide and forty-
two feet long, with a temporary pulpit and altar table, while
the pews consisted of planks supported on wooden blocks.
But for all these rough, improvised devices it was no less a
house of worship, a religious home that was not unlike the
rude homes of its builders. Its simplicity and rigorous
practicability reflected the character and ambitions of its
builders, for it is said that the amount of money subscribed
for its erection was equal to the financial rating of the
entire congregation.
This early devotion to the faith of their fathers was care-
fully fostered and observed by the entire community. At-
tendance at services was exemplary in its regularity. The
services were naturally conducted in Swedish. The mem-
bership increased by an average of fifty new members a year
as the settlement grew. During the pastorate of the
founder's successor. Pastor A. J. Ostlin, of Cheriton, Iowa,
from 1883 to 1893, a new building was planned, sixty feet
wide and one hundred feet long ; and the community under-
took to erect this more ambitious edifice. No architect was
engaged, no contracts were made. Moreover, at this early
period, before the community was ready to function in the
American tradition which it has since acquired, and while
it was still in transition from its social Swedish background,
none was allowed to drive a nail into the new structure
who was not of Swedish extraction.
138 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Since the church is built on a hill, its spire is visible for
miles around to its members in town and country. Once
more the unselfish spirit that made possible the construction
of the pioneer church was shown in the readiness with
which many members subscribed or pledged sums equal in
value to their property. In 1920 it was found necessary to
meet increased demands for space. Through the work of
volunteers the basement was enlarged and separate suites of
rooms were constructed for the women and the men and
their respective organizations, which amply complement the
auditorium space and the storeroom. These added facili-
ties cost more than $6,000, but the Luther League has un-
dertaken the payment, and when the survey was made had
raised all but $1,000 of the amount.
In the same year that Pastor Halland built the first
Mamrelund Lutheran church at Stanton he also organized
congregations of Bethesda, ten miles south, and at Nyman,
eleven miles southwest of Stanton. His call brought Swed-
ish settlers who took up land over a large section of the
southern part of Montgomery and the northern part of
Page counties. There are now, within a radius of twenty-
five miles, six thriving Lutheran congregations which owe
their inception to the vision of Pastor Halland — Stanton,
Bethesda, Fremont, Red Oak, Tabor and Essex. With
Stanton as the mother settlement church, these congrega-
tions have justly been designated the "Halland Settlement."
The tradition of the founder of this settlement has proved
an inspiration to the five successors in his pastorate, each
one of whom has made his mark not only in Stanton itself
but in other parts of the country.
STANTON COMMUNITY
Stanton is not at the mercy of those shifting economic and
social tides that have swept certain sections of the country,
and which have drawn the youth and ambition of countless
SELF-AMERICANIZATION 139
communities into the vortex of urban competition, or have
swamped rural communities by the growth of industrial
towns in their neighborhoods. Stanton is self-sufficient and
self-contained in all its economic and social aspects; it is
far-reaching in its religious influence.
The rolling country, heavy in loam, determines the agri-
cultural character of the community. Crops of corn, wheat,
oats and hay supply the main business of stock-raising, which
is estimated as follows : Swine, 75 per cent. ; cattle, 20 per
cent.; horses, sheep and poultry, 5 per cent. Of the total
number of farms, four hundred and sixty-eight, only sev-
enty are operated by tenants. From the original value of
six dollars to eleven dollars an acre in Pastor Halland's
time, land has now reached the price of $215 an acre. The
only industry, that of flour, is linked to the economic life
of the community. From the tiny hamlet of sod huts that
sheltered Pastor Halland's little flock of hardy, God-fear-
ing settlers, Stanton has grown about its church until to-day
there are 3,558 people, of whom 750 live in Stanton village,
and 2,808 in the surrounding country. Of the total of 638
homes 152 are in the village and 486 in the open country.
THE FARMER BUSINESSMAN
In Stanton there is a Commercial Club that fosters a
healthy spirit of cooperation between the village and the
surrounding country. The Mercantile Company was or-
ganized in May, 1919, to conduct a general retail business
in hardware, farming implements and produce. It has a
capital of $47,000, and no stockholder may control more
than $1,000 worth of stock. It now has a membership of
one hundred and twenty-four. Last year $82,000 worth of
business was done in the immediate neighborhood of Stanton.
Interest is paid in dividends on stock, and the balance is
divided on a pro rata basis among purchasing members.
Of a similar character are two other enterprises in Stanton.
The Grain Elevator Co. was organized in 1919 to enable
the farmers of Stanton to secure a better market. The stock
is not limited to cooperating farmers, but there are at
140 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
present one hundred and fifteen members, none of whom
may own more than $1,000 worth of stock. The amount of
business done during 1921 amounted to $221,000.
The Live Stock Shipping Co. began activities on Jan-
uary 1, 1922. Like the two preceding enterprises it is
devoted to the interests of Stanton and its vicinity. This
organization, however, is strictly cooperative. The manager
is guaranteed $100 per month with a small commission on
all business done. The annual membership dues are $2.50.
Every member has a vote and profits are declared on a pro
rata basis. The organization is financed entirely from its
profits. During the first seven months $180,000 worth of
business was done. This included the shipment of seven
thousand hogs and seven hundred head of cattle. It will
be seen that this cooperative enterprise concerns itself with
the main interest of the community — stock-raising. The
farmers of the community are, moreover, the bona fide busi-
ness men, and thus the social and economic cleavage and
consequent jealousy, the charges of exploitation wherever
middlemen appear, do not exist here. Town and country
are practically one in their economic, social and religious
interests.
The social activities naturally center upon the church, with
its one thousand and twenty members. There are secular
organizations like the American Legion with seventy-six
members, the Legion Auxiliary, and four lodges. There are
also four clubs, including a Tennis and an Athletic Associa-
tion, which keep alive an interest in out of doors and healthy
sportsmanship. During the war a local chapter of the Red
Cross was active. For public gatherings a hall is used as
a lyceum and theater, where concerts are given by the
high school orchestra and band or by the Community Glee
Club and Chorus. One of the public events is the com-
munity picnic. The only unhealthy, illegal influence that
persists in the town is bootlegging, which keeps well under
cover. The real initiative for leadership lies with the church
members. It is casually remarked in Stanton that no one
can become a leader until he joins the church. About three-
quarters of those identified with all community enterprises.
SELF-AMERICANIZATION 141
as well as all the leaders in village and community life, are
members of the Mamrelund Lutheran Church.
CHURCH FINANCE
The land owned by the Mamrelund Lutheran Church is
valued at $12,000. The building is worth $40,000, the big
thirteen-room parsonage $7,000, and an adjunct building,
which provides a residence for worthy members of the
church when the need arises, is valued at $4,000. The old
cemetery, now closed, is endowed, so that its future main-
tenance in appropriate fashion is ensured. The church is
free from debt. This prosperous condition is maintained
by the annual quota system of assessment, ranging from
fifty dollars per man and wife or family to five dollars. The
quota is assessed by a finance committee according to the
financial rating of the members. In this annual quota
are included all items, such as benevolences and foreign mis-
sions. This budget system is unique. No quota is placed
higher than fifty dollars, even though many members are
financially able and would be willing to give more. The
various organizations raise special funds by selling refresh-
ments which are donated by special committees. The Ladies'
Aid Society, the Women's Home and Foreign Missions
Society, the Boys' and Girls' Missionary societies, all use
successfully this method of raising funds.
"members ONE OF ANOTHER"
Besides the usual transference of membership by letter,
there is, owing to the liturgical character of the Lutheran
church, only one method of recruiting membership. This
is through confirmation. Thus the confirmation class In
the Mamrelund Church is a carefully organized system of
induction to membership. There are two classes, one for
adults and one for young people fourteen to fifteen years
of age. From January to September the class is under the
special instruction of a competent Sunday school teacher.
This course is supplemented by one directly conducted by
142 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
the pastor on Saturday afternoons for eight months. The
subjects of instruction, which is in both Swedish and Eng-
lish, are the Bible, Church Catechism, Bible history and
topics of public interest which are covered by lectures. The
course ends in confirmation coincident with graduation from
the regular Sunday school course, which is hkewise bilingual.
The adult class ranges in ages from seventeen years up-
ward, and attends a series of Sunday afternoon lectures in
the tenets and doctrines of the Lutheran Church. No mem-
ory work is required of the adults. In 1921 there were
twenty-five attending this class. After the course is ended,
those taking it are invited to become members of the church
through confirmation, and invariably all receiving instruc-
tion become confirmed.
SERVICES IN TWO LANGUAGES
Mention has been made of the strong nationalistic feeling
maintained in the early days of the Halland Settlement,
when none but those of Swedish extraction was allowed to
drive a nail into the new church building. To-day, of the
two services, one, in the morning, is conducted in Swedish,
the other, in the evening, in English while the pages of the
parish paper carry notices printed in the two languages side
by side. Though Swedish is still used in church services
for the benefit of the older generation neither the com-
munity nor its church is less Amercian than are many New
England or southern or Pennsylvania communities with
British or Dutch heritage. Already the younger generation
greatly outnumbers the older, and it is merely a matter of
time when English will entirely supplant Swedish. At the
communion service both languages are used in the ritual of
ministration, and occasionally a short English sermon is
preached.
The church services follow the full liturgical Lutheran
version, with a robed choir. The attendance is large and
general. On Sunday mornings and evenings the little white
houses of Stanton are empty ; their occupants are all in the
big church. Preceding the evening service on every second
SELF-AMERICANIZATION 143
Sunday, the organist gives a fifteen-minute organ recital of
classical pieces, and at the evening services special numbers
are often rendered by the choir of fifty voices.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
The Sunday school enrollment is five hundred and sixty-
two, and the average attendance three hundred — a remark-
ably high average when one remembers that of the five hun-
dred and sixty-two members, four hundred and twenty are
living on farms in a community where the roads might be
better. The Sunday school also is bilingual. When the
main classes meet in the sanctuary for services in English,
the elders take their places in the rear under the gallery and
follow the opening exercises, after which they have their
own session in Swedish. In the gallery of the church the
Adult English Bible Class, with a membership of one hun-
dred and sixty, is conducted by the pastor. It includes
members from the confirmation age of fifteen to one lady
of seventy-five. This old lady, when asked why she did
not attend the Swedish class like others of her age and
generation, replied: "I have always studied the Bible and
know it in Swedish. Now I want to know it in English."
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Once a year during the summer, when the weather is
inviting, is held an Old Folks' Day. All those over seventy
are the guests of the church on this occasion, each receiv-
ing a special invitation, printed in Swedish, and a special
badge. A speaker from outside the community addresses the
gathering in Swedish, and the Girls' Missionary Society pro-
vides a suitable banquet. An offering is taken up for the
support of the Old Folks' Home of the Conference.
The annual Harvest Festival, held in September, is a
picturesque survival of a beautiful European custom, and
one that fittingly belongs in a rural church like that of
Stanton. The morning service is in Swedish, with special
speakers. It is followed by a community dinner attended
144f CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
by nearly six hundred people who pay twenty-five cents for
the meal, which is furnished by the Ladies' Aid Society.
In the afternoon a big missionary program is given under
the auspices of the Ladies' Missionary Society, and an
annual collection of about $300 is taken for the cause of
missions in China and India.
Another interesting event is the Father and Son Banquet^
attended by three hundred and two men and four hundred
boys in 192 L It was held in the rooms of the Luther
League. The high school orchestra played and before the
banquet there was community singing. This was not alto-
gether a church gathering, since the members of both the
churches as well as of the Commercial Club were on the
committee that arranged the event.
The "home" atmosphere is persistently cultivated in all
the contacts between the church and the community, and
every New Year's evening the Luther League holds a cor-
dial home-coming party for relatives and friends of the
parish who are visiting the home town.
For the young people there are various junior societies.
The girls of the Junior Missionary Society sew and pre-
pare articles for annual sale, the proceeds of which go to
foreign missions. There are two meetings a month, and
members are divided into groups under competent instruc-
tion according to their ability to sew. The mothers serve
refreshments at these meetings. The Boys' Home Mis-
sionary Band meets simultaneously with the girls in the
Bible Class Room. The boys have declamation contests
twice a year when prizes are awarded. They are trained
for these contests and work with as great enthusiasm as if
they were college or interstate affairs.
Perhaps the largest and most important organization in the
Mamrelund Church is the Luther League. It began as the
Young People's Society more than thirty years ago. In
1902 it was united with the other young people's organiza-
tions, which had increased as the church had grown, and its
activities, social and religious, were multiplied. The Church
owes its fine pipe organ to the Luther League. The records
for the 'nineties show that the League organized fourteen
THE BIG WHITE CHURCH IN THE LITTLE WHITE TOWN
SELF-AMERICANIZATION 145
coffee meetings, six concerts, two oyster suppers, two
auction sales, and a necktie sale, and the organ was in-
stalled in 1897 from the proceeds of these various efforts.
In 1913 the League raised funds and placed a memorial
window in the gable of the tower in honor of the founder.
Pastor Halland. In 1914 it paid for the rebuilding of the
gallery, the moving of the organ, the carpeting of the
church; and, as has already been seen, the League, in the
early days, assumed responsibility for the enlarging of the
church basement to furnish rooms for the various societies.
The meetings of the League are quite as much community
affairs as they are affairs of the church. The membership
is so large and important that no other organization can
hold a meeting on the night of a League meeting and expect
any sort of attendance. If the American Legion or any
other organization plans a meeting, the pastor is first con-
sulted to see if the Luther League has a meeting that may
conflict. Few young people's societies can show such a
record.
A CHURCH WITHOUT WALLS
The Mamrelund Lutheran Church of Stanton has passed
through painful periods of readjustment. First the com-
munity in its new American home built a church on Swed-
ish standards and ideals. There was family unity linked
indissolubly with church unity. Next came an identification
of the church life with the American community life. The
little town was soon an aggregation of church-going fami-
lies. When the second generation appeared, the identity be-
tween church and community was so complete that to-day
the young folks are the life of the church and are stable
in their relations to the community. In recent years, three-
quarters of the other Iowa counties and more than three-
quarters of Iowa villages have lost in population. Few
leave Stanton. The church ties and the home ties are
strong there. When the younger generation preferred and
demanded services in English, it was a natural transition
which none the legs preserved and carried over all that was
146 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
best in the life of their pioneer forefathers. Pastors of the
Halland mold came and went. They watched their church
and community with the same jealous care. They were
aware that a time would come when the Swedish back-
ground would mean less to the rising generation with its
American birth and education. But the church and com-
munity ideals were so identical that the church to-day func-
tions through a rich program as an integral and natural
part of its community. When no social event is sure of
success and a good attendance unless the church and its
activities have that date open, then we have found a place
where church and community are one.
Chapter XII
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE
DAYTON, INDIANA
A church in a small village that cooperates with its neighbor
church and utilizes to good effect the natural con-
servatism of the community.
When a church announces that it has a purpose, it in-
vites the comment that every church should have one. Yet,
whether the statement of purpose is an affirmation for the
benefit of the community, or a definition to guide its ambi-
tious congregation, its challenge reminds us of the Church
Militant in a world of confused values.
Its validity is tested by the community, the county and
the state in which it functions.
The Memorial Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Indiana,
took the bold step of emblazoning its purposefulness on a
seal and announcing itself to the world as "A Church with
a Purpose." With the individual, a motto or seal is more
often a symbol of family pride than of ethical or moral
importance. But a church, as a public institution, has to
live on its present and future usefulness, not upon past
achievements. Once a standard or ideal is proclaimed, the
world expects a steady, undeviating maintenance of that
standard. Dayton's ambitious church placed upon its own
community the responsibility of living up to its standard.
The Memorial Church of Dayton did not lightly assume
the responsibility. The community had steadily grown
prosperous, self-centered, with a material satisfaction that
was greater than its spiritual satisfaction. In its history,
the church had also known its periods of complacent self-
satisfaction, and its periods of active service. Like many
147
148 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
a rural church to-day it had adequately served its com-
munity through early crises and had been forgotten as a
moral force when these crises no longer presented them-
selves in the new, prosperous and assured life of the com-
munity.
But there came a day when the Memorial Presbyterian
Church was no longer content merely to satisfy Dayton's
narrow social and rehgious needs. It announced its pur-
pose :
To know our Father and glorify Him.
To know Christ and obey Him.
To know the Scriptures and practice them.
To know our community and serve it.
To know our neighbor and love him as ourself .
To shun sin and find a Savior.
To lose self and find eternal life.
Like countless villages in the United States, Dayton offers
as much scope for service as may engage the activities of
an average church. Moreover, there are not, in Dayton, the
material or financial handicaps over which so many rural
churches must triumph. At the time the church announced
its purpose, Dayton, as a prosperous community, was fully
able to live up to the most ambitious program its church
could devise. But it was not ready to recognize the church
as the center of its life. It was too satisfied with things
as they are. It had attained to its material prosperity by
hard labor and a progressive spirit ; but it had failed to apply
the same energy and vision to its church.
THE COMMUNITY
Just one hundred years ago, the land upon which the
village of Dayton now stands, near the eastern border of
Tippecanoe County, Indiana, was covered with water. It
was a bleak, uninviting prospect that greeted Peter Weaver,
the first white settler, when, in the fall of 1822, he chose
a site on the southern end of the Wea Plains. A steady
influx of settlers into the region helped to drain the land
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE U9
and found the rich agricultural community which is to-day
the pride of Sheffield Township. The first corn was planted
by James Paige, in 1823, and the first religious service was
held in his cabin the same year. Two years later a sub-
scription school was started in the log cabin of another
pioneer, Mrs. Richard Baker. The first brick house was
built in 1827, and the first gristmill in 1828 — two economic
signs of a stable and growing settlement. In 1869 the Lake
Erie and Western Railroad passed through Dayton, and its
pioneer period was over.
In 1835, a year after its organization, the First Pres-
byterian Church was built ; and around the church grew the
present community. The level, fertile lands have laid the
foundations for Dayton's present prosperity. Its early
settlers were of Scotch-Irish descent, while those who fol-
lowed were largely of Teutonic stock that brought from
Pennsylvania and Ohio sturdy farming traditions. But
Dayton has always had a population uniformly American.
The village is reckoned as a progressive farming community
by the county agent. The recent lack of labor and the
fluctuations in markets have convinced the Dayton farmer
of the wisdom of practicing a more diversified farming.
Wheat was once the chief crop. Oats and hay, live stock,
poultry and dairy products are now more generally raised.
Corn forms 49 per cent, of the entire crop raised, while
swine form 54 per cent, of the live stock.
Dayton has a village population of three hundred and
eighty-five, while nine hundred and fifty-two live in the
surrounding country. It remains a pretty village of pros-
perous farmers, with comfortable homes, two churches, good
schools, a bank, stores, garages, a grain elevator, a lumber-
yard and a coal-yard. The steam railroad and the inter-
urban electric line give easy access to Lafayette, a university
town, and the state capital, Indianapolis.
The elements of organization and cooperation are still
in embryo. No economic necessity, outside the temporary
crisis of the war, has made cooperation necessary. Even
the two neighboring hamlets are self-contained. A store
holds together the small group of thirty-five families at
150 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Moniter, and seryes one hundred and eighty-five people
around it; while a tie of kinship and economic satisfaction
binds together the group of twenty-five famihes at Pettit,
whose store serves one hundred and four people in its vi-
cinity. Cooperation has not yet become an economic neces-
sity. There is no competition to threaten Dayton farmers.
COOPERATION BY SOCIAL NECESSITY
None the less the village is cooperative enough when its
public health or its community pleasures and advantages are
concerned; and it is interesting to find public co5peration
centered in the schools. Dayton's first lesson in social and
religious cooperation began in its consolidated school, and
with the young people who helped the Memorial Church
to adopt its emblem of service. The schools are the source
of the potential social and religious energy which Dayton
Memorial Church enlisted. They furnish a meeting place
for church and community. A consolidated school was or-
ganized for Sheffield Township. Comfortable automobile
trucks, running on schedule time, brought children from a
wide area at the public expense. The consolidated school
also houses the school library, supported by Sheffield Town-
ship and open to the public.
To the high school, a large auditorium, with a stage, was
added for concerts and plays. A motion-picture machine,
owned by the community, provides public entertainment at
low cost. Lectures on agricultural and literary topics are
given by professors from Purdue University. One of the
professors conducts special vocational courses in the high
school, for which credits are given in the regular curriculum.
A well-equipped kitchen for domestic science courses makes
it possible to serve the public at community gatherings.
There is also a large gymnasium which is at the service of
the public outside school hours. The last communal im-
provement includes plans for a community house. Dayton
community has learned to utilize its two school plants on a
cooperative basis : it became rejuvenated through its school
community centers. But the church was kept from becom-
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE 151
ing a factor in the community life until it announced its
purpose and proceeded to function to the starved, un-
organized social and religious needs of the younger and
rising generation.
THE CHURCH
In the early days, church and community life were iden-
tical, and the steadfast piety of the early Indiana settlers
amply survives in the state to-day. Nor is Dayton, with all
its material prosperity, without its share of this early re-
ligious tradition. But it is rewarding to trace the intimate
way in which the church entered into the early community
life, the sort of religious leaders that gave it direction and
inspiration.
The first religious service in Tippecanoe County was
naturally held in the log cabin of James Paige, its first
settler, in 1823, the year of his coming. The first minister
in the county was a Methodist. It was not until May 30,
1834, that a public meeting was called in Dayton village by
members of the First Presbyterian Church of Lafayette,
the nearest town, who were resident in the village of Day-
ton. Accordingly the Dayton Presbyterian Church was
founded with a charter membership of forty-nine Day-
tonians.
The first minister was the Rev. James E. Carnahan, who
served until 1875. He was an inspirer and founder of
many of Tippecanoe County's institutions. In 1832 he
helped to found Wabash College. In 1834 he assisted in
starting the church in Dayton to which he gave so richly of
his service. In 1837, he founded the first temperance society
in Dayton, known as the "Washington Society.''
The building of 1834 was succeeded by a better one in
1852 ; and the foundation for the present structure was laid
in 1899. This brick building, the church that made a place
for itself in community life, was dedicated in 1900, and
marks the new era of Dayton. In the tradition of service
bequeathed by the Rev. James Carnahan, whose memorial
the church has become, there is a line of worthy pastors.
152 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
When, in 1915, the Rev. Haughton K. Fox, Ph.D., was
considering three calls from large urban churches, includ-
ing one to Indianapolis, he made a visit to Dayton. After
the service he was asked to take charge of the Memorial
Church. While considering this last call he was urged to
accept by two young Dayton men, graduates of Purdue
University at Lafayette. Like so many of the younger
generation in both rural and urban communities to-day, the
two had left the college with a desire to find or to create
an environment with all the social and religious advantages
of the best and most modern community. On returning to
Dayton, they saw that with all its material advantages, its
up-to-date, expensive equipment, the village and community
lacked the essential thing that is called vision. They knew
of Dr. Fox's ideals for rural churches and asked him to
accept the Dayton call and help them make the church a
factor in the life of the younger generation.
Dr. Fox is the son of a Presbyterian minister. After
graduation from college and seminary, he gained a valuable
experience with young people as the president of Gettings
Seminary, at Le Harp, Illinois, spent two years as a teacher
and executive of that seminary, and then took charge of
the note department of an industrial concern. After four
years of business experience he went to Covington, Indiana,
his first parish, and spent nine successful years there. While
secretary of the Indiana State Federation of Churches dur-
ing this time, he became convinced that the rural church
was neglected. He accepted the Dayton call.
THE ELDER AND BASKETBALL
Dr. Fox knew the task ahead of him. At the first meet-
ing, however, the problem was adequately put to him by
an elder : *'The thing that we have got to fight in this town
is this game of basketball." This remark was passionately
made at the parish meeting of a church in these United
States in the year of our Lord, 1915. With this clew, Dr.
Fox knew what he was up against. He knew better than
ever why the young Purdue men were dissatisfied and
THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE DAYTON CHURCH, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE
PASTOR, FORM THE FIRE-FIGHTING FORCE FOR THE COMMUNITY
THE CHURCH BULLETIN BOARD
1
'■^^" m THE
«»HIU«£1»$ SERVICE 7 30
OLSoifffYMS
pAWOMieflBTUr
^CKJtYBODY WElCOUt :
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE 153
wanted to start life in some place other than their home
village of Dayton. He saw that his job was to make Dayton
a fit place for its younger generation.
How many rural churches throughout the country are
facing the problem of keeping their youth? There is no
particular advantage in a Cradle Roll unless the church is
able to strike a balance in its favor twenty years later. The
interval between the Cradle Roll and the first signs of
leadership is full of disasters. Moreover, how many
churches and pastors are sighing for extraordinary equip-
ment, for a changed environment, for funds, or what cannot
be created by money — a community spirit?
Dr. Fox took Dayton as he found it, at its own self-
satisfied value. Like many another rural or urban pastor
he faced his leaders and asked at the first session for a
large sum of money. And remembering why Youth was
spiritually beleaguered in Dayton, he added, ''But you're
not ready as yet to give it to me."
Hitherto Youth had not been consulted in any of the
church activities. In the community life it took a pictur-
esque and entertaining role. But it had no active, creative,
communal part. Dr. Fox took Youth into his counsel.
None was too young. The Boy Scouts found in him an
ideal scout master; one who really led them. They were
treated as effective members of the community. They now
have their own clubhouse, with magazines and games, under
their own rules and governance. The farming community,
like many others in this country, is handicapped in fire ap-
paratus. After a preliminary difficulty in getting an elder
to give his approval, the church bell became the village fire
alarm. The Boy Scouts were organized into a fire depart-
ment and have rendered yeoman service on more than one
occasion.
PUBLICITY
Dr. Fox has a practical sense of publicity. He purchased
a printing press, prints the high school paper, which is the
only community news sheet ; a church bulletin which includes
the news of services of other churches, and numerous ad-
154 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
vertisements and calendars of the church's program. The
printing press is owned by the church, but is located in the
high school building ; and Dr. Fox conducts a manual train-
ing course in printing for which credits are given. Further,
with the approval of the School Committee, the minister con-
ducts a course in the Life of Christ for which credits are
given the students towards their graduation. This course,
as well as the training in printing, brings the minister no
remuneration.
With the aid of his printing press, Dr. Fox reaches every
corner of his scattered community. The high school paper
carries an advertisement of the church activities, but the
church does not depend on its press for advertisements.
There are three bulletin boards. One stands on the street
in front of the church, another is placed in front of a
store, across the street from the interurban station, and a
third, a new and attractive little board, is to be found in
the post-office where some member of every family in Day-
ton calls at least once a day for mail. The church has a
publicity agent to assist the pastor in his advertising. An-
other institution is that of the Guest Book. All visitors are
asked to sign the book ; and the printing press never lets them
forget the existence of the Memorial Church in Dayton.
"starving is poor business"
There is an element of humor in any one telling a pros-
perous farming community that to starve is poor business.
But Dr. Fox's printing press made clear his meaning. He
does not mince his words.
"Some people go to church like they go to a play — when
it's convenient or especially fine.
"They eat and sleep, send children to school, pay taxes
regularly. But religion is different — they think. Play fair
with your spiritual life. Don^t starve the soul; that is poor
business/'
In the church bulletin, the members and community of
Dayton are kept abreast of their responsibilities and of their
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE 155
cooperative duty to the community as well as to their neigh-
bor church. In one issue the members were asked to con-
gratulate the Methodist Church ''in that they have met their
Centenary quota of $6,000. A fine piece of work,"
This attitude of the Presbyterian pastor toward his neigh-
bor church, with which he shares the religious and social
life of Dayton, has been cordially reciprocated. It is illus-
trated by his statement that "the success of our church is,
or would be, marred by the failure of the Methodist church,
so long as it is here. What they build, we do not also
need." This sort of cooperation should take the place of
the rivalry that exists between denominations in many a
rural community. Since his church has commodious facili-
ties, a larger plant than its neighbor, its socials are attended
by Methodists, and are open to the village and community
at large. As will be noted, the beginning of a comity agree-
ment is found in the union evangelistic campaign conducted
jointly by these two churches. As a practical Christian's
view. Dr. Fox's statement is germane to churches through-
out the country, and especially to rural churches. The
peculiar facilities, social or religious, possessed by one
should, in this period of exorbitant prices, complement those
possessed by the other. A duplication of facilities and in-
terests leads to a competition that is ruinous in more than
the economic sense: it places a spiritual handicap on the
entire community.
LEADERSHIP
In a rural church or community, the question of leader-
ship is far more pressing than in an urban parish. The
initiative and energy natural to every church member is
given little scope. The burden is placed upon the pastor.
The chief reason for this lack of leadership in rural parishes
is a matter of distance and weather. An urban parish shares
the advantages of rapid transportation, of economic and
social concentration that are essentially urban. In the
country, unless there is an elaborate system of substitution,
a nucleus of material upon which to draw in emergencies,
156 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
the pastor is swamped by details that embarrass his paro-
chial efficiency.
The Dayton Memorial Church has a miniature training
school for leadership. Leaders in a church should reflect
the Christian purpose and example fully as much as their
spiritual guide. The pastor should serve in the role of a
director of these spiritual potentialities in his congregation.
The Dayton Church organized its youth. But none, Boy
Scout, church elder, or average member, was too young or
too old to serve in his or her capacity. Dayton's Blue
Square emblem "faithfully sets forth the working ideal of
the church, for we believe in a full-orbed, symmetrical type
of womanhood and manhood. The example of Jesus sug-
gests this fourfold development; thus the emblem has the
authority of being Biblical and practical."
Thus, in the Dayton Memorial Church, every department
has one leader or more, and there is a reserve body of
teachers with three superintendents in the Sunday school.
This leadership extends into community affairs, where Dr.
Fox and his leaders take an important part in keeping
Dayton an attractive place for the rising generation of home-
makers.
In 1919 a five-year program was instituted to give definite
aim and concerted action to the work of the church. The
parish is divided into six groups; and over each group is
an elder and a deacon. The latter has the financial care,
the former the spiritual care, of each group. The spiritual,
economic and social needs of each group are studied and
related in some way to the general strategy of the church,
through an individual record system. One family in a
group has ability for one thing, another family is gifted in
some other degree. The cumulative effect of each group
is brought into cooperation with that of the five other groups
and these constitute the body politic and ecclesiastical of
the church. Nor may the benefits of this organization be
especially ascribed to the Presbyterian method of govern-
ment. No denomination has a copyright on the methods it
uses for effectively utiHzing every natural ability possessed
by its members.
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE 157
EVANGELISM
The Dayton church has not smothered its spirituality
under the details of social organization. It has a guest
book for visiting strangers, but it also recruits as much as
it can from the Cradle Roll through the various agencies
like the Sunday school and clubs. A week, or ten-day
evangelistic meeting is conducted by a visiting pastor. The
significant union meeting in which the Methodist church
joined is a feature that needs duplication in rural churches.
The two churches organized the meeting, invited an able
evangelist and individually reaped a spiritual harvest in in-
spiration and membership. But the steady increase that is
the strength and life of any church comes in Dayton through
personal effort, the pastor's class and the teachers' work in
the Bible school.
FROM INDIANA TO CHINA
On the church calendar appear the names of two pastors.
It is an unusual custom, but one that reflects the corporate
activity of the church. These are the Home Pastor and
Foreign Pastor. Dayton Memorial Church analyzed the
economics of foreign mission work and decided that the
missionary was underpaid. Accordingly the salary of its
missionary in Shantung, China, was raised to $1,250 and he
was given a regular status on the church bulletin as Day-
ton's Foreign Pastor. Dayton church, for the past three
years, has maintained a School of Missions with a course
of six weeks duration, lasting until Christmas. There are
five grades, with an enrollment of seventy students. In
this course the problems of the foreign field are studied
and discussed, so that Dayton's reasons for supporting a
pastor in China are not sentimental or perfunctory. The
church knows the reasons for his existence and the problems
he faces and extends its cooperation and influence from the
Indiana parish to the parish in China. Three women's mis-
sionary organizations, in which the men have honorary
membership, raise funds for emergencies. The Westminster
158 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Guild of young women in the parish, the Light Bearers, an
organization for girls, and the Bible school of the church
all provide a steady recruitment of members, and maintain
the interest in Dayton's Chinese parish.
THE BIBLE SCHOOL
The church, of course, has its Bible school with a ven-
erable record, since it was organized at the same time as
the church; and the only session it has ever missed was
because of community quarantine. The school uses graded
lessons up to and including a senior class. Promotion Day
is observed with Rally Day. An annual picnic is held at
an early date after the Children's Day program. The annual
meeting, when the election of officers is held, coincides with
that of the church. Every department in the Bible school
presents a written report which goes into the church records.
A careful discrimination is shown in the election of officers
for the Bible school. A nominating committee presents two
names for each office, except for that of superintendent, for
which three names are submitted. These come to the ses-
sion of the church previous to the public meeting; and this
body has the right to eliminate any name, or to reject all
those submitted and request others. In this way the best
talent for leadership is discovered.
The story of Dayton, Indiana, is like that of many an-
other rural community. Whatever material prosperity Day-
ton possesses over others of the same size, the fundamental
problem of church and community, with diverse interests,
remains the same. An elder regards basketball as some-
thing for the church to fight and the church ends by plan-
ning a gymnasium of its own. When it has this its equip-
ment will be complete. The change in point of view is based
upon a change of spirit in the church.
FULL BARNS AND EMPTY CHURCHES
When the Dayton elder found no greater evil to fight in
the community than *'this game of basketball,'* he was not
THE CHURCH WITH A PURPOSE 159
overstating the sort of problem his church should tackle.
Constituted as it was, out of touch with community life,
and by the elder's ultimatum ready to declare war on the
eternal spirit of Youth, the church could find no worthier
foe than basketball. But with rejuvenation, a purpose to
support a flexible program and manifold activities through
'which it can enlist Youth, the church is now fighting the
good fight with all its might. Of its two hundred and forty-
nine resident members, two hundred and eight are enrolled
either in the Sunday school or some other organization of
the church, and many belong to more than one organization.
Progress in scientific farming brought material pros-
perity and full barns; progress in spiritual farming has in-
sured a harvest to a church of a type common enough in
rural communities, a church that once fitted the familiar
figure of "an empt>' barn."
The purpose of the new spirit is emblazoned on the church
seal. That seal is the common property of the Dayton
community. Boy Scout and elder know its significance, own
it as a personal emblem. AHgned with Youth, ready to
serve the community, with a parish in Dayton and another
in Shantung, Dayton's Memorial Church is firmly rooted
in its purpose to glorify God and serve him through service
to its neighbors and its community.
Chapter XIII
THE VILLAGE CHURCH
HONEY CREEK, WISCONSIN
A story that proves it possible for a church with a peculiar
custom or doctrine, such as those of the immersionists
or of the liturgical type, to minister to an entire com-
munity.
Many years ago, as the carefully preserved church diary
shows, the good Baptist folk of Honey Creek, Wisconsin,
were sorely offended by the conduct of a certain "Sister
Miranda Gates." Not only was it credibly reported that
Miss Miranda had committed the heinous sin of dancing,
but when called upon to explain the matter to her fellow
church members, she had brazenly admitted the offense and
had the hardihood to add that she ^'thought there was no
harm in it." The account of the affair in the old diary ends
impressively : "The hand of fellowship was withdrawn from
Sister Gates."
It is a far cry from the church which sternly withdrew
the hand of fellowship from an erring sister to the same
Baptist church to-day which has an open membership and
stretches forth the hand of fellowship freely and gladly to
every man, woman and child in the community. This
church, with its immersionist tradition, which began by
serving only those of its own faith — and them, as the un-
repentant Miranda discovered, none too gently — ^has risen
to its responsibility as the only church in the community
and gradually broadened its scope until it offers service to
all irrespective of faith.
A little hamlet, with but four hundred population, and
half of that living in the country, surrounded on all sides
160
THE VILLAGE CHURCH 161
by places larger than itself, Honey Creek has yet main-
tained its own individuality. Partly perhaps owing to the
natural beauty of the place, local pride developed early and
has always been strong, and this is largely responsible for
the well-defined community spirit that has long existed,
fostered by the church and in turn reacting upon that or-
ganization in still further broadening out its activities. The
village has a neat, well-cared-for appearance. There are
cement walks, electric lights, well-kept lawns. The electric
light company, organized by the citizens themselves in 1913,
maintains seventeen street lights on a moonlight schedule,
the expense being defrayed by an annual basket social held
in the community hall. The latter building, with the church
and schoolhouse, form a triangular group of substantial red
brick buildings, and, though divided by the road, all form
part of a single plant. A civic league of twenty-five women,
whose purpose is to beautify the village, has turned its at-
tention to the school grounds. Finding that the soil is too
poor to permit the growth of ornamental shrubs, they have
proposed to the School Board that it bear the expense of
fertilizing and grading the school grounds, while the civic
league will take care of their planting and upkeep. Even-
tually it is planned to treat the grounds of the church and
community hall in the same way, and in the enterprise the
league has enlisted the cooperation of the Agricultural De-
partment of the State University.
THE PIONEER CHURCH
The present church building was erected only in 1920,
to take the place of a building put up in 1905, which was
destroyed by fire ; but the church itself goes back to the first
half of the last century, to pioneer days when the first public
services of worship for the small white settlement were held
in the little log schoolhouse. On February 6, 1841, as the old
diary records, a handful of people met under an oak tree
at a farmhouse and organized the Free Baptist Church, but
it was eight years before the congregation was able to put
up a regular building, and still another year before a par-
162 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
sonage could be provided. A small hall was added to the
church plant early in its history, its principal purpose being
to accommodate the quarterly meetings of the church, and
that original hall, growing shabbier and more dilapidated
every year, had to serve the ever-developing community
interests of the church until its contrast with the fine new
church building of 1905 was considered too marked to be
tolerated. An unsuccessful effort was made to organize a
stock company to erect a hall for the use of the community,
but in the end the church undertook the project, raising the
money quickly and, if not without sacrifice, at any rate
without noise or fuss.
Thus the church did for the community what, in this
instance, the community had failed to do for itself, and
when the new hall was completed, in 1911, its community
purpose was emphasized by calling it not the church hall,
but "The People's Hall." The name chosen only gave
formal expression to a principle that had been growing
more and more dominant in the life of the church for some
years — the principle that it was the function of the one
church in the community to serve all of the community.
Perhaps the first definite record of such a principle is found
in the single article of incorporation of the Ladies' Aid,
in July, 1899, which stipulated that any lady in the com-
munity was eligible to membership. The ghost of Miranda
Gates, one may suspect, permitted itself a quiet smile when
that article of incorporation was adopted ! After the build-
ing of "The People's Hall," other organizations connected
with the church quickly fell into step. The Sunday school
opened its doors wide to all who cared to enter, and in 1915
the men's "Brotherhood" extended "the hand of fellow-
ship" to every man in the place by developing itself into a
strong community club. The final step in the long path the
church has traveled since it expelled Sister Miranda Gates
was taken in December, 1922, when open membership was
decided upon.
THE VILLAGE CHURCH 163
REBUILDING TO MEET COMMUNITY NEEDS
In 1920, as has been mentioned, the church building,
which had been the pride of its congregation when it was
completed fifteen years earlier, was burned to the ground.
With it went also "The People's Hall," symbol of the com-
munity spirit of this Baptist congregation. The building
went, but the symbol survived. The first motion to rebuild
church and hall was made, while the fire was still burning,
by a citizen who was not himself a member of the church.
When the time came for clearing the ground and laying
the foundations, other citizens donated the labor of them-
selves and their teams, and within two years after the fire
both buildings had been replaced with not a dollar of in-
debtedness, the community having raised $15,000 and
$10,000 being received from outside sources.
The present equipment is entirely adequate to all needs
of the community. The new church building has on the
first floor a comfortable heated vestibule and well-finished
auditorium, off which opens a Bible class room with re-
movable partitions. In the basement are separate Sunday
school rooms and a furnace room with modern heating
apparatus. In the assembly room of the community hall
general meetings and various entertainments are held. A
curtained stage and dressing room are provided for plays.
Here, too, is given a regular moving-picture show every
Friday night the year round, a small charge for admittance
covering the cost, while the same room is also equipped as
a gymnasium. In the basement of this building is a well-
furnished kitchen with a large dining-room opening off it.
The total value of the church property, including the par-
sonage and land, is about $44,000.
The finances of the church are handled in a businesslike
manner by the finance committee. Early in January the
amounts needed for the coming year are carefully estimated,
and the resulting budget is presented in a circular letter sent
to all Protestant families in the community. The every-
member canvass follows. The appeal receives a consider-
able response from the community at large, as is shown by
164 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
the fact that half of the one hundred and fifty pledges re-
ceived in 1922-23 were made by non-church members, and
40 per cent, of the total amount raised came from them.
In the past year, leaving out of account all building fund
moneys, 43 per cent, of the total expenditures, which
amounted to $3,731.63, went for benevolences. There is no
church debt.
The population of Honey Creek remains practically sta-
tionary year in and year out, which in itself would preclude
a large yearly growth in membership. In 1909 there were
ninety-two members, and at the end of 1922 there were one
hundred and twelve, twenty-two of whom were non-resident
and five inactive. It seems reasonable to suppose, however,
that the policy of open membership, recently adopted, will
be reflected in an increase in membership. Of the sixty-four
families represented, twenty-one live less than one mile from
the church and twenty-three live more than five miles away.
About one-fifth of the total membership is composed of
young people under twenty-one, while men and boys make
up 45 per cent, of the total.
Probably the greatest single impetus the Honey Creek
church ever received came when, as already described, the
Sunday school fell in line with the general program of com-
munity service as exemplified in the naming of "The
People's Hall." It was in 1914 that a Workers' Council
was organized in the Sunday school to find out how it could
be improved. The chief fault discovered by this body was
that the Sunday school was ministering not to the com-
munity as a whole, but to a single small group, the church
group, within the community. The first step taken by the
Workers' Council was the organization of a Cradle Roll
and a Home Department, both of which have now grown
to a membership of thirty-five. The organization of an
adult Bible class was the second and most important step.
A meeting to discuss the matter was called at the home of a
family which had held aloof from both church and Sunday
school, and the secretary of the newly formed Bible class
was also appointed from a family which had been outside
the church. The Sunday following the organization of the
A VIEW OF HONEY CREEK VILLAGE
AND SOME OF THE INHABITANTS — MEMBERS OF THE LADIES AID
THE VILLAGE CHURCH 165
new class the Sunday school room was filled with people, a
large proportion of whom had been in the past attendants
of neither church nor Sunday school.
A COMMUNITY-MINDED SUNDAY SCHOOL
As a result of these efforts, the year after the Workers'
Council started their investigation the Honey Creek Sun-
day school came up to the denominational standard set
for Baptist Sunday schools. Further than that, the spec-
tacular improvement served to bring upon the Honey Creek
church a modest amount of public attention. People began
to express curiosity about this little Baptist church in a
small village that was doing things for the community in a
community-minded way, and the church members held their
heads higher in consequence and were inspired to still further
efforts.
The Sunday school is fortunate in having as a superin-
tendent a woman who comes continually into contact with
new methods of religious education through giving part of
her time to Baptist Sunday school work throughout the
state. The standards by which the Honey Creek school is
guided are thus summarized by the superintendent:
1. Look out continually for new ideas and adapt them
when possible.
2. Always have a goal ahead. The satisfied school never
improves.
3. Watch for weak points and concentrate on improving
them.
4. Foster the spirit of loyalty to the school.
5. Remember that the constituency of the Sunday school
is the entire community.
6. Strive always for cooperation among ourselves and
thoughtfulness for others.
Various methods are used to stimulate interest in the Sun-
day school. The opening event of the year is Rally Day
and the survey made by the Sunday school teachers in con-
nection with it. Changes always take place during the sum-
166 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
mer, and this survey helps to reestablish the work in the
fall. Plans are laid and schedules prepared for a "visit
every family" campaign at the August meeting of the
Workers' Council, which meets once a month throughout
the year. The forthcoming survey is announced at church,
and on the appointed day ten teams of two persons each
visit the Protestant homes in the community. Every fam-
ily is invited to church and especially to Sunday school.
Children's Week was held for the first time in 1922. The
community was divided into districts by a committee and
the districts divided up among the Sunday school teachers.
Seventy-one calls were made by the teachers in their re-
spective districts during the first three days of the week.
On Friday evening came the Parents' Meeting, starting off
with a "pot luck supper" and finishing with a moving-pic-
ture. On the following day the children's party was held
to which all the children in the community were invited.
Regularity of attendance at Sunday school is stimulated
by the Cross and Crown system of cards and by prizes. To
every child who attends on fifty of the fifty-two Sundays
of the year, a Bible is given the first year and in succeeding
years some other book. These prizes were won by twenty
children in January, 1922. "Perfect Attendance Diplomas'*
are awarded for perfect attendance at this or some other
Sunday school. The present enrollment of the school is
one hundred and twenty, of whom ninety-six individuals
live on farms. The average attendance is ninety, or 75 per
cent, of the total enrollment. Of the twelve classes, eight
are organized, and all but two study graded lessons.
WORK IS PROVIDED FOR ALL
An opportunity for social life and usefulness is given to
many in the nine other organizations which function in
connection with the church. Six are young people's or-
ganizations, and these account for more than half of the
total of two hundred members.
The Y. M. C. A., with fifteen members, a branch of the
County Y. M. C. A., meets once a week with the pastor,
THE VILLAGE CHURCH 167
taking up the regular study course, and afterwards playing
basketball and volley-ball. The boys spend two weeks of
every summer at the State Y. M. C. A. Camp, and during
the late spring and summer they play baseball on Saturdays
in a league formed by seven Y. M. C. A. groups from com-
munities in the vicinity. Girls belong to a Junior Ladies'
Aid (ten members), and to the Girls' Glee Club (twelve
members) which meets once a week in the community hall
to sing and to play basketball. The Christian Endeavor,
which has thirty-five members, holds the usual Sunday night
meetings, has socials and helps with Italian mission work
in Kenosha and Racine. The twenty members of the en-
thusiastic dramatic club, organized in 1921, have already
given two pageants and are working on another. The Young
People's Choir practices every week and leads the singing
at the Sunday evening meetings.
That the two women's organizations, the Missionary So-
ciety, with twelve members, and the Ladies' Aid, with
twenty-six, are doing things is shown by their combined
expenditures for the last church year, which amounted to
$1,376.38. The Ladies' Aid pays for parsonage repairs,
helped pay off the mortgage on the church building that
burned, paid for having the church basement finished and
for the sidewalks on the church property, and bought the
stove, dishes and silver for the community hall. It has
raised $6,500 for the church in the twenty-four years since
it was organized. The *'big fire" which destroyed the church
and hall failed to daunt these indomitable ladies, who at
once pledged $3,000 towards the new church and hall, pay-
ing $1,000 on their pledge in 1921. They conduct an annual
bazaar, serve meals on appropriate occasions, make rugs
and aprons and serve a dinner every two weeks in connect
tion with their regular meeting to which all the community
is invited. This dinner has become a community get-
together. Since the war they have also managed an annual
Lyceum course of five lectures and entertainments during
the winter. One feels sure that poor Miranda Gates would
have enjoyed and benefited by the fellowship of this ad-
mirably energetic organization !
168 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
ALL ACTIVITIES CAREFULLY PLANNED
The Honey Creek Brotherhood, as already noted, opened
its membership to all men in the community in 1915. The
banquet with which that occasion was celebrated has since
become an annual affair, attended by men from miles
around. The membership of this Brotherhood is now fifty.
The members work consistently for the church and played
a prominent part in its restoration after the fire, but their
activities are not confined to religious matters. At the
regular monthly meetings, which start with a luncheon, ad-
dresses are given on subjects of interest to farmers, and
every year the Brotherhood puts on a Farmers' Institute of
two days at the community hall, the meals being prepared
as usual by the Ladies' Aid. It was the Brotherhood that
bought the moving-picture machine in order that the young
people need not go to neighboring towns for their movies.
The Brotherhood and the Ladies' Aid together have a Picnic
Association that turns the neighborhood loose once a year
for an old-fashioned community get-together out in the
woods. Anywhere from five hundred to one thousand people
come to that picnic. There are a band, a good speaker, a
ball game and a big dinner which is the share of the Ladies'
Aid in the day. The Brotherhood manages the Memorial
Day program and finances the free dinner for soldiers and
their friends. It supports the Chautauqua, and manages
the Honey Creek "Combination Sale." The latter was
started about fifteen years ago and has been held every year
since. Live stock, foodstuffs, and left-overs are brought to
the comer by the village store from the surrounding coun-
tryside, and the day is devoted to auctioning them. At noon
the women have dinner ready in the hall.
All activities of the church for the year are outlined by
the Local Board of Promotion, which consists of the
deacons, trustees, clerk, the two treasurers and the presi-
dents of all organizations. Every year this group adopts a
standard which includes every phase of church life. This is
the latest standard presented:
THE VILLAGE CHURCH 169
I. Church Life
(a) Evangelism
25 additions by baptism each year
A class in church membership
(b) Personal service
125 average attendance Sunday school
125 average attendance A.M. church
100 average attendance P.M. church
Every member an active member of some
auxiliary
Enlist every woman in women's organiza-
tion
Enlist every young person in C.E.
Enlist every man in Bible class or Brother-
hood
II. Giving
(a) Stewardship campaign
(b) Every member contributing to current expense
and benevolence
(c) Annual every-member canvass
(d) Ten per cent, yearly increase in giving
III. Prayer Life
(a) Fifty average attendance Prayer Meeting
(b) Family prayers in every home
(c) Prayer lists and prayer groups
(d) Every member in prayer service at least once a
month
IV. Education
(a) Work for at least one decision for definite
Christian service each year
(b) A Christian periodical in every Christian home
(c) Table for distribution of literature in com-
munity house
(d) A committee to agitate the temperance cause
(e) A committee to promote missions
(f) Survey each year
V. Social
A committee to promote, encourage and supervise
social life in the community.
170 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
"Keeping people reminded that the church is here," is the
church slogan. Honey Creek has no newspaper of its own,
but church notes and write-ups appear in the Honey Creek
local news in the papers of six neighboring towns. Oc-
casionally the pastor sends out mimeographed cards, and
these have been the means of bringing several families into
the church. This form of publicity has proved so success-
ful that the church hopes some time to be able to send
weekly announcements to every family in the community.
Honey Creek church has always thought well of the men
who have served it and has loyally supported them. The
pastors, as a result, have been able to accomplish much and
have had a large share in making the church what it is
to-day. But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves
who have brought this to pass. The community stands
solidly behind the church because years ago the church which
had once withdrawn the hand of fellowship from poor
Miranda Gates began to broaden out its program to include
the whole community, and in the process became so broad-
ened itself that it has been able to enlist the loyalties of a
united community and has opened its doors to all faiths.
Chapter XIV
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS
MIDDLE OCTORARO, PA.
The story of a church in the open country which for two
centuries has successfully adapted itself to changing cir-
cumstances and is to-day, if possible, more effective than
ever before.
There is no one formula for church success. There is not
even one generally accepted idea of what constitutes success.
The church is so sensitive a social institution, reflects so
faithfully the characteristics and the problems of its com-
munity, that it can conform to no hard and fast rule. In its
success — or failure — it is a law unto itself. There are com-
mon, universal elements, however, that are worth searching
for. The church sets itself to win individuals to an alle-
giance to its Master. But it is its business, also, to build its
gospel into the life of its community; as the years pass,
progressively to transform its community into the likeness
of His Kingdom. That is a many-sided, complicated busi-
ness, as many-sided and as complicated as life itself. In its
accomplishment, the organization is unimportant, save as
any piece of machinery is important in relation to its prod-
uct ; the purpose, the spirit, the transformation wrought are
all-important.
The Middle Octoraro Presbyterian Church is obviously
successful. To see that is easier than to state its formula.
It had Scotch-Irish beginnings, and that must have helped
a good deal — What was the Scotchman's prayer? ''God
grant I may be right, for ye ken I never change !" It has
a long and worthy history, and that ought to mean more
than it sometimes means. It serves a community of solid
171
172 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
and enduring prosperity based on the wealth of fertile
soil, and that is a good foundation on which to build. Per-
haps its formula for success could be stated something like
this : "A sound gospel, earnestly proclaimed ; a firm hold on
noble traditions, never to be despised if you do not let them
overwhelm you; a program of work large enough to chal-
lenge effort, definite enough to measure progress, broad
enough to comprehend the essential interests of the com-
munity and the Kingdom ; a good working organization with
many wilHng, loyal workers; behind the whole enterprise a
sincere, persuasive, consecrated personality." That is to
say, it has a motive, a history, a purpose, a plan, a leader
and a will to succeed ; and, since it has, faith also cannot be
denied it.
EARLY DAYS
Middle Octoraro is situated in an open-country neighbor-
hood in the southern part of that richest of all agricultural
counties, Lancaster, on the main road between Quarryville
and Christiana, about four miles from the one and five miles
from the other. The story begins something more than two
hundred years ago, when settlers first came to take up the
rich lands of this part of Pennsylvania. To the north, be-
yond a ridge known as Mine Ridge, lie the rich limestone
lands of northern Lancaster County, to which came early
Dutch and German settlers. To the east and south, along
the Brandywine River and Big and Little Elk Creeks,
settled the Friends. Between them, and westward toward
and beyond the Susquehanna River, settled another class of
immigrants, of whom the following is written by a local
chronicler :
By birth they were mostly Scotch or Scotch-Irish, with a
sprinkling of other nationalities. In religion they were
Scotch Covenanters, Calvinists, Huguenots, Presbyterians,
men who kept the Sabbath with the utmost rigidity, men who
believed in the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ,
an educated and paid ministry, a representative form of gov-
ernment, and in education as the handmaid of religion. And
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 173
because of the similarity of their beliefs, they became ad-
herents of the Presbyterian Church, afterwards to become
known as the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America. Such was the character of the men and women
who first established a church organization at Middle
Octoraro, or ''Middle Octorari," as it was written in earlier
times.
For some time the people who settled along the west
branch of Octoraro Creek worshiped with those of like faith
at the Upper Octoraro Presbyterian Church, near Parkes-
burg, Pennsylvania. In 1727, however, the Presbytery of
Newcastle, to which they then belonged, organized them as
a separate church; and they joined that fellowship of great
Presbyterian country churches which has continued to the
present as one of the strongest and most significant groups
of country churches to be found anywhere in America.
PASTORATES AND MEMBERSHIP
During the period from 1781 to 1914 the church had but
six different pastors. Between those dates, for various short
periods aggregating all told about five years, it was without
a settled pastor. The six pastorates, therefore, actually cov-
ered a term of one hundred and twenty-eight years, an
average of a little more than twenty-one years. The length
of four of these was particularly notable, covering forty,
twenty-one, twenty, and thirty-seven years, respectively, an
average of virtually thirty years. The present minister, the
Rev. George Hopkins Shea, began his pastorate with the
end of 1914.
Fairly complete records of membership are available from
1825. At that time the total membership was reported as
two hundred and thirty-two. So far as the official records
of the Presbytery go, the highest point in the membership
was reached in 1836, when the total was five hundred and
thirty-one. The lowest point was in 1876-77, when it was
one hundred and thirty-seven. The average membership for
the ninety-seven years for which figures are available has
been two hundred and forty-three.
174 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
During twenty of these ninety-seven years, the church
had no additions to its membership or> confession of faith.
Eleven of the twenty were consecutive years, from 1870
to 1880 inclusive. The two strongest open country neigh-
bors of the Middle Octoraro Church, namely, Chestnut Level
and Little Britain Presbyterian churches, likewise reported
no accessions on confession of faith for these samo consecu-
tive eleven years. The high points, evangelistically, of its
history have been 1832 to 1834, 1866, 1886 and 1916, when
there were added to its membership on confessions, respec-
tively, two hundred, ninety-two, forty-one and eighty-two.
The record shows only one year, 1832, when more than ten
members were received by letter from other churches. This
church has grown by its own evangelistic efforts. In the
whole period of ninety-seven years it received a total of
1,193 new members by confession and 244 by letter, or an
aggregate total of 1,437. Its average annual gain by con-
fession was 5 per cent, of its membership. The average
annual gain by both confession and letter was 6 per cent.
Such an average maintained over a term of a century attests
the enduring strength of the organization. At the beginning
of the present pastorate the church entered on a new period
of increased activity and vigor. In seven years it achieved
an increase in the total membership of 209 per cent., and in
the Sunday school enrollment of 204 per cent. The in-
crease in per capita gifts for benevolences over the previous
average was about three and one-half times, and the increase
in per capita gifts for local expenditures was about 50 per
cent.
ENVIRONMENT
Middle Octoraro church is an example of an open-country
church without the advantage of a natural community. In
the reach of its interest and its influence it is by no means
confined and could not, without violation of all its tradi-
tions, be confined to its immediate neighborhood in Bart
Township. It has always been much more than a neigh-
borhood institution. But its location requires it to set its
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 175
influence against the pull of two village trade-centers and
four neighborhood trading points, and, to a lesser degree, of
several others within whose areas of influence its parish lies.
There is an assumption, the truth of which is in many sec-
tions amply attested, that the future lies with the church at
the trade-center, rather than with its open-country neighbor
which has the initial support of no natural social grouping
and must create both its own center and circumference. But
here the assumption is not sustained.
The accompanying maps picture a situation of consider-
able significance. The parish of the church has a general
radius of about five miles, though it has some active mem-
bers living at a greater distance. Quarryville, a village of
eight hundred and tw^ent}^-three inhabitants, and Christiana,
with nine hundred and eighty-five, are the larger centers
which divide this parish area between them, the church being
about on the line of their trade communities. Parts of four
townships are included in the parish, but only one is entirely
covered. Five small hamlets have each a certain local im-
portance, their neighborhoods together covering most of the
parish aside from the immediate environs of Quarryville
and Christiana. The largest of these, and also the one near-
est to the church building, Bart or Georgetown (both names
are used locally), has perhaps one hundred and fifty inhabi-
tants. Here are a store and post-oflice, hotel, restaurant,
bakery, blacksmith shop, feed mill, creamery, a hall and a
Methodist Episcopal Church. The Middle Octoraro church
lies within its neighborhood bounds. The other four are all
quite small. Nickel ]\Iines has a store and post-oflice, a now
unworked nickel mine and a small Protestant Episcopal
church. Nine Points has a store, post-oflice, blacksmith
shop and creamery. Bartville has a store and post-oflice.
Smyrna has now only a blacksmith shop, its store having
burned.
A CHURCH IN THE OPEN COUNTRY
Where the Middle Octoraro church stands is no sem-
blance of a village or hamlet. An open stretch of road wind-
176 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
ing through a pleasant valley ; a fine old stone church and a
chapel set in a grove of beautiful trees with the manse, farm
buildings on the church farm and cemeteries hard by; a
stone's throw down the road the church, manse and ceme-
tery of its now inactive neighbor, the Upper Octoraro United
Presbyterian Church, said to be the oldest church of this
denomination in America ; other farm homes showing in the
distance — such is the center of this parish. As is true of
more than one of these deep-rooted old country churches,
hamlets and villages do not set bounds to its influence. It
draws members from them all as well as from the surround-
ing farms; and members moving from farm to village are
not detached from the country church but still attend and
support it.
Here, then, in the conflict of which many a country neigh-
borhood is the scene, country life is recentering its inter-
ests as the range of communication — the cruising radius —
of the farm is steadily lengthened. Against the pull of the
larger centers no near-by country church or neighborhood
can long maintain itself unweakened unless it digs deep the
foundations for an enduring loyalty. In this instance the
church had, through a long period, a slowly diminishing
vitality. Not so long ago the community was badly dis-
rupted. The people could not be got together on any propo-
sition. Neighborhood pulled against neighborhood and the
two larger centers pulled against them all. Different re-
ligious and social groups ran lines of cleavage throughout
the community. Between this church and its nearest neigh-
bors there was not only little cooperation but even some
signs of active antagonism. These are tendencies which
have undermined more than one country church to the point
of utter futility. Now, a very good community spirit is
developing, which has been greatly helped by a Grange, re-
cently organized on the initiative of the Presbyterian pastor.
The broader program of the church has extended and solidi-
fied interest. A growing sense of unity is pervading the
entire area of the parish.
THE SUMMER CAMP IS ONE OF THE ACTIVITIES OF MIDDLE OCTORARO CHURCH
THE TWO HUXDRED YEAR
OLD CHURCH OF MIDDLE
OCTORARO
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TRADE COMMUNITIES AND NEIGHBORHOOD FROM WHICH THE CHURCH
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THE CHURCH PARISH, MIDDLE OCTORARO
MAP SHOWING DISTANCKS OF HOMES OF CHURCH MFMBKRS FROM CHURCH,
MIDDLE OCTORARO
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 177
FARMING AND ROADS
Lancaster County agriculture is too well known to need
description here. This particular section is by no means the
richest part of the county, but it has good land and is, on
the whole, well farmed. It is a general farming and dairy
country. Wheat, corn, tobacco, potatoes and hay are its
chief products, and in about that order of importance. The
quality of the farming is improving; and in this the county
agent has an important part. There are no local coopera-
tive enterprises ; but the Grange last year did about $10,000
worth of cooperative buying. Some local farmers are mem-
bers of county agricultural associations, as the Tobacco
Growers, the Potato Growers, and the Hampshire Hog
Breeders' Associations.
There is a growing interest in good roads, for which there
is need. There are about three hundred miles of public
road within the parish, but only ten and one-half miles are
hard-surfaced and five miles otherwise improved. During
the winter the roads are a serious problem in church work.
Both Quarryville and Christiana provide an easy outlet to
near-by cities by rail and trolley. Five rural mail delivery
routes from Quarryville and two from Christiana, besides
four local post-offices, provide ample mail service.
FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS
Social and fraternal organizations there are in ample
number. In the near-by villages are seven lodges; and the
immediate neighborhood of the church has two sewing
circles, a Parent-Teacher Association and the Grange, be-
sides the various subsidiary organizations of the church.
Certain of these have had a marked influence for good upon
the progress of the com.munity. Excellent leadership is
available for all lines of interest.
The Middle Octoraro church shares religious responsi-
bility for this community with no fewer than sixteen other
church organizations. Quarryville and Christiana have each
three churches which draw to a certain extent upon the
178 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
area of this parish. The parish boundaries include ten
country or hamlet churches. Five of these are near enough
to be in some definite sense competitive, though one of them
has recently suspended active work. Nine of the ten
churches own church buildings and two have manses. There
is, however, no other resident minister near at hand, and the
Presbyterian pastor is in a real sense pastor for the whole
area : for example, he conducts many funerals for members
of other churches. The total membership of these country
churches is about five hundred and fifty; and of the six
village churches, one thousand and thirty.
On every side, the parish of this church reaches to that
of some other Presbyterian church. The parishes of three
country and four village Presbyterian churches touch it.
Indeed the Middle Octoraro church has many members
whose residence suggests that they might more conveniently
belong to some other Presbyterian church.
THE FIRST BUILDING
The first church edifice was evidently built in 1730 or
thereabouts. That it was a primitive structure we may well
believe; yet it served its purpose excellently for more than
half a century and housed a growing and influential con-
gregation. It seems to have been in some sense a com-
munity building, erected by the combined eflForts of the re-
ligious people of the surrounding neighborhood. Evidence
of this is found in the knowledge that for some years the
Covenanters used it for worship on alternate Sabbaths. In
1783 the congregation purchased a farm from the sons of
William Penn, paying for it fifteen pounds, eleven shillings
and six pence — about seventy-five cents an acre, a fair price
for those days. Mention is made in the deed of a meeting-
house and a schoolhouse, erected or about to be erected, and
of the establishment of a graveyard. In accordance with
the practice of the time, certain improvements had evidently
been made on the property before the patent deed was ap-
plied for. The oldest marked grave in the cemetery bears
the date of 1732.
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 179
A CENTURY OF IMPROVEMENTS
The present building was erected some time during the
pastorate of the Rev. Nathaniel W. Sample, which lasted
from 1781 to 1821. In 1849 the structure was somewhat
rearranged in its interior appointments; in 1913-14 exten-
sive improvements were made, including the addition of a
bell tower and a vestibule. The manse was erected about
1850. In 1882 a farmhouse was built and in 1907 a new
cemetery was established across the road at the north of the
church. Extensive improvements were made on the prop-
erty at the beginning of the present pastorate in 1915 ; these
included the installation of a water system for the manse
and farmhouse, complete remodeling and redecorating of
the manse, repairs on the farmhouse and barn and the prop-
erty generally, and a new roof and new interior decorations
for the chapel.
PRESENT EQUIPMENT
That the present equipment is not now entirely adequate
to the greatly broadened program of the church, though
serving well its earlier purposes, illustrates how strikingly
our conception of what a church should do for its com-
munity has altered. This equipment consists of a stone
church in excellent condition, containing a large auditorium
and a vestibule, and set in a grove an acre in extent ; a small
chapel near the church; two cemeteries, including six acres
of ground; an excellent manse with one acre of ground;
and a farm of seventy acres with a farmhouse, barn, and
the other usual farm buildings. The main auditorium can
seat comfortably two hundred and seventy-five ; but on spe-
cial occasions at least four hundred can be crowded into it.
It is heated with a pipeless furnace and lighted by oil lamps.
The interior appointments are simple and attractive. There
are an organ and a piano. The chapel has two rooms, a
kitchen, and a main room which is used for social purposes
and by the younger classes in the Sunday school. This, too,
is provided with an organ and a piano. The chapel is also
180 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
much used for various sorts of community meetings. The
total value of the property is about $30,000. Thus two cen-
turies have seen a substantial and solid advance in property
and equipment, but, even so, the physical assets have not
kept pace with Middle Octoraro's changing thought as to
the function of the church.
FINANCES
The finances of the church are well organized and con-
ducted in a businesslike manner. The budget system is in
use for both current expenses and benevolences. An annual
every-member canvass is made on the basis of this budget,
twenty teams of two men each taking part under the direc-
tion of the trustees. Duplex weekly envelopes are used by
most of the congregation. Only the members of the church
are solicited; but almost all of the families represented in
the congregation (including a good proportion of the non-
resident members) contribute regularly. The church is free
from debt, the last obligation which results from the re-
modeling of the property having been cleared off seven
years ago.
The total income of the church during its last fiscal year
was about $4,400, and its expenditures were about $200
less. A little more than one-third of the expenditures were
for benevolent purposes. In addition, the various subsidiary
organizations raised about $760, approximately two-thirds
of this going for benevolences. Thus out of a total expendi-
ture of about $5,000, 42 per cent, was for missionary causes.
Here are to be seen the fruits of that program of missionary
education which is one of the most important recent develop-
ments in the church's work and to which reference will be
made in a later paragraph.
It must be admitted that the rate of per capita giving has
not been as high as in many churches less able financially to
give. That is not, however, a peculiar characteristic of this
particular congregation but a feature of many churches of
similar type and history. It is conservatism and caution
rather than lack of generosity. For example, such churches
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 181
have been slow to put the salaries of their ministers on a
plane commensurate with the rising living costs and the dig-
nity and importance of their position. The modern rural
minister, required to keep an automobile and use it con-
stantly in the service of his church, and to keep abreast in
his study and reading with all the movements of his time,
without doubt needs a salary which many a country church
cannot bring itself to consider either necessary or possible.
It is only within a few years that this church has paid a
salary exceeding one thousand dollars. It has raised the
minister's salary three times during the present pastorate
and brought it up to the announced minimum of its Synod
and denomination. If the status of the church (the extent
of its parish, the breadth of its program, the size of its
membership) be considered and compared with other of
the churches studied, many of them less favorably situated,
that minimum is, by a considerable margin, too low.
BENEVOLENCE
For one hundred years, until just recently, there was no
great change in the rate of benevolent giving. Prior to
1920 when, with the initiation of the Presbyterian New Era
Movement, this church registered its initial considerable gain
in benevolence contributions, its annual missionary offerings
usually ranged from $100 to $200. The lowest annual
amount reported in the minutes of the General Assembly
was ten dollars in 1828; but the total reported in 1833,
$380, was not exceeded until 1918. A year-by-year record
shows considerable variation, but a variation around a more
or less constant norm. Very great increase has been made,
however, in the last three years, the total for which approxi-
mately equals the total for the preceding fifteen years. The
increase in the total budget of the church for all purposes,
including local support, has been slower and not so great.
Before 1914 a total contribution of ten dollars per capita
was exceeded only once, in 1883. Usually the per capita
total contributions ranged between four and seven dollars a
year. The total amount raised last year was the highest in
182 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
the history of the church, although the per capita giving
at present is certainly not greater than it was, on the aver-
age, fifty years ago, if one compares the relative purchasing
power of the dollar then and now.
A CHANGING POPULATION
Perhaps this section of Pennsylvania has experienced less
rapid and fundamental change in the composition of its
population than have most rural communities throughout
the country. There are about as many people on its farms
as at any time in the last century and a half and a large
proportion of them were born in this or adjacent com-
munities. Yet not more than a dozen families in the present
membership of the Middle Octoraro church represent the
original stock that founded it. Such a statement may not
seem of particular significance to a church which has
watched its community change almost completely several
times in a generation, as many have. Still less would it
seem of significance to a church which remembers that where
it now stands no one was living a generation ago. But some
old churches have declined from great strength almost to
the point of abandonment, because their communities have
slowly changed, the original stock being replaced by a stock
not native to their rehgious and social tradition. These
slow changes are often more deadly than rapid ones. Some-
times such a church, lacking the mood to adjust itself to new
conditions, seems to wrap the mantle of its self-content about
it and lie down in peace to die, because the newcomers who
surround it are "not of its sort." But this Middle Octoraro
church has overcome the subtle temptation that inheres in
the dignity of its tradition. That it is stronger now than it
has been for nearly a century is a fact of the greatest signifi-
cance; and the lesson of it is a lesson that many an old
church needs to learn.
ANALYSIS OF MEMBERSHIP
A total membership of three hundred and forty-nine
places the Middle Octoraro church in a very select fellow-
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 183
ship of open country churches. There are larger organiza-
tions, of course; indeed, two of its nearest Presbyterian
neighbors have greater memberships. But the whole number
of open country churches with more than three hundred
members is small. The average membership of all the
country churches in one hundred and seventy-nine counties,
for which figures are available (2,920 churches), is only
eighty-two. Of this present membership of three hundred
and forty, sixty are non-resident. There are a number of
non-resident members who should transfer their letters to
other churches, and who are being urged to do so. There
are besides some who are only temporarily non-resident.
Of the two hundred and eighty-nine resident members, thir-
teen are incapacitated by illness or other cause from any
church activity ; and sixteen are non-active, that is, they do
not either support the church or attend its services. This
makes a net resident active membership of two hundred and
sixty. The total membership includes representatives of
one hundred and eighty-seven families, averaging 1.8 mem-
bers per family.
A church which has had a normal, healthy growth and
which has a well-balanced program ought not to be limited
in its appeal by considerations of age, sex or class. Cer-
tainly it ought not to fail conspicuously in reaching any
particular element in its community. The membership of
this church is a very fair cross-section of its community,
45 per cent, of the total being men and boys. One-sixth are
under twenty-one years of age ; slightly more than one-half
are between twenty-one and forty-five ; a little less than one-
third are over forty-five. In the upper ages the women con-
siderably predominate; but in the intermediate age group
the men are in the majority. The number under twenty-one
exceeds by a wide margin the number enrolled in the local
high school and has a much higher proportion of boys.
Here, then, is a well-distributed membership in which there
is promise of strength for the future.
Of the two hundred and eighty-nine resident members,
nineteen live in Christiana and Quarryville, thirty-six in
other near-by villages and hamlets and two hundred and
184 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
thirty-four, or more than four-fifths, live on farms. Those
making up this latter group are distributed over considerable
territory. Thirty-six of them live within a mile of the
church ; sixty-nine within three miles ; one hundred and two
from three to five miles distant ; and twenty-seven more than
five miles away. The majority of those who live in the vil-
lages or hamlets are four and one-half miles or more from
the church. This wide distribution has a distinct effect upon
church attendance, especially in winter or when the roads are
in poor condition.
The wage-earners in the congregation represent a variety
of occupations, but nearly three-fifths of them, including in
their families more than three-fourths of the resident mem-
bership, are farmers. Farm-owners, renters and laborers
are enrolled, apparently with almost equal facility. Indeed,
the proportion of tenants among the operating farmers on
the church roll is larger than the proportion of tenants
among the operating farmers of the community.
HOW THE MEMBERS CAME
During the eight years of Mr. Shea's pastorate virtually
two-thirds of the total present membership was brought into
the church. Of the others, fifty-two joined within the last
twenty years, thirty-three within thirty years and twenty-
one within forty years, while seventeen have been members
for over forty years. Of the whole number 91 per cent,
united with this church on confession of faith, other
churches contributing by letter only thirty-one members.
Churches of other denominations, however, have contributed
to the membership in other ways than the dismissal of mem-
bers by letter. One-fifth of those making up the member-
ship were previously connected, as members, adherents or
by family training, with churches representing twelve other
denominations.
StabiHty to a high degree is indicated in the fact that
more than two- thirds of all the members were born in this
community. Only thirteen members were born outside of
Lancaster County and only three of these came from states
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 185
other than Pennsylvania. Nearly two-thirds of the families
are in at least their second generation in this community.
Only one in seven has lived here less than ten years. Here
is a great initial advantage, though its significance must be
read in the light of the comments previously made. The
Scotch-Irish stock no longer predominates, a considerable
proportion now having German ancestry. The church rep-
resents now a real amalgamation of the various elements out
of which its community has been made.
PARTICIPATION IN ACTIVITIES
In spite of distances, the regular activities of the church
have a remarkable hold upon the loyalty of its members.
Three in five regularly attend its services of worship, nearly
half regularly attend the Sunday school, and seven in ten
regularly attend its various special exercises. The number
who habitually do not attend any of these services is almost
negligible. Of the active members 45 per cent, have as-
sumed some definite responsibility in connection with the
church program. These are the officers, teachers, choir
members, ushers, committee chairmen and the regular par-
ticipants in the various public exercises. A considerable
number of others are members of the different organizations
in the church. This may be regarded as a rather unusual
record. These active workers represent all ages; but rela-
tively to their numbers those under twenty-one furnish the
largest quota. Of the total membership, including the non-
resident and the non-active, all but fifty-four participate in
the support of the church, and all but seventy in the sup-
port of its benevolences.
ATTENDANCE
The average aggregate attendance per week throughout
the year, for all the services of the church, is five hundred
and nineteen, or almost exactly double the resident, active
membership. The variations in the attendance as between
the different seasons of the year are interesting, for seasonal
186 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
climatic conditions affect the country far more than the city
church. Thus, attendance at worship is highest in the last
quarter of the year when the average is almost three times
what it is in the first quarter. In the two middle quarters
of the year attendance at worship is double what it is the
first three months. Similarly, religious education attendance
during the three severe winter months is less than 40 per
cent, of the average for the rest of the year. Interest in
missions is at its peak in the fall, when the school of mis-
sions described later is under way. Social and recreational
activities are highest in the spring quarter, but maintain a
very even average through the year, with the exception of
the first three months. The aggregate attendance of all
services and functions of this church during the year ex-
ceeds twenty-seven thousand, more than one-third of this
total coming in the last three months.
Expressed statistically, 44 per cent, of all the time given
by these people to their church is devoted to services of
worship. Twenty-one per cent, is given to mission services,
14 per cent, to religious education, and 21 per cent, to social,
recreational and musical occasions. Perhaps the most re-
markable feature of this distribution is the proportionately
large share of interest that goes to missions. This, as will
be noted subsequently, receives an important place in the
whole program of the church. There are,, of course, inter-
changeable values in all these forms of activity. The mis-
sionary activities, certainly, are educational, and they also
have their recreational features. Religious education in-
cludes both worship and missionary instruction. And very
real religious values run through the whole. The weakest
point that this analysis discloses is the religious education.
This is confirmed by other data, to which reference will be
made. It is in this connection that the program most needs
to be strengthened.
MEETINGS
Regular Sabbath services of worship are held morning
and evening throughout the year. Attendance at the
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 187
morning service averages one hundred and seventy-five,
except during the first three months of the year, when it
hardly exceeds seventy-five. Attendance at the evening
services ranges anywhere from one hundred to four hundred,
but averages not far from one hundred and fifty. The two
services reach somewhat different sorts of audiences. In the
morning at least 70 per cent, of the attendants are adults,
divided about equally between men and women, and almost
all of them are church members. In the evening at least
75 per cent, are young people, the young men being in the
majority, and usually not less than one-fourth being non-
members.
The young people's service is held in the evening, is con-
ducted by the young people themselves, and followed by the
preaching service. The evening service is a community
affair and draws from a radius of many miles, the young
people having learned the apostoHc practice of going forth
to service two by two. On the first Sunday in each month,
the young people's Home Mission Society takes charge of
the evening service and provides a popular home mission
program which usually includes something in the form of
pageantry or tableau. The regularity of attendance at serv-
ices is affected primarily during the winter months by the
state of the roads and the weather. Until 1921 it was cus-
tomary to discontinue the evening services during the winter ;
but they were continued in the winter of 1922-23 by way of
experiment, with good success, and it is planned to maintain
the custom.
The only regular union service with another church is the
Union Thanksgiving Service with the Methodist Episcopal
church of Georgetown ; and to it no great amount of interest
attaches. The Young People's Society, however, occasionally
exchanges visits with other young people's societies in the
vicinity, including some of other denominations.
From October to April, cottage prayer meetings are held,
one or two a week, the average attendance being from thirty
to thirty-five. A protracted meeting is held virtually every
fall, usually for eight days, but on the last occasion for
two weeks. During the present pastorate there has been.
188 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
with one exception, such a protracted meeting every fall.
The meeting in 1921 resulted in twenty-eight conversions
and the same number of additions to the church. Of the
twenty-eight, eighteen were adults and ten were Sunday
school children. A professional evangelist has not been
employed since 1915. Generally the results of the evan-
gelistic services have been excellent. In 1921 there was a
very evident deepening of the spiritual life of the church.
The services in 1922 were not so effective.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
The Sunday school has an enrollment of two hundred and
sixty-seven, and an average attendance of one hundred and
ten, except during the three months of winter, when it drops
to about fifty. Nearly all the members of the Sunday school
live on farms and the factor of distance and the condition
of the roads are very important. During the three months
of winter, when the attendance is at low ebb, fewer classes
are held and a less thorough-going system of grading is
used. The classes include: Adult Men's Class, Adult
Women's Class, Teacher-Training Class, Young Women's
Class, Young Men's Class, three classes for "teen"-age girls,
two for "teen"-age boys, one Junior Boys', one Junior
Girls', one Primary Class of boys, one Primary Girls', and
one Beginners'. The five younger classes use the chapel.
Four classes, for adult men, young men, and "teen"-age
boys are taught by men. The two young people's classes,
and the adult women's class are organized. The Boys' and
Girls' classes were organized, but the organization has not
been kept up. Virtually all of the classes use graded lessons.
The Sunday school is organized into two groups with a
superintendent for each group, according to its place of
meeting. There are a Cradle Roll and a Home Department,
each with an enrollment of thirty. The Teacher-Training
Class is a part of the Sunday school, meeting at the regular
hour.
Little's Cross and Crown system has been used to increase
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 189
the attendance. Special equipment for work includes picture
studies, maps and small chairs for the younger classes.
Sunday school papers are not given. The school library
consists of one hundred volumes. There is an annual Sun-
day school picnic which is the only regular recreational affair
of the school as a whole. Various classes, however, have
socials. The young people's classes entertain one another.
Mission study is a part of the Sunday school program once
a month. Missionary offerings are taken on special oc-
casions and sent to the Home and Foreign Mission Boards.
The minister is an alternate teacher of the Young Men's
Class. The regular communion Sabbaths are observed as
Decision Days with excellent results. Twelve young people
in this church are now attending college or some other school
beyond high school grade. The church has not contributed
any one to the ministry or other form of employed Christian
work in the last ten years. The Sunday school was repre-
sented during the last year by twelve delegates to the County
Sunday School Convention and eight to the state convention.
The school met the expenses of two of the delegates to the
state convention. The Sunday school is supported out of
its own regular offerings, the total cost last year being about
$125.
The church has never held a Daily Vacation Bible School
or a week-day religious school. Plans are being made, how-
ever, for a Daily Vacation Bible School to be held next
summer, probably on a group plan.
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
There are four other organizations in the church, two of
which are distinctively missionary in purpose. The Woman's
Missionary Society for Home and Foreign Missions, with a
membership of seventy, has an all-day meeting once a month.
The Young Woman's Guild, for girls between twelve and
twenty, has a membership of thirty-one. It has one after-
noon meeting each month. Under the leadership of the
Woman's Boards of Missions, such local groups as these
190 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
have achieved a place of great importance in the missionary-
life and work of the church. Not with anything even re-
motely approaching the same thoroughness have the men
of the churches been organized for the study and support of
missions. These two organizations have taken the lead
locally in pressing the great missionary causes upon the
attention of this church. Its very real and apparent interest
is a tribute to their energy and skill.
The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor has
a membership of forty. Its regular weekly meetings have an
attendance running up to one hundred and averaging sixty.
They also conduct well attended monthly socials. Until
recently, the pastor has acted as leader for a fine troop of
Boy Scouts. This work has been temporarily discontinued,
but will be resumed as soon as possible.
The church has the life eldership plan and its Session now
includes five elders. The Board of Trustees has nine mem-
bers, elected on a rotary membership plan for three-year
terms. All but one of these fourteen officers are farmers.
THE GENERAL PROGRAM
At each annual congregational meeting, the pastor out-
lines a general program of church activities for the year to
be considered and approved by the congregation. This has
been effective in securing the interest of the members. A
somewhat more formal process, however, now seems to be
desirable. Plans are therefore under way more definitely
to crystallize the working organization of the church through
the formation of a pastor's cabinet which will include repre-
sentatives of the various organizations and interests in the
church. It will be the function of this cabinet to coordinate
the various lines of work and cooperate with the pastor in
the general direction of all activities. The multiplicity of
the interests which have developed makes some such ar-
rangement a practical necessity.
This church believes in making religion both articulate and
active. Not without reason does it style itself "The Church
of Community Interest." Its annual program is varied to
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 19I
touch every interest and appeal to every element. If the
stated activities were set down in calendar form the result
would be something like the following:
All Year Activities
Preaching service, every Sunday, morning and evening.
Christian Endeavor, every Sunday evening. -
Sunday school, every Sunday morning.
Popular home mission service conducted by the young
people, first Sunday evening in each month.
Monthly socials under the auspices of the^ Christian
Endeavor Society, varying in type according to the
season. These are held outdoors in summer and in
the chapel in winter. The average attendance exceeds
fifty. They include a swimming social in August, a
corn roast in September, a strawberry festival in
June, a "bacon bat" in the fall, etc.
Woman's Missionary Society, meeting once a month.
Young Woman's Guild, meeting once a month.
Session, meeting once a month.
Board of Trustees, meeting quarterly.
Communion service, celebrated twice a year.
Choir, meeting weekly for practice.
Seasonal Activities
Annual Easter cantata regularly given on Easter Sun-
day night.
Annual lawn fete conducted by Young Woman's Guild
with an average attendance of two hundred in
June.
Annual strawberry shortcake festival in June, attend-
ance from two hundred and fifty to five hundred.
Annual Children's Day service, June.
Annual congregational business meeting, June. Aver-
age attendance, seventy-five.
Annual social of Young Men's and Young Women's
Bible classes in July; each class acts as host in al-
ternate years; average attendance, fifty.
Annual social for whole church conducted by Young
Ladies' Bible Class in July or August.
Annual Sunday school picnic, August, attendance, two
hundred.
192 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Annual musical service or recital, September, given by
and for the choir, average attendance, two hundred.
Cottage prayer meetings held for seven months be-
ginning in October, one or two weeks, various homes
being opened for this purpose, average attendance,
thirty-five.
Annual evangelistic services eight days to two weeks,
October or November.
Annual bazaar given by Young Ladies' Bible Class on
the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, average at-
tendance, one hundred and fifty.
Union Thanksgiving service with the Methodist Epis-
copal Church of Georgetown, average attendance,
forty.
Annual School of Missions ; though this was held a year
ago for the first time, it will be made a regular fea-
ture of the program. The plan followed is to have
group meetings in homes. There were seven groups
last year, at various natural centers in the community.
Each group met one night a week for six successive
weeks in the late fall. There were two teachers for
each school except one, which was taught by the
pastor; the teachers were drawn from the neighbor-
hood where the group met. The average attendance
was twenty-two a week for each group or a total
average of one hundred and fifty-four a week. These
group schools follow^ed the methods usual in such en-
terprises, studying the interdenominational mission
texts of the year. The group feature was an inter-
esting variation which illustrates the significance of
much of the effort of this church to create a parish in
an area which has no common gathering point except
the church and which is so definitely divided in its
trade and social interests. It is interesting also that
one of the groups met in the village of Christiana,
where there is another Presbyterian church. The
demand for this came from the members resident in
the village. The pastor of the village church not
feeling able to undertake it, the pastor of the country
church promoted it successfully.
Annual Christmas service either Sunday or week night.
Last year a cantata was given ; there was a tree with
the usual appurtenances thereto.
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 193
Two midweek social and missionary meetings conducted
each year by the Woman's Missionary Society for the
benefit of missions, average attendance, sixty-five.
Annual Sunday evening missionary service conducted
by the Young Woman's Guild.
The young women of the church frequently present
pageants and tableaux to illustrate various aspects of
mission work. A year ago a pageant, "The Trial of
Civilization," an original product of one of the mem-
bers, illustrating the triumph of Christianity among
non-Christian people, was presented twice with an
aggi'egate attendance of nearly five hundred.
Other Activities and Interests
Outside speakers are frequently heard during the year
on missionary and similar topics. For example, the
subject of Near East Relief was presented at a morn-
ing service in April.
A representative of the Anti-Saloon League spoke at
a morning service in May.
The superintendent of the Department of Jewish
Evangelization of the Presbyterian Board of Home
Missions spoke at both morning and evening services
on a Sunday in June.
A Field Representative of the Department of Jewish
Evangelization spoke at a morning service in Novem-
ber and with a young woman associate presented a
series of eight tableaux at the evening service as-
sisted by the young people of the congregation.
A missionary from the southern mountains spoke at an
evening service in November.
The pastor also frequently uses stereopticon lectures
provided by the Boards of Home and Foreign Mis-
sions in his evening services.
Various organizations of the church from time to time
cooperate with other churches. For example, the choir
sang at a service in Holtwood and later during an
evangelistic service in the Gap Presbyterian Church.
The pageant "The Trial of Civilization" was given in
Quarryville.^ The Christian Endeavor Society vis-
ited the Christian Endeavor Society of the Christiana
church and entertained it in return. Such visits are
exchanged usually with other churches two or three
194 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
times a year. The Evangelical church at Eden pre-
sented a play, ''Home Ties," under the auspices of
this church, in the hall at Georgetown.
A number of years ago there was a lack of library
facilities within this community. Lancaster County-
has no public library system, and it was possible to
obtain books only from the Lancaster City Library.
In consequence the pastor arranged for the installa-
tion of five branch libraries within this parish.
Each branch has from fifty to seventy-five volumes,
changed usually once a year. Each branch is used
quite freely in its neighborhood.
Last fall, under the auspices of the Boy Scouts, a radio
set was installed in the manse for a number of weeks
as a demonstration. This aroused interest through-
out the community.
These are all activities which are carried on directly by
the church or its subsidiary organizations. The missionary
and community interests of the church are apparent in all
that it does. They have never undertaken the support of a
mission "Special," unless we so regard the support, with a
small sum of money each year, of a mission Sunday school
in Kentucky. Most of the benevolence money contributed
goes to the general work of the various boards of the
church. Whatever need appears for local relief within the
community is systematically taken care of by the Mission-
ary Society. This calls for perhaps $100 a year in money;
but the members visit the sick, sew for the poor and help in
emergencies of all kinds.
In the regular church services, the effort is consistently
made to apply the gospel teachings to the apparent needs
both of the community and of the whole world. Missions
are after all only the practical application of the gospel.
And missions have a local significance which is no whit less
important than their national or world-wide significance.
So the minister, in his preaching and his public prayers as
well as in his plans, emphasizes what the abundant life of
the gospel may really mean in the community. He has
preached special sermons on the relation of the church to
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 195
such problems as health, social life and economic welfare.
In addition to these various more or less official lines of
activity, the church has unofficially exerted its influence in
other lines, through the minister and members, acting as
individuals to bring about needed improvements. Among
the achievements so recorded the following are the most
important :
This community had never had a Chautauqua until two
years ago. There was some interest in it, but this interest
was not organized and could not overcome the opposition
of those who felt that the difficulties were too serious. The
American Engineers in France had a motto — *Tt can't be
done — here it is." That is also the motto of this minister
and his helpers. A successful Community Chautauqua has
been held at Quarryville for two summers.
We have already noted that until recently the community
was badly broken up and without any sense of social or
religious unity. One of the forces which have helped to
unite it has been the Grange. This was organized in 1920
largely as a result of Mr. Shea's initiative. It now has a
membership of one hundred and is accomplishing an im-
portant work.
No organization in Lancaster County is doing more for
general farm progress than the Farm Bureau. Last sum-
mer Mr. Shea cooperated with the county agent in a
county-wide drive for new members. He devoted three
weeks to addressing meetings, organizing township groups
and reaching individual farmers. In this drive he had
charge of the southern half of the county.
Members of the church and the minister were also chiefly
instrumental in the organization of a Parent-Teacher Asso-
ciation. It has now been active for two years, meeting
monthly either in the chapel of the church or in the school-
house.
Usually a community singing school is conducted in the
fall of the year in the chapel. The most successful of these
was three years ago when a school of sixty was enrolled,
meeting one night a week for thirteen weeks. A paid leader
was brought out from Lancaster. The work consisted in
elemental voice training and the principles and practice of
general part singing.
196 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
Mr. Shea has charge of the annual temperance meeting
of the W. C. T. U., arranging the program and securing
the speakers.
PUBLICITY
With so many things to make known, the Middle Octoraro
church naturally believes in publicity, which is principally of
four sorts. Announcements both of the regular services and
of all special events are inserted in the papers of Quarry-
ville, Christiana and Lancaster. The papers make no charge
for this service. For special events display advertisements
are also frequently used. The cost of these is met by the
particular organizations giving the affair. In addition the
church has regular correspondents for the Quarryville and
Lancaster papers whose duty it is to provide write-ups of
the various church happenings for insertion as news. The
fourth method of publicity is through bulletin boards, of
which there are four, located at Bartville, Georgetown,
Nickel Mines and Nine Points. Display posters and type-
written announcements of all events are posted on them.
Readers of this volume are familiar wit^ffhe Par Stand-
ard for Rural Churches which has been used as the meas-
uring stick in all the recent surveys. The Middle Octoraro
church is able to meet every one of the thirty-one points on
that standard though one of them only in part.
LEADERSHIP
In a very real sense the whole program pivots on the
manse. This is not to intimate that the minister alone de-
serves credit. He has built upon worthy traditions and has
had many excellent and loyal helpers. As has been stated,
nearly half the members take some definite responsibility and
the number wholly indifferent is also negligible. But it^ is
a characteristic of good leadership to know how to utilize
traditions and how to develop other leaders and workers.
This has been the first and only pastorate of the present
minister. Rev. George H. Shea. He came to it direct from
TWO CENTURIES OF SUCCESS 197
the seminary. He is a Pennsylvanian himself, with the same
background as his people. The mistress of the manse (and
who knows how much of the minister's success is due to
his wife?) was born in this community. These two have
done a work deserving of the highest praise. They have
needed vision supported by faith, energy tempered with pa-
tience. This is a conservative church and community. No
one would be quicker to admit that fact than those who have
grown up in it. And a church can hardly have the strength
of conservatism without its weakness also. Changes are not
to be effected in a day. For such a field the present pastor
is, both by training and temperament, excellently well fitted.
Of a quiet and forceful personality, he commands the re-
spect, affection and loyalty of his people. He is vitally in-
terested in the rural ministry, viewing the country church as
a life work, not as a stepping stone. Through summer
schools and special reading he has famiharized himself with
the problems and the possibilities of country life and of
the country church. His enthusiasm and the practical defi-
niteness of his plans have attracted many young people to
the church, while he has held to a marked degree the in-
terest and support of the older people. His hand is in all
this work which has been described, and it is a worthy
monument.
Country churches like Octoraro are among the chief of
America's treasures. There are all too few of them. Yet
any one who reads this record of what the Middle Octoraro
church has achieved through the generations cannot but
realize that what has been accomplished here might be ac-
complished equally well by other churches meeting similar
conditions. There is no hidden secret in the long and honor-
able record of this church. Rather the sources of its suc-
cess are an open book for all to read.
The Octoraro church has attracted to it a succession of
able and devoted pastors who have dedicated long periods of
their lives to its service, who have not only been residents
of the village but have lived there long enough to influence
its youth from the cradle to maturity. The church has been
broad and dynamic enough in its teaching and its program
198 CHURCHES OF DISTINCTION
to draw to its membership people from the open country as
well as from the village, and people of all ages and all eco-
nomic groups.
Not a little of its continued influence has been due to the
enlisting of so many of its members in managing one or
another of its diversified activities. The leadership and
driving power for community betterment of every kind has
been supplied by the church. It has conceived the Gospel of
the Kingdom as including every side of Hfe. It has prac-
ticed a seven-day rehgion, reenforcing its membership by
continuous cultivation rather than by spasmodic pressure.
Finally, its financial policies have been systematic and sound,
with the result that the burden has been widely distributed
and that the quota for benevolences is nearly as large as that
for maintenance.
The church that serves is the church that grows. A
church that embarks upon a broad-gauge program will not
itself lose thereby, but rather, as it persistently keeps its
evangelistic and spiritual note sounding in the ears of its
people, will grow and prosper through its ministry while dig-
ging deep the foundations for the Kingdom in the life of
its community. That is the secret of the continued success
of the two hundred-year-old church of Middle Octoraro.
THE END
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